At 4/9/17 11:00 AM, egg82 wrote: So how would that work from a business perspective?

Let's say you have a game that you just released and HB wants to include it. Would it be better to say no for now and hope they come around again later? Will they?
Or how about a game that's older but is still selling a lot of copies? Same thing as above? How many times will they ask?
Or is it just best to hope they come around when it's starting to lose sales or you've all-but-forgotten about it?

Sounds like more users will get the game but at a lower cost than the normal retail. So you would hold off bundling a new game to sell it at full price, but once sales decline then you're better off bundling it.

At 4/9/17 11:00 AM, egg82 wrote: So how would that work from a business perspective?

you establish a business relationship with them and talk to them about it, and follow up every couple months or so. Ask them questions about whatever new types of bundles they have and how well they're doing etc.

Does HB renew sales from Steam directly and "refresh" the game, or is it only what HB gets?

being in a humble bundle makes you get less sales on steam afterwards cause everyone who wanted it got it in the bundle instead (and steam is reluctant to feature games in major sales that have been in a humble bundle already)

At 4/5/17 12:18 AM, egg82 wrote: Hopefully the tags worked, I haven't seen them in a minute.

I'm still alive. I could have sworn I made a post here a few days ago. I think come in every once in a while, think about a reply, and then never post it. I meant to ask @MSGhero what he's up to in grad school. And I wanted to say @PrettyMuchBryce that multiplayer game looks really interesting! I've been really into multiplayer game design stuff lately. (I'd be up for helping test that!)

I just pitched a session on A Beginner's Guide to Multiplayer for this local conference with only a vague idea of how it should work so I've got put that together.

At 4/10/17 01:12 AM, OmarShehata wrote: I'm still alive. I could have sworn I made a post here a few days ago. I think come in every once in a while, think about a reply, and then never post it. I meant to ask @MSGhero what he's up to in grad school.

I had my massive presentation last week, so I'm just chilling now. Graduate in a month.

At 4/10/17 01:12 AM, OmarShehata wrote: I'm still alive.

Well, I'm glad you're not dead. Or worse, left the forums.

I just pitched a session on A Beginner's Guide to Multiplayer for this local conference with only a vague idea of how it should work so I've got put that together.

Ooh, can I help? :D

Honestly, I was curious about how you handled multiplayer anyway

At 4/10/17 09:44 AM, MSGhero wrote: I had my massive presentation last week, so I'm just chilling now. Graduate in a month.

Congrats! I need to go back and get my cert. Still afraid of failure, though :(

Also, @Diki I simultaneously feel very bad for you and want to laugh very hard. That Construct thread, doe.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/air/build/WS901d38e593cd1bac1e63e3d128cdca935b-8000.html

I can't be the only programmer who's brain just turns off whenever I look at anything involving the command line. I've been trying for almost a week to figure out how to convert a swf into an exe, but that page may as well be in Russian.

At 4/12/17 08:58 PM, egg82 wrote: Also, @Diki I simultaneously feel very bad for you and want to laugh very hard. That Construct thread, doe.

Dude is whacked. I tried letting him have the thread, but he couldn't even come close to having a rational discussion. And like 5 minutes after I locked the thread and told him to not repost it, he reposted it—so he got a three day timeout in the dunce chair.

At 4/13/17 01:28 AM, GeoKureli wrote: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/air/build/WS901d38e593cd1bac1e63e3d128cdca935b-8000.html

I can't be the only programmer who's brain just turns off whenever I look at anything involving the command line. I've been trying for almost a week to figure out how to convert a swf into an exe, but that page may as well be in Russian.

For what it's worth, you can't convert a swf to exe using AIR IIRC. You can only embed the AIR player and run THAT as an exe loader which loads the swf file. (The end effect is almost as if it were an exe, but the SWF is still there, and there's bloat from embedding AIR...40 MB + last I checked)

Also, doesn't FlashDevelop automatically do this? Build the project under captive runtime option and it compiles the application (package.bat) ?

At 4/13/17 11:48 AM, Diki wrote: so he got a three day timeout in the dunce chair.

