Guildwork - The Future of MMO Guildhosting/Networking

[Yabby]

Very nice and easy on the eyes. I really hope that the calendar lets you set events that happen the same time and day every week just once. Like limbus sunday 5pm, click the checkbox so that from then on, every sunday it will list limbus as the event. One of my favorite things to do is try to break programs tho... i will test this project!

[Spira]

Sorry, just nitpicking here, but what? You think something like facebook will have deeper communication that something like BG (or EJ for WoW)? Seems like it'll have a lot more 1-liners, not deeper communication. Go browse FFXIAH comments or something?

let me clarify myself. when I say deeper communication, it means more communication in general by everybody, not deeper topics to communicate with.

True, you are going to have a lot more 1-liners, but those alone are powerful tools if its a platform where BOTH your social and your event guild, or basically everyone, can clearly see whats going on from the same given perspective.

One major issue i see with the various platforms that we use in FFXI these days (that guildwork can adress) is that they are segmented and people of separate interests never meet and fail to understand one another simply because they don't have a convenient places to do so (other than in game). More communication is great because it means knowledge is better passed around and people (less so the elite, siince they're usually on the ball about such stuff) learn from it. But no one knows everything. Everyone learns from one another.

Anyway, your point about FFXIAH is ridiculous because the primary objective of it has already been serve without the need for people ever commenting. Its not a communication system, its a market index.

[Sci]

Honest question (not trying to sound like a dick), but what benefit does this have over existing phpbb forums with some addons tossed on it? Sure with phpbb you'd have to do a bit of work to set it up, but then you have complete control of your site. And then there's no concept of paying for your site to get rid of ads, just paying for your own hosting, which is pittance these days. I understand that you're not doing this as a charity, you want to make some cash, and I'm fine with that. But why would someone who's fully comfortable with what they have be interested in moving to your offering? That's what I want to hear about. I'm concerned about giving away full control to anyone else, what if people start defacing or spamming the site? Can a guild leader look up IPs and ban/block based on them? Not to mention security concerns in general, which are bound to exist for a custom made site. Especially when it doesn't have a large customer base really using it and finding holes, and doesn't have a large team of people supporting. And then there's the possible issue of corrupt site administrators.

Anyhow, there are reasons why I'd be hesitant to fully embrace a new site created by people unknown to me. Again, I'm not flaming, I'm honestly curious and you asked for feedback. My feedback just happens to be in the form of questions.

[Gunslinger]

Sci- As you can see from above I have my (similar) questions as well, but I think the thing to remember is a lot of kids trying to make guild sites don't really have the experience to do it properly (don't keep it patched, or don't know anything about it at all). I think that's the target audience. The people who don't need the site won't use it- casual gamers without a lot of programming/web experience probably will. I think the idea has value insofar as that, it's the security / other questions that would make me hesitant as a customer.

If/when they do address these questions, I'd recommend putting paraphrased versions on the "FAQs" page. This thread could be a great source for them to get that up and running

[Kriz]

Will there be any way to develop custom "widgets" or code yourself (provided, perhaps, by a hierarchy of rights)?

[Stanislav]

I'm not impressed. I understand the amount of work that goes into this sort of thing, and I am not trying to belittle that, but the site does not function.

I use a minority browser that isn't lucky enough to get on your short list of "supported browsers". I'm used to that, sometimes sites look or function a little funny, but 99% of the time it works fine. Your site doesn't function because the base site doesn't exist. If you strip away the JavaScript, there is no way to interact with the site. That is completely wrong. JavaScript is supposed to enhance an already functioning website, the sugar sprinkles on your cupcakes. Cake first, sprinkles last.

Looking at the site with a "supported browser", I see no justification this at all. It would be one thing if your superduper fancy JavaScript editing didn't work, but viewing a simple page doesn't even work. JavaScript simply for the sake of JavaScript.

If you are using Opera 9, then the site does not work properly, if you are using Opera 10 beta it should work perfectly, however it is not a browser that we test constantly. However most of the site uses things that just require Javascript and they are things you just won't see unless you use it with other people.

As for your statement "JavaScript is supposed to enhance an already functioning website", this is completely false, this is 2010 and there is a reason browsers such as Chrome and Firefox 3.6 exist with JavaScript engines that are as fast as most other languages now. Guildwork is simply nothing without its JavaScript and anyone who has actually use the site will tell you that.

As for testing cross-browser we have limited it to 3 browsers for now (the important ones) because its already hard as it is to develop.

Excellent! I was going to suggest/ask about that. When you say "template" system, do you mean that the pages will still be hosted on Guildwork but served via the custom domain? Or are you referring to something more like an API? I can definitely see myself setting up some custom Wordpress templates,widgets and plugins to interface with Guildwork if it's the latter!

