RMN3.1 UPCOMING FEATURES

In this post I am going to detail some of the upcoming features I am working on. Some pieces will be out earlier than others. I'll also detail some things that have already been put live.

Friendly User Profile URLs
Put up just tonight and the cause of various errors encountered, I reworked the URLs for user profiles to include usernames instead of just IDs. I had avoided doing this for a while due to the large number of funky usernames in the system. What I ended up doing is saving a "slugified" version of the username and using it for URLs. This version has no spaces, dots, dashes, or whatevers in it. Usernames from now on will also have this restriction. In the future, I want to sync the real usernames up with this slug version. Due to the way the site does password hashing, however, I can't just change usernames and have passwords match up.

Current usernames that have spaces, dots, or anything else NOT alphanumeric will have their passwords reset when this change occurs. Make sure your email address in your account is up to date!



Achievements
As noted in our Halloween Contest Topic, the site will be getting an achievement system. Achievements are neat and really they just help us keep track of people who participate and do other things on the site.

All the official contests we have had (pixel contests, game contests, etc...) will retroactively be granted achievements for each participant and winner. All contests from the point of this system going live will have achievements as well.

Eventually there will be a bot placed in #rpgmaker.net that will keep track of activity levels and will also dish out certain achievements in there.



Game Achievements
I have also been working on including this achievement system for GAMES on the site. Just as all the COOL NEW GAMES have, the games on this site will also get them! You'll automatically get achievements as you accomplish goals set by the developers themselves. Developers will setup their achievement information on RMN and that will automatically be usable in their game. Developers will use provided scripts in their game to set these achievements as the player accomplishes them.

I was rushing to get this system up and going for the final release of Visions & Voices, but decided to hold off until I could polish the experience more. It requires an internet connection at the moment, and I wanted to try and eliminate some of the pains while playing offline. That's one of the reasons for the prolonged development.

The Game Achievements will only be available for scripting-capable engines such as RPG Maker VX, RPG Maker XP, Game Maker, etc. and only completed games. While it is technically possible to do them for RM2k/3 games, the experience would be very watered down and completely different from the workings of the system so far. And for completed games, well the reasoning should be easily understood.

There will be easy-to-use premade scripts for as many engines as I can make them for. Currently VX and XP are to be the first ones ready. These will all communicate with RMN to dish out achievements as you get them in-game.



Game Profile Customization
Some may have seen this in action on a handful of games on the site, where the backgrounds are different. Eventually you will be able to customize the look of your game profiles with images, colors, and so forth. The system is technically live right now, but there are no restrictions built-in. I need to set limits on what users can and cannot modify (like the top bar, footer, logo, etc.).



Those are the main things I am working on or have worked on. What I really want to do, is allow developers here to really go fullbore on creating their game profiles. It should be capable as to replace an entirely custom website for the game. Please let me know what ways I can help improve this.

One-battle demos are not allowed to have achievements, Shinan. Only finished games. And yes, this can be enforced.

There's no such thing as a Display Name, kentona. They aren't being "phased out" because they don't exist.

The reason for the eventual change is this:

Lazer Kirby is two words, but one username. If you look at the URL for his profile, it's LazerKirby. Spaces aren't nice in URLs and so it'll be changed to LazerKirby. But I can't just change it without a password update on the accounts because people won't be able to login.

Fun story: I forgot to upload the email stuff too. It's up now, however.