ZFGC
ZFGC.com => Updates => Topic started by: 4Sword on July 01, 2009, 03:24:54 am
-
As you may have noticed, there has not been a new Weekly in three weeks. This has either been because of no one caring to read/write it or busyness - sometimes there is also little to talk about. Additionally, the Project of the Month for the month of June might be delayed because the site staff has yet to respond to the nominations topic.
Typically I would pick up the slack, but one person cannot do everything. I am not saying that just as an adage, but from trying to administrate, handling moderation issues when they come up, figuring out what the site staff is doing and not doing, and trying to code something that a lot want to see progress on but few people are contributing to. It gets difficult to do individual things well with that many duties.
So, just in terms of news items, the Weekly is cancelled; the inconsistency with its releases did not make it a "weekly". The Project of the Month will remain as it is essential and it will be possibly open for improvement in terms of its content. The one for the month of June will not be out for a few days. There will be a news item made after this one for the Dungeon contest.
Otherwise, if any of you have ideas on possible news items that should be done that have some relation to a development focus, feel free to mention them.
-
Perhaps there could be updates for when a demo for a project is released or new screenshots for a project. That's all I can think of at the moment.
-
Biweekly updates? Monthly updates? Updating when things actually happen? All are very good alternatives.
-
Agree with first post, make the updates more focussed on the fan games.
-
We really need more graphics so maybe an update for that?
-
I've been wanting to rip that create that appears in the ice dungeon which throws a part of its face, or work some other rips into shadow-oriented, optimized, Game Maker ready sprites, but I have been busy as hell. I have homework constantly and all of it is difficult.
There have been ideas in the site staff section pitched about articles to write, but the recurring problem (probably speaks to humanity at large rather than just those here) is that ideas mean jack !@#$% unless preferably the one pitching them is willing to work for them. Niek and I were working on a contest, but we both got busy. There are going to be some rule changes, but those are taking time to get fully done. Ugh...
-
Kind of unrelated; but holy !@#$% I didn't even realize this thread was here :x...
I kinda wish we had a widget that showed all recent threads in here while we're browsing the forum too :(
-
Anything you'd like me to help with? I know I helped out with those board rules but I feel I could be doing more. On the bright side, I have barely seen ANY reported posts.
-
yeah, one a week at most lately. Petty stuff too.
-
A few weeks back I started an intern assignment with a local gamedeveloper. This means I work from 09.00 to 18.00 hours. Which means I am a little busy during the day. In weekends I have the time, and in that time I have been busy to work on the CP engine and to rip a bunch MC graphics. But it goes slowly. The contest will be coming, once the engine is ready for it.
The problem is that many people have lives beside being online.
PS: I just completed Minish Cap and have a bunch of save games. I could make them available for others to start ripping, if people wish.
-
Anything you'd like me to help with? I know I helped out with those board rules but I feel I could be doing more. On the bright side, I have barely seen ANY reported posts.
You have done quite a bit, my general concern though rests with how there are those on the staff who do hardly anything, those who can passively sit by and just let the essential work be done by others without so much as trying to help. This weakens the staff's ability to make progress and it must not be tolerated.
The site staff is what could use the most improvement. The current team board application process is a failure in terms of oversight, getting a Project of the Month out is a pain in the ass because Xiphirx and I are the only ones who really do it, the ideas for articles aren't meeting fruition because no one else is willing to do them, certain graphical updates to the forum are slow in coming to fruition, there is a lack of contest and event planning, etc. If all or most of those things were given honest efforts by the site staff, the site staff would have a valid reason for existing. However the current state of the site staff is a disgrace to its existence.
Chances are that due to the moderation having less tasks during this period of time, some of the site staff work could be either shifted to or shared with moderation. This would probably just pertain to things that require approval/voting (e.g. applications, Project of the Month voting) or things such as commonly recurring events. Things like this would be placed in the Staff Discussion board rather than just in Moderation or Site Staff.
A few weeks back I started an intern assignment with a local gamedeveloper. This means I work from 09.00 to 18.00 hours. Which means I am a little busy during the day. In weekends I have the time, and in that time I have been busy to work on the CP engine and to rip a bunch MC graphics. But it goes slowly. The contest will be coming, once the engine is ready for it.
The problem is that many people have lives beside being online.
PS: I just completed Minish Cap and have a bunch of save games. I could make them available for others to start ripping, if people wish.
I was thinking that to get progress more quickly that ice-movement could be set aside for the time being and re-added later. I've made some fixes while working on the ledge jumping you made too. This involves having a parent object parLedge be the parent for all ledges; and actually using something like parObstac as the parent object for all objects which are obstacles (parSolid and parLedge).
This is to make it so when corner cutting, Link does so correctly with all obstacles. This might not be necessary depending on how the actual game limits ledge positions so that corner cutting for them is most non-existent based on obstacle placement.
Meh, I don't know. Removing the ice-movement though and adding in in later might work better in terms of priority. Otherwise though I'll be able to get something up once my schoolwork lets up; my Operating Systems was due about 3 and a half hours ago technically but I did not get it done. I can turn it in anytime this weekend though likely but it will be like a quarter-assed it.
-
I think it boils down to the need to delegate some of the staff to doing the main site, making it a top priority task for them, and moderating a secondary task.
I'm a little surprised they're not picking up the slack in that area to begin with, especially with so few general site staffers :(
-
Maybe you should give the team a update ;) I can do much things to start with XD
-
Are you saying that the staff should be updated and that you could help out with stuff? If there is something you think that you could help out with, it'd be important to state what that is so that the value of your help can be assessed.
-
He could go around and check everybody's grammar, because he so totally did not epic fail on that :D
-
I know my english isn't the best but you have to life with it ;) Yes, i'm saying you could update the staff, replacing the people who are mostly doing nothing with people who wanna do things. I can help you out with coding on the site, i can php, html, javascript, java, vbs, sql.
-
Well, if you need something, I'm here to help. Especially if that something includes graphics.
I think we should concentrate on advertising and getting new members here. That way the activity could rise and we could arrange new competitions etc. We would even have more news items. :P
-
About the site, there are plans in the works for it to be improved. Mainly this would improve notifications, the size and sorting of items, users recognized, etc. These plans are slow though in fruition due to everyone being busy and other things which take priority due to the ease of their implementation. A site is a lot of work, while features on the forum are not so much.
Meh and there are some other ideas in the works for developers too which might change some paradigms a bit. Currently I am trying to figure out a good way to have a site staff that isn't bloated but with each group member working for the common effort while each having individual skills. The nature of the site staff might change a bit as well in terms of for what duration a user is on the site staff as well - i.e. hiring for specific events/contests, firing if now work at all for a set period of time.
Ripping Zelda graphics, specifically Minish Cap, is also helpful to many users here. Any good ripping in general is good too. But there is something I want to reiterate as I likely have done many times before. Advertising doesn't mean jack !@#$% if what we have here is subpar or in essence !@#$%. I mean really, our parents set a good example, when you have company over you clean the house up a bit and tidy up or else those you bring in will think your a slob or a joke - or worse they'll like the mess and make it worse. Kripsy Kreme donuts for the longest time didn't have to advertise anything because they were just good enough that people wanted to be there and invited their friends. Try getting your friends here and they'll think you're wasting their time. I mean really, the problem is not in the stars, but in ourselves. You can't look to the outside as the be all end all solution to problems, when in fact they could just complicate things worse if we don't improve ourselves.
About news items, they have to be !@#$% that people want to read or that have value being posted. Eventually as alluded to developers are going to be given the ability to post significant updates that they have to the site. That and the site staff should be generally using the news for contests, events, and stuff like that.