Marble Blast Platinum 1.50: Under the Hood (1)

[IsraeliRD]

The anticipated news update for Marble Blast Platinum 1.50 is here! Huge props to HiGuy and Jeff for literally working up to 2am or afterwards in the last couple of months fixing and ironing out bugs and filling out my demands for more options.

Anti-Shoutouts to Marble Blast, which apparently breaks when using FRAPS. This video was supposed to be done in one go but Marble Blast decided against it. It should be noted that we tested the features numerous times and the bugs seen were very rare or never happened before. Using FRAPS apparently makes the occurrences much higher. One example is the crash I experienced. Never before happened until this video, and didn't happen after it. The lag was also odd, since usually things load much faster.

Besides all the stuff said in the video, there are even more things:
- New achievements!
- More custom levels for the level packs!
- Ability to use custom marble skins on the leaderboards
- Ability to use Mid-P/3D Marble on the leaderboards for MBP.
- MBG levels restored to original (without the MBP fixes)
- A refurbished, powerful and super quick level search
- And much more!

Note that the marble size has been scaled down to closely match that of Marble Blast Gold's. Sadly MBG's marble spews a size that has 10 decimal places and we don't have a way to match it, so ours is rounded up to the third decimal place.
Even though there shouldn't be any differences, MBG records set in MBP are not accepted or credited as actual MBG world records. To claim a MBG World Record you must have it on .rec proof in Marble Blast Gold only.

If you have any questions, feel free to post on the forums!

youtu.be/gCgBjYa1y3I

[Ian Cordle]

Inspiration to once again play this game, looking forward to it!

[uselesscrab]

Yay, Mac leaderboards! Nice. A good start to my time on the forums

[Jkk39]

YAY! I cant wait for this!

[ProMarbler]

Woah. When is the next video going to come out? Is it too early to ask for an ETA of the game?

Great to see all the progress that has been done! Love seeing some of the new features.

Thoughts:
~ Those sliders. Why sliders? Why no arrows or number boxes??
~ I suck at listening.
~ "Even with a super speed your opponent wouldn't have beat you!" -- Hrmmm...
~ Will it have patches?
~ Is there a lag timeout?
~ Sign hit? Were there even signs? Did they get removed? *vaguely recalls signs*
~ Will PQ have these features (excluding bugs)?
~ Maybe add captions?
~ I saw Phil before you did.
~ Are global accounts implemented?
~ What difference does the new marble make?
~ Are LBs supported for separate marbles?
~ Will there be patches/updates after this?
~ Will it come at the same time as the new forums?
~ Am I asking too many questions?
~ Will all this be included in a manual (accessible from LBs)?
~ Will the manual background work in 32-bit?
~ Will there be anti-annoyance limits? Like, so you can block requests if some person keeps bugging you?
~ Fix the wasted time counter in the core.
~ Annoying sibling protection? Hmm... *likes*
~ Aliases?
~ Is this even relevant now?
~ Bug report function!
~ Slapping people with fish, hehehe... <3
~ Quick search is great! *likes*
~ Enough for now.


~ HiGuy is awesome! Not sucky. :C

[Jeff]

Is it too early to ask for an ETA of the game

To early still, got to many bugs left. Some of them are quite nasty, especially the networking bugs, they are hard to debug and take a lot of time.

~ Will the manual background work in 32-bit?

What? I always use 32-bit color...

~ Will it have patches?

-_-' Don't even get me started, please.

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone =)

[AJ Ferguson]

you guys are awesome!

[Hi Guy]

Good to hear this is finally out. That took forever to record, but I'm happy it worked out. You guys are gonna have a blast when this is released!

[Jeff]

Jun 28, 2013 19:22:12 GMT Hi Guy said:

Good to hear this is finally out. That took forever to record, but I'm happy it worked out. You guys are gonna have a blast when this is released!

No pun intended, eh?

[Nihahhat]

I think we're about to reach a Golden Age in Marble Blast history. This new version looks gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. I want to marry this new game. Well, not really. But you know what I mean. Hopefully.

So much cool stuff seem throughout the video. Challenge mode??? That's insane! I've always wanted to challenge Pascal to one on one and lose!

