Well a few days after I completed the new promocode engine, I managed to overhaul the pound system too. The coding took about the same amount of time, but debugging was rather difficult as there was just too many new stuff Id like to include for the new script. So what is new in Mys v1.3.1's Pound system?
First of all, lets take a look at the pound.php script file. It sure does not seem much different from the one you see in Mys v1.3.0, other than the table border. The pound.php file is for users to take over abandoned pets though, you still need to go to myadopts.php to pound your own pets. The interface for pound in myadopts.php looks exactly the same as before:
[image unavailable]
So what are the differences. Well, allow me to direct you all to the admin control panel, where admins can now edit settings for pound system. It looks quite complicated actually, some of you may easily get lost:
[image unavailable]
So yeah, the new pound system gives admin enough freedom to apply their own vision of what an abandon engine is supposed to look like for their sites. Eleven pound setting are introduced in Mys v1.3.1, and the number may even increase in future. I will introduce them one by one below:
1. Enable Pound System: Admins can officially turn on or off the Abandon engine. If the Pound system is disabled, users will not be able to pound their own pets or adopt pounded pets.
2. Enable Re-adoption: You can also disable part of the Pound system. If Re-adoption is disabled, users can pound their own pets but cannot adopt from Pound Center.
3. Immune Species: This is where special species that cannot be pounded are defined. Each species id is separated by comma, and the user will receive an error message if he/she attempts to abandon a pet immune to pound.
4. Pound/Adopt Cost: It is possible to specify costs for abandon or adoption, separated by comma. The cost type can be incremental, in which additional cost is added to the pets' intrinsic cost defined in table prefix.adoptables. Perhaps a better idea is to use the percentage cost type. In this case, totalcost will be the product of intrincic cost and cost multiplier. More possible algorithms will be introduced in future. Note Pound costs money too, just like Adoption. Setting a negative value for Pound may be a solution to reverse this.
5. Level Bonus: This setting enables admins to decide if level-based cost algorithms will be applied in computing pound cost. Again you can specify an incremental cost per level, or a multiplier for level-based cost computation. Of course it has lots of math involved and can drive some of you dizzy, just keep the default value if you are tired of it.
6. Number Restriction: You may find users who keep pounding their own pets or adopting pounded pets quite annoying. Here comes the rescuer, in Mys v1.3.1's new Pound system it is possible to specify number restriction for pound and re-adoption, the values from ACP are again separated by comma. The screenshot above shows users cannot pound more than 5 pets or re-adopt more than 4 pounded pets. This looks like a hard-cap and inflexible, but dont worry you can integrate it with date easily.
7. Number-date Integration: If date integration is enabled, the above numbers will become number per day instead of total number. For instance, a user cannot have more than 5 adoptables in pound center without date integration, but with date integration the user can pound 5 adoptables per day, not a total of 5 adoptables at all time. See the difference? You bet!
8. Pound/Adopt lag: This sounds a bit tricky, what is it about? Well as an admin you may want pounded pets unavailable for users to re-adopt until a certain amount of time has elapsed. If you are this type, then congratulations since this Pound/Adopt lag comes to your rescue. You can define how long it takes for pounded pets to be eligible for adoption by editing this setting, it is also possible to select time units from a range of secs to years. At this point Id say its a better idea not to use too small units like secs or minutes, since the script may not be able to calculate and compare timestamps well in this fasion.
9. Previous Owner Restriction: Admins may want the previous owner to be ineligible for re-adopting the pet he/she just abandoned. If so, enable this setting and users will not be able to re-adopt their old pets.
10. Maximum times for Pound: If you are so kind of an admin that you worry certain pets get pounded over and over again, enable this setting and it will stop owners from pounding pets if they have been pounded more than a certain number of times. Some users may end up complaining, but we all know life sucks and the only way to survive is to accept reality.
11. Rename Constraint: The very last Pound setting is somewhat inspired by Pokemon series. If you've ever played Pokemon, you'd know that only the pokemon's original owner can edit its name. The Rename Constraint does the same thing here. If turned on, new owners cannot change the name of their pets. Like it or not, its your call.
Before concluding from this blog, Id like to show you all some funny error messages you can possibly receive from Pound Center. They aint system fatal errors, but errors when a user fails to meet certain requirement to adopt pets. The image can be viewed from tinypic.com url below:
[image unavailable]
So you have many ways to piss off your members now, but the good news is that you are having way better control over the Pound System. I will be doing the same thing when overhauling other features such as Breeding and Trade, the flexibility and controllability of this script will determine how successful it will be.
