BUFULO's dashboard

A comment on the question "Online scoring still messed up." in Tapulous:

I've seen this too. I wonder if those low ranks are the result of all the server issues though. It would be nice if Tapulous verified accounts somehow & only allowed 1 per player or something like that.

I'm guilty in that I have 2 myself. I created a new account just to use with my iPod since I wouldn't be the only one using it. I believe the Rank for that one is about the same as mine now anyway, but it does have a few of my best scores.

One change I'd REALLY like to see is for online scoring to take into account how the scores compare to the maximum possible score. This way, if you get a decent score but still get beat by a "ringer" or just a lucky player ranked lower than you, you wouldn't lose as many points. Although it wouldn't totally address the issue Txcougar brought up, I do think this would be more fair. – bufulo, on August 05, 2009 03:54

bufulo replied on August 05, 2009 03:50 to the question "Online scoring still messed up." in Tapulous:

In this case, the other player was about 100 points below me. That player beat me, but lost points while I gained. That player got ripped off, not me!

A comment on the question "Why won't Tap Tap Revenge 2 sense my Lady Gaga Revenge songs to transfer?" in Tapulous:

Or it could just be another downloading "issue." Either way, it's not a big deal. Don't even enter that in the database if it takes 2 seconds away from the dropped taps issue! :) – bufulo, on August 04, 2009 20:08

A comment on the question "Why won't Tap Tap Revenge 2 sense my Lady Gaga Revenge songs to transfer?" in Tapulous:

Well that didn't happen for sure. All the other Gaga tracks were transferred except those in Extreme. I checked for any downloads (ALL categories) yesterday too. In fact, I posted a bug report as a result (downloading crash in Premium or Members category). The only thing that changed between then & today is that I unlocked the boss track on Extreme. – bufulo, on August 04, 2009 19:55

A comment on the question "Why won't Tap Tap Revenge 2 sense my Lady Gaga Revenge songs to transfer?" in Tapulous:

Strike that... they just had to be played & unlocked I guess. I did that yesterday & they downloaded today. :) – bufulo, on August 04, 2009 17:25

A comment on the question "Why won't Tap Tap Revenge 2 sense my Lady Gaga Revenge songs to transfer?" in Tapulous:

I don't think the Extreme tracks transfer though. At least they didn't/don't for me. – bufulo, on August 04, 2009 17:12

A comment on the problem "Really bad lag online ):!!!" in Tapulous:

I tried the reset & reinstall last week on my 3GS & it did nothing, but I have no choice but to run OS 3.0 on that. I also downgraded my iPod but it still had issues. Don't recall if I reset that first though. I couldn't stand the wifi issues with the older firmware, so I upgraded that back to 3.0 as well. – bufulo, on August 04, 2009 03:05

A comment on the idea "Anyone else think they should just get rid of arrows?" in Tapulous:

Exactly. Then you get into the habit of always shaking hard out of fear of losing your streak. Tiny shakes used to work which was really nice.

I'm pretty sure I figured out how to do the shakes from the Help & common sense, but I did learn how to do them better after watching some videos & thinking more about how the accelerometer & software work. – bufulo, on August 04, 2009 01:21

A comment on the idea "Anyone else think they should just get rid of arrows?" in Tapulous:

You paid $0.99 for 5.2 seconds of entertainment? :) – bufulo, on August 04, 2009 01:18

bufulo asked a question in Tapulous on August 04, 2009 01:14:

Online scoring still messed up.

I just got beat by a bunch of people, including someone with online Rank ~100 below me & I got +1, they got -1. Not a huge amount of points, but incorrect for sure. I did capture a screenshot, but can't post it here because "Add an image" doesn't work.

PS. I declare today Dropped Tapper Monday!

bufulo asked a question in Tapulous on August 03, 2009 22:31:

Strange download issue.

Just got the text below after touching Premium Content (or Member Tracks?) in the Downloads area. It was plain tiny text on an all white background.

INSERT INTO clicks.web (type, url, unique_id, time) VALUES ('2
'analytics'@'gadget8' (using pasword: YES)

The text was so tiny that I had to zoom in to read it. There was more text after the 2 but, after zooming, it didn't wrap properly, flowing beyond the edge of the screen. I couldn't zoom back out or scroll after that to see the complete text.

Perhaps even more interesting is that the device (iPhone 3GS) crashed HARD not long after this. I'm not sure if it was after Auto-Lock kicked in or if the app just crashed on it's own. It took quite a few tries to get it to reboot though!

A comment on the praise "Performance Increase in 3.1" in Tapulous:

Cool. I saw your name on the Leaderboard for the Gaga version quite a bit. You should change your name to Gagafield. Can't say I'm a big fan of Gaga, but the music is fun to tap to. Those 4 lane songs are tough with thumbs, but I think I'll get them some day. I might try some of the other paid versions after OS 3.1 is out & I'm sure they work right! – bufulo, on August 03, 2009 21:16

bufulo replied on August 03, 2009 21:11 to the praise "Performance Increase in 3.1" in Tapulous:

I agree with Leftfield's comments that the Gaga version plays quite a bit better than TTR 2.6 - just tested under OS 3.0 on iPhone 3GS. I remember having issues with the arrows in the Gaga version on the iPod Touch with OS 2.2.1 I think, but they seem to work just fine on the iPhone 3GS with 3.0.

