If you could...

[A2]

If you could change/add one thing on the Planetarion Portal what would it be?

[xtothez]

Originally posted by A2
If you could add one thing on the Planetarion Portal what would it be?

A point.

[Xeracy]

Maybe more then 1 point would be nice :-)

[JC]

What is that Alliance advert thing on the portal? I didnt notice it until i just looked at the portal for the first time in a while today. Does it have a use, and if so what is it? Will it be implemented for the next round?

[A2]

I think I'm going to cry after reading the first 2 replies :/

Something slightly more constructive for the next post perhaps...?

[Kileman]

having it not fulled with bs that no one really cares about ?
________
JEEP FORWARD CONTROL

[Heartless]

Originally posted by JC
What is that Alliance advert thing on the portal? I didnt notice it until i just looked at the portal for the first time in a while today. Does it have a use, and if so what is it? Will it be implemented for the next round?

It is a place where you can place an advert for your alliance. I am sure it will still be implemented next round. Not 100% sure if it is for Alliance Hosting alliances only.

[A2]

Originally posted by Kileman
having it not fulled with bs that no one really cares about ?

So what sort of stuff would you like to see instead?

A GAME to use the fantastic word "LOGIN" at.
fs.

[A2]

Originally posted by Stratovarius
It is a place where you can place an advert for your alliance. I am sure it will still be implemented next round. Not 100% sure if it is for Alliance Hosting alliances only.

It will be implemented for the next round, and if I get my way it will be much better and more user-friendly than before.
You do not have to be an AH alliance to take part.

[Cochese]

Put the alliance database up there, the "new" proposed one...with lots of info on each alliance (if they provide the info, that is) and perhaps a bit of history about the game, the Creators, and the community.

Also, some better strategy guides for new players (in the off chance we actually get any) with good fleet combo's, etc.

Also, if you can rope him into making it, Tactitus' unit matrices (though I guess some others have created a similar thing since Tac 'retired') which are quite informative.

In short, give us a reason to go to the portal. There hasn't been one, other than to read announcements the Creators failed to post on the forum's 'Announcements' page.

[xtothez]

Originally posted by A2
I think I'm going to cry after reading the first 2 replies :/

Something slightly more constructive for the next post perhaps...?

The only major selling point of the portal is the 'Announcements' bit. This can (and should be) handled in forum announcements, where people can see while browsing the boards as normal. There is no sense in creating a separate site for that.
The rest of the portal is read-once material no one will have any need for again. I could understand if www.planetarion.com pointed to it instead, but it doesn't. There is no essential material worth reading, no actual content, and nothing of interest whatsoever.


PS - And your PA Vaders game is buggy too : (

[supergemz]

CYOSPHERE

[A2]

Originally posted by supergemz
CYOSPHERE

Can you at least TRY to make that make sense...

[Yeggstry]

Originally posted by xtothez
The only major selling point of the portal is the 'Announcements' bit. This can (and should be) handled in forum announcements, where people can see while browsing the boards as normal. There is no sense in creating a separate site for that.
The rest of the portal is read-once material no one will have any need for again. I could understand if www.planetarion.com pointed to it instead, but it doesn't. There is no essential material worth reading, no actual content, and nothing of interest whatsoever.


PS - And your PA Vaders game is buggy too : (

Harsh, but the truth often hurts.....

[supergemz]

Originally posted by A2
Can you at least TRY to make that make sense...

yup yup yup. I love cyosphere. STEAL THE CODE FROM SNAZBAZ AND MAKE A CYOSPHERE GAME!! I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER!!!!!!

[Kileman]

The only things ive ever gone to the portal for are

A) creators hours
B) game updates that arent on the forums

Things of interest would be interviews with players, alliance leaders, previous round winners etc... details of large battles (stories about 'the siege of [insert planet name here]') alliance issues (that arent biased bs - perhaps have a 'comments' option on news posts so people can discuss whatever news articles are posted... (similar to www.challenge-world.com )

The links and stuff could actually work... for example the "history" section being updated with all the round final rankings lists (and the nicks of all the planets).

Also possibly integrating a sandman/pilkara like thing to the site... (but it would have to be as good/better than pilkara was) the current official pa tools were ok, but they just didnt quite cut it (need top owned planet/gal and some stolen alliance member lists would always go down well )

Just a few ideas o_O
________
Chrysler neon

[Chax]

I find the portal pointless at best. The worst part is when announcements are made there and not on the forums meaning many people miss them. Fancy background lines making my screen look like it's in 80's interlaced mode as if it can't handle the resolution is not my idea of user friendly design.

Now for the constructive part...

