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Unread 20 Oct 2007, 16:45   #1
GReaper
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The portal (again)

I've posted about this before, and quite a while ago as well. Yet again another portal is dead due to the lack of updates.

The "new" portal doesn't fully work. Entire sections are missing out of it, such as blogs, the manual and the credits. The login link is non-functional, this could've been changed to login to the main game itself even if the single sign up system isn't completed. Nobody is posting news, round 23 is nearly over but nothing reminding people of the end of the round has been submitted to the front page.

This site doesn't even tell me anything about Planetarion. It's going to be nearly impossible to get new random players who aren't pushed into the game by their friends. If someone saw a link of the game from another site, I seriously doubt they'd have much idea about what the game is.

Is any feedback about this taken seriously? There seems to be a loop - the excuses that the new portal will look great once it has more content, no content gets added and yet another portal comes along to start things all over again.

Please sort out a website which makes the game look good.
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Unread 20 Oct 2007, 22:47   #2
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Re: The portal (again)

Obviously i cant comment on behalf of the PATeam but previous to round 23 me and Kal had a discussion about me taking over the running of the portal again. Kal went away and spoke to PATeam and it was agreed that i would be given the position again.

However, i am still waiting to hear anything further. I assume that the 'new' portal is not fully functional and that is why i have not been contacted. I was quite looking forward to getting back involved and really making a go of the new system but unfortunately until someone tells me there isnt much i can do.
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Unread 20 Oct 2007, 23:30   #3
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Re: The portal (again)

I think they should drop the entire selfdesigned portal and go for something like drupal and set it up the way they want it.

It got everything they need, and what small things it does not have, they can add to it. Spend their time designing a template instead of wasting time on something that only scares people away.

It looks even worse now then the previous portal, and that sadly says alot
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Unread 21 Oct 2007, 00:18   #4
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Re: The portal (again)

I *really* don't understand why they launched it when it was only half done. Granted myk (who made it) has gone r/l'ing, I assume he left comments in the code which would get it sorted and simple to do.

Lets break it down MC Smudge style;

* PA Login - Simple enough quick hack, just have the form go do what ever login.pl does
* Blogging - Make a DB table for it to go in. Create custom login for users and a layout (public) and tools (private) for creating blogs. There is something "there" as the Articales section has a test post in it
* Staff Credits - just a list, maybe sorted if your being fancy

I'm not looking at it from a content point of view (ie advertising PA), I'm purely looking at it from a techinical view and what I listed ^^^^ is a days work, if that.

Sort it out PA Team :/
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Unread 21 Oct 2007, 04:44   #5
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Re: The portal (again)

The portal definitely needs a brief description of what the game is on the front page somewhere, especially at the moment, as any new people will not have a clue, as the manual doesn't work.
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Unread 21 Oct 2007, 13:59   #6
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Re: The portal (again)

I'd say what the portal needs is a fairly dedicated portal manager whose only responsibility is to the portal and not the game. Every time effort is put in to sort out the portal it comes from the same coders who work on the game. Any work put into the portal seems to be a half hearted effort and comes as the expense of work being put into the game.

It needs a coder who has the time to finish a site and not leave it half done. Someone familiar with HTML and a programming language suitable for building the portal with. Someone who is willing to write content for it on a regular basis, if the portal is left alone for just a week then it is close to becoming a failure. A team of 2-3 people to manage the content for it, not a huge team of columnists from the community who write a couple of articles and get bored.

Don't just think of it as a news site, it could include a lot of other things which various other sites have (bcalc, search tool, etc) to build it into a full site. If enough effort is put into it then it could become a useful Planetarion resource, something which people might want to use.
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Unread 23 Oct 2007, 13:25   #7
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by GReaper
I'd say what the portal needs is a fairly dedicated portal manager whose only responsibility is to the portal and not the game. Every time effort is put in to sort out the portal it comes from the same coders who work on the game. Any work put into the portal seems to be a half hearted effort and comes as the expense of work being put into the game.

It needs a coder who has the time to finish a site and not leave it half done. Someone familiar with HTML and a programming language suitable for building the portal with. Someone who is willing to write content for it on a regular basis, if the portal is left alone for just a week then it is close to becoming a failure. A team of 2-3 people to manage the content for it, not a huge team of columnists from the community who write a couple of articles and get bored.

Don't just think of it as a news site, it could include a lot of other things which various other sites have (bcalc, search tool, etc) to build it into a full site. If enough effort is put into it then it could become a useful Planetarion resource, something which people might want to use.
I was asked about putting forward a 'bid' to develop the passport, to be just what your saying - not doing anything on the game, not being busy managing things day to day etc but purely concentrating on passport development.