I was able to play just about every song in Hard & Extreme without troubles & without restarting! I can't FC them all, but I did OK considering I've only played most of them 2 or 3 times, some only once. Even managed to sneak onto a Leaderboard for one. I think I saw taps dropped twice, but I would need to play more to be confident in reporting that as fact. I don't recall which songs, but it was during pretty busy sections & with double-taps.

I normally don't like themes, like in Gaga, but there's something about this theme that is actually easier for me to play. I don't score as high without the colored targets, but I don't miss as often either. In the Gaga theme, it seems like the tappers disappear more cleanly, or slightly sooner, when tapped. I also didn't notice any lag/stutter issues at all other than the usual slight reduction in frame rate with a tap & hold. It was really cool to be able to play without restarting at all!

A comment on the praise "Performance Increase in 3.1" in Tapulous:

Thanks for clearing that up & for the test reports! I don't have TTC & missed that your comment was directed at that version... sorry. Hope the improvements hold up with time. Even better yet, I hope Tapulous offers an explanation when they fix the problems with the release of TTR3 (fingers-crossed).

I do have the Gaga version & don't remember having any problems with that. I rarely play it though since I have those songs imported into TTR2, although I still haven't played them much. I suppose that's a comparison worth messing with since we can play the same tap tracks (?) in 2 different versions of TT. – bufulo, on August 03, 2009 19:01

bufulo replied on August 03, 2009 17:03 to the praise "Performance Increase in 3.1" in Tapulous:

"Leftfield commented 7 hours ago
update: i found out that TTC still drops some taps in some songs. TTR2 works better..."
"Leftfield commented 7 hours ago
@bufulo: i updated to OS 3.1 beta 3 and everything is still fine..."

Developer double-talk? :) Everything is NOT fine if taps are dropped!

If OS 3.1.b3 is good, I would still wonder whether the update process itself "cured" the issues temporarily. I'm pretty confident now that an OS update alone will not solve these problems - at least not for for more than a few days (as bizarre as that sounds).

A comment on the question "HELP!! Arrows won't work in tap tap!" in Tapulous:

I just had the Phantom Tap in the Center Lane issue on Magnetic Baby online. It wasn't in the harder portions of the song either. I definitely didn't have a miss or even a near-miss in an adjacent lane. The center lane just turned red when I hit a tapper in the right lane, on time, losing my streak & another 11 points too. – bufulo, on August 02, 2009 19:39

A comment on the problem "Really bad lag online ):!!!" in Tapulous:

I agree - definitely not just 3.0. The problem reports do seem to have gotten a lot more inconsistent with 3.0 though. I do believe 3.0 exposes more problems with TTR.

I think there are quite a few different issues with both TTR & Apple OS. I suspect WIFI issues play a role in the online play problems, but there's really no way for end-users to figure it out.

Some people do seem to have working combinations/procedures, but nothing I've tried so far works consistently! – bufulo, on August 02, 2009 17:30

A comment on the problem "Really bad lag online ):!!!" in Tapulous:

Big baby. :) I'm kidding. I don't think there is any reason to leave older devices behind just yet, but there will certainly be a limit to their performance. Certain things just can't be done with older devices - that's just how it goes with technology.

I'm not familiar at all with graphics programming, but I think the new OpenGL 2.0 API only applies to the 3GS. I'm pretty sure the APIs are not backwards compatible, so Tapulous would have to essentially maintain 2 "versions" of TTR. This is not uncommon, & is already happening with Apple OS, but it does become a headache to manage at some point.

Apple will try to make future versions apply to all devices as long as possible, but features will continue to disappear for older devices. They will eventually make a clean break. Tapulous should be able to support older devices for quite some time as long as they don't add features that are totally hardware specific. It's hard to predict what those might be until we see what the next devices are capable of. Side-by-side play with holograms?

A wild guess is that you'll be fine for all the 3.x versions, but maybe not when they move to 4.x. If you start saving your allowance now, you should be OK. :) – bufulo, on August 02, 2009 17:14

A comment on the problem "Really bad lag online ):!!!" in Tapulous:

I see the same thing & often the same people. What I can't tell is if they are restarting every game or what else they may be doing. It does seem like they win the online lottery more than I do by far. I don't understand how it can be consistently good for some & very random, but mostly bad, for others, like me. Maybe instead of stars & flames, there should be device & software version info displayed! – bufulo, on August 02, 2009 17:02

bufulo replied on August 02, 2009 09:00 to the problem "Really bad lag online ):!!!" in Tapulous:

If Tapulous takes advantage of the new graphics functionality on the newer devices, I think the stutters could be a thing of the past. There would be backwards-compatibility issues though.