It looks like I created another bug that has complicated future updates a bit... An oversight in yesterday's update is allowing players to unlock robots they really shouldn't be unlocking with the characters they are unlocking them with. Dr. Light is unlocking the MM2 robots and Dr. Wily is unlocking the MM1 robots. This might seem fun, but it's a bug that is not supposed to be there and will interfere with a future addition to the game. You see, this bug is allowing multiple copies of the same robot to exist in a player's save file, and that's bad because I was going to introduce "trading" robots between players. This can't work if one player already has the specified robot, however, so I've made a huge blunder with this bug. When I eventually implement the trading feature, I'll have to program it to combine duplicate robots and add the two clones' stats together or something. >_> I'm so sorry. The bug has been fixed now, and will no longer be an option in the game, but those who have already unlocked the extra robots can keep them until I add trading. >_> Stupid Adrian.

Thanks to the cache functionality added in the last update, it was super easy to add the Leaderboard page to the main website! Now, all 389+ players are easily viewable on the main website without having to load the full game. This comes right after the recent leaderboard style update, and the big text and player containers look great in this new context. I'm so happy! :D

Looks like the leaderboard is totally dead. >_> Too many players and not enough memory (or, if you'd prefer, very bad programming). Right now the leaderboard just opens all 300+ save files one by one and collects their data, but that's obviously not going to work anymore. I'm looking into a fix, and I'm so sorry for the inconvenience. :( Update: I've increased the memory limit of the script and also implmented the same type of cache functionality used on the other data in the game. Hopefully this fix works and prevents future leaderboard outages. :S Thank you all for being patient with me!

I apologize for being absent from the website for a few days and not posting any updates, but the truth is I was working on a giant update that needed to be properly tested and implemented before I could push any more changes or content to the live prototype. Now that the update is complete and has not introduced any new bugs that I know of and/or haven't fixed, everything should be back to normal and hopefully you'll like what I've done. Because so much has changed, I am going to split this into multiple posts. Please check the updates page for the full breakdown of changes uploaded today.

I have completely revised the way missions are programmed in the Mega Man RPG Prototype, and as a result all mission-related progress has been reset for all users. I am terribly sorry about this and for any time you feel you might have lost, but you will be able to keep all unlocked robots and abilities as well as any battle and experience points gained thus far. That being said, everyone playing this game should know it's an in-progress prototype and everything could change in an instant. Hopefully this does not upset too many people, and at least there's more content right? Now, on to what I have changed… Previously there were only 19 of these "missions" in the game for each player. These missions consisted of the player's first 8 robots, then a rival battle, then the opposite player's 8 robots in pairs, and then the final battles. The new structure is similar, but instead of 19 each player has access to 30 different missions with all robots available. Additionally, the order the robot masters appear and which groupings happen later in the game are now randomized per save file. The exact selection of missions available to you will be unique each time you start a new game, and this should offer some incentive to restart from scratch every now and then. One of the new additions is a full 8 vs. 8 battle at the end of the game, something present in the first version of the game but absent since then. The target levels and rewards have also been revised not only to make the game a bit easier but also to allow for more, higher level content later (like the Mega Man 3 expansion). Speaking of the Mega Man 3 expansion, a preview battle containing Spark Man has been thrown in for fun after you beat either of the player's main games. Hopefully you check it out - the sprites were generously provided by MetalMarioX100 then edited slightly by me to fit the format of the game - I think he looks great and hope you'll check him out. :) Again, all unlocked robots, abilities, experience, and levels have been left intact, so I encourage you to play through from the new beginning with your powered up robot army. :D For those starting the game fresh, another tweak to the mechanics has to do with the level at which you unlock new robots. Previously all robots would be at level 1 when you received them, but now unlocked robots will be at the level they were when you fought them. This should prevent the last-unlocked robot from being ignored simply because it's a lower level than the rest and encourage more experimentation.

The Database page on the main website as well as the Database, Leaderboard, and Edit pages in the main game have all been visually updated to fix bugs created by the recent changes. Most of these were due to Spark Man's sprite size, but others were done mostly for asthetic reasons or to prepare for content additions when the Mega Man 3 expansion is done. I like the way the in-game Edit page looks a lot more now, clearly definiing which robots or which Doctor's. This will be used in a future update where I allow you to trade robots from one player to the other (it'll be awesome I swear). This distinction of Light/Wily robots has also been applied to the Leaderboard page in addition to making the text a bit larger and adding the last-login details to each user listing.

