Inter-Cavern Relay System (ICRS)

Anubislg · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 4:46 am

Hello Everyone!

I had made a post in the creativity board a little while ago to get some feedback on a relay system that I've been slowly developing over the course of a few weeks. And I feel it's finally time for a public release!

So now I'm glad to present to all explorers, the Inter-Cavern Relay System! A system that's able to relay chat in real time, over the internet, to a website!

So far, this system is limited to only two locations (or ARS, Automated Relay Servers), in the location of the main D'ni City (near Tokotah), and the Watchers Pub. Although the first ARS is usually not in the city come evening, or is offline (hey, I lead a private life at times! :O ) It is, of course, still under development (and I fear it almost always will be, lol).

Suggestions are welcome on how to increase the usefulness of the system, and to submit bugs! Hopefully, this will come in a LOT of handy come the next episode!

-Anubis LG

ICRS Website: http://www.emurade.com
Please note, late at night (PST) the system goes offline. Running two computers at night is quite noisy, eats a lot of power, and generates heat.

Stevecrox · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:36 am

Cool Idea

but four things

1.Why did I have to open up four windows to get at the program I use tabs if I wanted a new window I'd create a new tab
2.Why is the KI reader burried so deeply from the main page?
3.Why does music play? Its a really annoying feature of any website.
4.Why is the KI text white, for me that makes no sense the only reason would be to avoid spoilers but you there to see spoilers effectivily.

Songe · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:50 am

Cool.

Er....I can see why the page gets updated every so often, as it is supposed to be a live feed. But it's slightly frustrating (just like the Ki), if I missed or quite didn't understand what someone said, and I want to scroll back to find it, it doesn't stay on the screen. Or have I missed something...?

Idea.

Have you thought about getting together with Robert The Rebuilder.
He's got the Cavern Cam and you've got the live feed!

Anubislg · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 3:30 pm

Hey there!
M'kay, a few things:

Steve:
1: Four windows? What browser are you using? It should appear as one 800x600 browser window, not 4 seperate windows....odd.

2: Just click on ICRS and that get's you there! It's not to terribly burried if you ask me.

3: The music plays on the main page, just close it after you've opened the "ki", and that's it!

4: The KI text is white, because I'm emulating the text in the game! Did the background load for you? If not, this would explain why a white font color would not be good for you.

Steve, what browser are you using? It sounds to me like the site didn't load at ALL like how it's supposed to! More debugging in the works for meee! XD

Songe: Good idea! The "Large Feed" has a way to stop the scrolling, so that you can move back and forth, then start it again. But that's a feature I forgot to enable on the "Mini" version of the ICRS! Should be easy enough to enable!

And I havn't gotten with Robert quite yet! Having the two things merge WOULD be pretty awesome though! I'll have to see if I can track him down about this.

It would be an awesome way to try and kick off the Guild of Messengers.

Thanks for the feedback you two!

D'Lanor · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 6:52 pm

Only the pub feed works. The city feed gives an error:

Quote:

Error: Unable to start the ICRS. Please contact the administrator at <email censored>

Steve, I also hate music on non music related sites. Fortunately I didn't hear anything. I got a message that I was missing a plugin but it did not tell me which one. Aren't I lucky? :wink:

Tiran · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 8:17 pm

Are you streaming the conversation from the pub and city to a public site? Uhm ... I don't like it and I'm sure other people are against it, too.

Stevecrox · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 8:18 pm

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

In the spoiler is an image of my destop I'm running Microsoft Windows Vista Home premium using Internet Explorer 7 the effect can be repeated in Windows XP using IE7.

Right clicking on open in new tab on your provided link created the window 1 (which was a new tab) this presented me with an image of a KI and almost imediatly the sound file (small tip there are many people who dislike sound playing giving an option to disable it would be very much appreciated)

I right clicked on the KI and went to open in a new tab this created the window with a 2 over it, this window is not resizable. So I right clicked clicked on ICRS to discover "open in a new tab" wasn't there, so I selected "open link".

Which created the window with the big red three over it, so i simply left clicked on the Full screen option.

Where the window with the big red 4 opened the background image didn't load the first time for me, currently its loaded on both machines I've tried it on it took around 5 seconds for the XP laptop and closer to ten on the Vista desktop.

Its a great idea I'd recommend changing the default colour of the text in cases where the background image doesn't load to increase readability though. I hope this helps

Deius · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 8:20 pm

This is certainly going to be a handy tool during episode week. I like the overall look, though I agree with many of the critiques made in the thread so far.

Splash page - I don't care for them. No matter how good they look, they are pointless. Just one more window on the way to what I came for.

Sound - I didn't hear music, but that's fine with me. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.6. It said I needed a plug-in, but when I clicked the Install Plugins button, it said it could not find the appropriate plug-in. I'd want an option to turn the music off, anyway. Personal preference.

