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Updates Events [Archive]	Old Messages! Year 2000 Below Time: 8pm 27 Dec 2000 GMT Subject: Piles of Stuff Firstly, I hope you had a Merry Christmas and wish you all the best for the coming New Year! I've updated the iTank page with some exciting features we plan to put in. SETI is now at version 3, so update now and join our group and you do not have to be a member to help us out here. I've got a new mobile phone for Christmas so the contacts page has been updated. You can now contact me free of charge 24 hours a day! We still need new members to join to get more things done faster. I'll soon be sending all members version beta 0.03 of iTank for debugging and testing please do inform me of any problems! Time: 7pm 21 Dec 2000 GMT Subject: eTank Makes Front Cover CD Hello! Net is out now!... I've just received a copy of the Hello! Net magazine in the snailmail (oh, and it's in Chinese) and eTank is labelled on the front cover CD! There's a short discription of eTank in the magazine itself too. What a Christmas present! Thank you! Over 30,000 copies - WOW! Time: 10am 16 Dec 2000 GMT Subject: First iTank Screenshot Posted Just to show that I have been doing something as well as the artists I've posted a New Screenshot of our game under development, iTank. I invite you to gaze upon it. This should give the development team a better impression of what we are trying to do. Keep the bitmaps rolling (some of you have probably noticed that I copied the wall bitmaps from elsewhere). Time: 7pm 12 Dec 2000 GMT Subject: More Adverts Feel free to follow any advertising links on this page and if it interests you, please buy something from our sponsors through the links on this website. This helps me a lot to keep the site running. Time: 6pm 12 Dec 2000 GMT Subject: iTank progress iTank is slowly but surely progressing. Most of the low level funtions are complete so now all I need to do is to put all 3900 lines of them together into a game. It sounds so simple ...But I'd rather play Quake 3 tonight! Time: 7pm 11 Dec 2000 GMT Subject: alStrobe 1.1 Cancelled There's just no time to develop a Windows NT/2000 version of alStrobe :( I've decided to cancel it and do all the work when (and if) we make a version 2.0 Time: 6pm 08 Dec 2000 GMT Subject: Website upgrade Got a day off school today for revision and used it to improve the site. There's now a "You are here" navigation bar to make this site easier to navigate. Time: 7pm 07 Dec 2000 GMT Subject: New Member Welcome onboard. We now have 8 members of which 3 members are working on art. The programming section is lagging behind... Time: 6pm 07 Dec 2000 GMT Subject: SETI @ Home Our SETI efforts are continuing. Please go to SETI and do some processing on behalf of Voxelsoft, our account is seti@voxelsoft.com or please join the Voxelsoft SETI group. Anyone can sign up - you don't need to be one of our members >:o ! Our SETI Group. Time: 8pm 03 Dec 2000 GMT Subject: On-Site Advertising Ok, I'm putting up an advert on every page to try to refund some of the money that I have to pay to keep this site running. Click the adverts and buy whatever they offer if it interests you as it will help me a lot to keep the site going. I won't throw figures from download.com at you any more - you can go and see for yourself, and I can tell you that the eTank figure is very large now! Time: 7pm 27 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: Download Madness! eTank has reached 6500 downloads on download.com since it was added on the 17th of November! That's over 650 downloads per day!!! It's been marked as both "new" and now "popular"! It's right next to Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force on the action games list! Wow! What a success! Hurrah! Time: 6pm 27 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: New Server At Last New server is up & running so forget all that about emails going missing and files getting lost :-) It's OK now, it's just fine. Thank you, Dan Armstrong and AO Industries. Time: 1pm 26 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: New Member We have another member! eTank on Download.Com is nearly at 5000 downloads! DNS is still not pointing to the new server! I've submitted Voxelsoft to another 30 search engines. Time: 6pm 24 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: Server Move Ok, at last I've got a proper web host. The email and the website should very soon work perfectly. Sorry for the downtime while the DNS record is being changed. Time: 8pm 23 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: eTank on Download.com! eTank has clocked 1,400 downloads on download.com - That's great. Time: 6pm 19 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: iTank Progress I've finished the base graphic, sound, music and network API's. It's now 3000+ lines and not even 10% done (remember, eTank was 3600 lines long when completed) - am I becoming a bad coder or does DirectX really take this much? Now I need artwork, logic code and game code to bring it all to life. Any offers? Time: 5pm 19 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: Email Nothing new here then - only 1 in 3 emails get through now. I will move to a different host ASAP. Time: 6pm 15 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: Voxelsoft Yahoo! Club The Voxelsoft yahoo club was set up so that anyone can post messages relating to Voxelsoft and our software. This is a feedback tool (and a communication tool until Ricky builds the developer area on the Voxelsoft site). Now everyone can post a message - but don't forget these updates! Time: 8pm 14 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: xTowers Model While in Russia I found Tower Toppler (Originally Nebulus) that I was looking for as the base of xTowers during the past few months. Since then I contacted one of the people who worked on porting the game, Ste Cork, and exchanged a few mails. What I want now is to find the person or company that currently owns Nebulus and ask them permission for a 3D remake of the game. Time: 5pm 12 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: alStrobe Compatibility Bugs Today I've received an email stating that alStrobe was not WinNT/2000 compatible. I've installed Win2000 and found severe problems in the program. alStrobe will be revised this week and the file version will be upgraded