BZFlag

BZFlag (abbreviation of ''' B ''' attle ''' Z ''' one captures the Flag ) is a free video game Multijoueur and of tanks in 3D (OpenGL) of the kind FPS.

It is developed by an about sixty volunteers of which mainly Tim Riker. The project, the source codes as well as the follow-up of the bugs are lodged on SourceForge. He was written originally for Irix, but functions now under Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, Solaris and other platforms. He is distributed under the license LGPL, a license a little different from the LPG under which he was distributed a long time. It is thus a Free software.

BZFlag is increasingly popular. It is the third play on SourceForge to reach 1 million remote loadings (on December 11th, 2004). There is an average of 250 active waiters in any time (according to: ), like more than 4500 players recorded on the official forum. BZFlag was selected like project of the month for April 2004.

Overall picture

At the time of part of BZFlag, each player leads a Tank seen to the first anybody, in a world (called a “chart” or “English map”). The goal of the play is to destroy the unfavourable tanks. The tanks can jump, draw and move in all the directions. They can also collect flags (see low).

The player lays out of a sight with the first anybody (see in front of the tank), of a radar and a console allowing of chatter (to discuss) between players.

Each tank belongs to a team (“TEAM” in English), and each team is characterized by her color: red, green, blue, mauve and finally yellow for the tanks of the swindler team. Swindler is used for the engagements without team, i.e. they can commit suicide between-them. And to finish, a team of observers which remain with share (white color).

There are three different types of play. The types are specific to the charts.

the simplest type is called “match with died” (“free for all” or “English F”), the objective is then to kill all the enemy tanks.
a second type of well appreciated play is called “captures flag” (“capture-tea-flag” or “English CTF”), the objective is to capture the flag of the opposing team (or of one of the opposing teams), and to bring back it to its own base, while preventing the enemies from capturing the flag of its own team. The tanks of a team whose flag is carried out on a basis enemy are destroyed.
Enfin the last type (less played) is called “Hunting for rabbit” (“Rabbit drives out” in English). The objective for all the tanks (called hunters or “English hunters”) is to kill the indicated tank (obviously called the rabbit, “rabbit” in English) and which appears in white for the occasion. The tank which destroys the " lapin" becomes in its turn. Generally the goal is to remain " lapin" more possible for a long time.

History of the development

Initially, BZFlag was a project written in C by Chris Schoneman in 1992. It took again a play very popular and innovating: Battlezone. Its Christian name was “bz”, and in spite of the resemblances to the play of the same name of Chris Fouts, the two plays were completely independent one of the other.

At the beginning, BZFlag was simply a Shoot them up without another specificity. It is after Schoneman and its friends (who helped it to develop BZFlag since the beginning) do not start to be bored of this concept, which they invented the mode of capture of the flag. This one required more strategy and of skill and thus gave again interest with the play.

It is into 1993 that BZFlag was made public for the first time. That was revolving in the history of the play, because a cheater published the source code of his customer in order to give himself new capacities which the official version did not allow. That inspired Schoneman and its friends. They added supers flags which modified the performances of the tank. The first four flags were the Swiftness, fast Rotation, the accelerated Shooting and the Accelerator of oscillations which makes it possible the tanks to cross the objects. There was not whereas only one flag of each type on the chart, and all the flags carried a distinctive mark so that one can recognize them. The bad ones and other good flags were then added, and the distinctive marks were removed. This idea of the flags remains today a principal share of the play.

In 1997, the version 1.7d brought a new revolutionary functionality: a list of the waiters public integrated into the play. Because up to that point, the players were either to use their own waiters, or to know the address of other waiters, or to read a list published and maintained by thirds. But henceforth this new list (lodged on the official site of BZFlag) made it possible no matter whom to play on the waiters which decided to become public. Many says that without this BZFlag functionality would never have become as popular as today.

Finally Schoneman rewrote BZFlag in C++ for the third competition IndiZone of SGI, and gained in the category of the Moteur 3D. Then the project was given to Tim Riker which currently maintains it and the fact of evolving/moving since the version 1.7e.

Divisions

There exists much of divisions in BZFlag. Divisions are launched and managed by one or more administrator S which is themselves of the players. The matches of division last 30 minutes and are only of one type of part - with an exception. For example, the first division was Ducati division. In this division, the players clashed on charts generated by chance, reds against greens, with two ammunition, of the rebounds but not of jump. The purpose of this was to test true competences of the players. Here another division of the same kind: Pillbox division. This division differs from Ducati in some rules: no the rebound and three ammunition instead of two, moreover the chart are fixed. The exception is recent Open division where the teams choose a chart for each match and the duration of the part.