Suffice to say, I got asked, did a bid then and as Chef has noticed already, got loads of silence. I only found out through someone else that they weren't gonna use me, or the other person who put a bid in. Instead it was 'put on hold'.
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Unread 23 Oct 2007, 13:47   #8
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Re: The portal (again)

I would assume that Aryn (sp.) is the person to talk to about the portal as she's in charge of it, or atleast that is what im lead to belive from what has been said in the past.

I do not know how much actual work is being put into it, although i have a slight suspicion that not much is going on with it
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Unread 23 Oct 2007, 15:25   #9
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Re: The portal (again)

I think if you aren't in the PA Team club then they won't let you in. Both Mit and Chef used to be a part of Planetarion but no longer are, it seems that anyone else gets the brush-off.

I'm quite frankly pissed off that the people who run Planetarion no longer have much time for it yet refuse to let it go. It's great when you can contribute something, but if you can't then please let someone else take over the running of the game to continue it. Most of the people who are running the game have found new jobs or are studying more important things.

The operations department (Kal) is great at ignoring people. Just what does Kal do? I'm sure someone will come up with an excuse that he does something extremely important, but from what I know he tends to ignore anything related to what he's supposed to do. Looks like he's now the forum admin, a nice position where he can keep his title and do very little for the game.

There are currently 3-4 people in the development team and yet the changes in each round are far from impressive. An entire team of people to code and they can't even fix a ****ing website. Appocomaster is a nice guy, but it's time to let someone else continue the game with a new vision.

Planetarion needs help badly, however it's impossible for anyone else to help it if you aren't willing to let people join in and help you. Chef, Mit and many other people have offered but everyone gets ignored.

Looks like the website is going to be assigned to another existing member of PA Team to **** up.
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Unread 23 Oct 2007, 15:45   #10
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Re: The portal (again)

Phil - it always was very cliquey, even when I was involved. It does nothing to help the game at all, no.

I wasn't asking to become part of PA Team again, not even trying that. I was asked by Kal to put a bid forwrd for a re-development of the passport system (that I started myself for Round 10). He came to me, not me trying ot push anything.

Those with the cash need to make an investment, at the moment the game is being milked for all its worth with very little input.
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Unread 23 Oct 2007, 16:21   #11
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Re: The portal (again)

I think everyone is in agreement that the current portal is poor. We in PATeam have neglected our duty to do something about it in the short term. However a solution is being progressed.

I think it is also clear that PATeam needs to make it clear to the community what the various people in it actually do.

From a personal perspective my life has been somewhat busy at the moment and I don;t have much time for PA - the only PA site I can access from work is the forums, hence the move to forums admin. Work is being progressed on the forums, but there are things that are beyond our control - for example I want to make some changes to the way the forums work, but I'm still waiting for the information I need to make them happen.
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Unread 23 Oct 2007, 16:24   #12
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Re: The portal (again)

Forums and portal should come together under 'community sites' rather than anything else. They should be worked on seperately, they should be more tied together, this will help to drive the community a bit more. IRC should be more linked in too to make the whole lot more friendly to beginers etc.

I wouldn't have said at this current stage in time the forums need much doing to them, concentration should be happening on the portal to get the users coming to the site in the first place.
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Unread 23 Oct 2007, 16:43   #13
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Re: The portal (again)

I have to apologise for the lack of information about the portal.
To sumarise:
in short, in the middle of Round 22, the portal server was updated and broke apache and corrupted several databases (including the portal one).
As myk's long-promised portal was nearly ready, we decided to leave it - he was just being given Jolt's layout. However, he was just starting his business. Before the end of Round 22 he was less active, and whilst he had done some of the portal (which you see), he then disappeared to see his girlfriend. Unfortunately, since then I've tried to contact him and whilst he's promised to send me the rest of the portal, he hasn't and so I've given up. Among the code not sent was all the user registration and admin tools, which is why the portal hasn't been updated so much (manual mysql entry is always a bit exciting).
Because of the lack of code of much more than what you see (which I've hacked), Cin has done another one - purely because we're not sure how any of myk's portal was meant to fit together. We have a few problems that we're not sure will resolve by Friday, but when it's done it will be much more complete. After myk's announcement that his portal would be done by Round 23, we're wary of announcing when exactly it'd be done.
I apologise for this
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Unread 23 Oct 2007, 20:26   #14
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil M
I think if you aren't in the PA Team club then they won't let you in. Both Mit and Chef used to be a part of Planetarion but no longer are, it seems that anyone else gets the brush-off.

I'm quite frankly pissed off that the people who run Planetarion no longer have much time for it yet refuse to let it go. It's great when you can contribute something, but if you can't then please let someone else take over the running of the game to continue it. Most of the people who are running the game have found new jobs or are studying more important things.

The operations department (Kal) is great at ignoring people. Just what does Kal do? I'm sure someone will come up with an excuse that he does something extremely important, but from what I know he tends to ignore anything related to what he's supposed to do. Looks like he's now the forum admin, a nice position where he can keep his title and do very little for the game.

