Um, hi? :)
It's nice to see that other's have kept up with this mod in my absense. I suppose some sort of explanation is in order, but suffice it to say that due to personal matters, I was indisposed for some time last summer and fall. Only recently did I have the time, energy, and interest to return to this.
My apologies to go out to those who have tried to contact me regarding this mod. If anyone wishes to contact me about it, please do so via email. I do not accept ICQ or AIM messages from people that I do not know
But I digress. I perused this thread, and I'm impressed with some of the things that have been done. The idea of placing the bulk of the calculation in a separate php file was a brilliant idea. I wish I had thought of it. I like the class addition too, but I think it's a bad representation, especially considering the poor design of the HP and MP formulas. As someone pointed out in this thread, they measure much the same thing.
Which brings me to my point. I've taken some of the code from here, and redesigned it with new formulas. I've also updated the formatting to follow the latest version of the MOD Template.
I removed the class/skill ratio section, but if people really like it, I can put it back in easily enough. (But I really do think it's a silly measurement)
The new HP and MP forumulas are a bit more simple, make more sense, and give bonuses to more 'experienced' users.
HP: HP is roughly a measure of the "Quality" of a users post. In this case, quality is how long a user's recent posts are. It compares the average characters per post of the user's recent posts to an admit set "average". If a user has exactly the average, they have average hp.
A user recieves a bonus to his Max HP for each post he makes. This bonus is admin definable. The default setting is .1. Meaning after 10 posts, a user recieves 1 extra max HP. The idea is that users who post more should have to post "better" as well.
MP: MP is roughly a measure of "frequency" or "quantity" of posting. It looks at how many posts the user has made in a recent time period. Each post in made in that time period costs the user an admin definable ammount of MP. The longer a user goes without posting (or posting often), the more of his posts will fade past the "window" the script looks at, thus increasing (ie: regenerating) his MP.
A user recieves a bonus to his max MP based on how long he has been reistered. The default is 1 MP per week. This is admin definable. The idea is that an 'older' user should have more mp to post with than a newer poster, and be able to post more often.
The time period used for Bonus MP, and calculating current HP and MP is all the same time period, the defaul tis one week (7 days). But the value is admin definable, and expressed in seconds, so the user can make this as long or as short as he desires.
Regarding what seems to be a common bug, the "non-positive value" error. I seem to recall this bothering me, and I don't remember what caused it. *Sheepish grin* I hope I didn't write the code in such a way as to cause it this time. ;)
I've tested this on my boards, which are an almost-vanilla instlal of phpbb 2.0.4 (I've installed 3 mods, Custom Titles, smart Login, an Auto Topic, none of these should interfere with the Level mod, so i consider this a pretty clean install). I tested with a registered user, a guest user, and looked at it with zero posts, several posts. The only thing I havnt tested is large numbers of posts, which is difficult to test.
As far as I can tell, there are no bugs, but I may have overlooked something. I credited Antony and Mac (ycl6) with keeping up with the development of this. But if anyone else did any significant work, please contact me, I'd like to add you're name as well. (I give Credit where Credit is due, but I don't know everything)
so, without further ado, here's my latest version:
http://www.asylumsw.com/phpbb/level_mod.zip