For those of you all who haven't seen, PureZC will be undergoing some heavy renovations in the coming months. The forums will be upgraded, and the main site will be completely revamped. However, while some changes will be relatively minor, there are some potential major changes that I'd like to discuss and get opinions on. I've come up with some ideas and mockups for what we'd like to do.
Note that these are mere concept mockups, not skin mockups. The skin is not even close to what we'll be using. It's merely filler.
1. The Main Site Will (Or at least can) Be Used for Quest Development.
I’d like to move away from the forums being the primary tool for quest development. Here’s a couple quick mockups of how the a quest page will look while they're under development:
Mockup 1 – Mockup 2
The color scheme and layout aren't finalized. Imagine this with some sort of green color scheme.
Now, that definitely looks a bit different from what we have currently.
You have a brief blurb about the quest on the top right with all of the basic information, and on the left is an image of the quest (probably twice the size of a normal ZC screenshot). Below that is a bar where 10 screenshots thumbnails will be presented for people to click to display as the main screenshot (these may also cycle).Note the download link. If space permits, we’ll be hosting demos (at least temporarily). If not, people can simply provide a link to an outside source to download their demo. The button is also big and easy to notice.
Wait. Whoa, there. What’s all that stuff under that?! Well! That’s where the magic starts happening.
Quest Feed
This is merely a Facebook-like feed that covers all updates to the quest page that the developers have made including (but not necessarily limited to) updates, screenshots, demos, and beta announcements for beta testers (more on this later). You might have noticed the “Follow” button up at the top. Essentially, people would be able to follow as many quests as they want. They would then have their own feed page where they can see the most recent updates from all of the quests that they’re following. It would be a one-stop shop for people to check up on their favorite quests.
Updates
As you might have guessed, this is full of public updates where other people can comment. The quest developer can make any number of updates here, and it basically will be like a blog or its own forum. Essentially, this is just like the quest project forums, except everyone can have them!
Screenshots
Basically, we’d host up to ~50 screenshots or so for every quest (up to a certain size). Up to 10 could be selected as the main screenshots at the top.
Beta Testing
People could invite others to beta test their quest for them. This section would be a forum to allow people to post on the betas.
Development
This would be a place where only the developers of the quest can access and discuss the quest. This would be hidden from all people who aren’t currently working on the quest, replacing the hidden topics in the quest project forums.
2. Don’t Worry! I didn’t Forget Completed Quests.
Here’s a mockup to show off a completed quest, though it’s mostly the same. (All characters events in this mockup – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional. All member comments are impersonated….. poorly. The following mockup contains silly language and due to its content it should definitely be viewed by everyone.)
Mockup 3.
As you can see, mostly the same as before, only the stuff at the bottom has changed.
Description
This is the full description of the quest in comparison to the short blurb at the top. This is pretty much the description you’d see on a quest nowadays that is roughly a page long.
Ratings
Okay. A few things on the ratings here. The first thing being that not only can people comment on submissions more than once, the creator can comment as well. Basically, these are full blown comments rather than ratings with some words added. When people make a rating comment (the ones that aren’t indented), they can assign a rating. Then everyone, including the comment poster and the submission creator, can reply to that comment.
Comments
These are random comments that people might want to make. For example, stuff like "Just got to level 3. Seems pretty cool so far!".
Bugs
Here people can post bugs for the quest maker. When people post bugs, the quest maker will actually be notified (hopefully using IPB’s built-in notification feature).
Quest Help
Basically this would be a section for people to make one-off Q&A “topics”.
3. Complications and Such.
Obviously there may be some issues that may come.
How would one advertise their quest/people find new quests?
Well, there would be multiple ways for people to advertise their quest as well as others to stumble upon new quests.
For one, there would be multiple for general users to find quests. There could be different pages where people can see long lists of projects sorted by the ones with the newest updates, demos, and screenshots. The page sorted by newest updates would be relatively similar to going to the Quest Project Discussion forum now. Another page could be made for brand new quests. There could also be a site-wide feed that shows everyone’s newest updates, screenshots, and such.
Another planned thing would be a “Featured Quests” section on the home page. People could feature any quest, be it their own or someone else’s. It could be a project that’s currently being created… or it could be something that has been finished for years. “Featuring” a quest would stash the quest in a queue to be shown on the home page. They would be shown on the home page for a given amount of time (two weeks, one week, etc.).
Finally, another way people could advertise their quest would be through the “global feed”. Essentially, people (under certain circumstances to prevent abuse) could push out certain updates to every person’s quest feed (provided they don’t disable the “global feed” option).
What’s the process for new quests and quest projects?
Good question! I’m glad I came up with that! Anyway, when people try to upload a quest, they would be given the question of whether their quest is finished or in production. If the quest is finished, it’ll automatically ask for mostly the same information quests ask for now, then push them to the completed quest database. If the quest is in development, it’ll ask the person to put in all initial information like who else is working on it, what they would like for the general information about the quest, and all that stuff. Then, when the quest is completed, there would be a form to “Finalize Quest”, which would then push the quest over into the completed realm. It’s as simple as that.
4. Whoa, LTM. Quests aren’t everything!
Indeed they aren’t, but they’re arguably the most important.
Seriously though, there isn’t quite as much stuff to introduce for the other databases. There’s simply not a lot you can do with tiles and tilesets. However, there is one more thing I’d like to introduce: tags… at least for tiles. These would allow people to tag tiles with things like “overworld”, “mountains”, “sprites”, “player” (as in player sprites), etc. Whether this will have a limited tag feature like ZCRealm or a full-fledged tag feature… well… I haven’t thought of that yet.
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Well, that’s my proposal. It’s a huge change from what we have, but I think it definitely could be better. What do you all think?
I'd definitely be interested in hearing any suggestions or complaints.
