A organized website

[HighFish.DE]

One post I\'ve never seen here but is imo definite needed is a wish for a better website. Why has everything to be somewhere else?

Examples:

www.planeshift.it
planeshift.sourceforge.net
Why not directly refer from the Sourceforge-Page to the italian?
Why can\'t I get some important informations like the Planeshift-Wiki or the API-Documentation directly from the italian site, maybe in a new section named \"developement\"?
Why isn\'t there a link to the Server-Status or even better a inframe on the official site?

You need four clicks on very complicated sites to enter the forum actually, why not place a link that everybody can acess on the main page?
Which design decisions lead the developer of the website to have the FAQ as a submenu of Community?
Why are the Project-Targets and the Setting labeled as Story?
Why is there a whole different website for registering a new account?
How much people do know how to send Bug-Reports? Who knows where to upload diagnostic files? How many people would come to the upload-site again if you write \"Service suspended\" and not why and how long?
Is the website useable without flash?
Since when is France, Spain, Germany, Italy a language?
For how long has the player guide gone 404?
Why is there a description in the section community->forum with the description of some board, which you can\'t click on altought they seem to be links?
The USA already gone so bad that you have to actually \"Help Us\" or do you want people to participate in the project?

A lot of questions I know, hopefully somebody takes the time to answer them, or make the website a little bit more userfriendly.

[Draklar]

Originally posted by HighFish.DE
One post I\'ve never seen here but is imo definite needed is a wish for a better website.

What you would like to see in the final game? Post your ideas and suggestions.

Go figure :P

Although Yeah, I ceased bothering to search for all that stuff some time ago. Now I only check the website when Talad goes \"News on the main page\" :P
It\'s simply too much of a time waster.

[Sangwa]

Yeah I don\'t use the website that much either. That guy sure has some points.

Why is there a description in the section community->forum with the description of some board, which you can\'t click on altought they seem to be links?

They don\'t seem to be links. They\'re just highlighted because they\'re key words of the text. At least that\'s what I make of it.

The USA already gone so bad that you have to actually \"Help Us\" or do you want people to participate in the project?

Come on, you just got carried away in that one.

[Ethan]

The player guide is 404 if you do not look at the right place.
http://www.planeshift.it/guide/en/guide.html works fine.
You are right that the site is not very well organized but currently, Talad is the only in charge of it and he has other things to bother about. (Well.. I don\'t want to speak for him but...)

[acraig]

A part of the reason for this is because we have different resources with different abilities.  For example we have:

1) Source forge website.  Has many people that can access it ( ie to change it ),  has limited space, can use cron tabs.  

2) Forums site.  Very little access to it.  Limited database abilities.  Also runs the bug tracker site.

3) Laanx site.  Limited access, same machine as game server so direct access to game information for website.

4) Main site.  Main PS site that Talad pays for.  Very limited access, no database, no shell account.


So you can see we have several different resources each with different abilities.  We are trying to use each one to the best we can.

[Moogie]

It\'s PlaneShift tradition to have lots and lots of things that only half work.

[HighFish.DE]

Well actually I can see that the website has grown very dynamically. Iam able to find the information I need, as you can see in my post. But I just wanted to give some information how a user experiences the website if he is new to Planeshift. Iam not saying that you have to do the changes, because I do know that I dont have the right to do so. So take it for what it is: a suggestion on how to change things in a way that they work better. The other tought is, that you could actually lessen the work invested in some daily work if you change some little things.

@Sangwa: Well that \"help us\"-thing may only seem strange to me.
@Ethan: The Link to the 404-UserGuide can be found on the main-site of the mainsite.
@acraig: 1.) I know that you can\'t actually change the sourceforge-sites, as far as i can see it wasnt used (except CVS) since 2002, maybe because you had better tools elsewhere or something. Maybe you should write in the Project Description where to look for current information. But Users who browse sourceforge are in most cases able to find the right places.
2.) 3.) You could have that site in a inframe on the mainsite.
4.) The changes I suggested are very easy to implement, I really don\'t know how much time Talad is wasting on support, but if he would change some things he could actually lessen that waste of time I think.

Well I think you should integrate those different parts more, so that you have a seamlessly integrated website, it would look much better and would be more useable.

@Moogie: Well, tradition is good, but as I said you could lessen your boring everyday work if you dont do things only half. So its good for the Administrator and the users.

[Ethan]

Well... I can\'t found the 404. (This is not a joke )
Can you report the broken link? (where)

[HighFish.DE]

I copied the link direct form the mainsite it refered to: http://www.planeshift.it/guide/index.html
Now its correct, the path is: http://www.planeshift.it/guide/en/index.html
there are two possible reasons for it:
a) The site was correct, but an old version taken from browser-cache
b) The site has been changed
It doesnt really matter which reason it is, at least I can go to the players guide now.
If you ask me, its more possible that my browser-cache did the trick than the Admins not linking right.

[Jannis]

Just an additional wish here (mostly for the laanx-page):

Could we add kindof \"webinterface\" to ingame-features? No, wrong formulation.
A page, where you can see the stats of the characters?
For example
http://laanx.fragnetics.com/stats.pgp?char=Teyeto
would display a page with
- a picture of that guy (what he/she is holding in her hands, swords, shields, etc (like when you choose your char ingame but static)),
- the stats
- perhaps the inventory (maybe only when looking at his hown char (user/pass as ingame)....

It should not be hard to do, use PHP and get the information from the server\'s mysql database.

WHY: To be able to look at other players\' stats, show your chars to your friends.

[Karyuu]

But why should you be able to show your stats and inventory? These are things that are better shown in-game, otherwise it is completely OOC. Why should you be able to look at such information, of other players, any time you wish?

[Kythag]

I have to argue against showing other players inventories because it would increase \"begging\".  You would have players coming into the game with knowledge of which player had extra things and loading em down with a sob story or just outright saying,\"You have this give it to me.\"

Also, from the roleplay standpoint of thievery, you should have to roleplay finding out what someone has, not look at player\'s stats and inventory for the \"easy pickings\".

Finally, if you are showing your character off, you could log into the game and show them.  You could also tab between PS and a Spreadsheet and count inventory.

I have a suggestion about making a central site that links to all of the others in an organized manner.  If someone could volunteer to do this, seeing the dev staff is likely too busy, it would be appreciated(if, of course, it is desired).  If I had more than basic knowledge of HTML, I would volunteer.  I am only good at fixing stuff though.

[Jannis]

Yeah, seems you convinced me, pointless idea.