1. SPS Accounts:
    Do you find yourself coming back time after time? Do you appreciate the ongoing hard work to keep this community focused and successful in its mission? Please consider supporting us by upgrading to an SPS Account. Besides the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from supporting a good cause, you'll also get a significant number of ever-expanding perks and benefits on the site and the forums. Click here to find out more.
    Dismiss Notice
Dismiss Notice
You are currently viewing Boards o' Magick as a guest, but you can register an account here. Registration is fast, easy and free. Once registered you will have access to search the forums, create and respond to threads, PM other members, upload screenshots and access many other features unavailable to guests.

BoM cultivates a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. We have been aiming for quality over quantity with our forums from their inception, and believe that this distinction is truly tangible and valued by our members. We'd love to have you join us today!

(If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you've forgotten your username or password, click here.)

SP Happenings #100

Discussion in 'Game/SP News & Comments' started by Taluntain, May 12, 2005.

  1. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2000
    Messages:
    23,653
    Media:
    494
    Likes Received:
    570
    Gender:
    Male
    Remove all ads!
    And here we are, the 100th SPH. On my birthday, no less!

    I've made many more adjustments to our site search engine since I've mentioned it in SPH last week, and the thing's really running smooth now, with very little interference from content which shouldn't be indexed. The usage statistics are also quite interesting. There are a great number of unique searches (many of them misspelled - you need to be careful with spelling when searching), but there are a few very popular common searches as well. A few of these are: "monk", "portraits", "maps", "dragon" and "romance". Why the "monk" search is so popular, I have no idea, but it's the most frequently used keyword in the searches.

    Since last week I have also updated our help wanted page, so check it out if you're interested in doing something around SP. The online walkthrough writer positions have turned out disastrous for the most part. Dozens of applicants, most of which clearly didn't even bother to read the requirements, and none of which would actually follow through with writing the walkthrough they've started from beginning to conclusion. I've had a bad feeling about the guy who started writing the Baldur's Gate online walkthrough for SP right from the beginning, so I can only blame myself for being foolish enough to announce and list it publicly before he completed it. In the grand tradition of people who apply for a job around SP and don't feel like finishing it, he's simply disappeared without even bothering to let me know about it. I hope there's a special pit reserved in hell for people who waste my time in this manner.

    So as far as online walkthrough writers go, I've pretty much given up on finding any decent ones. Walkthrough writing is an art, and very few people have the know-how and persistence required in making one. Apparently, the only people I can trust with a job like that are those who have already produced something similar for SP, either a walkthrough, or any other extensive project. Unfortunately, none of them have time to tackle another project at the moment, so I'm rather stuck. At this point I don't know if I should even keep the Baldur's Gate online walkthrough up, considering it's barely been started. I'll probably just scrap the whole thing. *sigh*

    In other news, thanks to Catbert our latest screenshot galleries (Dragonshard and Dungeons & Dragons Online) now have the option of going to the previous or next screenshot right on the page where the first screenshot displays, which makes browsing screenshots much more convenient. Our older screenshot galleries don't have this feature yet because I need to do some changes there first for this to work, but eventually all screenshot galleries on SP will use the same format. Which also means that now would be a good time to put any suggestions for improvements to us. So, if you have any, please let us know.

    ยป Previous SPH
     
    Taluntain, May 12, 2005
    #1
  2. Shrikant

    Shrikant Swords! Not words! Veteran

    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2003
    Messages:
    2,620
    Likes Received:
    3
    Gender:
    Male
    Hey, thanks Catbert. Please do the same for all SOTWs. Also, try to display the sotw's title at the top of the page.

    But why does the thumbnail have to open a new window? Can't it open in the same window? I really dont like having multiple windows opened, tabs are a different matter.

    Consider moving the hourly quote up and maybe even introducing it onto the board's main page. I know its down there for a reason but I think it really doesn't serve that purpose.

    Finally could you make the weekly polls into a post, like the SPH. SP'ers really have a lot of time to discuss their opinions*.
    Code:
     * ie: spam the boards
     
    Shrikant, May 12, 2005
    #2
  3. Harbourboy

    Harbourboy Take thy form from off my door! Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

    Joined:
    May 29, 2003
    Messages:
    13,354
    Likes Received:
    99
    I'd love to help SP a bit more but there's no way I would be any good at doing an online review. It takes me so long to finish a game, that it would seem like I had vanished, when really I was just stuck somewhere trying to get past a lich. Plus, when I played BGII, I somehow managed to miss most of the really important stuff (Carsomyr, Kangaxx, Crom Faeyr etc) so my walkthroughs would be pretty sad.

    I'm sure I could do a few more book reviews though . . . .
     
    Harbourboy, May 12, 2005
    #3
  4. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2000
    Messages:
    23,653
    Media:
    494
    Likes Received:
    570
    Gender:
    Male
    Shrikant, SoTW is another issue altogether again. It's not even remotely in the same format as our standard screenshot galleries, so I doubt it'll use this new system anytime soon. Though I'll probably think of something, and then get Catbert to make it work. :D

    As for the SoTW title on top of the page... what exactly do you need that for? The title is already on the page itself...

    Thumbnails opening in a new window makes sense, especially for galleries... You can check thumbnails on one page, and the actual screenshots in another. I don't see why this bothers you, it's meant to be a convenience. If you don't need the original window any more, you can always close it, and continue only in the new window that opened...

    The quotes will definitely be moved to a more prominent spot once we fix up the code a bit in the next few months. This is on the to-do list. I thought about putting them up somewhere on the boards too, but then they wouldn't really serve any practical function there. I'm not really sure where I could put them either.

    As for the polls, no, not possible at the moment. Probably also not even in the future. Having the poll like that would mean it being part of the board, and only people registered on the boards could vote. Either that, or the forum in which the poll would be posted would have to be free for even unregistered people to post in. And neither of these options are acceptable. In the future, however, a localized poll script is on the to-do list, so at least it'll all stay on SP. Right now the poll is the only script which doesn't run off SP.

    Harbourboy, sure do books then, everything helps. ;)
     
    Taluntain, May 12, 2005
    #4
Sorcerer's Place is a project run entirely by fans and for fans. Maintaining Sorcerer's Place and a stable environment for all our hosted sites requires a substantial amount of our time and funds on a regular basis, so please consider supporting us to keep the site up & running smoothly. Thank you!

Sorcerers.net is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to products on amazon.com, amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.