Version History

From WinBolo

List of changes in WinBolo and release dates.

Contents 1 Version 1.17 2 Version 1.16 3 Version 1.15 4 Version 1.14 5 Version 1.13 6 Version 1.12 7 Version 1.11 8 Version 1.10 9 Version 1.09a 10 Version 1.09 11 Version 1.08a 12 Version 1.08 13 Version 1.07 14 Version 1.06 15 Version 1.05 16 Version 1.04 17 Version 1.03 18 Version 1.02 19 Version 1.01 20 Version 1.00

Version 1.17

• Released: 3/9/09
• Game Play
  • Tank acceleration improved.
  • If a tank dies while the LGM is completing some task, the LGM will now sit still on the square on which the task is to be completed or - if the task is already completed - stop at it's current world coordinates until it's owner's tank respawns.
  • Updated alliances so that if a player leaves alliance, they no longer keep their pillboxes or bases, only the pillboxes in their tanks, this is to mimic the same behavior in macbolo. It will also limit traitorous behavior, and allow people to switch teams which they feel are unfair more easily.
  • Slightly increased the LGM return goal, so that the LGM will get into the tank a tiny bit sooner.
  • Fixed Pills not get damaged by that shells pill fire directly east and directly south.
  • Updated pillbox repair to behave like macbolo does, this behavior is simple, 1 'unit' of tree's repairs 4 damage to a pillbox, so if you have 2 'units' you will repair 8 armor to a pillbox. When you farm a tree, its 4 'units', if the pillbox only requires half health(8 armor) you will only use 2 'units', if it requires full armor (its fully dead) it will use a full block (4 units) This means if you only have one unit of tree left, you can still attempt to repair a pillbox, and will repair some of its armor.
  • Reduced the tick count for tank refueling for mines and shells
  • Increased tank refuelling speed. See SVN comments for more details.
  • Fixed an instance of a pillbug causing switch pillboxes to switch alliances by themselves.
  • You are now allowed to use pillview during static.
  • Fixed LGM compass which would sometimes not point correctly until you got close to your LGM.
  • A LGM parachuting in will no longer get trapped if it lands on a block, pillbox, or enemy base.
  • Fixed LGMs dancing around if the player dies. They will now stay still.
• Server
  • Added kick command. Server Admins can now kick players by typing kick <playername> in the console.
  • Added status command. Typing will print out who has locked. If the -statusFile command line parameter is provided it will output the results to a file named <port>.txt in the current directory.
  • Fixed -addr address binding not being used for WBN connectivity.
  • Fixed multiple joining at the same time.
  • Fixed server crash on player dropping from game.
  • Fixed RSA error when two players joined at the same time.
  • Fixed server crash when two players fight over a base.
• Graphics
  • Static darkened.
  • Added back buffer for background to reduce flickering on alt-tabing/window moving/window changing. No more flickering on Vista.
  • Fixed LGM buttons graphic and death and kills counter on Vista.
• Interface
  • Added check for blank player names.
  • Alliance window now longer stays open when a new game is started(?)
  • Fixed in-game player name changes.
  • Brains now work again.
  • Key Settings window updated.
  • Added QuickKeys feature so you can now map keys to LGM buttons. Default is 1 2 3 4 5.
• Logviewer
  • Changed 2.5x speed to a 'fast' option that speeds playback to its maximum amount. For when you really wanna go fast.
  • Fixed the tank label not being redrawn properly, I lowered the label length check and increased the width slightly also.
  • Fixed the log output mixing up who killed who.