We will be allowing people to park their domains at Guildwork

Nothing wrong with Opera, especially with the emergence of the mobile market. That said, it's a good desktop browser, too.

The site looks interesting, I'm kind of withholding judgement to see how things break down. A site like this has a few concerns:

1) Do the creators/maintainers play any of the listed games? While playing the games is essential to know what kind of features need to be implemented, there has to be a lot of trust from the users if this is the case. IE. "I didn't get the TOD for KB... oh, let me just scan the "X server" database." Please know this isn't accusatory, but it's something you (and users) should think about.

2) What are you planning to make the "premium" features? Have you decided yet?

3) Since you're essentially a stated for-profit company (right?), you should probably get your legal stuff up there asap, especially now that people are making accounts and such, even if it is beta.


You guys set up to handle scaling this up when it takes off? I think the idea in itself has a lot of promise. It's nothing revolutionary imo, but it does a lot of stuff better than most hosting sites, and it's a good vision for what it does. A bit snazzier than your standard phpNuke/modified eqDKP systems, and the social aspect is pretty nice.

Hope your security is up to snuff (I imagine you're taking it seriously), because I imagine China is going to have fun with your site once you 'take off.' I haven't signed up for an account yet so I don't know if you're doing this already, but you may want to recommend that people use a UNIQUE password unrelated to their MMO password. Common sense for 'most of us,' but I promise some people will do it. If you ever have to store player IDs/emails for spidering purposes (I'm not sure how the other MMOs work), having a matching password would just be the other half of the key and make you a honey-pot for China, etc. (I guess this also ties into concern #1... but you'd have to be pretty stupid to exploit this ) I imagine you're also going to salt/hash passwords so that'll be secure, so maybe you're not too worried about it outside of MITM?

Anyway, I wish you guys success and I'm sure you've thought of most of this ^ already.

PS. I really like your logo from a design standpoint . Your site is also very clean and simple- keep it that way! It's going to be interesting to see what this becomes!

1. I know FFXI better then about anyone else, and am pretty well versed on WoW, but Wambulance (other guy) is a WoW player. So yes we play the games, and we plan to hire more people once we go live that know games well.

2. Premium features are somewhat decided and not finalized, so I am not going to discuss them now, but everything you see now is part of what is 100% free (including everything in feature set).

3. This isn't a beta, or even an alpha, its a public preview. The legal stuff will be in order by beta.

The site is built to scale, that is why its taken us this long to accomplish what is there. You may not see an amazing amount on the frontend, but the backend is what is complete.

As for passwords, we recommend using an alternative login system like OpenID/Google ID/Facebook Connect etc.. on release that way there is little chance someone can get into your account.

Honest question (not trying to sound like a dick), but what benefit does this have over existing phpbb forums with some addons tossed on it? Sure with phpbb you'd have to do a bit of work to set it up, but then you have complete control of your site. And then there's no concept of paying for your site to get rid of ads, just paying for your own hosting, which is pittance these days. I understand that you're not doing this as a charity, you want to make some cash, and I'm fine with that. But why would someone who's fully comfortable with what they have be interested in moving to your offering? That's what I want to hear about. I'm concerned about giving away full control to anyone else, what if people start defacing or spamming the site? Can a guild leader look up IPs and ban/block based on them? Not to mention security concerns in general, which are bound to exist for a custom made site. Especially when it doesn't have a large customer base really using it and finding holes, and doesn't have a large team of people supporting. And then there's the possible issue of corrupt site administrators.

Anyhow, there are reasons why I'd be hesitant to fully embrace a new site created by people unknown to me. Again, I'm not flaming, I'm honestly curious and you asked for feedback. My feedback just happens to be in the form of questions.

That is not a bad question, and to be quite honest if you are capable of setting your own things up and don't want all the other integration Guildwork offers then you don't have to use Guildwork. However what you see now is just the beginning of what will be there for release, I am only showing improved versions of what everyone is used to. As I said the site started as a DKP site like no other, and when that is released you can either use Guildwork only for DKP (I say DKP because its a word that people know, but Guildwork's DKP will be variables/formulas you can use to create any management system, not points only.), but when you are using it for one thing, why not use it for more? Its convenient because we handle everything for you. exDKP (www.ex-online.com) is an example of what you can expect except 100x more refined/customizabl/and fast, and of course integrated into the Guildwork completely.

As for trusting us and why we are doing this. It started as an idea for a public site as a side project because I love the concept of MMOs & their communities and I love to code, but with the projected costs growing and the amount of time required became 24/7, we have decided that this will be a company. You may not trust us yet, but I am determined to make this a place everyone will be proud to use.

Will there be any way to develop custom "widgets" or code yourself (provided, perhaps, by a hierarchy of rights)?

