Trouble loading game - config? documentation?

[canweriotnow]

Hey, I was really impressed with the mars game demo at I/ITSEC and really eager to play with it myself... I was wondering if I was missing something booting it with vwf... locally, I get a 404 on http://localhost:3000/proxy/vwf.example.com/blockly/manager.vwf?callback=jQuery110207568049374967813_1417752316802&_=1417752316803

I see there are config files but not really documentation for what goes where.

I also can't seem to load the game (from http://virtual.wf) from chrome without WebSocket proxy errors, and Firefox will either fail with require.js timeouts or hit the loading screen and then fail due to TypeErrors (this.overlay.loginmenu is undefined).

I know it's not a mature project but I think it's super cool and some documentation about getting it up and running locally would be greatly appreciated!

[kadst43]

Thanks for the encouragement!

If you just want to play through the game, you can point Chrome to:

https://pcvm3-7.instageni.illinois.edu/mars-game/

There's also a backup server at:

https://development.virtual.wf/mars-game/

It takes a minute or two to load (it needs to pull down around 100 Mb), but doesn't require any sort of install. You're welcome to try Firefox - it might even work :) - but we haven't tested it, so I wouldn't bet on it.

If you want to pull it down and run it locally (which really means setting up a server on your machine), it's a bit more complicated... The short version is that you need to pull down VWF (https://github.com/virtual-world-framework/vwf), then pull down mars-game into vwf's public folder, then get the node server installed and running, then the URL you were using should work. I think. More information on getting VWF set up can be found at https://virtual.wf/. @eric79, did I get that more or less right? :)

Looking more closely at your post, it sounds like you may be running into trouble with your proxy server? Depending on where you are... some network proxies block many of the HTML5 features (e.g. Websockets) for security reasons, or at least don't allow connections across network boundaries. Running it on a local server might help, or trying it from a less protected network...

[eric79]

@kadst43 that sounds right to me.

@canweriotnow it sounds like maybe you already pulled down VWF?

I agree that it sounds like your network proxy is interfering with the websockets from virtual.wf. Do you see the ducks on the main page all right?

[deathtenk]

@eric79 were both getting this same error. We're not behind a proxy. There are no visible ducks. It just shows the loading icon and goes black, then in the console it tells us that we get a 404 on http://localhost:3000/proxy/vwf.example.com/blockly/manager.vwf?callback=jQuery110208987072997260839_1417817308494&_=1417817308495

[eric79]

Ah, okay, I think there are two separate issues. What you're describing, I think, is due to my forgetting to tell you to switch to the mars-game-staging branch on the VWF repo.

But as for the the https://virtual.wf site not working for you guys ... @canweriotnow can you give me some more information about the websocket proxy errors you're seeing?

[canweriotnow]

@eric79 Our co-worker @milt actually got the virtual.wf game running today at work, so I'll have to try that again. we did pull down VWF, but @deathtenk and I were both still unable to get it running locally with the same proxy error, despite not being behind a proxy. I'm going to play with it more tonight after my daughter goes to sleep 😸

As for the branch - the repo default in github was set to mars-game-staging so that was the active branch when I cloned, I figured that was the branch to use. I'll update once I play with it some more.

I didn't see ducks on the main page either, but here's one:

[eric79]

Oh, excellent. There's that duck I was looking for. 😉

Sorry ... I wasn't clear. There are the two repos that you pulled down: the main VWF one and the mars-game one. The actually both need to be on the mars-game-staging branch (you're right that that is the default branch for mars-game, but not for VWF proper.

Were you able to gain any insight from @milt? I would love to get to the bottom of why this isn't working for you.