Charas-Project
TESTING & WELCOME BOARD => Test & welcome board => Site News => Topic started by: Ben on October 07, 2010, 02:58:41 AM
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New stuff is rad. You like rad stuff, and I like rad stuff...
site traffic has slowed down substantially over the last couple of years. The reasons for this are not important, and although small, our community is still strong and warm and fuzzy and rad.
Over the years, Game development as both a hobby and a career has grown immensely. The interests and software preferences of our user base is much more variant and eclectic then it ever has been in the past, with more of our users experimenting with game development middle ware and toolsets that arent RPGmaker2k/2k3 then the users that are. Our generators are literally iconic among many developers, and charas project.net has been an entry level community for several active game developers of note today.
The staff here is rad. We'd like to stay that way. As such, the site is to be undergoing a bit of change....slowly, over time, to adapt to the changing world that is "making rad games"
Some Rad Stuff that might or might not be coming
new sprite generators (isometric, platformer, top down, more variety in size, in an online flash format)
tileset compilers
New areas added to CR
new forums to support information, discussion and links for more 2-D game making platforms RPGmaker XP, VX, AGM/IGM, Game Maker, Scratch, Stencyl,)
Information, articles, links, and blogs to feed your thirsty "Rad stuff making" glands
New front page Images and tweaks so that we don't look like were still in the year 2002
Improved Security, Flash Embeds, Polls, SMF addons for everything from Countdown timers to RP tools like dice rolls )
Stuff you want to see.
This is not a Charas4.0 announcement. Its the same charas....just with some more TLC, and food for your brains.
But most of all, we want to hear about what sort of things YOU think would make this place more rad. Your ideas, your games, the stuff youre into...propositions...you name it. You want to review games and have your reviews on the front page? Tell us. You want to make videos of your cat and embed them into your signature or something stupid? COULDN'T HURT TO BRING IT UP.
Seriously, we care. The whole staff cares. This website was once a hub of hobby game creators everywhere, and Its time we make things more rad.
DISCUSS THIS WITH US GUYS...I love the way your opinions look in text.
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You know, [youtube] tags WOULD be awesome.
Other than that, it looks like you guys have it handled.
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Who uses rad anymore? I mean, seriously.
Erm, yes
Full staff support, should be awesome, dawning of a new era, etc etc.
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I actually do use "rad."
And I say ground zero for any kind of transformation is our namesake, the Charas Generators. The current ones are ugly and outmoded.
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I like rad. I never say it though...
I love this idea! =D
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The current generators will be here til the end. I would never wish for them to go anywhere. Not to say that newer, and seperate generators would not be welcome.
I use rad all the time. Its pretty common these days. But then again, I frequent hipster circles.
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Maybe some proper game hosting? and I'm not talking the actual files, more so front page promotion for games. We should select games though. Not every single game should make it to some kind of front page promotion. Also, a premier game every month is just too ambiguous. Post 'em when they come and we can find other ways to encourage people to create games.
Other than that, I likes what I see!
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Dren:
Im all for this, and honestly, have a loose plan in mind for doing so. Some issues Im trying to mentally sort out are
RPG maker, Game maker, and some other platforms of games obviously save in an executable format. Third party hosting is probably optimal for theese cases. I have no problem showcasing the games on the front page. The onus lies on the creator of the project to submit to us a summary, download link, screencaps if they want their project showcased. If it is in say, flash or Java format, the onus still lies in the creator to get us that content, and for now, host it. After the first round or two of changes happens, I can most definatly look into hosting the games here at charas....but before that happens, we need to have a large enough stream of user generated content. With previous attempts at game of the month, I ran into the problem of not having enough material to publish, so I would invariably end up having to seek out non charas content. Thats why it was eventually called "Game of the month" Rather then "Charas Project Game of the month. Some months will be slow, and as such, I was using this as more of a platform to just show off some rad, free games.
basically, if you have a project, and want it exposed on the front page, get it into us. If its in a medium that I can actually embed to the front page, then Ill do it. If we dont have enough user generated content...then as it stands, the front page game coverage will have to be outsourced to third party developers.
Make games. Get them to us. TELL the staff specifically that you want to showcase your game. Just updating your project thread isnt going to help us know wether you want to be showcased.