Add links to alliance pages.
Add links to tools pages.
Readd the old rounds top 100/250s, or to improve on it also have a history section, with pages for all the old rounds, with complete stats, roidcap % and other things so people can compare. Also a brief piece on alliances during each round.

[Cochese]

A Sandmans/pilkara thing would rock on the portal, like you say, if it was good enough.

That alone would quintuple the traffic on the portal.

A 'news' feature would be cool as well, provided it was accurate and un-biased.

[das_experiment]

there were some thing coming along sum while back, with crosswords etc. , wouldnt mind some more of those.

Apart frm that mostly what kileman said in the post above.

IX

[Kileman]

Originally posted by das_experiment
there were some thing coming along sum while back, with crosswords etc. , wouldnt mind some more of those.

novelty features are a waste of time and money
________
HASH HONEY OIL

[Robin]

Remove stylesheet(css) support so everyone
see the same layout ... Add the features of
the well used sites like target search,
combat/wave-tools and the lists like
top-owned etc and feature a battle of the day
(Most ships,most killed ships,etc)

Bring back the weekly creators hour ...
IIRC the last was on 28-august ...

Add a webinterface to the important IRC channels.
#planetarion #creators #strategy
Add a function to read the history of them.

Add the 'stats' statistics for the damn spammers :-)
Ranking for the channels with most visitors.
Ranking for the channels with most speaking.
And so on ;-)

Have fun implementing :-)

--
Robin - I tried to kill Fury - And I died :-)

[A2]

Originally posted by Robin
Remove stylesheet(css) support so everyone
see the same layout ...

Which Browsers have a problem with it? - I've only ever looked in MSIE and Netscape/Mozilla and not noticed any major differences

Add the features of
the well used sites like target search,
combat/wave-tools and the lists like
top-owned etc and feature a battle of the day
(Most ships,most killed ships,etc)

Toolkit like Sandmans/Pilkara/etc coming soon - not sure about how "Battle of the Day" would work/be decided - will have to discuss with toolkit coder.

Bring back the weekly creators hour ...
IIRC the last was on 28-august ...

This is a creators decision, not a portal one but the logs and the place to ask questions WILL be on the portal when they return.

Add a webinterface to the important IRC channels.
#planetarion #creators #strategy
Add a function to read the history of them.

Already available through the in-game com-unit (well... it works when the game is up...)
Not sure about how a "history" of the channels could be done - perhaps some sort of IRC bot/updating page

Add the 'stats' statistics for the damn spammers :-)
Ranking for the channels with most visitors.
Ranking for the channels with most speaking.
And so on ;-)

Already available at http://stats.netgamers.org but a link to this is certainly possible.

[Deathjam]

add a little dancing rapping dog

[Kileman]

In the creation of any pa tool site... allow a db lookup for every single planets tick by tick roid history... will make farmer catching a tad easier
________
Marijuana bubbler

[Baco]

Originally posted by Kileman

The links and stuff could actually work... for example the "history" section being updated with all the round final rankings lists (and the nicks of all the planets).

Also possibly integrating a sandman/pilkara like thing to the site... (but it would have to be as good/better than pilkara was) the current official pa tools were ok, but they just didnt quite cut it (need top owned planet/gal and some stolen alliance member lists would always go down well )

Just a few ideas o_O

[Gargle]

Originally posted by Kileman
In the creation of any pa tool site... allow a db lookup for every single planets tick by tick roid history... will make farmer catching a tad easier

isnt that a bit self-destructive from you?

[Invictus|idle]

Make the look & feel of the portal more PA like... Darker colors would help with that I guess, just give it a more spacey look

And if the menu looks like a treemenuthingy it should do something treelike

[Ulysses]

A link to the Com-Unit.

This would be most useful for newbies to the game, to get involved in the IRC side of the community.

A LOT of new players are often put off due to the need for IRC activity, they see it as a nuisance rather than an asset.

New, and potentialy new players would be able to join the IRC server through the link, and auto join a #Newbie-Help/advice channel. That would provide information about the game, IRC and how to begin forming bonds within the community.

It would also remove the requirement to d/l mirc/pirc/klient etc and at least give an insight into how IRC can be beneficial to new players.

[Woodeh]

Originally posted by Cochese
Put the alliance database up there, the "new" proposed one...with lots of info on each alliance (if they provide the info, that is) and perhaps a bit of history about the game, the Creators, and the community.

I did actually suggest that we could get daily AH dumps of members coords and be able to calculate the actual score of alliances rather than the current way other toolkits used. Unfortunately this never happened as the toolkit was never launched due to lack of time and lack of support from the host.

Bear in mind no-one would be able to see the coords.

I would also be happy to dev the toolkit further.

