Server migration

I have been working on moving to a new server, and then to add a second server to improve performance. Currently, and temporarily, the replication is not perfect, which will, among some other minor things, prevent you from updating the card/miniature database. Please let me know if you need to do anything there and I’ll fix it for you.

Update: Ok, now you should be able to edit the database, but you may not see the results showing immediately on the site. I’m working on that now.

Update (Dec. 28th): Everything should be working again as usual.

Welcome!

Hi there!

My intention is for this blog to act as a road plan for the things to come, and a discussion forum for everyone interested in my trading sites.
I’ll try and update this page with the improvements I intend to implement to help traders to get their cards and miniatures.
I would then love to get your feedback about what is needed, and about what works and what doesn’t.

I hope this blog will let us know each other better, and help us work together to maintain and expand our trading sites and their communities.
Please feel free to post and comment with your suggestions, ideas, complaints, etc…

Currently working on…

This is the current list of changes and improvements I’m working on:

• find out the software error that is causing the online games to occassionally abort and leave one of the players disconnected and unresponsive.
• Organize the TCO Team: volunteers to help on the different sections of the site. [this has been indefinitely postponed]

Latest projects finished:

1. Created a ranking of players on the Online Games and declare monthly winners. There will be a TCO Tournament for each game every month, with the following rules:
   1. Anyone can participate. You don’t need to enrol or register specially for the tournaments.
   2. Every player who plays a minimum of games (10) during the month is a participant of the tournament.
   3. Points will be granted to each participant for every game they play against another participant. 3 points for the winner of the game, 1 point for the player who loses, and 2 points for each player in case of a draw.
   4. For each opponent you play with, points will be granted to you only for the last three games you play with that person. So if you play four or more games with the same person during the month, only the three most recent games count towards the tournament.
   5. the tournament will be declared null and void if there are less than a minimum of participants (15) at the end of the month.
   6. Winners: the winners of the tournament will be decided according to the total points accumulated at the end of the month.
   7. Prizes: the three participants with the most points will be declared champions of the tournament and their names will be displayed on the site’s home page for the following month. The second winner will also receive one month of Premium membership. The first winner will receive two months of Premium membership.
   8. Valid games: Aborted games will in no case be considered for the tournament. If your opponent seems to have disconnected after you had won or when you were about to win, then you need to make sure you declare the game as abandoned; otherwise you will get no points for it.
   9. Disputes: In case of dispute about an abandoned game, a third user of the site needs to be recruited to determine if the game should be declared won by either participant. This user will have to re-play the game and then contact the webmaster with his decision. The webmaster will have the final word on whether the game result is changed or not.
2. Show the number of times the public page of each user has been viewed.
3. Add new BBCodes to improve the designs that can be obtained on the site (in the trader public page, in the Card/Miniature Reviews, etc). The codes added allow to center text, add background color, put a border around the text, and reduce its width. Done (Oct 22nd).
4. Allow for decks to be private so no one but their authors can access their contents or use them to play online. Done (Sep 23rd).
5. Give the option to hide users from the ‘your messages’ section, so that you only see those users with whom you are still interested in maintaining contact. When a new message is sent or received from hidden users they should reappear in the list.
6. Collector binders: If there are images for all the cards on a game, you would be allowed to see your collection in a binder-view, with card images displayed as on pages of 3×3 cards each, grouped by expansion set, with empty slots for the missing cards. Done (May 28th).

• Add new game Fullmetal Alchemist TCG, together with the possibility to play online. Done (Apr. 22nd)
• Checklists, printer-friendly listings with all the cards/miniatures in a set and three columns of check-boxes for the user to mark those cards he has in his collection, is offering for trade or is looking for. If the user is logged in, then the check-boxes are already marked based on his lists of cards on the site. The checklists are accessible from the ’search for a card’ section, and from the ‘cards you have’ and ‘cards you want’. Done (Apr. 6th)
• Add Pokemon TCG Online playing interface. Done (Mar. 18th)
• Allow for the management of user’s own collections: being able to record the cards we have but are not currently trading, together with those we do want to trade (the haves). Done (Mar. 17th)
• Add simple form for users to send the name of missing sets: Above the list of sets for a game which does not have a Herald, and only some 80 days after the last set has been added, a new line should show indicating “Please enter the name of any set we may be missing:”, and a text box to enter the name. I expect to do it so that the page does not need to reload for the name to be sent (the way the reports about inappropriate contents are sent now). This should help to warn me about new sets so that I can work on adding them as soon as possible. Currently I can’t stay abreast of all the sets for all the games which do not have a dedicated Herald for them. Done (Jan. 7th)
• Add playing interface to play Yu-Gi-Oh! online. Done (Dec. 29th)
• Add a second server to increase performance. Includes coordinating the replication of data between the servers. Done (Dec. 28th)
• Generate a header image with cards for each game, similar to the one on top of this page. Done (Dec. 26th)
• Move sites to another server to try and prevent current down-times. Done
• Notify Heralds about this blog and invite them to join. Done (Dec. 14th)
• Add Conan Online Game. Done (Dec. 10th)