to 1.1 and compatible with all Windows versions. Time: 9pm 11 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: eTank Hits 1000 @ ZDNet eTank has been the most successful submission to ZDNet and has boosted hits on the Voxelsoft website! Time: 2pm 11 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: Voxelsoft Mail Server Security There have been a few difficulties with my mail system again. If you sent me emails between the 11th of October and 11th of November and did not get a reply, they may have been permanently lost!!! I suspect that someone in Russia may have been reading my email. I have re-routed email paths, changed all the passwords and stepped up security as a precaution. Time: 9pm 6 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: Game24 Project Started! Game24 project will be based on the popular maths game. It's simple and will run alongside iTank. Jason is in charge of all the maths :) Time: 8pm 6 Nov 2000 GMT Subject: Back From .RU! I'm back from Russia with new books and software. Just got an email from Sharp Point Publishing, Taiwan. It seems that our software (eTank) has met up to their standards and they hope to give away eTank on a CD with the "Hello!Net" magazine! Circulation is around 30,000! WOW! Time: 2pm 26 Oct 2000 GMT Subject: Hello From Russia I've just had time to read my email today :) *lucky me* and everything seems to be running smoothly. Take a look @ zdnet.com and search for eTank - we've had over 300 downloads. That's more than alStrobe and bScreen! ...And over a shorter period! Will be back a week on Sunday. Time: 6pm 12 Oct 2000 GMT Subject: eTank Release! Our first game, eTank has finally been completed and released, just before I leave Hurrah! At last! :) Thanks to everyone for help and support. Time: 6pm 11 Oct 2000 GMT Subject: Holidays I'm going on a 3 week holiday to Russia on Friday so I really hope to give everyone a job to do and to finish eTank before then. These 3 weeks will give a chance for everyone to get to know each other before we get going with iTank. Time: 5pm 10 Oct 2000 GMT Subject: New Members My friends, welcome back onboard! Time: 6pm 9 Oct 2000 GMT Subject: eTank and iTank I just realised we were working on a copyright time-bomb so The Packen project is now called eTank and the bitmaps have been redrawn to look like tanks. iTank is the new project based on eTank that I hope the CEO of Xtreme Games will like it. It's going to be DirectX and high quality based. The deadline for eTank is postponed to 12th October. I will now deny any existance of Packmen :). Time: 8pm 8 Oct 2000 GMT Subject: First Contact I've exchanged a few emails with the CEO of Xtreme Games Andre' LaMothe (also author of many programming books) to see if he likes Packmen and will publish it but unfortunately this is what I got: "...Anything pacman like is sue material..." "...I looked at it, I like the internet stuff..." "...The graphics are too basic compared to other clones, all of our arcade games have fairly high end graphics and sound and are in directx, so there's not much I can do with yours until you would bring it up to par with our other games or better..." I'll have to think and sleep on it.. Time: 6pm 6 Oct 2000 GMT Subject: Site Development Development on the website is continuing. A members area will possibly soon be available. Members will be able to chat, upload and download files. The full xTowers project pages will be online shortly. Time: 6pm 1 Oct 2000 GMT Subject: New Member Hurrah! - We have 4 members! An unexpected pleasant surprise. Now I guess I can think more about what all of us will be doing in the xTowers project. Time: 6pm 30 Sept 2000 GMT Subject: Site Updated Fixed broken links, added a few icons and a Perl based counter to the site. Please do tell me about any irregularities and errors if you find them. Time: 5pm 29 Sept 2000 GMT Subject: Packmen on Schedule The Packmen level generator is now almost complete and all known bugs have been addressed. The first deadline has expired but the second one is on time. Packmen project is 97% Complete. Time: 6pm 27 Sept 2000 GMT Subject: Voxelsoft Servers Ok - Voxelsoft's on Virtualave servers and my email is finally back up and running! Sorry about the popups but unless I find a host sponsor this is the way it will be. Time: 5pm 25 Sept 2000 GMT Subject: Voxelsoft Servers Will move voxelsoft.com to virtualave to get some speed ASAP. My email has not been functional for the past few weeks. This problem will be resolved soon *Grin* even if I have to pay for it *Grin* any sponsor hosts out there? Time: 11am 24 Sept 2000 GMT Subject: SETI Not Forgotten Our SETI membership will carry on. Please go to SETI and do some processing on behalf of Voxelsoft, account is seti@voxelsoft.com or join the Voxelsoft SETI group. Anyone can sign up - you don't need to be one of our members >:o ! Our SETI Group. Time: 6pm 20 Sept 2000 GMT Subject: The New Voxelsoft Site Goes Online At last! I got rid of the old unrealistic and hypocritical site after catching a cold and getting a day off school :) . The new site is not as fancy, but at least it delivers our position. My headache probably shows in the design (dark colors, bold fonts, no pics) - but so what? Have you tried developing a website on an old laptop while in bed with a splitting headache? Please debug the new site >:-) Time: 5pm 20 Sept 2000 GMT Subject: xTowers is GO xTowers has been approved to be our next project. Do not underestimate it. The improvement in quality in our projects is set to continue (and hopefully quantity will improve too). Time: 4pm 19 Sept 2000 GMT Subject: Packmen Deadline Looks Dead Earlier this year I set a deadline for the completion of the Packmen project. Although the game is now almost ready for release, there are a number of problems to resolve: Lags on slow connections, Random Map Generation and Drawn Maps. It is clear that the deadline will not be met (not entirely my fault) so the new deadline is 10th October. Time: 8pm 18 Sept 2000 GMT Subject: "Recruitment Drive" - Nuff Said We need helpers! When do we need them? NOW! That sums it up - we need anyone and everyone computerate to join our efforts and speed up project output. Time: 6pm 18 Sept 2000 GMT Subject: The updates are born Maybe it's worth starting an updates diary? I'll give it a go. A lot of other sites do it so here it goes... These posts are for reference only