Version 1.16

• Released: 12/2/09
• WinBolo and related utilities are now free software and released under the terms of the GPL version 2. For more information see: http://www.winbolo.org
• Game Play
  • A lot of changes were done to WinBolo's game play to make closer to the feel of bolo.
  • Tank acceleration, deceleration and automatic slow down rates have been changed to match Bolo.
  • When hit by a shell the tank now slides in the direction it has been hit rather than getting moved there straight away.
  • Changes to the base regeneration of stocks algorithm. Bases now regenerate new stock at a rate of one unit per 20 seconds per player.
  • Pillboxes now shoot slightly faster.
  • The time between when a player dies and when they can restart has been changed to 7 seconds.
  • Swamp now takes 4 shells to turn be destroyed.
  • Tanks can no longer build underneath their boat.
• Networking
  • RSA public key encryption. To prevent players from compiling their own clients and exploiting cheats within the games source code a test is done on joining network games to ensure that only official clients can join official servers. For more information see the WinBolo wiki.
  • Dedicated server: IP addresses are now displayed with incoming information request packets.
  • Dedicated server: -autoclose flag no longer closes the server when all bases are taken.
• Interface
  • New game opening dialog.
  • Static is now drawn on the screen when a player dies. Note this changes the skin file format and older skins will no longer work correctly. Skin authors will need to update their skins to work with 1.16.
  • The scroll wheel can now be used to change the gun sight range.
  • Fixes drawing problems on Windows Vista.
  • Players behind a NAT firewall now have their IP address displayed correctly in the networking info dialog.
  • Number of free pillboxes in a game is now displayed correctly in tracker game search window.
  • A single road square in water now displays the water colour correctly.
  • Fixed crash on network game startup from within the game client when the inbuilt map “Everard Island” is used. – Note: Starting a game server from within the client on Vista or newer operating system has been currently disabled. Please use the dedicated server to start games.

Version 1.15

• Released: 21/4/06
• Game logging. Includes log viewer capable of replaying log files. Game servers can be set to record log files using -log parameter.Log files can be uploaded to winbolo.net for players to download at game end. For more information please see the log viewer manual and WinBolo manual for information on parameters.
• Fixed tanks not disappearing immediately in game clients when destroyed by running into mines.
• Many other fixes.

Version 1.14

• Released: 9/3/04
• Built In Server support - WinBolo can now start a server from within the game client. This mean it will no longer have to run an external program to run a server which was problematic under some systems.
• Skin Support - WinBolo now allows players to customise their graphics and sound. For more information about creating skins see Section 3.8 of the WinBolo manual.
• Cheat Detection. Better detection of players using cheats.
• New server commands <96> Say to send a message to all players in the game and info to bring up information about the game and a current player list.
• Game lock status as well as version is now reported to WinBolo.net
• Slight increase in tree regrowth rate.
• Fixed lock up when pillboxes are dropped in the surrounding mine field.
• The builder is no longer able to drop a pillbox the carried pillbox on other pillboxes, bases or walls when it is shot.
• Fixed unable to find brains and other directories when the directory has windows attributes set on it.
• Fixed builder being shot when driving into a enemy base while shooting it and sending it the builder.
• Other Fixes.

Version 1.13

• Released: 9/3/03
• Network fixes and changes. Players who are out of sync with the server will now be unable to move till they are resynced. An error message will display in the main window.
• Added -logfile dedicated server command to output to a file name rather then to the screen.
• Added -maxplayers dedicated server command to specify the maximum number of players a server will allow. Any players attempting to join a full server will receive an error message.
• Added -savemap dedicated server command to save the map in its current state.
• Fix for man not being able to repair pills on trees.
• Fix for man trying to farm trees on a base.
• Fix for a local player showing up with an asterisks next to their name after playing a WinBolo.net game then starting a new game after un-checking their winbolo.net participation option. All other players did not see the asterisks, nor did they show up on WinBolo.net as a participant.

Version 1.12

• Released: 23/2/03
• Fix for locked games.
• Fix for password protected network games.

Version 1.11

• Released: 23/2/03
• WinBolo.net integration. WinBolo.net is a game tracking and player statistics website. For more information visit: [[[1]]]
• Linux Client redistributed.
• New network transport layer.
• DNS Lookups fix in client.
• Fixes for pills/builders.
• Tank hit boundries changed
• Ignore Alliance Request menu option.
• Winbolo:// URLs can be used to start WinBolo and join a game from a website.
• Added -noinput dedicated server flag.
• Customised sounds on Windows.

