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Castle Paradox
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Meatballsub
Divine Bovine
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 437
Location: Northwest Georgia
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 Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 10:34 am Post subject: The Hamster Wheel |
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After working on the “project†for several months now, I think it is time to say a little more about it. Ladies and gentleman, I present The Hamster Wheel.
What is the Hamster Wheel?
Last year, I was researching some information on a few OHR games when I realized something; it sucks. It sucks having to sift through several different OHRRPGCE sites to find information about a single game. That’s when I decided to start working on The Hamster Wheel.
The Hamster Wheel’s main purpose is to centralize all information regarding the OHRRPGCE engine, OHRRPGCE games and their authors, as well as list OHRRPGCE music composers, contests, and other random junk. One thing it will NOT have is a dedicated forum, because we already have three of those (Walrus, Slime, and CP).
Sounds neat, Can I see it?
The sad truth is that The Hamster Wheel has been up for over a year now, unofficially. However, I went AWOL shortly after uploading it for a period of about eight months. Then, I finally decided to come back and finish what I started, even if I only have a little bit of time to devote to it each week.
With that being said, it is definitely a work in progress. There is a little bit of content up to give you an idea of how the site will work, but it will be quite some time before it has a vast amount of information. However, I hope that in time and with your patience, that The Hamster Wheel will grow into the largest database of OHRRPGCE-only information ever.
Stay tuned…
http://thehamsterwheel.net |
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Pepsi Ranger
Reality TV Host
Joined: 05 Feb 2003
Posts: 493
Location: South Florida
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| Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 11:25 am Post subject: |
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The little hamster review icons are priceless. Way better than letter grades. And I like the inclusion of advisories.
The reviews themselves are skimpy, but appropriate given the snapshot overview of the site.
And the composer section is really cool. I wouldn't mind seeing more artist sections like this. How often do you plan on updating these things?
The game screenshot section seems heavy compared to the review itself. May want to scale back to just a handful of images if you're gonna keep it short.
All in all, this seems like a great addition if you think you can keep up with it.
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Progress Report:
The Adventures of Powerstick Man: Extended Edition
Currently Updating: General sweep of the game world and dialogue boxes. Adding extended maps.
Tightfloss Maiden
Currently Updating: Chapter 2 |
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Meatballsub
Divine Bovine
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 437
Location: Northwest Georgia
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| Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 11:59 am Post subject: |
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| Pepsi Ranger wrote: | The little hamster review icons are priceless. Way better than letter grades. And I like the inclusion of advisories.
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You can thank James for those. I got with him a few weeks ago and asked him to work up something for me. I think he did an excellent job.
Also, Surlaw helped convince me to do something other than letter/number grades, so those icons are what I came up with.
The advisory thing will come in handy I believe, especially when I am able to do more of them for each game.
| Quote: | | The reviews themselves are skimpy, but appropriate given the snapshot overview of the site. |
I agree to an extent. Some games are so short that it is very difficult for me to right an extensive amount of information on them, but I am trying my best. Also, I am not a great writer as-is, but I do plan on having an official site review for every game eventually.
| Quote: | | And the composer section is really cool. I wouldn't mind seeing more artist sections like this. How often do you plan on updating these things? |
Updating the composer section or the site as a whole? I try and do something for the site each day, whether it be fixing a link found broken or adding multiple new sections for games. My goal is to keep this same work ethic for as long as I can stand it.
I am having a blast working on it right now, so I doubt I will get sick of it any time soon. However, there may be a day or two where you don't see updates due to my hectic schedule.
If you want to stay posted on the latest updates, I suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed on the front page.
| Quote: | | All in all, this seems like a great addition if you think you can keep up with it. |
I appreciate the feedback  |
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TMC
On the Verge of Insanity
Joined: 05 Apr 2003
Posts: 3240
Location: Matakana
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 2:09 am Post subject: |
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Hey, cool!
The aim of gathering together all info sounds great - this is something I've been wanting a long time. I'd love to see a horde of knowledge on each game: the full list of contributors, all download locations/available versions, and all reviews. Listing forum posts is brilliant. And I'd definitely be willing to help.
Are you planning to host many game downloads on the site?
You know what I'd really really *really* like to see? An index of all the articles and game reviews on all other OHR sites. Just think: there are reviews and articles spread out over CP, Op:OHR, SS, the wiki, Hamsterspeak, OHR Monthly, OHR Weekly, Septaweekly, The Mooglery, RPG Online, individual game sites, fan sites and things like JSH's Top 30, and who knows where else? Many of those sites don't even provide good indexes of their own content!