Now that I think about it, Super Challenge is a lot like SpeedRunsLive (the few of you who played me on SRL know what I mean) except this version is 100x cooler, with all that fancy statistics and challenging and stuff and omg it looks amazing guys seriously

Jun 28, 2013 14:00:04 GMT IsraeliRD said:

- New achievements!
- More custom levels for the level packs!
- Ability to use custom marble skins on the leaderboards
- Ability to use Mid-P/3D Marble on the leaderboards for MBP.
- MBG levels restored to original (without the MBP fixes)
- A refurbished, powerful and super quick level search
- And much more!

YESSSS!!!!

PART 2 WHERe

[Daniel741852]

Wow, this is amazing! To be honest.... I didn't really expect this for a while lol, anyways congrats to the developers!

[ProMarbler]

Jeff

At 32-bit:



16-bit:



Somebody explain!

[Jeff]

promarbler

Your on mac right? Try updating your video drivers maybe? Because its not the TorqueScript code...

in fact, its not even TS, that command is a c++ method exposed to script, nothing I can do about it.

void GuiBitmapCtrl::setBitmap(const char* bitmap)

(gotta recheck Torque3D again ughughugh)

Should be the method for anyone who cares like me

@dan Thank you!! We worked our butts off and continue to do so!

@all we hope you enjoyed and keep sticking with us, we do not have a planned release date yet, its a matter of how faster we can fix the bugs and gliches. And we have lives too people, so keep poking me away ;_;

[ProMarbler]

What new video drivers? Macs AFAIK don't (normally) get new video drivers, it's all OEM or something like that. Is it some kind of overflow error?

[Jeff]

Then I have no idea, I will mention this to perishingflames and HiGuy(doing so right now after typing this), anyways the discussion should be continued elsewhere if the problem persists. I'll have him reply or pm you.

[IsraeliRD]

~ Those sliders. Why sliders? Why no arrows or number boxes??
Because number boxes/arrows look worse than sexy slides

~ I suck at listening.
My accent sucks

~ "Even with a super speed your opponent wouldn't have beat you!" -- Hrmmm...
Probably true

~ Will it have patches?
Unknown. We'd like to say no, but it depends on finds the community gonna get. We want to move to PQ

~ Is there a lag timeout?
If you get lag to the server, the server will try and re-connect you before it goes "nah too much".
That said the coding of 1.50 is much better (leaderboards re-written from scratch, no joke) so it handles things better.

~ Sign hit? Were there even signs? Did they get removed? *vaguely recalls signs*
Yes. Don't you watch my Replay of the Day videos?

~ Will PQ have these features (excluding bugs)?
Some yes, some no, and lots of new ones, and of course excluding bugs where possible.
Again Marble Blast has problems handling certain things when it comes to networking and there isn't much we can do about it.

~ Maybe add captions?
I thought about it. At midnight on the spot I cannot be screwed anymore.

~ I saw Phil before you did.
I know

~ Are global accounts implemented?
TODO

~ What difference does the new marble make?
Smaller marble = more closer to that of MBG. Bigger marble = bigger collision box

~ Are LBs supported for separate marbles?
We made all marbles equal, except GarageGames marble which obviously is the only one to have its own leaderboards.
No other marble is supported as we cannot guarantee consistency.

~ Will there be patches/updates after this?
See above.

~ Will it come at the same time as the new forums?
Yes, that's the plan all along.

~ Am I asking too many questions?
Probably. I want to go to work already.

~ Will all this be included in a manual (accessible from LBs)?
Possibly. Don't know about manual access from LBs though, never saw anybody doing such things.

~ Will the manual background work in 32-bit?
I use XP and yeah it works

~ Will there be anti-annoyance limits? Like, so you can block requests if some person keeps bugging you?
Possibly. Don't know. Don't hold your breath on it.

~ Fix the wasted time counter in the core.
What?

~ Annoying sibling protection? Hmm... *likes*


~ Aliases?
Nope

~ Is this even relevant now?
MBP 1.50 is super relevant

~ Bug report function!
I know we're gonna do that I hope

~ Slapping people with fish, hehehe... <3
/slap Nihahhat

~ Quick search is great! *likes*
Woo

~ Enough for now.
Thank you!

[ProMarbler]

Yays!

BTW, when I said wasted time counters, I mean the one that said "Total Wasted Time." It's been stuck since 1.20 (Or sometime after 1.12, which was my prev. version). Ignore the "core" bit. Was probably thinking about core files or something.

Oh and I disuse Youtube because my internet usually sucks.

EDIT: For the background thing, I also found that 800x600x32 also works without breaking it. Might've been why I was using it before I changed it. Might be some sort of bit limit that I broke. And the 1280x1024 mode is a mistake (but not on PCs, just checked...), my system uses 1280x960, a correct ratio, clicking that option will apparently cause MB to lose it's interface, and then (usually) crash.

[IsraeliRD]

It will get fixed for you then lol

[eNetro314]

Jun 28, 2013 14:00:04 GMT IsraeliRD said:

Note that the marble size has been scaled down to closely match that of Marble Blast Gold's. Sadly MBG's marble spews a size that has 10 decimal places and we don't have a way to match it, so ours is rounded up to the third decimal place.

Maybe you should get the original marble .dts from Marble Blast Gold (original)

[Jeff]

~ Will it have patches?
Unknown. We'd like to say no, but it depends on finds the community gonna get. We want to move to PQ

Any takers on learning TorqueScript so they can patch and I don't? How about please no, this one patch is one to many already

I wanna "move on" people.

I want PQ WHERe not MBP 2.0 WHERe

[[DWARF] RDs.empire]

Jun 28, 2013 15:35:16 GMT Ian Cordle said:

Inspiration to once again play this game, looking forward to it!

^What he said^ Also really big thanks to both of you for putting so much effort on this! =D

Jun 29, 2013 1:05:26 GMT eNetro314 said:

Jun 28, 2013 14:00:04 GMT IsraeliRD said:

Note that the marble size has been scaled down to closely match that of Marble Blast Gold's. Sadly MBG's marble spews a size that has 10 decimal places and we don't have a way to match it, so ours is rounded up to the third decimal place.

Maybe you should get the original marble .dts from Marble Blast Gold (original)

There's a little problem with that. You see when you assign texture to model (in this example marble) it uses only texture which you assigned to it so you can't just duplicate defaultmarble.dts and basemarble.png to something like defaultmarble(1) and basemarble(1).png and have different skins on both. defaultmarble(1) will take basemarble skin.
BUT there is way of using 1 shape and assign many different textures but if i'm not wrong its sorta buggy method and just makes bigger mess in code. Also it depends on how defaultmarble was UV mapped so for example same texture that was on MBP marble may look wrong on default marble (actually UV mapping for defaultmarble is quite good).
aaand last thing is that if you remember Mid-p and 3D marble have totally custom models (I'm even surprised that they were never scaled correctly for MBP)
Fell free to correct me...

[Jeff]

@rd the code isn't buggy to use skins instead of DTS shapes. The gems use it and they have no issues. Its just one line of code to make a skin work if your shape supports skins.

%obj.setSkinName("skin_name_here");

You're right about the last part though, about the Mid-p and 3D marble. Totally different DTS shapes that can't just be skinned. Only if we could just skin the regular marble and just have its appearance changed, man that would have been useful but this is an old engine so we can't expect much

[brandondorf9999]

I don't see there's an update but I found this thread involving the new MBP version that will release. Could one of you guys import the other teleport helpers such as the switch balls and others into the game?

[Jeff]

..what? I don't even....

What?

[brandondorf9999]

I was asking them to import the switch ball that I've uploaded into the new version of the MBP game.

[Jkk39]

Just to clarify, the game isn't release yet right? This is just explaining it?

[eNetro314]

It's just explaining it.

[[DWARF] RDs.empire]

Jun 29, 2013 21:55:15 GMT Jkk39 said:

Just to clarify, the game isn't release yet right? This is just explaining it?

I could pretty much call it a teaser or development showcase.

[brandondorf9999]

When will the official release date be?

[[DWARF] RDs.empire]

Jun 29, 2013 22:28:30 GMT brandondorf9999 said:

When will the official release date be?

Do you even read what other people post...
Answer is on this quote below vvvvvvvvvv

Jun 28, 2013 18:47:36 GMT Jeff said:

Is it too early to ask for an ETA of the game

To early still, got to many bugs left. Some of them are quite nasty, especially the networking bugs, they are hard to debug and take a lot of time.



What? I always use 32-bit color...

~ Will it have patches?

-_-' Don't even get me started, please.

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone =)

To make this short it will be released once new marbleblast.com is done which means sometime at unknown date of now.