Midgard Merlin Raid Planner

[msinosic]

Hey everyone!

I have toyed around with the idea of making this site since my guild moved from Hibernia Guinevere. It was really useful for us back then and I am hoping that the people who use it on Midgard Merlin will find it equally as useful if not more so. If you don't at least I was able to learn PHP!

A first version of the site is live on the net! If you want to have a look, which I hope you all do, please head on over to [url]raid.digitalfirefight.com[/url] and register. The site password is 'raidplanner'. Don't let the evil albs and hibs know this password!

Once you register. Create a character or two or more and then browse the up and coming raids. Speaking of which at the time of posting this there may not be any! Convicts are finalizing a date and time for a few raids in the not to distant future so key an eye out. I also posted a dummy raid or two, the ML2 and ML3 raids by Nex Necis. Sorry to steal your raids guys. Please put them in yourself so we can join up!

What am I saying? You don't need to keep an eye out. Once you have made a character and set what steps he/she has done you will be notified via email if a raid is posted that contains steps that you need. (assuming you entered and email address and ticked notifty, which I recommend you do

Anyway, have a look. The site may not agree with everyone, its pretty simple in design and layout. If you have any comments or suggestions please email me at msinosic@bigpond.net.au and also cc to sinosich@ali.com.au.

Also note that all times are in AEST! Australian Eastern Standard Time. There is a nice link there to help you figure out the time no matter what time zone your in and also the AEST time under the title. We all know Sydney is the true center of the world

Enjoy!

Zhatan ... =)

[killets]

we got one here if you use the calendar feature.

[msinosic]

No, you have a calendar here that displays events.

Not to say that isn't useful as I have used it already. There are a number of things that it doesn't do that a raid planner can do.

Did you have a look?

[barbos]

But here, it is at a central location. It also seems more intuitive to me to be able to see it in a monthly format so you can easily see what is going on for the entire month, without having to scan through each one to find out.

Certainly features could be added to the calendar, or even the forums if requested... however, back to the centralized idea, the calendar is set so only events you have access to show up... so if there were a BWC only event, it would only show up for BWC members and such. Anyone with access to the alliance forum has access to post an event on the calendar. All you have to do is make a new post, and give it a date (or a range of rates, or even reoccur an event). No extra accounts or passwords to remember, no having to post content in multiple places.

Plus to be perfectly honest... alliance members/guilds come and go..

However, these are merely my opinions, which probably mean little to the guild itself... so it's their decision.

[msinosic]

Central to who? The alliance, yes, but the raid planner is not just for the alliance, ultimately it would be for the realm. Not that it really matters where the webpage is since its all virtual

I do agree with you on the calendar format. I find myself looking at an event date then having to open up a calendar and see what day that date falls on

Sure its easy to make an event post here. Can you see who has joined the raid? What class, ml path and ml level they are? It gives you some idea of the interest in your event, whether or not you will have a power ward font! mmm power font.

If you have trouble remembering your acount details try using the same login and password As long as you enter an email and tick notify me via email button you will be emailed when a raid appears containing steps that you need. Thus you dont have to log in at all till you need to.

[Mandrocsson]

ok well what I have to say may seem to be slightly flame worthy but its not so bear with me...

im also slightly biased since I was involved in the development of this site...

first up to the above two posters di you actually have a look at the site or are you just posting blind? if this is the case then i strongly suggest you log in and have a look around...

im gonna go off on a tangent here so bear with me : First of all the reason this site was created was to provide a REALMWIDE planner to help in the organisation of masterlevel raids for ANYBODY that needed them, inside and outside the alliance, it is for this reason that we didnt just suggest improvements to the calander

Secondly: Hib/Guin the server te convict guild came from used a site very similar to this to plan all of their raids and it worked extremely well, so its only natural that we would want a similar system here.

Ok im going to address the above posters arguments as to why we should only use the alliance calander and why anything else is crap/useless...

one of barbos's arguements is that the calander is at a central location: ummm so is the raid planner, it is just a single url that can be used to organise raids, so they are even there

he satated that it would be more intuative to be able to see it in a monthly format so you can see what is coming up, with the raid planner all raids are organised into whichever master level they are for, so you click on ml1 and it lists all up and coming ml1's etc.... again not particuarly hard/complecated, whatever level you need/want to participate in you can select and see if any are available.

in addition to that if you keep your character information updated it will only show you what raids you need rather than the whole lot should you choose to view it that way...

his next point is that the calander is set up to show the events you have access to. With the raid planner as it is set to be a REALMWIDE planner of course you would be able to see all the raids, but if nessecary a raid leader has permission to exclude certain people or guilds (NOTE: this has yet to be done but if needed it could be implemented).

your next argument was if you wanted to post an event then all you would have to do is make a new post, give it a date etc. which is exactly all you have to do to set a new raid on the planner, the only difference is it will be available to a wider amount of people. and as for arguments about rembering accounts/passwords, well nothing is stopping you from using the same account details you use on this site.

as for his last argument about alliance members/guild coming and going i have no idea what you are trying to prove there, this raid planner is for the entire REALM or will be once it gets going, the only reason we posted the url in BWC forums first was that it is still very much in beta and we want to see if it can handl alliance raids easily before we open it up to the whole realm, use it or not its your call we dont care either way its gonna be available to whole REALM its up to you to decide if you are willing participate and organise raids that involve more than BWCa members...

just a last thing b4 i go, please have a look at the site b4 you post, that way your arguments may have more merit/substance to them...