[Woodeh]

Originally posted by Invictus|idle
Make the look & feel of the portal more PA like... Darker colors would help with that I guess, just give it a more spacey look

And if the menu looks like a treemenuthingy it should do something treelike

The dark, geekish bedroom with late night online gaming look won't appeal to everyone, you need a slick looking design to appeal to everyone. There were many designs considered for the portal itself, this one was very simple to look at and required very little in the way of images which made page views much much faster. Things like frames were not considered because of problems with some browsers viewing the old portal. It is important to be allow everyone to view it.

I'm sure with further development on constructive ideas the portal team would be able to accomodate everyones needs.

[Kileman]

Originally posted by Gargle
isnt that a bit self-destructive from you?

Not in the slightest.

The only round I ever farmed in was r6
________
Isetta

[JC]

Going back a few rounds there used to be columns written by the creators and other columnists, maybe i was the only one but i used to enjoy reading them when i was bored out of my mind on irc. I dont visit the portal that often now tbh but i cant seem to find any such columns now, maybe bringing them back would be a good idea? The problem i can remember from back in r4 or r5 whenever it was i'm thinking back to was that the articles were very rarely updated and so after reading through them all once there was little point going back, perhaps if you had some willing columnists who would write interesting/entertaining/funny columns once every week or two you would get people going to the portal to read them, and while they are there they might look at the other features the portal has to offer.

To improve traffic to the portal you might want to have www.planetarion.com pointing to it so that people are almost forced to look at it. (Maybe that was the case in previous rounds i dont know, i always have the login screen bookmarked so wouldnt have noticed :\ )

[Chax]

Originally posted by JC
To improve traffic to the portal you might want to have www.planetarion.com pointing to it so that people are almost forced to look at it. (Maybe that was the case in previous rounds i dont know, i always have the login screen bookmarked so wouldnt have noticed :\ )

I used to have www.planetarion.com as my startpage in IE. However when it started pointing at the portal I started to use about:blank as my start page and bookmarked the login page instead.

[wakey]

The alliance columns. This is what is important about PA really and is what drew alot of visitors to the first portal. It was fun to be able to read what each alliance was getting upto and what they had to say. Bring it back.

Oh and A2 if theres any plans to recode it PLEASE makes ure the portal coded in a Template fashion allowing for modules to be bolted on when they are needed. Would solve this whole problem of the portal being recoded every round when a new look is implemented

[wakey]

Oh one last thing if you take the idea of allowing feedback to news items that Kilemark suggested make sureany comment goes into a moderation queue first. Anyone who went over to EQ during the NickB posting porn here incedent will know why this is neccesesary

[Woodeh]

Originally posted by wakey
Oh and A2 if theres any plans to recode it PLEASE makes ure the portal coded in a Template fashion allowing for modules to be bolted on when they are needed. Would solve this whole problem of the portal being recoded every round when a new look is implemented

Noctu (standing to the side of me) says...

It is

fs.

And its not *******

****s.

[A2]

Originally posted by wakey
The alliance columns. This is what is important about PA really and is what drew alot of visitors to the first portal. It was fun to be able to read what each alliance was getting upto and what they had to say. Bring it back.

Columns are on their way back since our different design for R8 didn't quite take off.

Oh and A2 if theres any plans to recode it PLEASE makes ure the portal coded in a Template fashion allowing for modules to be bolted on when they are needed. Would solve this whole problem of the portal being recoded every round when a new look is implemented

It is, there's just no admin page to change the design - it has to be done manually by someone with access to the code. Btw I'm determined to get rid of the Blue

[Kileman]

Columns never work. People are all enthusiastic at the start, but the moment you give them a deadline or quota they just get lazy.

One off articles/interviews would be far better.
________
Xs850

[A2]

I'm sure there are some people out there who will be dedicated enough to write regular columns about alliances or strategy.
If I get my way I'd also like the "Guest Column" idea to return so anyone can submit a column and get it published on the portal in the relevant columns section.

The columns system has worked better than the current one in the past, and to get content diversified again I'd like to bring them back.

[mbushell]

A lot of the content is only read once, pa has had a 4 way splash screen for a while now:

• Game
• Portal
• Forums
• Manual

The portal and manual might as well be combined, instead enterting pa at a splash screen just enter at the portal. Have the toolkit as part of the portal aswell. People might actually stay to look around. Bring back columns and allow comments etc. PA Draw was > *.

[Obliterate]

Having lots of info, history etc... about the alliances of PA would be cool, however this would be a one-off read really. To get people to visit the portal frequently, things like interviews etc.... would be good. Sortof like a 'news team' or something that writes about all the current happenings in the universe. Big battles, alliance wars etc.....

There used to be a thing like that on there, like a spy report thingy where annonymous people posted reports about alliances. I liked that and that was the only thing i read on the portal frequently (along with creators hour logs).

