I messed around more with the Z-Band code. I refined it some more to be more inline with how the usage process is supposed to work. I added a "Register" button to the host and client windows of my zbattle clone. Once the host chooses a game, each player can then press that button. Once they do so, all the Z-Band magic starts its work and waits for the host to press the start game button, ZSNESW to load up on both ends, and players to start racking up the scores. Once their done and ZSNESW closes on one of their ends, Z-Band automatically un-registers the match with the server, and the new rankings can be viewed on my leaderboard page I created. I still love seeing it all in action!
Additionally, I set up a basic User Log page. There's not much purpose to it atm since this is a private project, but it was easy to setup. So why not? I created it for the tournament part of Z-Band, as I realized I was neglecting that part of the projects goal. A true tournament server would be much more involved and mostly automated, but this would at least allow a designated official to track the scores of the users to be manually calculated in a manually run bracket. There's not much to see outside of my personal testing results, but I don't mind linking this page. I'll likely link the Leaderboard later after I clean it up a bit. Its all basic though, so not much to see.
If/when I fool around with the code next, if my efforts aren't to clean the code up some more, it would likely be to refine the registration process even further. I think the goal of only needing the host to click a register button would be best. I could probably completely automate it, but even if I did release this project it would make sense not to force people into rankings. Sometimes you may just want to play causally, do some practicing, or not be listed at all. Its strange to be thinking about such considerations, as I hadn't really thought much about such things if the project got this far along. I suppose an auto register checkbox would make sense. But I also have to think about the case were one player isn't even signed up with an account. This would be more code I'd have to work on, but not something I think I would be working on at this stage of the project. Core stuff first and foremost!
In other news. To help give the poll more of a chance at reaching the results I hope for, I extended the deadline by 2 days to the exact end of this month. Traffic to my blog could pick up by then, but I still don't see it as looking good to hit that reasonable 50 vote minimum. Sadly, while these projects rely on users to do the bulk of advertisement, users generally just don't do it. I understand why, but it does suck. =( I can track my blogs hits and were they're coming from. Only really one person has tried telling other people as far as I can see, and even there (the ZSNES forums) the interest has been non-existent because that forum is a ghost town compared to what it used to be. Most of the hits come from google and my efforts to catch as many potential hits from it as I can. While I'm against the idea of me personally signing up for different forums and attempting to inform people, I was recently considering it with one place I won't mention by name. I figured I'd just see how friendly the community is first before I'd consider it more. Sadly, not to friendly it seems. That matters to me only because I have a feeling they may be unwilling to accept my project, perhaps even aggressively. And well, starting a community around this project, full of unfriendly people, of course doesn't sound to good. Still though, my effort so far may have just been to poor. So I might try again sometime.
Anyway, to better explain myself as to why I will only do so much advertising. First, doing so sucks. I've hated it with my past projects. I'll spare the details as to why it sucks, but for me as the developer of the projects, it just does. Second, I feel it would be counterproductive to what I'm trying to get out of the poll. If the project doesn't have enough users that would be willing to do what they can to help it grow, then I just don't see much hope for the projects future. Third is based of the state of this project. It's current state is about a poll. Not a downloadable/useable program itself. If it were about the program itself, as much as I'd hate it, I would probably be scouring the internet for websites to submit the project to as news. I just don't think many people would figure a poll is main page news. A poll is something more suited to something like a random or regular user posting about on a forum. Fourth I guess would be that, I've already done plenty myself, and that my time is part of the issue with this project. Sure I can get bored from time to time. but when I do, my time is spent on this blog, or on my projects. And I'm just 1 man. You guys are many. With your help, this could spread much further, faster, and with less individual effort then I could do alone.
Anyway, I just felt I might need to share that.