Version 1.10

• Released: 21/2/02
• Fixed LGM issues.
• Fixed -"Invisiwall" bug.
• Base recharge rate changed. Bases now recharge at a more bolo like rate.
• Slightly slowed tank deceleration rate.
• Fixed cursor getting stuck as busy cursor on some Windows 2000 systems.
• Fixed Brains not being able to receive all messages and pill strength information.
• Player name is now pre-highlighted in change player name window.
• Included language set which changes the lost builder message to "just lost her builder"
• Lots of fixes.

Version 1.09a

• Released: 1/5/01
• Reapplied fix for tracker game lookup crash from 1.08a
• Fixed starting of new games from Windows client.
• Fixed pill view crash.
• Fixed LGM parachute bug.
• Fixed DNS entries for players with long names not showing up in players menu.

Version 1.09

• Released: 29/4/01
• Added more anti-cheat mechanisms. Moved to more of a server authoritarian network architecture.
• Like Bolo, trying to repair a captured pilbox that has since been moved and replaced by a visible mine can no longer kill a LGM. (Which has become common practice now.)
• Tweaked man death check.
• In pill view you can now move between your pills by using the arrow keys.
• Reset alliance requests on new game.
• Fixed infinte trees LGM bug.
• Tree growth rate increase.
• Tank slowdown rate increased.
• Fixed LGM remember next action after death.
• Fixed xsync() lockup in LinBolo under XFree 4+
• Fixed partial screen redraw problem under X Windows on some systems.
• For lazy copy and pasters WinBolo now removes blanks spaces at the beginning of lines when you copy and paste address:port into the TCP/IP setup window.
• WinBolo now performs reverse DNS lookups on players in network games and displays their DNS name if available.
• By popular demand Bolo like starts allocation are now implemented. WinBolo trys to avoid starting you near tanks and enemy pillboxes. From the Bolo Version History document: "Improved start position allocation for maps with very few start squares defined, to cope better with certain "creative" map designs. For example, if you have a map with only two start squares, and you have a game of two teams where each team has a pillbox close to one of the start squares, then each team will effectively have their own 'private' start square, because with only two start squares to choose from when bringing a new tank into the game, Bolo will choose the one near the friendly pillbox, not the one near the hostile pillbox."
• Fixed tank label clipping problem.
• WinBolo now uses the TERRAIN_UNKNOWN terrain until the tank first encounters the map location. This is in accordance to the Bolo brain standard.
• Brains no longer get passed bases armour amount for enemy bases. A value of 0 is given in the direction field of the ObjectInfo structure. if the base is non capturable a value of 1 is passed.
• When using the scroll keys to scroll the window manually, this will temporarily override the auto scrolling till you reach the map edge. Pressing the tank view key will re-enable auto scroll.
• Increase in pill maximum fire rate.
• Dead pills do not get angry when allied bases around them are attacked.
• Message scrolling speed increased.
• Fixed passing player names to brains.
• Reduced volume on sound effects.
• Fixed crash on computers that have no sound cards.
• Linux servers now unbind listening ports quicker.
• LinBolo now allows using the return key to set a key.
• Lots of internal changes.

Version 1.08a

• Released: 16/9/00
• Fixed crash in client with a large list of games.

Version 1.08

• Released: 16/9/00
• Adding Linux port. (LinBolo)
• Added -addr flag to dedicated servers so users can specify address to use if they have more then one domain name/IP.
• Linux server now listens to SIGINT for graceful shutdown, SIGUSR1 for lock game and SIGUSR2 for unlock game.
• Tanks no longer shudder when refuelling in network games.
• Fixed LGM repair trick.
• Tweaking pill aiming code.
• Fixed DC errors and crashes on NT.
• Network updates, more validity checking. First stage of the network code rewrite. This should eventually lead to floating servers and some other neat stuff
• Fixed long wait on joining with a taken player name taken.
• Manual updates.

