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I Want Your Input! The New LaunchNet7


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Good news, everybody! (Futurama reference)

I am writing a new launcher, which will be version 2.0.0 of LaunchNet7 (though it's a complete re-write), and I want to know if there's anything you, the players, would like to see in this new release. So far, I'm pretty much just trying to make a cleaner, more efficient version of the launcher we already have, so don't expect anything radically different, but I can say that patching/updating will be quicker, more intelligent, and more reliable, and that the new launcher should be able to automatically ensure that all your files are set for the correct compatibility mode and to run as admin. Also, it will ensure that your registry is patched so you'll never have to worry about making changes to your system to get that annoying sunset message to stop popping up when you start the game.

So; if there's anything you'd like to see in LaunchNet7 v2.0.0, feel free to let me know here.

P.S. I will also be using Myatu's shiny, fancy Net7 icon, so LaunchNet7 will sit prettier on your desktop. :)

P.P.S. This is completely unrelated, but I just noticed we're well below our donation goal for this month. Please pitch in if you can! Long live EnB!

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Perhaps some of the display options so you do not need to change them ingame. Useful for people who do not always multibox.

A button to launch a second client.

An option to be able to login from the launcher, skipping the intro and megan (sorry). Even going as far as being able to select your character in the launcher would be great.

Having the extra professions in the game instead of the character and starship creator. Not sure how this is related to the launcher though.

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Perhaps some of the display options so you do not need to change them ingame. Useful for people who do not always multibox.

A button to launch a second client.

An option to be able to login from the launcher, skipping the intro and megan (sorry). Even going as far as being able to select your character in the launcher would be great.

Having the extra professions in the game instead of the character and starship creator. Not sure how this is related to the launcher though.

The first two are great ideas, I'd like those too! Go CDel. The ability to switch between windowed and full-screen in the launcher would be awesome. When I'm developing I log in windowed, but to play I like full screen.

Skipping the intro movie is possible, I'll give CDel the means for this. You can't skip Megan though (but why would you want to??), she's part of the SSL verification.

The final suggestion I like too, although it wouldn't be that straightforward - perhaps the launcher could run the starship & char creator with the required switch, and once you're done terminate and launch the client so you can log in. Perhaps we could automate the customisation process for the 3 new classes when you first log into your new char.

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Yeah, Megan's the only one who knows the super-secret passcode, sorry.

These all sound like fun ideas. I'm looking forward to programming this stuff in.

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Ability to start one instance of EnB with out opening another version of the launcher.

and if there is any way to do this... skip the EnB intro (if you so choose). I dislike on the rare times the game totally crashes and your trying to g

get back quickly, the intro movie pops up.

Last thing. Since most people perfer not to donate

may be you could do something in the way of ad revenue. work it in to the n7 launcher.

Thanks for your time

( I am a proud member of the Donator group on the EnB Forum)

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Remember back in live you were able to pay money to get more credits and bonus sp? The extra credits may not be that important to most people but I guarantee the bonus sp anybody could use. Make it scalable, $5 donation gets you 2 bonus sp, $10 gets you 5, etc. Make it a rule that the bonus can only go to one toon so you can avoid the "hey, can you give 3 sp to this guy and 2 to that guy and...."

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may be you could do something in the way of ad revenue. work it in to the n7 launcher.

This is a great idea, I wouldn't mind at all watching an ad or loading an ad page in the launcher if that's preferred by the team.

Make it scalable, $5 donation gets you 2 bonus sp, $10 gets you 5, etc. Make it a rule that the bonus can only go to one toon so you can avoid the "hey, can you give 3 sp to this guy and 2 to that guy and...."

This I have mixed feelings about. On one hand it would definitely bring in needed revenue. On the other hand, it would cheapen the effort (in my opinion) of players, and the game. I'm sure some of us here have tried one of the free MMO's where you can "pay to win". The reputation these games (and their staff) invariably end up with(oh the Drama!), is a consideration. As well as the fact that if you donate then receive something special that others don't get, does it not cease to be a donation and become a monetary transaction?

I'm all for whatever will keep the project going though, at the very least a donation button or link in the launcher would be great.

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Make it scalable, $5 donation gets you 2 bonus sp, $10 gets you 5, etc.

Be it a donation or not, this sounds a lot like making money from ingame services...

Same for the ad idea.