Overall Look - The faithful representation of KI chat looks great once the background loads (I got the white-out effect too until it loaded), but for a tool like this I prefer stripped down functionality over eye-candy. How about another option for dark text on a solid light background?

Navigation and Functionality - Nice emulation of the left-hand KI chat lists. I reaaaallly don't like it when sites won't allow me to resize the window though. Pet-peeve of mine. Also, I noticed that the time-stamp on all the chat is missing. Is it not possible to include it?

Suggestions
Get rid of the splash page.
Include options for a simpler look.
Make the window resizable.
Include the time stamp in the chat.

This site is a fantastic idea, and you've obviously put a lot of effort into it. I guess for me, it all boils down to the fact that I wouldn't be going to the site for it's own sake, but as a useful tool to augment my gaming experience. As such, I would prefer quick, easy and simple with a customizable window. I hope this helps. Keep up the good work.

bpgisme · **Joined:** Sat Dec 02, 2006 2:53 am **Posts:** 474

In Firefox on WinXP on my machine it's a bit slow to load the backgrounds and I too have that plugin popup warning thing. :wink:

It's a neat idea.

Anubislg · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 11:38 pm

M'kay then.

Sound: Music, definatly nix. XD
Fine be me, since that also saves bandwidth in the long run (yee-haw).

So that's done.

Overall Look: Hmmm....I wonder why the backgrounds are taking a while to load? Well, turns out I was being a dork, and having them load from the slow server.

Problem fixed, background images will pop up a lot faster now!

Splash Page: Needed. ._.' Sorry guys, but in order to keep the image of the KI you see on the main interface, I need to have a popup window that pops up at 800 x 600. Basically, the image is split into 4 seperate parts, and each part put into a frame. That's how the whole basis of the site works. ^^'

BUT...I do agree with you on making a more simple version of it. Perhaps an option at the splash screen is in order, no? ^^

Tabbed Browsing of the Site: Emurade doesn't like tabbed browsing in the least. ^^" Most of it functions on Javascript and PHP, that highly dislikes tabbed browsing. Most of the site is ment to just be clicked through, rather than right-clicked through. BUT...on the simple version, I'll be sure to address this.

Time Stamps: Easly done!

I can include yet another option for that to be enabled. Truth be told, just for looks, I parse out the time stamps.

Not liking it: If you don't like listening to a news broadcaster who's telling you the news, you can always turn off the TV.

The broadcasters will be easly marked also (ICRS, ICRS II, ect ect), so you'll know who they are.

Top priorities: Making ya'll a more basic design to work with.

I think I'll just make a interface for the ICRS, rather than integrating it in with Emurade's other little things.

P.S. Oh yeah! When you see the error about it not being able to start, that's usually due to me doing some work on it.

Or, if you try to view the ICRS REALLLLLLYYY late at night (pacific time), the feed is brought offline (although, I'm thinking about leaving it on 24/7 when events are happening).

chucker · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 11:52 pm

Anubislg wrote:

Not liking it: If you don't like listening to a news broadcaster who's telling you the news, you can always turn off the TV.

The broadcasters will be easly marked also (ICRS, ICRS II, ect ect), so you'll know who they are.

Right, but you won't know who's following the "news" through the relay. A lot of people are going to have an issue with that, and you're not letting them choose.

Anubislg · **Posted:** Mon Aug 20, 2007 12:22 am

Not like I'm placing the relays in private bevins.

It's called a public city for a reason, I would assume.

chucker · **Posted:** Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:07 am

Anubislg wrote:

Not like I'm placing the relays in private bevins.

It's called a public city for a reason, I would assume.

The big difference being that, to someone in the city/pub, it is completely opaque who's actually reading what they write.

Anubislg · **Posted:** Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:18 am

In any event, moving along on different matters,
the ICRS will be getting most of it's major upgrades this upcoming next week!

Thank you SO much everyone for the feedback, it's much welcomed!

Paradox · **Posted:** Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:38 am

I tend to agree with chucker here.

Even in a public place, I can look at the Age Players list and see who is listening to me. With this Relay system, I don't feel safe talking in any public instances.

It's actually funny, I frequent a public chat room, and recently designed a bot similar to yours that would broadcast messages from the chatroom into an IRC Channel. One user in particular was quite upset at the idea that anyone in the IRC Channel could be spying on him without his knowledge. The problem was easy to solve for us, we simply allowed users to query who was in the IRC channel and vice versa.
That won't work for your relay, because anyone can access it without logging in and there is not way to give a list of users to those of us in Uru.

This isn't a simple issue, it could quite possibly be considered a violation of privacy rights.

Inter-Cavern Relay System (ICRS)

Who is online