TALK!!!!

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Thu Sep 06, 2001 7:27 pm

Hi all.. I know there are at least 54 people who visit the the DMJava forum and I know that there is about at least 20 people who visit her and about 40 or so that visit the RTC forums. Now how many of those 3 groups are common I have no idea however at the ver minimum there should be about 50-60 people aware of the renewal of DM and have happily renewed their love for the game.

The old unofficial DM website now gone had chatter in the forums regularly about nothing and anything. Mostly Dungeon master or fantasy related.

Now most of the talk is bug reports or suggestions on these other forums. Surely there is more to talk about than that..

I invite anyone and everyone to start chattering about what ever is your fancy. It does NOT have to do with my art, bios, graphics sets etc.. it only has to ba what ever you want to chatter about. After all given that many of us enjoy the game that there should be some other things that we have in common.. Right?

I my self am also a big fan of starwars and star trek. I don't know about this new 'enterprise' show though... :/

so anyway, the only rule I have is no cruelty.. however so far I don't think that will be an issue. Everyone seems to get along ok so far..

Cheers..
moo!

Post by **Zyx** » Thu Sep 06, 2001 7:28 pm

Many discussions about DM on this forum:

http://dmweb.free.fr/Forum/

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Thu Sep 06, 2001 7:28 pm

oh sure.. send them somewhere else..

(j/k)

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Thu Sep 06, 2001 7:28 pm

hehe

but yes, you are right, there is no discussions going on...one or two threads on ian's site don't get picked up much due to lack of posters as opposed to to lurkers

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Fri Sep 07, 2001 7:29 pm

yes, plenty of those! People must have SOMETHING to say though.. just shy I guess.. (shrug)

I completed Nabi this morning however, my internet at home is being a pain so I can't upload him yet.. (I'm at the college right now) however I will place him up there as soon as Shaw gets their heads out of their butts..

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sat Sep 08, 2001 7:29 pm

woooo... number of the beast! It's that deadly 3 digit number .. my board is possesed! quick quick... some one visit soon and bump it up to 667! heh.. I'm just kidding.. I'm just doing a check before I put up the new Nabi image. The bio will not be too far behind I hope.. I really need to get in there and break it down while keeping much of the content it's quite good!

anyway.. cheers all... mooooooooooo!

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Sep 08, 2001 7:29 pm

For some reason the inn graphics have started to fragment when i looked earlier - there were clear gaps between the pictures : (

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sat Sep 08, 2001 7:30 pm

got a new web browser? new anything recently?

They still show up alright for me at home but at school on the computer there they look weird at first and then when I go back to them they are alright.

I'll look into it a bit more..

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sat Sep 08, 2001 7:30 pm

it was my fault.. I put in one to many brackets.. should be fixed now..

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Sep 09, 2001 7:30 pm

Hi all. Yes, I too visit DMJava, RTC and these pages on a sem-regular basis. But there's very little that I feel I can offer in the way of chat as I just don't get the time to hang around on the forums.

Much of my free time right now is spent developing my new DM website, and although I have found out loads of new stuff while researching this that I could talk about on the forums, I am choosing to wait until the site is done. It will be more of a surprise that way.

In the mean time, I'm sure you guys will think of plenty to talk about!

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sun Sep 09, 2001 7:31 pm

How far along are you.. is there anything you can reveal?? just a tinsy little tidbit?

beyond that how far are you planning to go with this website. how has the process been for you, making it.

For me I have no idea of what limits I may eventually reach with this site.. they seem so far as there is so much I can do and I love the process...

anyway.. see that prompted some chatter I'm sure!

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Sep 09, 2001 7:31 pm

I've been wondering about that... i.e., putting some of the site on-line so that you can see what I've been up to. The issue really is that I'd prefer to release it all in one go with a bang, rather than incrementally with possibly a whimper.

The problem I'm having though is that there is still a huge amount of content to develop, and as I get so little time to spend on the site, it'll probably still be months before I could release a version of the site that I'm happy with.

The site itself is kind of two things - on one level it's a guide to the games, similar to the Encylopedia but written in a general way, kind of like a guide book to a city, with background info and history, that kind of thing. On another level, it's as accurate a site as you'll see regarding the actual history and development of the DM series of games and includes a lot of background info about FTL.

There are five main sections to the site, one for each of the games. I wanted to release the whole thing together, but the research for Theron's Quest, DM2 and Nexus will still take a long time - not least because I have yet to get Theron's Quest to work under emulation, and I am still waiting for delivery of Nexus. So I thought of perhaps making the first release just about DM and CSB, then adding the rest of the stuff as I go along... but that would perhaps distill the surprise factor of the site...

Thoughts/arguments for or against gratefully received!

