Spring Cleaning
Posted by The DaveGreetings! Spring is upon us, and that means it’s time for some Spring Cleaning!
You may wonder, “Dave! What does this mean for us?” A good question! You get a slightly better organized site to view~
I’ve been going through the place and sort of reorganizing things, as you may have noticed. Check out the run down of the changes after the jump.
Changes include:
- Changed the site’s URL to mother4.andonuts.net, and in the process probably made everyone need to log in again. Report any wonkiness please. (Also note that mother4.dcmsoftware.net still works just fine.)
- Reorganized the About page to include a concise list of characters. Information will be added as it becomes available.
- Reorganized the guidelines on the Submit page to reduce the wall of text.
- Implemented a new user registration system. If you have any problems registering, please let me know via the contact page.
- Added a link to the Starmen.net Forum topic to the link buttons on the bottom of the sidebar.
- Allowed rich text documents (.rtf) to be submitted and made some adjustments to the guts of the Submitron.
- Various small changes I can’t remember at the moment.
If there’s something you’ve been wishing I’d fix about the site, now’s your time to be heard! Post your requests in the comments below, but keep in mind that I’m looking for things that need fixing or reorganizing, not so much new features.
April 18th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
What about the thing I suggested a while back about categorizing the fan submissions into music, art, and writing?
April 18th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Oooh yes. I should really redo how submissions get displayed. I’ll add pagination and alphabetical (by username) and category (art, music, writing, etc.) views.
Also, what are people’s opinions on a “like” or “thumb up” system on the submissions? I’d rather not add comments since that would get really messy really quickly, and moderating it all would be another mess entirely. So I figured something like that would be the next best thing.
April 18th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
I don’t think that the thumbsup/like idea is all that great. Some people may have really high ratings, while others may have none at all. If those with none are actually trying, this may be discouraging. This is just my opinion, though.
April 18th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Very true, that would be discouraging. Perhaps leaving it without any form of rating or comment system would be best. (That is, outside of the From the Fans posts.)
April 19th, 2010 at 2:21 am
I like the new changes that have happend so far and would like to congratulate you guys for the great job!
The like feature woould be nice but the problem remains about discouraging people.
Hopefully you’ll find an answer though!
~Ruple
April 19th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
Not too big a fan of Thumbs Up/Down, personally; it gives people the opportunity to make some look bad (despite having great posts), and others praise-worthy (including any haters about). Just saying.
In any case, glad there’s some spring cleaning afoot.
There’s been one thing that’s been semi-nagging at me, though, and it’s the location of the Navigation… Seems a bit out of the way; TOO out of the way. Honestly, I almost didn’t notice it until it was pointed out above. Has it already been once considered to turn the Navigation into tabs, located just below the banner? Or is that not possible? I know most WordPress sites utilize this method, and it seems relatively affective.
In any case, good luck with the reorganization. (:
April 20th, 2010 at 1:00 am
Yeah, it looks like the thumbs idea is out. I just remember back when I launched the submissions section, there was some demand for comments on them. I got some emails about it as well. But oh well, that’s less work for me.
But about the navigation, are you referring to the normal navigation links on the sidebar, or the little icons (Facebook, etc.) at the bottom? I can probably do something about the icons, but tabbing the normal navigation and keeping it dynamic would be more work than I have time for right now. I could probably do something static though, like on my website.
April 20th, 2010 at 3:07 am
It would be nice to have tabs to help navigate easier, but don’t overwork yourself The Dave!
April 20th, 2010 at 8:58 am
Although I’ve never seen the site before the change (Or maybe I have, I have terrible memory) I’m sure this was a major improvement. Let’s hope to olid mother 4 gaming in the future!
April 20th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Huzzah! [And by Huzzah I mean "What?"(and by What? I mean quack)]
It looks kinda good for some things, and now I’ll never have an issue with the character’s name again… don’t you dare judge me…
April 20th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
sorry to kind of post in the comments, but one idea would be to have a “wall” so that people can talk about progress and posts rather then commenting on things, related or not, to the main subject of the submission. just an idea. I think it could work out with the rating system. weather it would be a thumbs system or stars it could work out, but one way ,as many had said, to prevent people from hurting peoples feelings and keeping every thing cool is to have guide lines or rules for rating and possibly having a disable option. Only ideas. good by.
