Nifflas' Support Forum
General => About Nifflas' Website and Forum => Topic started by: GrayFace on November 10, 2010, 04:18:30
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I just saw http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=2774 It seems like everything was ready for new archives. I mean, for all games, not just FiNCK.
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LPchip is working on it.
Poor guy's got a life to live (unlike many of us here :P), so he's taking his time. Trick is to just sit back and wait patiently... or just forget about it completely and get a nice surprise when it is released.
AND PLEASE, NO FLAME WARZ!
(Wishing ya luck LP :D)
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Actually, he handed the project over to J and Looki. Who also do it their spare time of which nobody ever has enough. X) So yeah, the "sit back and wait patiently" still applies, I guess. XD
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Miss Paula is right, when LPChip left his position as an administrator, he also stopped working on the level archive. J agreed to help me out, but frankly, since then, not a lot has happened.
Since LPChip was the original programmer of it and also kind of managed how everything's supposed to be done, I'm a bit frightened now. There's really not much left to do, but me and J still have to get into it. I hope we can finish it in the near future, abandoning it near completion would be stupid.
Actually, I think the only thing left to do are the review feature and some minor tweaks, better design maybe.
Here are some screenshots, I hope they reveal something new to you...
Browse page (http://i.imgur.com/TQBk2.png)
Level info page (http://i.imgur.com/JNo3b.png)
:)
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...when LPChip left his position as an administrator...
Wait a minute, he did? :shocked:
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Um, at least I thought he did? Apparently he didn't... O_o
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Here are some screenshots, I hope they reveal something new to you...
Looks very cool!
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Miss Paula is right, when LPChip left his position as an administrator,
That was an april fool's prank, silly :P
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Actually, I think the only thing left to do are the review feature and some minor tweaks, better design maybe.
Here are some screenshots, I hope they reveal something new to you...
Browse page (http://i.imgur.com/TQBk2.png)
Level info page (http://i.imgur.com/JNo3b.png)
Oh god, this is awesome. I can barely believe how awesome it is.
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Miss Paula is right, when LPChip left his position as an administrator,
That was an april fool's prank, silly :P
That was also a joke, silly :P
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@_@
Gah, im confused. Whatever
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Miss Paula is right, when LPChip left his position as an administrator,
That was an april fool's prank, silly :P
I suppose I should clarify this.
I indeed was going to resign as administrator. This plan formed a month ago or something. I want to focus more on my music and having so many forums under my wings makes it harder for me to focus on my hobby, especially with a full-time job next to it.
When I looked into stepping down, it began to see that it wasn't really a good idea because the people who I thought could take over for me, weren't interested to become administrator for similar reasons as me quitting, not having the time or wanting to have the responsibilities.
So instead, I remain administrator, but I have delegated most of my tasks to other staff members. Paula and SiamJai will make changes where they see fit, and those who comes with ideas to me, I'll redirect those to Paula and SiamJai.
If I see things go bad, I will bring them to the staff's attention, but if they don't do anything with it, then I will not complain about it.
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I'm sure none of you know me (I don't visit here often, and I never comment), but I'm a big fan of Nifflas' games and music and I've often visited this place for new levels.
Actually, I think the only thing left to do are the review feature and some minor tweaks, better design maybe.
Here are some screenshots, I hope they reveal something new to you...
Browse page (http://i.imgur.com/TQBk2.png)
Level info page (http://i.imgur.com/JNo3b.png)
It was sad to see the KS Level Section taken down - there wasn't any place to preview and comment levels, and the new archive was still far from finished. Good thing the forum section has been eventually added back. But I'm still looking forward to a level archive you're making.
I have a few suggestions though:
I don't think the "review" feature is worth adding because "comments" and "reviews" are pretty much the same thing, except reviews are a bit more detailed. Besides, I really doubt there will be enough people who'd dedicate so much time and effort writing full reviews for every level (unless reviewing will be open for everyone, but then again - it would be the same thing as commenting). So I think reviews are better off posted as regular comments.
What I think it really needs is some way to separate people's opinions from bug reports and "help, im stuck" kinds of comments. I'm sure there will be both, which could create quite a mess.
So what do you think about having "comments" and "need help / report bug" sections instead (basically 2 comment areas, just named differently)?
As for design - in my opinion it looks great already. Besides, it can always be improved later.
Just one, but important thing - there has to be a "date added" column in the list of levels, so that users could arrange levels by date they were added or updated.
Anyway, good luck with the archive.
I'll be looking forward to finally seeing it finished. :)
P.S. I know HTML/CSS, so if you need some help with that - I'd be glad to help.
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Thanks for the input. The 'date added' column sounds reasonable.
I think we will go with the "Reviews/Comments" format, because it does not differ that much from your idea anyway:
Comments can be anything. Bug reports, and various discussions. Reviews will be used to give your "actual" feedback. I'm not sure yet how things will turn out, but you will probably have to write a short text and give some scores for the music etc.
It would be nice if you could give short, simple comments about whether you liked the level or not, but I'm not sure if it's actually that necessary. I would prefer to keep the reviewing part because it seems sensible to do, after all, I'm sure some of you will be glad to give proper feedback.
