Battle to the (un)death

If you've been watching, I posted an announcement to the announcement board a week ago describing the changes made this cycle.  I've spent the remainder working on cosmetic changes, laying out the groundwork for the next cycle, and working a bit on the user profiles (which still need a lot of work.  Also, disregard the pony.).  So if you didn't already know, this cycle was primarily about the battler, and secondarily about a couple small horde updates that I didn't get to in the last cycle.

The horde updates numbered two.  One was the ability to transfer the owner of said horde.  It's free and it's the only way the owner of a horde can leave said horde.  The idea just popped into my head of allowing the leader of a horde to leave without relinquishing command...but Ill cross that bridge when I decide to go down that path.  If I do.  Anyway, the second update was the scripted creation of a new horde.  It's also free (though as beta approaches it's going to cost some in-game funds.  Probably brains and/or bunch of cash, we'll see), and gets you your own subforum and horde.  It all should work fine, I tested it out a few times and nothing was amiss.  I debated doing it manually (that is, a user requests a new horde and me or another admin actually creates it), but decided that a scripted was is better in the long run.  Besides, it's just a bunch of database inserts...so why bother doing it manually?

And now, the battler.  This update focused on a facelift, revamp, and addition of weapons and armor. 

The revamp of the battler focused on a battle simulator.  This probably isn't coded in the best way...but for the time being it's the exact same as the battler.  You put in the name, level, and other stats of each player and you can see how the battle turns out.  It's basically what it sounds like.  This can serve as a springboard for future changes to the battler, and allow a place to test changes without screwing with the battler in the alpha/beta.

The facelift of the battler was, also, what it sounds like.  Text is a bit bigger, the winning conditions don't look so small and silly, and everything is, in general, bigger, brighter, and better.  I'm still open to suggestions, but I think it's way better than it was, despite not looking much different.

And last, but not least, weapons and armor.  In a nutshell, they work in battles now.  If you've been battling similar-stat players, you've noticed "zombie rage", which increases your attack power by one each round you attempt to attack until you do damage > 0.  This is calculated AFTER your weapon and armor is calculated.  So if you did 5 damage now, and your opponent attaches a 20 armor and you attach a 15 weapon, you'll zombie rage for roughly one round until you do one damage.  This way makes sense to me, so we'll see how it goes.

The next update should be fun, and much easier for me to code than the previous ... three cycles.  Minions!  Little mindless zombies for you to train, fight with other mindless zombies, and use to battle other (less mindless?) zombies in your quest for supremacy.  Should be fun.