Charts

A BZFlag waiter can use a chart created randomly by the system, or a personalized chart created by the user by using a language close to the Langage of script. Although the writing of the charts is rather simple in this language, the majority of the users make use of the official editor, BZEdit, which makes it possible to automate the process. BZEdit is distributed with the play and is available on the BZFlag site of Sourceforge.

To simplify, there exist three basics objects:

Paved
Pyramid
Téléporteur

The two first are configurable. The téléporteurs are rectangular and bordered of Jaune. All the téléporteurs do not téléportent: according to goodwill Cartographer.

Before versions 2.0, the charts were basic and included only these three objects. Version 2.0 introduced good number of new complex elements such as for example water. Small a program was created for BZFlag in order to convert the files 3D Studio max into BZFlag charts.

The Syntaxe for the description of each element starts with the name of the element, then follow its specifications, and it finishes by the word " end". The following example places a Cube of dimension 1.000 units (a tank measures approximately a unit) at the coordinates 50x 50y, it is not turned towards the Northern :

box #start (name the element) position -50.-50 0 #the position size 10 10 10 #the size off it, in units (X, there, Z) rotation 0 #degrees off rotation end #all elements end with this keyword

Here the list of the objects:

The comments start with " # ". The multiples spaces are ignored.

Flags

BZFlag has two types of Drapeau: flags of team and the supers flags. A flag of team is placed in a world only for the " parts; capture drapeau" ; it represents the team of which it with the color. The supers flags can be placed in a world for the " parts; match with mort" , " capture drapeau" , or " drive out with the lapin" ; but they are controls by the administrator of the waiter. The quantity, the standard, and the position of supers flags can be controls by the administrator. The supers flags are declined in two categories: the goods and the bad ones, they affect the tanks positively or negatively according to this category. A bad flag can lower an attribute of the tank: its sight, its speed; while a good flag carries out the opposite and helps the tank. A good super flag is generally carried until the explosion of the tank, or the player chooses to separate. A bad super flag is generally automatically thrown after a certain time (often a few seconds), or thanks to the use of a flag " remède" , or after a certain number of " victoires" (explosion of unfavourable tanks), or until the tank explodes itself. These rules are managed by the administrator. All the supers flags have a code of one or two letters which is posted beside the name of the player on the table of the scores. Below the list of the supers flags with their code and description.

Good flags

Agility (A) - Agility : fast Acceleration, and faster rotation, But not as much as with the specific flags has these two effects.
Burrow (BU) - Buried : the tank with half is buried, it moves slowly, it can draw and cannot be touched by attques normals, but it can be crushed. It is an easy target for the players having SW or GM
Cloaking (CL) - Invisibilité : makes the tank invisible for the other players and invincible vis-a-vis the laser
Genocide (G) - Génocide : the explosion of a tank destroys all its team
Guided Missile (GM) - Missile guided : the drawn ammunition are guided missiles which continue the adversary on which they are locked; a guided missile cannot be locked on a tank carrying a Furtif flag. It is possible to lock/change target after having drawn.
Identify (ID) - Identification : identify what
Invisible Bullet - invisible Boulet (IB) is the closest flag : the drawn balls are invisible on the radars of the other tanks
Jumping (J) - Jump : the tank can jump (if the waiter does not prohibit it explicitly)
Laser (L) - Laser : draw a laser beam (the laser cannot kill a tank carrying the Invisibilité flag). The time of recharging is long, the range and infinite speed.
Gun Machine (MG) - Machine-gun : fire the ammunition with a short time from refill, but the range is reduced
Masquerade (MQ) - Imposture : the tank is disguised out of tank of the same team, but its shootings are seen normalements by the other team.
Narrow (NR) - Flat : The tank is flat, and thus very hard has to touch of face, but of a normal size in the other direction.
Overthruster Oscillation (OO) - Accelerator of oscillations : the tank can cross constructions (the name of this flag is a reference to the film The Adventures off Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension)
Phantom Zone (PZ) - Zone phantom : the tank can " zoné" and " dézoné" while crossing a teleportor; when a tank is " zoné" , the grass becomes violet, it can cross constructions, it not to more draw nor to be touched (separate vis-a-vis another tank " zoné"), it can nevertheless be destroyed by a Super ball and a Shock wave; the flag cannot be thrown as long as the tank is " zoné"
Quick Turn (QT) - Rotation fast : turn more quickly
Rapid Fire (RF) - Shooting accelerated : the balls are fast but have a reduced range
Ricochet (R) - Ricochet : authorize the shootings to be rebounded on the constructions and the walls so not permitted by the adjustments waiters
SEER (SE) - Prophète : the tank can see the tanks normally carrying a Furtive Invisibilité flag or or Imposture as well as the invisible Balls
Shield (SH) - Bouclier : the tank can be touched once without exploding
Shockwave (SW) - Shock wave : the balls are replaced by a shock wave of form spherical.
Super Bullet (SB) - Super ball : Supers balls cross constructions
Stealth (ST) - Furtif : the tank is not visible any more on the radars of the other tanks
Steamroller (SR) - Road roller : the tank can explode of other tanks in concerning
Thief (TH) - Robber : the tank is small and fast, it can steal the flags of the others in their tie above with a ray (this flag is thrown as soon as another is stolen)
Tiny (T) - Thin : the tank is smaller in length and width
Useless (US) - Useless : without effect
High Speed (HS) - high Speed : the speed of the tank is higher
Wings (WG) - Wings : the tank can fly, while projection when it is in the air (the number of jumps depend on the waiter). Moreover, it can change direction and move when it is in the air.

