Runescape Reader's Digest Blog: fan sites

Showing posts with label fan sites. Show all posts

Monday, February 14, 2011

Integration with Grand Exchange Central

I am happy to announce that Runewise is now using an API provided by Grand Exchange Central site for retrieving up-to-date prices from the GE. Yes, it is another example of integration between RS fan sites and I believe not the last one.

The whole thing makes a lot of sense, actually. Here is why.

Runewise does have a few services which need up-to-date prices from the GE. Specifically, "how much till 99" service and "inline prices" for the Advice service. Number of items these services care about is very small: just about 140; so I used to call (or should I say "screen-scrape") the GE in real time and didn't worry about it. Then the Free Trade update came about and Jagex changed the GE screens. Naturally my code stopped working, but what was more damaging, the GE itself became very unreliable and shaky (from programmatic access stand point). I couldn't use "screen-scraping" method in real-time anymore and had to start seriously monitoring my 140 items. I did that, it didn't work very well, but it worked... Then it dawned on me, why am I doing it?!... Runewise isn't about the GE, it really isn't... why should I get into this kind of business? I reached out to Absenm from the Grand Exchange Central and asked for help. He offered to create an API for me - I gladly accepted :) That was exactly what I needed: a professional RS site to take care about the GE formats, updates and changes and an easy way for me to get my 140 item prices in simple usable format in just one call!

Almost too perfect to be true, but it is true! The two Runewise's services mentioned above are based in GEC's API now.

There is one more point I'd like to make here. You see, we (as fan sites) don't have to wait for Jagex to give us more APIs. It'd be nice if they do, but we don't have to be dependent on them. In fact, if Jagex finally releases an API for the GE, I'll probably stay with GEC API anyway, because it's so simple and personalized for my needs.

That's the way to go, all our sites (not just Runewise and GEC) have their strengths and unique features/data, let's not be afraid of sharing them with others. I am not saying we have to be 100% transparent, but there is plenty of opportunities for win-win situations - we just need to be open to the idea or sharing.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Runewise Community Adventurers Log

I'd like to announce a new service I just added to Runewise, which is called "Runewise Community Adventurers Log". Its purpose is to give Runewise folks a set of common community goals and records. And it also shows some nifty statistics collected from multiple Adventurer's Logs.

But what's real special about this service is the fact that it is built on top of an API provided by another Runescape fan site. Yeap, it's an example of collaboration on API level I've been preaching for so long. To be honest, I wasn't successful in this preaching up until this point. I did offer to open up Runewise's APIs to many fan sites in the past, but nobody was willing to give it a try. For various reasons, but mainly because they didn't consider Runewise to be a trusted source. It might sound strange (and it did hurt my feelings a bit), but it is (or was?) a reality. Maybe it'll change in the future.

Anyway, the site which provided Adventurer's Log API for Runewise is Impact IRC Bot, whose interview was included into the recent series of interview with fan sites. They also ended up using Runewise's services (for their !Advice and !Utip commands), so the data is flowing in both directions. I am very grateful to Impact guys for working it up with me. Both sites are benefiting from this integration and now I can hope that maybe fan sites will start trusting each other just a little bit more. I can hope, can't I?

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Does Runescape Wiki make RS fan sites obsolete?

Helm Lardar is talking about an interesting problem: fan sites loosing their competitive advantage due to the raise of RS Wiki. He is talking specifically about the items data base and how Sal's version of it can't compete with RS Wiki, but the problem is broader. W13 talked about it too, and I actually agree with both of them, RS Wiki is destined to overshadow traditional fan sites in many areas. Things like item and monster data bases, skills and minigames guides, descriptions of locations and NPCs. Eventually, maybe, even quest guides.

Is it a bad thing? I don't think so, RS Wiki is like a force of nature - it's neutral, there is no point in getting upset about it.

So... Should fan sites stop making all these guides and data bases? Absolutely NOT, and here I disagree with Helm Lardar. The fan sites should continue what they are doing now - after all this is what traditional fan sites are about! Working on this kind of content is not only about producing it - the process itself is very important for fan sites health. How to make this content useful (and used) is another question though. I think the answer lays in going beyond the traditional "let's create the content and people will see it" approach. There has to be some value add on top of that. Something that RS Wiki model is not suitable for.

For instance, personalized content. Similar to what Runewise has been doing all along, I do think that traditional fan sites will have to start doing more than what they have been doing so far in this area. Another example, opinionated guides and editorials - that would include RS news papers, of course, but also potentially RS guides that go beyond "dry facts" by adding personal touch to them as well as references to other content (especially personalized one). Also making services out of content. Imagine items data base turned into a "lite" service and used by other RS fan and clan sites. That'd be a meaningful use, don't you think? Making widgets for other RS fan and clan sites is another possibility. I am sure the list can go on and on, but that's what comes from the top of my mind.

