Saturday, July 12, 2014

Time to Get Interactive!

     Well. I'm sure some of you thought I was dead. I'm not. I have been working very hard to bring you this next update. I'm not going to lie, this one is a big one. The patch notes are a mile long. My brain is fried. My family hates me. But it's here. Finally.

     I'm going to start by saying that I'm considering this new update to be a beta sort of thing. I'm sure there might be a few lurking bugs and scary ghosts and I hope you as a community report any that you might find on the forums. I really poured a lot of my life into getting this up and running. This will probably be one of the biggest patches I do but this lays the groundwork for a lot more future features.

     As you will read in the patch notes, Living in Wildstar now accepts members. That's right, we're going interactive. So sign up and start exploring some of the members only features. I will stress that this will in no way hinder the browsing capabilities of the website. You do NOT need to sign up. But I hope we've provided you some nice perks to actually do so. I won't bore you with the details here, that's what the patch notes are for.

      The main reason for taking this direction is to allow the community a nice, easy way of helping fill in missing information. There are features in place that will allow you to submit screenshots and fill in details forms to help fill the database. Take your time reading all our notations as this will make your experience much smoother. We've tried to make things as intuitive as possible, but issues will arise I'm sure. Since we wanted to ask you to help us, we figured we'd throw you some fun features to keep you engaged with the website. Some features are even ones suggested by the amazing Reddit community!

      I'm sure you're eager to explore. So I'll let you get to it. Please, please, please report any problems you encounter on the forums. If you don't have a forum account, sign up for one... they're shiny. Note that the new member signup for the website and the forum signup are two different systems. One ring does not rule them all. We apologize if that's annoying. Have fun with the patch notes!

     Be well....



PATCH NOTES

  • Captions
    You know when you click a screenshot and it gets bigger and all fancy like? Well we added the item's name and other related information to the caption for smoother slideshow viewing.
  • Menu Re-Shuffle
    Some stuff has moved around on the  main navigational menu. And we're not quite done re-shuffling. As we add features, things will shift more. So keep an eye on new options. You never know what's going to show up!
  • Challenge Videos
    Living in Wildstar is all about making friends. And we have teamed up with a very lovely video maker known in some circles as "The Ankh". He enjoys making videos that cover the challenges that come from housing Fabkits. So we're going to promote him and use his videos on our site. He rebooted and rebranded his series and he'll be rolling them out over time. So look for the Youtube links on select Fabkit challenges. His first video is for "Dump Diving". Welcome aboard Ankh!
  • Become a Member
    Created a signup system. This allows people to sign up for an account if they so desire. We even set up a password reset system that will email you a link to reset. Note that this is a different system than the forums. Even if you signed up for them, you'd still need a new account for the website.
  • Profile Page
    Every member gets a profile page. For now, this is a fairly basic section but will grow over time.  Your profile page is viewable to other members unless you set privacy options.
  • Edit Your Profile
    We have made it so you can  edit your profile. This includes changing your basic info, uploading and managing thumbnails and portraits of your character, and setting privacy options.
  • Member Directory
    In an attempt to bring the housing community closer together, we created a member directory. This allows you to search for fellow housing enthusiasts by either searching for their Main Character's name, assuming you know it, or by browsing realms. So if you want to be easily searchable, make sure you set your server and character names in your profiles.
  • Track a Member
    Did you find that special someone in the member directory? Well you can add them to your favorites and keep tabs on them. This feature will be more important as time goes on with some of the features we have planned. Just view a member's profile and click the conveniently located button to stalk them. We mean, follow them.  You can view your favorites on your profile page.
  • Stalkers
    From your profile page you can also see who's following you. We don't know why this important, we just thought some of you might want to know who the lurkers are!
  • Privacy Options
    If you would like to opt out of having your profile gawked at like a bunch of drooling rabid wolverines, you can alter your profile privacy options. There are two ways you can limit your exposure. Turning "searchable" off means people can't find you by name or by realm listings. This would still allow you to share your profile's url with certain people so they can find you and add you if they desired. Turning privacy on means your profile is hidden entirely and all the people will see is a default "locked" picture. But in the spirit of good community, let everyone find you and say hello!
  • Introducing... The Wishlist! 
    Ever stumble upon an item in the catalog and knew you wanted to remember it for later? We sure have. Well now you can add it to your Wishlist. That's right, members get to do cool things like that. Just find a decor item you like and you'll see a button to add it (or remove it if you need to). You'll be able to access your Wishlist from the members section and it'll be conveniently broken down for you by decor type. For now this feature only applies to Decor. If people like it and use it a lot we will implement a Wishlist for Fabkits and Challenges as well.
  • User Submitted Screenshots
    People have been sending in screenshots of items we don't have them for. We haven't used any because of our anal desire to have all our screenshots look universal. But we hate to turn you guys away with your lovely images. And so a new feature was born. Now members have the option to submit screenshots for decor items, fabkits and challenges. You will notice when you're looking at the details page for an item that there's a menu to the right that will allow you to submit a screenshot. These do not immediately post. We're just getting to know each other and I'm not sure I trust that you guys won't send in some truly gnarly stuff. So for now they will be submitted for approval. No hard feelings, we hope. Once approved, they will show up on the details page for all the world to see. You'll even get credit in the picture's caption so make sure your character name is set!
  • Fill in the Blanks
    Time for a really important feature. As most have noticed the database needs a lot of love. It's a hard and complex task to compile all of this. Many in the community have expressed interest in helping fill in the blanks. Well now you can do so. It's time to put up or shush up we guess. On the details pages for decor items, challenges and fabkits, you will find a link on the right that will allow you to fill out a form for careful review by us. Be as descriptive and helpful as possible. Read all instructions carefully so you know what we're looking for. For items that have information, these fields will be conveniently filled in when you load a form. They can be altered of course, it's just a guiding point. All submissions will be reviewed and if deemed worthy, added to the database. Don't spam us junk. That would be rude and we may cry and take away some features. So play nice.
  • Hey, You Forgot One
    Of course we are missing a lot of stuff altogether. We know this, you know this. So for those times when you know of an item/fabkit/challenge that doesn't exist in our database at all, we have a form for that too. Brand new item forms can be found in the members section in your member pages menu. They're a lot like the other forms we previously mentioned except these aren't based off an existing entry. They're for BRAND NEW entries. And again, all entries will be reviewed blah blah blah.