Thanks to the amazing Brorman, all the Robot Masters from Mega Man 3 now have unique base stats! After hours and hours of research into the character's backgrouns and play styles, Brorman came up with the attack, defense, and speed of each robot master while staying within the game's predefined limit of 300 stat points per robot. For those not as familiar with the games, this includes Needle Man, Magnet Man, Gemini Man, Hard Man, Top Man, Snake Man, Spark Man, and Shadow Man. Thank you so much, and I'm excited to test these out in-game when the rest of the MM3 sprites are ready! :D

Several robots have had their sprites updated, and even more abilities have had both their sprites and mechanices revisited to make them more useful in battle. The stripe on Proto Man's helmet has been painted white, like the official artwork, and his shield has also been recoloured. After an incredibly labourous process of updating the entire game engine to support larger sprites as well as the hard work of our new artist MetalMarioX100, Spark Man from Mega Man 3 has now been completed and added to the database! The other MM3 robots have placeholders in the database, but no artwork or any customizations done on them yet. Being the first larger than 40x40 sprite in the game (though not accesible yet), Spark Man is pretty special and it makes me very happy. :) In addition to those two changes, Oil Slider has been recoloured to look more like crude oil and less like blue toothpaste and Bubble Bomb has had it's icon revised to fit into the 40x40 limit a little better. Secondary effects have been added to Thunder Beam, and Super Throw, Fire Storm had power-related bug fixed, and many other ability have had slight changes in power/recovery/accuracy to be more balanced. I'm far from done with these types of changes, but hopefully these ones add to the game a bit and don't introduce too many new bugs. :P

The Buster Shot, Mega Buster, and Proto Buster abilities have all been updated. Previously, the three abilites were all clones with slight differences in power/accuracy. Now, the Buster Shot is a completely separate ability that deal moderate neutral damage has no special effects but great accuracy. This ability mimicks the standard buster shot used by Mega Man in the games without charging more accurately, I think. The Mega Buster and Proto Buster have also been changed, and are now two-turn charging attacks. The two abilities still have differences in power / accuracy like before, but they also offer differences in special effects. The Mega Buster raises defense slightly on every charge, while the Proto Buster raises attack power. With these changes come slightly modified sprites, and hopefully everything together enourage people to use both ability types in tandem rather than one or the other like before. Because of Buster Shot's new simplicity, all Robot Masters now start with the ability from the get-go in addition to their signature move.

In an effort to give players more ability options until I programmed more into the game, I started assigning abilities to robots based soley on their typing rather than any real reason they should be able to use them. This allowed the player to equip Bomb Man with the Crash Bomber because his element of choice is Explode Type and Crash Bomber is also an Explode Type. Even though this was fun, it required a lot of manual updating when a new ability was added and I was frequently forgetting to add new abilities to certain robot masters's moveset. As such, I've updated each of the robots to have a specific predefined "Ability Core" that determines which types of moves they can have equipped by the player. Bomb Man now has an Explode Core, for example, and that allows the player to teach him any Explode Type ability once unlocked. Proto Man and Mega Man's Ability Core's are both of the Copy Type, so they are able to equip any ability the player has access to just like before. This may have some strange effects later for certain robot/ability combinations, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. :)

Fixed a minor annoyance on the Database page where the header links were opening in a new window/tab instead of the current one. Also fixed some typos on the Database page. Additionally, I've reviewed and fixed typos in the descriptions of several robots and abilities, so the game should look a little less amateur now. >_> Oh, and I've updated the damage/accuracy/speed of several existing abilities in an attempt to make them more balanced (from Metal Blade to Thunder Beam) though I am far from being done. Hopefully these few changes don't cause too much confusion.

I did not do much today, unfortunately. I've added placeholders for the Mega Man 3 robots masters and figured out their weakness types and cycle, though the stats, description, other weaknesses, resistances, etc. have not been worked on or finalized. I've also added all the abilities for Mega Man 3 and Mega Man 4 and assigned them (temporarily) to the other robots. These abilities are also placeholders and have no unique data other than their types. Sorry guys, but I'll add/fix more substancial stuff later in the week.

