Our ReVolt Pub

Good evening folks! I have some time to work on RVZ again and I'm looking for suggestions. Of course, the transfer of missing tracks and cars from RVZT is my top priority but let's face it, that's a boring job. Please give me any suggestions so I have something to work on when I get tired of fixing missing files. I have completed all the projects I remember. If you told me something before and I forgot to do so, please mention it again. Thanks,
Zach


Done:
Car packs are accepted and have been for a short while

Todo:
Transfer missing files
Remove onclick="" attribute from the ones I missed during first fix...
Add a register button to home page for guests
Add Search filters
Update GFX files (some)
Alternate/better Stylesheet(s)

Unsure...:
Not sure if I want to change grading scale
Not sure if I want to allow animated GIF images

That's good news!

As far as I'm concerned I have not (yet) used much the new RVZ, but I just wish you get rid of that horrible skin.

And there's really no use of having a skin selector. This is the visual identity of the site, so you should pick a good one and stick to it (making it easier to maintain at the same time). I can still help you as I did with the dark one (which is currently a bit broken BTW).

Number 1 - Provide a better preview system. Get rid of the auto-generate previews and replace it for something that allows the original preview picture that was in RVZT, RVA, RVCars, ARM or RVTT to be displayed for old cars. Encourage new content to be made on 256x256 but respect the old content as it always looked.

Allow the use of .GIF format so the wonderful animated previews that were made by Iron Bob, BurnRubr, etc and many others in RVA can last forever. If size worries you, add a logical file size limit to prevent abuse of this feature by users (which won't happen anyway).

Number 2 - Replace the current Grading system. Give us back the grading system from 0 to 10.
A grade system based on 5 stars looks more appealing for AngryBird game but not fot Re-Volt rating system. People got used to grade & read with numbers in RVZT. Something being graded from 0 to 10 is a normal grade, not 0 to 5. If you don't like numbers, at least add 10 stars instead of 5.

Number 3 - Move the Register button outside that menu called "Control". It is hidden and hard to find if you leave it there. Advertise it!

Number 4 - Please redo the way that the options (or "Types" as you call them) in Advanced Search are displayed. Not all of these options should be selected by default in every search. Only the Tracks and Cars boxes should be ticked by default, all the others should be enabled by user's intentional input only. And they can't be so disordered and unalligned like they are now. This makes it look like nobody cared about the site's design and placed the boxes anywhere.
Unalligned boxes where the user has to manually untick them to get the desired result? Hell no.

Number 5 - Allow advanced search with more than 1 option convined. For example search for conversions only, and inside conversions, show semi-pro conversions only. This is called Filtered search, like Google.

Number 6 - Get rid of the round edges at the corners of preview pictures and typing areas. Square edges are better for previews and typing area. Round edges are better for buttons. Take RVR's magnificient design as example.

Number 7 - Consider changing the fonts. They are not elegant and too classical.

Number 8 - In Track/Car's page, remove the colon at the end of Description, Average Grade, and My Grade. Center them and Underline those texts.

I am glad that you put the Randomizer back. This advertises old content to new users. Nice from you. But change the name of it. Randomizer doesn't say anything. Label it to something that advertises the content displayed there in a better way, like "We recommend you to try.."

Hi Zach, thanks a bunch for spending some time on this!

For me my main issue is the link behavior when using a Webkit based browser (fx. Chrome). Middle-clicking a car or a track from the list opens a new tab as expected, but unlike in Firefox the current tab also changes. I believe this is because you have both an onclick="" attribute in the <div class="invisi2"> element and also have the href="" attribute in the <a class="none"> element.

Secondly I agree with jigebren that a new theme would be nice. Preferably in a similar design as the Re-Volt 1.2 and RV House sites to create a connection between them.

Please remove some of the zip file checking automatics. This broke the support for car packs, and my releases are almost all packs, and I cannot even fix those few that were brokenly retained after the move.

Citywalker @ Jan 26 2014, 05:16 PM wrote: Please remove some of the zip file checking automatics.

Maybe rather add an automatic car pack detection...

