Revolutionary Games Website's Thread

Those are all valid arguments, although most of them refer to the use of a donation system. As has been discussed in the Skype chat, a server would in theory not cost enough to justify taking donations, when it wouldn't be difficult to muster the necessary money between us. However, this does still leave these two problems:

NickTheNick wrote:

Whom to we transfer the money to? In what country?

which are probably the main reasons why we're having trouble deciding on anything.

It occurs to me that, since we're an open-source project, and since our project is already on GitHub, GitHub Pages may be exactly what we're looking for. Our assets SVN and releases can go on SourceForge (they have no storage limit), and then someday when we have something like Travis set up for continuous builds, it'll be easy to upload binaries to SourceForge, and update links on our website. All automagically.

It might be a little more complicated, but since there won't be any money issues, we can get started on the move right away.

Interesting. However, there are a few things to consider:

Can domains be transferred between the current host service for the website (Bluehost) and GitHub pages?
Can we upload files in a similar way to the current hosting? The main website itself is an HTML document and the podcast relies on audio files uploaded to the domain.
How much traffic can it cope with, in terms of visits and release downloads?
Is it compatible with website architecture software that may be used in the future (ExpressionEngine was one considered) and HTML scripting of new web pages?

See transferring domain.

A GH Pages website is probably much easier to modify than the current setup -- the way it works is you have a branch on your repo called gh-pages, and github automatically publishes that branch as a website (so yes, we could upload podcasts quite easily).

GitHub itself is pretty darn robust and loads of people are already using gh-pages, so there's nothing to worry about in terms of their capacity. If we use SourceForge for release downloads, well, they've been hosting loads of projects much bigger than ours for many years, so again, nothing to worry about. HTML scripting is going to be a piece of cake, GitHub is designed for code collaboration after all.

As for ExpressionEngine and ilk, I'm not too sure we'll really need those if we're using gh-pages, but it should be possible with some fiddling (I'm not too sure how EE for example generates pages, so I can't say anything definitive).

Edit: Oh wait -- since with gh-pages you can keep a working copy of the site on your computer, you can use whatever page-generation tools you want on your home machine, and then just push to GitHub when ready. So yes, it integrates well with EE and so on, at least, if all they do is generate pages that can then function as a standalone website.

So Moopli's put the current website files on GitHub pages at this URL - http://revolutionary-games.github.io/Thrive/website/ , for the moment just a temporary version. The actual domain transfer will have to be worked out between Moopli and I, but should be possible. There are, then, just a couple of points to work on:

Firstly, the podcasts aren't yet hosted there due to their size. I'm pretty sure this shouldn't be a problem, as the XML file iTunes is directed to for the podcast information can have the links changed, but that still leaves the question of where exactly they should be hosted. The same goes for the images.

Secondly, it's been the aim for a while to get a more dynamic website up to take the place of the current static HTML files. I won't go over the reasons for this again as they've been explained in detail a page or two back on this thread, but instead we need to work out exactly how we'd go about this. By dynamic website structure, I mean something like Wordpress, which uses a blog form along with static but editable pages to host content which multiple people could theoretically contribute to. Wordpress is a definite option, although it doesn't allow for total visual customisation (even with the Weaver 2 plugin). ExpressionEngine is the alternative, although we'd have to be using the core version, unless we found a way to raise a few hundred dollars between us for the full version. It would require HTML scripting skills, unlike the majority of Wordpress, but allows for greater control of appearence and structure. So the decision comes down to which should be chosen, and then how to work with it to recreate the current website or even create an entirely new design.

EDIT: Also, it's just occured to me - what are we going to do about the Thrive email, currently processed through the server and connected to a Gmail account?

Oliveriver wrote:

more dynamic website up to take the place of the current static HTML files.

We could use Jekyll

I took a look at getting our layouts working with jekyll, and it does seem quite workable. Good idea.

We could host the website images on imgur.

Big post, I may be getting ahead of myself a bit here

Hey all, I'm new here and was told the website could use some management. I'd love to be that guy, and have some ideas that could bring a lot more traffic to the website and these forums. And keep that traffic here! I make websites for a living, so this is right down my alley. Here's some of my work from the past few months so you can get an idea of what I'm capable of:

(My account being less then 7 days stops me from posting external links. I will update this as soon as that restriction is lifted)

http://micrometalsarnoldpowdercores.com (Symfony2, custom everything)
http://femolution.com (WordPress)
http://christiecbs.com (WordPress)
http://snyderlangston.com (CMS Made Simple)

First off, I want to distill the features of the website I found while reading through this thread down to a discreet list. Please let me know if I'm missing something:

• Podcasts
  
• Translations
  
• Responsiveness (i.e. works and looks good on phones, tablets, etc.)
  