April 23rd, 2010 at 12:56 pm
@blue rope snake
What’s wrong with posting in the comments? That’s what they’re there for isn’t it?
But as for rating/commenting on the submissions, I think we’ll leave it as is for now.
On another note, I’ve redone the way submissions are presented. Now when you visit the submissions page, you’ll see the 10 latest submissions and must now select the first letter of the user name you want to find. The next thing I’m going to do is to group each user’s submissions into categories. (ie. art, music, writing, etc.)
April 23rd, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Ooh, pretty new pages! Good job with the Spring Cleaning, guys! Although, I did find some cobwebs on your FAQs page…
BROKEN LINKS!
No big deal, really. As I said, on the FAQs page, the links for “The Team” and “Website Secrets” yield a Four O’ Four.
“The Team” links to /faqs/the-game/the-team/
instead of /faqs/the-team/
“Secrets” links to /secrets/
instead of /faqs/secrets/
Also, all of the links refer to the site by the old domain dcmsoftware.net. Even though that’s no loss of functionality, it’s not as fresh as it could be.
Good luck with the UI updates and the user input features, but don’t let happiness escape you! And by happiness, I mean your links.
April 23rd, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Ok. I can understand that.
April 24th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Good catch Mr. S. I’ve fixed the links and changed most of the existing ones to point to andonuts instead of dcmsoftware.
April 25th, 2010 at 2:42 am
The Mr. Saturn skydive is currently broken.
April 25th, 2010 at 2:48 am
It was a Noscript error, disregard my previous post.
However, the Mr. Saturns do appear to be falling faster than before…
Anyway, sorry for the double post. I could not find a way to delete or edit the first one.
April 25th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Yeah their speed varies depending on the speed of the javascript engine, so if you’ve upgraded your browser or switched to a new one, you might notice the difference. I tried to compensate for that a little, but it’ll still be different for each browser.
I think javasccript engine speeds go something like this:
Internet Explorer < Firefox < Chrome
Dunno where Opera or Safari fall on that list though.
Oh and don’t worry about double posting since there’s no edit or delete button. Just don’t spam the comments. (ie. post a bunch in rapid succession.)
April 25th, 2010 at 9:49 pm
Mr saturn skydive??
Is there something I’m missing out on???
April 25th, 2010 at 10:28 pm
See here.
April 26th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Don’t worry Rope Snake, it’s not relevant to the actual content of Mother 4, it’s just one of those little fun things that Dave hides around the site.
Poke around a bit, and you’re sure to find at least something.
April 26th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Everything’s looking good the way they are right now!
But I do love the
alphabetical sorting of the list of fan submitters!
April 28th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Haha!! Found it! It’s genius!!
Dave, you win at life yet again…
April 29th, 2010 at 12:25 am
Aw shucks.
April 29th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Hey, Dave, what does ‘AVVYD’ stand for?
April 29th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
It’s apparently slang for David. Like how I’m Dave and all.
You gotta say it like “ehyy-vid” for the full effect.
Nah, it’s really just Avvy as in avatar, and D as in Dave. So like Avvy-D.
April 29th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
This question actually has nothing to do with the site it’s more about M4… but are there going to be any guest appearances from playable characters of previous mother games on this game?
April 29th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
We can’t answer questions like that.
Check out the FAQs, they may answer other questions if you have them.
May 1st, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Hi! I am new here! but the moment I saw the site… i made some sprites for it! so… i will submit some!
May 2nd, 2010 at 9:46 am
That’s cool. Can’t wait to see them. I’m probably going to submit some more psi/pk ideas soon. I’m also pretty new at this.
May 9th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Yeah, a “like” or “thumbs up” feature would be nice. By the way MaskedMan´s save tv idea was really good!
Oh and I have one question, I cant submit stuff related to other games, even if they are related to Mother at the same time (i.e Mario with earthbound sprites)
May 9th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
sorry for the double post, they already answered my question sorry (I dont know ow to edit my comments)
May 9th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
How long after Mother 2 does this take place? I’m just wondering if Chase can meet up with an adult Ness or something?
