Beta Testing Back Online! Beta 0.36

  Recently on Wednesday Ben made the choice to disable beta testing and take down the server list form the website. He stated he would use this time to reconfigure the netcode. Hey guys, beta testing is on hold while the netcode undergoes a rewrite. I hope to make a stronger release in the future, hopefully with nice new features, so I hope you guys stick around.   Now after two days of the servers offline they return stronger than ever with the brand new Beta 0.36. Which again sounds like it fixes quite a few hacking problems and can even perma-ban for certain exploits. Nice. One thing I am on the fence for is the disabled rifle block damage. This means no more sniping out the supports of bridges, this is most likely only temporarily. Ace of Spades Beta 0.36-fixed infinite...

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Official Site Up and More!

  As of about four hours ago Ben updated the website. It is now running on Wordpress and is much prettier than the simple white background and text due to the overloaded traffic before.The site could still use some work but it is a big improvement. It features an About page, a Gallery, News, the Server Browser (Play), Links, and an Official Forum. The news page functions as a blog for Ben and it talks about recent updates, the game and some of his plans. New and exciting content will still be published here despite his blog. He states he would like to implement support for custom maps, which might I add would be amazing! He also says he wants to add a reputation system to defame greifers and hackers to the point they can no longer enter some servers. All this sounds great and the future...

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Hackers Beware of Beta 0.35

  So, it almost seems like Ben read my last post and set out to fix it all! About five hours ago Beta 0.35 has been released on his website (a mirror is uploaded at the bottom of the FAQ here) Thankfully this update includes some more anti-cheat features but I am yet to test how effective they are. Another nice feature is an admin kick/temporary ban feature allowing admins to kick cheaters and hackers without requiring a server wide vote. Ace of Spades Beta 0.35-votekicks and admin kicks include a temporary ban-added more fun anti-cheat stuff-reduced some unnecessary memory allocation-jump doesn't repeat-reuse temorary memory locations   Hopefully you will notice a decrease in hackers  on your favorite servers and an overall much more enjoyable experien...

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Today's forecast is heavy hackers and a 50% chance of destroyed server.

Unfortunately as the game continues to gain popularity more and more people hear about how little anti-cheat protection there is. Besides from Ben making it harder to modify ironsights and adding kicking features little has truly been done to stop these pesky hackers from infesting your server. Here are some tips to help you spot cheaters. 1. Just look at the score board, does some Deuce have many more points then everyone else? 2. Check the map, are any huge chunks/all the mountains missing? sure it's possible for a team to dig out a mountain but only hacks can help you dig out the entire map. 3. Listen while you play, do you hear explosions in rapid succession? Do you hear someone shooting awfully fast? It's most likely a hacker. You should do all this when you enter a server to ensure...

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This Poll in Review (colors)

  So, as the weekly poll wrapped up yesterday it is time to take a step back and see what it tells us about the player's and the game. Well as we all should know there has been a running war between the two colors, in game and out. By this I mean people have obtained some kind of psychological disorder making them value one team/color more than the other. At times from reading various websites and playing the game it seems like one color may have many more "fans" than the other, I am guilty to thinking so too. Yet from the poll it reveals maybe not, maybe just maybe they both have an equal number of fans, and well some people just don't care. Results:  Blue 284Green 297Screw this, I'm red. 183 &nb...

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It's a bird! It's a plane! It's an update!

     These updates are coming wonderfully fast as Ben Aksoy has been able to tackle problems almost immediately after they arise in new betas. Recently Beta 0.32 and Beta 0.33 were released, still optional which is unfortunately still splitting the player base. These aren't quite as packed with new features and fixes like Beta 0.3 was but they will do. Ace of Spades Beta 0.32-added download progress bar-testing more dynamic bandwidth management-slight optimization to map icon drawing Ace of Spades Beta 0.33-fixed broken names    Surprisingly Beta 0.33 was released within half an hour after .32 launched! So, how are you guys fairing with the new updat...

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Beta 0.3 Available for Testing: UPDATE: Beta 0.31

  Overnight Ben released a optional Beta for testing version 0.3 which appears to have many new features which appear to from the change log stabilize the servers quite a bit. Ace of Spades Beta 0.3-using safer map memory allocation (should fix some server crashes)-admins can now kick players (more controls coming)-improved resolution and sight picture of ironsights-using better map compression-master server attempts to filter out misconfigured servers-using ironsights improves accuracy-only jumping will drop ironsights-updated game fonts-fixed bug in intel height determination-positioned intel correctly on player-modified HTTP IP request-allchat messages shown in lighter color-error message when trying to launch client without command args  I'm especially excited for  the...

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Editing the Game's KV6 Files

Hello! I am the blog's new coauthor, Mastermaul. I will pretty much be doing the same things as Tom. I have prepared a tutorial on editing the game's KV6 files so that you may create your own weapons and skins! Enjoy. Editing the game's base .kv6 (models and textures for things like the rifle and body parts) files is quite easy. One just needs to download the Slab6 program found below, navigate to the Ace_of_spades/kv6 folder, and open the file of your choice. For reference, the rifle is semi.kv6. The files marked "playertorsoc" and "playerlegc" correspond to the crouched versions of those files, which will have to be separately painted if you wish to make a torso or leg edit, or else a crouched player will display the default skin. "Tracer" is the 'bullet' that the rifle fires, which allows...

