DimensioneX Multiplayer Game Engine / News: Recent posts

The new version, just released (6.5.0), includes a Ajax support thanks to a new, freeware library, and a brand new game "Citadels" by Marko Peussa.

The new release, which includes also a number of bug fixes to optimize its use for building facebook game apps, is also easily trackable by Google Analytics - see the new "analytics" setting explained in the developer's reference, also available.

If you dream about creating a new Facebook Game App, there is a tutorial is for you.

Learn how to build your own Facebook game App, based on the free, open source DimensioneX Multiplayer Game Engine.

Please note, this tutorial assumes you have already developed a multiplayer game with DimensioneX. If you don't have done it yet, there is another very easy tutorial on how to do this.

Read the tutorial at:
http://www.dimensionex.com/wiki/DimensioneX/Facebook

the new release 6.4.8 has been published and includes a number of bug fixes, plus a couple of interesting methods setProperty / getProperty which can be used to automatize a number of processes in game scripts.

Download as usual from our project page on SourceForge:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dimensionex/

or from the website:

http://www.dimensionex.net/en/download.htm

The DimensioneX Games Multiplayer Plugin for Wordpress has been updated and tested on the new Wordpress 2.9, current release of the plug-in is 2.1.0

The plugin gives you, right out of the install, a quick and simple way to let your site visitors to play 7 multiplayer games.

This release fixes a few glitches and adds 2 new games to the list.

More information and a showcase on our plugin page:
http://www.dimensionex.net/en/wordpress_multiplayer_plugin.htm... read more

A new release of the free, DimensioneX massive multiplayer game engine is available!

PLUG-INS
- Improved support for text-parsing plug-ins. Includes text commands language parser (thanks to Carl Nagle)
- Includes "SayDemo", demonstrator for the Language Parser plug-in.

LANGUAGE

- New functions: Log(), Asc(), gameinfo("navigator")
- Fixes with the new string concat "&" operator
- Added arithmetic modulus operator, "Mod"... read more

A new release of the free, DimensioneX massive multiplayer game engine is available, with these news:

- GUI: The preferred screen resolution is now stored in users' cookies. This allow a better experience on embedded plays (see also: DimensioneX Multiplayer Plugin at http://www.dimensionex.net/en/wordpress_multiplayer_plugin.htm )
- SKINS: Skins are now loaded always from the 'skins' folder - so they don't mess up your system folder
- Enhancement: Extended @description system to all objects
- Bug fix: Parser did tolerate calling function with less parameters than expected - fixed
- Enhancement: Added string concat operator '&'
- Enhancement: maintenance Panel: Added option for deleting profile with login before date
- A few fixes. ... read more

A new release of the free, DimensioneX massive multiplayer game engine is available, with important news:

- new getPlayer() function to quickly search players by name and access their in-game data

- New client functionalities, such as the ZOOMIMAGE new tag which allows the third level of object zooming (INCON/IMAGE/ZOOMIMAGE).

- New Javascript code on the client to hide/display controls dynamically... read more

A new release of the DimensioneX massive multiplayer game engine is available, with important news:

- Fixed custom panel's DROPDOWN controls so that $OWNER and $AGENT system variables are fully supported. You can now implement context-sensitive commands associated to an object or character.

- Added the @description operator in order to associate a custom function to a room or panel LABEL, so that text is dynamically generated. Simple and effective. ... read more

The new release 6.4.1 is out with important news:

- Improved persistence support via the saveInfo / restore method (serialization). Live example in the game Underworld Online (source code included)
- Fixed visualisation problems in IE with double column view, inventory display

As always, the package comes together with a fresh version of Underworld online.

The software and the games has been tested working under Vista with both IE and Firefox.

We have updated and released our Multiplayer Games Plugin for the popular Wordpress blogging platform.