So he's had three days to stew in his own thoughts? uh oh...

At 4/13/17 01:29 PM, Gimmick wrote:

For what it's worth, you can't convert a swf to exe using AIR IIRC. You can only embed the AIR player and run THAT as an exe loader which loads the swf file. (The end effect is almost as if it were an exe, but the SWF is still there, and there's bloat from embedding AIR...40 MB + last I checked)

Flash Pro has a native exe export that doesn't need an external swf, Flash player used to be able to do the conversion, why is this not as simple as it obviously could be?

At 4/13/17 01:29 PM, Gimmick wrote: For what it's worth, you can't convert a swf to exe using AIR IIRC. You can only embed the AIR player and run THAT as an exe loader which loads the swf file. (The end effect is almost as if it were an exe, but the SWF is still there, and there's bloat from embedding AIR...40 MB + last I checked)

This is correct. AIR is the only way to "package" a SWF into an EXE, and it will include (and run) the AIR runtime with it. You can actually open the EXE file with a program like 7-zip to look at, extract, and remove various contents. Removing contents can reduce some of the bloated file size, as long as the components are still available on the target system.

I had a hulluva lotta fun with this with the CJ launcher, before @OmarShehata took it over in Lua. Glad he was able to!

Also, doesn't FlashDevelop automatically do this? Build the project under captive runtime option and it compiles the application (package.bat) ?

Only with mobile, last time I checked.

At 4/13/17 07:48 PM, egg82 wrote:

At 4/13/17 01:29 PM, Gimmick wrote: For what it's worth, you can't convert a swf to exe using AIR IIRC. You can only embed the AIR player and run THAT as an exe loader which loads the swf file. (The end effect is almost as if it were an exe, but the SWF is still there, and there's bloat from embedding AIR...40 MB + last I checked)

I've successfully created an exe that runs an external swf with -target bundle, but there's also -target native which appears to be what I want, but it doesn't like my application.xml. Any who. Animate CC definitely has the ability to create a single .exe file rather than a swf, this is what I'm after. If needed I can just generate an as3 project from my haxe project and build it this way with Animate CC, but I'd bet money that Animate is using the adt packager.

This is correct. AIR is the only way to "package" a SWF into an EXE, and it will include (and run) the AIR runtime with it. You can actually open the EXE file with a program like 7-zip to look at, extract, and remove various contents. Removing contents can reduce some of the bloated file size, as long as the components are still available on the target system.

Neat, I went an tried it, it works with an air created bundle .exe, but not Animate CC lone .exe. which makes me think they are made differently... I hope not.

Hold onto your hats, guys, it's gonna be another bumpy ride with the new NSA tools leaked.

At 4/14/17 08:58 PM, egg82 wrote: Hold onto your hats, guys, it's gonna be another bumpy ride with the new NSA tools leaked.

Would you mind TLDRing us about these leaks that have been happening over the past couple of months? This is third leak of these tools if I am correct? What is in them, and why is this important?

EDIT: Also – always great to see some old regulars pop back in every now and then [: and thanks to Omar and George for offering to help give feedback and test my new game.

At 4/15/17 01:10 AM, PrettyMuchBryce wrote: Would you mind TLDRing us about these leaks that have been happening over the past couple of months? This is third leak of these tools if I am correct? What is in them, and why is this important?

Sure! There should only be two dumps currently, unless I somehow missed one(?) (unless you're talking about the CIA leak and not the NSA leak, in which case by far the most interesting thing is the absolute genius of their phishing campaign)
Either way, my Feedly notifs have been exploding because I follow the CVE database. Between those, the files I now have, and speculation across the internet, I can safely say that these are quite serious..

.. If you run Windows versions 8 or lower. Seriously. Literally none of this current batch can run on 8.1 or 10, and all exploits are aimed at Windows systems.