Columns would be ok.....but the writers would need to frequently write interesting columns for it to be worthwile.

Obli

[BesigedB]

Originally posted by A2
If you could change/add one thing on the Planetarion Portal what would it be?

revert it back to harry's portal.

[K0loth]

Suggestions.

• Some integration of the forum and portal like this website:
  http://www.beyondtheportal.com/ .
• A PA toolkit.
• A more detailed PA guidebook including images.
• More serious polls that change often (like every week).
• An easier to read FAQ without all these peoples names.
• Previous rounds rankings/stats and winners. This includes speed games too.
• Bring Columns back that are updated frequently. Allow each major alliance to have their own column.
• Alliance database - website, command list, history etc... <--- wrote by the alliance itself?
• More detailed information on using IRC including images.
• All the Creators hour logs.
• Perhaps a portals update page that states the latest articles and features that have been added.
• Update the credits page, including links to pictures.
• A upcoming rounds page. This states all that is known about the new round of Planetarion. This can be made up of information mentioned from announcements, creators hour etc...
  perhaps a rumour section too.
• PA gallery would be better on the portal IMO.
• Downloads such as screensavers, themepacks, wallpapers etc..
• Interview of the week - creators, pa crew, alliance leaders.

[Robin]

Originally posted by A2
Which Browsers have a problem with it?

Voyager ;-) Not everyone is using a pc or a modern
browser... I know it's only <10% of ppl not using the
damn ie but plain html is worth the efford anyway :-)

BTW Voyager is a browser for amiga-computers

--
Robin http://www.amiganiac.de

[Woodeh]

Originally posted by K0loth
Suggestions.

• A PA toolkit.
• A more detailed PA guidebook including images.
• More serious polls that change often (like every week).
• An easier to read FAQ without all these peoples names.
• Previous rounds rankings/stats and winners. This includes speed games too.
• Bring Columns back that are updated frequently. Allow each major alliance to have their own column.
• Alliance database - website, command list, history etc... <--- wrote by the alliance itself?
• More detailed information on using IRC including images.
• All the Creators hour logs.
• Perhaps a portals update page that states the latest articles and features that have been added.
• Update the credits page, including links to pictures.
• A upcoming rounds page. This states all that is known about the new round of Planetarion. This can be made up of information mentioned from announcements, creators hour etc...
  perhaps a rumour section too.
• PA gallery would be better on the portal IMO.
• Downloads such as screensavers, themepacks, wallpapers etc..
• Interview of the week - creators, pa crew, alliance leaders.

Most of these have already been discussed in some way.

The toolkit was written, but never implemented because of server problems. Assuming it is hosted by jolt this round that should no longer be a problem.

The previous round stats from r4 onwards arent a problem as could easily be put into the toolkit so you could search etc.

Columns will be back as a2 has already said.

Although there are plenty of irc guides it is obvious something extra is needed.

CH logs are put up eventually, if not instantly.

Updates are usually announced in the announcements.

The pa gallery is actually for the netgamers irc network which vcovers many games not just planetarion although i believe there was ideas about a gallery that you could edit your own info related to your planet in pa (worded very poorly i agree)

Interview of the week, good idea.

Think that answered everything.

Woody

How about a decent readable colour scheme that makes the site actually look impressive, and important. Then the new useful information that you are going to put in there will be even better!!!!!

[Andy_r]

The single thing that (currently) annoys me most about the portal is the uneccessary 'view article' links, they very rarely lead to anything more than you can already read on the main page, but you have to click on loads of them just in case.

How about renaming the link to 'view rest of article', underlining it (so people know it's a link) and only having it where articles are long enough to require splitting.

A good rule of thumb might be to only split articles that exceed 500 characters, and if articles are split, only put 200 characters on the front page, to ensure that there is actually some extra content on the 2nd page.

[RealJames]

When I had time to squander I liked reading the columns actually, especially Petru's story, which to this day I never finished.

I think links to alliance pages or an alliance section where a representative of each recognised alliance can post a short-ish intro to the alliance would be good. One of the things about PA is that alliances play a major role but there is very little initial information about them, and for someone new to the community it could be very confusing indeed.

Beyond that I support the idea of a stats, parsers, ownings, etc page, but it would have to be the very best around in order to be used, ie the very best of Sandmans, pilkara, the V one, etc etc.

[A2]

Originally posted by RealJames
I think links to alliance pages or an alliance section where a representative of each recognised alliance can post a short-ish intro to the alliance would be good. One of the things about PA is that alliances play a major role but there is very little initial information about them, and for someone new to the community it could be very confusing indeed.

The Alliance Database will do that
There's a thread about it on Alliance Recruiting