Version 1.07

• Released: 31/7/00
• Game Play:
  • Improved aiming angles. Much closer to Bolo angles for pill takes etc.
  • Lgm now enters tank at its edge rather then centre.
  • Lgm kills checked based on range from explosion rather then map square.
  • Last pill in view set to first pill in view on next pill view.
  • Pills retain their angry mode when inside a tank (and cool down at the same rate as normal pills)
  • Mines that are underneath bases are removed on map load.
• Networking:
  • Easier to kill lgm in high lag.
  • Fixed killing lgm and dropping a pill desync problem.
• Interface:
  • Fixed File -> New for second network game.
  • Fixed starting server via client on Windows 2000.
  • Changed drawing main screen offsets.
  • Fixed Linux server crash.
  • Fixed a couple of graphics glitches.

Version 1.06

• Released: 14/7/00
• Added map preview to Open Map dialog window.
• New more sensible command line for dedicated servers. (See manual for more information)
• Fixed players leaving and pill carrying issues
• Fixed Alliancing issues.
• Fixed Internet -> New crashes.
• Window size check mark is stored correctly.
• Fixed crash when a server has no players for over an hour.
• Fixed DNS lookup failure on player join server crash.
• Fixed keyboard issues on certain international keyboards.
• Tracker lookup information carries through to join by address dialogs.
• Network changes.
• Closes child windows on new games.
• Brains sent middle of pillbox and base squares, not edges.
• Brains sent correct tank directions.

Version 1.05

• Released: 24/6/00
• Linux dedicated server port.
• Window NT4 (SP5+) support.
• Added WinBolo Manual. PDF Viewer required. The latest version (if changed) can be found online.
• Localisations support and translations. As part of one of my university subjects, Software Internationalisation we had to internationalise something. As such WinBolo is now localised for English, Swedish and Dutch. More languages to come. Thanks to David Tuffley for allowing me to use WinBolo as my project.
• WinBolo now uses proper ini files. All game keys, options and menu settings are saved. You may need to reset your keys after upgrading.
• Fixed Windows 2000 game serving issues.
• WinBolo now centres maps on loading.
• Improved gunsight range change responsiveness.
• Mouse building location selection now works like Bolo mouse. It changes only when you move the mouse, not when the screen moves.
• New threads/networking code. Stability of servers significantly improved.
• Pillboxes dropped by tanks will no longer be placed on the game edge mine field. Pillboxes will also not be placed on walls or bases.
• Fixed game synchronisation issues.
• Drawing speedup.
• Updated collection of maps included in the package.
• Fixed long standing occasional crash on client shutdown.
• Brains get past correct tankobstructed values.

Version 1.04

• Released: 12/3/00
• Game Play:
  • Pillboxes wait a short time before firing upon you when you enter range.
  • Bases wait a short time before beginning to refuel tank.
  • Added tutorial. Presently there is no provision for adding user built tutorials. This may change in future release. Contact me if interested. (I've never seen a user built Bolo tutorial)
• Networking:
  • Added LAN Game Finder. Works via broadcast packets.
  • Added "Rejoin" functionality. Players can select rejoin and it will attempt to rejoin a game they left. All pillboxes and bases that they owned and are still neutral will be reassigned to them. The rejoin window is 5 minutes. You must rejoin with the same player name.
• Interface:
  • File -> New now works.
  • Scroll view keys speed improved.
  • Aiming is now easier and smoother.
  • Always shows closest bases statistics on grouped bases.
  • Alliance Dialog always appears on top.
  • Fixed brain direction bug. Thanks to smithel for pointing it out to me
  • Huge speedup in double size and quad size views.