• Release listings
  
• Dynamic content (i.e. a blog)
  

Hosting

It also seems like you guys are looking for hosting. I can handle that with my DigitalOcean account. I can give all people who need it FTP/SSH access which should allow them to do anything even if I go awol. But unless there's a pressing reason for the site to be moved, like someone is losing money, I say just keep it where it is for now.

Oh, and hosting will only cost me a few dollars a month. Like, less than $5. No sweat, and I need the server for my own work anyway, so its closer to free then anything.

Design

Back on topic, what I plan on doing if all this seems good to you guys is mock up a new design for the site in Photoshop that takes the current site's aesthetic and making it look new and work better. I imagine this will be an iterative process and I'll be relying on you guys for input!

Technology

For a technical perspective, here's what I plan to use:

• WordPress as a CMS/Framework, you just can't beat it at the moment and it's where my expertise lies (I can do practically anything with it, just a function of time and effort).
  
• Blog users. WordPress supports any number of users so each of the members that could be blogging can have their own identity under the Thrive/Revolutionary logo.
  
• Responsive design. I can design the site so as you move to smaller resolutions the site will reformat itself to best use up the available space.
  
• Code status, releases, bug lists, etc. I can use the GitHub API (developer[dot]github[dot]com/v3/) to pull data from our repository.
  
• Podcasting. There are services out there that will host and maintain the RSS feed for us or we can do it ourselves if the bandwidth isn't too bad. WordPress can handing podcasting out of the box (i.e. it generates the RSS/ATOM feed of each episode that your users can consume with iTunes or whatever).
  

Well that's all for now! I gotta get back to work.

Sounds amazing! Thanks for taking this up!

Most of it seems pretty much correct, and your portfolio shows exactly the sort of thing we want (and, not to mention, they all look awesome).

dontpanic wrote:

It also seems like you guys are looking for hosting. I can handle that with my DigitalOcean account. I can give all people who need it FTP/SSH access which should allow them to do anything even if I go awol. But unless there's a pressing reason for the site to be moved, like someone is losing money, I say just keep it where it is for now.

The reason we need the site moved is that it's currently on a server with some other unrelated stuff and I'd prefer it if it can be separated from it. I'm also the only one who can access it at the moment, which is probably the biggest problem of all. We're intending to use GitHub pages for hosting, which is a free addon to the GitHub repository we already have - it should work adequately with Wordpress I expect. The actual domain is the only thing left to transfer, but that'll require me to work alongside someone (probably you or Moopli) during the process.

WordPress does not work with GitHub pages (no database). And I've use it before and... well... its not great. You only get static pages, which is fine for some basic information, but not for a full-fledged dynamic website.

Just my 2c. We don't have to use WordPress, but I think the extra capabilities could be a great asset. Again, I'm new here so its really hard for me to guess what we need heh. If a static site is good enough, I can whip up a design for that no problem.

Settled then, so we'll move away from gh-pages. That was always a temporary fix (and it was never actually live, the revolutionarygamesstudio domain still points to Oliver's server). Your ideas all sound great, go ahead :D!

More thoughts:

1. The wiki is pretty much abandoned. Part of the reason is that it deosn't really fit into anyone's workflow, and the other part is that it was a victim of its early success, and now kinda just holds old stuff we don't wanna bother with.
   
2. The devblog on this forum is nowadays pretty much an admin announcements system.
   
3. I, and possibly others, would like a soapbox where we can talk about interesting development-related things.
   
4. As my several failed blog attempts can attest, WordPress is very good for not only blogging, per se, but writing up articles on things.
   
5. So that pretty much clinches it, and adds another feature to account for. So, not only small blog snippets, but long articles.
   

Great! I'll get started with a preliminary design. It will probably take me a few days, maybe a week depending on my RL work load. I've only got a few hours in the evenings to work on it.

If the current wiki is abandoned, then this is a great opportunity to roll our own. I have no issues with using free services (like this forum and the wiki) but why not host our own when we can. Its also an easy way to start clean!

Today I'll get the current site transferred to my server (I think I can grab the files from GitHub... haven't checked...) so we can at least switch over the hosting soon. I'll also get a vanilla WP install going for testing.

I'm back from my campin' trip! I'll be getting the test site up soon!

