Original message:
Hello!
I am one out of five students enrolled in "CIS 423 - Software Methodologies II" at the Computer Science Dept. of the University of Oregon. The course's main emphasis was to develop a 10 week project that would give all developer's involved more experience at managing a long-scale (relatively long scale, that is) software project.
The project to design was up to our choosing, and we decided 10 weeks ago to modify and enhance the existing phpDiplomacy open source game by integrating it with Facebook. We did not feel comfortable taking the name "phpDiplomacy", so we decided to name our project "Strategery," after the strategic elements of the game, and for the fun the game inspires.
As part of our research and requirements gathering, we understand that there already exists a Facebook integration of the open-source phpDiplomacy code (Developed by Chris Hughes). While playable with the v.0.75 code, we felt that the Facebook platform offered many unique and interesting avenues for gameplay that Chris' implementation did not explore. Since the game of "Diplomacy" revolves around social interaction and manipulation, we felt that Facebook could provide a new and interesting spin on things.
Strategery was developed by 5 University of Oregon / Computer Science students over the course of ten weeks. While we certainly hope to receive recognition for it Strategery was developed primarily out of an academic setting. It is completely the intention of the developers to release all source code of Strategery to the public under the GNU open-source public license, although it is not currently available. The project is in its Beta phase, and we are cleaning up a few loose ends (It is also our finals week at this moment, so free time spent to develop an open source package is just not there at the moment ;) We expect to release the full open-source package within a week.
We feel as though the Diplomacy community will benefit the release of Strategery! We invite all members of this site to visit our facebook application and see how good of a job we have done! Strategery is currently in its Beta phase, meaning that we feel confident to release it to the public, although some minor errors and glitches may appear. If you receive any errors, or notice any odd behavior, please tell us about it! You may email any one of the developers, or leave a message on our application's forum. And as always, any criticisms you may have will be openly accepted!
You can play Strategery by following this link : http://apps.facebook.com/strategery
(*Note: This is a facebook application, and so it will require you to have a facebook account)
Strategery is based off of the v.0.75 code, which is not the current version running on this server. Our team has attempted to provide solutions for as many of the v.0.75 bugs as possible, although we could not provide solutions for ALL errors and bugs.
**** FEATURES ****
- Removed registration. Facebook registers for you. A single facebook user may not have multiple accounts.
-You can now adjust the amount of time it takes for a cycle to change phase. As it is right now, you may adjust the amount of time to be less than or greater than a day, and as low as two hours. This was a feature that was often brought up by users that wanted longer game cycles on the forum thread "The future of phpDiplomacy."
-You no longer have an "update" button when entering orders. Many users found it tedious to constantly fill in the next sequence of an order, and then hit update. Strategery makes use of HTTPS and Ajax server requests to be able to provide you with the next order sequences automatically, so you do not have to continuously hit the "update" button.
-You can invite people to games through facebook (private games only). When you want to personally invite someone to a game, you can search through your friends list on facebook, and invite up to 20 people to come play in your current game (only the first 6 that respond can enter).
- Messages to other users go through facebook messages.
-Notifications are sent to your facebook account when the state of the game has changed (someone has one, a new phase has shifted, etc.)
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We have worked hard for the past 10 weeks, and we have read your responses and feature requests. We hope that we have delivered something that members of the phpDiplomacy community will find valuable and enjoyable! Again, *ALL* source code will be available for download on sourceforge shortly, once we tidy up a few loose ends and construct a delivery package. It has been quite a learning experience for us modifying this game, and we hope you enjoy our new facebook application of phpDiplomacy, a.k.a. Strategery!
http://apps.facebook.com/strategery
Sincerely,
Adam Betz
Richard Kissel
Roger Cerkas
Scott Brooks
Chris Rowe
Yannis Smaragdakis
New Facebook Diplomacy - Strategery
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