MegaGlest Website

[softcoder]

This new script gives me a syntax error after starting a bit:

Code: [Select]

...
...
damage_multiplier for energy vs stone = 0.5
sh: Syntax error: "(" unexpected
doing faction: convert_faction_xml2html in path: </home/softcoder/Code/megaglest/trunk/source/tools/convert_faction_xml2html>/<units>
Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at ./convert_faction_xml2html.pl line 542.
softcoder@softhauslinux:~/Code/megaglest/trunk/source/tools/convert_faction_xml2html (2)$


[titi]

I tried the scripts and everything worked like a charm! This is really fantastic!
For softcoder it did not work, but  I am quite shure this is related to .svn directories because he tried it in his svn checkout.

@all: What are the plans to make these cool results visible on the website?

[olaus]

This new script gives me a syntax error after starting a bit:

Code: [Select]

...
...
damage_multiplier for energy vs stone = 0.5
sh: Syntax error: "(" unexpected
doing faction: convert_faction_xml2html in path: </home/softcoder/Code/megaglest/trunk/source/tools/convert_faction_xml2html>/<units>
Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at ./convert_faction_xml2html.pl line 542.
softcoder@softhauslinux:~/Code/megaglest/trunk/source/tools/convert_faction_xml2html (2)$


i wonder about the syntax error of "sh", did you start it via some shell-script?

looks like the "factions_path" in the ini is wrong because the output of "doing faction: convert_faction_xml2html" should be "doing faction: egypt".

[tomreyn]

@all: What are the plans to make these cool results visible on the website?

I made my personal statement on this some posts above. I do want it on the website, I just think the output should be polished a little bit more, yet, before we publish it.

[softcoder]

Hi the problem was related to folder containing spaces! Could you perhaps update the script so that spaces in folders / filenames works? Also some files are missing from the archive:  style.css and the favicon.ico

Thanks

[ultifd]

OK Here's the code for the playlist.not sure if it's valid though.

Code: [Select]

<object width="480" height="385"<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/DAFD2412E3255414"</param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"M</param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"</param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/DAFD2412E3255414" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

[tomreyn]

This video on top of the stack is somehow on steroids, at least when my computer plays it back. Can someone else check this, too, please?

[ultifd]

..... a natural assumption that any game that is available on linux is free and open source ....

oh my god .....

Well titi, you and others have the assumption that most Windows Users are newbs...  
Assumptions...  

Anyways the Website is looking great. At least 100 or so visitors each day  (I can tell from my Youtube Stats)

[Omega]

Recommendation: Add google analytics, so you can see the exact amounts of users coming in, as well as being able to see the pages they view and the countries.

[tomreyn]

Nah, Google already knows much too much. If there is demand by the project lead to know more than what the simple statistics we have now provide, then we can add a self-hosted service like piwik instead.

[titi]

no google analytics!

By the way, the forum date display on the webpage is messed up! Saying "4082 days ago"

Just remove the date maybe

[tomreyn]

Haven't changed it but it looks correct now...

[olaus]

if you search in (german) google for "glest", megaglest.org comes at position 190, which is of course not so good because most people on the web just look for glest.

proposals for a better position:
- the <title> is so far "Megaglest - Megaglest", should be "Megaglest - Mega Glest"
- mention the word "glest" (without "mega" in front) at least once on the page. the glest-link to glest.org is counted to glest.org because it links there.
- the pagerank of megaglest.org is 0 so far, set links to it on your pages, use the url in blogs, comments, digg, yigg, twitter, ...

also there should be a good meta-description, that's used by google when showing the search results.

[ultifd]

http://www.woorank.com/en/www/megaglest.org
I guess tomreyn just added the meta description and etc...don't forgot to add
warcraft
starcraft
aoe
aoe2
aoe3

- the pagerank of megaglest.org is 0 so far, set links to it on your pages, use the url in blogs, comments, digg, yigg, twitter, ...

All we need is CNET 

[tomreyn]

Right, I just added the meta headers. However, as far as I know, most search engines outright ignore those for a couple years now. But then, it doesn't hurt to have them.
Personally I do not want to have the spelling "Mega Glest" in the page title or body at all (but I added it to the keywords), since we agreed to only use the "MegaGlest" spelling in the future so that third parties will always use the same term to refer to the game, which also results in better 'penetration' of this term.