---

Alright I've got a vanilla WordPress setup going. The only way to browse to it for now is to add the following entry to your hosts file:

Code:

104.131.153.179      dev.revolutionarygamesstudio.com

Whoever owns/manages the domain can add an A-Record that points the dev subdomain to the IP shown above. If you need help with this just lemme know!

There's nothing special about the site yet, but it's a good place to get familiar with what WordPress can do on a general level. I'll also be building out a custom theme in the coming weeks using this dev site.

PM me for admin credentials. I have no issue with giving them out to anyone that wants to fool around with it, but once we get serious I'll be changing the password =).

A quick search for managing A-Records suggest they shouldn't be too difficult to set up (after creating the new subdomain), but it'll have to wait until tomorrow right now. We do actually have an abandoned subdomain, beta.revolutionarygamesstudio.com (originally used for another test website), but I'd have no problem with pointing it to your version instead if that's easier.

Well, Jetpack needs the site to be publically accessible, no pressure though :p

dontpanic wrote:

I think I can grab the files from GitHub

That you can.

A-Record created successfully: http://dev.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

Just checkin in, sorry for the absence.

Works been busy and my dang car got broken into, wallet stolen, lots of hassle heh. That's neither here no there. Tomorrow I'll take some time and get back up to speed, and maybe even get some work done!

dontpanic wrote:

Just checkin in, sorry for the absence.

Works been busy and my dang car got broken into, wallet stolen, lots of hassle heh. That's neither here no there. Tomorrow I'll take some time and get back up to speed, and maybe even get some work done!

Nobody seems to be around to say hello, so, hi! Sorry to hear about your predicament. People some times... Anyway, those windows fixable? Hopefully, your new wallet'll be nice, but what can you do about those credit cards, if there were any? Employment not too taxing on your person?

Good luck on things!

Welcome back! We were beginning to get a little worried that you might have disappeared for good without working on much of the website, but if it's real life problems that have kept you away then we can't really blame you. Looking forward to seeing the development of the new website!

You may not be aware of this, but after the next update (0.2.4), we're planning to start "promoting" the game a little more, and the website should hopefully be many people's first impression of it, which explains why we're in such dire need of someone with the necessary skills to work on it.

Hey, glad to see you're still around. We've started using Slack, if you're interested in an easier way to discuss your work, just PM me your email. You'll love it if you try it, trust me.

Alright, so I've had some time to get back up to speed. I'm really happy that we're using something like Slack now! I've always been bad at using forums, so that's good news for me heh.

As for the website, I left off with saying I'd have a preliminary design ready in a weekish. Obviously the timeline was way off due to my RL business, but its still my plan. Even though I haven't been around the forums, I have been chewing on some ideas that I think will help us promote the game. I'm gonna spend some time in photoshop tonight and tomorrow to get a homepage design ready for your criticisms.

My style of design is minimalistic, especially at first, so keep in mind we can always add whistles and bells later on. I will probably also be retouching the logo too -- mainly getting into vector format and making the "Thrive" text much larger and more prominent.

dontpanic wrote:

I will probably also be retouching the logo too -- mainly getting into vector format and making the "Thrive" text much larger and more prominent.

To use the Thrive font anywhere (which may be a good idea for titles on the website in general), you can download it from here: http://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/403179

I think it's about time to share the WIP updated website here to get some outside opinions on its current state: http://dev.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

The home page below the menu is largely a placeholder right now - the video in particular needs to be replaced with a gameplay trailer of 0.2.4 once we have one, while the links to important pages look terrible with the CSS link style used everywhere else. FAQ and Get Involved are pretty much done, Releases has no content yet because I'm not sure how much integrating the GitHub API will allow, and the news page is done save for everyone else's user avatars, as they need to set them up themselves.

We also don't have an effective mobile view yet, but it shouldn't be too much trouble given the capabilities of the theme in use. And of course we need to install the official Thrive typeface somehow.

http://dev.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/

^ A lot of small things have been ironed out, and the front page has been revamped with a video in pride of place and a concept art slideshow.

Other than any suggestions anyone else has, here is everything that's still left to do:
1. Transfer the domain (replacing http://revolutionarygamesstudio.com/index.htm )
2. Create a better intro video, featuring gameplay, concepts and prototypes animations (like Tritium's in place as a placeholder, just with actual recorded game footage spliced in)
3. Finish the GitHub API integration (waiting on Dontpanic)
4. Have the team leads register so they can post updates