Bitshares Play Status Update

[bytemaster]

We have made fast progress since last status update:

1. Allocation and Snapshot Details Released.

2. More clear plan and visions

3. Website Building

4. The Wallet development and blockchain protocol definition is on steady progress

5. Keep in touch several games content providers, issuers and VCs, learn a lot from them.

6. Another corporation is joining the vision of BitShares PLAY project as a very important partner: marketing, business development, legal etc.

7. We have several new full-time members to introduce.

logxing: helping with management and Chinese community communication.
cristoffer: helping with community communication in English world, forum, newsletter etc.

8. Lora is doing more stuffs like game CP and game ecosystem communication rather than just act as a designer.

[HackFisher]

We have made fast progress since last status update:

1. Allocation and Snapshot Details Released.

2. More clear plan and visions

3. Website Building

4. The Wallet development and blockchain protocol definition is on steady progress

5. Keep in touch several games content providers, issuers and VCs, learn a lot from them.

6. Another corporation is joining the vision of BitShares PLAY project as a very important partner: marketing, business development, legal etc.

7. We have several new full-time members to introduce.

logxing: helping with management and Chinese community communication.
cristoffer: helping with community communication in English world, forum, newsletter etc.

8. Lora is doing more stuffs like game CP and game ecosystem communication rather than just act as a designer.

[HackFisher]

Here are the latest updates of the bitshares play development team:

At the very beginning, the ideas of bitshares play were merely shared over members of bitsuperlab, but now, more members are joining bitshares play:

Clar c++ developer
Boombastic front-end developer
Lora Designer
Cass Designer
HeyD evangelist
Qijun evangelist (English)

[HackFisher]

CLI TestNet #1:

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9406.0

[HackFisher]

Some update:

I'll start develop a Dice DAC which is based on one rule of Bitshares Lotto (dice rule) in the left time of August.

Details please take look at:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4505.0

I guess that would be a fork of the bitshares_toolkit. It will follow the AGS/PTS social contract, so if possible, I would like to call it Bitshares Dice.

For Bitshares Lotto, some key parts of the framework are not ready to go, so I choose to implement a Rule DAC first without those parts.

[HackFisher]

Just to keep this thread updated and from being dead, here to add some updates

I've been in VA for about 2 weeks, and currently helping on toolkit and XT wallet. People are nice here and everything is OK except that I realized two huge gap I need to fill, the skills of computer science and spoken English.
I think I'll keep talking utils peoples and friends of America tied and being enough of me.

Regarding the next steps of Lotto, with the newest support of bitshares toolkit, it could be very easy to develop a lottery DAC, which we can expect in short term after bitshares xt launched. But for the long term, I still wondering what we can do to add value and think different.

The latest approach which deserved to mention, would be some ideas described in rule code on chain thread:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=5085.0

I like this idea and I think I will look more close to the details of it.

[HackFisher]

I was integrating new toolkit APIs with Lotto, but since there are large updates to toolkit, and the API extension points is not ready yet , needing refactor. Consensus have been reached that I'll suspend my work on Lotto for a while and I'll starting work on toolkit in short term, then continue move to Lotto DAC-specific technology, then onto Lotto supporting whoever builds the user/web interface, etc.

In short, I'm coding on Bitshares toolkit codes recently and help what I can do( todo issues and fix bugs).

Here is to update the status in case anyone curious about the recent status.

[HackFisher]

quick update:

Got to run a lotto client as trustee, and fake as delegates to claim secrets, then generate blocks and random numbers, with that we can go to CLI/UI testing and development.

Implemented two other rules in addition to lottery rule, so there are three rules on hand now, dice rule, betting rule, and lottery rule.Refer
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4505.0
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4502.0

Economic/business model is the next thing I need to address, choose one rule as only and default rule is feasible, but I'm still considering the possibility to release multiple rules. For lotto, I do not like too many rule assets except we can found a way for them to competing and pegging (like sidechain features).

Large update from toolkit will come in next week, so some efforts might need to be taken for integration.

[HackFisher]

Finished several basic test cases including buy ticket, generate 100 more blocks, automatic generate winners, draw and list jackpots etc, fix bugs.

Moved rule specific codes to one place, abstract a rule class to representing the things of rule layer.

Current working on finding out a default rule for testing and demonstrate, considering to deliver a gaming dac first rather than a platform supporting multi rule. The later seems to be achievable but need more effort and time.

Here is another rule different with classic two color ball lottery, I'm open for ideas about how to make the rule's user interface more funny and easy to understand.
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4502.0

Next in this month, I'll focus on following things.
1. a testable version with a rule to play, add more test cases and pretty CLI.
2. clean code
3. document

[HackFisher]

This week, I was working on clean code, unit tests, sync code with toolkit and list the todo/issues which I'll handle one by one next.

The main changes is as following:
1. Secret field was moved from block header to be as a claim_secret transaction, which should be generated by DPOS delegate.
2. Add claim_jackpot output with a mature_days field. Once large jackpot are drawn, it will be divided to several jackpots with different mature_days.
claim_jackpot outputs can only be used by the owner after mature days since that.
3. The jackpot draw transaction is not generated by ticket owner anymore, these transactions are as deterministic transactions now.

Next, I'll work full-time, so more updates will come more frequently

[HackFisher]

Added a TODO List for Lotto coding:

https://github.com/HackFisher/bitshares_toolkit/wiki/Lotto-Coding-TODO-LIst

This is deprecated, I'm using Github issues to manage them now:

https://github.com/HackFisher/bitshares_toolkit/issues?state=open

[HackFisher]

Last weekend, I worked on jackpot draw related codes, and improved some CLI commands.

Recently, there are large updates from Bitshares toolkits, so I'm spending time to update Lotto codes for catch up with the changes of toolkits. I'll work on rpc and cli next, and follow the upcoming steps of xt.

[HackFisher]

This week, with the help of bytemaster, I'm pleased to get a brilliant Random Number Generation(RNG) algorithm that could work well with DPOS.

And I was working on Lotto CLI and RNG Implementation, fix some CNS and Rule Layer bugs, start testing client's genesis address customization then I can test using my own address.
The next step would be to continue coding CLI commands and finding a default self-sustain rule for rule layer, prepare for a testable client.

The work of design document is almost finished except the part of Section 8, I'll thinking more on that before draft on it.

And, good news is that the progress is a litter faster than I expected, the bad news is that it may take longer time for me to start full-time than planned, just because of unpredictable transition affairs. I'll start working on Lotto full time at the beginning of May.

[HackFisher]

Added a TODO List for Lotto coding:

https://github.com/HackFisher/bitshares_toolkit/wiki/Lotto-Coding-TODO-LIst

[HackFisher]

This week I draft a technical design document for Lotto, not complete yet, people who cannot wait can have a quick view from here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5037011/%E6%88%91%E7%9A%84%E7%AC%94%E8%AE%B0/Bitshares%20Lotto%20Design%20Document.html

Other works involve coding lotto wallet's scan input/output API.

Next, I'm going to start coding the lotto cli, prepare for further work to have a testing client which can be played with.

I'm migrating the document to google doc, so anyone with the link can comment on it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KkaAnuM0a_YU2yMaeDSDiyNUv96c9TrYrCjKadC01yA/edit?usp=sharing

Edit: Can comment now.