Omnimaga
Omnimaga => Site Feedback and Questions => Topic started by: 123outerme on May 14, 2014, 01:33:51 pm
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Mabe, every so often, there could be a news update on the completed projects of the month/week?
That way, game developers could get more traffic and feel accomplished, while the community could find out about (potentially) great projects.
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That actually sounds like a good idea, like a "Omnimaga Monthly Report". I approve that.
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I find monthly better because it's not like there are >9000 new projects a week. :P But it's a nice idea.
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Another good idea would be to vote on the best completed projects as well, before the news post.
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What about a poll in the news post ?
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So a news article for when voting starts and then for the results ¯\(°_o)/¯
IMO voting is a bad idea due to that, the order could just be chronological or something >.>
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I propose that each month all the completed projects be newsed about and a poll be set up for people to vote for their favorite. Much simpler this way.
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Hey! I had this idea yesterday too :D
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So a news article for when voting starts and then for the results ¯\(°_o)/¯
IMO voting is a bad idea due to that, the order could just be chronological or something >.>
Well, you can include the results in the article of the next month. Then maybe you can even add a short list of the top rated projects of the last year.
But I think that monthly is a bit too fast, since not a lot of projects are finished each month, but it sounds like a good idea to know which are the latest projects, so that none go by unnoticed.
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Every 6 weeks or even 2 months might sound more reasonable then ?
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I used to do regular news articles about new game (including beta) releases when I was still admin, sometimes every day or two, but this required a lot of time and effort to do so alone, and after I quit my admin positions and only did news editing, when it became clear that nobody wanted to help for game stuff, I decided to quit doing it on a regular basis. I still post some news from time to time, though, such as compilation of many overlooked games for every model.
That said, I agree that Omnimaga needs more calc gaming news again, like we used to have, even if it's in the form of monthly news. Omni news were often calc gaming-oriented in the past, as did the site itself, but there were problems over the year:
-2005: Every game news were RPG-oriented (even singling out my own non-RPG programs) and there were too many site maintenance updates
-2007-09: There could be months with no news sometimes
-2011-12: Too Nspire-centric
-2013: Too Nspire-centric and not enough game news (although this was because every game news featured about 10-20 games at once).
-2014: Site news almost exclusively maintenance-related
IMHO in order to solve the problem, there should be more forum users that have news writing privileges like I already have, preferably ones interested in calc gaming. News require mod approval anyway so if someone keeps trying to push his menu-based cow RPG, moderators can just reject the article.
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Maybe we should have a board for finished projects only then?
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That would not be a good idea IMO, since technically a project (especially a calculator one) is never finished. You can always add things and features to a program.
I don't really understand why everyone always want a poll either. I mean, if you really like a game, you express it by incrementing its download count, writing a positive review or giving it a nice grade, not by meaninglessly voting for it on a single site that not everyone that wants the game will visit.
So, I'm rather in favor of a per-month basis, or in case of lack of relevant information, a per-2-months basis, with no poll in either case, for the reasons given above.
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I was not really for the poll either. :P Just that others suggested it so I shown ways to implement it right. ;)
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That would not be a good idea IMO, since technically a project (especially a calculator one) is never finished. You can always add things and features to a program.
I don't really understand why everyone always want a poll either. I mean, if you really like a game, you express it by incrementing its download count, writing a positive review or giving it a nice grade, not by meaninglessly voting for it on a single site that not everyone that wants the game will visit.
So, I'm rather in favor of a per-month basis, or in case of lack of relevant information, a per-2-months basis, with no poll in either case, for the reasons given above.
Yeah I agree about projects. I generally posted news about new games available for download, although there were some exceptions for projects too if the available demo download was very notable in its current form (for example, Cadan). Even Reuben Quest Axe beta would be newsworthy per Omni standards, but the current Illusiat 11 Axe demo wouldn't be.
Of course, a forum project spotlight news wouldn't be bad either if it's not frequent and if the projects are really notable enough and the author doesn't have an history of disappearing every few month.
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Hehe yeah my demo is a demo. :P Since there's only the map engine in there you can't call it a usable program quite yet. :P
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This sounds like a great idea. Beyond listing the projects, there could be reviews and comments about each of them.
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*cough**cough*Worms*cough*
Agreed with LDStudios ; besides it would be better to post a news only if you tested the actual program, to be able to describe it.
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This is starting to sound a lot like the functionality of a good downloads section, with app store-like presentation. Looks like the downloads section could use some TLC anyways.
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App Store?
With locked down availability and trademark closed source?
Sounds like fun.
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App Store?
With locked down availability and trademark closed source?
Sounds like fun.
"app store-like presentation" != "locked down availability and trademark closed source?"
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I'm not fond of the idea of having paid calculator games and programs, although I would be fine if the game in question had a full, complete free version and a cheap version with extras. Even then, though, I prefer the good ol' donation link/button in readme.
