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[Sappho]

I'm not about to try. I already have too many projects to get everything done. But why does the project have to be so huge? And would it really be so unwieldy if it had been designed well from the start and coded by a dedicated group of people, instead of having random people just add pieces to it as they go?

And what cutting edge technology? Progress bars? Check boxes? Saving characters using a string of numbers? What exactly is all that technology being used for?

1. Each user needs a login. I have no idea what that entails, but almost every site on the internet has this in one form or another, so it can't be too cutting edge.
2. Each user's "home" page is a list of tasks divided by category. At the top of the page is the status bars and image of the player. Each profile has a little corner of the server that keeps track of HP, XP, Mana, and items. Again, nothing out of the ordinary yet.
3. When the user checks a box, the server gets a signal to update their values. (Actually, in reality it doesn't even do that. It only updates on the player's screen, until they player "syncs" their account by refreshing the page.) The user sees some boxes pop up and their status bars update. There's an X% chance of getting an item drop, which means another popup and profile update. Still nothing that hasn't been done on a million other web sites.
4. The user can buy and use equipment which changes the math a little. I'm retarded when it comes to math, but I know computers are pretty good at it, and they do it really fast. The changes aren't massive and the math itself is pretty basic. There is probably some multiplication involved, and some percentages. So far, nothing amazing.
5. The tavern is a chat room which is somehow LESS functional than the chat rooms I used in the 90s. They've had chat rooms and message boards pretty well down pat for over fifteen years. And yet somehow, they've managed to code a new kind of chat room / message board from scratch which doesn't refresh properly, where you can't easily scroll back to see old chat. They basically took the worst aspects of chat rooms and bulletin boards and mashed them together. Replace it with a simple board or chat room.
6. Guilds are basically private shitty chat rooms that don't notify you when they're updated. They have a list of a few members of the guild that cuts off with a "AND THEN SOME MORE PEOPLE, WANT TO KNOW WHO? TOO BAD" at the end of it. This should be replaced with a simple bar that says "Total Members: ##" that you can click to view the list of names. There's no point in seeing a few names if you can't see all of them.
7. Challenges are just more lists of tasks. They're templates. Click "add" and it copies all the tasks to your list. These tasks cannot be edited in any way unless you quit the challenge. Then they still stay on your list until you figure out the secret code to remove them.

It's just... It's just a mess. I don't see anything here that wasn't possible at least ten years ago. What on earth is cutting edge about it? Why is it that the rest of the internet seems to have figured out how to do all this without making me bash my head against the wall, but this site keeps saying things like "it's not possible"? Why is it that this is the ONLY "game" where the users all get together to defend and worship the fragile servers, instead of pushing the developers to get a decent server with all the money they're making?

Please, please, I'm begging you, explain to me what is cutting edge about this site and why it couldn't be reproduced easily by a focused team. Because I honestly don't see much functionality here at all. I see the illusion of functionality that hardly does a thing. I see a web site that I could make a (offline, admittedly) clone of using VisualBasic. It is all HIGHLY ILLOGICAL and it is hurting my brain, and making me regret buying gems.

[Skyrunner]

Why huge?

They seem to have put lots of effort into making it modular and expandable, so they use fancy technology like Jade for easy i18n (internationalization). Basically, jade lets the server use 'templates' to decide what text to send to the client. For example, a template for a popup might say "write X in Y style" where X is some data provided (eg, gold earned) plus text ("You earned " + X + "gold"). It also has aliases for all strings because that lets them i18n the app: instead of writing "You earned", they would put env.text('earnMessage') and somewhere in the annals of the code there is a folder en/ with text 'earnMessage' = "You earned <% number> gold!". Somewhere else there is 'earnMessage' = "<% number> 골드를 획득하셨습니다!" under folder kr/. And so on.

They also use Angular to make the site modular. Each popup is made so they're reusable in different contexts and stuff.

They use a 'buzz-tech' (like buzzword but for technology) called MongoDB which is a No-sql type database. It actually is known to be fairly slow and have many problems (such as data storage not actually being safe) but every hipster uses it! O_o


Their server uses Node.js, which uses Javascript to do server stuff! It automatically updates when a file is changed by using grunt.


1. Logins are actually pretty hard to do. I imagine they use a login library, which requires a bunch of code.

2. The whole dividing thing is done modularly and i18n-able. O_O The code for the status bar isn't actually -very- complex... just unfamiliar to me.

3. The X% chance of item drops has to be handled server-side, which causes complexity. Eg, send signal to get item -> wait for signal to be recieved -> get item back.

4. Buying and using equipment is the same--send signal for purchase, send signal for confirm, wait, sync up...

5. The tavern is actually pretty bad. I don't know why--I think it's because they wanted a system that supports Markdown. By pure functionality, an IRC chatroom with logs displayed on connection would probably be better. That also sounds a tad complex though, and it doesn't support pretty printing like Markdown.

6. I have no excuses to make on their behalf for this one. hawhaw

7. Same.


it's cutting edge because they use cutting edge technology. Angular, Node.js, grunt, Stylus, jade, MongoDB... all of the above are 'hot' technologies in web(app) development right now, from what I've seen. Then again, there's already more hip technologies like Go servers, Haskell servers, and... stuff. Cutting edge doesn't equal functional! My own web app (which barely has server state, mind you) uses relatively new technologies and still is kinda hard to use. >__>

However, I'm not saying that it can't be reproduced by a focused team. There is practically nothing you can't copy with enough money, time, and talent. \o/ Heck, I bet you could reverse engineer Intel's tiny nanometer-width chips with enough M/T/T.


