AltArc

[Amadeus]

I guess I agree with you on Metanet levels
My ideas on division were only because so many people pushed it, if it were to happen, best make it as good of a system as possible
And I wasn't clear, when I commented on difficulty levels, I should have said "voted by rcers" instead of just voted. I put the author down just as another option

[KlanKaos]

I think that the fact that AltArc will only be used by forum users will make it a generally... less noobish, I suppose... place without having to separate users. The noob mappers will tend to congregate at NUMA anyways because it's official, and especially if AltArc is integrated with NUMA, more experienced mappers will use it a lot more than new mappers. No need to emphasize that division further.

[Amadeus]

Good point

Also, considering featured maps. I don't like the current system. I was thinking somewhere along the lines where anyone could submit a review and suggestion instead of a select few. They will have to argue why is should be featured and then someone would approve (site owner? ATOB? Gforce?)
Also, it'd be great if review were around for about a day...not one for 46 hours and another 9 like so recently occured.

[KlanKaos]

That only happened because the future review queue is still broken.

Actually, I quite like the current reviewer system. I think if we didn't have select reviewers who knew exactly how good their reviews had to be to keep their positions, it results in better reviews and better maps that get reviewed. Of course, I don't mind bitesizing either, but you still should need to apply to bitesize, and I'd like to keep the featuring thing going.

[Amadeus]

Well then
I'll jump the gun and start working on my review now
I'd die to feature a map

[Nexx]

1) What do you mean by "highscoring", ganteka? Like having a map's highscores right there on the AltArc page?

2) Another suggestion for difficulty ratings? I don't get it. IMO, it's unnecessary, potentially useless (if no one places rates; and considering how many normal rates the average NUMA map gets, it looks like it'd be a problem), and problematic (are we judging difficulty for completion or AGD, or whatever combination we feel is best?).

[Amadeus]

True, difficulty will never be accurate. But for the better or worse players, wouldn't it be nice to browse maps if you're looking for a challenge, or a fun game that you can complete?

And concerning highscoring, something similar to Unreality

[Nexx]

True, difficulty will never be accurate. But for the better or worse players, wouldn't it be nice to browse maps if you're looking for a challenge, or a fun game that you can complete?

Sure, but it's not that hard to do just by browsing the thumbs, IMO. That's what I do.

[KlanKaos]

On highscoring, I'm thinking Gforce should talk to Unreality (already going to happen? I think maybe) and get AltArc integrated with NReality. That seems the smoothest route to take.

[Fraxtil]

Concerning highscoring: Nothing is planned yet for integration with NReality. I haven't even contacted Unreality in the first place.
Concerning bitesizing/featuring/whatever you call it: Nothing is implemented yet, but I think, considerng the current direction AltArc is headed in, there will be no need for any such thing. Users will be able to view the top-rated, top-favorited, and top-viewed maps for each day, week, etc., so highly rated maps will not die of obscurity due to being below 10th place of every map ever submitted. If enough of the community disagrees with this theory, I will come up with something.

Updates: Password security has been one-upped from a simple md5 checksum to a much securer system (which I will not reveal to anyone else). There is now also a CAPTCHA on the registration page to prevent spambots from joining. I've begun to work on the comment system, but right now it can only read comments (I'm writing the rest right now... no pun intended). Various cosmetic changes have been added to the map and user browsing pages.

New ideas: The "type" field, which substitutes for the first "tag" field on Numa, will likely be reduced to a list of common map types, like the old Numa (action, puzzle, race, etc.). The user will be able to dedicate a map to another user, both adding a tag "dedication:Username" to the map and sending a message to the other user.

As for another preview, there probably won't be one for another week at least. I'm only going to do it if substantial change is made to the system.

[KlanKaos]

Huh. Good call on the featuring thing, there's really no need for it, you're right.

As for highscoring, I realize it may need to wait until the site is a little more complete, but I think it should really be a high priority, because it's one of the best things about NReality in my opinion and I'd hate to lose it by switching to a new site, and I bet there are a few others who feel the same.

[Nexx]

As for highscoring, I realize it may need to wait until the site is a little more complete, but I think it should really be a high priority, because it's one of the best things about NReality in my opinion and I'd hate to lose it by switching to a new site, and I bet there are a few others who feel the same.

Umm, the ability to keep records of highscores on maps wouldn't go anywhere. True, Unreality would have update NReality to work with the AltArc site, but there's nothing beyond that. On the other hand, if you're talking about having the scores themselves integrated with AltArc, well that's a whole 'nother thing.

[KlanKaos]

Sorry, should've been more clear about what I was talking about. I was thinking about the ability to load a map in NReality just by typing in its map number and clicking 'load numa map'. I like that feature a lot.

