Downtime Update
Thursday, August 11. 2011

There were a few more delays, but the site was taken down at around 1:10am and was back online at 1:30am. Everything went smoothly and the system already looks healthier after the updates. Hopefully this will translate to an even snappier and more enjoyable experience for all!

As always, if you notice anything out of place or not working as it was before, please open a ticket.

posted by James :: Comments (0)

Scheduled Downtime
Tuesday, August 9. 2011

There could be as long as 30 minutes of downtime tonight starting at midnight (game time). The server will be powered down to upgrade some components, and I'll do my best to get it back up as quickly as possible.

Update: There was some miscommunication with the data center techs, they thought I meant Wednesday night, not morning. This upgrade is going to happen tonight instead (Wednesday night, or Thursday morning depending on how you interpret it). Sorry about the confusion!

posted by James :: Comments (1)

Speed Improvements
Sunday, August 7. 2011

PokerRPG is now running through a content delivery network (CDN), which means things like images and other files are now stored on a network of servers around the world. The site then automatically detects where your computer is in the world, and downloads the files from the closest server, making page load times faster (especially for players outside of the United States, where PokerRPG's main server is).

This has just been turned on, so it could take up to 24 hours for it to start working on your computer. It could also take up to 24 hours before all files on the site get cached around the world, so the speed will improve even more over the next couple of days.

posted by James :: Comments (3)

Changed Framework
Saturday, August 6. 2011

I've spent the majority of the past several days converting the code on PokerRPG to use the javascript framework jQuery instead of Prototype. This probably won't mean much to non-programmers, but basically it will allow me to develop new features faster and make it possible to make some new features I wasn't able to before. This update should also slightly improve site speed in some areas.

There are also a few small visual tweaks included in this update. Some new interface animations like quickly fading menus, etc. The tooltips also look and behave a little differently. The charts for market analysis and profile ranks/chips have been redone to look better and be more informative. As part of this update I actually created my own open-source tooltip code that can be downloaded from my blog.

Since I had to update over 100 files by hand, there could be a few bugs lurking (extensive testing has been done, but it is hard to catch everything at that scale). If you come across any issues, please submit a ticket and it will get fixed ASAP.

Also, the tables still use Prototype and the old tooltips, so nothing has changed with them (though the switch will be made in the next major release of the tables).

posted by James :: Comments (7)

Lag Issues
Tuesday, August 2. 2011

Sorry about that short bit of downtime, there were some unexpected bumps in the road when doing some tweaks to the server to fix the lag issues that some users have been having. The lag issues should now be fixed though, but if you keep having problems, please open a ticket.

posted by James :: Comments (2)

Credit Score Update
Monday, August 1. 2011

The formula that calculates credit scores has been tweaked to better reflect loaning activity. The main change is to make it so that players that are late more often will see a greater negative impact, and those that default will see an even bigger negative impact on their credit score.

posted by James :: Comments (4)

File compressions
Tuesday, July 26. 2011

The last update about site optimizations may have actually increased the initial download time for some files on the site because it turns out a compression component installed on the server wasn't working properly. This has now been corrected and should further improve page load times.

posted by James :: Comments (2)

Morale on splits
Monday, July 25. 2011

A bug has been fixed that caused one player from a split hand to lose morale instead of gain morale.

posted by James :: Comments (1)

Poker Face Bug
Monday, July 25. 2011

There was a lingering bug for the past few days that caused a few players to show up as a broken image at tables. This should now be corrected.

posted by James :: Comments (0)

Site Optimizations
Sunday, July 24. 2011

There are 28 different images that make up the header of every page on PokerRPG (logo, icons, navigation buttons, etc). Each one of these has to make a request from the server before showing on the screen, and while individually it doesn't take long, 28 of these requests can add up (especially for our friends overseas). So, I've combined all of these images into one image so that only one request is sent. I've also combined and compressed some of the front-end code. While none of this will change the look of anything, it should make pages load faster (again, especially for international players).

I've tested this update on several browsers, but there often edge cases that are hard to catch. If you notice something strange, please let me know and I'll get it fixed. Also, expect some more update sin the not-so-distant future that should help to make the site even faster (I still need to do some more tinkering with the backend before we get there).

posted by James :: Comments (6)

IE7/8 Transparency Bug
Saturday, July 23. 2011

There is a bug in Internet Explorer versions 8 and earlier that causes a black border to show around some cards on the poker and blackjack tables. This is due to a bug in the browser itself when handling images with transparent backgrounds. I've found a fix that will make it show like it does in other browsers most of the time (there's no way to fix it so that it works when the image is faded, like when you have folded). Of course, the better solution would be to start using a "real" browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, but if you are unable to do that then this should help make things look a little better most of the time.

posted by James :: Comments (6)

Quick Pad Fix
Thursday, July 21. 2011

There was a small bug causing problems for some users where pads wouldn't load in some instances. It turned out that the pad would go to 100% and stop loading if the site was accessed from www.pokerrpg.com instead of just pokerrpg.com, and this was causing problems for flash. This has been fixed, so please commence with the viewing and customizing of pads.

posted by James :: Comments (4)

New e-mail delivery method
Sunday, July 17. 2011

For the entirety of PokerRPG's existence, all e-mails have been sent through the local mail server that resides within the server that you connect to in order to play this game. This presents a few problems. Firstly, it can be slow. Sometimes e-mails won't show up for a few minutes (which still isn't long, but everyone loves instant gratification). Another problem is that a lot of times legitimate e-mails will get marked as spam, or won't even make it to the inbox (this is even more annoying, and can be an issue for users trying to verify their account).

So, as of now, most e-mails sent by PokerRPG will be routed through a 3rd party (SendGrid) that focuses solely on delivering e-mails as quickly as possible and making sure those e-mails actually get delivered to the inbox and not the spam folder. While this won't affect many of you (since pretty much the only e-mails sent from PokerRPG are for e-mail verification and for password resets), I still wanted to give an update on the change that is being made.

posted by James :: Comments (0)

PokerRPG now using Git
Saturday, July 16. 2011

A recent blog post I wrote outlined my new workflow, which includes the use of Git. If you don't know, Git is a version control system which essentially means I have a backup of every change made to the code on the site. This also allows for much better quality control of the code that I write for PokerRPG.

This had only been implemented into my new gaming ad network, Leet Media, until I got used to the new system. Well, now that I feel comfortable developing in this way, I've moved PokerRPG's codebase into Git as well. I'll be doing some other tweaks to the code and my workflow over the next few days that will make it easier for me to maintain quality code and faster to push out new features. You shouldn't notice anything different from this change, but the benefits will become apparent down the line in the result of fewer bugs and great new features in less time (if you notice any links or features that aren't working as expected after this update, please open a ticket).

posted by James :: Comments (4)

Fansite Contest Winners
Wednesday, July 13. 2011

Thanks to everyone who participated by making a fansite and voting. The winners have been selected by all of you and the previously mentioned panel of judges.

Winning Fansites:

1. LUNY - PokerRPG-Fanatic
2. Lucario - Addicted2PRPG
3. NeXx - PokerRPG Fansite

Random Winners (50 points):

1. penn50w
2. tori33
3. Lithuania
4. Str8Edge
5. killerwolfs

posted by James :: Comments (5)