Since 2008 I've been working on a program called Pandora which, originally was supposed to be a PS3's OS with the X-Box 360's Achievements which worked like Blizzard's (the Scripter and Administrator of Chaos Project, not the Developers of WoW) Multi-Game Launcher where you had a list of games and you could run those games from this one program, saving up on the number of icons you had on the desktop, of cause Blizzard's Launcher was limited as you had to hard code the game list and the location in which the games was installed which really left no room for customization, after all that time it's kinda evolved since PS3 updates got it to obtain trophies and i discovered some flaws in the functionality in Blizzard's program (not because he's a bad scripter, he's a genius, it's just that his program is kinda basic and best for beginners who want to feel like their big, I'm not like that).
What Pandora does now is this
- Locates games which are built by the Mema Hunters (My Group) and have been synced with Pandora's system (Pandora by itself can't pick up the games, you have to run a Game Sync which tells Pandora to look for these games)
- Determines if the games have been installed and that they are Mema Hunter games
- Create User Profiles
- Obtain Achievements if you started the game from Pandora and the User Profile is someone other than the Guest
- Change the display theme
there are some smaller stuff but that's really the bulk of all my research into Delphi (the Coding language i used) Encryption, Registry etc.
Now i don't doubt that there are programs like mine already out there (from what i can see in the original Oblivion.esm file form The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Steam seems to do it as well, i think, my version is cracked so i don't need Steam at all because my gaming computer doesn't connect to the Internet), however as far as i know, my program is the only one that requires NO ON-LINE CONNECTIVITY, what the user can do is compile their achievements into a single file and then upload them to my website, and that's entirely optional (however if you want to compare with friends, you will have to).
As of Wednesday 26/10/2011, after over 5,000 hours of work, over 250,000 errors (seriously, that many, of cause that how many times i got an error, it's roughly 1,000 different errors which i corrected) i finally got the program completed, however that's only phase 1, phase 2 is fixing up the framework for Ruby created games, all the scripting is done and I'm doing the graphics at the moment.
Now we get to the reason why i made this post, One of the ideals of the Mema Hunters is that the players should also have a say in development, kinda like how Rockman DASH 3 (Megaman Legends 3) worked before the plugged was pulled on it, and kinda how James Portnow publishing group work but without the money, what i have been doing on my Facebook profile has been asking my friends on their opinions for stuff in my game Nexis Core: Chain of Shadows (only because we're fixing up a capcha leak that's been allowing spam bots into the forum and messing with Div's Forum Spammer Detection System), we do plan on making these polls more public after Pandora is done.
What i would like to ask people is their opinion on what image i should for the achievement pop-ups in game, i have included an image of each of the designs I've fixed up, i have posted this poll on multiple forums so i can get the biggest spread of data and feedback, here are the options
Option 1
The Achievement Trophy's name will appear at the top, on the left is the small icon used in Pandora in the Achievement List which is unique for each achievement, in the center is the trophy class and on the right is the score value of the achievement
Option 2
On the left is the icon of the achievement, in the center is the Achievement name and it's score value and on the right is the Mema Hunter Mascot Pandora (the program was named after her, she appears in the initial boot, update and system installers for themes and game syncs. the Background changes depending on the trophy class
Option 3
Kinda like Option 2 but the Trophy Class is on the right
NOTES:
- Options 1 and 3 are transparent at 62% (in other words, an Alpha value of 158) so you can see slightly though them
- there are 5 Trophy Class, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Crystal and Jade.
- Each class of trophy has a range of score value, Bronze is the most common and have a very low value (between 5 and 20) while Jade is the highest (between 260 and 500) which can only be obtained if every other trophy has been collected (like the Playstation 3's Platinum Trophies)
- naturally, the score value and trophy don't match, i used 500 because it was the highest and widest value and i used a bronze trophy cause it was the first in the list of the trophy images i have
- the icon i use is from the "Bug Seerer" Achievement that will be implemented is the current release of Nexis Core: Chain of Shadows one Pandora is completed, it's a Gold Trophy so naturally it doesn't match with the details in the images, i chose it cause it's the only Icon that's a single bitmap and not multiple bitmaps grouped together (easier to edit bitmaps that groups of bitmaps
- "Legend of the Holy Sword 1" is an achievement for the full version of my game, it's valued at Crystal and is the only trophy apart from "Rebirth by Ashes 1" which to be cleared, you have to unlock and clear the side mission by the same name
Also you can post suggestions about what i could do to the current images or even suggest another design if you like