So, is emergency of RS Wiki means death to traditional RS fan sites? No, it means an opportunity for a change, opportunity for providing even better services to Runescape players.
That's what I hope for, anyway.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Runescape year: 2010

Full summary of major changes in Runescape during 2010 from the Informer. Amazingly Dungeoneering appeared in Runespace in April 2010 - less then 9 months ago! Somehow it feels like Dungeoneering was part of the game for a lot longer.

And here are my personal highlights of the year:

Quests! Jagex continues to make awesome quests. I wouldn't say they outdone 2009 quests, but still I enjoyed pretty much all of them. Especially the Love Story.
Dungeoneering - duh! A new skill which I found very relaxing.
Bonus XP weekends - I loved the preparation for the second one (I missed three weeks before the first weekend). It also helped me to get 99 in Herblore, which was nice :)
Canting Away summer and winter festivals - pure fun and joy
Partnership with Sal's - very important, huge and somewhat scary step for Runewise
Series of interviews with Ruescape and Stellar Dawn fan site founders, owners and developers - apart from enjoying the actual interviews I also had very interesting time reaching out and talking to all involved fan sites. Priceless experience.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

21 interviews with Runescape and Stellar Dawn fan sites

21 interviews. Yes, that many. I couldn't even imagine receiving so many interviews back in early December when I started reaching out to Runescape and Stellar Dawn fan sites I knew about. But reception was overwhelmingly positive and I want to thank all the fan sites and all the people who participated, as well as people who helped me to obtain the interviews. Thank you very much!

Did I achieve the initial goal of "helping Runescape (and future Stellar Dawn) players to better understand what is driving and motivating people behind all these wonderful sites everybody uses, why were these sites created and what fan site owners/developers/admins have to deal with in order to maintain the sites"? I think so. And I hope you would agree with me.
There is something else, though. What I see in these interviews is a clear sign of united and much more open Runescape community. There is no way such series of interviews could appear just two years ago. Absolutely no way. And for that, I think, we should thank Jagex and their changed attitude towards fan sites.

Here is the full list of interviews (in the same order as I published them). If you missed some of them or want to find a particular one, this page would be a good place to start from. Cheers!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Interviews with Runescape Fan Sites: RuneHQ

Today's interview is with RuneHQ's founders and owners: MrStormy, Stormys_Amazon, Dravan, Apuredelite, and Roklykthat. RuneHQ is a Platinum level Runescape fan site and rightly so - it's one of the biggest and well known among Runescape players.
This is the final interview of the series and I could've hardly find a better way to close it out. Enjoy!

Q: How would you describe your site in a few words?
A: We try to have a site that provides users with accurate information that will help them to get through the game successfully. We have a lot of users that use only the information part of our site, but we also have a forum community that has been together for some time now and we all feel like family.

Q: Can you tell us about major milestones of your site? A little bit of a history?
A: We recently celebrated our another anniversary as a fansite. We typically hold various events in game and on our forums to celebrate with our members. MrStormy had previously worked on other fansites but was unhappy with the information that the site provided and with how the site was run so he put together his own fansite which quickly grew into a well respected and used fansite for Runescape.

Q: What were your original goals for the site?
A: Original goals were to provide the best information possible to help players get the information they needed to be successful with the game. Originally MrStormy had no idea that the site would grow so quickly and become so large, so many changes had to take place to keep the site usable for the growing number of Runescape players that became followers of the site.

Q: Had your goals changed over time? If yes, how and why?
A: As the site grew there were many changes. MrStormy's wife (at the time, not Stormys_Amazon) helped start and run the site along with some friends/players of Runescape. She was rather strict and there were many growing pains, but as we made changes with owners and admins, those problems seemed to calm down. Many of the initial rules have been altered to make the site less strict, though we still look out for member safety and security so we limit the ability to post potentially harmful links or images to the site. We try to make sure that the younger players have a place where they can talk with friends safely and for this reason, many of the core ideals of the site (safety and security for the members and the site) will always remain at the core of RuneHQ.

Q: Was it the first web site you ever created?
A: This was one of the first sites MrStormy had created but since then there are several others. Some need some MAJOR work, but we do what we can.

Q: What technologies were used to create the site? Did you add new technologies into the mix after you created the original version?
A: The original site was basic HTML and PHP which it remains, however some other web languages are also used now. The site recently received its first ‘makeover’ and plans are to revise the look of the site on a more regular basis in the future. We are already working on totally recoding the site to clean up old code and to add more flexibility and features to future site versions.

Q: Is there a unique feature/service your site provides to Runescape players?
A: RuneHQ has many features, though, they are not really unique. We try to listen to our members and provide them the features they want (to the best of our ability) and we have been told that many users prefer our databases for looking up items, monsters, etc. over some other sites. We also have several calculators (which are being looked at for revision), a toolbar for use on Firefox (similar to the one Jagex has recently released though we had ours first J), we try to get guides out the same day as updates, and we are a Platinum level fansite for our level of association with Jagex.

