Friday, February 10, 2006

Third and (almost) final move. I've got Internet access this weekend, so I thought I'd take a little time out before bed and update myOtaku here. Moving plans are going well. A truck full of furniture will arrive on Sunday and I shall be in a brand new house (so new that it doesn't even have a street number yet) possibly as early as Saturday. After that, I'm going to see what I can do about setting up broadband. The apartment idea has kind of been left in the dust for now, although I suspect that I will be renting this new house for only a few months. Depending on how work goes up here, it is very possible that I may move back to Melbourne (and into a new house down there) sometime next year. We'll see how it goes; so much has changed recently that I'm finding it almost pointless to even think about longterm planning at the moment. As there were so many comments to my last post, I'll just respond to those for now and leave a more meaningful update for the future. Thanks to everyone who commented! Annie: I've actually done a bit more on that red skin than what I showed in my previous post, but the banner is probably the most complete part. I just wish that time were not such a problem, because I think that skin would have really given OB a very fresh new look. Not to worry though, OB isn't going anywhere...and I am certain that I will be back to do big things with it during the year. Although that red skin may never make an appearance in any finished site. Oh well. Liam: Thank you for the kind words, Liam. How is your latest RPG going? I literally haven't had time to catch a breath lately so I haven't really visited OB for more than a matter of seconds. At some point this year, when I have more time for OB again, I'd definitely like to participate in an RPG with you. I think that'd be very cool. As for Sunnybank, I haven't been to the movies here at all since I've lived here...in fact, I have hardly gone out since I moved from the Gold Coast. The only exceptions have been a couple of trips to Surfers Paradise and a few day trips into Brisbane for some shopping (I was actually in Queen Street Mall about a week ago with an enormous Myer bag and the Manson t-shirt that Annie gave me - I looked like some kind of frightening Santa, lol). My new place is in the eastern suburbs, so that'll be interesting. It's a bit closer to water, which is nice and the general area seems to be a whole lot nicer than Sunnybank. I don't mind it here, I just don't like the house I'm in right now. Mimmi-kun: Thanks, m'dear Mimmi. Although people to see the end results of things, I sometimes find it a bit disappointing that a good 90% of the work is never visible to people. I mean, I have designs and concept drawings related to theOtaku.com and other sites that stretch back several years, which nobody (other than Adam) has ever seen. At one point, theOtaku.com almost had a flower-petal layout, if you can believe it. I think it's interesting to look back at those things and to consider what might have been...and sometimes, to think about why we end up with what we end up with. Deb: Yeah, it's all good. I think it's best to learn through error...but I don't think it's right for someone to say "it's cool to learn through error" and then yell at you for learning through error. You know? That's all I really objected to. But it's not a big deal, it's just something that reminded me of online experiences in general. I am very pleased that Guild Wars is nothing like Counter-Strike; despite the occasional amazing squad, I can see how a lot of people would be totally discouraged from playing that game as a result of the online experience. SugarCone: I'm afraid that the only semi-detailed information you'll find about Premium is back in my own archives here, where I've rambled aloud about it. At the moment we are just taking a breather. I'm mostly out of action and so is Justin. Adam is in the process of developing a new programming team and working on a new side-project of his own. Once the new programmers are in place and once I'm back to the 'net more regularly, we will begin working on new things one at a time. But 'till then, I think it'll mostly be incremental updates for myOtaku and such. And thanks for the compliment, too. I also really enjoyed the works that you showed me - if you ever want someone to collaborate with on a project, you should consider discussing it with me! Although I do recall that you said you'd lost some interest in web design recently. Anyway, it's something to think about at least. Alexus: Yeah, of course. I had thought it was obvious that this is what was being referred to, lol. I thought we'd established that, anyway. The member in question was definitely saying that the experience of fighting overwhelming enemies and making the mistake was a good way to learn, he defintely wasn't referring to any group response. My point didn't relate to that. Refer to what I said to Deb for clarification. ~_^ Deb: Yep, yep. Again, I never mentioned that he meant anything else by it. I just thought it was silly to say that after getting angry in-game when someone does the very thing that he was saying was a good thing to do. I hope that made sense. lol John: Ah yes, I do remember that theme. I liked that colour combination quite a lot and I don't think I ever used it more than once. Somehow it reminded me of Coca-Cola (that's probably why I liked it, lol). You never know. It's certainly something I'd like to explore again in the future. CosmicSailor: Wow, you really do a big service to my comment box! Haha. I'll do my best to respond. First of all, thanks for your comment on the designs. No detailed analysis needed; it's just nice that you like what you saw. ^_^ In regard to OtakuBoards, I think that it's worth holding onto a promise...but at some point you have to know when something just isn't paying off for you anymore. I think that you do yourself a big