Name 2.0 rc 1

[Pauliver]

1) Working on the "Stuck in Terrain Bug" not sure how long it will take to fix
2) Still working on some Input updates
3) Music is coming, but its going to be a while. We are really close to the max Ram you can use on the zune [only 16mb, for those of you non-programmers the background and terrain take up 12 of those so we only have 4mb of ram for the actual game and all other images] so we have to optimize and unload/reload some assets if we want to have enough ram to play music.
4) AI updates are coming [in a month or 2] they are in the works but will not be easy.

[Zalaha]

Great game, but i noticed when i tie a game with my friend it seems to freeze up the game. Maybe you could look into that.

[g0dofearth]

i downloaded the 1.2 version and it was realy fun i was wondering what wepons are in the 2.0 version?

this game is realy cool and new wepons would be cool

dude this game rocks i love it and i like how you added like 4 new weps my faveorite is the napalm! this game rocks! i cant w8 for the final and you should add soud effects to it that would be cool, and be able to listgen to your usic as you play.

[xlXPunkRockerXIx]

this game is amazing.

[shadowseekr]

Good game, more weapons and a ''free mode'' (kinda like target practice) were there is no time or anything would be nice
good game +rep

[ACE_123]

by far the best zune game

[berhoon]

it makes me want to downloading......
deploying..........
finished..........


thank you soo much

[Techy Dude]

awesome game man

[shoan120]

can u convert it to the new beta version

[Captain Orange]

ermm well i modified it to run on 3.0, it deploys and runs but for some reason it restarts my zune when i go to Start a round, anyways here it is, if it doesnt work then i guess someone else needs to do it properly xP

Name-21632.rar

[JLDAGH]

Yeah, I get the same problem. It runs until I get to where I start the round. Then the Zune crashes.

[C-Dog]

ermm well i modified it to run on 3.0, it deploys and runs but for some reason it restarts my zune when i go to Start a round, anyways here it is, if it doesnt work then i guess someone else needs to do it properly xP

Name-21632.rar

could you make the file in a zip folder? i cant unrar files...

[Ricardo Dawkins]

Winrar is your friend.

[Luthian]

this is what I got when I ran the game through the debugger:

'7d78ccf83ad5463ab7d020e609c57ea6' (Managed): Loaded 'gamertmscorlib.dll'
'7d78ccf83ad5463ab7d020e609c57ea6' (Managed): Loaded 'gametitle584E07D1Name.exe'
'7d78ccf83ad5463ab7d020e609c57ea6' (Managed): Loaded 'gamertMicrosoft.Xna.Framework.Game.dll'
'7d78ccf83ad5463ab7d020e609c57ea6' (Managed): Loaded 'gamertMicrosoft.Xna.Framework.dll'
'7d78ccf83ad5463ab7d020e609c57ea6' (Managed): Loaded 'gamertSystem.dll'
The thread 0xebf7fc4a has exited with code 0 (0x0).
A first chance exception of type 'System.OutOfMemoryException' occurred in Name.exe
An unhandled exception of type 'System.OutOfMemoryException' occurred in Name.exe

The program '[6840] Managed' has exited with code 0 (0x0).

So, it looks to me like there are new memory constraints for this new version of Zune/XNA maybe we should try shrinking some of the textures, because during the build I got a whole bunch of these:

warning : Texture is too big to work on all graphics cards. This image is sized 2160x800, but many cards do not support sizes larger than 2048.

and I'm thinking that they might be related...

[Captain Orange]

Originally Posted by C-Dog

could you make the file in a zip folder? i cant unrar files...

dude, here use this:

http://www.rarlab.com/rar/wrar38b5.exe
Very common program, no viruses i use it myself

or you can download a torrent of a version that is registered but you dont need to register one ever to use it

[JLDAGH]

Originally Posted by Luthian

warning : Texture is too big to work on all graphics cards. This image is sized 2160x800, but many cards do not support sizes larger than 2048.

I didn't get lots of those warnings when building it, only one. But the point is, I did get one also.

[unsleep16]

it is playable already at xna beta?

[C-Dog]

Originally Posted by Captain Orange

dude, here use this:

http://www.rarlab.com/rar/wrar38b5.exe
Very common program, no viruses i use it myself

or you can download a torrent of a version that is registered but you dont need to register one ever to use it

thx dude 'priciate it.

[shadowmonkey08]

pls get it working this is by far the best game so far
if i knew coding which i don't i would fix it but i can't

[Pauliver]

I'm working on it right now. They now enforce the 16mb of ram usage limit so I need to split the background into 2 images instead of 1. Its a bit of work not splitting the images (thats easy), but everywhere I calculated something based on 1 image, i have to do it based on 2, the only place left is the mini map creation and its a PITA.

For those of you who are technical people and want to know Name runs in about 250kb of ram [not including sprites] most of the time, Total [non sprite] memory usage runs from 250kb to 1300kb depending on where in garabage collection cycle things are.

HOWEVER when creating the background and mini-map I have to allocate about 7mb of ram on which to draw the "terrain", I then copy that to the background and delete it. I know what your saying "7mb of ram, thats way less than 16" well it would be if there was only 1 copy of that data, but that 7mb of data is actually an identical copy of the background image, so there are 2 of them thats 14mb of ram total, add in the ram usage from all the other sprites [very minimal the files themselves in raw form take up only 3.3mb and not all those sprites are still used].

Q: "So why not just make the background smaller and give us a game to play right now?"
A: Short Answer : Smaller Background makes 4 player multi-player less fun

Q: "Who plays 4 player muliplayer anyway?"
A: I'm hoping more people will because 4 player network *should* all ready work now that 3.0 fixed some networking bugs.

Q: 4 Player multiplayer over network? How is the performance
A: In my tests you get about 14fps which is playable, i'm hoping to make it faster and fix the last of the bugs.

Q: Ok when do we get this 4 player multiplayer, and working 3.0 build?
A: Hopefully soon. I probably will not be releasing source for that update though just a .dll you can build against and play, The new coming build has 3 levels of A.I. (one of which i can't beat but my artist can ) a better input system, 4 player networking and represents many hours of work, I want to sell it one day - not for lots of money but between $1.00 to $2.50, a price point so low that to anyone with a job its cheaper to work an extra 20 minutes and buy my game than it is to try and compile the source and make the changes yourself.

Q: You didn't really answer my question above, when do we get it?
A: Before November, Hopefull in the next 2 weeks. Honestly I have 1 big bug to fix, if i can get that today, you'll have it tonight but i have a ton of work this week so if i don't get it to day i won't get to work on it until next week.

Q: I can't believe you would charge for Name! How dare you?
A: Well in order to charge for it MS would have to have a system in place to sell it though, so since no such system has been allowed you will get free versions for atleast another few months. Also don't be a freeloader - people work hard on games if they want to try and recover some costs thats their call.

Q: What costs?
A: XNA Creators Club account 100$ a year, 5x Zune [gotta have 5 to test 5 player multiplayer (You guys will never see 5 player multiplayer most likely, it got cut due to performance)] Its expensive

Q: Can we please have 5 player multiplayer?
A: No.

Q: There is a long discussion in this thread about the best compression program, what do you prefer?
A: Z-zip, its free and opens everything. 7-Zip

Q: You mentioned better AI above, how much better is it?
A: It beats me every time, and uses all the weapons [except the flame thrower, we are having trouble working that out because the AI keeps toasting itself w/ it if the hill is too steep], however Art can beat it.
Short answer : Much much better (and more fun)

Q: It sounds like your really busy, Why haven't you stopped typing and gone back to work on Name so we can play it allready...
A: Fine, i'll go do that.