On top of this, make a playable product. A FULL demo, or FULL game helps.
Put the work in, and show us that you have proper material and documentation. I dont want to play your game to take screen caps. Provide us with some. Give us a breif synopsis.
Im all about getting your stuff some exposure...but there is an awfull shortage of finished product around here...so if we dont get submissions, The showcased material will end up being third party.
Id like to get somebody in charge of reviewing games...charas created, or otherwise. Preferably free, independant games. I dont want to showcase somebodys review of Halo. That will not happen. But if say, one of you had a favorite freeware or indy title, that you think we all need to know about, then do a proper review, and send it to us. I personally promise that if its well thought out, It will be posted.
More content is a good thing
In a perfect world, I would appoint a staff member to take care of this. But we have lots of staff, and lots of incative staff on top of this. Unless an existing staff member wants to handle this, I cant see justifying appointing a new staff member to take care of this until the list of staff is decreased. We have a pretty wierd ratio of active posters to staff members.
It should also be noted that embedding a flash game to the site does not require on-site hosting.
TLDR
Make the games, and Ill post them. Or review the games, and Ill post that. If we get enough of this stuff rolling in, Ill check into on-site hosting.
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Alright this is exciting!
Theres gonna be Lasers and candy and more action and adventure than you can shake a stick at!
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Maybe if we were allowed to change our displayed names, but have our real ones still visible on our profile...
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I don't see how that could be useful.
Locations in the posts, on the other hand, would rock.
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I like the idea of promoting flash games as well. There are tons of huge flash communities out there, and we could probably get a lot of deleeshus fresh meat by drawing them into another place to publicize.
A lot of what draws me back to Charas time and time again is the longevity of the members, though. I still see people active who were here when I first joined, and you don't get that just anywhere. So I also like the game spotlighting. In fact it might even give me that push I need to work on something.
Maybe even a push for some kind of, I dunno, project blog thread idea. Like building off the threads people post for their projects, but with updates on things like story dev, characters, coding, maps, all of that. Things that would be updated a lot, and be place for people to see what really goes into the crafting of these things. Not just for games either-- even for portfolios of art, writing, that kind of thing, you know?
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Gem, pretty much what I was thinking. Though, I think it's safe to say we won't be having a lot of original games come out of charas until we get more traffic and more (new) users that like making games and actually make them. That makes the generators pivotal 'cuz they're our only pull point (and a pretty damn good one at that)
I know the community has become a lot less focused on game making over the years and more on just being a community and knowing each other, but it can easily retain that feature while returning to its roots. I think, if we really like charas, we kind of owe a little something to Alex to make this place at least a little more prosperous, because let's face it, charas won't be around another 2 or 3 years if we stick to "community for the sake of community". I just can't see that happening.
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You've pretty much nailed my motivations here. Alex does us all a really awesome favour by hosting the big blue crackrock that is charas, and between this, and considering the history and significance of the site, Id like to give something back. Id like to see this place hit its ten year birthday with some members around to celebrate it.
At this point though, I wont lie, there is a lot of work to be done. The flash generators are going to take a lot of work...at least my own versions...and Im not the most experienced programmer, as most of you know, Im more of a graphics guy. So far, this isn't meeting any resistance, and everyone seems to generally support the sentiments Im conveying...but honestly, if the place is going to turn around, we all need to chip in a little. We need some OC dammit.
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Well, this certainly motivates me to finish something.
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I personally think it is a great idea for charas to branch out into other areas of game making. Some things I would like to see are:
1.As I had posted earlier I think it would be great if some of the more commonly used outfits in the generators were in all three. It would greatly improve the practicality and usefulness of the site.
2.Some more newbie documentation to explain things like the form rank system, important rules and events, and where you can Legally obtain a copy of rpg maker.
3.The wiki to be updated
4.I think more spriting tutorials would be great
5.Possibly a charas-project community game?
6.More things pertaining to game maker
I would love to help in anyway I can, but I am still learning how to program/sprite so I might not be of much help.
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1- I don`t really get what you mean by more commonly used outfits. Modern clothing?
2- The rank is pretty self explanatory. More balls = more posts, nothing important. There are threads explaining the rules, and we don't really have that many events. Also, there is no way to obtain a legal copy of RPG Maker 2k/2k3. :P
3- True, I guess. Didn't really even remember the wiki existed. x)
4- There is one I made a while ago, have you seen it? But yes, I think I might try to find us some better ones in the future.