There are currently 3-4 people in the development team and yet the changes in each round are far from impressive. An entire team of people to code and they can't even fix a ****ing website. Appocomaster is a nice guy, but it's time to let someone else continue the game with a new vision.

Planetarion needs help badly, however it's impossible for anyone else to help it if you aren't willing to let people join in and help you. Chef, Mit and many other people have offered but everyone gets ignored.

Looks like the website is going to be assigned to another existing member of PA Team to **** up.
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Unread 23 Oct 2007, 20:27   #15
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Appocomaster
I have to apologise for the lack of information about the portal.
To sumarise:
in short, in the middle of Round 22, the portal server was updated and broke apache and corrupted several databases (including the portal one).
As myk's long-promised portal was nearly ready, we decided to leave it - he was just being given Jolt's layout. However, he was just starting his business. Before the end of Round 22 he was less active, and whilst he had done some of the portal (which you see), he then disappeared to see his girlfriend. Unfortunately, since then I've tried to contact him and whilst he's promised to send me the rest of the portal, he hasn't and so I've given up. Among the code not sent was all the user registration and admin tools, which is why the portal hasn't been updated so much (manual mysql entry is always a bit exciting).
Because of the lack of code of much more than what you see (which I've hacked), Cin has done another one - purely because we're not sure how any of myk's portal was meant to fit together. We have a few problems that we're not sure will resolve by Friday, but when it's done it will be much more complete. After myk's announcement that his portal would be done by Round 23, we're wary of announcing when exactly it'd be done.
I apologise for this
Did you just blame your tools and people who are not in the pa team anymore as a reason why you have been failing to preform your duties as a pa team?

I think you should read Phil M's post up there, and take it to heart.
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Unread 23 Oct 2007, 20:29   #16
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kargool
Did you just blame your tools and people who are not in the pa team anymore as a reason why you have been failing to preform your duties as a pa team?

I think you should read Phil M's post up there, and take it to heart.
You appear to be asking me to quit
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Unread 23 Oct 2007, 23:03   #17
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Re: The portal (again)

Why do you have to reinvent the wheel?
There are many good cmses out there that could do the work required as a community portal for planetarion ?

Everything doesn't have to be integrated into one unit, worked before and for other companies
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 02:19   #18
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Re: The portal (again)

Have to agree with Allfather, there are plenty of existing CMS solutions as well as other frameworks which could get the job done shockingly fast. You could even use something as simple as Wordpress, yes it's a bit of a nightmare for security but it can do news and static pages quite quickly. Personally I'd go with Django these days, but I'm sure there are plenty of options.

One question, what exactly is being done to prevent the next version of the portal from being a failure?

The same mistakes seem to happen with every version of the portal, so I'd like to know just what steps are being taken to ensure that we don't end up with yet another dead portal in a few months time. I don't want to see another batch of false promises which won't be implemented.

It's sad to see the constant failure of the portals.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 04:32   #19
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Re: The portal (again)

you blame us for not bringing in more volunteers to help out, yet when we ask for help we get little to no response. everyone's quick to criticize, yet no one's quick to jump on board. requests to join the team don't get ignored, but with any business a process is in place to ensure we get the 'right person' for the job. someone who's able to work well with the rest of the team, someone who's very knowledgeable in the area they'll be helping with, someone who has the time to volunteer, and in case of coding and pateam things, someone who's willing to leave their alliance to focus on the game in a non-biased environment.

also in response to Kargool's post, i'm not the portal manager, i'm the manual manager. i apologize for the delay in bringing it up to date, but (yes i'm making an excuse) we thought the portal would be done and with it the new manual. however we were wrong and i was wrong to assume it, so all i can say is that it's being worked on, but as Appoco already said, we're a bit hesitant to start giving due dates to avoid giving false promises.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 09:33   #20
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aryn
you blame us for not bringing in more volunteers to help out, yet when we ask for help we get little to no response. everyone's quick to criticize, yet no one's quick to jump on board. requests to join the team don't get ignored, but with any business a process is in place to ensure we get the 'right person' for the job. someone who's able to work well with the rest of the team, someone who's very knowledgeable in the area they'll be helping with, someone who has the time to volunteer, and in case of coding and pateam things, someone who's willing to leave their alliance to focus on the game in a non-biased environment.
But, When PATeam come to the community, asking people to put BIDS in to re-develop the site, the implies someone being paid to do the job properly - people did respond (myself included), then got left in the dark pretty much.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 10:26   #21
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mit
But, When PATeam come to the community, asking people to put BIDS in to re-develop the site, the implies someone being paid to do the job properly - people did respond (myself included), then got left in the dark pretty much.
I apologise for that, I'd have very much liked to used the bidding approach effectivly. Unfortunatly (or fortunatly) Jolt prioritised having some free rounds over paying for a portal.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 10:34   #22
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Re: The portal (again)

Yet again people are blaming their tools instead of actually being totally honest and saying: Yes, its my fault thing havent gotten done, and yes, its my fault thing that has been promised done for ages is not done.

Instead of spending time finding excuses for not doing your jobs, why dont you just a) do your jobs or admit that you either b) dont have the time to do the job you said you would and leave or c) admit you are not competent to do your job and leave.

Thoose should be your options. Instead of the free round that was supposed to give the game a positive effect, the round after the free round had less people playing than the round before the free round, so obviously the strategy of attracting people with a free round did not work.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 10:41   #23
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Re: The portal (again)

Because leaving admits the problem exists where as pretending to carry on makes it look `better`

IMO, instead of a free round, a professional portal would do far more to bring users into the game. What do I know though, I only work developing communities for various games
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 10:56   #24
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mit
Because leaving admits the problem exists where as pretending to carry on makes it look `better`

IMO, instead of a free round, a professional portal would do far more to bring users into the game. What do I know though, I only work developing communities for various games
You have to remember that during more or less the entire free round the portal was down, and there was more or less NO information about the game at www.planetarion.com
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 11:03   #25
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Re: The portal (again)

exactly a portal would be far more useful than a free round that isn't obvious that it even exists, is free etc.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 11:06   #26
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Re: The portal (again)

But you gotta remember, if you have a group of people that decides to run marketing strategies on a whim based on personal agendas then you get what you barter for.

I personally think that one of the biggest problems with the current pa team is that they dont really have anything to lose, and seems to have full confidence in whatever they do no matter how much they mess up.

Spinner and his team were passionate about the game, not only because it was their creation, but it was their livelyhood.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 11:36   #27
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Re: The portal (again)

I look forward to the day kargool will post something positive (for a change)
But i have the feeling that will be a long and futile wait
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 11:46   #28
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Re: The portal (again)

If Jolt say that there is going to be free rounds over a portal being paid for then that's it.

If it was myk who was supposed to be doing the new portal then went off not giving his code to the team what can they do but start again?

The main culprit here to be honest IS Jolt. Appoco, Kal & Cin are the victims of Jolts incompetence not their own.

At the end of the day if you want them to leave over this, understand there there is no one to step up to do it in their place. The game would either be shut down or just be looped by Jolt with the same setup / stats every round. You'd get a reset to set it all back to tick 0 and that would be it.

Jolt are the ones that pissed up Mit being able to do a decent portal, Jolt are the ones that changed their minds about how it was all going to come off, Jolt are the ones hiding in the back ground while you give PA Team all the abuse.

If you want to direct your hate towards anyone, point it at Biffy on irc or send him an email.

Having been in PA Team I know how much Jolt take a "We don't really care how you run it, do it how you like, it's up to you guys" attitude but also step it at just the wrong moments to screw the whole thing up.

I think you're pointing undeserved criticism against people who do this because they don't want the game to die.

Give them a break, as I said above, if the coder for the portal walks off and doesn't respond to any contact with only half of the code transferred over, what the hell do you expect them to do?
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 12:11   #29
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Re: The portal (again)

How about that we just simply institute a boycott of the game, refuse to pay credits.

Infact, I am gonna suggest to all the alliances that only the scanners update their planets, and everyone else refuses to pay for their credits.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 12:14   #30
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kargool
How about that we just simply institute a boycott of the game, refuse to pay credits.

Infact, I am gonna suggest to all the alliances that only the scanners update their planets, and everyone else refuses to pay for their credits.
Which will result in the game making no money & the servers getting turned off
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 12:17   #31
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Marv
Which will result in the game making no money & the servers getting turned off
Well, as it is going at the moment maybe it's better to kill the game, rather than letting anyone belive that the game is actually going somewhere, then lie to them.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 12:19   #32
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kargool
Well, as it is going at the moment maybe it's better to kill the game, rather than letting anyone belive that the game is actually going somewhere, then lie to them.
You're right. You should leave the boards now as they'll be gone in five minutes anyway.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 12:29   #33
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kal
I apologise for that, I'd have very much liked to used the bidding approach effectivly. Unfortunatly (or fortunatly) Jolt prioritised having some free rounds over paying for a portal.
Pretty much sums it up, Jolt prioritising what THEY think instead of what is actually needed.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 12:30   #34
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aryn
you blame us for not bringing in more volunteers to help out, yet when we ask for help we get little to no response. everyone's quick to criticize, yet no one's quick to jump on board. requests to join the team don't get ignored, but with any business a process is in place to ensure we get the 'right person' for the job. someone who's able to work well with the rest of the team, someone who's very knowledgeable in the area they'll be helping with, someone who has the time to volunteer, and in case of coding and pateam things, someone who's willing to leave their alliance to focus on the game in a non-biased environment.
Don't you dare try and pass the blame onto people not volunteering. If it's anything like the experience when I've tried to offer help then I'm surprised that anyone does.

