VirtualMiner.eu - Development discussion

[Nachtwind]

Just tested various numbers for buying and selling - looks fine for me when using formats like 0,000001 or 0.000001 or 100 and so on.

[1714156064]

1714156064

[Nachtwind]

Alright.. there have been a few busy days (yay, birthday! yay, first part of my MSc Thesis done, Yay new year, yay yay yay...)  but i managed to get some stuff done.

There have been a few bugs lately, like people being unable to login and getting a message about "hacking" on their screen. This happened to a new way of handling unwelcome traffic and file accesses.. Should be ok now though.. Also i added, finally, the first batch of "Alerts" - notifications on various events.
You can find these in your control panel - all but the two about chain deactivation and inactivation are working. Those two dont due to the simple fact, that there is yet no deactivation of chains.

I am quite satisfied currently with the exchanges performance.. it seems to work flawless now. I get messages from people complaining about using bitcoins instead of bitcents.. well.. i've been thinking a lot about changing or making it optional to show bitcents instead of bitcoins, but even though i see the reason of readability in it i dont think using bitcents is a good choice due to it being not so widely accepted.. well, last word is not spoken though.

Since i finally completed most of the initial features i wanted to have for the release i add now a few more and start thinking about the release.. first of all the features:
[ ] API for Trading
[ ] "Automatition" of tasks like upgrades (Mass upgrade, mass chain changing..)
[ ] "Automatic" answer to various events. Much like notifications, but, for example, make 50% of your rigs mine a new chain when it spawns.
[ ] User to User coin transfer
[ ] Further UI enhancement (Trade calculation on the exchange etc)

As for releasing the game.. i begin to like the thought of wiping all chain's coins and stats more and more.. This would lead to a scenario where all users keep their rigs and BTC (ofc!) but loose all their mined virtualcoins. I would then suspend mining for 24 to 48 hours for more users to catch up and then reactivate mining again - so everyone has an euqal chance of getting coins but giving "old" users a certain advantage. An "old" user is an user that has participated in the BETA.. i will wipe all users that have never created a rig (yeah, there are such users..) and those who havent actively participated in the beta (that is users with no BTC balance and no coins in the virtual chain balances). This will rule out about 50% of our current users - but its worth it. I cant grant people certain priveledges that never tested a thing whilst granting others the same bonus that have invested time and also money into my little project. I hope you understand.
So for the bonuses..
I will offer a choise for old members when the time comes that should be somewhat balanced..

1) 15 Rig upgrade coupons
2) 3 New Rig coupons
3) 5 Global upgrades (More vh for everyone!)
4) Lower Trading fee for 21 days

1&2 have an equal value of about .075BTC.
3 is worth about 0.1 BTC - but it is a bonus for everyone, so its more valuable in the end..
4 has no actual worth. Currently the trading fee is 0.3% - with that bonus it would be reduced to 0.1% for 21 days, so a chance to make a bit more than 0.075 to 0.1BTC off it.

I dont have yet a fixed release date in mind but it should be close... say like 2 weeks or so. Once i have imple,ented the features mentioned above i want to keep the game in testing and then give it a go...

[Nachtwind]

I have just upgraded the rules of the game (feeling RSish now..).. basically i changed just a few important constants:

- Rigs can now be upgraded 7 times - Seven as in AMD 7000 series ,0)
- There is now an upper limit for rigs.. you can have up to 30 rigs now. If someone has more rigs none will be deleted.
- Due to some changes in the has calculation i can now sustain 10 chains without trouble, might be even more possible... but i have raised the limit of chains to 10



Right now i am preparing the last few features needed to release the game. i have already implemented coupons for free "whatevers" that will be given to "old" users once the game starts. ALso dont be surprised to see a newsletter coming up.- I am going to send an E-Mail soon about the release and the way it will happen. Last thing is that soon you will have a chance to get free rigs and upgrades by using referral links to get more users into the game. For everyone you bring into the game (and who deposited or in other ways gets active) you will be able to redeem either a new rig or 3 rig upgrades for free.. more about this soon..

So right now: try out as much as you can, and provide me with more bug reports, soon the game will be released!

[Nachtwind]

Alright... small new feature done.

You will notice that the Registration process now has a new field in it: "Referrer". When you ask people to join you may give them your Username to enter it there. Once these people have done their first deposit you will get 3 free Rig upgrades - for everyone who uses your nick as referrer.
You could also make it easier just use the following address for registration:

http://virtualminer.eu/index.php?a=register&REF=MyNickName

[Nachtwind]

Hi,
This is the first Virtualminer Newsletter. I currently dont plan on doing regular newsletters, so dont be afraid of getting spammed by this game .
This newsletter had to be done though since some changes are coming up that need to told the users directly since not everyone is either reading the bitcointalk thread or sitting in the btc-e chat when i am there.

First of all i need to talk about some changes in the set of rules. As of now you will have a limited amount of rigs. At maximum you can now build 30 rigs - if you have more from earlier tests your 30+ rigs wont be touched though.
The next thing is the amount of upgrades. Thanks to AMDs soon to be released 7000 series i chose that every rig can now be upgraded 7 times... pretty visionary, isnt it?
Lastly i have raised the number of concurrent chains to 10 chains at a time. So there are 5 unborn chains yet to be started!