5- Been done a couple times already. Last time didn't quite work though. :P
6- Yeah, once we are open to more platforms we will also try to get some game makers tutorials.
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The commonly used outfits is explained in the thread here http://www.charas-project.net/forum/index.php?topic=26859.0.
So this whole site is based off an unobtainable-by-legal-means program?
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Yeah, pretty much.
I mean, you CAN get it legally. Or could, years ago. But in Japanese.
The English version that most people use (at least 2k if I'm not mistaken) was translated from Japanese by Don Miguel ages ago.
But Charas used to have some sort of Don't ask, don't tell policy about this. We all knew our copies were illegal, but we weren't supposed to post anything about how to get them on the forums. The forums were just for help with programming, sprite and all that. So nothing illegal actually happened here.
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We could tell you on a personal level where you might be able to maybe find it if you are lucky and end up looking at the right place. But not on the forum.
But as mentioned, the englsih copy is not legal which explains that some versions have malfunctioning parts for example the naming system that sometimes writes the names in Kanji. The entire program is fan-translated but was sold in Japan. So the english copies are not from the actual creators, more like the product of their programs meeting a translating guy. That's why it's illegal according to the creators.
Also there's been sites selling English copies of RPGM2k and 2k3 but they are not official sites in any way. You could just as likely get them from a free-place.
Or something like that.
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RPGmaker 2000 has to be damn near abandonware by now
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I'm pretty sure some people still use it since you don't need to work on BattleChar.
Of course, I could be completely wrong. But I'm pretty sure I am not!
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3.The wiki to be updated
I was the only one that ever wrote the big, long, nasty complicated wiki entries. A lot of people just weren't into it.
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I forgot that we had a wiki.
Which was ironically why I joined in the first place.
You all seemed like such cool people.
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If I had been here earlier I would have been glad to write articles for the wiki. To bad I don’t know anything about charas history or RPG Maker. Also why is it that many of the links on the main page are broken? Anyways, I hope all this revamp talk doesn’t run out of steam and die.
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I just updated my article.
Well, kinda. I fixed my spelling mistakes. >.>
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Thought about making an article, but... there isn't much to be said about me =(
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Everything looks good. Glad to see ole blue in tip top shape.
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Is it just me or is the wiki agonizingly slow?
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We have a Wiki?
EDIT: And I'm a moderator of said Wiki? No Frucking way!
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It’s not just you, the wiki was unusually slow for me today as well. I wonder what could be causing the slow loading times? I visited the wiki last week and it wasn’t nearly as slow.
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It’s not just you, the wiki was unusually slow for me today as well. I wonder what could be causing the slow loading times? I visited the wiki last week and it wasn’t nearly as slow.
lack of visitors? 0_o can a web page be so underused it goes into shock when it gets a sudden increase in traffic?
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I like the idea of promoting flash games as well. There are tons of huge flash communities out there, and we could probably get a lot of deleeshus fresh meat by drawing them into another place to publicize.
A lot of what draws me back to Charas time and time again is the longevity of the members, though. I still see people active who were here when I first joined, and you don't get that just anywhere. So I also like the game spotlighting. In fact it might even give me that push I need to work on something.
Maybe even a push for some kind of, I dunno, project blog thread idea. Like building off the threads people post for their projects, but with updates on things like story dev, characters, coding, maps, all of that. Things that would be updated a lot, and be place for people to see what really goes into the crafting of these things. Not just for games either-- even for portfolios of art, writing, that kind of thing, you know?
Am I the only one who noticed that Phayre posted?!
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I did. But hey, all Charasians come back sooner or later, so I didn't really think of it as anything too special. :P
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Am I the only one who noticed that Phayre posted?!
...holy ****! We ARE drawing people (back) in again!
DAMN U LUCAS YOU POSTED WHILE I WAS POSTING
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So..... who wants to do a Game Blog for the site?
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Also why is it that many of the links on the main page are broken?
They were links to the old version of the forum so everything broke when we switched over. Also, some jerk deleted a bunch of historic posts a while back.
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So..... who wants to do a Game Blog for the site?
I do.
