One element I've been reflecting on lately is on a recurring theme: promotion. But rather than Creeper's Lab, or Interordi, how about myself?
Not that I'm looking at become a dreaded influencer, this is more about having an online presence that's not necessarily tied to a specific project, beyond having the Interordi frontpage, that is.
One idea I had was to run a blog to post my musings. It's entirely possible that this would fall in the “good idea, wrong time” trap, though, and would have been a better pick 15 years ago. It's not like I write a lot, but I have some thoughts I like to spell out once in a while. As a starting point, I could always build an archive from past posts I've made on forums, Tumblr and the like. This way, I would have some content from day one.
Another option would be to be more active on one or two social networks. Which one I'm not sure; I used to be more active on Tumblr, but that fell off a cliff. I have no interest on photos and videos, so definitely not TikTok or Instagram. Maybe it could be Twitter, as I like how short-form it is, and you can choose what to engage on. Plus, I already monitor the Creeper's Lab feed on there, so I'm at least familiar with it. Maybe you have a feeling on one that could be a good match for me?
And then one other key question: in which language? French or English? You reading this are more familiar with my english-language content, obviously, but I use both day-to-day. I'm not keen on having both languages repeating themselves on the same channels, that sounds too official-government-like. Separate channels could be an idea, but that's nearly double the work and not as spontaneous.
I haven't made any decision on this yet, still musing...
#branding #interordi #personal
– Doctacosa
A direction that I've been working toward for quite a while has been about branding. I've got the name and logo for Interordi that I've been using in some fashion for over 20 years now, always as a more subdued reference while other names have taken the forefront. Obviously, right now, that's the Creeper's Lab, but that could change eventually, much like it has in the past.
This isn't so much about pushing the Interordi brand itself aggressively like saying buy a t-shirt, but more about creating an awareness that there's more I do besides run a few Minecraft servers. If I was to launch a new site or product, I'd like people to know about it, and that's where having the branding comes in. The Interordi newsletter I've recently launched to annonce major updates is a key part of this, giving me a way to reach out to people that could be otherwise inactive on the network.
One notable step on branding has been the introduction of Interordi Accounts. An upgrade over the forum registration, this lets people create one account that can be used all over the network. From a potential player's point of view, it's also easier to explain that they need an Interordi Account to get whitelisted, rather than tell them to register on a forum to access a game. It flows more naturally. If I launch another service, tool or game later, people will be able to use the very same accounts to continue. As such, each location will link to the others.
Likewise, still pushing the visibility aspect, having one clear name helps to highlight that there's more. I've been gradually publishing some of my home-grown plugins, now available as public downloads, with more on the way. Other server owners might find one of my plugins, download it and move on. However, if I place a clear logo somewhere in each description, with a link saying something like “Check out my other plugins!”, each one becomes a possible entry point to raise awareness about the whole set!
Several of the things completed in the past year have played a role. Modernizing the forums was much needed, then the new Interordi homepage became a much more welcoming entry point.
What's the next step on this trip? I'm not even sure about that myself! There are a few things I want to do, plus more that I probably haven't even thought about yet, so it's all a work in progress.
#branding #creepers_lab #interordi
– Doctacosa
At long last, I have finally updated the main Interordi homepage to something modern! Hurray!
This isn't the page I have created that gets the most traffic, or the one that most people care about, but it was important to me on a personal level. This is my homepage, my corner of the Internet, and where people can discover what else exists on Interordi. Plus, if I ever want to get a new job, this is the main landing page that goes on my resume – and selling myself as a web developer with something this out of date sounded like a terrible idea!
The new site design includes a modern appearance, separation between the English and French version (with a smart auto-detection based on your device's settings), the refreshed Interordi logo and a full mobile-friendly layout.
The last main refresh was 15 years ago, I had been thinking about redoing this for almost a decade, and I started this work back in 2017. It never was high priority enough to focus on, but this summer was the time. I've set myself as a goal in 2020 to clear as many of these old projects off my list as possible, like the forums refresh back in April, and it was also the last of my websites not to have received any kind of significant upgrade in years. Now, that's done!
Will this get people excited? Likely not, it's only a cog in the system, but I'm glad it's finally there.
– Doctacosa
As a new dev entry, here's why and how I introduced the recent chat server.
From day one, when I introduced multiple Minecraft servers (first Rodinia, then Gondwana, and so on), I relied on IRC to carry the messages from location to location. Each server would spawn an IRC bot that'd be used to join #interordi-mc to send messages, read them and show them in game. Rather simple, and it works. The first version of this setup used a Minecraft plugin, which eventually I replaced with my own server wrapper when said plugin seemed like it would no longer be updated. This also allowed me to make a universal chat solution that worked for Bukkit/Spigot instances, Forge setups, and even vanilla Minecraft itself.
Some of you might have seen me running some tests with Discord earlier this year. This used a IRC <–> Discord bridge, where another IRC bot would be used to relay messages to and from Discord. This created the following structure (only showing three Minecraft servers for the example's sake):
This meant that messages travelling from Laurasia to Discord would absolutely need to go through IRC. The end effect is that messages as seen on Discord would look like this:
CreeperDiscord <CreeperLaurasia> (Doctacosa) Hello there!
That's a bit wordy, isn't it? Additionally, I had no control whatsoever over the formatting. What I wanted to get is closer to this:
CreeperDiscord (Doctacosa) Hello there!
Much better, isn't it? It's more readable, too. To do this, though, I needed to get IRC out of its position as the messages middleman. I eventually got the idea to write my own relay station of sorts. All of the various chat locations (which I've named internally “channels”) would send their messages there, and the server would accept and transmit them to all other channels. The new setup took this form:
Eventually, I settled on this text format:
Creep [Laurasia] (Doctacosa) Hello there!
I shortened the original “CreeperDiscord” to the more compact “Creep”, and decided to include the location name so people would know if a chatter was on Discord, IRC, or directly in-game. People seem to like having that information available, so that will be here to stay.
Of course, as I mentioned before, having that new chat core in place opens more options. I've reintroduced today the .players command, which now works from in-game, IRC and Discord. As an extra bonus, it's able to relay the list of persons connected on IRC and Discord as well. Those custom ranks I talked about in my previous post? They'll be read and attached to messages by the chat server directly, making sure that the information is always up-to-date everywhere. Other additions could happen at a later time, too!
Got an idea on what topics I should write about in future Game Dev entries? Send in your suggestions in the comments!
– Doctacosa
How an evening at home goes when I realize I don’t have an Internet connection:
I’ll go check my forums…
… no connection, huh? Weird. Oh well, it’ll probably be back soon. I’ll go read my e-mails in the meanti…
I’m stupid, that won’t work either. Guess I’ll go check the news on their webs…
Argh, of course that won’t work. Well, I’ve been meaning to watch that TV show on Netflix, so I ca…
No, won’t work either. Hey, did I have any e-mails…
… screw this, I’m going to eat.
^ That was me last night.
– Doctacosa