Fwurg

[Brend]

The past few days I've been working with the CHAP Links Library's timeline to get it into the correct style, and to get an idea of what I can do with it.

Go have a sneak preview at the FWURG Jedi Thread timeline (give it a moment, it uses the actual forum data so it might take a moment to load the data from the FWURG server). The blue bar to the right is the current time, if you zoom in enough (with the scroll wheel), you can see it moving. You can select the threads (be careful not to click the link), but other than turning the selected thread yellow, this doesn't do anything yet.


I'm looking in to the best way to integrate this timeline thingy into the current site; right now, I'm leaning toward creating two specific views: a storyline view, and a historical view. Both will be backed by data from the wiki, and I think they will start out as yet another two 'tools'.

(Off-topic: we might need a better way to integrate some of these 'tools'; the map isn't really a tool it's just another way of viewing the information on the wiki, just like the timelines will be. The Player Overview isn't really a tool either, as it just displays some info, and the 'Followed' isn't a tool either... They clutter op the tools page, and it's not logical to have them there. I must deliberate on this.)

[Brend]

Warning: Due to a bug in the timeline library, zooming out very far will crash Firefox! (in particular: everything breaks down when the year 0 comes in view).

I have submitted this bug to the author of the library, and will continue working on the timelines once the bug's been resolved.

[Mercury]

The timeline looks pretty cool! Can we put in our own scale, such as turns instead of just dates?

[Brend]

I have been working on that, but I discovered two bugs while doing so. They have been reported (see https://github.com/almende/chap-links-library/issues/19 and https://github.com/almende/chap-links-library/issues/54). For now I am focussing on other things while they sort it out. If they won't, I'll look into it during my christmas holidays...

On topic: while not documented, it is possible to replace their step generator with your own, and I shortly had a turns scale going. However, because of the dynamic adjustments of the scale (it goes up to 500-year steps ^_^) it is difficult to maintain a useful indication of turns... The concept of a 'turn' only makes sense at the monthly and daily scales in my opinion.

[Mercury]

Perhaps we need two separate timelines. One historical and one current. This would resolve a lot of issues, right?

[Brend]

That was indeed the plan.

As we determined to use 'real life' dates, we shouldn't worry about the scales too much I think. It will sort itself out. I could try and inset the 'Turn' scale between the monthly and daily level of detail; that would allow smooth zooming to the required scale in all cases?

(PS. As already said, I'm going to continue work on this once I know hwo the bugs will be handled -- I see no reason to waste time fixing the bugs if I can use someone else's paid time for this ^_^)

[Elmer]

I agree to separate the 'large scale' and 'turn scale' time-line. One major issue in my opinion when you keep them combined, is the economical growth scale. For example, with the current population growth, my faction would be exisisting of a few people 3000 years ago. For factions like the Veolian Commonwealth would this be even more stupid, as they are reproducing like there is no tomorrow. Also, the timeline would then be something like:

----------------3000 year nothing-----------------------------------|2 years Sudden and enormous growth

I don't think the way we handle the economy now is bad, because to make it fun, you need some impact growth, but it doesn't make sense when compared to the jedi and politics time scale.

[Mercury]

On the large scale of things, remember that the current galaxy's conditions are very different than they were. With large scale piracy, intergalactic trade was impossible, severely limiting economic output. Low economic output means low population growth and things like periods of famine. Even an advanced species would limit its population growth if its economy cannot sustain that growth.

In short, since conditions changed, you cannot apply the current game-rules backwards in time too much.