Fwurg

[Veolian Commonwealth]

I have been thinking a lot about the user experience of the FWURG site. So far I came up with two major points:

Extreme slowdowns of the site
The site experiences serious slowdowns at seemingly random intervals.

This causes page load times to jump from ~300ms (not too fast, but acceptable) into the 2.0s. For me, two seconds of waiting for a page to load is just too long to browse around comfortably. At points the server took around the 300ms just to determine whether an image has changed since the last request (i.e., whether it should send a '304 Not Modified', or send the image data again).

As far as I could determine the issue is either one of bandwidth, or the server's processing power or disk I/O. I'm not sure how to fix this, but I know for a fact that the server can be reasonably fast, since it is at the time of writing.

Removal of the 'Intro' option from the menu
We have a bit of a problem with the current site, as we are trying to use it both attract new players and to serve experienced players.

New players are probably overwhelmed by the wealth of (mostly disorganized) information available, while experienced players want a lean and mean interface to focus on the important things (i.e., role play, managing economies). Partly because of this dichotomy (and partly due to not enough available time) the site does not offer an actual 'front page' that contains just those pieces of information that one wants.

I propose that we remove the 'Intro' option from the menu, as the current site is geared toward experienced users. Together with this change, we will use the root of the site (http://fwurg.xs4all.nl) as a landing page for new players, which will include an introduction like the one we have now, but updated (see the Intro Page issue).

The introduction page should do the work of actually introducing (and not only the very gimmicky star-wars style dramatic text scrolling we have now) and will contain links to player guides that are going to be added to the wiki. Of course, we should keep the gimmicky text, but an actual introduction will be needed as well.


Please use this opportunity to post your own insights or grievances about the current site!

[Mercury]

I am not sure what causes the slowdown of the site - however, if you could let me know the times that the slowdown occurs, I can check if it's the server bandwidth, as it might be the case that I'm to blame. The server is hosted on my own private internet connection - which means it has to share bandwidth with me. If the slowdown of the server coincides with times when I'm downloading things or the likes, then that would likely be the cause. If this is indeed the cause, I'll configure my router to give precedence to the Fwurg server, which should then alleviate the problem. However, if it is a disk I/O thing, I don't think I will be able to resolve it in the short term.

Regarding the second point, I think we have this in the works. We're restructuring the rules and writing guides, the new system builder (which I've been busy with the past few days) is slowly improving and I've worked out a flowchart to help new players decide what to make (it even includes an option in case you want to be active economically, but not politically or vice versa). That being said, I don't mind replacing the intro page.

[Veolian Commonwealth]

I'm not sure whether a flow-chart is the right way to present these choices to new players, but I'm interested in it anyway.

Can you show it to us? I'd like to help out with things, but some parts of the games development are rather obscure; mainly because everyone that wants to help just does their thing without the rest knowing what exactly that thing is. Stuff like this should be added to the dev: namespace, preferably as an issue, but we might make a distinct page purely for the creation of a guides: namespace? (This would help with reviewing each others work, which is especially important with guides for new users -- we ought to make sure that they are very readable, easy to understand and filled with eyecandy.)

[Mercury]

Apparently I don't have a flow chart editing software installed here, so have some ascii art!

Code: Select all

|------------|     |------------------------------------|         |--------------------------------------------|          |-------------------------------|
| START HERE | ->  | Do you want to engage in politics? | - No -> | Do you want to participate in the economy? | - Yes -> | [[Private Corporation Guide]] |
|------------|     |------------------------------------|         |--------------------------------------------|          |-------------------------------|
                                      |                                                         |                            |
                                     Yes                                                       No                            |
                                      |                                                         |                            |
                                      v                                                         |                            |
                   |-------------------------------------|         |-----------------------|    |                            |
                   | Do you want to join in the economy? | - No -> | [[Minor World Guide]] |    |                            |
                   |-------------------------------------|         |-----------------------|    |                            |
                                      |                                           |             |                            |
                                     Yes                                          |             |                            |
                                      |                                           |             |          |-----------------|
                                      v                                           v             v          v
                        |--------------------------|                           |-----------------------------|          |------------------|
                        | [[System Builder Guide]] | ------------------------> | Do you want to play a Jedi? | - Yes -> |  [[Jedi Guide]]  |
                        |     [[System Builder]]   |                           |-----------------------------|          | [[Jedi Builder]] |
                        |--------------------------|                                         |                          |------------------|
                                                                                            No                                    |
                                                                                             |                                    v
                                                                                             |                                |-------|
                                                                                             |------------------------------->| Done! |
                                                                                                                              |-------|