As regards to how far the site will go: well, I think at some point down the line it will reach a finite end, probably either when I feel I can simply add nothing new or I get bored. That could still take a year though.... Regarding how far I've got - well, it has been a long old haul so far. Put it this way - actual production of web pages accounts for probably only 5% of the time I've devoted to this so far - and I've been going for a year! I've re-designed the look and feel 7(!) times (I'm a perfectionist and always found some problem or other that needed fixing), and have changed the scope of the site twice. On top of that I have learnt CSS2 in detail and have re-built the core template for the site several times until I got something I was happy with. I had originally intended the site to work on all browsers, but have since decided to target v5 browsers and above. You will definitely need a Javascript 1.2 and CSS level 1 compliant browser to view the site - I've all but managed to avoid using any tables at all, and that in itself was a huge learning curve. I'm really happy with what I learnt and it all works very well on IE5+, Netscape 6 and Opera 5+. (The amount of testing and re-testing of the main page structure has been huge....)

Part of the reason for doing the site was to improve my HTML and learn CSS properly (which is odd considering I do this stuuf professionally, but the company I work for is so crap I never get time to learn anything new... anyway)... in the long run I hope to use the site as a showcase of my graphics/HTML/CSS skills (not Flash - there will be no Flash on the site) to get a better job...

So there you have it.... sort of!

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sun Sep 09, 2001 7:32 pm

well, you know there are the good the bad (and the ugly) about pre-release of things. You look at RTC and it was released before the core was completed and there was little more than a tiny map.. however it thrilled people and left them wanting more.. they (we I guess actually) have stuck around adding suggestions and doing all we can to support an effort we enjoy. The same with my site. I released it before it was complete.. heck when I put it up I only had one day's worth of effort behind it. it's grown since then with the help of many others. The core of the effort is mine it's still my creation and I allow in other creative input but only in certain areas. so the controll really is still my own.. however it has helped me build something that on my own would have taken far longer and would be less suited to a larger audience since with other input you have a wider range of ideas.

now the bad I suppose is that you may lose some of the surprize and the awe that may have come from a massive site just BAM! appearing out of thin air.. however that all depends on how you plan on presenting it anyway...

anyhow, you could release one section at a time.. Ie DM sections is done and is released then CSB section completed and released, then DM2 etc etc.. so they could come in big clumps..

just ideas...

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Mon Sep 10, 2001 7:32 pm

those are the pros and cons...but with especially DM Java pulling in more fans all the time who remember DM from years ago, there will always be an audience to whom the site will be only seen completed, and will wow them totally

As mentioned, you can get interesting ideas and reassurance right now about the site as is and the direction you've finally decided to take it. Plus we get to see the hard work that has gone into it! Please? : )

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Mon Sep 10, 2001 7:32 pm

Alandale has an added advantage that his site is directly advertised so that it's easier to find than RTC as well... You do a search for DM and DMencyclopedia as well as DMJava pop up. however RTC, myself, as well as a few others do not.. you need to search.

This is why I'm so impressed with how many visits I get a day.. It really is just a small group who know of my site. While it grows with those few who choose to search further on the encyclopedia page.. I don't expect it to grab the same number as DMJava even though the graphics can be used with it as well..

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Sep 10, 2001 7:33 pm

OK Drake and Beowuuf - I will put some sample pages up over the next few days and then I will email you privately with the URLs so that you can have a peek. You must totally promise me though that you won't publish the URLs anywhere until I'm ready to release at least the first version of the site - I still haven't decided when that will be yet....

Deal??

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Mon Sep 10, 2001 7:34 pm

Cool, I promise. lemme see.. lemme see!!

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Tue Sep 11, 2001 7:34 pm

yeah, the url would be good...a distraction would be nice around now

Post by **Gambit37** » Wed Sep 12, 2001 7:34 pm

OK, I'll sort this out over the next few days. I need to modify some of the pages that I have got already to take out links to other pages, etc....

This will be purely as a few samples to show what I've been up to, and still may yet change on the final release. Look out for an email from me...!

Post by **Gambit37** » Wed Sep 19, 2001 7:35 pm

Sorry Drake and Beowuuf, but I've changed my mind about posting up some samples.

This is not a selfish act on my part, it's actually to ensure that you have more enjoyment from the site once it's released. I don't want to ruin some of the unique surprise factor at this stage and I think sending you samples will mess it up for you as the anticipation will be spoilt. Plus it's actually a lot of work for me to strip down even a couple of pages to post as samples due to the way they are constructed.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I think you'll thank me in the long run....

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Thu Sep 20, 2001 7:35 pm

lol, ok, repect your decision

sigh

Just have to wait like all the rest I suppose : )

Dungeon Master Forum

TALK!!!!

TALK!!!!

don't forget ian's site too...

ack!!

ACKKK!

I'm here, though not often...

pro's and con's

Ok, now let me see

Sorry, changed my mind

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO