An Example to Follow

[Maddix]

This is a perfect example of keeping users updated as best as is possible from another online game I play Hattrick (many of you play it already), just thought that PA Team might want to take note for next round.....

Hattrick went down this morning and as soon as they notice (normally within an hour) their main page changes to a 'status update' page which currently displays the following:

The site is currently down due to some unknown problem. We are investigating the problem and will have more information shortly.


UPDATE 14:30 HT-Time: The Hattrick database is now recovered and we are ready to run from the point at 09:00 HT-Time, around 30 minutes before the crash. We still need another hour or so to let the game engine catch up and get all parts of the system up and running.

UPDATE 10:40 HT-Time: We've found the problem and it turns out that a hard disk cabinet has stopped working (in other words, a similar problem to last time). This means that the site will be down for several hours until a replacement cabinet has been put in place and the database is movd to and ready to run from it. In other words, Hattrick will be down at least until early afternoon, possibly until early evening. There is no danger that we'd have to go back to a 24 hours old backup like last time. If we're really unlucky, we may have to go back to a state captured 30 minutes before the crash, but hopefully even less data loss than that.

A short message to indicate they know about the problem, then regular updates explaining what the problems are, how they are being fixed and estimated times until they are sorted. This is how you keep your users updated PA Team, take note. No-one would mind as much if PA was down for a day or more as long as you kept them updated.

[*Cooper*]

u gotta admit it
its a good idea!

[mist]

not quite sure why it's here rather than the suggestions forum, but a sensible idea

something that we're trying to achieve via the portal news, forums announcements, the motd (when it's working) and irc, mainly in the #planetarion topic

we do tell you what we know. saddly, sometimes it isn't much. saddly people usually just shout some more when we say we don't know.

anyway. suggestion noted.

-mist

[Maddix]

Originally Posted by mist

not quite sure why it's here rather than the suggestions forum, but a sensible idea

I don't have great confidence that the suggestion forums get read by many people, not least PA Team.

[Mit]

I do read the suggestions forum often Maddix, yes, communication is something that definately needs improvements and i know my post on Sunday was 'brief' to say the least. Its a common case of we can't say more than we know sometimes thou. I will do my best to try to improve communications, as will the others in PATeam.

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Maddix

This is a perfect example

Didn't PA use to have those messages back when we had an Announcements Forum? I've always said getting rid of that was a good idea

[Mit]

Originally Posted by Leshy

Didn't PA use to have those messages back when we had an Announcements Forum? I've always said getting rid of that was a good idea

We ended up with a forum and portal that didn't say the same thing... or one had one lot of info and it wasn't on the other. In theory we should use the SAME posts for both... heh, might be possible depends on vBB.

[Maddix]

I think the point is being missed 'slightly' here. The update message I pasted above was from the main page that everyone goes to in order to access the game ( www.hattrick.org ).

Where as in theory placing a similar message on www.planetarion.com should work, it won't have the same effect seeing as many players go directly to the login page at http://jpaweb01.planetarion.com/login.pl simply because its easier.

Having to sign in to the portal then clicking a link to get to the sign in page and then signing in again is a bit tedius (cookies on the portal don't seem to be working for me, so I have to sign in every time I use it, not that it bothers me for the above reason).

At the very least when PA is down could people trying to access the login page directly be redirected automatically to the place of the updates? Nothing is more irriating than trying to login and simply getting a 'this page could not be displayed error' or something.

[NEWSBOT3]

Originally Posted by Maddix

At the very least when PA is down could people trying to access the login page directly be redirected automatically to the place of the updates? Nothing is more irriating than trying to login and simply getting a 'this page could not be displayed error' or something.

not a bad suggestion actually, not possible this round imo, but in future i'd certainly like to see it.

[Mit]

Originally Posted by Maddix

IAt the very least when PA is down could people trying to access the login page directly be redirected automatically to the place of the updates? Nothing is more irriating than trying to login and simply getting a 'this page could not be displayed error' or something.

All well and good, but when the login is -down- how do you tyhink its gonna forward ppl to somewhere else?
the link could be changed from the passport, but nothing can be done about those who go direct.

[JC]

Originally Posted by Leshy

Didn't PA use to have those messages back when we had an Announcements Forum? I've always said getting rid of that was a good idea

Bingo.

I have been moaning on and on about getting it reintroduced ever since it was removed, but i get ignored everytime.

In fact a couple of months ago we had a discussion thread between the mods/admins in which i posted a huge reply listing lots of improvements and ways of going about implementing them without too much work needed. If i can find it i will give it a read again, but i dont think a single one of them has done yet :/.

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Mit

All well and good, but when the login is -down- how do you tyhink its gonna forward ppl to somewhere else?

I reckon a very good number of people who notice there is something wrong with the game, will go to the forums. Either to see if there's something there about the game being down, or to post about the downtime themselves. Having Announcements back would provide a central place for information, especially considering that PA Team members already do spend a reasonable amount of time on the forums, and adding/editing forum posts is a quicker job than adding/editing a portal item.

Not to mention that it's quite a bit easier to see when there's a new post on a forum, instead of on the portal, and it's easier to backtrack through old announcements, especially considering the portal doesn't seem to offer any kind of 'archive' feature.

Originally Posted by JC

I have been moaning on and on about getting it reintroduced ever since it was removed, but i get ignored everytime.

I've been quite vocal in the past about it's removal as well, but it was all ignored in favour of the portal. Now that the idea seems to be getting through that the portal is not the information center it's supposed to be, the time seems right for another campaign

[Mit]

Originally Posted by Leshy

Not to mention that it's quite a bit easier to see when there's a new post on a forum, instead of on the portal, and it's easier to backtrack through old announcements, especially considering the portal doesn't seem to offer any kind of 'archive' feature.

http://www.planetarion.com/index.php?module=news

that was hard to find (try clicking the 'news' link)

[Maddix]

Originally Posted by Mit

All well and good, but when the login is -down- how do you tyhink its gonna forward ppl to somewhere else?
the link could be changed from the passport, but nothing can be done about those who go direct.

I'm not an expert in how it works (altho on occasion the login screen displays, but after this it fks up not letting people log in) but can the address assigned to the down login page not temporary be reassigned to another machine/server that isn't down and it be redirected from there?

It also strikes me as if you think the portal/passport system is a blessing to PA, when it doesn't seem to have any obvious uses. In actual fact well maintained and updated forums would be much more widely used by the community and less of a hassel. Nice example of how useful the portal seems to be atm:

Displayed on the Portal:

Planetarion UP but NOT TICKING

Seems to have been ticking all day for my planet at least, heh.

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Mit

that was hard to find (try clicking the 'news' link)

I wouldn't call 'The last 10 news items' an archive, in the same way you'd expect your newspaper's archives to go back further than 10 issues.

In addition, it's easy to miss important news items on the portal, whereas on the forum you can see the last x news entries (depending on your resolution) with a single mouse click on the forum title, including different colours for those you have already read.

[auther pendragon]

making the login page 2 frames with the news in one (hosted elsewhere) and the login in the other would be easily achievable (wouldnt it ?)

[RealJames]

In R9 we had a portal with a small login frame on it (hosted on different servers to the game), which I used as my homepage. I believe it's still there and still works, but getting to it is like finding some long lost temple. I found that very useful, as I could flick my eye over the news whilst going to log in, barely took a second .

I use the current portal passport page to check on growth of my galaxy and alliance easily, but that is about it. It's fairly pretty, fairly informative (if you include the Jolt mouseovers) and other than that, fairly useless. The passport was supposed to be what was going to make that portal, and it just didn't live up.