May 10th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
I’m also wondering that. Another interesting thing to know would be weather this is before or after mother 3′s “the end?”. Maybe some vague hints…?
New post coming soon…
May 11th, 2010 at 12:12 am
I can’t give out hints or answers about that.
However, I can tell you an update is around the corner.
May 11th, 2010 at 7:09 am
Ok,but i’m also kind of exited about the new update. Also wondering if there could be any “in-game” hints at any part of the mother series?
May 11th, 2010 at 10:09 am
It you mean references to the other games, then yes there certainly will be. Wouldn’t be much of a Mother game without any connection to the other games!
May 11th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
awesome, and your right. About half of the humor in the mother series are based on hilarious references to other games (not just including the mother series) and breaking the forth wall. It should be fun.
May 11th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
It would also be awesome if there was a dream sequence or something where Chase, Ness, and Lucas team up for a few battles.
May 11th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Breaking the fourth wall, I love when that happens
May 11th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
So when are you going to relase the game?
May 12th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
They dont know yet, they will let us know when they are certain.
By the way resizing didnt work, still failed submition (me thinks)
May 12th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
@fadangfox: you can adjust the size on photobucket (if that’s what ur using) after uploading. Try that out. If it doesn’t, I’m out of ideas.
May 12th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
I just haven’t gotten around to approving things yet. :B It will tell you if the upload failed or not, and for what reason.
But as with the Solid Snake sprites, this doesn’t really have to do with Mother 4 aside from the similar graphic style. It might be better to submit this to a custom graphics or tile website? Though you might have to break it down into tiles for that. But ah well, it’s pretty neat nonetheless.
May 13th, 2010 at 6:49 am
hey the dave
may i ask
are u guys accutly working on the game
or are u waiting till you get enough ideas
srry im a bad speller
May 13th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Yeah, Im sorry about the solid snake thing, Im currently uploading my custom Non-EarthBound EarthBound stytled sprites on photobucket.
I resized it on imageshack, upload it and resize it to 1280×1040 and then donwload it again.
Then submitted it. But I think it didnt work.
May 13th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
@fandangox
No I got it, that’s what I was referring to in my last post.
@ness9090
Of course we’re actually working on this. We have it all planned out.
May 13th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
ah I see, so you got it.
Was it ok for submit?
lol sorry to ask so many times
May 13th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
The upload requirements were met, but the content didn’t have to do with this game so it was not approved.
May 14th, 2010 at 11:54 am
That doesnt make sence, then I shouldnt had been able to submit the drugstore, burgershop, and bakery which are related to EarthBound.
O.o well sorry anyway.
May 14th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Yeah the submission guidelines weren’t as tight when you submitted them in January. We had a number of submissions come through that weren’t really related to the game sometime around the end of January that made us rethink our guidelines. I apologize for any confusion.
May 15th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Is ok, I should had read the guidelines, I assumed they didnt change. Sorry
May 17th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
the dave
thanks for telling me that
when its released
were do u download it
here?
and what whould u say uve done in percentage
like as an estimate?
ur gonna be an earthbound hero when this is released
May 17th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Your questions have already been answered here: The FAQs
May 17th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Just a minor error I’d like to point out. In the FAQs, in the GAME section, the following is written:
‘However, the game WITH be a standalone program- no emulators are necessary.’
Nothing big but I assume that should be ‘ will’ or something along those lines.
PS Can’t wait for next newsflash/update!
May 17th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Oh haha, yeah that should be will not with. That’s an example of my pro typing skills right there. I’ll patch that right up.
May 25th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Where is our update?
May 25th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Last time I heard it was around the corner.
This is a circular building though
May 25th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
The corner is several blocks down. I can barely see it with all this traffic in front of me.
In other words, it’s taking longer than expected. We’ll keep on trucking though. (Pun fully intended.)
May 28th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Ha ha ha. good one. Just checked things today. (=^). New post coming soon.
(=^D. from me. More pk sock blasting.