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Sent a private message to all remaining forum accounts with instructions to enter the alpha test.
Imagine starring in your favorite TV series, movies, soap operas, and books with your real-life friends. Relive the triumphs and tribulations of anyone from celebrities to the people closest to you including yourself. Affect your avatar while playing the mini-games created by the community. You can make it all happen right here.
LINKS
ROUND ONE ALPHA
The four round one alpha testers now have private messages on their forum accounts.
Welcome to round one alpha, and thanks for your forum comments. Please feel free to continue commenting on the forum during the alpha – there is no non-disclosure agreement. Join in whenever or if you feel like it.
For the alpha, you can create or delete as many accounts as you wish. Alpha accounts are not stable and they may be deleted if necessary – create a new account if that happens. The application is currently slow since the application is on a bare-minimum hosting account – please be patient.
Round one is mostly to demonstrate that this game is not vaporware. For round one alpha testing, only the lightweight version will be ready and no multiplayer features will be available yet.
If needed, rest until your morale is up so it does not go to free will most of the time.
Have fun.
..
You can use shortcut keys when accessing choices on your favorite browser.
e.g.,
For choice #1 in scripts
Internet Explorer: Alt+1
Firefox: Alt+Shift+1
Safari: Alt+1
Opera: Shift+Esc, 1
You can logout during the middle of a script and come back later to finish it on another computer.
SUMMARY
Abotar is a free text-based modern human life simulation game on the Web.
Please post your questions and comments in the forum (http://forum.abotar.com).
Alpha tests will probably only include forum users due to a bare-minimum hosting plan, and high preference is given to those who write a comment. Alpha tester selection order is determined from the time of first forum post, and the quantity/quality of posts. If there are not enough posters, potential alpha tester pool will also expand to include lurkers that have set up accounts based on the sign up order - presumably they voted on the polls. The announcement will show up on both the forum and the wiki when each alpha round of tests begins.
Alpha testers will receive a private message on the forum on how to create a game account when the game is ready for them. At least for now, a tester will receive no mail unless the forum account is set up to receive email copies of private messages, or the account holder specifically requested email notification. If you would prefer to receive forum posts by email, you can click “Subscribe forum” at the bottom left corner of each forum.
All alpha comments will be on the public forum, so the lurkers will not be in the dark.
New versions will be released mid-month and at the end of the month, and will be announced here. Releases do not correspond to alpha rounds.
The application is currently running on rapidxen VPS for the alpha, and maybe eventually beta as well. Linode is a top choice for beta and production since it has a good price-memory ratio.
Since this personality simulation game is currently in alpha, it may change substantially without warning. If that is a problem, feel free to bookmark this page and check again later. The design notes are public in order to obtain early feedback for a better product.
Subscribe to this feed to receive future blog entries on the simulation.
http://abotar.com/blog/category/simulation/?feed=rss
All contents on this wiki and Web site are copyrighted by abotar.com.
TODO
MOTD
December 2008
(12/02/08) sent private message to all remaining forum accounts with instructions to enter the alpha test
(12/01/08) took a break
November 2008
(11/30/08) continued working on relationship scripts
(11/29/08) worked on relationship scripts
(11/28/08) added new fields to database
(11/27/08) worked on friends script
(11/26/08) added placeholders for fantasy genre, action genre, friends, and family in portal script
(11/25/08) continued creating unit tests for scripts
(11/24/08) continued to clean up scripts
(11/23/08) cleaned up scripts
(11/22/08) continued creating unit tests for scripts
(11/21/08) tried to get JavaScript to throw a stack trace on error
(11/20/08) started using JsUnit for regression testing of scripts
(11/19/08) started evaluation of SmartGWT which was just released
(11/18/08) noted Facebook has a new Verified App Program so one more reason not to put this app on Facebook
(11/17/08) added access keys to events screen
(11/17/08) decided to deploy changes frequently instead of on a two-week cycle during the alpha
(11/17/08) modified character creation to start with 100% morale and 100% health
(11/16/08) added check so that modified stats must be +/-10 or less from archetype
(11/15/08) tested application on the alpha site
(11/14/08) released round one alpha
(11/14/08) found out IP address was reassigned (should have checked email) so can finish up soon
(11/14/08) submitted trouble ticket to fix the Web application account issue
(11/14/08) found Web application host is still unreachable so will finish up after it comes back up
(11/13/08) got everything working, but application host seems very unstable so alpha testers may experience random outage
(11/13/08) got the Web application working, but still need to fix the script directory
(11/13/08) noted that rapidxen seemed flaky last night and today and kept on disconnecting unexpectedly
(11/13/08) installed app server and language and started on data storage (got a little stuck here)
(11/13/08) verified that DNS entries propagated
(11/12/08) started installing software on the provisioned account
(11/12/08) signed up for hosting on rapidxen at Chicago which will be provisioned in 24-48 hours
(11/11/08) changed DNS entries for domain name
(11/11/08) checked http://www.lowendbox.com/blog for budget VPS hosts
(11/11/08) did final preparations for alpha round one release
(11/10/08) upgraded the libraries
(11/09/08) updated undergraduate education code to be more playable
(11/08/08) updated dating chance formula
(11/07/08) decided to sign up for rapidxen application hosting at Chicago on 11/12/08 since no linode coupon yet
(11/06/08) thought about the possibility of adding a primitive multiplayer script in time for round one alpha
(11/05/08) mostly finished streamlining the scripting syntax for choices and fixing existing scripts
(11/04/08) read about human laws of attraction research and similar people apparently make happier couples
(11/04/08) added health and morale in addition to eight core stats as factors affecting roleplay score for each choice
(11/03/08) started streamlining the scripting syntax for choices and fixing existing scripts
(11/02/08) found out that SmartGWT library sample has been released and tried to build it unsuccessfully
(11/01/08) cleaned up code in anticipation of round 1 alpha release
(11/01/08) tried to decide whether to sign up for commercial hosting today or next weekend (25% off sale ends 11/13/08)
WALL
(09/23/08)
It is a Web-based game under development and not yet released. The business logic runs on the server.
The first few bullet points on the wiki are links, and the screenshots should clarify things.
http://wiki.abotar.com/index.php?title=Screenshots
If you have further questions, feel free to ask.