Hall of Famer
First of all, lets take a look at the pound.php script file. It sure does not seem much different from the one you see in Mys v1.3.0, other than the table border. The pound.php file is for users to take over abandoned pets though, you still need to go to myadopts.php to pound your own pets. The interface for pound in myadopts.php looks exactly the same as before:
[image unavailable]
So what are the differences. Well, allow me to direct you all to the admin control panel, where admins can now edit settings for pound system. It looks quite complicated actually, some of you may easily get lost:
[image unavailable]
So yeah, the new pound system gives admin enough freedom to apply their own vision of what an abandon engine is supposed to look like for their sites. Eleven pound setting are introduced in Mys v1.3.1, and the number may even increase in future. I will introduce them one by one below:
1. Enable Pound System: Admins can officially turn on or off the Abandon engine. If the Pound system is disabled, users will not be able to pound their own pets or adopt pounded pets.
2. Enable Re-adoption: You can also disable part of the Pound system. If Re-adoption is disabled, users can pound their own pets but cannot adopt from Pound Center.
3. Immune Species: This is where special species that cannot be pounded are defined. Each species id is separated by comma, and the user will receive an error message if he/she attempts to abandon a pet immune to pound.
4. Pound/Adopt Cost: It is possible to specify costs for abandon or adoption, separated by comma. The cost type can be incremental, in which additional cost is added to the pets' intrinsic cost defined in table prefix.adoptables. Perhaps a better idea is to use the percentage cost type. In this case, totalcost will be the product of intrincic cost and cost multiplier. More possible algorithms will be introduced in future. Note Pound costs money too, just like Adoption. Setting a negative value for Pound may be a solution to reverse this.
5. Level Bonus: This setting enables admins to decide if level-based cost algorithms will be applied in computing pound cost. Again you can specify an incremental cost per level, or a multiplier for level-based cost computation. Of course it has lots of math involved and can drive some of you dizzy, just keep the default value if you are tired of it.
6. Number Restriction: You may find users who keep pounding their own pets or adopting pounded pets quite annoying. Here comes the rescuer, in Mys v1.3.1's new Pound system it is possible to specify number restriction for pound and re-adoption, the values from ACP are again separated by comma. The screenshot above shows users cannot pound more than 5 pets or re-adopt more than 4 pounded pets. This looks like a hard-cap and inflexible, but dont worry you can integrate it with date easily.
7. Number-date Integration: If date integration is enabled, the above numbers will become number per day instead of total number. For instance, a user cannot have more than 5 adoptables in pound center without date integration, but with date integration the user can pound 5 adoptables per day, not a total of 5 adoptables at all time. See the difference? You bet!
8. Pound/Adopt lag: This sounds a bit tricky, what is it about? Well as an admin you may want pounded pets unavailable for users to re-adopt until a certain amount of time has elapsed. If you are this type, then congratulations since this Pound/Adopt lag comes to your rescue. You can define how long it takes for pounded pets to be eligible for adoption by editing this setting, it is also possible to select time units from a range of secs to years. At this point Id say its a better idea not to use too small units like secs or minutes, since the script may not be able to calculate and compare timestamps well in this fasion.
9. Previous Owner Restriction: Admins may want the previous owner to be ineligible for re-adopting the pet he/she just abandoned. If so, enable this setting and users will not be able to re-adopt their old pets.
10. Maximum times for Pound: If you are so kind of an admin that you worry certain pets get pounded over and over again, enable this setting and it will stop owners from pounding pets if they have been pounded more than a certain number of times. Some users may end up complaining, but we all know life sucks and the only way to survive is to accept reality.
11. Rename Constraint: The very last Pound setting is somewhat inspired by Pokemon series. If you've ever played Pokemon, you'd know that only the pokemon's original owner can edit its name. The Rename Constraint does the same thing here. If turned on, new owners cannot change the name of their pets. Like it or not, its your call.
Before concluding from this blog, Id like to show you all some funny error messages you can possibly receive from Pound Center. They aint system fatal errors, but errors when a user fails to meet certain requirement to adopt pets. The image can be viewed from tinypic.com url below:
[image unavailable]
So you have many ways to piss off your members now, but the good news is that you are having way better control over the Pound System. I will be doing the same thing when overhauling other features such as Breeding and Trade, the flexibility and controllability of this script will determine how successful it will be.
Hall of Famer
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