New Online Database Project

W

Warlok

Specialist
First, let me tell you all how very excited I am to begin this project. I have heard from some other players that an idea like this has been bouncing around for up to half a decade, but hasn't quite been able to make it off the ground, yet. I assure you, that is all about to change.

What we will need from all of you initially is timely, insightful responses to the questions and surveys that get posted over the next few months. Please encourage other players to get on the boards or give them a call/e-mail/Facebook post to give their input, as well! We want to ensure that everyone is included as a part of this process. After all, we are doing this for the benefit of everyone in the organization. We will also ask for help with some specific tasks later on in the process, as needed. If you have experience with databases and web interfaces and you want to volunteer ahead of time, you will be at the top of the list when we go looking for volunteers.

I am truly dedicated to bringing this capability to the Alliance organization. I believe it will be a galvanizing opportunity for our Community and will take us to new heights of professionalism. Please help me in making this dream come true for us all. Your feedback is imperative to our success.

-Luke G.
 
the only feedback I have is this. I think it would do a world of good in moving us into the 21st century and attracting new players as well as pacifying existing ones.

I only hope those involved will create a system that is sustainable and not so proprietary to the original designers that it cannot be updated and maintained by future volunteers and industry professionals. We saw enough hardship inheriting the various versions of the Access DB from past teams and I personally have no idea how Matt has does what he has done with that system and I applaud him for it.

It would be a terrible waste to see something like this be implemented and then fail and hurt the organization if the system relied on the expertise of 1 individual. I don't mean that as a slight to you or anyone on your team. I just worry a lot and hope you guys come up with something spectacular and sustainable.

best of luck
 
I agree with Rob that this is something that should have been done a while ago. :)

With another company, I'm currently developing an online character tracking database system that is free and will be generic enough to be modified and used by almost any LARP. We demoed it at the LARP convention last weekend although the front end was still a bit dodgy. I even used my Alliance Character Creation sheet as the template for the developers to look at. Since you are local to me, Warlok, I'd be happy to sit down and chat with you about the current pitfalls and walls I've run into. Heck, it might just be easy to develop a simple interface between the current Alliance DB programs and this program.

Sorry, didn't mean to turn this into an advert for what I'm working on already - just wanted to let you know that there is a tool that is just about ready for release out there you may want to avail yourself of.

Mark
 
a while back had contemplated the idea of building something like this using a core framework like drupal or codeigniter, both are very well community supported php/mysql frameworks. Drupal especially provides much more advanced cms interfaces and is a huge community. Had i had time i may have even attempted it.

I have to say i completely agree with Robb. I feel Whatever gets built needs to be based on an open source framework that any programmer could later on jump in and update, and any user could easily look up documentation on how the systems core functionality works. No matter what a system like this will require proprietary parts but the more we piggy back off of perexisting, supported systems the better off we will all be at avoiding short lifespans on the system.

We need to keep in mind that whatever we build should have the max life expectancy of 3-5 years before someone will have to update code. That is based off of what is generally considered the normal life cycle of a web application, and truthfully the trend is that those life spans become shorter and shorter as technology advancements become faster and faster. Whatever gets built needs to be well documented both in its coding standards and implementations.

Luke, I myself am a web application developer. This project is something I am very interested in. I would have volunteered to do it myself a year or so ago if i thought i had the time to work on it. That being said I would be happy to work on a team to help support getting this thing built, or in the very least to help conceptualize the various facets that need to be built.

Hit me up with a PM sometime if you would like to set up a time to discuss.
 
The project is divided into three Stages, each with its own internal set of Phases, or milestones, to meet: Database Design, Application Development, and Maintenance & Improvement. We will be using some form of PHP/MySQL, as they are common formats that are familiar to many and have a broad support community. I also plan to document and comment the crap outta this thing to hopefully make it easy enough for the next poor schmuck to come along and fix it all up even better!

Jeremy, consider yourself volunteered for helping out later on in Stage 2! In the meantime, everyone should keep an eye out for discussions that will be coming up during the Database Design Stage and give their input. We want to ensure that we don't miss something, or else we'll have to tear it apart again before that 3-5 year window that you mentioned.

Oh, and just to make myself as available as possible, I've updated my profile to include more ways to contact me. Pleae feel free to raise any questions, comments, concerns, whines, gripes, moans, groans, or complaints you may have regarding this new database project.

-Luke G.
 
Im also very well versed in Mysql DB design if ud like my help during stage 1. :thumbsup:
 
Not really a DB guy and haven't really coded in ages, but wanted to bring up the security angle on this - let's do what we can to avoid making this easy to hack. Last thing we want is for a lot of folks to lose characters (nobody name their next character Little Bobby Tables, okay?) or something like that.

We now return you to your normally-scheduled discussion.
 
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