Nice work on getting the 100 files Darkone and thanks for the hard work you putting in to the site.one thing I would suggest,do you think it's worth having a news thread for general stuff like release date ect as I see there a new retail release of Eve next month?.

The site is fine and the people here also. Just do not let it fade away.

I thought that is what the 'General Space Sim Chat' area was for. Should I re-label it to something else or add a new area called Space Sim Scene News or something like that?

Feedback is more than welcomed trying to make this a site where people chat about the best game gender in the world 🙂 So anything I can do to make conversation happen the better it is for everyone else. So keep it coming..

Working on the files I want to add quite a few more I wanted to go on a Demo hunt for space sims and start to get them uploaded or least the most popular ones that is. I have plenty of HD space for the site like 200+ GB its the bandwidth which I can control if needed but so far not an issue.

It's getting more people here that will be my issue. Since the site is new it will take some time for people to notice it so I just hope word of mouth helps the site out because got too many kids (5 of them) to spend money on advertising 🙂 But I plan on keeping this running as long as I possibly can. Just for the simple fact I hate trying to find a patch or some mod that I used to play a few years back and cannot locate it. I am hoping I can create a site that can be an answer to that problem and also be a nice spot to discuss all the space games out there. Until I went looking I never knew there was so many

Ah I see now, must remember to read things properly 😀

What about a gallery? Is this possible?

I am looking at a gallery mod for the website but need to wait until it is more stable and I also want to build more content and install the next version of the portal and phpbb3 before I add that because once I do the next version I don't want to change the site for sometime if I can help it.

Any plans for a game review database in the future?.

Hmmm that is a good idea Pinback. I can go about this a few ways. Let me know what you think of the ways. I know I am limited on what I can do because of my php experience and there isn't a direct mod for a reviewing system that I have found.

But here are a few ways I could implement it:

1. Install the knowledge base mode and make a section for reviews - (I would probably have to create a knowledge base group and allow permissions etc... so could be a control issue with people with edit permissions)

2. Make a reviews forum - (This is the easiest to implement)

3. Create a separate html style page and link to or embed all reviews on to that page/multiple pages. - (Not to hard to do but then users would have to submit and I would have to transfer the code)

4. Install MediaWiki ( http://www.mediawiki.org ) and create a review area on the wiki since I have hopes to create a wiki later to cover the history of all the space sim games this would be something I will be doing anyway. (Some complexity but want to do it anyway)

Any other ideas to implement?

Thanks for the opinions and keep them coming.

-D1-

I was thinking alone the lines of the underdogs or moby games sits where you have a description of the game,a box shots.credits,released date,formats it was for,any know links and as Solnicaris suggested some screen shots.

I don't know anything about web design,but Could it be done as a standard template?.sort of fill in the blanks.them a review forum would be the way to go with it,as it would allow user to add comments/links ect.

I just setup the Wiki yesterday on my day off and now i need to figure out how to use it 🙂 But I wanted to be able to have to categories:

1) Game Reviews (self explanatory)

2) Game knowledge library (used to gather info on all space games published... what a feat that will be)

Since I have never configured or used a wiki I have a bit of a learning curve on this and will probably take me at least 1-2wks to figure out the ins/outs of the software. So if there is anyone that has experience with MediaWiki software please let me know.

-D1-

Wiki is up and looking for feedback on it before we start the editing 🙂

I see you now have a few Q&A how about putting them all in one section with a link to the

game threads.Make sure you lock it as well.

Oh and how about a new film poll Alien is 30 years old this year,so best of the four Alien films 😀

I will definitely make a post on the Alien movies probably tonight or tomorrow. I will do it all up with clips and info etc... I didn't know it was the 30th anniversary? Were getting old Pinback, I remember watching this when it came out on Betamax format. For the youngsters out there that was before VHS 🙂

On the Q&A section that is a good idea and will definitely write that down. I was going to do a small site upgrade very shortly which will entail a bit of work so I will do it then. I will discuss this upgrade in another thread there will be a lot of things I will be adding to the site. Hopefully very soon because I am taking next week off.