As the game is nearly done, at least the initial set of features i wanted to add to it, i plan on making a final release and giving it the 1.0 status.
Since i want to let the game start fresh, yet giving testers some benefits i have to do a few things in order to prepare the actual release.
- I will wipe ALL virtual coins. The chains, though will stay as they are now. They will just start over freshly at block 1
- Alpha/Beta Testers* will get certain bonuses to make their start easier and as my way of thanking all your efforts and trust.
- All mining will be suspended for 48 hours after the wipe so that everyone can start at the same time, again for equal chances to old and new members
- From now on you will be able to get free upgrades for users you get to register and play the game. you only have to let them enter your Username on registration.** Once that user has deposited the first coins on his account you will get 3 free rig upgrades.

The wipe will happen on Thursday, 12th of January 2012 at 1pm CET. From that moment onward all mining will be suspended for 48 hours. So mining automatically resumes on January 14th at 1pm CET. Just set your miners in the time between and youre good to go when the game continues again!


I will continue to develop the game since i have a lot of ideas for it, but for now i consider the game ready for people to play with it.
Also i want to say THANK YOU to all people who helped developing this game, especially those testers that gave me sleepless nights, headaches and a constant bad conscience for not solving all bugs at once. Without your help the game would still not work as it is intended!

Nachtwind
www.virtualminer.eu


--- Fineprint ---
* Alpha/Beta Testers are users that have an active account at the end of the testing phase. An account is \"active\" if it has more than 0 BTC on its account and/or actively participated (Rig creation, mining etc) in the beta phase. People who registered at the first few days of the testing phase, yet never did anything dont really \"deserve\" the same bonuses as people who participated in testing and submitted bugs as well invested some coins into testing this game.
** Or just give them the following URL: http://virtualminer.eu/index.php?a=register&REF=MyNickName

[Nachtwind]

Seems that question came up a few times let me make this clear:

I WONT REMOVE ANY BITCOINS! I WILL _ONLY_ WIPE THE virtual blocks! I WILL NEITHER REMOVE RIGS OR THE virtual CHAINS! So all you loose a a few thousand virtual coins currently worth, at best, 0.01 BTC @ 1000 virtual ones ;0)

So basically nothing will change except that you loose your trucoins, selfcoins etc.. and those will begin to be mined on saturday again*




------------
* Existing users will start mining a short while before that..

[Nachtwind]

Alright, mining has been suspended and the "virtual² coins" have been removed. All chains start at the 1st block again.

Mining will resume on Thurday 14th of January - i will add a new Thread about the game soon and end _this_ development thread.
I say thank you to all those who have helped developing the game and as a small gift i chose to give all existing users on the game, that have actively participated a few coupons for 3 new rigs and 10 free upgrades, so a bit more than what i had in mind before.
Active users will be credited some time this evening (CET) but the list is already compiled ,0)

Thanks again and we will meet again on the other side of the transition phase.

[LoupGaroux]

Great job on development, and superior communication! I look forward to being one of the first out of the gate on this game.

[cyberlync]

Looking forward to playing.

I just wanted you to know(you probably already do, but to be sure, here goes), I have a few coupons for creating a rig and for some upgrades, the upgrade coupons worked fine on my existing rig, but when I try to create a new one, it says I don't have enough btc, so the coupon is not getting redeemed, am I doing something wrong? I know the game isn't starting 'till tomorrow, but I would think I should be able to create a rig before that?

[Nachtwind]

There had been a stupid bug with coupons on new rigs.. please try again.. it should work now

[cyberlync]

There had been a stupid bug with coupons on new rigs.. please try again.. it should work now

Seems like I can create more rigs than I have coupons for now, for free...

[Mushroomized]

Can you allow creators of chains to edit the settings? I would like earnies to be a bit different for the official release.

[Nachtwind]

There had been a stupid bug with coupons on new rigs.. please try again.. it should work now

Seems like I can create more rigs than I have coupons for now, for free...

The quick and dirty fix lead to some quick and dirty bug - in other words.. forgot to take a coupon away from you...

[Nachtwind]

Can you allow creators of chains to edit the settings? I would like earnies to be a bit different for the official release.

It was not really planned to change values oneself and i am currently working on other stuff... but send me a pm with what you want to change and i am going to edit the database by hand.

[Nachtwind]

Just added a small Chat to the page. I will add PMs in the coming week when i am back. I will see that everything works tomorrow at the restart, but afterwards i got to be away for a while..

[dree12]

I'm getting 403 Forbidden at http://virtualminer.eu/. Any idea why this is the case?

[Nachtwind]

I'm getting 403 Forbidden at http://virtualminer.eu/. Any idea why this is the case?

You might share the IP range of an user that has constantly tried MySQL injections on the page.. i have narrowed the banned range, hope it works now again.

[dree12]

I'm getting 403 Forbidden at http://virtualminer.eu/. Any idea why this is the case?

You might share the IP range of an user that has constantly tried MySQL injections on the page.. i have narrowed the banned range, hope it works now again.

Thanks, it works now.

[SaltySpitoon]

Well, there goes my 2 million earnies lol, but this game is cool, and I figured it would happen. Ok, so the official release date is 1/14 at 12PM CET, which is 6PM eastern time correct? So, could you post a 100% finalized list of what is happening with the reset? I read the entire thread over, and you changed your mind due to necessary updates a few times. Also, the game will be opening one hour early for testers correct? (11Pm CET).

[Nachtwind]

Well, there goes my 2 million earnies lol, but this game is cool, and I figured it would happen. Ok, so the official release date is 1/14 at 12PM CET, which is 6PM eastern time correct? So, could you post a 100% finalized list of what is happening with the reset? I read the entire thread over, and you changed your mind due to necessary updates a few times. Also, the game will be opening one hour early for testers correct? (11Pm CET).

These times are correct.
If my watch isnt playing tricks on me the rigs of the beta testers will be starting up in 20min and the all others will follow up roughly an hour later.