The Land of Ennui

[Glenugie]

Not exactly sure I'd mark it as in progress, but it's definitely not finished. Anyway, a lot of you have helped me out with problems when I was writing this game, so I felt it was only fair now that I've moved into open beta to let you all have a look at it

http://www.cauvin.co.uk/

It's a text based RPG (Inspiration coming from KoL if anyone has played that) with a small amount in it for now, but more content and features are being added frequently.

Anyway, I don't really know what else to say, other than to check it out if you want to, and feel free to leave me some feedback

~Glenugie~

*Note: Some of the current content is still being properly balanced, so it isn't completely streamlined yet*

[Marek]

Heh, well my first fight was certainly entertaining:

You are fighting a Tree Snail

Your Kung Fu Fists fly out of your hands and lands on your big toe
You lose 1 HP
The monster missed. How embarassing

You lost the fight!

Looks like there's lots of content, I'm going to explore some more.

[Glenugie]

Basic anatomy doesn't always apply

[Chris]

WoW! Someone brave to make a 100% content driven game Now you will spend the rest of your life making new content for this game day after day

As for feedback, it is hard to tell. Your intentions confuses me. Why did you make this that way? On the one hand it is very well coded and feature rich, on the other it is stylised the way that is will be always seen as an inferior and cheap copy of KoL no matter what you do. You have not attemted to fix any problems of KoL (the most strange design choice is why you made is so heavily themed with drugs and alcohol, while you knew that KoL had already bad reputation because of this?) and also added some problems not present in Kol (inconsisting gfx, icon based menu).

It is hard to give feedback without knowing target audience and overall plans for this game (because some of the above might be seen as good or bad depending on situation). Is it a game for general public? Or for a specific subset of harddie fans of KoL? Or for your friends that like this theme?

[Glenugie]

WoW! Someone brave to make a 100% content driven game Now you will spend the rest of your life making new content for this game day after day

As for feedback, it is hard to tell. Your intentions confuses me. Why did you make this that way? On the one hand it is very well coded and feature rich, on the other it is stylised the way that is will be always seen as an inferior and cheap copy of KoL no matter what you do. You have not attemted to fix any problems of KoL (the most strange design choice is why you made is so heavily themed with drugs and alcohol, while you knew that KoL had already bad reputation because of this?) and also added some problems not present in Kol (inconsisting gfx, icon based menu).

It is hard to give feedback without knowing target audience and overall plans for this game (because some of the above might be seen as good or bad depending on situation). Is it a game for general public? Or for a specific subset of harddie fans of KoL? Or for your friends that like this theme?

I actually wasn't aware of KoL's bad reputation over Drugs/Alcohol references, I'll consider changing that a little then.

I'm aware, unfortunately, that I'll now never get a free moment again Although that might be lessened by the fact that it's mostly targeting people I know (although some of it would be directed to the general public).

I had a feeling that it might always be in the shadow of KoL, but I can live with that, it's my first BBG, and it was partly designed for my own enjoyment. I wouldn't even know where to begin with plans for this game, they are all quite varied

At any rate, thanks for the feedback, I'll take it on board for when I plan the next things for it

~Glenugie~

[Forgotten]

Just a couple things I noticed from registering/logining...

Maybe it's just me, but when sites send me an email to confirm my email address, it annoys me....I usually dont even bother confirming it. I understand why you might wanna do this, to keep bots/multi's from registering, but it doesn't work really....A person could have thousands of email address thanks to yahoo,hotmail,etc. And captcha would be a less annoying solution to the bot problem.

The graphical menu bugged me....I was not really looking forward to having to rely on that to navigate the site. If it were me, I would keep the location graphics, but change the rest.

But those are just my personal opinions...

[Sagefire135]

actually...you wouldn't need more than 1 email address to have a billion accounts (if i understand it correctly). any observant person will notice that the link in the confermation email is just conferm.php?email=whatever email you used

So you can just spam 1@yahoo.com, 2@, 3@, 4@, ... as many times as you want and you can just throw that email into the confirm link

need to email a unique code so people cant do that.

[Glenugie]

Fortunately I think using the email in a direct link wouldn't be a problem, before sending the e-mail it runs a check to make sure that the e-mail address isn't already in the database, and since the activation only changes a value in the database for status. A person would have to run through the register form with each e-mail address they'd want to use. At any rate, I'll consider implementing captcha

[Forgotten]

I think what he was trying to say was that someone could register with  blah1@yahoo.com, blah2@yahoo.com, blah3@yahoo.com, blah4@yahoo.com. Then take your link, conferm.php?email= and just change the email= part to each of the fake address. Which would, if I understand what you've said, change the status value in the db. Which defeats the purpose of requiring a player to confirm their email in the first place.

And if someone really wanted to create alot of multi accounts, all they would have to do is save the form data and change the email address each time. Would take all of 2 seconds to re-register another account.

Thats just something to consider...

[Glenugie]

Ah, that seems like more of a problem. I'll look into a solution. Thanks for taking the time to explain

[Harkins]

The solution is to send them a token. You don't even have to store one, you can make it from their email address. Just md5sum "some secret text you never share" + email_address. You can generate it when you send the link and, when someone visits your confirm.php?email=user@example.com&token=c50c8e69851959785d47048dfb61f133 you do the md5sum again to see if it's accurate.

It doesn't stop automated signup, but it's a cheap way to make it a bit harder.

[Glenugie]

Alright, thanks! I'll implement it tomorrow

[Chris]

I'll consider changing that a little then.

"A little" almost never works. Go all the way, either this direction or that By compromising you will make everyone unhappy. People will hate your game, no matter what kind of game you make. The thing is to focus on something, so some will love it

I wouldn't even know where to begin with plans for this game, they are all quite varied

Well, no one can help you with this... But I strongly suggest to start with this, this alone is more important that all the feedback you will ever get from all forums.

[Glenugie]

Sorry to necromance an old thread, but I felt it was better than making a new one. I've officially moved Ennui back into closed beta to tackle the number of major errors in the game, and to rethink the direction in which I am taking it. We won't be accepting any new accounts, but any accounts made prior to January 22nd 2010 will still be able to login. Hopefully when we move back into open beta gain we'll have a good deal less bugs and a more definite set ouf content and systems