DSB improvement tasklist and more
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2015 6:35 am
Greetings DSB!
Because we're getting closer to Steam launch and things need to get more organised again, I do believe it's time to do a list of things what need to be done and also bring the players up to speed on what we're up to right now.
Staff reformation
I've went through this subject before so it's not a new thing - we've rebuilt our staff to have moderators who are able to perform all the tasks neccesary in the zone, from pub moderation to hosting events and league games. This also means that all of our staffers have dropped their Op>, ER> or Rf> tags and roam the galaxy with their regular names - yet they can be identified by having a DSB STAFF squadname and a banner. The training for all the staffers to posses the knowledge of hosting and/or modding is not yet finished but we're working on that front. Everything in staff moves under one roof so there are no different departments anymore - only staff and development team.
ASSS (AS3)
We've been through this before as well - currently DSB server runs with subgame, however we are looking into changing to AS3 server in order to have more possibilities on developing our zone forward. Subgame is very limited in many ways so the new server platform will bring us flexibility and solutions we've only dreamt of before. Once the final formation of our development team is set we will hopefully progress forward with this part of our plan - the idea is to transfer all the bots and important stuff to the new server - test that everything works and then do the final move to shut down the old subgame server and use AS3 server full time. I am personally following this process very closely as I do not want us to move forward with this plan until it has been ensured that everything works on AS3 - switching without proper testing could leave us crippled with non-functional zone for weeks which is not exactly a great way to improve our population.
Public changes
At the moment we have Fly's gameplay concept on public, however in the near future we're hoping to get another kind of gameplay added to public. The biggest improvement in this new public game will be that the area played expands when more players come in and gets smaller when players leave - Fly Swatter has developed this pretty far already and possibly he or our new development team will finish the idea.
New website
This one is pretty obvious, as I previously stated in other thread - the current website is ugly at best even though the functionality was great - as long as it worked. It does not work anymore, practice statistics do not get transferred from DSB practice bot to dsb.com anymore - I noticed it has been like this for a year or so now. Obviously there is some mailfuntion in the databases or somewhere. What we're really looking for here is completely new website with great looks as well as good functionality - something representative and easy to use from player perspective as well as easy for administration. In a way I'd say we're looking for the possibility to move our website to this decade again - I feel like we're stuck with this front on something that was 10 years ago. With any luck the new website would also have a possibility for player profiles where you could gain some sort of medals or something from either pub achievements or league - maybe both depending which way our progress goes in the near future. Obviously league websites would be under the same roof as well - league.nu was great 10 years ago but nowadays I'm afraid it's too outdated and buggy to serve our needs. Especially the administrator end was sometimes really painful to handle. For this project we will need at least two gifted individuals, one to design graphics for the website and the other one to handle the coding required to transfer data back and forth between the website and the game.
Friend-Bot
Luckily ee have some dedicated people around so we are in progress of bringing DSB and possibly whole Continuum a friend-bot. What this basically means is that you can add player x or y as a friend and then stay in touch with them through the bot - possibly see when they are online - message them through the bot and so on. The bot will store like 5 previously received messages from each person and obviously you can message only to people in your friendlist. Other zones have been interested of this idea as well so we're looking into the possibility that this friend-bot system will spread to every zone once the project is finished. There is currently no ETA on this but an early version of the bot is already up in DSB - however the functionality is not finished yet so do not fall in love with it yet. Lets give a big thanks to the person behind this idea - Raminator, thank you!
Leagues (in case of..)
In terms of leagues we're very far away from having such a thing played but lets discuss this briefly anyway. The idea I've toyed with is that in the future all the tourneys and leagues, shorter or longer ones, will be hosted by different people - sort of rotating league coordinators so anybody who is willing and wishes to have their shot at organising a league will get one. Obviously you will get help from the higher staff, meaning myself and Eridu mostly but you are ultimately in charge of planning and organising the league. We will not be stepping in unless you want to or we clearly see something going extremely wrong which may hurt the whole zone. Why we're offering such a chance you may ask - well it's rather simple - the workload can be shared and it's about time to try something completely new. These individuals who will step up can bring their own experience and visions to the leagues as well as gain valuable experience of coordinating a league which is very rewarding in the end - after all the hard work is done.
Last words (of this post..)
Guess you could say in a way that it's all quiet on the western front - basically without the few additions to the list we're still working with the same things as my previous post said - some tasks still requiring people and resources to get done. However we're moving forward with the resources we have at the best speed we can and improving the zone is our priority number one as the Steam launch is getting closer. Obviously we can not get all the things done by then but I would say that we have a good chance to keep the players interested and excited with the possiblities we have in the zone right now. While we slowly move forward on bringing new and exciting additions in the near future. The priority on the first few days and weeks after the Steam launch is to ensure that the new players have fun on public which is fully functional as it is - expanding their gaming experience further takes some time as they need to learn the basics first. Thank you for reading and all the feedback is very welcome - however I ask for constructive feedback/criticism because I can't tell what's wrong if you just tell me to shove something where the sun does not shine.