Thank you for the input so far, first post has been updated! Cw, look on RVZ for your cars, most have been transferred. You should be able to change the name, but if you do to a carpack, please leave (Pack) on the end. Thanks,
Zach

- Disable archive check, validation when uploading or updating [for moderators]

I usually get "filename mismatch" when I try to update a track. For example renaming "User_XXX" filename tracks to their more appropriate names. Archives with new bmo textures are not accepted sometimes either.
Some tracks cannot be uploaded AT ALL, for example RCBandit's The bunker
So I simply suggest disabling this script (just for moderators) We know what we do and know what we change (except that one guy who approved untested tracks, *ahem*), so it's kinda useless for us. It is more like a hassle than being actually useful.

This is the most annoying one, I'll think maybe more if anything else comes to my mind.

The most important things for me regarding the functionalities of the site are:

• RV House registration system should allow full registration directly from RV House without having to register in the RVZ website in order to simplify the process.

• RV House registration system should allow full registration without requiring account activation through the link that is commonly sent to e-mail. It was like that before RVZ and nobody died.
As I said before, nobody is going to hack the site, nobody is going to do any harm to our precious community if new accounts are inmediately allowed to enter RV House like it was in the past. We're a small community that is dying, and we leave people out? The activation requirement is not necessary, it makes the registration process too complicated, it has done a lot of harm that unfortunately now cannot be undone, we've lost many people that just wanted to join for a race because of the requirement of activating the account before logging in which only acted as a filter to let people in. We need to simplify the registration as much as we can. Playing online is already complicated enough.

• Add country info in users profile and the option to select country when new users register.
I've explained it before, the most useful thing about the search system is that it lets me know and help the newest users that registered to play on RVHouse, even when I'm not online I can contact them. I've been thanked infinitely by new players for the help I can offer by this. Having this information day by day has been very useful, but not knowing the country represents a problem to identify users appropiately. We all want to meet people from our countries and we'd like to know how many re-volt fans are around us. With the country info I could offer more localized help and it would help us determine the popularity of the game in each country.

• Reduce the amount of votes needed for a track to be in the Top Graded list.
How many years has the site been online and we still don't have a decent Top Graded section?
If we're going to wait until the votes count reaches the current number we might never see the hottest tracks and the multi-player classics ever reach the Top Graded list again. By now we shoud be having pages and pages of classic tracks in the list.

• Create a Top Downloaded / Most Popular list.
Seeing the tracks in the current Top Graded list makes me wonder why is it so different from what RVZT list was. The grading system has been distortioned by the lost of ancient grades.
Maybe by seeing the most downloaded ones we'll know again quickly what people are really looking for to download.

• Username management.
Few days ago Urne asked me how he could rename himself to Urnemanden, which made me realize that at least the mods should be able to do these changes, rename or merge 2 usernames in one. You'll see some tracks with many author names which are in fact the same person and mods should be enabled to rename and merge accounts.

• RV House website.
Giving access to some other admins to directly edit RV House website is really a necessity right now.

• Avatars.
Updating user avatars still doesn't work.

As I mentioned earlier I miss these things in RVZ

I personally miss REAL ranking system &nbsp;
+ I can imagine a 'search by track type' (classic, lego, extreme) and of course I miss a track type, this is lego extreme which disappeared when RVZT become RVZ.

I miss a type what is 'classic'

I am sure somebody wrote one or more of these things earlier, but I wanted to post my thoughts to the right place. (so excuse me for double-comment)

Kipy what do you mean by "real" ranking system?

I mean what you wrote earlier up:

Phantom @ 24 Jan 2016, 11:41 AM wrote:Reduce the amount of votes needed for a track to be in the Top Graded list.

How about a search function for conversions and repaint cars on the cars section?

If you click on the cars section, for example, "Repaints", you can select on a list cars that used as base for a repaint. For example: You goes to the list and you click on Adeon and then comes a list of repaint cars that based on Adeon.

For conversions, you go to "Conversions" and you can select from a list games from what the conversions come from. For example: You goes to the list and you click on GTA 4 and then comes a list of converted cars that comes from GTA 4.

