RogueBasin talk:Community Portal

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Can we add a link to this talk page on the main roguebasin navigation bar?

Or otherwise add a page expressly for the discussion of roguebasin. The BBS at http://peltkore.net/~szdev/boards gets no traffic. Best to keep discussion here.

Also, lots of updates recently! Very exciting, good work guys :-) -- User:Shedletsky

I agree, this is a good page for discussion. Perhaps:

The RogueBasin is a central knowledge-base for everything related to the Roguelike genre, as well as a detailed directory of Roguelike games. You can help! Go to the Community Portal Talk page to participate in the latest discussion.

or something similar. (The bold would become a link if pasted into the main page.)

Also, would you mind if I moved this new section towards the bottom? Chronological is usually the standard, and I had a bit of trouble noticing it here at the top :) [[User:M|–M^T]] 06:46, 20 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Image support

I thought it would be a good idea to start a RL Dev section where people could peruse and download free RL media resources, like tiles and sound files. I went ahead and created the catagory, then realized that I don't know how to post images to RogueBasin. I haven't noticed any others here, so maybe they are disabled?

My original plan was the upload the NetHack and Angband tilesets I have, along with a number of individual tiles I drew for my own game. Hopefully the repository would grow over time, so if you were writing a graphical RL and wanted a tile of X, you could just come get one.

I do not think RogueBasin should endeavour to host free media. I think it would be more effective it it just linked to the free media that does exist already. Two such links to start things off: http://www.reinerstileset.4players.de:1059/englisch.htm, and http://rltiles.sourceforge.net/. Note that the cannonical Angband tiles, the Adam Bolt set, are in limbo as far as permission is concerned as the author has disappeared without clarifying the intent. --JeffLait 05:39, 10 Sep 2005 (CEST)

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File upload is in fact disabled : http://roguebasin.t-o-m-e.net/index.php/Special:Upload

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Who can change this? Why isn't it enabled? If it's the cost of storage space/bandwidth I can host 50 megs (can a wiki's storage system be distributed across domains like that?) --User:John Shedletsky

More articles

There are a lot of RL dev articles at: http://roguelikedevelopment.org/

Perhaps we should email the original authors to get permission to replicate them here. If the above site were to disappear from the internet, all those articles would be lost. John Shedletsky

Place to discuss Rogue Basin

It would be nice to have a place where we could talk about this site, discuss what you be done, etc. Any suggestions how it could be named? - Poulpy 03:29, 22 May 2005 (CEST)

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Perhaps we could name it 'The roguebasin forum'? :p

see http://peltkore.net/~szdev/boards --Slash 22:42, 25 Aug 2005 (CEST)

Wikipedia Merge

I strongly disagree with the idea of merging with Wikipedia. RogueBasin is much more than an encyclopedia. I suggest that this item gets removed from the TO-DO list --Copx 13:52, 13 Jul 2005 (CEST)

Not to mention that the WikiPedia folks would probably remove it, as we are not really an encyclopedia and not within the scope of WikiPedia's concerns (preserving human knowledge ect ect) John Shedletsky

Reviews removal

I think we should remove the reviews entirely. --JeffLait 21:39, 25 Aug 2005 (CEST)

Why is everyone so into removing things from RogueBasin? Why not just let it grow naturally to address the interests of those who spend the time to edit it? John Shedletsky

I, for one, think that the removal of the spam was a good thing. Even if the spammers had spent the time to edit it. Pruning is an important part of developing this site in a healthy direction. I want this to be a useful resource, not a collection of half-implemented things. --JeffLait 16:54, 6 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Categories done wrong

I think the Categories page is done wrong. We have here roguelikes categorized by development state, alphabetically, by year, by theme, by evolutionary branch, and by special categories. All of these are useful, but the problem is that they are not correlated, i.e. not every roguelike appears in all lists it should. I think a much better solution would be a single table which lists all this information for each roguelike. (It should be possible to create a table somehow, right? Wikipedia has some tables.) I don't know much about wikis, but maybe it would be also possible to create a script that would e.g. sort the table according to one of properties. --R 19:47, 4 Sep 2005 (CEST)

I think the right answer is a more consistent use of the Category tag. That seems to auto-generate the relevant categories, rather than having to edit the master list every time. For example, POWDER has the Stable Game tag so shows up under Stable Games without the need to edit the list of the Stable Games and keep it alphabetical, etc. Thus, I'd rather see the existing Categories be rolled into that. For example, why do we have a master list of Fantasy, Sci-Fi, as *well* as a Futuristic Roguelike category? --JeffLait 16:50, 6 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Conventions

I've added a RogueBasin:Conventions page to help us avoid any future confusion. [[User:M|–M^T]] 07:09, 20 Sep 2005 (CEST)

So.... Image Support.

I wants it! Is there a reason why it is disabled?

Look how good the front page of http://gpwiki.org looks. RogueBasin could use a similar facelift. It would also be useful for screen shots of games, illustrations in articles, ect ect ect...

What information is critical in describing a roguelike?

