So, we've decided to give a small sample of the widget. Currently at about 80% developed - minus the testing and partial redevelopment that'll probably be needed.

Photobucket - Widget video (flv)

Ps - The window that's tapped into is a debug window - was typing the commands that align the windows. It's an old-ish version, there's now a menu "structure" for it.

Status update...

Server Stats

Stats are rocking it like a baby at a concert. Been 'acquiring' more map images for the site 'cause ra3maps, hub3aeroq3 etc. screenshots are hard to find. TIP: In case you didn't know, a .pk3 is just a zip file. Open it in winzip to retrieve the map image. Just a little sumthin sumthin from my days as a high-profile map builder, HAHA *silence
Luckily I acquired most of the other map images from elsewhere, so less effort :)

Design

Mooore transparency and dynamic effects. Yes!

Widget

*RUsynaptic + javascript + pizza = yahoo widget.

In case you didn't know, the widget allows you to view live server stats right on your Windows desktop. It's looking ridiculously cool.

We added skinning capability to the widget so now you can customize the design yourself. Maybe we'll have a 'skins' section on the site so you can download other ppl's widget designs... *GOGOGadgetAddToFeatureListAgain*

From the creative side of things for the widget, maaaaybe we'll post a screenshot. I will have to get special 'permission' from our project manager. We are apparently getting some transparency and stuff as well.

Ladder

Been doing lots of planning around this. We're excited about this component because we feel that a simple, efficient, user-friendly ladder system that actually works, is something that our Q3 community is lacking. We're keen to hear what your thoughts are on this and what would make your lives easier when it comes to the ladder/ranking story.

Database

*RUplayerName has been missioning with this. The profile system and the ladder are currently our main focus from the database side of things.

We've decided to show a few screens of the API we wrote to poll the servers. If you're into coding you might find this interesting.

Here's the basic overview of our object model:

We can make a call to a server by doing the following (noobified for reading purposes):

This is the server information we receive:

Retrieving the players currently online...

We also get detailed server information:

It takes about 1-2 seconds to retrieve this info from a server, so we're definitely going to put it to good use in the new site.

iNFinite

Short update:

Most of the design has been implemented. Server stats is looking really cool. We are now starting to code the different components of the site (registration/profile, uploads etc).

iNFinite

Time for a progress update...

Quake Video

*RUplayerName has finally started piecing together our quake video. It'll probably be called something along the lines of RU*RevolUtion, but we're working on that. We've been watching demos for a couple of weeks now taking note of cool shots, and we got a killer soundtrack for it as well. It'll probably be only a few minutes long, but watching it will be a few minutes well spent. I'm sure it'll be the illness. We plan to release it when we launch the site.

Design

Still implementing. It's quite a mission 'cause we've got some hover effects, flyouts, etc. which have to work together properly. Image file-sizes are also being naughty, but I am currently teaching them a lesson.

Server Stats

Just thought you'd like to know we will be rendering server stats differently depending on the game mode. Layout will be optimised for best viewing, whether you're seeing a 1v1, CTF, FFA, whatever.

We've been rummaging through the Quake 3 source code to see if we can find any more interesting statistics to request from the server. As we're polling the servers directly, we are researching whether we can request live match weapon accuracies during gameplay, however I don't have much hope on this one.

Cheers,
iNFinite

Update...

Design

We've started cutting up the design and writing the html - it's going well, however it's gonna take some time :( Only 200 lines today...

PS: We've actually got all our screenshots and our server stats system live on the web. But you'll never find it (muhahahaaaa).

Safeguarding our preccccioussss...

To ensure that ppl don't screen-scrape the stats from our site, we're using random id's for all elements. We're also inserting unnecessary 'padding' within the html for the stats, so every page load will render the html source differently. This makes it extremely difficult to parse or to traverse the DOM *Yet more evil laughter ensues*

More features

We stumbled across another cool feature we want to include will be including. I am not allowed to tell you or else *RUplayerName will tell me I am stupid and I am a noob. But I know you guys will like it, and you'll find out soon enough.

Feature Showcase

During the course of development, we've decided to showcase each component or feature once it's complete. We'll take a few screenshots, put together some writeup, and let you know all the cool things about it. That way you'll hopefully be familiar with what the site has to offer by the time it goes live.

Feedback

Any feedback for us? Ideas? Stuff you wanna see on the site?

iNFinite

Progress update...

Design

We're finally finished with our design, yay :) Time to start implementing.

Server Stats

As mentioned earlier today, we built a proof-of-concept Windows app that retrieves server stats every few seconds. We'll see where this goes...

