Hello everyone again!
Today I'm bringing you something new, something fresh, something that isn't actually done yet
Overhauled BBS System
Introduction
The overhauled BBS system, is a recent idea from roguey.co.uk members.
The idea is to take another look at the BBS system, and give it another go, with a couple modern ideas, eliminating one of the major problems with the old system. What problem you ask? The repeating boring, same old messages.
How will it work
This part is a bit complicated to explain, so let's follow a story from submission to your game.
First stop would be a web page, where users can register, enter news stories (edit and delete their stories too), and very importantly RATE other peoples stories.
Once a news story has a high enough rating or the folks running the category it was submitted in approve it, the story is ready to go live.
Now, I'm on the other end of the world, start up a simple little Java client, which connects to the story database, downloads the new stories in the categories that interest me, and put's all of them in a single .xml file. So, the download process is done, and I start the game.
I dock at a station or press a hotkey (for TC), and check the bulletin board. Voila! I have new news stories!
Simple isn't it?
More details
One of the major features we want to create is the possibility for anyone or any mod team to just register, and have their users get their BBS stories from this. Even more, it is in our interest to support X3 Reunion, X2 The Threat as well as X3 Terran Conflict.
More details: Categories, Mods and Games
The categories might sound a little confusing at the moment, but think about them as a personal choice list of what you want to read.
So you want to read about new ships in a mod? new weapons? not the readme of feature list, but have this information on the BBS in-game. Well maybe you don't care about that, and just want fun stories. Maybe you want a combination of various Game, Mod and Categories stories in the BBS?
Thinking about this, we decided it's best to allow the users the choice of what they care about.
The client application, would have a selection menu, in which the user can check or uncheck which categories from which games will be read.
The selection model follows something like:
Game -> Mod -> Category.
this of course will be made very simple and easy to understand to the user.
Even more, some news stories just don't fit in any category. For this there will be special categories created.
Another thing that is very important for this project is the collaboration of many people, and because of this we came up with the possibility to on-the-fly add new categories from the web site.
PLEASE READ
Thanks for reading this far. Now the REAL problem is, the community shrunk quite a bit, and we are not really sure anyone would care about this. The plans have been layed, there is even a preliminary specification written, and we know how to make this happen. What we need now is some input from you. so please head over to the Creative Universe Forum, there is another thread with this name running a poll.
If the poll will be positive, we will get on creating this (we are sorry to do this this way, but can't see any other way to actually see if anyone will care).
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=301124
NOTE FOR THE MODERATORS: I know this thread is posted in X3TC and X3Rs script forum too, but please leave it around, since this project would be for everyone of them.
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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
This is from the X3 TC forum:
I want to remind you that the project is NOT yet officially being implemented.
The poll will run for a week, maybe (if the results don't give a clear answer) two weeks. After that decisions will be made as for the future of the project.
I'd like to answer this in parts:So how many articles have you guys already got to kickstart the project / set a quality standard / show an example to prospective writers?
Quality standard: The quality standard will be set by the community. This is why we are planning on a rating system. Another thing to consider is the heaps of mods/mod teams that want their own news or BBS messages around. These have to set their own standards.
The only standard we enforce is the coding standard.
This might sound weird, but we provide the tools, we provide the hosting, and we want to give everyone who wants one a real chance. Because of this, we will implement a couple mechanisms to keep the standards up, but all I can say about that is in the first post.
So to say again and say it clearly, the aim is to provide the tools, and the possibility. The standard will be set by the community.
About the examples: The process will be documentented, the standard formatting will be supported (e.g. 1 or 2 collumns, header, author etc.).
We will try to implement this as good as we can, without overcomplicating it. We will also provide help, and possibly how-to's or guides if needed (through I don't think that will be neccessary). I'd love to show you exactly what will be in store, but like I said, we haven't yet begun the implementation, because we have no idea how much interest there will be for it.
About the kickstart: This is a very valid point, and it will be addressed. As for a concrete number of stories we already have, honestly I have no idea.
Again, I don't want to make promises I won't be able to keep. The idea is to ask the current BBS script authors to allow us or even help us port their scripts to our system. Here again goes, the more folks join in the better it gets.
A few words on this. I might not have been completely clear in the first post, but the download/update process will be automatic. Well...semi-automatic, as the program will ask you if you want to download now. Once you've set up which categories you want to follow, all you will have to do is press a button and get the new stories, so in all reality I'm not asking too much I guess...if you only have 10 articles, why should anyone go through the chore of downloading/updating/etc.?
Another thing that was important to us, but I probably failed to mention was compatibility. This will work with the Windows, Linux, and Mac version of the game.
Another important thing: while I often said that the implementation process has not yet begun, I want to point out that we already have it mostly planned (e.g. a preliminary specification has been created). This means that we do know how to make it, and with that it won't take us long (personally I'm thinking 2-3 weeks once the work has begun).
Also, if the vote goes through, and we start the implementaiton process, a lot more details will be shared, and more importantly Everyone will be welcome to participate, either with the code, testing, writing stories, reading and porting stories from others etc.
Canceling reasons and further information
Heyo everyone!
I'm sorry to bring you the bad news today. But this project has been canceled. The reasons are simple, we have over 700 views on the threads but only a couple people took the time to fill out the poll.
This shows us that there is no interest for this project.
Frankly said, I'm a bit dissapointed as I've expected a bigger reaction from everyone.
Now the good news is, there will be something similar made. It won't be absolutely the same, but we are inviting everyone who wants to participate.
So, what are the changes?
There will be no domain extra for this. Entry's will be made available at http://www.roguey.co.uk
Other then that, a couple more things get dropped, for example you won't be able to add a new category by yourself. This doesn't mean there won't be new categories added, just that you'll have to ask for it to be added.
What does all this mean?
If I try to summarize, the point is, the project as such has been canceled and we took a step back, making it smaller and lighter. The new version will be mostly for Roguey's Mod, but will work stand-alone too. This just means the project isn't that big, won't cost us as much money, and will be done faster.
If you still care about this, and want to join up, I suggest you drop by
http://forum.roguey.co.uk
OR our IRC chat, which can be accessed from http://roguey.co.uk/chat
or your own chat client @ wyldryde.org, #Rogueys
That's it for now, we got more in store, and all always welcoming people to check out what were doing, and maybe even contribute.