Back in August last year I replied to this post by Kal offering to help. I sent an offer of help by forum PM, I never got a reply. Thinking that maybe it got lost I contacted him on IRC just to make sure. Did I ever receive a reply? Never. I didn't receive a reply saying either yes or no? Never. Did he bother forwarding any interest to the person who was to become the portal manager? No.

I offered myself for the recent developer position as well. I did actually get some replies from Appocomaster for this up to a certain point. After not receiving a yes or a no for 2 weeks I had to ask about the status of things. Apparently they're using an existing person who was already under NDA from before. Why bother to advertise externally when you should've advertised internally first?

Looks like I'm not the only one though. Mit puts in a bid to develop the portal and doesn't get any reply. Chef was contacted about running the portal and never got a further reply. Are you seriously claiming that requests don't get ignored?
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 12:38   #35
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by GReaper
Don't you dare try and pass the blame onto people not volunteering. If it's anything like the experience when I've tried to offer help then I'm surprised that anyone does.

Back in August last year I replied to this post by Kal offering to help. I sent an offer of help by forum PM, I never got a reply. Thinking that maybe it got lost I contacted him on IRC just to make sure. Did I ever receive a reply? Never. I didn't receive a reply saying either yes or no? Never. Did he bother forwarding any interest to the person who was to become the portal manager? No.
I can't find any forums pms from you, and I wouldn;t have deleted one without replying to it.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 12:46   #36
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Re: The portal (again)

I even spent time putting together a rough mockup design to help show what could be done - http://tim.igoe.me.uk/files/Planetarion.png - shows you how long ago I did that - mid jan. That was by no means a final design, but a knock together, and not wanting to sound big headed or anything, but that quick thing is much better than what there is there now. The existing one does nothing to make people want to play.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 12:50   #37
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kal
I can't find any forums pms from you, and I wouldn;t have deleted one without replying to it.
It's still in my Sent Items folder here, which wouldn't exist unless it got sent to you in the first place. From what I remember you acknowledged the forum PM in IRC, but didn't act on it.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 12:54   #38
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by GReaper
Have to agree with Allfather, there are plenty of existing CMS solutions as well as other frameworks which could get the job done shockingly fast. You could even use something as simple as Wordpress, yes it's a bit of a nightmare for security but it can do news and static pages quite quickly. Personally I'd go with Django these days, but I'm sure there are plenty of options.

One question, what exactly is being done to prevent the next version of the portal from being a failure?

The same mistakes seem to happen with every version of the portal, so I'd like to know just what steps are being taken to ensure that we don't end up with yet another dead portal in a few months time. I don't want to see another batch of false promises which won't be implemented.

It's sad to see the constant failure of the portals.
A bespoke package is significantly better than anything off the self. Yes they have had problems in the past with bespoke systems buts thats due to the coders being substandard (mainly in the the documentation area which is poor or none existant and makes it hard for other coders to come in later and enhance or fix the framework. I know back in round 6 when I was part of the coding team the documentation for most of the other coders sections were so poor they were useless) and from a management pov where they weren't strong enough to tell coders to piss off when they demanded to recode the whole system when it wasn't needed BUT atleast a bespoke system isnt full of redundant code for PA and most importantly isnt riddled with exploits that are so easy to find out about and exploit that the world and their wife can hack the system and take control of your server with little effort.

With little effort you can find hundreds of exploits for things like wordpress or any CMS and a portal for a company that requests money from its users is a prime target to be hit. A bespoke website will probably still have exploits available but anyone wanting to take advantage of them has to find these exploits themselves, effort that most people wont bother with and when exploits are found they can be fixed internally rather than wait for the CMS systems programmers to be bothered to fix it
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 13:15   #39
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kargool
Yet again people are blaming their tools instead of actually being totally honest and saying: Yes, its my fault thing havent gotten done, and yes, its my fault thing that has been promised done for ages is not done.

Instead of spending time finding excuses for not doing your jobs, why dont you just a) do your jobs or admit that you either b) dont have the time to do the job you said you would and leave or c) admit you are not competent to do your job and leave.

Thoose should be your options. Instead of the free round that was supposed to give the game a positive effect, the round after the free round had less people playing than the round before the free round, so obviously the strategy of attracting people with a free round did not work.
Sometimes I read one of your posts and think "surely Kargool cant post anything more idiotic in the future" yet over and over again you surprise me by being even more stupid.