The last dump was full of C and CPP code you built yourself in Linux and then ran against whoever you wanted. The exploits themselves targeted mostly business-class firewalls and routers, but there's some smaller home-level stuff. An interesting note is that the targeted systems run in the U.S., China, and Russia in respective order to the number of exploits given. Everything there was some pretty serious shit, with codename EGREGIOUSBLUNDER topping everything else. EPICBANANA is a close second in level of threat, but takes the cake on the naming front.

Been having fun with the latest dump; most of it is GUI and can easily be run in Windows. Also interesting to note that everything can easily be decompiled or viewed simply with notepad. They comment well and make things very easy to find and change.

There's three top-level folders:
OddJob, Swift, and a folder called simply "windows"

ODDJOB is an interesting fellow. It offers a payload and a GUI builder (.hta extension) and looks like this. and this. From the user manual (yeah, they have one. And it's actually fucking hilarious to read.) it looks like a C&C server with payload and exploit building that runs on IIS7. ie. this is how they set up their blackhole boxes that they stage their ops from.

Speaking of IIS, one of the fun exploits targets IIS6 and simply creates a backdoor on the system. Fun! Locked to Windows server 2003, sadly :(

The "windows" folder is a bit odd as well. It looks like it's basically one giant framework called FUZZBUNCH. Think NSA's version of Metasploit, specifically built for 0-days. And guess what? It uses a .jar file to run and Python as its backing. I shit ye not. So, this shit's scary and I haven't been able to get it to run in the 10 minutes I've been playing with it (I'm missing a required D: drive for logs, but I'll fix that and have a play around tomorrow) - Looks like this when you get it working, though. Yeah, alright, that's some scary shit.

Finally, the one everybody's been freaking out about. "Swift" is an odd folder in the sense that there's no nice GUI or even a file to run at all, really. There's a ton of documents on some pretty weird stuff which other people are picking apart and I didn't care a whole lot about. The interesting bit (for me, at least) is the .sql files in it which are apparently scripts for scraping known fields of interest in the databases. Honestly it's not much to look at from a hacking perspective, but it's great news fodder.

Edit: In short, this dump looks like it targets specifically Windows server infrastructure, but some of the tools inside can definitely be used against normal machines.

The scary part, for me, isn't that the exploits exist; it's that they exist and now literally everyone in the world has free access to them- and they haven't been patched or even looked at closely enough to tell what they are yet. THAT is scary.

Quick update: NSA privately tipped off Microsoft with a gag order a while ago about these exploits and they were quietly patched. None of them work with any machine that's current on security patches.

My biggest thing is the NSA seems to have only told them about the ones released publicly. Can't win them all, I guess.

At 4/15/17 03:20 PM, egg82 wrote: Quick update: NSA privately tipped off Microsoft with a gag order a while ago about these exploits and they were quietly patched. None of them work with any machine that's current on security patches.

My biggest thing is the NSA seems to have only told them about the ones released publicly. Can't win them all, I guess.

Good thing a windows update to windows update broke my windows update. I haven't been able to install a cumulative update since like September or October. I've tried everything but resetting my computer completely.

At 4/15/17 05:50 PM, MSGhero wrote: Good thing a windows update to windows update broke my windows update.

Yo, dawg, I heard you like updates.

I haven't been able to install a cumulative update since like September or October. I've tried everything but resetting my computer completely.

Windows 10? Have you tried installing the new Creator's update?

I think I may have inadvertently killed MSGHero's PC :(

I'm always somewhat-reluctant to just say "yeah, go ahead, install this massive component that takes an hour or more and re-writes most of how your computer functions." - but in the end it's necessary.

@Diki, why not just have old ass threads autolock after enough time.

And while I'm making unwarranted suggestions, can someone add a "respond to this topic" button at the bottom of the page of thread

At 4/15/17 10:32 PM, egg82 wrote: I think I may have inadvertently killed MSGHero's PC :(

If that was released recently, then my computer did try to install it. It takes 54 minutes to get to 99 percent, I get an error, then it takes 54 minutes to roll back the changes. With automatic updates, I can't avoid this the first time, but I have a tool to hide updates that I rush to use when I get my computer back.

my poor SSD

At 4/16/17 01:13 AM, GeoKureli wrote: @Diki, why not just have old ass threads autolock after enough time.