favour when you make a change for the better, even if it means changing your original plans. But that's up to you to decide. I can only tell you that we will do our best to make the new OtakuBoards as widely compatible and as easily-useable as possible. At the very least, I want to completely remove a lot of the redundant aspects of Virtual Bulletin that still hang around OB today. There are so many things that people don't use, or that cause confusion...and that stuff is unnecessary. Sure, some forums may use them, but I think it's really time to design something that caters specifically to our audience and the kind of users we want to attract. We do that with our events and rules and stuff anyway...there's no reason why the physical site can't do the same. It is funny how people's reactions change based on things like clothing. I know that people react to me very differently depending on what I wear. The reaction when I'm wearing the Manson t-shirt and the studded armbands and stuff is very different from when I'm wearing trousers and an expensive shirt. Yet, I'm the same person and all of my mannerisms do not change or anything. I guess it comes back to that idea of judging a book by its cover. Usually I think you are rewarded if you take the time to get to know someone a little better. I think that you and I are a bit similar when it comes to friendship. In person, I am a very courteous and warm guy...people tend to find it easy to talk to me and I'm told that I have a "kind look" about me. But having said that, it takes a long time for me to truly consider someone a good friend - even if I seem very open and friendly initially, it usually takes me a while to truly feel comfortable being very open with people, or "letting them in". I think that's just because I tend to take friendship very seriously and usually a friend is there for life, rather than for a short time (at least, that's always my intention). But again, people are usually rewarded if they put in the effort and the time, on both sides. Even friendships can take work, but it's worth it. Blackjack: I agree with you about the portfolio bit. Don't worry about it coming off the wrong way - you are 100% correct and I think that's the kind of criticism that we really need here. One of the really basic things I've been pushing for with future versions of myOtaku is far, far better link organization. Some of this simply means re-wording things. Right now we have a bunch of links that sound similar and relate to different things, or sound different and relate to very similar things...it's just too confusing and annoying. I'm not happy with it, that's for sure. The sample you saw was my first attempt to re-work the links in the backroom to make them more understandable. You can bet that whatever we end up with, it will be far nicer to use than what we're running on today. SunfallE: Having a Site Skeleton is almost a necessity now. Ever since we began doing things that way, we've really never stopped and it's made my job a whole lot easier. I think it also results in a better outcome too. Anyway, I'm glad to read that you liked the designs. I was always a fan of the flavors idea. I think I was going to have a handful of flavors, including Cherry (Red), Apple (Green), Grape (Purple), Blueberry (Blue) and Colorblind (Greyscale). The latter is obviously not a flavor, but I kind of liked the idea of calling it "colorblind". I'm not sure what kind of food we'd use to describe grey...any ideas? Perhaps "Vegetarian Sausage", as they have always tasted pretty damn bland to me. Er...that was a slightly weird tangent. *whistles* My trip was great, by the way. Sydney was as beautiful as ever and this time I got to see more of it. I also got to see the entire Central Coast of New South Wales...gorgeous, gorgeous area. hEvN: Well, ideally, I would love to have a small team of them - maybe even two or three programmers. But as you can imagine, it's incredibly difficut to find people with the right qualities. Not only do we need programmers who are capable of doing slightly higher-level work, but they need to be trustworthy, dedicated and willing to work on a site for free. Such people are few and far between, which is why we have been so lucky to have Justin for so many years now. I hope that Adam will be lucky on his search for a new programmer. I pretty much agree with you on the designs, too. This is largely why the new myOtaku will probably be far more conservative in design, although that isn't to say that it will be devoid of colour (quite the contrary). I just feel that older people are not going to be as interested to visit a site with a crazy design. And I don't want to be limiting the audience simply because of colours or something. Rapture Ruckus: How did I know this would be Shinji before I even saw your name at the bottom? Haha. But yes...OtakuBot. No, he will never die. He is a part of OB legend forever (largely thanks to Solo's fan fiction). One day he may make a proper appearance in public, you just never know. indifference: To be honest, even though these will not be used...I am just happy I could display them. I will be displaying all of this work (and more) on my own actual site. At least, I'll be doing that when the new site is ready...and it's one of those things where it'll be ready whenever it's ready. I'd really hate to do a rush-job on something like that. But it will happen...eventually. Haha I like the OB one a lot actually, I wish I could have had that implemented into OB. But we needed to do some programming stuff as well as just design, so it wasn't going to happen. >_>; Aaryanna: Thank you much! I'm very happy to hear that you like what you saw. It makes me feel that, had I actually used that design on OB, it probably would have been more popular with people than what we're using now. Hopefully you're doing well too. Thanks for stopping by.

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