HaxBall News

The server is having some troubles and I’m trying to figure out what has gone wrong. Please have patience until this is fixed.

Update:

At last, it’s fixed! For those curious and linux savvy, the cause was that /dev/random was not replenishing fast enough, causing the server threads to block waiting for random numbers.

For the record, this has been the longest downtime in HaxBall’s history: About 6 hours.

It has also been the most stressful 6 hours of this year :)

Update:

As some of you may have noticed HaxBall has gone down again twice this week, I apologize for it. I thought I had fixed the problem last friday but it keeps happening. I still think the cause is entropy depletion though.

If there’s any linux sysadmin gurus who would like to give me a hand I’d gladly accept it :)

Update:

Ok, so I was probably chasing a wrong lead with that /dev/random bullshit :P, the server just happened to go back up the time I tried out something related to it last time.

Anyway, I’ve now changed another server setting which I believe could be a definite fix, but I’ll wait a few days before claiming victory. This didn’t work either.

Changes:

• Implemented chat throttling. When a user spams too much his messages will queue up and be sent only once every two seconds.
• Reduced the max length of a single chat message to 125 characters (from 250 which was way longer than needed)
• Improved Ban. It’s no secret that the previous ban implementation was as simple to avoid as clearing flash cache. Not anymore.
• Fixed a bug which made the “X team is victorious” message not appear when the game ends on time limit.

Enjoy less spammable games! ;)

Why the move?

Up to now HaxBall has been hosted by Google App Engine, a pretty eccentric cloud hosting service. Unfortunately they have recently announced a huge increase in price which left me with no choice but to move HaxBall to some other more conventional hosting service.

How does it affect the users?

The move is going to be gradual and today I’m starting by redirecting the room list to the new host. When this happens the room list will be cleared and users will need to refresh the site to see the new rooms.

Other than this there should be no difference from the usual HaxBall experience. And just to be clear: This change cannot cause any type of in game lag, it will _ only  _affect the room list.

Oh well!

Hopefully if the move works out fine I’ll be back at adding new features and fixing bugs on the HaxBall client soon :)

( Update: The new server is working like a charm. I’m now redirecting www.haxball.com into it. )

Changes:

• Added big versions of Easy, Rounded and Hockey stadiums.
• Reduced the size of the goal in Easy stadium a bit.

Enjoy!

Changes:

• Improved location detection, this update will reduce the number of users who get an incorrect flag.
• Optimized the room list, it will load faster. The latest Flash Player update (version 10.3) seemed to change something that made my old room list implementation freeze for several seconds when loading the rooms, this update should fix that.
• Fixed a bug which cause player nicknames and avatars to move and scroll wildly if they were prefixed with a tab character.
• Fixed a bug that made the suggested replay names have incorrect month numbers.
• Added the string “HBRP” in ASCII encoding to the replay file format right after the version number ( bytes 4 to 7 ). This is here to help sites that host HaxBall replay files identify them.
• Added the chat command “/clear_avatar”, which will remove whatever avatar you have set.

Not the most exciting update ever, but enjoy it anyway! ;)

Changes:

•  Implemented player banning as a toggle in the kick menu. The ban lasts for as long as the room is up.
• The avatar is now remembered, set it once and it will be the same the next time you play.
• Fixed a bug in which holding down Enter when inputing the room password would make you join the room multiple times.

I would also like to call your attention to these very useful community sites:

• HaxBall.gr — League & Cup generator for Haxball. Keep track of your Tournaments!
• HaxBallTube — Mimics YouTube’s interface but for HaxBall replay files.
• HaxBall DB — Lets you upload, link to and comment on HaxBall replays.

Enjoy!

At last, I’m done with replays! This feature has certainly taken more time and effort to complete than what I initially thought it would. For those curious, some form of per-room player ban is next on the list.

Changes:

• Added a rec button, press it once to start recording, press it again to stop and save the recorded gameplay as a .hbr file!
• Added a “Replays” button to the room list, use this to load previously saved replays.
• Added a ping graph option, enabling it will display a graph of your ping history (Doesn’t show if you are the host).
• Added a new URL parameter which lets users link to replay files. Try it! Detailed explanation below.

Replay links explained (gets a bit technical):

A replay link has the following format:

“http://www.haxball.com/?replay=<Replay Version>#<Replay URL>”

<Replay Version> is currently 0, but this number will change every time a new version of HaxBall is released. HaxBall replay files (.hbr) have got this number stored in their first 4 bytes (as a big-endian unsigned integer), which should be useful if someone wanted to implement some sort of HaxBallReplay-Tube (wink wink ;).

<Replay URL> is the URL of the .hbr file to load.

Example: http://www.haxball.com/?replay=0#http://www.haxball.com/demo.hbr

There’s also a small catch, because of Flash security policies your file host needs have a crossdomain.xml policy file allowing haxball.com (and haxball.appspot.com) to read files from it.

Changes:

• Brand new options menu which is accessible from the room list and during the game.
• Moved the mute sound button into the options menu.
• Made a frames per seconds limit option which it lets you choose between 30 and 60 FPS. Useful for those with slow computers which can’t run the game smoothly at 60 FPS.
• Made Flash hardware acceleration optional. This caused blank screens for a few people. A warning will appear during the login screen which will let people with blank screens disable it.

My apologies to those of you who were negatively affected by the previous update, this update should fix your problems :)

Enjoy!

Changes:

• Increased the display frame rate of the game to 60 FPS (was 30 before).
• Made the game logic speed independent of frame rate (slow computers unable to run at 60 FPS will be able to play just fine). This also fixes the lag caused by the host changing tabs in his browser (although the ping will go up a bit the game should remain playable).
• Changed a Flash setting (wmode=direct) which drastically improves the rendering performance (needed for smooth 60 FPS). Unfortunately on Windows this setting also reduces the quality of the text rendering, but the performance increase makes it worth it.
• Fine tuned the network code a bit, the game now uses less bandwidth and the latency should be slightly improved.
• Players with admin rights are now marked by a yellow nickname in the player list.

Note that the physics are completely unchanged (previous versions of haxball were running two steps of simulation per displayed frame).

Enjoy!

Edit: It seems this update is causing problems for a few players, I tested it in many different systems before releasing it, but it seems it was not enough. I am now working on an update that will make this last changes optional. So to all of you having problems: remain calm, help is on the way!

Changes:

• Replaced the ESC menu with the lobby, which is now reachable even during a match in progress. Leaving the room, obtaining the room link and stopping an ongoing match can now be done from the lobby.
• Removed the players list, its functionality is now available in the lobby as well.
• Admins can now move players into a team during a match without the need to restart the game.
• When a player leaves a game his body is removed from the field. I bet someone will miss the corpses, but it didn’t really make a lot of sense :P
• The room name is now visible in the header of the lobby screen.

Enjoy!