[Fraxtil]

Updates:
Comment writer added. Currently only has moderate functionality (minimum of one demo, single line for the comment) and spam filtering.
User IDs implemented. These are identification strings that are completely random and only exist for a single page. Every time the page is requested by the user, his ID will be overwritten and replaced by a new one. The ID is appended to any links that perform certain actions such as voting, adding favorites, and submitting comments. This will prevent any XSS attacks- for example, if one user tricks another user into going to a page that generates a dummy form containing post-data, then automatically submits it to AltArc, the user ID will not validate and the attack will fail.
The front page is no longer a one-line greeting; it has been replaced with a list of the top maps of the day. This may substitute for the earlier idea of allowing users to customize the front page completely.
(minor) The map image generator (provided by Arachnid) has been polished up just a bit. The images for gauss turrets and homing launchers are anti-aliased better.

[Amadeus]

You should have a ratings identifier, to get rid of sniping

[Fraxtil]

You should have a ratings identifier, to get rid of sniping

I can see who's voted what, so if somebody believes a user is sniping his maps, I can easily see if it's true.

Updates:
Support for multiple demos and AGDs added.
The 'type' field in the map submission form is now a menu containing the most common map types (rather than allowing the user to input anything... this should help standardize things a bit.)
Map submission and voting are now as secure as adding favorites and comments (in that the user ID has been implemented with these). Users will not have to fear XSS attacks on their account for any reason now.

Also, here's come screenshots of how the submission and commenting processes work now. View these images sequentially.
http://i43.tinypic.com/jfdnix.png
http://i44.tinypic.com/256dbps.png
http://i41.tinypic.com/vhqmx5.png
http://i44.tinypic.com/28iamp1.png

[Amadeus]

Love the multiple demo aspect
I think aesthetically though, things need to be polished

[Erik-Player]

What about avatars?

[Fraxtil]

What about avatars?

At the moment, I see avatars as either useless or low-priority. After the main release, if there is enough demand, I'll implement them.

Love the multiple demo aspect
I think aesthetically though, things need to be polished

Could you be more specific? Is there a certain element you'd want to change?

[Amadeus]

It seems rather crude. The white background and blue and white complementary colors just seem to look undeveloped, unpolished. To put it simply, and I mean this not at all offensively (I greatly appreciate your work and can't wait til Alt Arc comes out) but it feels like exactly what it is: a rather crude basic coloring scheme/layout that one would make on a free website maker with minimal options. NUMA's layout feels polished and developed, complex to me, which makes it feel more professional and not a ragtag production.
Hope that helps

[KlanKaos]

Graphically, I think incluye offered his services for artistic things. You should give him a shout, see how he feels, because I think some artistic design would be great. I agree with Ganteka on that score - it looks unrefined and unpolished.

The pictures have some great things that I really like. The 'also submit to NUMA' checkbox looks promising, and the multiple demo submission is also pretty awesome. Is it possible yet to edit comments?

[Nexx]

It seems rather crude.

Uhh, it's not a finished website. I think Gforce was asking for feedback on the interface and features, not necessarily on whether it looks snazzy, because that's something that can be fixed later. Functionality, on the other hand, is not necessarily something that can be fixed later, as evidenced by NUMA's current state.

Anyway, I was wondering if maybe AltArc could try out having visible ratings (you can see who rated and what they rated). I personally don't see what all this stuff against them is. If someone snipes your maps you won't snipe theirs back and so on and so forth, you'll click "report abuse" and mods will remove the snipe, and you'll be happy. That's exactly what mods are for. Though on the other hand, I can't really say why I'm so keen to have this feature. It's certainly not necessary, it'd just be interesting to look at the resulting info. So nevermind, I guess. But I very much support the system being able to hold people accountable. I think that's definitely a step in the right direction.

[Amadeus]

It seems rather crude.

Uhh, it's not a finished website. I think Gforce was asking for feedback on the interface and features, not necessarily on whether it looks snazzy, because that's something that can be fixed later. Functionality, on the other hand, is not necessarily something that can be fixed later, as evidenced by NUMA's current state.

I agree
But its best to have everything fixed up before the sites launched
And you want a good first impression-which comes from the aesthetics of the site
True, functionality is more important, but aesthetics are very important also

[Fraxtil]

One of the main problems with improving the visual quality is that I'm trying to aim towards a (mostly) imageless design, with a few gradients and shadows, to save bandwidth. Right now the system is run from my own computer and I have a bandwidth limit of 1GB upload. I've considered hosting it externally, but I haven't looked into it very far. As previously stated, functionality supersedes aesthetics. I really think it'll be changed in the future, but right now I'm worried mainly about implementing comment, profile, and map editing (none of which are implemented yet, to answer KlanKaos' question).

I'll contact incluye as well to see if he's available to make a better theme/graphics.

[KlanKaos]

Now that you're talking about it, Avarin, I actually agree with having visible ratings. Of course, only visible to the authors, but it would be useful, especially if mods had the power to remove snipes. That would make people happy... except for the problem of mods getting CONSTANT requests to remove a 'snipe' from a map that never got sniped, just rated low.