The plugin works with the latest available Wordpress today and it's available directly from their plugins section, here:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/multiplayer-plugin/

This plugin will let any Wordpress-powered blog or website to feature a free Multiplayer/MMORPG games to be played online for free, browser based.... read more

Some interesting changes for users of the DimensioneX Multiplayer Game Engine:

* Enhancement: New HttpFetch() function - Fetch any web resource from inside a game: opens the door to a wealth of possibilities via using web services from inside game scripts.
* setIndexOf: it is no more case sensitive.
* Enhancement: New Copy() function will let you quickly copy arrays and sets
* Enhancement: New Include directive allows to include not only script code, but also GUI stuff, rooms, links and more (thanks to Carl Nagle).
* Enhancement: Support for java-based modules - custom command processors (thanks to Carl Nagle). It is today possibile to plug-in a custom command processor for managing user-entered text. User's text can be now echoed in the chat window and also parsed to produce in-game behaviour. Check out the CustomCommandProcessor Demo in the package for a demonstration of the new CUSTCMDPROC world tag.
* Enhancement: We have speed up array management by using the quicker DictSorted class.
* Skins: Icon names are now all-lowercase characters for simpler dealing with under Linux.... read more

There are important fixes and enhancements for game programmers wishing to develop MMORPG games in their local languages:

* Bug fix for games written in non-English languages (Eastern, Chinese, UTF-8 encoding and others): It was discovered that the game engine was producing pages with the wrong character encoding (thanks to Przemek!) - now fixed, the character encoding is taken from the messages file and the contents are properly displayed.
* Bug Fix: Initial screen resolution bug was fixed, now default game resolution will be 640x480 to allow easy embedding of games into HTML pages.
* Enhancement: New function: gameInfo("imagesfolder")
* Enhancement: New instruction: printRight, and "right_column" management
* Messages file: Added cmd#26: Help in messages file
* Refined caching prevention method... read more

The newly-released version 6.3.0 opens a new era in DimensioneX: any game can be integrated with any number of external services, by comminuicating with the standard HTTP protocol.

- HOOKS feature: list a number of commands that will be accepted from the outside, and associate them with handling events.
- Solved caching problem in IE (also known by "the Marius' Cursed computer syndrome")
- Improved Maintenance Panel
- Misc Bug Fixes (see history.txt file for details)
- Updated Developer's Reference
- HOOKS video available for download or on-line play... read more

Some enhancements of the game engine made possibile to offer a new set of functionalities:

- Use text commands in your games: see our new Text Input Demo and learn how to use text commands to move, in conjunction with the new player.go( ) method. Implement mutually speaking objects (such as cellular phones).
- The new Picture Gallery Demo will show you how you can disable objects' focus and use on-screen objects to create good-looking controls in your game. This demo is also an interactive, multimedia environment which integrates with an online ... read more

The latest release of DimensioneX, the Open Source Multiplayer/MMORPG engine is now available with some important enhancements:

* Towards accessibility: Cleaned up HTML code produced by engine, specified DOCTYPE, most frames will validate now
* Added function in Maintenance panel: Check DB/Initialize
* DB Management: Game Engine modify to establish on-the-fly connections
* Added onDbDown/onDbUp events for DB failure management
* Added configuration for cluster list and auto area pull-up for clusters
* Added player methods: getCookie(key) and saveCookie(key,value)
* Bug fix: Management of appearence of 4-sided avatars, looks to no-more-present objects (thanks Marius!)
* Some NullPointer bugs fixed... read more

Here is what's new in the freshly-released DimensioneX 6.2.2

METHODS

I have introduced the support for game engine object's methods. In recent new instructions have been added (such as BAN) that could be better expressed as methods:

Ugly: ban player

Elegant: Call player.ban()

New functionalities have been added (and more will) without adding complexity to the already-too-much-extended set of instructions and functions. For example, you have today:... read more

By leveraging on DimensioneX game engine compliance to Web Standards and HTML, a new tool has been built to automatically generate the HTML code for embedding almost ANY multiplayer game built on the DimensioneX platform on any web site or personal page.

If you have a web site, and would like to offer multiplayer games, now you can do it.