I don't care much about SEO (i.e. modifying your website for the sole purpose of making them rank higher in search engine results), my point of view is that good search engines are made in a way that they are able to determine stuff by themselves. I think that a good on-page description containing all relevant terms and references on high profile sites are neccessary, though. From this point of view, uploading to CNET would probably help, and, much more than that, an article on various Wikipedia language versions would, too. Any volunteers for taking on Wikipedia?

[olaus]

Right, I just added the meta headers. However, as far as I know, most search engines outright ignore those for a couple years now. But then, it doesn't hurt to have them.

meta-keywords are mostly ignored, the meta-description is used f.e. by google in the search results (google for "glest", the description show in the result for glest.org is the one from their HTML-source.)

Personally I do not want to have the spelling "Mega Glest" in the page title or body at all (but I added it to the keywords), since we agreed to only use the "MegaGlest" spelling in the future so that third parties will always use the same term to refer to the game, which also results in better 'penetration' of this term.

sure, but right now google doesn't have any idea that megaglest.org is related to glest (or maybe a slight one because it's in the description). write "glest" just once on the page (links to glest.org don't count).

I don't care much about SEO (i.e. modifying your website for the sole purpose of making them rank higher in search engine results), my point of view is that good search engines are made in a way that they are able to determine stuff by themselves.

google can't find the bridge from glest to megaglest, it's just not on the page.

it would value a link like

Code: [Select]

<a href="http://megaglest.org">glest</a> on other pages but those are unlikely.

I think that a good on-page description containing all relevant terms and references on high profile sites are neccessary, though. From this point of view, uploading to CNET would probably help,

i'm not sure anymore that cnet with its 117 downloads is important. sourceforge says they have 5,076 weekly downloads for glest and 1,841 for megaglest.

but these numbers also show that each week 5000+ people download an outdated version of glest. that why it's important to get the word spread and have a good google ranking for "glest".

and, much more than that, an article on various Wikipedia language versions would, too. Any volunteers for taking on Wikipedia?

megaglest is mentioned in the german and english wikipedia. for the other languages we should ask people who know the languages to add links. for the remaining languages we could just add the link, that works without knowing porguese

[Coldfusionstorm]

The main reason why I did not choose the new video yet is because it is so dark because its nighttime in the game .

and yes for a trailer we need to have several good snippets and then they can be combined to a good trailer.

Yes, this, Night is WAY to dark in Glest, and have allways been, in the older releases (glest), and on certain monitors, i could actually feel my eyes beginning to hurt.

[Omega]

The main reason why I did not choose the new video yet is because it is so dark because its nighttime in the game .

and yes for a trailer we need to have several good snippets and then they can be combined to a good trailer.

Yes, this, Night is WAY to dark in Glest, and have allways been, in the older releases (glest), and on certain monitors, i could actually feel my eyes beginning to hurt.

Agreed. This is a TILESET thing though... It's the responsibility of the modder to make sure you can still see at night, and not just copying dark forest's XML. It even got to the point of which Military's custom tilesets make the night considerably brighter.

[-Archmage-]

The main reason why I did not choose the new video yet is because it is so dark because its nighttime in the game .

and yes for a trailer we need to have several good snippets and then they can be combined to a good trailer.

Yes, this, Night is WAY to dark in Glest, and have allways been, in the older releases (glest), and on certain monitors, i could actually feel my eyes beginning to hurt.

Agreed. This is a TILESET thing though... It's the responsibility of the modder to make sure you can still see at night, and not just copying dark forest's XML. It even got to the point of which Military's custom tilesets make the night considerably brighter.

I dunno what you guys are complaining about, night is plenty bright for me, I actually have trouble telling which is which...

[tomreyn]

meta-keywords are mostly ignored, the meta-description is used f.e. by google in the search results (google for "glest", the description show in the result for glest.org is the one from their HTML-source.)

Good point, thanks for the clarification.

Personally I do not want to have the spelling "Mega Glest" in the page title or body at all (but I added it to the keywords), since we agreed to only use the "MegaGlest" spelling in the future so that third parties will always use the same term to refer to the game, which also results in better 'penetration' of this term.

sure, but right now google doesn't have any idea that megaglest.org is related to glest (or maybe a slight one because it's in the description). write "glest" just once on the page (links to glest.org don't count).

