BitStrat.com (pure skill gaming) - Project updates

[romsa9]

It's back up now.

It appears the server was hit hard last night.
There is now a load balancer to keep traffic throttled.

[TheUntitled]

Hmmm... Not too sure about the sound effects. Some of them work really well, others not so much. If you like I can go on with you and help you weed out sounds that don't work.

Also, it's worth reporting there are loads of spam accounts. I've been trying to get a legitimate opponent for a while now but I always get an afk player whose name consists of random numbers and letters. Perhaps add email confirmation as a requirement when registering so as to combat this?

[romsa9]

Hmmm... Not too sure about the sound effects. Some of them work really well, others not so much. If you like I can go on with you and help you weed out sounds that don't work.

Also, it's worth reporting there are loads of spam accounts. I've been trying to get a legitimate opponent for a while now but I always get an afk player whose name consists of random numbers and letters. Perhaps add email confirmation as a requirement when registering so as to combat this?

Those aren't spam accounts, those are quickplayers. (People that hit quickplay before making an account/signing in)
They are people with no account, so they are generated a random name.

[bitspill]

Server is busy, try again in a few!

Aww... I just won 2 games in a row went to start a new one and site is busy.


EDIT: Back online.

[romsa9]

In case anyone is following development: This morning, Bitstrat switched from testnet coins to real bitcoins.

A game has already been played for real coins today, (0.1 BTC) yay!

Also, the game balance has been modified:

Tower damages and prices were doubled. (proportionately)
The game creep capacity per path is 500. (down from 1000)
Higher income on weak creeps (rats 2.5% ROI) ... lower income on stronger creeps (destroyer 0.5% ROI)
Same loot (prize for killing a creep) for rats (50% of cost) ... lower on stronger creeps (30% of cost for destroyer)

[romsa9]

NEW MAP!

[romsa9]

Hey guys.

So the site had been getting some decent traffic. Some days it's busy, other days it's not that busy.

My question to the bitcoin community is.. what do you look for in a Bitcoin gaming site to feel comfortable enough to play for real bitcoins?

A summary of security features? A code review?
SSL?
Email verification?

How does one gain trust among the Bitcoin community?

Would love the feedback before diving in to developing additional games.

Thanks for everyone's support

[bitspill]

This is a funny community everything is a scam until proven otherwise.  

Personally I would like to see consistent up time and fast page loading times.

The gambling category of services must be "provably fair" which does not apply here due to the lack of chance but rather pure skill.

If players are to keep a balance on the website 2 factor authentication is needed to prevent unauthorized withdrawals or bets.

I'm not sure what else you could do beside continue onward and overtime build trust within the community

[blblr]

I'm on right now if anyone wants to play! 

[monbux]

Looks like an amazing game, when will you allow us to play with real coins!?

[TheUntitled]

Looks like an amazing game, when will you allow us to play with real coins!?

You already can! Just click on the Account tab to find your deposit address.

[romsa9]

While watching the first few bitcoin games (I played one too and lost lol) .. It has become obvious that using the current system, bitcoin transaction fees make micro-transactions very wasteful. Playing a game for 0.001 bitcoins means the winner will get 0.001 - 0.0005 - 0.001*3% = 0.00047! That is a very crappy return.

To fix this.. I will implement off-chain transactions for transfers between players. So bitcoin blockchain fees of 0.0005 will only occur upon withdraws in the next update. This will allow players to keep more money after every game they play, allowing them to play more, bet more, and, basically not waste 0.0005 BTC every time they play. Those tiny fees add up, especially in micro-transactions.

With the new scheme, you will be able to play games for mere Satoshi wagers without incurring fees until you actually withdraw funds.

So you can bet 0.001, and the winner will get 0.001 - 0.001*3% = 0.00097, a much, much better return and better incentive to play.

So in the mean time.. it's really just profitable to play large-wager games.

It's my honest observation, so stay tuned, and although i would love you to play wager games at this time, but for your own benefit, wait for the next update coming in a week or so .

- rs

[GCInc.]

Some very nice client side technology there! Graphics could be improved. Thumbs up 

[td services]

Is game server down?  I haven't seen any game rooms since last night, site was down for a while nut came back up, now my account and balance show, but game room just keeps "loading"

[TheUntitled]

Is game server down?  I haven't seen any game rooms since last night, site was down for a while nut came back up, now my account and balance show, but game room just keeps "loading"

Can't speak for romsa but I've had a lot of contact with him over the past couple of weeks, and he hasn't responded to me on Skype since Friday.

There are quite a few issues with the server, mainly that if there's too much traffic it just flat out crashes, so all we can do is await his return.

[romsa9]

I'm here. Sorry I've been steady testing a new micro transaction implementation. Everyone's balances will remain untouched if server goes down. Last time the server wasn't working was because blockchain.info was having server issues. The game service is a bit dependent on blockchain.info at this point, will look for a better wallet management solution in the future.

[td services]

Worked a couple of days, now back to just loading and spinning in game room page. Too bad, I enjoyed playing it and had some bitcoin in the account to start wagering, but after a couple of days of site hanging, probably won't bother to check back much. Also withdrew coin in case server goes offline entirely. Tried both Firefox (preferred) and Internet Explorer - same results, hangs waiting for game rooms to display.

[romsa9]

Worked a couple of days, now back to just loading and spinning in game room page. Too bad, I enjoyed playing it and had some bitcoin in the account to start wagering, but after a couple of days of site hanging, probably won't bother to check back much. Also withdrew coin in case server goes offline entirely. Tried both Firefox (preferred) and Internet Explorer - same results, hangs waiting for game rooms to display.

I think an update is long overdue to address the downtime of the service.

So earlier this week, I thought it wise to do a full upgrade as Natty (the Linux version running at that time) is no longer supported, and it was becoming hard to find necessary packages for it.

After the update, everything was re-installed, including a new version of Node.js (0.10.17) to replace the old (0.8.x). Everything was upgraded smoothly, it seemed. But the webscokets are unable to communicate over the proxy now, for some reason..

Long story short.. after long sleepless nights spent debugging every possible problem, it has been narrowed down to the fact that the proxy is doing something strange with the websocket data.

At this time, the site works as it should at bitstrat.com:8002 (bypassing the proxy), but not at bitstrat.com.

If anyone understands websockets I would love some help.

I am quite embarrassed this had happened, and apologize very much to everyone who has been following this project. I hope you all know that development will continue past these rough patches, and that the project is still very much alive.

With that said, I am also looking for help from and interested JS developers to come on board, as my hours in the day are becoming quite limited. (Starting work in September).

Thanks again for sticking around. I assure you this is just a small bump along the way.

Access the game temporarily at: http://bitstrat.com:8002/ until proxy issues are fixed.

[td services]

Thanks for the update. It is a good project. It would be a shame to see it lose momentum with all the work you've put into it. Maybe a system status notice would be good so users know what is happening.