The Universal World Owner's Manual

The game was originally started sometime 2000ish. It was a very cloudy period.
I'd been making lil games for many years, starting on the Commodore Vic20 with an elaborate masterpiece that put a letter A in the corner of the screen if you pressed space. It stretched the boundaries of the definition of 'game'.

'A tractor' (as it was named initially) set out with the goal of allowing Fooli and I to sit on a hill in tractors having a smoke. (Dunno why exactly we wanted to do that, but this remains the official 'Design Document'). Everything else after that bit was made up as we went along.

Fooli recently dug out the first set of release notes from an old harddrive:

(Sometime late 2000)

A landscape, a mapping and object system demonstrated by trees and fireworks, a tractor, a reasonably reliable (but unbelievably unoptimised) collision detection system & very cheap collision result calculations ( fWorldSpeed *= -0.8f :] ), very wonky things goin on with the height and angle of the tractor, (hopefully) a working multiplayer server & billing system, a chat and console command system, and um, errr, the day-cycle stuff from ages ago. So, what Tractor be, is a small DirectX 8 prog allowing a few ppl to dodigly drive tractors about online. Maybe.

Fixed the warning message thing that crashed it when comm errors came up. Thats all.

28 Dec 2000

Added multiple player textures and the comms to tell others online when u've changed. Optimised the static object collision detection so it only checks nearby objects. Added the kudos scoring system and upgraded the billing server to start storing scores. Nametags. Interpreting player positions using their previous speed included. Server made persistent, player locations stored. Server commands added. Smokin tractors.

Fixed the height problems so the tractor nows sits on the land properly, which also allows the slope to affect top speed and acceleration. (i.e u go slower uphill) Changed (and partly messed up) the landscape lighting.(Normals aint right) Added headlights (F2 to switch on n off) Added status change messaging to the client and server. Obelisks.

Cheap sound routines added (Horns). Stopped the edges of the landscape going freaky and added a wall all the way around the outside. Rain. Fixed the thing that stopped it working on the non-SDK DX8 runtime. (Whatever it was). Noticed that the control didnt work right at different frame rates, so fixed that. And theres a player list. And an FPS counter (on the F1 debug screen).

Crows & crickets and command to enable/disable sound (.sound 0 or .sound 1). Billing IDs added to messaging. Fixed memory leak on fonts. Server - Updated billing records (removed BillingID collection), added support for .resetdate.

Effects processing and generation added to server. 3d sound added to client. Thassit Multiple sound buffers & 2d sounds added. Rain, fireworks, mornin, obelisk and fourth horn sounds added. Server generates mornin sound effect. Made excellent hot n sour soup.

18 Jan 2001

Added the first stages of the map downloading process to client & server. (Has no ploss checking yet so im expecting a 0.007a once we've tried it over the internet). Added the generation, loading, saving & transfer of map files to server. Double buffered the landscape renderer and increased my avg FPS from 10/11 to 13/14. (Which means itll probably be slower on everyone else's machines) Added building renderer and Dan's lovely petrol station. Lowered my FPS from 13/14 to 10/11 by expanding the viewport. Added the building records file generation, loading, saving & transfer to server, and the building access screen and functions to the client. Should have made all multiplayer tractors sit on the land at the right angles (not at right angles), but took out the angle smoothing to allow it to happen. Added the action, purchase and transaction windows, and the list & value controls to allow them to work. Added volume control to all sound buffers. Tidied the key repeats on the horns and headlights. Did loads of screen stuff, interfaces for setting focus windows & suchlike. New trees. (umm..not sure about em) New (most pleasing) anti-aliased font added. (Some character positioning needs tweaking). Front End added.(noice) Rewrote some of the overlay stuff that was obviously not written in a wrecked enuf state. Implemented private messaging (As per subspace standard) and server strings.

30 Jan 2001
(I rearranged version numbers at this point so that client and server versions are consistent)

Map editing comms added, allowing terrain and static object modifications. Lens flares on headlights. (Without detection to determine whether they're hidden behind somethin yet, which looks a bit shitty..) Made sent private messages display on your own screen. Prettyfied the fireworks a bit (but not properly). Changed around and added some new stuff to the way building and billing records are transmitted and stored, including adding the client's copy of the billing records. Dan's lovely houses and school added. Building modification and update added. Added *savemap, *loadmap and various other console functions. Added the ServerConfig.txt that allows you to change the name of the server,its welcoming message and the name of the Owner. Added God & Owner authorisation levels. Encrypted passwords on server. The last accessed IP, horn and drawdistance are now stored in the client config file. Added a temporary initialisation screen, and reordered the initialisation so the window appears early. Added the line renderer and the construction screen that uses it. Fuel counting activated. The terrain you're driving over now affects the tractor's speed. Lots of ppl will be glad to hear that the numpad works now. Added a ooh-pweetty-code-did-i-write-that-sliding-packetloss-handling-map-download-system-thing.