Being in a role in PA isnt exactly easy, you have a load of duties, real life commitments and only 24 hours in a day. This mean that duties have to be priorities and sadly alot of the important tasks are ones that arent visable and allow people like you (who doesnt himself have a good rep for their helping, you couldn't even keep up a good rate of writing articles for the portal) to call them lazy and incompetent. If they took your advice and quit because you have deemed them incompetent and not doing their job then the game would be worse off because the behind the scene important tasks wouldn't get done and the cosmetic stuff would also remain undone as theres no one to do it.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 13:17   #40
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Re: The portal (again)

my appologies i wasn't aware of kal's recruiting thing. i know when appoco asked for volunteers we got less of a response than we were expecting. and actually just because you didn't see us discussing things doesn't mean it doesn't happen. each of the candidates were discussed as to whether or not they'd make a positive influence on the game, work well with the team, and do a good job.

as for the mit/chef thing, it happened before i came on board so i'm not really sure what happened there. but... it hasn't been forgotten.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 13:22   #41
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by wakey
Sometimes I read one of your posts and think "surely Kargool cant post anything more idiotic in the future" yet over and over again you surprise me by being even more stupid.

Being in a role in PA isnt exactly easy, you have a load of duties, real life commitments and only 24 hours in a day. This mean that duties have to be priorities and sadly alot of the important tasks are ones that arent visable and allow people like you (who doesnt himself have a good rep for their helping, you couldn't even keep up a good rate of writing articles for the portal) to call them lazy and incompetent. If they took your advice and quit because you have deemed them incompetent and not doing their job then the game would be worse off because the behind the scene important tasks wouldn't get done and the cosmetic stuff would also remain undone as theres no one to do it.
First of all, I had loads of stuff already written that I wanted to run for the column i had but decided not to be a part of the portal team because I did not feel comfortable with the person they appointed after Chef left. (The same person actually didn't do shit, probably because of RL commitments) Just again a viable proof that only wanting a job at the pa team should not be a good enough reason to get a job. Wanting and being capable are two different matters as a whole.

The fact that you decide to attack me as a person instead of actually tackling the problems I am citing in my post just speaks volumes. Please see the ball, not the person the next time you want to tackle a problem. And you calling me stupid is just yet another proof of how long the rot has been allowed to be in the PA team. Just because someone criticizes the things you do, you get all defensive and throw around yourself insults instead of stepping up to the plate pointing out that you should actually take charge and lead instead of hiding under excuses. How refreshing it was to see in this thread several admittances of error on behalf of the pa team instead of the bile you and your piers had a tendency to come up with.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 13:25   #42
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aryn
my appologies i wasn't aware of kal's recruiting thing. i know when appoco asked for volunteers we got less of a response than we were expecting. and actually just because you didn't see us discussing things doesn't mean it doesn't happen. each of the candidates were discussed as to whether or not they'd make a positive influence on the game, work well with the team, and do a good job.

as for the mit/chef thing, it happened before i came on board so i'm not really sure what happened there. but... it hasn't been forgotten.
Then I hereby challenge you Aryn to come up with suggestions for a new manual before the next round start, or maybe that I actually see you around in a few alliances channels talking to people, asking them what they think needs to be changed in the manual.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 14:08   #43
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Smudge
Pretty much sums it up, Jolt prioritising what THEY think instead of what is actually needed.
Spending money on a kind of portal that this community constantly shows it thinks the game needs isn't what is actually needed either.

The community over and over again demands a portal that basically is a 'fan site' rather than a commerical tool and then when they get the fan site they want the community over and over again lets everyone down by not getting behind it. Not once has a member of the community who has volunteered to write for the portal consistently produced interesting, well written articles that are relivent. Instead they may write one or two good relivent articles, then fall into personal blog mode telling people about their life or simply deciding they cba to write anything.

The portal doesn't need to be full of bells and whistles, you don't need votes, you don't articles, you don't need personal blogs ect ect. What it does need is information that builds up a world, provides information on the product, shows activity by the admins and looks professional. If either PATeam would stop trying to please the community or the community just stopped demanding the same old portal features that its shown over and over again they wont use and contribute to when they get it perhaps we would get a portal that was useful for the game and such a portal which consisted off something like

- News
- Features
- Dev Blog
- FAQ
- Manual (Maybe move New player guide out of manual and onto portal)

With a good look this would provide plenty of information on the game and would be appealing to potential players and wouldn't be a major time drain to maintain. Dev blog would probally require the most but would be the most important part. All leaders of the various areas of PA would be required to post required about what they are doing showing everyone what work was being done

Additionally Ive always thought a Backstory section would help set the scene of the game. Initially something like you find in most PC or Console game manuals or at the start of playing a PC/Console game eventually expanding into something like EVE's to create an expanded universe to add a dimension to the game
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 14:30   #44
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kargool
First of all, I had loads of stuff already written that I wanted to run for the column i had but decided not to be a part of the portal team because I did not feel comfortable with the person they appointed after Chef left. (The same person actually didn't do shit, probably because of RL commitments) Just again a viable proof that only wanting a job at the pa team should not be a good enough reason to get a job. Wanting and being capable are two different matters as a whole.