With the exception of the Fields Database (which wont have much information anyway), all the Database pages are now complete! This includes the Player Database, the Robot Database, and the Abilities database and they are packed with sprites, quotes, detailed stats, linked ability sheets, and so much more. Please check it out - I've been wanting to do this for a while! :D

Balancing is tricky, I guess? I fixed a bunch of switching bugs today, and I might have fixed THE switching bug that's been plaguing the game for months. I haven't experienced it since I implemented the few codeix, so either it actually is fixed OR I'm just been very (un)lucky with the randomizer/chance calculations. We'll have to wait and see if it worked or not... I've also tweaked the experience system one more time (for now) increasing the bonus you get from weakness/critical (again) but dividing the experience receieved among the entire team to even it out. Therefore bringing fewer robots in battle will make you more vulnerable, but will grant more experience per robot. Lastly, I've updated the mechanics of Super Throw a bit so that it actually does damage to the target rather than just forcing them to switch. I've done this on purpose to allow for a wind-type counterpart move for Air Man, except instead of causing damage it will pull out the "weakest" target on your opponent's side (or at least that's the plan!). I've also implemented a few other minor bug fixes - hopefully they don't cause more problems. >_>

The experience changes I introduced yesterday also came with some unexpected bugs, unfortunately. The pending stat bonuses were being stockpiled properly, but upon level-up they weren't being awarded like they should have been. I've since fixed the bug and any stat bonuses gained since yesterday's update should be awarded all-at-once on your next level up. I've also decreased the boost you get from landing a super-effective and/or critical hit a bit as it was causing level ups for every other battle (which is much too soon). This bug also had a secondary effect, where robots were not unlocking their level-up abilities at all. Guts Man and Fire Man, for example, would not learn Super Throw and Defense Burn at Level 5 like they were supposed to (which is bad) but it's fixed now and your robots will learn their moves next time you level up. Sorry about that, guys!

Something that was bugging me about the website design was that it would not remember if you were in landscape or portrait mode between page switches, but it does now so that's done. Also, I updated the main banner to include the background enemies from those fields - it just makes the site look a little more attrative I guess. Also, I added the Mega Man fields to the banner mix, so there's a bit more variety for the user. I love the way they all turned out! :D

A bit of a smaller bug but still important occurs when any of the options were clicked in the main menu of the prototype. During the transition time, it is possible to click other options to exploit (or break) the game menu in various ways. I've implemented a bit of a fix to his in the form of a menu fadeout (similar to the one seen when selecting missions). From now on, when a menu option is selected, the other options are faded out until everything is done loading. This doesn't fix all menu related bugs, but should fix some.

The experience points and level up system in the game has been reprogrammed, and the bonus stats have been integrated into the process more seemlessly. Now, all robots who participate in battle receive experience points, calculated proportionate to their level versus the target's. Additionally, experience is awarded immediately after a target is defeated, allowing for level ups in the middle of a battle (which is pretty great). As mentioned, the stat bonuses for being the one to KO a target have been reworked a bit. Previously stat bonuses would be awarded immediately after defeating a target, but now they are built up and put in a pending status until the next level-up. A bonus to this change is that it makes the eventual level-up that much more rewarding. Instead of seeing gains of 1 or 2, you may end up seeing more 10s or 15s, which is nice. Lastly, and this is my favourite part, is that you can now boost (or lower) your experience based on your actions in battle. Exploiting an enemy's weakness and/or landing a critical hit will boost the experience you receive, but triggering an affinity or resistance will lower your rewards. I've been playing with it a lot since I implemented the change, and it's a great reason to know your type matchups. This coupled with the everyone-gets-experience thing makes power-leveling possible too, which is something I enjoy RPGs a lot. Hopefully others feel the same about the changes. :)

My previous code for disabling the animations when the window was unfocused was causing a bunch of problems with the Pause button, so I've removed the blur/focus code for now. With the Pause button working properly, I don't think the auto-detection is as necessary anymore. At least, not anywhere on my list of priorities. I also fixed a bug where attachments (like the charging animation) were not being removed when a robot was disabled. Working on the experience system change right now. :P Another bug/exploit I was made aware of occurs when you are in battle and use the right-click menu to "Reload Frame". Using this trick, all kinds of exploits were possible including much abuse to the level up, experience, and stat boost systems. This has been fixed, and now the Reload Frame option simply restarts the battle, as it should. Thanks again for the fantastic testing Brorman!