Finally found the bit of code that thought 90 degrees was PI/4 which stops stuff lookin twisted (boo hiss, trees look worse now) Added a sun, which only rises, never sets :), and has some real major defects at the mo, hence you might wanna turn it off with .nosun Wrote the string control which allows the inclusion of the “Rename Your Building” feature amongst others.. Wrote the messaging stuff and serverside filing for handling transactions, allowing the buying and selling of products, (but only fuel at the mo) and the sale & purchase of buildings thru the building access menu. Also setup the stock screens to let you modify the price of your products for sale. Added god function *grantcash. Fixed some (but not all) problems with the camera. Added building construction to the construction screen menu, and the give fuel & cash functions to the player info screen menu. Added the bar chat screen, and the v0.001 quiz machine. (Yes, i know its silly, but it only took a day..) Buffered the dynamic renderer, theoretically faster (but it makes little difference), and it also fixes a major crash bug often seen at the same time as fireworks. Fixed a nicely hidden little bug that explains why lots of features such as deify didnt always work right online. (tho i couldnt tell coz it only didnt work when you weren't me.. sweet). Fixed the rain (in various ways but not every way). Daily production of goods & various underlying bits of the economy are now active. Jehovah's is no longer free. Added the “Top Ten Wealthiest Players on This Server” list to the finances screen. Made a pretty good Malaysian prawn curry and watched a crap episode of star trek. Oh n i bounced page up/dn :]

Lowered the default position update rate by 25%, added some better position interpretation, and stopped the client sending position information when stationary. (Which was a pointless thing to do anyway). Added full comm buffer reading to the server which fixes a load of packetloss problems.

Point 1 - Failed to keep track of things done since the last update. Added the guaranteed messaging system. (Needs refining to make it optimised, but it copes well enough with lag and packetloss for the moment..) Added textured overlays, enabling the constuction screen lay tile icon, and the chess client to the bar. Enabled thirst, hunger and health monitoring. Enabled the buy beer function in the bar. Added the player inventory system, which is about 50% working. Fixed the key repeat on the frontend. Added various owner & god functions such as *resetrec, *attach, *undeifyall. Changed some of the dynamic object functions so FPS doesnt affect things. (still does tho..) Implemented the ogg decoder, track listing, play functions etc. Made the horn sound play when the window doesnt have focus. Added fullscreen switching and proper resizing on the window, defaults to fullscreen now. Fixed the quiz machine a bit. Went around and tidied a lot of loose ends, couple of memory leaks fixed. Wrote Tractor Central, modified the server to register itself with TC, and completely redid the client frontend for the world server list. Added the jpeg library, and wrote code to display it using software alphablending.(DirectX won't let me do it it seems..) Shifted the building data into a downloadable file, so that different buildings can be built in different worlds. Grenades and explosions. Redid the dynamic object system, not as efficient now, but fixes the sun and a couple of crash bugs. Redid the webbie. Moved house.

Yup another version number system change… Partly so there can be an identifier for a common server but separate clients, partly for making automatic client updates possible, but mainly to further delay 0.01 :) Again, didnt keep a proper track of changes. But there was certainly, CrowCam and a load of work on the jukebox in the bar. Potentially theres a sortof streaming audio, tho i've yet to test it on anything but a loopback server (it works), and a dialup connection (it doesnt)(tho i did once manage to download 2 minutes of Beatles in about 10 minutes..). I added the sea too. Oh and there was also the addition of a pleasant few bugs that fecked the worlds for a while, and I spent a fair bit of time doing other stuff to try and avoid having no money very shortly.

Tweaked control on CrowCam. Added town limits stuff. Hopefully fixed some of those bugs i put in 0.009.3. Fixed then broke the sound positioning. Changed the way the client keeps track of building information. Tidied the sun some more. Finished off the player inventory, which allows you to eat & drink things you've bought from stores. Rearranged the map downloading process. Added streetlights.

Auto-eating from homes added, so you can actually keep you character alive for a while. Stock up home feature implemented. Robocrowcam ; topdown-shooter mode added, with subspace controls of course.. Rearranged initialisation downloads and fixed some problems with the file transfer. Added comms so other ppl can see your crow flying about. Tractor-to-tractor collisions added. Jukebox near enuf finished ; others in the bar will hear your selections now. Fixed a very silly bug that should help lessen the amount of position messages being sent. Redid a major part of the file transfer system that should make downloads more reliable. First stage of the “While You Were Gone” message system added. Added energy bar for robocrow, and the air-to-air guns. Fixed bug that allowed towns to be built near others. Added the respawn screen for dead people, and the for sale building tags.

Skills & learning system. Building rental (almost working). Farms Destroy building and remove walls commands for Gods. Various minor serverside bug fixes. Wealth list only displays living characters. Spectator mode fixed, (F9), WhileYouWereGone messages system improved, and added message for learning a new skill. Some new sounds added. More recovery from file transfer errors.

The next earliest reference to any kind of dated version of the game i've found so far is through the waybackmachine site for a-tractor.com, which indicates:

Latest update : 30th Nov 2001 - 0.01a

.. and according to the associated docs & forum snapshots this had a couple of hosted worlds, various building types (including petrol stations), families of some sort and lots of trading goin on. I have no memory of any of this :]

Then a bit of a gap in the records until..

0.03.99.3 Update
[ Posted by: Mit | Time: 05:50:44 PM
Lil patch on the main page - jus a couple of fixes, tidyups and extras. Still a bit wonky it seems.. ah well. :] (anyone got a spare copy of boundschecker? :]). Anyway, much more importantly, theres new Spiritualized stuff out, so we should all be happy :) :).

Development Update
[ Posted by: Mit | Time: 06:48:57 PM
“Figured i better post a small news update as its been so long since i been outside the dev universe.. Im still here! *waves*! :)
I'm currently working on and finishing up some pretty major additions to the game - almost certainly the most significant overall structural changes since houses were added back in 0.01 (or whatever it was). Fingers crossed i'll be able to get this ready enough for some sort of closed-beta testing before christmas. Im not gonna reveal much more about it yet (it'll be a nice surprise..) but suffice to say the few ppl who've seen it so far have kinda liked it, i think. Oh and its kinda trippy. :)“

I'm not sure what that was about.. stardrive, most likely. I guess it was after this (in 2004) when space was added and the game changed to being 'The Universal' for a long while, and the next v0.01 got done..

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