The fact that you decide to attack me as a person instead of actually tackling the problems I am citing in my post just speaks volumes. Please see the ball, not the person the next time you want to tackle a problem. And you calling me stupid is just yet another proof of how long the rot has been allowed to be in the PA team. Just because someone criticizes the things you do, you get all defensive and throw around yourself insults instead of stepping up to the plate pointing out that you should actually take charge and lead instead of hiding under excuses. How refreshing it was to see in this thread several admittances of error on behalf of the pa team instead of the bile you and your piers had a tendency to come up with.
I'm not part of PATeam, and i'm hardly known for defending them when they have ****ed up so saying i'm being defensive is hardly true.

I called you stupid based on the fact your whole 'choice' you gave them is clearly shortsighted and idiotic. Your ignoring the fact that on the whole people don't volunteer to do roles for PA, especially the less flashy ones and the ones that do are rarely suitable for the role they are applying for (Certain people for example have asked to be made a mod, despite them showing that they are clearly as far away from being mod material as you an get). Someone still has to do the roles in question and just because they aren't cosmetic jobs that you can see you deem them either lazy or unsuitable and ask for them all to stand down.

If more people were volunteering for the secondary level jobs, and were doing so because it was a role that they were suitable for and were dedicated in doing then maybe you would see the Leaders of the sections getting some of the cosmetic stuff done but while people don't volunteer for these secondary roles that they are suitable for and the few that do mainly doing it for the status and have no intention of doing the work then its the PATeam members your telling to quit who have to take the slack and without them the important aspects of the game running would join the list of things not getting done as theres not the staff to do them
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 15:00   #45
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by wakey
If more people were volunteering for the secondary level jobs, and were doing so because it was a role that they were suitable for and were dedicated in doing then maybe you would see the Leaders of the sections getting some of the cosmetic stuff done but while people don't volunteer for these secondary roles that they are suitable for and the few that do mainly doing it for the status and have no intention of doing the work then its the PATeam members your telling to quit who have to take the slack and without them the important aspects of the game running would join the list of things not getting done as theres not the staff to do them

What you are forgetting in this is that the problem here is also the fact that the PA-Team should start ASKING people instead of having people applying for jobs. I fail to understand how the PA-Team time and time again manages to put out and application for a job, get one applicant, and hires that person.

Instead of that the PA-Team should get back into touch with the community, and start asking around for people.

The saying: If Mohammed will not go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed.

Please PA team understand that while managing this game, putting up application posters all over the place instead of actively seeking people who have the capability and the ability isn't the best choice. I am quite sure that there is ALOT of people who would love working in the PA team if they only get asked instead of being expecting to apply each time the pa teams wants someone.
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 15:59   #46
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kargool
I personally think that one of the biggest problems with the current pa team is that they dont really have anything to lose, and seems to have full confidence in whatever they do no matter how much they mess up.
This is a problem. If something goes wrong then PA Team end up blaming someone else. They hold onto their positions even if they ****up and promise that it'll be fixed. Because jolt doesn't give a shit they hold full control over Planetarion. No new staff are ever recruited because they give jobs to their friends to ensure that they keep the power.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Kargool
Please PA team understand that while managing this game, putting up application posters all over the place instead of actively seeking people who have the capability and the ability isn't the best choice. I am quite sure that there is ALOT of people who would love working in the PA team if they only get asked instead of being expecting to apply each time the pa teams wants someone.
That would require effort which they don't want to do. Why recruit someone when someone similar to Idler can be found?
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 16:32   #47
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Re: The portal (again)

How are you supposed to get new paying customers if all you do is run rounds for the declining number of customers you have now?

And don't come here and say all cmses are security risks that will bring down the mighty planetarion with its 1,2k players when sites with millions and millions of hits and several 100k users manages to use cmses like drupal and other assorted sites, it just makes me sad
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Unread 24 Oct 2007, 17:02   #48
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kargool
What you are forgetting in this is that the problem here is also the fact that the PA-Team should start ASKING people instead of having people applying for jobs. I fail to understand how the PA-Team time and time again manages to put out and application for a job, get one applicant, and hires that person.

Instead of that the PA-Team should get back into touch with the community, and start asking around for people.

The saying: If Mohammed will not go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed.

Please PA team understand that while managing this game, putting up application posters all over the place instead of actively seeking people who have the capability and the ability isn't the best choice. I am quite sure that there is ALOT of people who would love working in the PA team if they only get asked instead of being expecting to apply each time the pa teams wants someone.
People do get head hunted, a fair number of PATeam and various other PA Staff have been recruited that way. However its not an easy way to get staff members as your largely restricted to a smallish pool of people that you have had direct contact with other a period of time because if your not asking people to 'apply' its the only way you know what skills people posses.

