Mahz

Mahz's Dev Journal

A feature I've started brainstorming again is the "roleplay roster" idea since it sets the stage for some short-term features:

1. Private roleplays
2. Mature roleplays + an opt-in system
3. Some way to connect people in a roleplay such that they can do things like @Notify the whole group.
4. ???

Here's a random post of mine from two years ago that came up in the search for previous discussion: roleplayerguild.com/posts/2478148. Just search for "active" in this thread to see more chatter about some sort of "active roleplayers" system over the years.

So that I don't languish in indecision by brainstorming a bigger feature than I can chew, I think it'd be simplest to start off with private roleplays.

The simplest implementation I can think of is:

- Each roleplay has a roster (list of players).
- The GM + Co-GMs (GMs) are always on this list.
- The GMs can add/remove players which notifies the player.
- Players can always leave a roster which prevents them from being added again.
- The GMs can choose among some options:
- ( ) The RP is private and only the roster can see the roleplay
- ( ) The RP is public and only the roster can post in the roleplay
- ( ) ???
- Tagging your roleplay with "18+" automatically makes your roleplay private,
but furthermore, the only players eligible for the roster are those who've
opted-in to the 18+ system.

That seems pretty well-defined and straight-forward to me.

I'll start playing around with the code, but I'd like to hear any other thoughts.

What is this place.

>but if we were to count the lengthy hiatuses on the way, that would whittle the rather impressively sounding decade to an unremarkable period of about two years.

We've got something in common.

Welcome

Mahz's Dev Journal

Update: I restyled hidden posts so that they are a lil more out of the way but also expandable.

Mahz's Dev Journal

@Odin Yeah there was talk of a mentor style program a while ago - long while ago. Don't think any of the staff was in on it though. More of several of us just general Rpers discussing it.

When I was modding for Adventure Quest on the Battle-On Forums, we started what was called an RP Academy which taught the basics of Rp. People could start out there and were taught the ropes - How to develop characters, we gave them scenarios to post to and then we dissected the posts to point out things they missed or metagamed or bunnied. Walked them through battles post by post. Ect. Once they got through a certain amount and had a good grasp they were moved to general and then if they grew from their they were promoted to Advanced Rper - each level of Rper had a different area they could post in.

Now it was a smaller community of Rpers - which was easier to keep up with since it was just a sub section of a larger forum for a game. So I doubt that would work here. But the part I do believe would work was having RP Tutors. They were the teachers, ones that fielded the questions, taught, took people under their wing, etc. (They were appointed by the RP Staff. Not mods but not general Rpers)

I would love to see that here but it is a LOT of work. (Took a lot more to mentor than it did to mod over there.) - If we had an Academy section in the RP - omg, that would be awesome! Not a place to Rp but a place where people could post asking their questions and such. Example - Can someone take a look at my CS and see if the back story and skills line up? How can I better develop the personality. I want this character to get from here to here, tips? I have writers block, help me break it. And so forth.

Yes we have an RP Discussion area but that is a general thing. And the Tutorials are all the way buried at the bottom of the forum (Which I still say needs to be moved up and either placed in the top section with Newcomers and New - or in the RP section at the top.) - Though if we had a sub section (A new one like Expanding Horizons got) - We could have an RP Academy and the Tutorials there.

But again, if we could just get a "Mentoring" tag that would be awesome.

@Lady Amalthea

A forum I posted at long ago had a mentor system as well.

While I wasn't particularly involved with the program nor do I remember it in great detail, I liked the spirit of it.

Definitely lots of work though. One thing I do remember was the high rate of newcomers simply vanishing which wears away at the energy of the mentors, but that's the nature of forums.

As usual, I'm always willing to build something if someone can pitch me a detailed game plan.

Regarding the Mentoring tag, any further ideas on it? I think it needs to involve something more interesting than just creating yet another tag and hoping people figure it out.

For example, something I want to do with the 18+ tag is hide the tagged checks/RPs except from users that have opted-in to the 18+ system. Basically a feature that's connected to a single tag.

Mahz's Dev Journal

Okay, /search is finally back and it's paginated this time.

I'm definitely pushing my database to the limit on that one. If I have to take it down again for performance issues, I'll find a database actually optimized for search.

---

Within the last 10 pages, I discussed some experiments I was doing to evaluate potential improvements to our current BBCode editor.

For fun, here's a buggy prototype I threw together a month ago: guilded.surge.sh



The editor itself would need a lot of work. But what's more interesting is what's going on in the boxes below the editor (if you click the link).

I wrote the start of a transformer from the editor's internal data representation (the last box) into HTML (the top box). I also made progress on transforming the editor's data into BBCode. If I can implement the reverse, a transformer from BBCode -> editor state, then I think I could implement an improved editor alongside the Guild's current editor with a button that lets you switch between them on the fly.

Don't be too hard on it, though. It's just something I hacked together. Prob did the first 1% of it.

It would take some serious dev muscle to finish that project, so it's on the long-term track, but I figured I'd share some progress in the spirit of the dev journal.

---

Gonna shift focus back to this thread now.

New Girl on the Server

Welcome

My philosophy on mature content is that it needs to take place away from the public parts of the forum, participants need to be 18+, and they need to be respectful towards one another. The rules better reflect that now.

If you want to list your likes / dislikes, you can do it in an Interest Check topic, just make sure to add the 18+ tag. It'll help draw in others looking for that style of RP.

Website is upppp??

@KDreamsy Welcome back

Mahz's Dev Journal

@Lady Amalthea You should be able to collapse the statuses sidebar now.

Mahz's Dev Journal

@Altered Tundra Do you you know when about it started happening?

30 days ago I launched the autosave system which I think is the only time I touched the editor in quite a while.

Mahz's Dev Journal

@Lady Amalthea Yeah, sure. It's on my list now. Just trying to wrap up some other progress. And I also haven't yet made it to the hidden-post fix we discussed on the other page, but it's on my list as well.

@Altered Tundra Weird, could you take a screenshot?

@Genkai I think it'd be a nice feature. Maybe I could start with something simple like showing your last viewed page (if ghost-mode permits).

Working on some bugs and chore/foundational work right now.

Some of the posts above I haven't yet responded to since I had more to say than time allows.