Amalgamate

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Crash
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Post by Crash »

I think, since so many starfleet sites have gone under or gone unattended to for so long over the last 12 months or more - I think we should amalgamate and rent our own server or something.The practical upshots of this are:firstly we can get loads of bandwidth thru bulk buying and use it to 'bittorrent' the whole series of Star Fleet.secondly; I notice that there is an ever-increasing problem with real-life getting in the way of us developing our projects... If we had some people responsible for looking after the website, then programmers and modellers and artists could get on with their respective work, without all of them having to maintain a website or forum etc as well.thirdly; we'd have a fantastic site at the end of it, on which we could collaborate on the content and that we'd all be dead proud of.I think several people have had this idea on their minds - so I decided I'd say it out loud. I think a nice, big joint project of this nature would put some life back in our web community etc.Discuss...
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AndyThomas
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Post by AndyThomas »

First of all, Merry Christmas and (shortly) Happy New Year. As to the topic, in theory it's not a bad idea (copyright issues aside) but the problems come when you try to get people agreeing on how to run a single site. It would also require a lot of effort, technically, to actually bring all the sites under one URL.We had a similar discussion back in the early days of these sites - why have multiple sites for such an obscure subject, particularly when there's a degree of overlap in the content? Because people like to do things their own way, in their own style, at the end of the day. The compromise we reached was to heavily cross-link between the sites to give readers as many options as possible, so that if someone preferred the approach of a different site it would at least be drawn to their attention, particularly as we all had different strengths.I know that I, personally, couldn't now find the time to participate in the sort of project you're talking about - I do maintain SFXB, but it's pretty much where I wanted it to get to and has been for some time. So really in terms of growth it's really gone as far as it's likely to on the Star Fleet side. Does anyone else want to comment?
Andy Thomas - SFXB Webmaster and Forum Moderator
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Crash
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Post by Crash »

Happy new year, when it comes, gentlemen!Well this is all true - however the point of having a website is surely to attract visitors and discussion and participation. At the moment everyone's losing out there cos there's no greater sense of ownership. - I don't know about anyone else but I feel really dispondent about what/where we've let a really excellent fanbase come to in general.Just because sfxb.co.uk has matured and come to fruition doesn't mean that there aren't still projects that should be done; 3d art, interactive stuff etc.What I'm proposing is that we host sfxb.co.uk, xbomber.co.uk, the contents of bigdaix.com, plus anyone else who wants to tag along. - All on the same server with one single forum which is divided into several areas with a number of moderators to spread the workload and look after their respective sections.I think it's better to have several people working on and proud of a single site rather than have several lonely ones that seem to be croaking off one-by-one every 6months.There should be a discussion with a document drawn up as to what the site should be in general terms that everyone can agree to, so that there is no mind-changing later down the line.My thoughts are that sfxb should remain as it is with the other sites all stored side-by-side, linked together from a top-menu and all pointing into a central community forum.
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Zordon
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Post by Zordon »

I'm up for it if anyone's intrestedAndy's site designs, Shanes Merchandise, crash's gamesmy erm unfinished projects lolI realy must finish something off lol
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Zordon
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Post by Zordon »

Coming back to this topic I think that at this point in the fandom, personal and in interests that an amalgamation of information, visual, merchandise, fan created and multimedia content would be a huge task that if done properly by a well crafted team could work.If a suitable and semi full time team was picked.Site builder CrashEditor Crash, Andy – (previous written content) Visual, Multimedia Zordon, Crash, ShaneFan stuff, fan art, fiction etc Zordon – as locating suitable content and partial creating of content.Merchandise Shane The site would not be a carbon copy of anyone’s existing sites.All content before uploading would be verified and checked by all parties.I’ve been doing this with one of my groups and it’s worked great so far.
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Shane
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Post by Shane »