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Who suggested paid games ? :P
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I assumed it after seeing the word "appstore" :P
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Hehe. Also considering most people publish the source for calc games, they can't be paid anyway. :P
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I was strictly talking about the presentation of the app store. Primarily, having things like top downloads and featured pages. The featured pages would contain new uploads (and potentially updates), but could also contain hand-picked categories like "back to school" which would feature quality reference programs. A personalized updates page that shows you updates for programs that you previously downloaded would also be neat.
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What I worry about is that when the upgrade started, admins seemed very vague about the future of the downloads section. It seemed like there was no plan to upgrade it, that in short terms that it would remain as it is now and that we seemed very lucky that Omni still has a download section. Since then, the only development done on the downloads section was to re-add download counts, which have yet to be public.
It would definitively be nice to see it integrated again into the website, with extra sections or features like you mentionned, but then you would probably need to give the suggestions via http://ourl.ca/request for faster response.
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Also, I just looked through all the things finished in May so far, all I could find was one 2048 clone, one text-based rpg and one utility.
Not exactly a whole bunch of stuff IMO :P
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You forgot the Reuben beta which is pretty close to final release. :P
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it isn't there *yet* :P
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If anyone is willing to help writing news, they can always PM me stuff I guess, describing their respective programs and why they think they're newsworthy.
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I usually feel uncomfortable when it comes to promoting my own projects, I mean asking for relevant people to write about it. But well, dunno if I have to work on that.
If you (and admins) agree, I can (and would be very glad to) take some time to write news about games from Omnimaga. Though, are projects definitely out of the question, or can one write about one if it looks especially promising ?
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Whenever I promote a project there really needs to be a fully functional demo to have news, else, the only way for a project to get featured is if it shows signs of progressing nicely (if a newbie starts a 3D grayscale FPS that won't work due to low chances of completion) during a certain period of time and it really needs to stand out. I wonder when was the last time Omni ever featured a project that had no download, though, because I always had the habit of only featuring stuff that has gameplay screenshots less than a certain filesize and a download link.
As for promoting your own stuff, if you PM me for a news it is merely to help me write it. For example, I'll just quote the description and stuff, else, having to write news about every notable releases is too much time-consuming when I am trying to split my time between news, coding, life and posting.
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I usually feel uncomfortable when it comes to promoting my own projects, I mean asking for relevant people to write about it. But well, dunno if I have to work on that.
If you (and admins) agree, I can (and would be very glad to) take some time to write news about games from Omnimaga. Though, are projects definitely out of the question, or can one write about one if it looks especially promising ?
I agree with matref in that it is very hard to promote your own games.
I would also, enjoy helping to write news about games from Omnimaga. Maybe group of volunteers could be responsible for writing a set of news/reviews on new games/updates every month or so?
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That could work too. I guess for the time being, until new staff is assigned to news, you could just PM me what content you want so I can post it then mods approve it. I already got 1 news submission right now.
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Cemetech just started "Project of the Month" (http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10371) which is essentially the idea discussed here.
It'd be nice if it happened on Omnimaga ^.^
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Don't do it. That means I have to actually finish Continuity one time D:
Just kidding, I would indeed like to have a small overview of completed projects per month. I'd rather not have it be "project of the month", though, because that makes it too competition-y.
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Don't do it. That means I have to actually finish Continuity one time D:
Just kidding, I would indeed like to have a small overview of completed projects per month. I'd rather not have it be "project of the month", though, because that makes it too competition-y.
Err.. I meant to write "Projects of the Month", plural, not singular
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Aah ok. Guess who was too lazy to read the linked Cemetech post :whistles:
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What is this concept you call "completion"?
No project is ever finished. It's just on the back of the bench for a while.
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What is this concept you call "completion"?
No project is ever finished. It's just on the back of the bench for a while.
I guess you could call it "released". I agree, no project is ever completed.
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I would love to write, but I don't have too many projects worth mentioning/projects in general.
Source Seekers is good, but I don't have too much info on it
Source Seekers 68k hasn't started yet, and I'm struggling
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We have a download section for this, but there is a disadvantage to this section: You cannot leave feedback there.
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Well, community forum sections work, but they only work well for projects big enough to deserve their own subforum.
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Speaking of that, admins said they would clean the "Major projects" sections (both by-admins and by-community-members) one day.
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Well, community forum sections work, but they only work well for projects big enough to deserve their own subforum.
We should have a section for smaller projects
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Guess what the "Other project" section is.
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oh. :P
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IIRC they are supposed to restructure the boards one day but when they'll do it is another story. It could be never like it could be in a year or two. Just the upgrade isn't even finished yet, although some small stuff still gets fixed every now and then (such as the missing "Users viewing this post" feature).
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That feature is there, check right under the blue bar that says 'Topic'