1. Aminiel,
Hello everybody,
AFter long months of preparations and testing, we are proud to present the new version of the playroom client for windows today.
Here's the greatly awaited playroom 3.0 ! Let's make the point on the many improvements made in this major upgrade.
Arcade games
After an aborted attempt during the fifth anniversary event, the arcade mode is this time coming for good.
Audiogames, very different from the games you have known up to now and as their name says, which we will be able to host from now on inside the arcade mode, will immerse you inside accessible sound universes. That's an entirely new dimension that open today on the playroom, a dimension we are of course going to enrich as the time pass.
Our first title, Magic blocks, will let you dive into action with blocks, which you will have to make skillfully explode faster and faster in order to avoid being flooded of.
Magic Blocks, this name maybe reminds you something. That's indeed a game that has originally been created in 2008 by your Aminiel, at a time when multiplayer audiogames could still be counted with the hands.
A first attempt to reintroduce it on the playroom in 2013 quickly failed due to a too big demand in server resources for the architecture present at that time.
This time, it is back for good. Multiplayer mode isn't yet available though, but it will be soon, too.
Coming back to arcade mode more globally, it wasn't an easy task to put it in place ! After several failed attempts, though, we finally arrived today to an important milestone after 7 years of development.
Arcade mode is using a specific programming language inspired by BGT, a well known audiogame development toolkit for blind developers. The objective of this integration is eventually to allow external contributions.
You are developer and you would like to see your own game available on the playroom ? This isn't possible yet, but our efforts are actively going toward that direction.
We hope that you will enjoy arcade mode !
Bots in Chess and Go game
Version 3.0 comes with the possibility to play chess with bots. It wasn't possible in the old version because it required too much server resource to make an artificial intelligence play a so complex game. It's always the case.
However, there's something we didn't thought about: the option to make you download an external game engine, so that the robot can play locally, using the power of your own machine.
When you request to play for the first time in chess with a bot, a game engine will thus be downloaded. WE chosen Stockfish engine, because it is free to use, not too hard to set up, and can play to a configurable difficulty level.
Warning though, that's apretty difficult opponent, even at minimum level !
We also have added another quite well known strategy game with the same idea, the game of Go. Originating from Asia and several thousends of years old, it comes to the occidental world a little more than one century ago.
These few last years, its name came back out again from darkness, because Google managed to create an artificial intelligence able to beat the world champion only recently, while machines perfectly master chess since at least 35 years. Go is thus quite more complex than chess.
We chosen the engine GNU Go to play it with bots. Like Stockfish, it's a free to use engine with configurable difficulty level. It is relatively old and didn't got the latest progresses from Google, thus it is said to be much less intelligent. This is far more than enough for it to largely beat the simple little amateur that we are, though.
We hope that these progresses will give you mood to play chess and discover the game of Go !
Security is back
You probably remember that sad day of January, where you were many to think that the playroom was no longer working. WE have been required to temporarily abandon all the security we started to put in place since version 2.2.8.
With version 3.0, all that security is back, and we have even enforced it more !
Network communications will from now on entirely use SSL/TLS. Encryption is ensured from end to end from your machine to our servers.
You don't have to worry any longer. You, and you alone, are allowed to access your private discussions.
However, please bear in mind that, even if end to end encryption is back again, the greatest danger for security stays the password of your account. Human beings are always the weakest link of security.
Never give your password to anyone, and especially not to people in which you have trust today but may harm you tomorrow. Check that it is complex enough by mixing uppercase and lower case letters, numbers and special characters.
Finally, if you have any tiny doubt that anyone could have got access to your account without your knowledge, change it immediately !
Even more simplicity
The client 3.0 also includes a serie of small new features, totally optional but so essential !
- Auto login: the login dialog box is annoying ? You can now get definitely rid of it and join the playroom easier and quickier !
- Reduce to taskbar: you want to stay online all the day without always having the playroom window open ? This feature is for you !
- Integrated browser: you have forgotten the rules of a game ? Ctrl+F1 now opens an integrated web browser. That's easier, simpler, and when you have finished reading, you can go back to what you were doing without being intimidated by the browser of the system.
- Improved graphics: the games which had graphics have been improved slightly.
- Service status: connection to the playroom don't work ? Don't panic ! A web page now allows you to quickly and simply know if the problem is coming from you or from us, and to stay informed of what's going on.
The way to set volume of sounds and streams has changed, by the way. Press F6 to select what kind of volume to change, F7 to lower it and F8 to raise it.
Abandonning Windows XP and Vista
The arrival of client 3.0 sadly cannot come without bad news: it isn't compatible with Windows XP and Vista.
If you are still using these legacy systems, you simply won't be able to upgrade; you will have to stay to version 2.2.8.
Now that version 3.0 is available, the old 2.2.8 is doomed to disappear soon. IN this perspective, we suggest you to switch at least to Windows 7.
The 3.0 update will very soon be mandatory for all those who can do it, and version 2.2.8 will progressively become more and more restrained before being definitely put out of circuit. It will be completely unusable at most in a few months.
We remind you that Windows XP no longer receive any update, including critical security ones since 2014, and Windows Vista since 2016. Even active support for Windows 7 ceased in 2020 for individuals.
According to Microsoft, you should already have upgraded since then, but it's never too late to do it now.
Note that the playroom remains quite conservative by continuing to accept Windows 7 !
Wrapping up
With the whole work we put in this new 3.0 client, we hope that it will bring you its deserved satisfaction.
If development took so much time, that's because we bet on an intensive beta-test phase, with the goal to solve many kinds of problems without impacting all regular players that don't have the time or the knowledge to help us.
Some players have hard time to update, despite all what we do to make them as transparent and painless as possible, that's why we always try to limit them to the minimum.
All players will progressively get a proposition to update in the next few days.
By the way, we warmly thank all those who participated in beta-test. If the new client is stable and works well, that's thank to all the points you reported to us since a couple of months.
This is a crowning achievement after 3 years of work. We ourselves tested 4 technologies and 3 programming languages for arcade mode before definitely choosing the right one. And more than 500 users participated in the beta-test !
We wish you to greatly enjoy the new client 3.0. Long live the playroom !
Score: +3
Last edited by Aminiel, Sep 3 2021 16:31:35