Digital

Hello everyone,

Since the beginning of this communities existence I have been honest and open to every members opinion, popular or not. I generally will not censor anyone posts unless it is extreme and is needed. I believe in the concepts of an open community where ideas, opinions, and feelings are openly expressed without fear of reprisal or attacks. These have been the guiding principals that I have felt are beneficial and help build a greater sense of community.

I have noticed some members who have been pushing the bounds of what is acceptable. Comments that are not constructive nor add anything to the topic at large, or detract and sow discontent should be kept to one's self. On the flip side, reactions to criticisms should not be met with outward defensiveness and a need to correct or attack in response. Although this community resides in an online space where anonymity can allow such behavior, at the end of the day we are all still responsible for our individual actions regardless of which side of the conversation you sit.

This community's purpose is to offer encouragement, support, and discussion mainly around the discussion of individuals building new browser-based games, or improving existing ones. Constructive, helpful, and supportive posts help other members to grow and advance, and provide value to both those helping that member, as well as some pride in being able to do so.

So, be constructive, be nice, and be yourself. Do not attack others for opinions, politely disagree and maybe offer a viewpoint to why you disagree. Do not get offended when someone else disagrees with your opinion, accept that is okay to not agree - Because it really is okay.

Moving forward, I am going to be much less forgiving of such negative behaviors as they arise.

Thanks!

@Artist @Game Owner @Members @Programmer @Writer

I am just getting caught up, and I love your ideas about linear progression. Overall this looks like a great project shaping up!

Welcome to The Gaming List, primarily virtual pet site focused, but we also discuss all kinds of different web based games, from their development, to players wanting to find new games.

We encourage you to say hello, tell us just a little about yourself, and what interests you!

Congratulations! I cannot wait to see Horse Reality grow!

@chutkat I will have to check it out. So far I have tried adobe sketch, and sketchbook. Both seemed somewhat equivalent to procreate, but none felt better.

Just now, Cadence said:

@Digital I like your art!

I have heard so many great things about the iPad with the Pencil & ProCreate. All my favorite artists have been using that and showing their work online haha. 

Thank you, it is mostly just me fiddling without too much attention to any specific detail. I have not sketched in many years (since middle school), so it has been a process of re-learning that on top of learning to do it digitally.

I have enjoyed it, although I find the pencils pressure sensitivity is rather delicate and takes time to get used to. No settings that I am aware of, but I seem to be getting better as time goes on.

Just now, Hare said:

Ooh, and I had no idea about having a database moved elsewhere. Do you recommend a service? Or does this type of database hosting have a special name I can look up to find one?

Your database (assuming mysql) can be basically hosted on any server, in terms of changes to your code, it is just a matter of changing your hostname, user, pass, and maybe database name (user, pass, and database name can obviously be kept the same) in your mysql connection.

Most shared hosting environments don't offer mysql as a stand alone service, but you could easily setup a droplet (think small vps) at DigitalOcean and get mysql up and running easily enough. The smallest droplet they offer is around $10 a month and surprisingly powers this entire forum all together.

Getting mysql installed and setup on a server is also quite easy these days, initially you would not need to do too much in terms of specific improvements. Also most servers these days are easy to manage.

If you are interested in being walked through it, let me know and I would be happy to discuss the steps to get up and running.

3 minutes ago, Hare said:

Most players on our game are creating multiple accounts for the starting money (I can see them funneling the money to their 'main' account. We tried changing the starting money amount many times and no matter what the amount is, this still happens quite often. I'm thinking of eliminating starting money altogether and just having a starter pack. 

Starter packs might help, but some starting money is always nice. Another simple solution is to have accounts in a form of lock-down in regards to funneling. Another option is simply logging transactions and have a staff alerted when an account which is new (say a week or newer) has been depleted of funds. An admin could simply look at a log and determine. If you ban both the main and duplicate, you will probably deter most from trying, especially if you are a little vocal. That is something that should be enforced as a no-no.

It sounds like you are doing what you can elsewhere. Another option is if you are growing out of your current site infrastructure is to consider moving your database on to it's own environment, in which it has the room to grow without sharing it with your site.

On 1/11/2018 at 11:39 AM, Corleone said:

Soil

Earth

I wanted to update you all. I got an iPad for my birthday/xmas present this year, and have been fiddling with it. I was lucky enough to get the Pencil also, which actually has made it easier.

I am still very much getting used to it and sketching again in general, especially as you can tell with coloring and lining. I have been using Procreate, if anyone has a better suggestion please let me know.

I would say that multiple accounts should never be thought of as a problem. If the game isn't balanced enough where multiple accounts offer an advantage, perhaps the issue isn't multiple accounts, but a matter of what incentive to users to have them?