All sounds dodgy, but who knows what the devs say on this...

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Remember back in live you were able to pay money to get more credits and bonus sp? The extra credits may not be that important to most people but I guarantee the bonus sp anybody could use. Make it scalable, $5 donation gets you 2 bonus sp, $10 gets you 5, etc. Make it a rule that the bonus can only go to one toon so you can avoid the "hey, can you give 3 sp to this guy and 2 to that guy and...."

While this sounds great for donators we really cannot do this legally. At some point we want to come up with a way to reward the donators for keeping the play server up and running, but we are not sure how we will do this yet.

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Even the advert thing sounds a bit fishy.

Some people coming into this for the first time might be disinclined to download something that will spam advertisements -- and there's a risk of losing existing players.

I usually avoid stuff that looks like it contains peer-to-peer, adware or malware on general security principles)

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What about making some type of bonus for the entire server for reaching certain limits? Like if we hit the donation goal, everybody does 10% extra DPS for that month, or if Avani donates $50 Terrans get the reactor build skill :lol:

(Ok was just kidding on that last one)

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While this sounds great for donators we really cannot do this legally. At some point we want to come up with a way to reward the donators for keeping the play server up and running, but we are not sure how we will do this yet.

I do not see the problem with the Net 7 software displaying an ad of sorts. its just like any web site. Don't worry about turning off new players , worry about keeping us alive.

I don't want you guys to fall short on the donations, this is why i suggested some type of ad. its just as i went to play a flash game on the net, most are littered with ads, if you keep it to a minimum and tasteful, not a billion popups, im sure most would not mind I am not suggesting a facebook Bull@#$#@ system were you need to pay for premium content...

Ever watch TV Via Hulu? same thing, dead free but they get ad revenue.

Why wouldn't it be legal to have some kind of ad on your own created software?

if I am barking up the wrong tree tell me so, it's just that most of us are in the same money pit as the rest of the world, others just want to play

and could care less how the costs are covered.

That being said I HATE Ads as much as I hate Spyware. I just don't want to see the money shortage endangering the game and progress so far.

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back on topic:

- Allow people to message you while you are offline, and the messages appear in the launcher. This could be useful as a builder for build requests or planning raid gatherings. It is basically an inbox.

You could use the forum for this ofcourse, but if you can message ingame it is more interactive and it appearing in the launcher makes it very accessible.

But it may be a bit too much and be quite unlike Live...

- This probably already exists: a global ENB clock, but then placed on the launcher. Since people here live all over the planet this can be useful for planning raids or getting together.

The next step would be an option for the clock to appear ingame...

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I do not see the problem with the Net 7 software displaying an ad of sorts. its just like any web site. Don't worry about turning off new players , worry about keeping us alive.

The Net 7 proxy goes away except for the console screen (the command line interface thingy) as it is currently coded.

Granted, I assume that the rebuild CDel has in mind could be made to be persistent after EnB client loads, but most people probably would ignore the ads or full-screen the client.

Multiboxers would probably see ads as they alt-tabbed, especially if you put in some annoying behaviour that aways floated the ad window to the top when alt-tabbing...

...as for legality, I see nothing patently illegal about putting an ad rotator in the proxy space that calls to whatever HTML page that has the patch notes in it.

However, I am not so sure that it would generate a lot of click-through revenue.

Perhaps putting adverts on the Emulator forums or those annoying double-underline ContentMaster or infolinks.com in-line advertising links would do the trick, given how many of us come here.

Donators and other user levels can be defined in the application to not see the ads, while the public at large would.

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Hopefully this won't be taken the wrong way...

The reason why the ads and charging for additional in game access, credits, or skill points becomes sketchy is because it's too akin to "making a profit" as it's not a clear set donation. Many donation based non-profit organizations do offer gifts to donors. However, without the legal protection of actually being a non-profit corporation this could raise issue with EA. I'm only responding because I've done a small amount of research on it. I'm not saying it's not possible but it would take a good amount of legal research and everyone (not just on this subject but anything in life) should always take into consideration that just because you are within legal bounds does not automatically protect you. The way the US legal system is setup when it comes to entity vs. entity is that you have to have the financial backing to fight for your rights and prove you are within legal bounds. Staying non-profit is a very difficult legal maze to wander through as I'm finding out more and more as I do my own research.