I'm a bit concerned that the site looks like too much manual work and not enough automation.
About the ratings,
"Perfect (Superb in every aspect)"
Isn't that too strong? If I were a reviewer (and I've been wanting to start reviewing forever), I would never ever give any game this rating for 'Overall' or a couple of the other categories, none come very close.
| Meatballsub wrote: | | Also, I am not a great writer as-is, but I do plan on having an official site review for every game eventually. |
EVERY game?!?
By the way, you've got messages about enabling ActiveX everywhere, but in fact the table sorter script is Javascript.
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"It is so great it is insanely great." |
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Bob the Hamster
OHRRPGCE Developer
Joined: 22 Feb 2003
Posts: 2526
Location: Hamster Republic (Southern California Enclave)
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 8:50 am Post subject: |
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Yay! I had a ton of fun making the icons for this :)
I am glad to see it launched.
I had seen a preview of this before, but I just now noticed the "Contest Archive" section, and I think that is fantastic.
I agree that this sounds like a hell of a lot of work to update it all manually, but maybe there are ways to make your maintenance job easier. |
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Meatballsub
Divine Bovine
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 437
Location: Northwest Georgia
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 9:59 am Post subject: |
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| The Mad Cacti wrote: | | Are you planning to host many game downloads on the site? |
Absolutely.
| The Mad Cacti wrote: | | You know what I'd really really *really* like to see? An index of all the articles and game reviews on all other OHR sites. Just think: there are reviews and articles spread out over CP, Op:OHR, SS, the wiki, Hamsterspeak, OHR Monthly, OHR Weekly, Septaweekly, The Mooglery, RPG Online, individual game sites, fan sites and things like JSH's Top 30, and who knows where else? Many of those sites don't even provide good indexes of their own content! |
An article index is a fantastic idea. I may try to implement that in the future.
As for reviews, I am trying my best to include every known review under "external reviews" for each game.
| The Mad Cacti wrote: | | I'm a bit concerned that the site looks like too much manual work and not enough automation. |
It does seem a bit daunting, but really it isn't that big of a deal to me. I've enjoyed working on it so far, and making changes to each page when needed hasn't been a huge deal (yet).
| The Mad Cacti wrote: | About the ratings,
"Perfect (Superb in every aspect)"
Isn't that too strong? If I were a reviewer (and I've been wanting to start reviewing forever), I would never ever give any game this rating for 'Overall' or a couple of the other categories, none come very close. |
I suppose I could change the wording around on that one.
| Meatballsub wrote: | | Also, I am not a great writer as-is, but I do plan on having an official site review for every game eventually. |
EVERY game?!?[/quote]
That's the plan, It may take a year or so to complete, but I plan on seeing it through.
| The Mad Cacti wrote: | | By the way, you've got messages about enabling ActiveX everywhere, but in fact the table sorter script is Javascript. |
Thanks for reminding me of that! I actually used a little different script in the beginning and then swapped over to Javascript and forgot to change the message. I appreciate pointing that one out for me. |
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Meatballsub
Divine Bovine
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 437
Location: Northwest Georgia
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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One thing that would be nice is if you guys would submit some information about yourselves for the Developer section when you have time. A short biography, trivia, aliases or anything you would like to share would be just fine. Otherwise, if I have nothing, then your page will pretty skimpy; unless I am able to beat the information out of you 
When and if you decide to send something, make sure to send it to the site email, which can be found on the website (duh)  .
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MOCBJ Software - My Games
The Hamster Wheel - OHRRPGCE Information Database |
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Onlyoneinall
Bug finder
Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 746
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Meatballsub
Divine Bovine
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 437
Location: Northwest Georgia
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| Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 6:02 pm Post subject: |
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| The Mad Cacti wrote: | | You know what I'd really really *really* like to see? An index of all the articles and game reviews on all other OHR sites. Just think: there are reviews and articles spread out over CP, Op:OHR, SS, the wiki, Hamsterspeak, OHR Monthly, OHR Weekly, Septaweekly, The Mooglery, RPG Online, individual game sites, fan sites and things like JSH's Top 30, and who knows where else? Many of those sites don't even provide good indexes of their own content! |
Voila
| Onlyoneinall wrote: | | I plan on eventually contributing to this, within this month. :] |
Looking forward to it!