-Beer Hunter
Because we're getting closer to Steam launch and things need to get more organised again, I do believe it's time to do a list of things what need to be done and also bring the players up to speed on what we're up to right now.
Staff reformation
I've went through this subject before so it's not a new thing - we've rebuilt our staff to have moderators who are able to perform all the tasks neccesary in the zone, from pub moderation to hosting events and league games. This also means that all of our staffers have dropped their Op>, ER> or Rf> tags and roam the galaxy with their regular names - yet they can be identified by having a DSB STAFF squadname and a banner. The training for all the staffers to posses the knowledge of hosting and/or modding is not yet finished but we're working on that front. Everything in staff moves under one roof so there are no different departments anymore - only staff and development team.
ASSS (AS3)
We've been through this before as well - currently DSB server runs with subgame, however we are looking into changing to AS3 server in order to have more possibilities on developing our zone forward. Subgame is very limited in many ways so the new server platform will bring us flexibility and solutions we've only dreamt of before. Once the final formation of our development team is set we will hopefully progress forward with this part of our plan - the idea is to transfer all the bots and important stuff to the new server - test that everything works and then do the final move to shut down the old subgame server and use AS3 server full time. I am personally following this process very closely as I do not want us to move forward with this plan until it has been ensured that everything works on AS3 - switching without proper testing could leave us crippled with non-functional zone for weeks which is not exactly a great way to improve our population.
Public changes
At the moment we have Fly's gameplay concept on public, however in the near future we're hoping to get another kind of gameplay added to public. The biggest improvement in this new public game will be that the area played expands when more players come in and gets smaller when players leave - Fly Swatter has developed this pretty far already and possibly he or our new development team will finish the idea.
New website
This one is pretty obvious, as I previously stated in other thread - the current website is ugly at best even though the functionality was great - as long as it worked. It does not work anymore, practice statistics do not get transferred from DSB practice bot to dsb.com anymore - I noticed it has been like this for a year or so now. Obviously there is some mailfuntion in the databases or somewhere. What we're really looking for here is completely new website with great looks as well as good functionality - something representative and easy to use from player perspective as well as easy for administration. In a way I'd say we're looking for the possibility to move our website to this decade again - I feel like we're stuck with this front on something that was 10 years ago. With any luck the new website would also have a possibility for player profiles where you could gain some sort of medals or something from either pub achievements or league - maybe both depending which way our progress goes in the near future. Obviously league websites would be under the same roof as well - league.nu was great 10 years ago but nowadays I'm afraid it's too outdated and buggy to serve our needs. Especially the administrator end was sometimes really painful to handle. For this project we will need at least two gifted individuals, one to design graphics for the website and the other one to handle the coding required to transfer data back and forth between the website and the game.
Friend-Bot
Luckily ee have some dedicated people around so we are in progress of bringing DSB and possibly whole Continuum a friend-bot. What this basically means is that you can add player x or y as a friend and then stay in touch with them through the bot - possibly see when they are online - message them through the bot and so on. The bot will store like 5 previously received messages from each person and obviously you can message only to people in your friendlist. Other zones have been interested of this idea as well so we're looking into the possibility that this friend-bot system will spread to every zone once the project is finished. There is currently no ETA on this but an early version of the bot is already up in DSB - however the functionality is not finished yet so do not fall in love with it yet. Lets give a big thanks to the person behind this idea - Raminator, thank you!
Leagues (in case of..)
In terms of leagues we're very far away from having such a thing played but lets discuss this briefly anyway. The idea I've toyed with is that in the future all the tourneys and leagues, shorter or longer ones, will be hosted by different people - sort of rotating league coordinators so anybody who is willing and wishes to have their shot at organising a league will get one. Obviously you will get help from the higher staff, meaning myself and Eridu mostly but you are ultimately in charge of planning and organising the league. We will not be stepping in unless you want to or we clearly see something going extremely wrong which may hurt the whole zone. Why we're offering such a chance you may ask - well it's rather simple - the workload can be shared and it's about time to try something completely new. These individuals who will step up can bring their own experience and visions to the leagues as well as gain valuable experience of coordinating a league which is very rewarding in the end - after all the hard work is done.
Last words (of this post..)
Guess you could say in a way that it's all quiet on the western front - basically without the few additions to the list we're still working with the same things as my previous post said - some tasks still requiring people and resources to get done. However we're moving forward with the resources we have at the best speed we can and improving the zone is our priority number one as the Steam launch is getting closer. Obviously we can not get all the things done by then but I would say that we have a good chance to keep the players interested and excited with the possiblities we have in the zone right now. While we slowly move forward on bringing new and exciting additions in the near future. The priority on the first few days and weeks after the Steam launch is to ensure that the new players have fun on public which is fully functional as it is - expanding their gaming experience further takes some time as they need to learn the basics first. Thank you for reading and all the feedback is very welcome - however I ask for constructive feedback/criticism because I can't tell what's wrong if you just tell me to shove something where the sun does not shine.
-Beer Hunter