A lot of these ideas are great ideas and it will be interesting to see what C_Del incorporates. :lol: I wish him the best of luck with this!

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Hopefully this won't be taken the wrong way...

The reason why the ads and charging for additional in game access, credits, or skill points becomes sketchy is because it's too akin to "making a profit" as it's not a clear set donation. Many donation based non-profit organizations do offer gifts to donors. However, without the legal protection of actually being a non-profit corporation this could raise issue with EA. I'm only responding because I've done a small amount of research on it. I'm not saying it's not possible but it would take a good amount of legal research and everyone (not just on this subject but anything in life) should always take into consideration that just because you are within legal bounds does not automatically protect you. The way the US legal system is setup when it comes to entity vs. entity is that you have to have the financial backing to fight for your rights and prove you are within legal bounds. Staying non-profit is a very difficult legal maze to wander through as I'm finding out more and more as I do my own research.

A lot of these ideas are great ideas and it will be interesting to see what C_Del incorporates. :lol: I wish him the best of luck with this!

Thanks, Azasha.

I actually think that we could legally get away with advertising without much trouble, but I question why we would want to. I'll be using this launcher too every time I want to play the game, and I can't say that I'd like to see ads every time I go to launch the game. I think that we should avoid using advertising as a means of fundraising at all if we can. Of course, this could always be very easily added later if we were to get to the point where we needed the extra cash, but I think it's best avoided for now.

I like a lot of the ideas here. I will probably be making the launcher persist after launch, but only in a limited fashion. I'll be making net7proxy's output show up in a window within the launcher instead of as a separate window, but the main window of the launcher itself will most likely be hidden.

Tyran's messaging idea is cool, but it would be pretty difficult to implement unfortunately. If we do set up a system like that, it'll be at the very least a few months down the road. However, as to the clock, I could integrate a UTC clock into the launcher if you'd like, and you can use the /time command I wrote in-game to get the current UTC time.

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I'd like to suggest adding links to the EnB Config and Net-7 Config files.

Seems people sometimes have a tough time locating those files. Links would Rawk!

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming (see what I did there) :lol:

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Good news, everybody! (Futurama reference)

I am writing a new launcher, which will be version 2.0.0 of LaunchNet7 (though it's a complete re-write), and I want to know if there's anything you, the players, would like to see in this new release. So far, I'm pretty much just trying to make a cleaner, more efficient version of the launcher we already have, so don't expect anything radically different, but I can say that patching/updating will be quicker, more intelligent, and more reliable, and that the new launcher should be able to automatically ensure that all your files are set for the correct compatibility mode and to run as admin. Also, it will ensure that your registry is patched so you'll never have to worry about making changes to your system to get that annoying sunset message to stop popping up when you start the game.

So; if there's anything you'd like to see in LaunchNet7 v2.0.0, feel free to let me know here.

P.S. I will also be using Myatu's shiny, fancy Net7 icon, so LaunchNet7 will sit prettier on your desktop. :lol:

P.P.S. This is completely unrelated, but I just noticed we're well below our donation goal for this month. Please pitch in if you can! Long live EnB!

I've seen too many people ask what was the Patch or fix, A quick

explanation of what that patch/fix was would be good. (Besides TB's exp)

Do away with the CMD/DOS box/prompt thingy that we see running on the desktop

unless its really useful for the average player in someway.

(let it run in the back ground so we can't see it)

Would it be a sin to add an IRC box to check for the option in to use in chat

or is that considered Client alterations? (Set it to the chat options General,

Local, Market, IRC. etc etc.

I know this shouldn't be necessary but, Player incentive TO PLAY and to

Donate to the project would be good. Like a player getting a New print or

Item placed into their list, inventory or a NPC to kill/see for the Item (F-7).

Phorlaug.....

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You can't skip Megan though (but why would you want to??), she's part of the SSL verification.

but is it possible to sort of simplify it so we can choose from our login accounts from a drop down menu in the net7 launcher and the login name and password are already keyed in for us at Megan? Maybe even auto connect us at that point so that even though we still go through her its all automated.

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what i would love to see the most is a launcher able to compile in linux ... yes sir that sure would be nice

LINUX GIVE PLZ >_<

edit: 1 more thing ... change the proxy a bit too so that it would go to systray once started ;D

Edited by Benom
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