Centralized clanning/league/maps system

[Direhit]

Best of luck getting any league to give up the direct ownership of their site information or for that matter best of luck getting their egos NOT to clash, because if TFC inter-league cooperation has shown anything it's that egos just get in the way the majority of the time.

[Ihmhi]

Originally Posted by Zydell

I think a myspace-like site is going to take up a lot of bandwidth and webspace and it's not a very crucial feature. My goals are mainly to centralize information, to make everything easier for players and to greatly reduce develop time for webmasters.

Not if you do not host any music, video, or images (beyond the 100 x 100 pixel avatar) on your site.

Originally Posted by Direhit

Best of luck getting any league to give up the direct ownership of their site information or for that matter best of luck getting their egos NOT to clash, because if TFC inter-league cooperation has shown anything it's that egos just get in the way the majority of the time.

How is transmitting the records of their rosters and the win/loss records to another site giving up some kind of super secret information?

I think you might be right, though. You will probably have to have volunteers monitor the leagues, rosters, etc. and run all of the information yourself.

If you do this right then any clan will look foolish for not having a page on your site.

Oh, and even if they do not use the forums, they ought to be there. If they do not use them, then almost no disk space gets wasted and they will always have the option to use them.

You can have accounts close after so many months of complete inactivity (3?).

[Direhit]

Originally Posted by Ihmhi

Not if you do not host any music, video, or images (beyond the 100 x 100 pixel avatar) on your site.



How is transmitting the records of their rosters and the win/loss records to another site giving up some kind of super secret information?

I think you might be right, though. You will probably have to have volunteers monitor the leagues, rosters, etc. and run all of the information yourself.

If you do this right then any clan will look foolish for not having a page on your site.

Oh, and even if they do not use the forums, they ought to be there. If they do not use them, then almost no disk space gets wasted and they will always have the option to use them.

You can have accounts close after so many months of complete inactivity (3?).

If you're going to use the site as just a copy of what is on league sites, then it definitely wouldn't be an issue, especially since leagues in TFC are already doing that, but if you're going to create a site where all league information is going to be coordinated from, then yes, you will have issues of what I mentioned above.

[SkynYrd]

The easiest way I can see is a site that compiles what is already out there in a clean, accessible manner and adds a few new features that don't already exist. Kam had the right idea, basically just an information hub for competitive FF that doesn't really "control" any information itself.

For example it would be nice to be able to visit a single site and be able to:

• View the KSE stocks for all clans internationally
• View what maps are coming up for each league/division
• View which clans play in which leagues and their rosters
• View the lineup for each match and details (blarghalyzer)
• View clanners and see what clans they have been involved in in the past

... that kind of stuff.

IMO trying to get involved in the signup process is a mistake. Let leagues handle their own business and simply relate that information to the community. Just give each league, clan, and player their own unique page.

The league's page would obviously list what clans play in each division and other pertinent information like schedule, maps, and rankings.

Clicking on a clan would display its page, featuring stuff like rosters, recruitment information, rankings in leagues, and match history with lineup information.

From there you could view each player's page individually to find out stuff like what matches they have played in, favored class in said matches, clan's record with and without their participation (neat), past clan involvement, a link to their steamID community page, etc.

Then just have it to where a league gets a page when they register, a clan then gets a page when they sign up for a registered league, and a player gets a page when they join a registered clan.

I don't have any web programming knowledge but it should be feasible considering most of the information is already out there.

[Ihmhi]

Originally Posted by Direhit

if you're going to create a site where all league information is going to be coordinated from, then yes, you will have issues of what I mentioned above.

Presumably, but which would you use; the official league site, or the site that organizes the info better and allows for people to communicate cross leagues all on one site? It would unify the community.

This would be like the Trillian of league sites. Only problem is Trillian fucks up half of the features the parent programs have, so if this ever goes through let it be a warning to how well you implement everything.

[Zydell]

Thanks a lot for all the positive comments and feedback!

It will of course be crucial that ownership of league sites will not be redirected to the central site. The idea is basically that the leagues will need to implement some code into their current website in order to communicate with the central site. This way they synchronise the central database with their own database. It will be up to the league's if they implement code so that that players can make adjustments to their database from the central website also (it will only then be possible to join a league with a clan/team, update war results from the central system). So it's pretty important that league admins agree to this and even more important: implement the code in their website.

Maybe it's a good idea to first focus on a central database that is being updated by all the league sites, rather than the other way around (a central site that communicates with league websites and is able to send war results etc. to the various league's).

As much as I like the idea of one central site for league admins/clan leaders/clan members/etc. to login to, so they can manage all their clan/league business; I think it'll provide a lot of problems also and in the end it may be a waste of the development effort. We could still implement the whole member/clan signup system and a small (cms-like) system to manage external clan websites as well as providing a information service to retrieve the war results etc. from. This way we'll have a central playerbase ready. We can always implement more modules/functionality.

By the way if anyone with proper knowledge of the following is interested in developing this system, contact me (PM or zydell [at] gmx [dot] net):

1. Scripting: CSS/XHTML/JS (DOM); web standards knowledge
2. PHP4/5, MySQL (OO experience preferred, XMLRPC or SOAP experience a plus)
3. Design (good knowledge of webdesign; typgraphy; etc.)

[Loader]

You could easily do most of the clan/member stuff in one big SQL database. Then do something to talk to it.

I can do the database side of things, but can't do the communication part :<

[Direhit]

Originally Posted by Zydell

[*]PHP4/MySQL (OO experience preferred, XMLRPC experience a plus)

SOAP 1.2 Protocol > XML-RPC Protocol

[Mad_Clog]

Originally Posted by Zydell

[*]PHP4/MySQL (OO experience preferred, XMLRPC experience a plus)

Might I ask why you want to do it in PHP4?
Mainly because the OO support in PHP5 is better then in 4.

[Zydell]

Originally Posted by Loader

You could easily do most of the clan/member stuff in one big SQL database. Then do something to talk to it.

I can do the database side of things, but can't do the communication part :<

I was thinking of 4 tables: clans, teams, members, relations. This way a clan can have several teams (for example a tfc, ff and tf2 team) and members can be assigned to several teams.

Originally Posted by Direhit

SOAP 1.2 Protocol > XML-RPC Protocol

Yeah I might go for SOAP instead; it's just that I have experience with XML-RPC, I'll see what's best.

Originally Posted by Mad_Clog

Might I ask why you want to do it in PHP4?
Mainly because the OO support in PHP5 is better then in 4.

You're right; the central site will most likely be build using php5 but the class that leagues/clans use (for communication with the site) will be php4 for compatibility reasons.