Bad flags

Blindness (B) - Blindness : impossible to see the outside world, but the radar still functions
Bouncy (BY) - Rebounding : the tank jumps in an unverifiable way
Colorblindness (CB) - Daltonisme : the tank does not differentiate the colors from the others (all are swindlers)
Forward Only (FO) - Ahead : the tank can only advance
Jamming (JM) - Jamming : the Radar is blocked
Left Turn Only (LT) - On the left : the tank can turn only on the left
Momentum (M) - Inertia : the tank preserves its dash a long time, and accelerates slowly
No Jumping (NJ) - has ground : the tank cannot jump
Obesity (O) - Obésité : the tank is large and easy to touch
Right Turn Only (RT) - On the right : the tank can turn only on the right
Reverse Only (RO) - Behind : the tank can only move back
Reverse Controls (RC) - reversed Controls : the tank has the controls reversed compared to usually (before for back,…)
Trigger-Happy (TR) - insane Shooting : the tank draws any time
Wide-Angle View (WA) - Great angle : the tank with a vision with great angle

Flags of team

Red Team
Green Team
Blue Team
Team Yellow violet
Team - the swindlers (yellow team) have neither bases, nor flag of team. They cannot thus realize of capture. Nevertheless, they can collect a flag of team and move it, which is made most of the time to help another team. When a waiter accepts the flags antidotes, making it possible to remove the bad flags of your tank, these flags are seen like flags of yellow team.

Orders of play

The waiters accept many orders in BZFlag. According to the waiters, the players can use some of them or not. The orders below are general orders, and certain waiters propose others of them.

register - the /register order is obsolete, it made it possible to be recorded on a waiter to profit from the attribute recorded (+) on the waiter. From now on, the waiters all prohibit it, and prefer to use Total Login.
msg - Arguments: /msg . Send a private message has a player.
vote - Arguments: /vote . Vote for a Poll (vote). The arguments are: In the event of agreement, yes yes 1, in the event of refusal, not No 0. Note that there are other possibilities, because it is possible to use yes/not much of languages.
round of applause - Order reserved for the admins to banish a player without resorting to a vote.
kick - Order reserved for the admins to eject a player without resorting to a vote.
kill - Order reserved for the admins to kill a player without resorting to a vote.
say - Arguments: /say . The posting of a message by " allows; SERVER". Generally reserved with the players recorded (+) on unquestionable waiter, and if not with the admins.

The administrators also generally have orders to modify the variables of environment, i.e., of the parameters like the range, speed, the number, of shootings. The administrators can also give a specific flag has a person.

Poll, votes

The /poll order makes it possible to submit a vote to all the players of the waiter for various reasons. One answers it by utilsant the /vote order The parameters are stated in this order: /poll

The types can be:

flagreset - Request with the players if they want to carry out a " flagreset" , i.e. a restoring of the flags (initial réinitialiser with the adjustments of the waiter)
round of applause - Lance a vote to banish a player for one duration depending on the waiter
kick - Lance a vote to eject a player of the waiter
kill - Lance a vote to kill a player

It should be noted that the administrators can Annuler the votes.

External bonds

Official site
official Wiki
official Forum

Random links:

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