Anyways, this has piqued my interest (it sounds like an interesting project to do--something similar to HabitRPG) and I would totally attempt to do it (if ugly and hacky), except I have to write college apps soon :C Not sure I'd have time, plus I need to wrap up my DNA visualization first.

Also, keep in mind that HabitRPG has been 2 years in development. It takes a lot of time to make functional webapps. And one final note, HabitRPG has a lot of users. That probably messes up their plans a bit.

Edit: reading up on Angular, it does seem extremely cool. Hmm.

[Sappho]

Maybe instead of trying to use all the latest technologies and spending a lot of effort trying to recruit more members on an already overloaded server, they should try to make the site functional and get the server strong enough that it can handle the users it already has without having to cut basic features like viewing all the members of a guild...

Sorry, I realize I've been ranting all morning about this and it's not very constructive. It just drives me nuts when great ideas are poorly executed. Organizing, planning, and designing things to be functional and efficient (and communicating between people and groups of people with different knowledge, interests, needs, and limitations) is one of my biggest skills, and I have to remind myself that such things don't come easily to everyone (just as basic motor skills don't come easily to me!), but it just gets under my skin. My tai chi teacher redid the school's web site about a year ago and he messed it all up using shiny effects and ugly templates, and when I tried to give him suggestions (careful to be polite and friendly!) along with explanations as to why the changes I suggested would improve the site (and help him get more students), he simply ignored me and left the site as it was. Now I hate looking at that site so much, I slowly stopped attending classes (because you have to dig through the badly-organized site to find the dates and locations for each lesson, info that used to be immediately viewable on the front page). I haven't gone in a very long time. It sounds like a stupid reason, but for me, it really is that important. It's like an allergy. I get all upset when I see it.

Now the same thing is happening with HabitRPG. At its core, it's an amazingly useful tool. The idea itself is absolutely brilliant. But every little flaw I find makes me want to pull away from the site more and more. If I thought they were really working on making everything work better, or were taking my feedback seriously, I'd feel better, but every comment I make is brushed away with either "all hail the shitty servers!" or "fix it yourself!"

I think if I had the coding skills, I wouldn't even be interested in working on their site. I'd rather make my own from scratch, using tools that actually work rather than focusing on what's newest and flashiest.

I would really like to work with a development team sometime, on a game or piece of software. I know there's basically zero chance of that ever happening since I don't have the coding skill, but if I could just work with a team, talk to them all, get their needs and their limitations, and work together, it would be perfect. And along the way I'd probably learn to code. I had one friend years ago who was a programmer and who promised to do precisely that with me, working together on a project and helping me understand code along the way, but then he disappeared. : (

[Tiruin]

I suppose I didn't think about that. The Easy Circuit is light enough that you could do it every day, but you should take a couple rest days a week. I don't know how to model that without telling everyone to take the same days off, though.

I'm taking it at every couple of days at least ._.
What I didn't notice are very pertinent details like time for the 'habit' or when, where and several missing notes about the Gauntlet

*looks at Sappho's post at the top of this 15 post per page, page*
...I agree wholeheartedly.

[Jopax]

Three days without internet and my HP has dropped to 2 :C

I really need to level up fast to get access to those damn health pots. But I still need 21 XP :C

[Skyrunner]

You can go to the tavern and pause your daily habits, I think.

[Tiruin]

You can go to the inn in the nearby city and pause your daily habits.

Fixed that for ya
Because the tavern got burnt down. :<
^{By people missing their dailies no less :p
And by that, I mean the unfrozen ones.}

[Supercharazad]

I'm noticing that as I continue clearing my dailies every day, the rewards are getting smaller and smaller. I used to be getting something like 1g 20s for doing one, but now that I'm at a 7-day streak I'm only getting like 90s.

[Sappho]

Hm... Dailies should award you more per day, if you have a streak going. Habits, on the other hand, award you less the more often you do them (apparently to encourage you to do the more difficult ones, which give you bigger rewards).

I'll have to keep closer track of my dailies and see what rewards I get for the next few days. Hmmmm......

[Supercharazad]

There's the streak bonus, which I'm getting, but it seems to be increasing more slowly than the main reward decreases.

[MaximumZero]

I canned the dailies in the Gauntlet. I want to make sure that people are challenged, but you can't workout every day. It's not good for your body.

[hops]

Why not put the dailies to repeat on Monday/other arbitrary days?
That ensures that people have to exercise at least once a week without having to exercise every day.

[Sappho]

Why not put the dailies to repeat on Monday/other arbitrary days?
That ensures that people have to exercise at least once a week without having to exercise every day.

Yeah, but different people might prefer different days, and they can't be changed once set. I think people can probably make their own dailies if they want.

However, MaximumZero, I still see the dailies on the challenge list. Are you sure you saved after removing them? Or it might be bugged...

I'll sign up once the dailies have been removed.

[MaximumZero]

I'm having some issues removing the dailies, apparently. My phone outright refuses to delete anything.

[Sappho]

Okay, everyone, I've finished the quest I started before we made the B12 party, and we can now start a new quest together. Before I start it, is there anyone else who wants to be a part of the Bay12 party? This is not the same as the guild -- if you want to join, you have to send me your user ID (look the in social>party screen to see it) and I'll add you. The quest is to vanquish Trapper Santa. This should be interesting...