SMS

We did some more research into the whole SMS thing. It's pretty expensive :( - it was approximately R80 for 200 SMS's for an entry level option. We were hoping to incorporate an SMS function into the ladder system, whereby you would be notified of a challenge via an automated SMS from the site when someone challenges you, after which you reply with a yes or no (or whatever) and that automatically accepts for you. It's too expensive to incorporate initially though. We have a backup plan, but that will mean only vodacom subscribers can use this feature.

Quick update on server stats... *RUsynaptic has just built us a proof of concept Windows app that polls kalahari every 15 seconds and reports who's online etc. We've been watching okes jump between servers for a while now :P There's no design as yet which is why it looks um, questionable, however if we decide to release a Windows app for you guys, we'll make it look much better.

So far so good, time for another progress update.

We've updated our list of features with a whole bunch of new ideas. Without giving too much away, I can say we've got some mobile stuff in there (view server stats, latest articles, players online etc. on your cellphone), we've got tons of cool ideas for our ladder system (mostly about making it simple to use and easy to create/accept challenges), and some cool personalisation features.

I'm dying to tell you guys more about what we have planned, but alas, this would ruin the surprise :P

Design

We've been working on the creative design like machines. Sorry we can't show it to you yet, but she's still shy of the public. I'm supposed to stop telling everyone how cool it looks in case I overhype it :/ I just wanna finish the concept now so I can start cutting it up and building the site.

Server Stats

*RUsynaPtic updated the server stats to show player names in their in-game colours. It looks kewl. ServerSpy ftl.

We got our hands on thumbnails of map pics for the server stats (136 images) so now we're glad we don't have to manually capture them. *shudders at the thought*

Profile

*RUplayerName has started speccing everything to do with the user's profile.

Also, we 'acquired' avatar images of the quake models (88 of them) which we [i]might[/i] decide to use as the player avatar you would pick for your profile. Not a big feature, but it might be a nice touch.

Analytics

Yip, good old web statistics. Organised our account so we can track how many (or how few) people actually visit our site. Will help us deliver a much better user-experience in future updates.


Until next time,
iNFinite

Yet another update...

Server Stats

We've made some monster progress on the Server Stats. *RUsynaPtic has been coding like a machine, so we're now sitting with code that retrieves data from the servers by polling them directly. This has been wrapped in a .NET DLL, which allows us to use it for practically anything by simply instantiating it.

We've also built a .NET web service which returns the server info from kala and zero in XML. We'll be using this service primarily for the Server Stats Yahoo Widget, but it may come in handy for some future developments.

The server stats are fast. Really fast. We did some testing today: our custom server stats loads all information from all kala and zero servers, in 2 seconds. ServerSpy stats took 30-35 seconds in our test to do the same thing. This means we will be able to offer a host of really dynamic features relating to current server status.

Design

We've made a lot of progress on our creative design. I've practically redone many of the elements as we felt the design needed more edge. We glossed it up a bit, and added more curves.

You guys are gonna dig how we've incorporated the server stats into the site. You get all the information you need in a summarised view, with the option to expand for more information on the fly. I will let you know some of the insane features we have planned for this - maybe post some screenshots :)

iNFinite

Another update...

One of the features for the site will be a Yahoo Widget (possibly Google and Vista Gadgets in future). If you have the Yahoo Widget Engine for Windows or Mac OS X, you will be able to download the Clan*RU server stats widget (no official name yet) and see players online, current score, remaining time, the maps currently being played etc. directly on your desktop in realtime.

It's still in the early stages, but we're getting there. More on this feature and others in the next few weeks ;)

Just an update...

We're making some headway with the creative design: it's looking pretty cool so far, but still a long way to go until we're completely happy with it.

Our co.za domain is registered (finally). We won't spill the beans just yet, but it's REALLY simple to remember :P

Our hosting is sorted out - the site is being hosted in the US (Brinkster ftw). Thanks to *RUch][mera for the kind donation of a 5000 MB web space, 150 GB web traffic, SQL server enabled account! We will now allow him to keep his *RU tag ;)

There are some seriously wicked features that we're planning to incorporate in the site - things that we know you guys will love. Our primary focus at this stage is the Server Stats, which is going to be a driving factor in the dynamic offering of the site. We initially decided on the ServerSpy stats (see aFm's server stats if you are unfamiliar) because it was easy to include, but we've now decided to code our own: we need the raw data for some of the other dynamic features we're building. *RUsynaPtic offered to perform some mild wizardry, and consequently cooked us up a .NET server-polling component. Word. I would whet your appetite with some of our RevolUtionary and insanely brilliant ideas, however I am frothing at the mouth currently and am unablle to tyype corectly due to my comlpete excitedment.

We have so many ridiculously ridiculous features that we'd like to include, I dunno where we're gonna find time for them all.

Chrz,
iNFinite

We are taking feature requests for the S.A. Quake 3 community portal that we are currently building. Click here to post a feature request to our topic in the aFm forums. Cheers, iNFinite