Besides, thanks for offering help :) Appreciate it.
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I gave up my alternative level archive early. I wanted to spend my time actually develop games instead XD
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Thanks for the input. The 'date added' column sounds reasonable.
I think we will go with the "Reviews/Comments" format, because it does not differ that much from your idea anyway:
Comments can be anything. Bug reports, and various discussions. Reviews will be used to give your "actual" feedback. I'm not sure yet how things will turn out, but you will probably have to write a short text and give some scores for the music etc.
It would be nice if you could give short, simple comments about whether you liked the level or not, but I'm not sure if it's actually that necessary. I would prefer to keep the reviewing part because it seems sensible to do, after all, I'm sure some of you will be glad to give proper feedback.
Besides, thanks for offering help :) Appreciate it.
Actually, the main reason I was (somewhat) against the "review" feature was because I know some people would post their reviews in the comments. To me the two sections seemed a bit too much alike.
But if, like you mentioned, the review section will have some sort of score bars for music/gameplay, etc. - the difference between two sections will be much more obvious, so less people are likely to post their opinions in the wrong section. I guess it's mostly a matter of visual design.
Well then, best of luck. :)
I gave up my alternative level archive early. I wanted to spend my time actually develop games instead XD
Seeing how many awesome games you've created so far, I doubt anyone would disagree with the choice you've made. :P
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Actually, the main reason I was (somewhat) against the "review" feature was because I know some people would post their reviews in the comments. To me the two sections seemed a bit too much alike.
But if, like you mentioned, the review section will have some sort of score bars for music/gameplay, etc. - the difference between two sections will be much more obvious, so less people are likely to post their opinions in the wrong section. I guess it's mostly a matter of visual design.
Well, everyone around here seems fairly intelligent and quite capable of using the section for their respective purposes.
However, giving the uploader the ability to request deleting or moving of improperly placed comments could correct any slip-ups.
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Yeah, as I said, there will be multiple scores that add up to a total score, plus the description.
Besides, I agree with JC, the community can handle it, I'm sure.
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I've got an idea. knytt.bin isn't compressed, installs slowly and you can only install one level at a time. I can make a simple program that would be associated with ".ksl" extension which in turn would be a simple 7-Zip archive for example. So, levels would be installed by simple double-click and would take less in size and CPU load on server. Another advantage is that it would be easier to extract things like name, description and icon from the level due to a commonly understood format. Would 7-Zip work well for the server side?
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There's little reason to use a compressed format for KS levels, since the bulkier parts (music, graphics and the map) are already compressed: you'd only reduce the size of the World.ini file in the end, which isn't all that much. Considering that another format wouldn't work with the level installer in Knytt Stories, I don't think it's worth the effort.
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Well, everyone around here seems fairly intelligent and quite capable of using the section for their respective purposes.
However, giving the uploader the ability to request deleting or moving of improperly placed comments could correct any slip-ups.
You gotta be careful with this one. Doing this may mean trolls will post nasty comments in the review section, where the uploader cannot move them. Allowing the uploader to remove/move reviews, however, allows them to delete all the ones they dont like.
for this reason, you should probably leave the moving to comments to the moderators, with a "report to mod" button.
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You gotta be careful with this one. Doing this may mean trolls will post nasty comments in the review section, where the uploader cannot move them. Allowing the uploader to remove/move reviews, however, allows them to delete all the ones they dont like.
for this reason, you should probably leave the moving to comments to the moderators, with a "report to mod" button.
Forgive me if this comes off as rude, since it isn't intended as such, but didn't you basically repeat what I said?
Reporting the comment to a moderator is what I meant when I said "requesting deletion or moving".
Something that could be used to prevent trolls could be a VIP system. I system where comments made by new or untrusted users can be deleted by the uploader of a level if he is a VIP member. Likewise, VIP member's comments cannot be deleted by uploaders, only moderators. This way, the known and trusted members of the community have the ability to defend their levels against spammers, and since known members are highly unlikely to make spam comments, a mod would have to review it to clarify it is indeed, trash. Of course an untrusted user could always report the unfair removal, and if true to their word would be replaced.
Of course it has flaws, but nothing proper planning could not take care of.
Just an idea though. Take it or leave it. :)
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I still think comment handling should be done the same way as it is with this forum. Only the staff can remove one, and the poster can remove his. For all else, report it.
I've got an idea. knytt.bin isn't compressed, installs slowly and you can only install one level at a time. I can make a simple program that would be associated with ".ksl" extension which in turn would be a simple 7-Zip archive for example. So, levels would be installed by simple double-click and would take less in size and CPU load on server. Another advantage is that it would be easier to extract things like name, description and icon from the level due to a commonly understood format. Would 7-Zip work well for the server side?
This is not a good idea. Nifflas used the .knytt.bin format to ensure that file transfers won't download the file as ascii which would screw up the transfer. .Bin files are transfered in binary mode in most cases by default.
Besides, for a new fileformat, a new version of KS should be made.
Having one big zip file with just the worlds folders in it, is asking for trouble anyway. A person makes a zip file the wrong way, and it can easily corrupt an install.