I've recently added a "gameinfo" template. The following code:

{{gameinfo| name = NetHack
|developer = [[The NetHack Dev Team]]
|released = 1987
|updated = ? 2003
|status = [[Stable]] 3.4.3
|language = [[C]]
|platforms = Amiga, Atari, Linux, Mac, Msdos, OS/2, Windows, Windows CE
|genre = [[Fantasy]]
|site = http://www.nethack.org/
|licensing = open source
|interface = [[Graphical tiles]], [[ASCII]], Keyboard, limited mouse
}}

NetHack
Developer	The NetHack Dev Team
Theme	{{{theme}}}
Influences	{{{influences}}}
Status	Stable 3.4.3
Released	1987
Updated	? 2003
Licensing	open source
P. Language	C
Platforms	Amiga, Atari, Linux, Mac, Msdos, OS/2, Windows, Windows CE
Interface	Graphical tiles, ASCII, Keyboard, limited mouse
Game Length	{{{length}}}
Official site of NetHack

...will produce what is on the right.

What other important information should be included, and is something on the right unneccisary? Perhaps a field for the official website, descendants, and antecedent/influences/"based on"/etc? [[User:M|–M^T]] 03:16, 21 Sep 2005 (CEST)

I suggest three additional fields: Link to Project Homepage, Is source code available (Y/N), and type of graphics (ASCII, tiles, 3d, 5d, haptic interface only, ect). I'm not entirely sure that the "Features" field should be in there - that seems better addressed in the actual project entry, but it's not a big deal. - Shedletsky

Added them as licensing, interface, and site. How's that? [[User:M|–M^T]] 04:41, 21 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Yeah that's a good way to put it. [[User:Shedletsky|–John Shedletsky^Talk ]] 04:56, 21 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Should genre be removed? Apart from, say, fantasy and futuristic, there isn't much there. [[User:M|–M^T]] 06:19, 21 Sep 2005 (CEST)

I'll be removing the genre field due to non-informativeness. Any objections? [[User:M|–M^T]] 03:34, 22 Sep 2005 (CEST)

I think we should separate two types of availability. One is licensing/availability of source code. The other is licensing/availability of binaries. --JeffLait 03:14, 22 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Hmm, I see what you're getting at. I hadn't even thought of commercial roguelikes. Is there a way to combine the two? For example, a game that is open source (which can be any of the open source licenses) is almost always free. And a commercial game is almost always closed source. License will refer only to the current version's license. Any rare exceptions can be, well, crammed together into something like "open source, postcardware". Or am I not thinking of something? [[User:M|–M^T]] 03:34, 22 Sep 2005 (CEST)

I can't think of any RL that has different licensing terms for the binary vs. source code. [[User:Shedletsky|–John Shedletsky^Talk ]] 03:37, 22 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Well, most in-development roguelikes have free binaries, but the source code, even when it's published, is not free to use.

What information is critical in describing a roguelike developer?

[...]maybe add a similar template for Roguelike Developers? --Kisielewicz 13:19, 21 Sep 2005 (CEST)

{{developerinfo}} should be alright? Apart from name and games made, what should be included? It should be alright if there isn't as much information as for a game. [[User:M|–M^T]] 15:58, 21 Sep 2005 (CEST)

My proposal:

• Nick
• Real Name
• Nationality
• Homepage
• Games made
• Projects
• Languages

--Kisielewicz 17:48, 21 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Kornel Kisielewicz
Alias	Anubis
Projects	{{{projects}}}
Games
Nationality	Polish
P. Languages	FreePascal
Official site of Kornel Kisielewicz

The difference between games made and projects is in the development stage, correct? I think we should combine the two, and make no distinction based on development status, at least in the infobox. Does that sound alright? For now, there's what is on the right [[User:M|–M^T]] 20:35, 21 Sep 2005 (CEST)

The difference is simple -- if there is a playable game it's considered a "Game". If it's a development snapshot, testing version, rumor, then it's a Project. In my case, DoomRL and DiabloRL would be a game, and Carceri and GenRogue would be a Project. Another example, Joseph Hewitt -- Games : GearHead, DeadCold, Dungeon Monkey, Projects: GearHead 2. In my case, the alias is Anubis, for I posted under it for a long time ;-D --Kisielewicz 03:45, 22 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Opinions, in or out?

I'm currently writing up something for Guild, and I'm finding it a bit of a pain to withhold suggestions or opinions. It would be really nice if we could set aside some sections for, say, suggestions or feedback, especially for games that are currently in the first stages of development. I don't think that their talk pages would be an appropriate place, since that seems more for editorial discussion... thoughts? [[User:M|–M^T]] 06:24, 21 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Hmm. Maybe it's something that should be put in reviews? I don't know. It'd be nice to be able to state which points of a game I found exciting or tedious right on there, and then if someone disagrees they can state that right there as well. [[User:M|–M^T]] 06:28, 21 Sep 2005 (CEST)

Maybe projects that want to solicit feedback should add a Feedback heading in the project entry itself, and people can edit that? [[User:Shedletsky|–John Shedletsky^Talk ]] 20:23, 21 Sep 2005 (CEST)

I think that's a good way to go, but I've never heard of a Roguelike project that was not soliciting feedback. Maybe if as long as we find a record of the author asking for feedback, such as a thread from rgrd, we can add a feedback section, find some actual feedback, and also add our own. [[User:M|–M^T]] 20:44, 21 Sep 2005 (CEST)

I dont think that is a good way to go... I see the individual game articles as some kind of "Game sheet" that stores the information about the game itself in order to create some kind of non structured database. A link to a feedback section would be nice to me. (For example, for "CastlevaniaRL" an article named "CastlevaniaRL: Feedback" where people can put their much appreciated feedback in a talkpagesque way). --Slash 19:09, 22 Sep 2005 (CEST)