Version 1.03

• Released: 5/3/00
• Game Play:
  • You now get kills for shooting players on boats in deep sea.
  • Slowed tank acceleration rate.
  • Base refuel tank rate increased.
  • Slight increase in builder parachute speed.
• Network:
  • Clients can lock games from new players joining. If every player in the game unchecks the "allow new players" menu item then the game is locked. Note that the server lock game function overrides the client lock.
  • Added show network messages option. (On by default) It displays messages sent out to all clients from the server, such as the game being locked and unlocked. In future it could be used to set a welcome message upon players joining the game or for display a message when the server administrator removes players etc.
  • Server sends out a message to all players when it is told to exit.
  • Fixed long player names corruption. Thanks to DeathWalker for helping track this one down.
  • Increased tracker data timeout to 10 seconds.
  • Players who connect to the server via "127.0.0.1" have their addresses changed to that of the servers.
  • Slight packet optimisation.
• Interface:
  • Everard Island map is now inbuilt into server and client. You can set the server to use the inbuilt map rather then a map by setting its map parameter to "-inbuilt"
  • Fixed alliance messages turning up twice on your own screen.
  • Added "Change Player Name" button window to game finder window.
  • Game Finder prevents you from trying to join games running a different version of WinBolo then you are using.
  • Added message spam prevention. You can only send a message every second.
  • Pills carried by your allies now appear as filled in circles. Not hollow circles.
  • Fixed "Join By Address" dialog lockup.
  • Fixed crash on really long paths and file names for maps.
  • Fixed crash when you leave alliances request window open for a really long time.

Version 1.02

• Released: 27/2/00
• Game Play:
  • Tank makes noise when it lays a mine.
  • Fixed lockup on duplicate mine build.
  • Fixed pill takes from trees.
  • Fixed tank being drawn on top of parachutes.
  • Halved builder parachute speed rate.
  • Tweaked refuelling and base replenishment rates.
• Networking:
  • Added dedicated server "lock" and "unlock" commands which lock and unlock the server from accepting new players.
  • Fixed invisible tank bug caused by routers and proxies dynamically changing their clients ports.
  • Fixed alliancing problems.
  • Fixed duplicate name problems on simultaneous join requests.
  • Packet Optimisations.
• Interface:
  • Added Internet game tracker search option. Provides a graphical way to join Internet games.
  • Maps which have invalid ownership set on pills and bases are set to neutral rather then hostile (but not owned by a player)
  • Fixed brain receive message crash.

Version 1.01

• Released: 10/1/00
• Game Play:
  • Mines now give off damage to the surrounding squares like Bolo.
  • Damaged done to the tank by a mine has been lessened.
  • Tanks hide in trees that are 2x2 like Bolo. It was 3x3 before. Tanks are still visible to everything with in a 3 map square raduis of themselves
  • Amount of shells given to a new tank in a tournament game is now dependent on number of free bases in the game.
  • Bases not replenishing in single player mode.
  • Fixed enemy tanks being able to refuel on bases they don't own (by being pushed over them)
  • Slowed tree growing by a third.
• Networking:
  • Map downloads occur 6x faster then before
  • No longer reports negative ping times.
  • Reports corrupt packets.
  • Removed pill building sound echoes on laggy connections.
  • Servers now send out their addresses to the tracker. If the server address field of the info packet received is 0 (0.0.0.0) it is from the server, not a client so the IP that the packet arrived from can be used to contact determine the server address.
  • Reduced bandwidth by about 50-60%
  • Overall game syncing and networking significantly improved.
• Interface:
  • Changed graphics to appear more Bolo like. Thanks to Canuck for supplying and editing new tile graphics.
  • Brain menu now appears in the correct location. (No more submenus) Thanks to db48 for information on how to do this.
  • 'By popular request, there is now an "Auto Slowdown" option which makes the tank automatically decelerate as soon as you release the "Go" button. Before you use this though, let me warn you: The result is that you hold the "Go" button down to go full speed, and let go to stop, making it almost impossible to drive at any speed in between.' (From Bolo Version History 0.97) The auto show/hide gunsights also been added. This addition however causes your preferences file to be recreated so the first time you run WinBolo 1.01 you will be informed your preferences file is corrupt and the values will be reinitiated. Sorry.
  • Send Messages window now sets the focus to the text box so you can start typing straight away. It sets the focus back to the main window when closed.
  • If DirectSound start up fails then WinBolo will continue without sound. (Having no sound card causes it to fail)
  • Fixed crash caused by changing the window size while the map is still downloading.
  • Cursor no longer shows through window.
  • Fixed "DD GetDC Failed" bug.
  • Fixed &'s in displaying messages.

Version 1.00

• Released: 21/12/99
• Initial Release.