(sorry for the last few flames i coulnt help myself )

[barbos]

well.. you did after all post this in the alliance forum... not the public forum.

I would be rather concerned about a realm wide "rvr" raid... as spies are everywhere, and it seems rather difficult to control to me.

As far as an attempt to argue with me. It's a rather void. Your ability to confuse opinion and arguement is a rather useless pursuit to make something out of nothing.

Regardless... the calendar is here for anyone who wants to use it. Any modification requests for the forums should be put in the Tech Monkey board.

[killets]

i visited the site. made a fake acct to eat up space on your server.
^_^

its a neat site, nice layout and organization, but as with all "register here" sites, you pretty much need many many registered users before the site is even remotely useful.

hell, even this silly bwc message board only has a fraction of the BWC members actively checking it more than once a month, much less often enough for an active raid organizer.

the philosophy behind the event structure here is that it gives you a calendar on when it is and what it is, and its up to people who read it to pass the word along in game.

as with all raids, 95% of the people who say they are gonna be there are actually "maybe i'll be there", because this is of course a game and has lower priority than other life events which could spring up between saying yes i'll be there, and the raid actually happening.

just 2 other pieces of constructive criticism:

1) your raid planner has no discussion or comment thingy. wouldn't this be advantageous to planning the raid, being able to recieve feedback regarding a raid? if i had questions on loot or something, it'd be annoying to have to go in game to find the raid leader, and if he'snot online, i basically have to keep going in game until i find this person.

for example, if i were to lead a raid, which i do on occasion, i login merlin maybe one hour a day, one day a week. you would never find me if you wanted, and you would have to work your ass off just to get an answer.

2) computers can calculate time zone differences and adjust accordingly much better than people can. can't +/- GMT calculations be done via javascript? been a while since i played with javascript.

[Mandrocsson]

well rvr raids are the exception rather than the rule, by all means feel free to post super secret raids or whatever on the alliance boards, it was never really intended that relic raids be posted there or whatnot but again that is up to you....

opinon/arguements same difference i was merely offering my opinons as to why using this planner could be good for this alliance and the realm as a whole....

as to why it wasnt posted in the public forums, well when we feel it is stable enough to support masses of people using it we will go public with the site, we just thought we would do the right thing and let our alliance have a look at it and offer their thoughts as to what can be improved before it becomes public knowledge

[msinosic]

I certainly wouldnt post an RvR related event on there. I agree with you totally on that one. By other raids I meant things like Dragon Raids or an artifact raid. Damn ceremonial bracers that I can never seem to get. =\

Adding comments to a raid was something that I was looking at and you are totally right. It would be nice to have some form of feedback although I would hope that the raid leader would post the loot rules and all other necessary information in the description. Based on time, loot rules, etc etc you could make up your decision to join or not.

Javascript can get the time zone offset of a user based on the date variable which then has to be passed around to get to php. I had a look at a small piece of code to do this but I avoided it totally as I dislike javascript. It really isnt that hard to calculate time. A little bit of maths when posting a raid time doesn't hurt!

You also touched on peoples commitment to attending a raid they have joined. We can't help human nature. The site is meant as a guide rather than a definitive answer. It has been my experience that most people who could be bothered to click join will come and you will also get extra people coming who couldnt be bothered to click join and even more that didnt hear about it till alliance chat is spammed.

[kordaer]

The Hib/Guin ML raid planner was and still is an invaluable tool for the whole realm. To this day it has 1712 registered users. There are 79 people listed that are ML10, so there is still a lot of people using it to host and participate in ML raids that go on all the time.

Posting raids on VN and hoping people will turn up isn't the same, nor is posting here and hoping people turn up.

Sino's Mid/Merlin planner makes it easy to organise raids. All that's needed is a quick link to it from here so that people not familiar with it can have a look and see for themselves.

Iif you don't bother to try it out you won't know whether or not it's intuitive. Took me all of 1 minute to sign up my 2 toons, set what ML steps they've done, and join a raid with them.

Hop back on the short bus back to grade 1 if you can't manage that IMO

[Kirt]

you pure sure like to argue and fight over little things =/

[Bobyearl]

I have to agree with the above post. It takes ALOT of people to register for it to be effective, and even if you have the numbers you have to hope that the people who lead the raids register. Unfortunately, most people just read these boards to see when they can "tag along" on something. That is why you see ALOT of forums named.. "Thanks Celestrial" b/c she is one of the few who lead raids. I think your planner COULD be good, but participation is the key. Most people do not even check these alliance boards, so why muddy the water with something else? Sounds good, but really... This is just a game. I try not to spend all day researching and thinking about the game. Only most of it. haha

With that let me throw in my plug....

Nex Necis leading ML2 on Sat the 8th... Be there or be square. Would appreciate all the participation we can get. We will also be hosting ML3 the following Sat.

Check the calendar!!!!!! it is there too. Tell your guilds and friends to check it as well.

[msinosic]

The general feeling is that the site 'could' be good if there is enough 'participation'. Well guys it has to start somewhere so can you spare a minute or ten and humor me by registering and adding your characters? Or should I say re registering Mr ASDF ! =)

Ohh and also who ever is leading the Nex Necis raids, could they please add their raids.

Thanks!

[Loranth]

Please use times as GMT or include the AEST time there, it is totally unusable as it is.. Or BETTER, use universal time and convert to users timezone..