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MOCBJ Software - My Games
The Hamster Wheel - OHRRPGCE Information Database |
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Inferior Minion
Metric Ruler
Joined: 03 Jan 2003
Posts: 741
Location: Santa Barbara, CA
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| Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Meatballsub wrote: | | The Mad Cacti wrote: | | You know what I'd really really *really* like to see? An index of all the articles and game reviews on all other OHR sites. Just think: there are reviews and articles spread out over CP, Op:OHR, SS, the wiki, Hamsterspeak, OHR Monthly, OHR Weekly, Septaweekly, The Mooglery, RPG Online, individual game sites, fan sites and things like JSH's Top 30, and who knows where else? Many of those sites don't even provide good indexes of their own content! |
Voila
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Will you also be indexing appropriate articles from HamsterSpeak? There are also a small handful of articles Squall was working on in a rather buried section of the site: Castle Paradox Articles. We don't promote it because everything related to that section is manually maintained, but there are some great articles hidden inside. It's a section I'd like to revamp and resurrect, but the site has many more pressing issues that need reworking.
Cheers,
~IM
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Meatballsub
Divine Bovine
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 437
Location: Northwest Georgia
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| Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Inferior Minion wrote: | | Meatballsub wrote: | | The Mad Cacti wrote: | | You know what I'd really really *really* like to see? An index of all the articles and game reviews on all other OHR sites. Just think: there are reviews and articles spread out over CP, Op:OHR, SS, the wiki, Hamsterspeak, OHR Monthly, OHR Weekly, Septaweekly, The Mooglery, RPG Online, individual game sites, fan sites and things like JSH's Top 30, and who knows where else? Many of those sites don't even provide good indexes of their own content! |
Voila
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Will you also be indexing appropriate articles from HamsterSpeak? There are also a small handful of articles Squall was working on in a rather buried section of the site: Castle Paradox Articles. We don't promote it because everything related to that section is manually maintained, but there are some great articles hidden inside. It's a section I'd like to revamp and resurrect, but the site has many more pressing issues that need reworking.
Cheers,
~IM |
I plan on indexing the articles in the HS magazines. I will also check out that sections you mentioned and see if I need to add anything to my list. Thanks for the info.
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MOCBJ Software - My Games
The Hamster Wheel - OHRRPGCE Information Database |
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Artimus Bena
Admiral
Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 637
Location: Dreamland.
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Newbie_Power
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Posts: 1762
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| Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 1:38 am Post subject: |
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Very sexy games list. Very nice site in general, I really like it.
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Pepsi Ranger
Reality TV Host
Joined: 05 Feb 2003
Posts: 493
Location: South Florida
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| Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 5:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Meatballsub wrote: | | I plan on indexing the articles in the HS magazines. I will also check out that sections you mentioned and see if I need to add anything to my list. Thanks for the info. |
Just to let you know, the "Better Than the Worst" articles on O:OHR are obsolete. It's better to list the updated versions that I submitted to HamsterSpeak in January 2008. Or keep the old ones up, but highlight them as "2001 Edition".
_________________
Progress Report:
The Adventures of Powerstick Man: Extended Edition
Currently Updating: General sweep of the game world and dialogue boxes. Adding extended maps.
Tightfloss Maiden
Currently Updating: Chapter 2 |
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TMC
On the Verge of Insanity
Joined: 05 Apr 2003
Posts: 3240
Location: Matakana
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| Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 5:29 am Post subject: |
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Cool!
Here's a whole lot more articles:
http://thor.prohosting.com/~leonardc/rpgonline/articles.shtml
http://thor.prohosting.com/~leonardc/rpgonline/articlesarchive.shtml
http://ohrweekly.castleparadox.com/
There are of course plenty of reviews there as well!
Maybe I'll dig about on the wiki and look for good articles for inclusion.
It would be a good idea to mention for your game downloads the source site and any version/upload date information from the original site, or perhaps the date you downloaded it if that's not available.
| Quote: | | It does seem a bit daunting, but really it isn't that big of a deal to me. I've enjoyed working on it so far, and making changes to each page when needed hasn't been a huge deal (yet). |
I suppose hand editting everything could work, but the problem is that keeping the site up to date will be near impossible. It would be nice if, for example, CP or SS's game indices were automatically crawled occasionally - James' gamelist mirror does this monthly - and new games, reviews, downloads, etc linked to. The next version of CP will also have waaay more information per game listing, so I don't see updates to that stuff appearing on any sort of "newest reviews"-type index.
It's too bad I know nothing about web development.
Oh, this brings me to another question: which games do you want on the site? Anything with at least a download or
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