By Kevin Marshall on Aug 27 2008
I spent awhile today (and tonight) implementing 'items' into BotFu. The eventual idea is that you'll be able to buy (with BotFu credits) all kinds of items for your BotFu characters.
Some of these items will allow you to do things like recover life points in fights, some will give you special powers from time to time, and some will just be total bling. You'll also be able to trade, sell, and gift all these items within the BotFu world.
The funny thing about doing this type of stuff is that people usually think it's the technical bits of building this type of thing that is hard...it's not.
It's the flushing out of every scenario, of every detail, that's the tricky part of this type of thing.
So far I've implemented an admin tool that allows those of us behind the scenes to manage the 'item' inventory (create/edit and adjust quantity)...and I've implemented the ability to purchase items. I still have to work on the whole 'use an item' part, but that'll be soon (I promise).
On a top level, it seems easy enough to work this stuff in...but when you sit down and think about it for a minute or two, you start to realize that you've got to worry about things like "what if they don't have enough credits?", "what if we don't have enough inventory?", "what if they have some credits, but not enough to buy all that they want?"...and a million other scenarios.
It can quickly explode into a massive project...but honestly, for me, this is a BIG part of what I like about development...scenario thinking and problem solving.
Which isn't to say I'm any good at it, but it is fun for me none the less...you'll have to wait until the system is released before you can judge for yourself if I'm getting it right.
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By Kevin Marshall on Aug 26 2008
A little more action going on with BotFu today...again most of which is behind the scenes and not all that interesting to share right now...but I did manage to get a new feature to BotFu fight out...
Now, when you KO another fighter, you earn the right to change their fighter alias and logo. And they are locked out of changing the alias or logo themselves until they KO another fighter!
While I was at it, I threw in a few special stipulations...you can't change an alias or logo for a bot...and to get control of your own settings back, you must first knock out another 'real' fighter (ie. not a bot).
Really it's a subtle little game feature, but I think it's the type of thing that can help make the game really addictive and social...at least I know I'm going to be having some fun with it the next few days.
The other somewhat big thing I did tonight was to re-organize all the source code files...even though I had been attempting to keep a solid organization from the start of this project, it's inevitable that as features and your code base grow (in unplanned ways), you are probably going to need to do some reorganization.
In this case, I thought it was best to bite the bullet now before I let it get too much further out of hand...and actually I wanted to get somethings in shape before we started putting the fresh new skin on the site (which I'm hoping is something we are going to start tackling within the next week or so).
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By Kevin Marshall on Aug 25 2008
I'm finally diving back into my lengthy (and growing) botfu.com to-do list, so I don't really have anything specific to blabber on about tonight. But of course I do have a few more ideas to spew...
1. Kyle gave me some initial insider details about a new idea of his...I've dubbed it beta read, and we're going to talk about it more soon...I think he's onto something pretty good already though...so it will be interesting to see/help it develop.
2. I'm thinking about a new book idea that I might want to write...the basic premise would be to do a high level break down of the various programming language types (like functional programming, procedural programming, object oriented programming, etc.)...the main 'lesson' of the book would be to help newer programmers understand that they need to learn about as many different things as they can, taking what works for them, and incorporating it into their own style/skills...basically jeet kune do for programming.
3. Pat and I have been talking a lot about botfu ideas and personality lately...right now we are leaning towards using one of his developing comic book personalities as the main character of the site...which I'm very excited about...I don't want to say too much about it just yet since we don't have anything in stone, but I'm excited to get it going and I'm sure I'll be updating everyone on it as we move along (or just watch the site to see it unfold in real time).
OK that's about it for now...I'm off to hack on some more botfu stuff!
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By Kevin Marshall on Aug 22 2008
For the most part I stay away from politics, religion, and mainstream news...but when push comes to shove, I consider myself an out of touch, agnostic, democrat...which means in the looming election I'll probably vote for Barack Obama.
