Topic: Latest Maps?

[alucard]

It says new SOTN maps yesterday, but which ones are new, or were changed?

Also do you think there should be something saying which maps are new when new ones get added, instead of it just saying the game title? Because not everyone is going to know which map is new, especially when the game has tons of maps for it already.

[JonLeung]

Revned can specify the particular changes, but the new ones are the non-castle areas, the Forest and Nightmare, plus the Richter prologue, "Final Stage: "Bloodlines"".  The changed ones are the whole castle, the Catacombs, Clock Tower, Royal Chapel, and Castle Keep.

Because I don't always remark when maps are merely corrected, maps of the two Garden areas on the Sega Saturn version were also updated yesterday.

It's come up before as a suggestion to indicate what maps are new, or to put latest revision date, or something to that effect.  For the main page, it would be too much to do, for some days when I get a few dozen or even over a hundred maps.  If I picked and chose individual maps to mention, that would just be more work, plus I run the risk of offending someone if I decide their maps aren't worth making individual note of.  For the main listing, I could put dates, but not now.  I would have to also put dates down for all the maps we have now...and for however many maps we have - 30,000?  I forget offhand, but it's around there - or I could have it automatically generated (along with image area and file size) if and when we get a site revamp.  That's another can of worms...

[Revned]

Timestamps on the main listings would help a lot - I've wanted them for a very long time. It would be possible to backfill based on filesystem timestamps. Might not be perfect, but they'd at least provide a baseline for future updates.

I actually started including revision numbers on my maps since there is no other way to tell whether you're looking at a revised version.

[Rew]

Okay, so I guess this is more of a main site help topic instead of a message board help one. But how can you tell which maps are the latest ones?

For example, the latest update has new Wario Land II maps. But when I click on it, I'm taken to the Wario Land II section and have no idea which maps are the new ones. There are maps by three different mappers on there.

Perhaps in the near future, there can be a "new" label attached to new maps? Or (better yet) date stamp all the maps? (I understand this latter suggestion could be a massive undertaking if it had to be done by hand...)

[JonLeung]

The newest Wario Land II maps are the "Final Chapter - Uncanny Mansion", "Final Chapter - Mysterious Factory!", and "The Really Final Chapter".

Yes, as you can see by the merged topic, we've discussed this before...

Perhaps if I can't make time (yes, I know I play too many games) and usually have trouble trusting people over the Internet that I don't know in real life, I should look into local solutions into getting a revamp done...

[Revned]

I don't think you necessarily need to jump right to paying someone. Just solicit volunteers here and keep everything out in the open, no need to put your eggs in anyone's basket.

I don't know hardly anything about web development, but I am a software engineer by trade and could lend some assistance along the way. I know that there are other programmers here who probably have even more relevant experience.

[Maxim]

You should use a framework that is easy to deal with and used by lots of people. Don't go with something custom unless you enjoy being stuck when the developer disappears. In my years of trying to get someone to make something custom for free, nothing ever came of it.

I was never satisfied with the available options for image galleries so I ended up making something quite custom on top of a wiki as a CMS. You can compare http://www.smspower.org/Maps/Index where we have maps, and also http://www.smspower.org/Scans/Index which is more oriented to tracking individual image sources and grouping of images.

[Revned]

A wiki backend would be nice because it would allow for WYSIWYG editing which would be great for Jon, and would open up the possibility of letting mappers maintain their own map postings. It would still mean that mostly everything is manually maintained, but it would be flexible and hopefully easy to deploy.

But yes, don't use a completely custom solution from someone you can't count on sticking around forever. Same kind of deal as the forums - remember all the issues that arose with the obscure old forum software? Everything was worlds better when we finally got a popular, well maintained replacement.