I think Crash is already doing this kind of thing with the X-Archive.I can't speak for Andy, but I'm sure he'd probably want his site left alone with regards to content. It's now a complete entity, with the release of the DVD and Soundtrack. It also contains easily the most comprehensive information about the show, with very little to add by anyone, unless it's in a specialist area like merchandise for instance.Personally I'm not updating BigDaiX.com either, it's probably a little unfinished still, but my interests are in other areas these days.I think if you truly wanted to have all of the available information on various websites archived into one ordered place. You should create a Star Fleet X Bomber Archive homepage in an A-Z encyclopedia format with embedded links to information scattered around the internet.For instance: A is for Arkama - (Non cannon) A character featured in Shane Perry's fan-fiction: The Revenge of Makara. With embedded links to any information available on the internet about that subject.Another example: E is for EDF - (Cannon) Military organization in the Star Fleet universe. Again,  links to info on other sites and on the web. I think it would be very important to state what is cannon or non cannon though, if it's to be a true archive. You'd then have a fully ordered archive database without having to adapt or fiddle with any existing sites.It would be very easy to do, if incredibly time consuming potentially. Volunteers wouldn't need to know how to code either, as you could do most of the work in a word processing program and then just have someone design a suitable website/control panel.I'd gladly help with the odd entry here and there.



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Crash
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Post by Crash »

I was thinking last night that a Wiki for non-canon Star Fleet stuff would be ideal.That way you could bring all the fan-fiction characters and hardware together under one roof, like Memory Beta.In that case we could junk the X-Archive for a full Wiki/CMS and transfer the content across (especially if it had its own web-upload function) and give it the secondary function that the coppermine has at the moment.The problem with the Coppermine is that it's a Gallery, not a publishing system, although, I suppose you could hack it for the purpose. Having said that, I have no love for the software or its devs. It's too complicated for what it does, I think.I'm a bit pushed for time until the summer, maybe someone (I'm looking at you, Brad, or anyone) could hunt out a suitable Wiki program.Would be best to host it ourselves. X-Bomber the Game's new server is pretty fast and you'd get no adverts that way.On an unrelated note: I wondered if someone could help me out with sound-effects from the show. I'm no sound-designer in addition to not being a modeler or a real programmer. I could really do with some help to make my game's sound-effects suitably accurate to the show. I could especially do with some of those awesome screeching laser torpedo sounds.If you know any good, free sound libraries as well, that'd be very useful too.



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Shane
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Post by Shane »

Are you using mono or stereo samples? I'm guessing it's WAV format you're after?Yeah, a wiki style format would work, you could always keep X-Archive, as it functions well as a way for people to upload various things Star Fleet X Bomber related.You could really go into great depth with both cannon and non cannon material. I might start the ball rolling in a forum thread, then it can always be used as raw material later on down the line should anyone want to run with this.



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Crash
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Post by Crash »

That's right, if you look at the Wiki about Gundam, you should see how many images are on there and it makes it more navigable to have all the related images about, for instance, Captain Carter's Astrofighter on a page that tells you a bit about it, rather than just dumped in a gallery folder.WAV format would be the absolute best. MMF2 reads that natively and then compresses it. Stereo would be great but I think anything would do, really.I suppose the Star Fleet audio would be Stereo so, if you could get it in that, it would surely sound nicer.I'm still interested in seeing the design for your mass-produced Dai-X substitute. I've always wanted to publish the plans and specification for WingBlade too as well as some of the made-up enemies in the game.I wondered if you'd had any thoughts about some TROM-based levels for a possible add-on pack. I can't promise anything but X-Bomber is getting vaguely near to completion. I should think that by the end of this year it would be a finished product.I may have to use some creative license with sound effects because some of the sounds in Star Fleet sound a bit weak to me and I have a massive library on one hard disk full of sounds that I've ripped from commercial and indie games that I can use to replace them.But any laser torpedoes, engine sounds, even explosions, it would be good to get authenticity and then improve it a little where we can.One complaint I got was that I didn't have the swarming, engine sounds of the alliance fighters etc. I think that guy was right.



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Shane
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Post by Shane »

Let's be honest, some of the sounds in the show are quite cheesy, but pretty iconic, especially the imperial fighter swarming sound. I'll have a go tomorrow and try and get some of the major sounds. I'll sample them in mono and then do some stereo trickery in my workstation. Add a bit of panning along with bass and treble where needed.Yeah, you've got so many new weapons it won't hurt to use library sounds for those.How's the music situation? Are you still using midi files? I'll get round to drawing a proper Delta Z and Dai Z at some point. It's just finding the time.A TROM add-on pack would be very sweet once the game's finished and Indeed if and when I can finish TROM.



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