Topic: PSpong.com? (Page 2 of 2)

well, I will code the backend of course!
No, honestly, I will be more than happy to design and write the backend code. But first we all have to get clear on what we're going to built here... (and not anything really before the mid of next month... I'm busy with school right now.)

Bandwith: (just really approximate calculations)
100 Matches.
let's say 8 jpegs at 200k a piece... but thumbed so it's more like 30 a piece.
makes about 240k + 200k (assuming people want to see the very last one in full size) per view. + html and stuff, call it 5m. Wohoh.
That means your 15gigs would allow each match to be viewed 30 times a month... hmm. and we're not going to store the PSDs.

how realistic are my numbers?
well the size for a single view is about right, but the number of matches could be off by quite a degree.
Doc, can you somehow tell us how often a single game is viewed in here?

So long,

Tyberius Prime

Hmm, it's hard to say exactly, (see the thread in OZONE for links to the stats), but the busiest matches seem to be viewed about 70-100 times/day, for maybe 500-800 views total. Now, do we want to store all of the images on the website, or allow people to post them to their own sites and then just pass on the link? It would certainly be simpler for users if we hosted the images ourselves, then we could automate the thumbnail creation ourselves and get a good cohesive look for things. I was thinking a stealth mail gateway for passing the PSD's back and forth, that's where most people have problems, it seems to me. (Stealth, in case people want to keep their emails/identities secret. People will, I'll bet.)

I'm willing to write out a pretty detailed specification for what the site should do, functionalities, flowcharts, etc... Then I could post it here for discussion, we'll pretty quickly come up with a good plan of action, methinks. We need a few roles filled, writing the back-end code is one thing, but the actual "Project Management" of this thing is potentially a big hassle. Pugzly did this for the GurusNetwork last time we made a major spin-off, but he may not want that time-intensive task again!

I'll make some preliminary notes and post them back here later this weekend.

Your pal, -doc-

Well, I don't think I could handle the Project Management duties this time around. But I'd love to be in on the backend stuff, especially if it's PHP/MySQL.

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

I think we all agree that the Doc has a good grasp of the Big Picture so it might be a good idea if he drew up the overall design. I'll throw in my thoughts and perhaps anyone with a good idea can throw in theirs too.

I envisioned the actual games being played out here (where we can all ooh and aah) and the admin and storage of old posts their for starters. We could have a number of game types - Pool: where people go and make themselves available for a random pairing (hmmm I hear there are parties like that but I digress) - if you fail to turn up for your match someone else gets assigned to someone else and you have to put yourself back into the pool when you want to play; Challenge: You can challenge someone to a game (I sense the possibility for grudge matches here: Barbed Wire Net matches anyone??); Tournament: people play off against each other and we have some kind of voting script so we can all decide who played the best and they progress (should be interesting with some good gamesmanship!!). We need rules and FAQs. I can help out with backend stuff if required but plenty of people have already offered their services (Ini had initial ideas on this - any input Ini? [edit: OK Ini snuck a post in while I was typing this on this very subject - please ignore]) and so I've offered to do the link up with CafePress if people think that is a good idea (there are already some excellent pieces which would go nicely on a mousemat!!). The question is should all the images be stored on the site - most people can store their images and PSDs but it is inserting of thumbnails into the match which is the tricky bit so automating that might be interesting (but increase the bandwidth by quite a bit). My idea would be that finished matches would be stored with thumbs linking to the main image as well as the final PSD (and intermediates?). If we do have the matches here and the admin elsewhere we can have a section on every page with a link back here to the most recent posts in this forum.

I think the tricky thing (until Doc moves us over to PHP) will be getting inmates details for signing in, etc.

Would it be a good idea, as has been suggested above, to set up a development forum on the site to coordinate things but not bore people with details? We may need someone to coordinate things but we could try doing things more organically (spaghetti management?) and see how that goes - we have identified quite a bit of work that needs doing and got volunteers for most of it.

Anyway that is just a few thoughts I had on the topic. Anyone else got any thoughts on this?

Emps


You're my wife now Dave

[This message has been edited by Emperor (edited 11-30-2001).]

well, I was envisioning ...
A) matchs played on pspong.com
B) us storing at least the jpegs and thumbs.
C) but not showing the whole match at a time, like in the asylum. we could save tons of bandwith, if people had the option to either open the first or the last picture of a match and then navigate with next/last buttons...
D) generall voting on the matches so the best ones make it to the front page
E) your game types seem appropriate, emperor
f) allowing our users to comment on the pictures, just like here.

so what we need is a voting system, user registration obviously, a db to store the jpegs (NO! we will not store the jpegs in files, if I can get MySql to do that. And I can.)

