Rpg-D: Need Your Help With A Custom Roleplay Software

You've all seen and encountered those rare few who build a custom software solution instead of grabbing PB, IBP, PHPBB, etc out of the box. Just like other sites, it has its ups and downs in activity, and eventually the software is completely forgotten when the site dies.

What if that custom software didn't have to be forgotten but was instead made available to the roleplay community? Here's your opportunity,

This person, the creator of www.rpgfix.com, has a board http://shadowlack.com and says:

So, RPG-D, this is an opportunity for you!
What features of shadow lack do you like?
Which might you like to see?

Don't feel like registering to view the board?

Code: Select

username: testaccount password: zwmrcy

I'm having a look around but dark skins hurt my eyes so I've only been skimming... but is there a feature list somewhere?

I'm sure there are more but...
I'll use (@) for things that are completely automatic and update by themselves, no admin work required

Okakai & most-recent gallery (@)
Real-time consensus that makes pretty charts (@)
Character slots (@)
Character creation (@)
"quiz" to enter roleplay (@) (eg, make sure you read the rules)
Linked automatic player -> characters (this is different from subaccounts, as subaccounts generally have no account for the OOC player - and means no more "who-plays-who" lists) (@)
# traits / max traits counter during character creation (@)
Account-linked, custom chat (this isn't cbox)
Forums automatically distinguish IC from OOC and use the proper account (@)
Thread options like AW/P, timestamping, and "which character to post as?"
Automatically awarded achievements (@)
Event notifications (@)
Most-posts-contest (@) (completely automatically run!!!)
Birthday present/surprise (@)

... and more...

Honestly, that does seem really cool. Is the forum fully featured? Like, sub boards and such or just one level? I think as it goes on the 'D people are going to care most of all about the features the forums support, as we tend to by a large be that kind of roleplayer.

I can see this being very useful, but at the same time I can see it being a problem if the creator stops developing it as a lot of the rp community aren't what I would call code monkeys, and I have no idea how you'd export this to a different format without loosing a lot of stuff should it become vaporware or legacy ware...

Sorry about all the questions, I just don't know that without a list of what it's capable of if the community could work out it's usefulness, especially as it can't be seen from an administrators perspective as of yet... also we're the only two people in this thread, which is... sad.

Wow, this looks cool! I'm definitely going to be interested if it was released to the public.

New features I want to see?

Well some RPs would no doubt appreciate there being a cash, shop and bank system (maybe even a lottery) and some would appreciate a stat system and a dice addition. Aside from that I'm liking what I see!

Not sure this is on there, but one of the features I absolutely love to use is the post tag system, where we add to the tags the name of the characters in the thread. Then you can pull your thread list based on the tag and BAM everything you're in. Everyone who joins my forum loves this feature.

As a note, this isn't the same as pulling the list of threads you've been in or posts because a lot of people use their character accounts to post anywhere OOC, plotting, etc.

Based on all the things you linked to? Definitely. I can see myself being ridiculously excited about pretty much all of those things.

Here's my question: is there an easy way to upload a database (or whatever you'd call it, I dunno) from another board so that you can transfer it onto this new software? I use JCink at the moment, and rather than just creating a new board and losing all of the current posts (especially threads) on it, I'd rather be able to just upload the files or whatever (I have no idea how to do that, so having instructions for doing so would be awesome) onto a board on the new software so that we wouldn't lose threads.

Otherwise, I would love a software like that. I hope they release it to the public soon so that I can at least play around and see. If I absolutely HAD to I would just move everything over and have people register on the new board, but I'd really rather not do that. I've had times in the past where I've found a new software to use and have gotten most people to register again, but not everyone (though at least it usually wasn't for a role play). I'd rather be able to just transfer everything over so people wouldn't have to register again.

Also, how easy is it to skin on that software, especially for someone who isn't coding savvy? That's another thing that would determine whether or not I'd move over onto the software.

As far as development goes, I'm honestly not sure how active the developer will continue to be, but I think it can be agreed that her work is excellent. I'm very excited about this software and if it goes out, I will definitely be contributing to it. For sure, the RP community will have to continue to help develop and contribute to the software too, including things like skins, tutorials, mods, and add-ins - but given how good RPG-D is at this, I don't think it will be a problem. I'm not sure whether or not it is module based (eg, click a button to install mod <X>), but even if it's not, I've seen sucessful open-source modding communities that relied on find/replace for modding instructions and it wasn't an issue.

Thanks for all of your input guys, keep it coming.

Daaaaaamnthat'd be awesome if I could use a few of those features! Depends how they'd work and be incorporated, though. I'll keep this thread bookmarked =)

Thanks for posting this!

This sounds like a very interesting project. I poked around that site a bit and it's pretty exciting. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

One feature that's really important for me is our integration with our mediawiki. So that players use the same accounts on both the forum and the wiki, which let's us keep track of who edits what. I'd love that to be possible for this software as well, or at least have a "worldbuilding" section where people can submit and edit lore articles (potentially with permissions according to individual player -- like tagging authors when creating a new article)

I would love to see this for mine c: Is there any clue as to when it will be released? Or is it still a "We'll see"?
I love all the features as it is, the wiki and the character account setup is very nice.

I've given the contact feedback and right now the balls in their court. I can send them a reminder email in a week or so if they don't respond.

Man that would be awesome. Thank you!
I don't even want to host my game elsewhere now, though that's taking it a bit far seeing as the source code isn't garunteeed to be released. This just looks so intuitive~
I would join their site but I don't have much interest in playing that kind of plot. :c

I would also be interested. I'm in the process of making my own roleplaying software so I'd love to be allowed to mash-up or develop an existing software code if that is allowed?

It's been a long time in coming but I think this is a worthy update...
Thanks @Drae for notifying me.

Something big is coming!
Have you checked out the Black Shuck engine?

It's currently not for sale yet, and progress isn't publically viewable, but the website and even using uservoice to get feature requests is all ingenious, intuitive, lovely, and very professional.

That looks really interesting! I'll be keeping an eye on it, I think :D

You know I love new software! Looking forward to seeing where these go...

It won't be free though. And what kind of features and how will it be different form Nova 2? I like how the site looks (lots of sites look like that these days: clean design is so sweet) but if all that is added is characters statistics then I dont see the point?

Need more info!

@daenelia It won't be just character statistics. Promise. Right now we're still taking suggestions for any and all features. You can add your own suggestions and vote on existing ones here: http://blackshuck.uservoice.com/

We'll be taking everyone's suggestions and developing a project roadmap for mid-January 2013. After that, a progress tracker will be made available, and a working demo will be put up as soon as there's code ready to be played with.

This really sounds potentially awesome. I've already submitted some ideas and will definitely be following the project.