It is in the plans for post-release, along with maybe an app system similar to Facebook's. However such things require a lot of planning and code and are being left till later. The good news is our code base is built to support these changes in the future.

[Cooleko]

looks like a solid project, what is keeping the developer from taking a peek at every ls' data? Could be exploited, but your hard work and obvious tons of effort make it worth anything you can get out of it.

You may not trust us yet, but I am determined to make this a place everyone will be proud to use.

nvm you addressed it before i refreshed the page from opening earlier :D

[EternalSnow]

Looks like it's the "facebook" of final fantasy XI! lol : P

[Sci]

Sci- As you can see from above I have my (similar) questions as well, but I think the thing to remember is a lot of kids trying to make guild sites don't really have the experience to do it properly (don't keep it patched, or don't know anything about it at all). I think that's the target audience. The people who don't need the site won't use it- casual gamers without a lot of programming/web experience probably will. I think the idea has value insofar as that, it's the security / other questions that would make me hesitant as a customer.

If/when they do address these questions, I'd recommend putting paraphrased versions on the "FAQs" page. This thread could be a great source for them to get that up and running

Yeah, you posted while I was typing my post up so there's some overlap. I agree that a site like this is good for casuals/kids who don't have money/knowledge/time to set up their own. I'm just wondering if there was something in the works to really make it something special. *edit* Just saw the edited response from Stan so that somewhat answers this.

The comparison to Facebook keeps coming up, and all I can imagine is something like Alla, but more modernized and with the addition of guild specific forums. So you might have guild forums, server forums, and general forums. And then a shared item db, wiki, and character management system. Keep in mind Alla has most of these things, but it's still not something I'm interested in. The moderation and rating system on the site were poor, and those are pitfalls that could happen to any system. At any rate, making an Alla+1 isn't a bad idea, but I still don't see what people are so interested in.

I would also be willing to wager that SE will launch with forums and character management sites with FF14. They finally made them for FF11, and even though they suck and are mostly unused, if they existed at launch, they would most likely have been the de facto tools of communication.

[Stanislav]

I started compiling an FAQ:

http://www.guildwork.com/forums/t/4b...c-release-faq/

If I am missing any questions please post.

[Sci]

I started compiling an FAQ:

Will there be a Android/iPhone/WebOS app?

All of these are in our road map for post release!

BlackBerry app as well? I'm pretty sure that far more people have BBs than Palm or Android phones at this point.

[Gunslinger]

I started compiling an FAQ:

http://www.guildwork.com/forums/t/4b...c-release-faq/

If I am missing any questions please post.

Excellent- I was very, very happy to see-

We plan to release many of our internal libraries on GitHub once Guildwork is released.

Good luck on the site Stan.

[Stanislav]

BlackBerry app as well? I'm pretty sure that far more people have BBs than Palm or Android phones at this point.

Definitely can be added to our road map, but there will also be a mobile version of the site, in case we don't support the phone.

[Deimos]

This is a minor suggestion, but consider allowing more than 12 characters for passwords. One of my "default" passwords for stuff like this is 13 characters long, and on the rare occasions that sites restrict you to 12 it always annoys me.

Haven't had a chance to look at the site itself yet, but I just want to make an additional comment on this. There is absolutely no technical reason that a site should ever restrict password length, and in fact it scares me when they do. If they're restricting password length, it implies that they're not hashing passwords in their database. If they're not hashing passwords, the site probably has very poor security.

[Corrderio]

This could be pretty good if implied right

[Stanislav]

Haven't had a chance to look at the site itself yet, but I just want to make an additional comment on this. There is absolutely no technical reason that a site should ever restrict password length, and in fact it scares me when they do. If they're restricting password length, it implies that they're not hashing passwords in their database. If they're not hashing passwords, the site probably has very poor security.

The passwords are hashed beyond belief, I have removed the password restriction. If you look at the site, you would know there is no way we could accomplish what it does without knowing what we are doing

[Tagus]

Anyhow, there are reasons why I'd be hesitant to fully embrace a new site created by people unknown to me. Again, I'm not flaming, I'm honestly curious and you asked for feedback. My feedback just happens to be in the form of questions.

Definitely some valid concerns, but I'd say that if Therin was willing to attach his name to it, it's as legit as can be at this stage of it's development. Pretty amazing stuff, guys!

[Therin]

Definitely some valid concerns, but I'd say that if Therin was willing to attach his name to it, it's as legit as can be at this stage of it's development. Pretty amazing stuff, guys!

I'm just trying to help Stan get the word out about a project that I think will treat us all very well in the future. :D

[Norrissnake]

Frigging PIMP cant wait till its finished

[BerenTebogo]

I'd help but I can barely open firefox without a step by step tutorial. Word of mouth advertisement go!