And I might be able to coordinate at least the coding, so that we won't get 5 different user registration systems.
yours,

Tyberius Prime

oh and the stealth gateway isn't too bad an idea. but many free emailproviders (very! common in germany) limit incoming emails to a few megs a piece. and I just remind you of our match, Doc. That thing got huge.
But we might be able to store one PSD per match on our server during the match, and delete it once it's finished.

[This message has been edited by Tyberius Prime (edited 11-30-2001).]

oh and the stealth gateway isn't too bad an idea. but many free emailproviders (very! common in germany) limit incoming emails to a few megs a piece. and I just remind you of our match, Doc. That thing got huge.
But we might be able to store one PSD per match on our server during the match, and delete it once it's finished.

Tyberius Prime

TP: All good ideas there - I suppose to even things out (some matches seem well furnished with thumbs and links and some seem a little sparse) all the image part of the match could take place on the web page and the banter, commentary, questions, etc. could take place here. It would be quite handy if when one uploads your next image that it spits out the correct UBB code to put in the forum to display a quick thumbnail of the full image. It really just depends on the bandwidth - all images going through the site would be whole different kettle of fish to people making their own arrangements to store the image but it would even out the matches and cut down on some of the hassle and let people concentrate on the match. If people are going to have to find storage space for the PSD hen they might as well.

I suppose it depends on how much traffic the site should take.

Emps

Well....

If we store the .jpg files, then we *should* be able to do thumbnailing on the fly via PHP.

We'd need to set restrictions on image properties (640x480, or the like).

If we store the .psd files, we need to have an expiration period where they roll off, or it could get out of hand.

Just my .02

DOC - Decide on a domain name. PSPong.com?

And some of you graphics guys can do a quick "coming soon" page with graphics. As soon as Doc decides the route we'll take, we can toss it online as a "placeholder" (assuming, of course, that Doc decides to host it with me).

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

Yeah, I agree. From what I've read, storing them in the db isn't really a good idea. But we could do a file upload via a web page that stores them in a specific folder based on, say, the "game" number.

Just a though. And that might make dynamically thumbnailing them easier. Not sure, as I've not dived into that feature yet.

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

All good ideas - I don't think anyone was suggesting storing the jpgs in the DB but you could store the initial file name and this would give more flexibility. I'm in favour of timing out the PSDs but leaving the final one - timing out the storage of jpgs is an interesting one I'd quite like to see all the matches stored or we could keep some Hall of Famers. Pos. aim to keep all the images available and see how storage and bandwidth go and switch to plan B?

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is a logo - its one for the more graphically able but I had an idea: have PSPong with the vertical bars of the first P and the g as the bats and the o as the ball. Its a little cheesy and we shouldn't let that dictate the colours (black background and flourescent gree text would be a bit of a strain after a while). Any good ideas anyone? Oh I suppose we should wait until we find out if its going to be PSPong or PhotoShopPong (the former gets my vote).

Emps


You're my wife now Dave

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
Now Tyberius Prime expects him to start complaining that we removed his 'free speech' since this message will replace all of his posts, past and future.
Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

sure. I must admit I've never created a production site with the images in a db... so we'll just either put the filename into the db, or name the files in such a way, that we can construct the filename on the fly.
(don't hit me for ever suggesting it. A file system is just another db. albeight a very fast one... and there is some kind of query chache, but I'm not sure it would be up to it.)

Yeah, we should construct the filenames on the fly using a format. Should make for a more streamlined, orderly, file structure.

OK; while I'll take the feedback concerning PhotoShopPong.com vs. PSPong.com under advisement, I already registered the latter, so...

(I always prefer short domain names, if possible, and the 'ppong' at the end of the first one looked odd to me, and easy to misspell, heh.)

http://www.PSPong.com/

I'm going to start a new thread for this topic, and the DNS is already pointing to the Pugzly's server farm, he'll have the server up and running by the time the DNS records percolate around, I hope. We *do* need a logo and a color scheme, so the next stage should be submissions for this concept! I'll grab the one that seems best to me and clean it up into nice pretty vector graphics and make it as a mask for playing around with, and this weekend I'll do a first draft for the technical/functions specification, cool? We can discuss that further once I get the first bits written down. I'll close this thread once I open the next, and add the link!

New thread here: http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum19/HTML/000049.html

Your pal, -doc-



[This message has been edited by DocOzone (edited 11-30-2001).]