The sad thing is that, for my entire adult life, I've been voting in presidential elections for the guy I dislike less than the other...it's never been for the guy I really like or believe in, and it doesn't look like it ever will be.
It's one of those areas that I wish was more like the movies...where Presidents were people who were smarter than the average person, and held themselves to a higher standard than the rest of us.
I bring this up tonight because I'm on a Barack mailing list...and so I get the 'please give us money' emails about once every other day...normally I auto-delete them, but I figured tonight I would give it a quick read. That was a mistake.
Tonight's email was all about bashing McCain for being out of touch with today's economy...and pushed a new TV ad that the Barack campaign is rolling out to enlighten the rest of us on just how out of touch McCain is.
Now I don't disagree that McCain is out of touch (and I'm def. not going to be voting for McCain no matter what happens)...but it really bugs me that Barack's campaign feels the need to take this approach.
It seems to me he could make more ground and gain more supporters by talking about his own good points, plans, ideals, etc. than by pointing out all the weaknesses of his opponent. I'm not saying he has to ignore the fact that he's in a competition, I'm just saying that taking the approach of "I'm not as bad as the other guy" is not really going to win me over (or make me feel good about voting for anyone).
It just seems like pushing your own message and staying focused on that is a much much smarter approach than simply attacking the other person's message.
In the Boxing, the UFC, and in the NFL (or insert your competition of choice) they always talk about sticking to your gameplan, fighting your fight, and not getting roped into doing what the other guy wants you to do...I don't know why that advice doesn't extend to politics...but it should!
OK - enough on my political ranting for now...
I did want to mention one other thing real quick...the infamous Zed Shaw is talking about starting something called the Freehackers Union...it's in the early stages, but if you are geek-inclined, you probably want to check it out! But be warned, the whole idea is create something just for us geeky hacker-like people...so there are going to be roadblocks designed to try and keep the wanna'bes out...which means it might not be the friendliest of places for newbies or non-tech heads.
If you're still interested, you should head out to his blog...read up about the idea, and then contact him for information on how to get in!
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By Kevin Marshall on Aug 21 2008
The last few days have been pretty exciting on the idea front for me...not so much because I've had some brilliant ideas (I never really do after all)...but it's been exciting to me because I've been starting to get some of my friends interested (or at least saying they are interested) in getting involved in some of the things I have going on!
In no particular order:
My friend Heath (who I actually met via Draftwizard in the first place) and I have been talking for years about various fantasy football projects...while we've done some action on a few of our ideas here and there, the reality is that our schedules have never really given us time to give it any focus. Rumor has it that could change very soon though...and so we are already bouncing emails, phone calls, and ideas around. Our first focus is probably going to be Draftwizard.com related...but we do have a handful of other things we want to try.
My friend Pat and I have been talking about a handful of ideas/projects as well...today I introduced him to a bit more of botfu.com and he seemed pretty interested/excited in it (turns out he's done some other game-like things in the past as well)...so we are going to talk more about it and see if we can't improve the base I've got started...we're also still talking about doing something around fantasy hockey (and so down the road I might try to introduce him and Heath so we can make it a larger, better project).
My friend Charlie (technically I don't know if he considers me a friend or just a contact since I haven't known him that long, but on my end, and in my world, he classifies as a friend)...anyway, he's starting to pull together a handful of people to talk more about a few of his 're-blogging' ideas and needs...and, thanks mostly to the fubnub.com stuff I've been bouncing off of him, he included me in the group!
So all of these little leads have come up in the last couple of days...and I don't know if any real action will come out of any of them...but it's exciting none the less and helps to kick my butt into gear so that I start doing more on each of these projects!
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Kevin Marshall - Who's that?
I'm just your basic programmer. I can't spell to save my life, I'm not the greatest story teller, and I often ramble on about nothing. This blog showcases all of that!
Believe it or not I wrote a book (Pro Active Record) for APress and a PDF (Web Services with Rails) for O'Reilly.
If you're bored drop me an email at info at botfu.com or view my outdated resume.
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