Apologies and updates

I want to start out by apologizing for last Friday's update. I was going to my first gamecon (Dreamation), and I was gung-ho on talking to people about Gamers' Plane. I figured I had the forum update nearly done, I had been testing it, and so I pushed till 2AM coding. I'm glad I took my laptop with me to the convention, and we got the major bugs knocked out in the first day, with a few minor ones lingering. I was able to knock out more than a few bugs and missing features over the last few days as well. I really have to apologize to everyone for all the trouble over the weekend, and a big thanks to everyone who stuck through and put in bug reports. I know it was a rough weekend, and hopefully we're better off for it.

One thing I realized through all the bug reports and tweets is how often I end up putting in features and never mentioning them. I donno if its a good thing or bad. My only goal is to make the site better for you guys, and sometimes I just prefer to see if you guys notice/point out certain things, to see if they're actually used or not. And if you don't mention it, and it just starts working, that's great too. But I guess a few things are worth pointing out:

- A few weeks back, I added a few referral links you guys can use to help me earn some money and support the site. Of course, I made a mistake and it was only visible to me, but if you look at the bottom right of the site, you'll see an Amazon referral link and Drive Thru RPG referral link, as well as a PayPal donations link. If you like the DriveThruStuff, that links will work for any of their sites.
- I've made it so you can now hide public game forums if you want. If you go to the forums home page and scroll down to the list of game forums, you'll see a toggle switch above title. You can flip it to show/hide public games everywhere.
- You can now sticky a thread (if you have the permissions) when you're creating it.
- There are forum breadcrumbs in more places, making it easier to maneuver around the forums.

There's a lot more, I'm sure, I just don't quite remember them all. I'm always tweaking the site, and most days have a minor tweak if not a new feature.

I'm hoping everyone's enjoying Gamers' Plane. I'm doing my best to make a fun, playable RPG play-by-post site, while it has bugs, I hope thing so crazy its detouring you from the site. If it is, I'd ask you tell me what it is that's set you off as you leave; I'm hoping I can continue to improve. If you're sticking through, I'm hoping the site is continuing to improve in a direction you like. And if its not, please let me know there too, though there's a decent chance I'll ignore that :D

Looks like everything is back and better than ever.

Appreciate the effort you put into the site, it's quickly becoming one of my favorites to visit and I'm looking forward to seeing it grow.

You rock. Keep on keeping on.

Luving the venue for the game I am running and your responsiveness.

Keleth -- you need a day off :P

Day... off... I don't understand what that means.

I'm impressed with your responsiveness. Sorry I've been a pain in the ass. Love the site.

Pain in the ass? Hardly Merlin! You've been pointing out bugs, bugs that need fixing!

that means you need some moderators who can take a load off your back for you Keleth!

Heh, moderation isn't an issue right now :p Its coding! Need moar time for coding!

You guys are awesomely active, and I'm getting a steady 2-3 signups a day. Just gotta spread the word a bit more in more places.

that is something your members and such can do as well. make it a contest :P

Not sure what I'd give away as a contest... GP isn't currently really making any money, heh.

Put some targeted ads on each page?

I've been avoiding putting ads on the site in general; I've been a webdev long enough to know how annoying ads are, both as a user and a developer. Its why I put up referral links, so if someone is doing what they're already doing, I can earn a bit too.

At some point, I intend to create a system that will offer direct links to products for the particular game you're in. I guess that's targeted ads, but I'll probably add an option to shut them off for a donation as well.

It's a very good site Keleth. I play on Myth Weavers as well and like a lot of the things you have set up much more. Your site is certainly cleaner and easier to navigate in many ways.

A home page for each GM would be nice so we would not need to search through the forums to find my game. My brother does programming so I know all too well how time consuming this process is! I love using the site as is but I thought I'd offer a suggestion in case you still need some! ;-)

I hear you and agree. But unlike most targeted advertising you already know what game is played, and can easily display products without spying on content like Google does. To me, that's the definition of unobtrusive.

I always want more feedback! Its feedback that'll make this site grow and improve. As for searching through the forums, the ability to hide public games should help there. I can probably tweak the Games page so there is a direct link to the forums for the game.

this.


Also, thank you for making it so when you click on a thread it brings you to the last read not the first :)

Nothing's on fire (anymore). I think we're good.

Is this where we post suggestions. Can we receive notifications when we get a Personal Message?