And even then how dedicated and eager can anyone who doesn't want to apply really be. It takes what 10mins to apply for a role as it just needs a quick email or pm detailing what skills you have and why you think your suitable which is a fraction of the time you would need in the role. I'm not sure its really in anyones intrests for PATeam to be spending their already packed schedual with identifying people who might have the right skills but almost certainly dont have the dedication and commitment to make the game a success and who as such will not carry out their role properly (as we have seen when a fair few times when people have been head hunted)
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Unread 25 Oct 2007, 00:29   #49
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Re: The portal (again)

Quote:
Originally Posted by wakey
A bespoke package is significantly better than anything off the self. Yes they have had problems in the past with bespoke systems buts thats due to the coders being substandard (mainly in the the documentation area which is poor or none existant and makes it hard for other coders to come in later and enhance or fix the framework. I know back in round 6 when I was part of the coding team the documentation for most of the other coders sections were so poor they were useless) and from a management pov where they weren't strong enough to tell coders to piss off when they demanded to recode the whole system when it wasn't needed BUT atleast a bespoke system isnt full of redundant code for PA and most importantly isnt riddled with exploits that are so easy to find out about and exploit that the world and their wife can hack the system and take control of your server with little effort.

With little effort you can find hundreds of exploits for things like wordpress or any CMS and a portal for a company that requests money from its users is a prime target to be hit. A bespoke website will probably still have exploits available but anyone wanting to take advantage of them has to find these exploits themselves, effort that most people wont bother with and when exploits are found they can be fixed internally rather than wait for the CMS systems programmers to be bothered to fix it

I've never known so much crap in all my life. Maybe we should get the dev team to create a new discussion forum from scratch because vBulletin is full of holes? An article you might find useful:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articl...000000007.html

If it's a core business function then you should do it yourself. In the case of Planetarion this would mean the majority of the focus should go on the game, so obviously that gets coded from scratch. The forums, portal and various other bits which aren't unique to Planetarion should ideally reuse other systems if it makes more sense.

Maybe because the portal gets created from scratch nearly every time is the whole ****ing reason it never works.
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Unread 25 Oct 2007, 18:01   #50
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Re: The portal (again)

I do have a certain amount of experience on this topic, and I am rather surprised this is still a problem.

In retrospect, it is easy to see where things went horribly wrong, but I really hoped Jolt would prioritize this game and community a bit more than they have done over the years since they bought it.

I have approached Jolt a while back, asking to buy the game back into the same company that sold it to them in the first place, as it breaks my heart to see it treated this way, but to no avail. f course, the "value" of the name and the game is now probably a bit lower than it was, seeing how 90% of the players are now gone since the takeover. The name has probably been damaged as well, allthough that is possible to repair.

As a full-time developer, I know how easy it would be to build a portal for Planetarion.
That said, I also know how hard it must be if you can't have the same person working on it for more than a short time, before he / she is replaced by someone new who builds things from scratch shortly afterwards. I belive I was told PA would get at least a 50% dedicated developer from Jolt after I left, and such a person could whoop up a portal in "no-time", without having to strart from scratch every 3 weeks.

Laying down fire on PaTeam is a bit counter-productive in this matter I fear, as they have little real control over the resources. They are volunteer helpers, who try to do the best they can under impossible circumstances.

I feel quite confident in saying that Jolt makes little to no money on Planetarion as it is, and haven't made any money for quite some time. This comes as no surprise as it seems to be neglected completely by its owners, in terms of investements, advertising and development. I can only hope that they will step aside and let someone else take over.
Maybe what they need is some good old healthy competition from a new game, made in the spirit of OLD Planetarion but with a modern interface etc. Or maybe they wouldn't care, I do not know.

Planetarion has been dying for a long time, and no new portal can't help it.
It needs far more.
- Dedicated development, on a fulltime / parttime scale
- A business plan covering how to make it grow again, without blowing tens of thousands on marketing
- A GUI revamp (not a skin, but a more modern interface to capture those without a historical pull to the name Planetarion)
- A process analysis of the typical NEW-User behaviour from they see the frontpage, through registration, first-impressions, getting started and becoming an active player. And then apply changes accordingly.
And that is just the beginning.

I don't expect anyone from Jolt to read this, but if you do, I would not be uninterested to discuss buying back Planetarion and dedicating resources towards it. I am sure we can find an arrangementment that will pay off for you in the long term, much more so than just killing it off. Don't get me wrong, I can think of several good reasons for you to do so, and they can all be valid, comercially speaking. I am just saying that even if you are unable to create something more from PA, there might be others who can.
I can be contacted on [email protected] for any such discussions.

Good luck to everyone involved, it seems there is much to do here.

Kind regards
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