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Study on Color to Gameplay Style Correlation

   So, we can all agree that the so called "color war" adds a lot of intensity to the game, but is any of the propaganda true? Today I will try to determine fact from fiction and truth from lies. Currently I would say there is the stereo type that blue focuses more on tunnels and less on building while green will build monstrous forts. Now, this seems actually plausible based on the layouts of the maps, even though the maps are procedurally generated they tend to still be lopsided. If you use the river that is located in every map as the separator of each colors land blue dwarfs green almost every time. So based on the fact blue must cross long stretches of land it would make sense that they would create tunnels/trenches to get to...

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Update Beta 0.26... will hopefully last longer than 0.25.

   Within the last few minutes Beta 0.26 has been released. This version is reiterating Beta 0.25 after the rollback. it features anti-cheat such as vote kick. The servers will now also be collecting data for a future master ban list. This alone is great news, hopefully say goodbye to most hackers. Another great update is that each server will now be tested before entering the server list. This should cut down on the time it takes to find a good server. Also it is supposed to make connection error handling better, Ben also removed the info on gray worlds from the website so maybe this implies they have been fixed, highly unlikely however. Hopefully those of you out there who have not been able to connect will be able to now! you can finally enjoy the beauty of, Ace of Spad...

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Mods Section

   As you may have noticed towards the top of the screen is a bar that says "Mods". Mousing over this will reveal a drop down menu for different categories of mod downloads. Currently the site is hosting eight weapon skins, with many more coming, and two player skins. In time the other categories will receive their respected mods. Feel free to email me at MadMonkey199@gmail.com if you have a mod you would like to see added or if you have any questions,comments,or concerns regarding the mods! Enj...

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UPDATE.... then reversion.

   So, Ben updated to Beta 0.25 about 3 hours ago which added:  Ace of Spades Beta 0.25-implemented votekicking (type /votekick id# in chat)-added anticheat-implemented data collection for future master ban list-tried to minimize view sway-added some connection tests before adding a server to list-added latency times to serverlist-server updates with master more frequently Sounds great right! Then in less than half an hour he reverted back to Beta 0.22, the older version.  As he stated on the website this is "To look into game server issues". From my research it appears many people had the "grey world" and more connection issues in Beta 0.25 then they had in Beta 0.22. Hopefully he gets this sorted out soon and we will see a Beta 0.26 release. &nb...

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Hack, hack, you're hard to beat.

What seems to currently be Ace of Spades biggest problem, besides connectivity, are the hackers. Throughout my tim in game I have only had a few experiences with hackers. For me it was the innocent grenade hacker that wanted to mind his own business and blow a whole in a mountain. I was lucky. Others say they have had to deal with players with infinite health and ammo, increased movement speed, and even infinite blocks. Unfortunately all the data is client-side. This means clients are able to use programs to manipulate values giving them the special "abilities". However the creator didn't leave us with no anti cheat at all. To try and stop cheating Ben (creator) has the game check to make sure the iron sight image and player models had not been edited. Also, I am yet to witness this but it...

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Creator's Thoughts on the Future

   Ben Aksoy the creator of Ace of Spades has had a hard time keeping up with the demands of fans and the constant barrage of questions he is facing. Yet luckily we managed to get a few of ours answered!  Me- " Just curious it doesn't seem like currently this game generates any revenue. What are your plans?" Ben - "None right now, maybe a donation account or ads in the site in the future but I' like to keep the game free."  Fan- "I'm not sure if you're well educated in warfare, but the main thing I can see happening that scares me is that this game's combat will become much too mobile in nature. This, of course, would be due to weapons that are naturally mobile in nature. For example, if you added things like submachine guns and sniper rifles, this game might become...

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They're just colors?

   That is exactly what they want you to think. Apparently after playing Ace of Spades people are mind washed into believing players that one color is better than other. Or they think that one team plays a completely different style than the other. Now, if you don't already know there are two separate teams or colors to play as, Green or Blue. Each team is identical except for the teams spawn point and player's "armor" color. Now some might think "Green blends into the surrounding landscape better!" well that's what I thought too. So, I did some digging and found that this point isn't commonly discussed instead it seems from my research that the no logical points are actually discussed at all. I'm calling conspiracy. The government is obviously testing brain control. There is no...

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What is Ace of Spades?

   You may be asking this same question now, so stay a while and listen. Ace of Spades is a Voxel powered Team-based Capture the Flag/Intel shooter with fully destructible/constructible procedurally generated terrain.That should sound fucking awesome enough to get you to play already. However, the voxel-ness of it does make the graphics a bit trippy (especially when looking at anything up close) so you might wanna take that into account if you get motion sick easily. As in its bad to the point where if you look down, you will have to take a break... to puke. Running in the same vein as Infiniminer and Minecraft the world/map is composed of cubes which can be destroyed and placed by every player.At the start of each match you are given three weapons. A shovel, prefect for digging...

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