A Section or Group for Books and maybe Short Stories would be nice.

Venor Vinge, Orson Scot Card, Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson etc... All nice reads, Especially Vinge

Hi Darkone

I think your doing an excellent job. Yes there are download niggles for some people (like me) but overall your site is still a great resource for space related games, keep up the good work! 😀 I saw the underdogs mentioned too, sadly missed 😥

I like the site, and enjoy reading posts and jumping into conversations. One thought I have been having, is that the site seems a little spread out. Is too much being covered? It is called Space Sim Central, but there are plenty of games that don't fit that definition. And what is that definition?

Anyways, just some thoughts. It is always good to have a large, broadly defined community, but focus can also be good. I know not which is better.

There is a thread about that some where

And there is a new Underdogs site.

http://www.homeoftheunderdogs.net/

Nice observation Cambragol.

I guess that is $1,000,000 question what really is a space sim? People can see this in many ways, it could be a 3D newton physics style game or a literal simulation of space flight. Or it could actually be any game is a simulation of space because we really don't have any experience up their so everything is a simulation.

For example here are some definitions of a simulation:

Now the way I could interpret #2 is whenever I play any space game I am in the act of pretending it is real ie: simulation 🙂

But to get back to the other comment about spreading out the content. I have wondered that myself. But with SSC being so young in terms of being on the web. I'm trying to capture more people and more thoughts to get the community going and then I will be able to observe what is being talked about most and rank things appropriately and then drop things that aren't really conversational pieces for the community.

Plus I know I cause a lot of work for myself because I really do want to make SSC a place that if you are looking for a game you can find it or some of the knowledgeable people here can steer them in the right direction. For me it's building the knowledge around all of these games that will engage people and want them to participate. Trust me if there is anyone that wants to not have to cover so much its me 🙂 I do a lot of research and scouring of the web to find content.

It is really nice to see people lending a hand in finding projects and giving opinions and that's really all I'm looking for. Because I want to play some games to 😆 But this is also a passion so I have fun at the same time getting those Q&A's and finding the latest open source project etc.

The biggest thing I have enjoyed is actually getting developers here and talking with the community about their games and some are regular visitors like Farcodev and C0mas. I do want to do some consolidation of some forums and I will look into that when I do the site update soon, least make the list smaller so it is easier to navigate.

Oh, almost forgot:

Done.

I will make a thread for this just trying to figure out where to put it? Thinking under the general space chat.

Thanks everyone for the support and comments I do take it all in and try to make SSC better for the community.

-D1-

Great! Thanks for that Pinback 😉

I not read anything by Venor Vinge or heard of him.maybe just start a thread in the General Chat

section,recommended books. ❓

As you mentioned a layout change in the other thread D1,I Thought I would throw in a few suggestion for the look of the site,don't know if any of this feasible. ❓

1 Change the background colour from white/blue grey to black with white lettering,don't know what any one else thinks about this but for some reason I think the white/grey background does not look right for a sci-fi site.

2 A Hal like red eye (from 2001)to indicate whos online instead of the band.

3 Some sort of coloured percentage bar for the game which are in development so as you can see how far along they are.

I was going to put up a test site real soon and i will play with some different styles i can find for phpbb. i like the darker styles myself. So when I get this up I will install a few styles and take some screenshots and let the community vote on them 🙂

Hmm this might be doable depending on the style that is chosen and if I can find a good image to reflect Hal9000. We can come back to this one once we choose a style.

Now this would be great but have no clue on how to get that info to begin with. I would need developer feedback on this. Or maybe a simple addition to the forum description with Status: <Released>, <Under Development>, <Alpha>, <Beta>, etc...

The above is doable and pretty easy to implement on the forum descriptions. On individual topics that would be tougher and would need to be added manually to the post on ever new addition.

----

I was going to work on posting some links in the forum descriptions back to the perspective gallery and I will add something for release status as well and people can tell me what they think.

Look under the 'Standalone Space Sims' category in the forums and see how ya like Pinback, still need to finish up.

That diffently works,just maybe a slightly bolder typeface to make it stand out a bit more.