I'm sure it is mentioned somewhere on megaglest.org. And this is not so important to me. If we really wanted this fixed, we'd try more to get a link on glest.org to point to megaglest.org.

google can't find the bridge from glest to megaglest, it's just not on the page.

it would value a link like

Code: [Select]

<a href="http://megaglest.org">glest</a> on other pages but those are unlikely.

And silly, too. ;-)
There are enough third party websites which explain the relationship of Glest and MegaGlest by now. If search engines are 'intelligent' enough they will understand. If not, then they need to be improved.

i'm not sure anymore that cnet with its 117 downloads is important. sourceforge says they have 5,076 weekly downloads for glest and 1,841 for megaglest.

but these numbers also show that each week 5000+ people download an outdated version of glest. that why it's important to get the word spread and have a good google ranking for "glest".

This is not a # of downloads competition. Personally I'd like to distance myself from the point of view that # of downloads (where it is also unclear how they are measured) are assumed to be equal to activate / returning players. To me, only the latter matters, and the number of downloads are no more than an often misleading indication.

and, much more than that, an article on various Wikipedia language versions would, too. Any volunteers for taking on Wikipedia?

megaglest is mentioned in the german and english wikipedia. for the other languages we should ask people who know the languages to add links. for the remaining languages we could just add the link, that works without knowing porguese

Being "mentioned" on another article is something completely different than having its own dedicated article. I would really appreciate if someone would come up with one.

[olaus]

I'm sure it is mentioned somewhere on megaglest.org.

if it's in megaglest.org/wherever.html it doesn't help megaglest.org and that's the page which will get the highest pagerank because most links go there.

And this is not so important to me. If we really wanted this fixed, we'd try more to get a link on glest.org to point to megaglest.org.

as that link will probably contain "megaglest" and not "glest" google will still not associate megaglest.org with "glest".

There are enough third party websites which explain the relationship of Glest and MegaGlest by now. If search engines are 'intelligent' enough they will understand. If not, then they need to be improved.

i haven't even heard of a scientific experimental search engine which would be able to read and understand english text, maybe in 10 years we'll have that. so long we'll have to improve the web-pages.

This is not a # of downloads competition. Personally I'd like to distance myself from the point of view that # of downloads (where it is also unclear how they are measured) are assumed to be equal to activate / returning players. To me, only the latter matters, and the number of downloads are no more than an often misleading indication.

no, of course that ratio of active megaglest-players by megaglest-downloads is somewhere below 1%. the only sure thing, is that the ratio of active megaglest-players by glest-downloads is lots lower.

my way to this community was:
1. google for "rts linux"
2. go the glest.org, download, install
3. get annoyed about the slow mousepointer
4. google for that, find the wiki, see link to forum, wondered what megaglest is ...

so if i wouldn't have had this problem, i probably would have played glest a bit and then dumped it because of lousy online-gaming for spring, warcraft on wine or whatever. and this is what apparently several hundred/thousand people do per week. so the goal is that people get in contact first with MG, not glest. google is the most important tool here.

Being "mentioned" on another article is something completely different than having its own dedicated article. I would really appreciate if someone would come up with one.

in the german wikipedia the article wouldn't survive 2 weeks before rightly deleted for not being relevant enough as one of 2 forks of some game. without being the official successor (or someday being evolved a magnitude better) MG and GAE get maximum their own paragraph in the glest-article. the english wikipedia might be more liberal. anyway, being mentioned in the article is 99% of the goal because everybody reading glest will know about megaglest.