That would be absolutely astonishing and probably the best approach to the car searching feature I could image. If you're an online racer have you ever tried finding new toyeca skins on the web just to realize that the results weren't what you expected and that many skins are skipped in the results?

Well, something that a good Re-Volt Downloads website should have is that, an easy way to see all the repaints of a certain base car, either custom or stock, and to know what game a conversion was obtained from. By using this information in the search filters we could, for example, easily find all the cars from a particular game that we like and get them all in one go or identify the best skins for our favourite cars inside a complete list that doesn't include odd results like we see now.

What would be the best way to achieve something like passion has explained?
• Allow the car authors to provide this info by picking a game (if conversion) or base car (if repaint) from a list? It sounds like the fanciest approach but quite complicated to implement.
• Let the authors just type it in a certain writing box and use this information in the filters? Sounds eay to implement, quite unprofessional though, what if they don't type it correctly.

One more option (lego-extreme) with Lego and extreme. I had made lego-extreme tracks but need to write in the description that it's a lego-extreme track.
What about if RVZ also shows how many people are online. The same as ORP shows .

As far as repaints based on other cars, the best way to do this is for the author to include it in the notes section.

On the 'about' page, you can see how many people were recently active, I suppose a 'within 5 minutes' feature could be implemented...

In the category of circuit, I would like you to put the circuit "Expert, Lego and battle" rank order of the next

Phantom @ 24 Jan 2016, 11:41 AM wrote:The most important things for me regarding the functionalities of the site are:

• RV House registration system should allow full registration directly from RV House without having to register in the RVZ website in order to simplify the process.

• RV House registration system should allow full registration without requiring account activation through the link that is commonly sent to e-mail. It was like that before RVZ and nobody died.
As I said before, nobody is going to hack the site, nobody is going to do any harm to our precious community if new accounts are inmediately allowed to enter RV House like it was in the past. We're a small community that is dying, and we leave people out? The activation requirement is not necessary, it makes the registration process too complicated, it has done a lot of harm that unfortunately now cannot be undone, we've lost many people that just wanted to join for a race because of the requirement of activating the account before logging in which only acted as a filter to let people in. We need to simplify the registration as much as we can. Playing online is already complicated enough.

...

• Create a Top Downloaded / Most Popular list.
Seeing the tracks in the current Top Graded list makes me wonder why is it so different from what RVZT list was. The grading system has been distortioned by the lost of ancient grades.
Maybe by seeing the most downloaded ones we'll know again quickly what people are really looking for to download.

...

• RV House website.
Giving access to some other admins to directly edit RV House website is really a necessity right now.

I totally agree Phantom.
I didn`t give up, and I used another e-mail. Now, I will finally be able to play in rvhouse. But that doesn`t mean everyone will have my perseverance.
It`s a shame that this game, this unique game, doesn`t have the activity it deserves. It`s a perfectly functional game, that could be far more popular. People love this game because, in my opinion, is the best minicars racing game. I call it a classic.

On the activating issue I think there can be found solutions. For example, you could keep the necessity of filling in your e-mail adress, but let the player enter and play immediately, before activation, without restrictions. Sooner or later, that player will check his/her e-mail and thus, the admin will have no problems in managing the database. I met this approach on other sites, so it could be an option.
I really think the system could be far more flexible, and agree with all the suggestions Phantom wrote.

[HIDE]Someone made this suggestion on austnet irc today: (dont ask me who)
[13:26] -->&#124; mib_d9f0yt (mibbit@833f8024.cpe.netcabo.pt) has joined #revolt-chat
[13:26] mib_d9f0yt Hi all
[13:27] mib_d9f0yt Do you guys know if RevoltZone has some sort of API, which let's easily see the avaiable tracks and download them?
[13:27] mib_d9f0yt I am thinking of doing a small program, like a "Extra manager", which let's easily install tracks from a list
[13:27] &#124;<-- mib_d9f0yt has left aura.vic.au.austnet.org (Quit: http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client)[/HIDE]