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Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Reconfiguration
You know, I realized yesterday that by making Version 7 of OtakuBoards a more "permanent" version, we are going to have to come up with some other way of identifying our updates. I thought of possibly doing a "7.1", "7.2", etc type of deal. But who knows.
I say this because right now, there is a collection of small updates coming that will essentially push the boards into a "7.1" status.
And when I say "small updates", I mean, "mega cool super funky updates."
^_^;;
Ahem. Yeah. I guess it depends on the type of person you are. Some people will really like these updates. One of them relates to the addition of a very cool new interactive feature (which I don't want to talk about just yet -- I'd rather surprise you). The other relates to a redesign of the postbit at OtakuBoards.
The postbit is basically the area above your posts, which contains your username/titles/avatar. Originally I'd only planned to add a new icon to that area, but I would like to reconfigure it a little bit more. It shouldn't be too tough on Justin, but hopefully it'll be a nice update that will make the site look a bit cleaner.
I was also thinking further about my upcoming RPG. And I think I'm getting a bit closer to deciding how to choose people.
I was considering an idea where I list the main characters and their biographies. Then, if you want to play as that character, you will have to write a very short background piece on 'em. So for example, you might write a couple of paragraphs about how they were freed from the Matrix. You know? Something simple, but something that demonstrates creativity.
The thing is, I want people to know how to play as these characters. They will all be given a basic shell/history by me -- but it will be up to the individual roleplayer to make decisions about the specifics of their personality. Hopefully this will strike a balance between keeping control of the story and also allowing participants to have a sense of ownership and control over their character.
Also -- I don't know if I've mentioned this -- but each chapter will have a theme song to it. It'll be an MP3 track that will stream in a seperate window (so you'll click something to make it come up). Tony is developing the code for that, which is great.
I mention this for two reasons. One, because I do not want to encourage piracy. Although it's probably a bit of an annoyance to go and search for the streamed song on your hard disk, you never know. I guess I will have to trust those who sign-up or view it. But also, what I'd like to do is write a track listing index to encourage people to actually buy the music if they like it.
I think this would be a novel approach in an RPG. Much of the music will come from the various Matrix soundtracks, but some will come from kinda-somewhat-related artists. I guess my goal is to ensure that each track fits in with what's happening at the time.
I also realized something else about this. If I listen to a song with lyrics via headphones, I find that I focus on what person is singing...rather than focusing on the on-screen text. This raises a dilemma. If I choose a song that has lyrics in it -- and if people are using headphones -- it might distract 'em from the actual RPG.
This led me to thinking that for each chapter, I should make a recommendation about whether you should use headphones or regular speakers. Headphones are great for the really atmospheric orchestral pieces, because you can let them go in the background and not focus your attention on them while you read. But for me at least, lyrics tend to divide my focus.
Is anyone else like that? And do you think I should recommend alternative listening methods for each chapter? I don't want the addition of music to be a confusing aspect. Instead, I want music to compliment the writing -- not just as background music, but also as music that directly relates to what's going on.
Anyway, it's something to think about. I'm not sure how much of it sounds confusing right now, but I think it will all make sense at the time.
On another note, I think that my first term break is coming up relatively soon. Sometime next month. I told Justin that I'd use the time to push out another skin for OtakuBoards.
Actually, I was already working on The Wind Waker skin. I spent a great deal of time focusing on the banner. But when I finished it, I didn't like it. It wasn't vibrant and colourful enough. So, I'm going to entirely scrap it and redo it. This sort of thing does slow everything else down. Once the major graphics are done, doing the icons and stuff isn't so bad; it's just very time consuming. And making them Zelda-themed is even more difficult.
But I want to ask everyone, apart from the Zelda skin, what skin would you like to see?
If I were to be completely selfish, I'd love to do a Jet Set Radio skin, or an Animatrix skin, or perhaps a Mario skin. It's hard to say. What do you think?
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