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The flash embedding is making my brain bleed. Its not working, allthough Im sure Im just missing something vital...as it stands, I SHOULD be able to post flash movies and games to my posts.
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So..... who wants to do a Game Blog for the site?
elaborate?
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Soo...what other plugins besides the spell check do you have for the forums?
Are we just going to have to find that out?
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First and formost comes a SMF update, and new visual theme. Then you can expect to see new features roll in over the weeks following.
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Oh, little suggestion. Moderators and Administrators' names should be shown in Orange and Yellow in topics, just like it did before.
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A blog here? That'd be awesome.
I'm afraid that the only sort of suggestions that come to mind are those based off other cool sites that I frequent. Let's see:
1. Game Blogs
I keep up with Zero Punctuation (a game critic hosted by Escapist Magazine alongside several other video and non-video features) and The Nostalgia Critic (a movie critic whose site, That Guy with the Glasses, hosts a variety of critics). I've thought a few times about starting a piece for the review of retro games such as Dragon Warrior III, Phantasy Star IV, and Ultima: Quest of the Avatar. Part of what holds me back is that I'm just plain lazy and it'd be a lot of work hosting a review blog. Also, I'd be the new kid, as it were, whereas here I'm the kid who shows up every now and again with a burst of enthusiasm and then runs off and forgets about the place for a couple years. (Inasmuch as "kid" can be applied to a person who discovered this site in college.)
But if we got one game blog started here, and eventually others started creating their own features centered on different facets of the gaming world, then perhaps I'd find my niche here in a written blog reviewing retro games. So if we got set up to host a variety of blogs from different authors, I think that'd be awesome. I'd be glad to be able to sign up for something like that, have my own space where I could post and some areas for reader comments, all that stuff. (And maybe eventually, if we got more traffic, we could see about hosting video features as well... but, y'know, start small.)
2. Game Theory
Periodically I look up information on game theory itself, from the definition of "game" (interactive plaything with specific rules and uncertain outcome and a condition whereby you can lose) to discussions of how the game medium differs from literature, film, and TV series, to explanations of how to best serve the player through appropriate output connected to his input. I think we could hunt down and centralize a lot of this information, either via links or, more usefully, via tutorials that collect and categorize the info.
Related: A lot of times I'll be reading something and see a reference to a book on gaming that I really ought to go read, but then I check the library and it's not there (either because it's too old or because the library isn't interested in a comprehensive collection of gaming references). Perhaps some of the older and/or more useful works could deserve a thorough review here... the sort that could hand out the more important information without making people hunt down a book that's rare or out-of-print. (It would of course require someone to have access to the book.)
3. Game Tropes
I frequent TVTropes.org, a great site (especially if you want to completely lose track of time for a few days as it sucks you into its gaping maw). Anyway, it has a whole section on game tropes. While I wouldn't advocate just copying the whole section over here in any fashion, it might be useful to have the biggest and most important tropes (patterns in media) up on our site somewhere, described in our own way and discussed by our members. For example, "Gameplay and Story Segregation" is a big topic for discussion, as are the Player Archetypes, and the four gaming styles named for card suits (clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades).
So... I guess that's all my suggestions for the moment. Hope some of them fly.
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These are actually really fun ideas. The blog thing could be very cool, and I have always been interested in Game Theory myself so I might be able to write things up about that.
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You know, Game Theory and Game Tropes could easily be merged.
Having discussions and articles on why exactly we have those tropes, or why they just won't leave would be really cool.
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Game Theory? We could try to get Moosetroop to do that for us, or Moose maybe. Both of them work with that. Well, kinda, I think Moose was working on The Sims' site and MT is learning game design at college... But still. They would know way more about it than us.
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Little suggestion:
Long ago, there was a page that showed Moderator and Administrator's taken action (Post deleted, Topic moved, etc.)
It was a good way to see who was slacking, and who on the other hand was overacting.
Of course, this page had lead to some drama before (carmen and GhostClown) but it could be taken back.
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We have that page still. The Moderation Log is Tucked away in the staff panels. I check it often...It helped save the day last night when the BBC codes went kaput. Its an invaluable tool for any forum with a staff bigger then 2
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Yeah, but before, it was available to non-staff as well.
But, uhm, well okay, at least it's still there, I suppose.