Just go to our free online games page:

http://www.dimensionex.net/en/onlinegames.htm... read more

Following the several, successful attempts to use DimensioneX to teach computer programming, we published a selection of the Powerpoint slides we used in our training courses.

This is valuable material for teachers. We invite them to get this stuff and adapt and use it at their own convenience.

Please note that the slides are complements designed for classroom use. They should be presented and commented by a skilled teacher, and should not be intended as a self-sufficient, computer-based-training tool.... read more

DimensioneX adds mySQL integration to the rich set of offered features, thus adding more power and speed for production environments.

This multiplayer platform is capable of seamlessly storing data on any mySQL database today, instead of using the server's filesystem.

Any existing data is automatically imported into the database at game's startup.
In case of DB failures, the connection is automatically re-estabilished and, if failure persists, the platform automatically switches back to filesystem-based operation and the players can continue to play.... read more

A new version of DimensioneX, the Open Source Multiplayer Game Engine, has just been released.

Here are the news for the fellow game developers:

* Enhancement: Removed server time and added smooth SCENE TRANSITIONS (!!!)
* Enhancement: Added showPolicyPeople attribute for people-containing objects and vehicles. set to 1 to have on-screen display of people
* Enhancement: Added "connect" panel, for customising connect screen
* Enhancement: Added "DELETE" panel command, to remove unwanted controls
* Enhancement: Anti-offense: Muting completed - msg 147 added
* Enhancement: Finished Admin "Enter Script" (formerly "add script") command
* Enhancement: Added Admin "Execute" command
* Enhancement: Anti-offense system with muting - now chat can be filtered using stopwords - see WORLD/MUTING in DevRef
* Enhancement: The Replace() function is now case insensitive
* Enhancement: Added support for type.subtype scheme
* Enhancement: Added MainType() function for extracting main types
* Bug fix: Sky positioning in 1024x768 was not perfect
* Bug fix: Vehicle management in multi-face rooms was not working correctly
* Bug fix: Fixed some issues in set reconstruction from profile DB. ... read more

The latest release of DimensioneX, the Open Source multiplayer game engine, now supports turn-based games.

Thanks to the recent support for ARRAY and SETs in its scripting language, the game engine can now be used to implement almost any turn-based game including board games, RPG games, chess, checkers, cards and the like.

The DimensioneX kit now ships with a prototype of turn-based game (a simple dice game) that can be modified and used as a template.... read more

For WordPress, the great Open Source CMS (Content Management System), the first Multiplayer Plugin is finally available.

It adds instantly to any WordPress-based website a set of free multiplayer games - it integrates with existing DimensioneX games.

These multplayer games are not the usual Flash-based toys that can be found on the net, they are true, massively multiplayer games which can be played with any browser, without downloads nor banners. These games have been developed with DimensioneX, the Open Source multiplayer game platform.... read more

The new version 5.5.0 has been released.
Two main news abut this version:
- Built-in support for Traditional Chinese
- Runs on cheap hardware, Windows 98/ME + Tomcat 3.3

- Chinese support: not only we provide a language file for Traditional Chinese (thanks to Fu-Hsing Tsai), but also the support towards extended charsets has been further developed and refined. It is now possible to write language files by using either the UTF-8 text format or the ANSI ASCII format, at your preferred choice. The messages file for Simplified Chinese will be possibly distributed in one of the future versions. ... read more

The newly-released DimensioneX game engine - the first one being totally based on web technologies - adds a feature which is guaranteed to excite webmasters worldwide.

RPG and multiplayer games built using this game engine can be now embedded into web pages, merging seamlessly in the hosting web by means of a simple IFRAME tag.

This new feature arises from the recent collaboration with Italy's lead game portal,... read more

DimensioneX, the web-based mutiplayer game engine has been enhnaced with new features. This means that game programmers will have today:

- New graphic styles for game controls - add icons for a more appealing interface
- Dynamic detection of objects and players - ideal for computer-controlled actors
- Auto management of the on-screen objects - you design the game for a specific screen resolution, the game engine does the rest for you.... read more