Might work, but I've no control over that; I don't do any development for NG.

At 4/16/17 08:57 AM, MSGhero wrote: If that was released recently, then my computer did try to install it. It takes 54 minutes to get to 99 percent, I get an error, then it takes 54 minutes to roll back the changes. With automatic updates, I can't avoid this the first time, but I have a tool to hide updates that I rush to use when I get my computer back.

Jesus. What in the hell did you do to that poor OS?
What's the error, anyway? I assume you checked the logs after and did some Googling.

At 4/16/17 10:25 AM, Diki wrote:

At 4/16/17 01:13 AM, GeoKureli wrote: @Diki, why not just have old ass threads autolock after enough time.

Might work, but I've no control over that; I don't do any development for NG.

I also don't know who is in charge of that, figured moderators would have a better idea

At 4/16/17 01:21 PM, GeoKureli wrote:

At 4/16/17 10:25 AM, Diki wrote:

At 4/16/17 01:13 AM, GeoKureli wrote: @Diki, why not just have old ass threads autolock after enough time.

Might work, but I've no control over that; I don't do any development for NG.

I also don't know who is in charge of that, figured moderators would have a better idea

@liljim does a lot of development for the site, and I think @BrentHeMan does as well. But I could see an auto-locker causing issues, as some old threads are still active—such as this one—and sometimes it's acceptable to bump old threads.

At 4/16/17 11:11 AM, egg82 wrote: Jesus. What in the hell did you do to that poor OS?
What's the error, anyway? I assume you checked the logs after and did some Googling.

A bad windows update was forced on me, and I installed it before the fixed version came out. There were a bunch of fixes that people did, but none worked for me. One issue was an Xbox store event or something stupid. The update in question cannot be uninstalled like the other ones.

My issue is a random one where the fix is "idk." I'm just waiting until I don't need all the huge ass programs on my computer before I just factory reset. Hopefully that works...

At 4/16/17 08:40 PM, MSGhero wrote: A bad windows update was forced on me, and I installed it before the fixed version came out. There were a bunch of fixes that people did, but none worked for me. One issue was an Xbox store event or something stupid. The update in question cannot be uninstalled like the other ones.

Fuuuuuuuuuu..

My issue is a random one where the fix is "idk." I'm just waiting until I don't need all the huge ass programs on my computer before I just factory reset. Hopefully that works...

Just make sure you grab that licence key. Also doesn't hurt to have your Win10 attached to your MS account and the key backed up there.

Side-note: this update took me about a week of straight 10-14-hour days (spread out in about a month) to complete. And it's free. Unlike some OTHER plugins that do the exact same thing (but not quite as well, except they have a fancy GUI) and cost money >.>

At 4/17/17 12:55 AM, egg82 wrote: Just make sure you grab that licence key. Also doesn't hurt to have your Win10 attached to your MS account and the key backed up there.

Yeah I'm good there, just need time to actually do it. But my situation is the primary example of how forced updates are stupid. I know for a fact that any cumulative update will brick my comp for 2 hours. They pushed an update that the fast and slow track dev testers had issues with, and they pushed another that only affects users who used to be in dev. Cumulative updates haven't been coming out on second Tuesdays recently, so I can't anticipate them and use the update hider utility. My only choice is to disable windows update or deal with it, and I feel like general security updates are necessary.

My laptop used to be bad, but Windows was fine. Now it's flipped.

I made a thing.
Decided to mirror (not host) my GitHub repos on there so it's easier for me to go through everything; add tasks, wikis, etc etc.

Might even be a decent place to point people for issues as well.

an actual function I put into the codebase at work about 3 years ago

Whenever some crazy issue pops up, we just wave a dead chicken over the source code and add a Utils.magic() call, and the problem goes away, at the expense of a unicorn.

At 4/19/17 06:22 PM, GeoKureli wrote: Whenever some crazy issue pops up, we just wave a dead chicken over the source code and add a Utils.magic() call, and the problem goes away, at the expense of a unicorn.

Needs more magic.