[treba]

just came over this post and thought it might be a good idea to change the title of the site in something similar to the one of glest.org, which is "Glest - The Free Real Time-Time Strategy Game".

one of the main reasons why glest.org is so high rated in google if you search for "free rts" and similar things might be this title. by changing it to "MegaGlest - The Free Real Time-Time Strategy Game" we would even have a connection to glest...althought it's a little bit uncreative....what about "MegaGlest - The Open Source Real Time-Time Strategy Game" or "MegaGlest - The FOSS Real Time-Time Strategy Game"?

or, my favourite althought a little bit long, "MegaGlest - The Free and Open Source Real Time-Time Strategy Game"

greetz

[Omega]

just came over this post and thought it might be a good idea to change the title of the site in something similar to the one of glest.org, which is "Glest - The Free Real Time-Time Strategy Game".

one of the main reasons why glest.org is so high rated in google if you search for "free rts" and similar things might be this title. by changing it to "MegaGlest - The Free Real Time-Time Strategy Game" we would even have a connection to glest...althought it's a little bit uncreative....what about "MegaGlest - The Open Source Real Time-Time Strategy Game" or "MegaGlest - The FOSS Real Time-Time Strategy Game"?

or, my favourite althought a little bit long, "MegaGlest - The Free and Open Source Real Time-Time Strategy Game"

I don't think we should use acronyms like FOSS in the title, since many would not know what it means (to test this point, I asked my parents and sister if they knew. They didn't). I think "MegaGlest - The open source real time strategy game". Note that I eliminated the double "time" (what's that for?) and Open source really means free. And of course, correct capitalization looks best too.

[John.d.h]

I'd feel better about "free and open-source", rather than just "free" or just "open source", as it's the least ambiguous.  Okay, technically "free/libre open source software" is the least ambiguous, but it's more cumbersome and people searching for FLOSS are likely to find a lot of things unrelated to software.  "Free/libre" would also be a good and concise alternative.

I don't think we should use acronyms like FOSS in the title, since many would not know what it means (to test this point, I asked my parents and sister if they knew. They didn't).

Do they know what free (as in freedom and free speech) means in terms of software either?  Or even open source?  I think that if people know one term, they probably know the others (free, free/libre, FOSS, FLOSS, etc.).  If they're not already interested in issues of software freedom, they're not going to understand any of the terms without looking them up.  This is the main reason I don't like the term "free software" -- it allows a person to assume the wrong meaning instead of looking it up and actually finding out.

I think "MegaGlest - The open source real time strategy game". Note that I eliminated the double "time" (what's that for?) and Open source really means free. And of course, correct capitalization looks best too.

No, open source does not mean free.  Granted, the majority of open-source projects are also free/libre, but they needn't be, and open source misses the point.  "Open source" just tells the potential user that people have taken a look at the code and helped sort out the bugs, while saying nothing about freedom and respect for the users' liberties.  These are things the Glest community and (from what I've seen) the MegaGlest developers care about and want to promote.

[Omega]

I'd feel better about "free and open-source", rather than just "free" or just "open source", as it's the least ambiguous.  Okay, technically "free/libre open source software" is the least ambiguous, but it's more cumbersome and people searching for FLOSS are likely to find a lot of things unrelated to software.  "Free/libre" would also be a good and concise alternative.

I don't think we should use acronyms like FOSS in the title, since many would not know what it means (to test this point, I asked my parents and sister if they knew. They didn't).

Do they know what free (as in freedom and free speech) means in terms of software either?  Or even open source?  I think that if people know one term, they probably know the others (free, free/libre, FOSS, FLOSS, etc.).  If they're not already interested in issues of software freedom, they're not going to understand any of the terms without looking them up.  This is the main reason I don't like the term "free software" -- it allows a person to assume the wrong meaning instead of looking it up and actually finding out.

I think "MegaGlest - The open source real time strategy game". Note that I eliminated the double "time" (what's that for?) and Open source really means free. And of course, correct capitalization looks best too.

No, open source does not mean free.  Granted, the majority of open-source projects are also free/libre, but they needn't be, and open source misses the point.  "Open source" just tells the potential user that people have taken a look at the code and helped sort out the bugs, while saying nothing about freedom and respect for the users' liberties.  These are things the Glest community and (from what I've seen) the MegaGlest developers care about and want to promote.

Good point. Proposal: "MegaGlest - The free, open source real time strategy game". We still avoid all acronyms including FOSS and even RTS, simply because search engines will find it just the same and as I mentioned, some people may not know acronyms.

By the way, to answer that question, my parents did happen to know what open source and free meant. I prefer to think of it like all those internet acronyms. Many are simple words that everyone knows the meaning off, but unless they've heard the acronym before, odds are, they won't know the meaning.