As for your issue, which is more along the lines of quantity of animals and site infrastructure, it really appear that multiple accounts are used to gain advantage as much to allow users the ability to have fun breeding. Your options are a little more nuanced, as you have the following to consider:

1. What effect does having only a set limit of pets cause to the game play? Does it make it more boring, do you see a drop in people staying on the game if you were to limit it (moving forward) to a certain number globally. Those that have more should eventually (if you have options such as selling of pets, however they cannot gain new ones as long as they are above a set limit) level out. If you happen to have a game where death is a function, this will also cause the number to stabilize. It also will keep new accounts manageable, even if they are duplicate as you know what the cost is per account.
2. Can you get more out of your code? I am not sure about how your coding is structured, but it may be possible to scale it to allow you to have more pets per account then you are able to handle now. With tools such as pet image caching (when you generate the pets image, store it for later instead of regenerating it), as well as some optimizations to queries and such, it is quite possible to get some juice out of your code. This can be small gains, or even larger gains, and simple not very technical to very technical options.
3. Can you police a no-multiple-account-allowed policy effectively? If you were to say no to multiple accounts, how can you definitively prevent it from happening? How much effort to police that policy is involved? If you have a relatively large staff-base, you may be successful at it, however if you don't - well, it may not be effective.

Really each of these options have many solutions to them, the idea here is to scale down to what you feel the right balance of game play, site infrastructure, and management. Maybe you do a little in each category, maybe you only focus on one of them - it is entirely based on your user base, your time to look at your scaling options, and your staffing.

Wow, looks like although with a break you have still been more then busy, great updates and looking good @Dinocanid

On 1/4/2018 at 2:11 PM, Dinocanid said:

I plan to get Wild Souls into it's closed alpha phase in the 1st quarter of the year, and hopefully get Foodbabs to beta by the 3rd-4th.

How are you doing making progress on Wild Souls?

On 1/6/2018 at 1:04 PM, Kesstryl said:

My goal is to add more events, features such has hidden areas to discover while exploring, and of course lots of art to my text based RPG Dragon Lord. 

I have been loosely following along, your game looks really good, and I cannot wait to hear more as new stuff comes out!

On 1/10/2018 at 7:38 PM, KingofCrows said:

My hope is to move far enough in development that I can actually start advertising lol. It's a lot of work to go, but a lot can be done in a year (hopefully more than in the past 3 years...). 

Remember, it is the small things you do that add up to the big accomplishments.

On 1/10/2018 at 7:48 PM, Boltgreywing said:

Mine I hope to have my revamped site up and running in june/july time frame.

Awesome, we cannot wait to hear more about it when it is up!

On 1/4/2018 at 1:31 PM, Bravefoot said:

You got it right with looking to get some last year’s projects done!

currently planning to finish some items (mainly the starter ones that I will include in my own game) as well as some NPCs and backgrounds

What type of items? How have your goals been going so far?

On 1/4/2018 at 2:50 PM, atomicdrawls said:

But I'll probably remain trash and just eat chips and watch Ghost Adventures with my girlfriend instead. Lol

Nooo! More goal-chasing, less chips. Well, more goal-chasing while eating chips. You can balance it!

On 1/4/2018 at 10:43 PM, jakdacrowe said:

I kinda made a year's worth of weekly schedule, just for art commissions. I partially feel bad that some people may be waiting for a long time, but so far I don't have any cancellations.

How is your schedule working out for you so far this year?

On 1/10/2018 at 1:11 PM, Cadence said:

I think my artistic goals this year is getting better at anatomy, using markers (I got a set of copic markers recently and love using them), and being more active with promoting my work.

I struggle with anatomy as well in what I do draw (which is little to be honest.) It seems like one of those specific artistic skills that really is constant improvement.

On 1/10/2018 at 5:20 PM, Morgan said:

As for art goals, I need to start drawing more than portraits and continue my figure studies I began last year. I'd like to do more embroidery and traditional medium work, but need to make room somewhere in the house to do that 

How have your goals been going so far?

A good place to read up is this guide we have, it breaks down the different things and how to approach them.

Great simplistic overview of ux laws. I love the poster designs of them too.

5 hours ago, Bravefoot said:

Potato 

Root

Welcome to TGL! What brings you to the community?

6 minutes ago, Nate said:

Definitely going to be launching The Lost Fable in 2018. Development has come really far since I stepped back from TGL back in May, but it's going to be worth it  

We've been going through withdrawls man, it better be worth it!

I cannot wait to read and learn more about these wonderful featured games!

False, I enjoy bland foods.

You try to get as much alone time as possible.

On 12/10/2017 at 6:53 PM, DerpWolfie said:

Dune

Tune

2 hours ago, DerpWolfie said:

Blade

Claymore

Whether it is launching your game, adding new cool features, or even just fixing up a section of your game, is 2018 the year of your game? What neat things development wise are you looking to accomplish this year?

@Game Owner

One plus side to PHP as the language of choice is that is an easily accessible language, both in how it written (weak typing as @Design1online mentioned), and it's availability with most hosting providers.

Laravel is a well documented and relatively easy to get started framework written in PHP. It generally can be learned quickly to a great result, and it's community is strong. With resources such as Laracasts (tutorials and guides in video format), it just allows you to grasp it quicker.

What you use is a personal decision. That being said, every language/framework as it's usefulness and things it does well. Some make real time communication easier (Node for instance is great at this), while others are a lot easier for web. Your choice should be tempered by the language/framework community, learning resources, and availability in hosting when starting out.

For beginners who are getting started, PHP has an insane amount of learning resources available to get started, and is one of the most available languages in terms of hosting. Not so say other language don't have great ecosystems around them, but PHP's is one of the larger/popular ones.