Q: Which feature/service took the most time and effort to create?
A: By far revision of the site appearance itself. This is something that should have happened long ago but what can we say, MrStormy is stubborn and is not a big advocate for change. His wife, Stormys_Amazon has helped to get him to ‘see the light’ and has softened his stance on many things with the site so we hope to make some huge improvements over the next year.

Q: Which feature/service was the most complex from the programming stand point?
A: We recently updated our forums to the latest version which allowed us to move the forums to the same server(s) as the site data. This created some programming issues in trying to get the forums to sync with the multiple servers we use (there is so much traffic that we currently use 4 servers to help keep the site from lagging as much as possible). This was a big improvement for our members as it allowed all of the site information to be on essentially the same location rather than a separate web address for the forums.
We also try to avoid using programming that will cause additional lag for our users. We know that people want information and want it fast so the use of JavaScript (which many users turn off) and other similar languages are kept to a minimum so that users with slower machines are not forced to wait for long periods of time for the site to load. We realize we still have some issues, but we try to work out the bugs as quickly as possible. We welcome feedback on our site and will consider any ideas or suggestions that might help improve the site experience for our users.

Q: Is there a feature/service of the site you are most proud of?
A: We like the new design of the site. We think it is cleaner and less cluttered (which was a complaint for many years from our members) – though now that we have changed it, many users state they preferred the old look – go figure J

Q: Did you start the site alone or with friends?
A: The original site was started by MrStormy and his future wife along with Dravan who MrStormy had worked with on another fansite. They then brought in Apuredelite and Roklykthat who also became owners of the site. There are still many members on the site who have been with RuneHQ since the beginning.

Q: Are you the only developers of the site's code?
A: Originally yes, but over the years several others have helped and we currently have a coding team that is headed by Lilroo503. His team works on the coding for the site itself. Im4eversmart continues to help with the site appearance and forum skins as well as the editing team headed by Alfawarlord and Knight who help keep the guides and databases up-to-date (with the help of other staff and members who gather information for the site).

Q: How much time do you normally spend supporting the site? A few hours a day? A few hours a month?
A: This varies – MrStormy is on call 24/7 but the site really requires a team to keep it running. There is a lot of work involved with a website that most people do not realize. Very simple problems can lead to major outages and this all takes time to troubleshoot. Lilroo503 and Double_D_Edd help to monitor the site so that problems can be dealt with as quickly as possible.

Q: What is the most difficult/challenging task you have to do to maintain the site?
A: Running a site that is as big as RuneHQ is a huge challenge. Dealing with outside vendors who manage the servers can lead to delays in keeping the site live. Having volunteer members who help to keep the site running is also a challenge with people in varying time zones and in various countries all create challenges to site maintenance. Communication can also be a big factor since there are so many people who are involved in the daily running of the site.

Q: How many staff members do you have? How did you find/chose them?
A: The number of staff members varies. We do not have a limit on staff we have and try to allow adequate numbers of active individuals to help with the running of the site. To become staff we have staff applications that we have all potential staff fill out. Varying information is required depending on the job they will hold. For example, people who do coding will have to provide more personal information than someone who is just going to help on the forums. We have open positions listed on the announcement area of our forums as all staff must become a member of our site (membership is free).

Q: Are there aspects of web site management you were able to completely delegate to others?
A: Much of the daily running of the site is delegated to staff but owners are available 24/7 for any problems, questions, or concerns. Most owners and staff have irl situations such as jobs, school, family obligations, etc. so we try to be as flexible as possible with everyone.

Q: Did you ever had to deal with hostility and/or attacks from other fan sites?
A: Definitely. We have had people try to hack the site, people who have hacked access to staff accounts, but all are dealt with very quickly. Staff access is removed immediately for any compromised accounts and passwords are changed frequently to help maintain a safe and secure site. There are currently posts on hacking sites offering to pay to hack into MrStormys account. We are very prudent with security and take any and all attacks on the site seriously and will prosecute if needed. We want our members to have a safe experience on the site and do our best to make sure that happens. As for hostilities with other sites, of course there are. We are rivals for the same fan base – much like competing stores seeking business. We have had rival fansites try to spoil events, try to start arguments, and various other things both in-game and on our forums. Our goal is to provide our members with a choice and while we hope that people will use RuneHQ, we do not encourage any criticism or interference with other sites or their members.

Q: Did you ever consider making money with the site or is it just a hobby?
A: The site has to make money in order to pay for the very expensive server space, but the primary goal is not to make money. RuneHQ is a business so we have to bring in income to support it but making money is not the main goal of the site.

Q: What do you think about the current Jagex's fan sites support program? Do they do too much, too little? Is there something you'd wish would go differently?
A: We were overjoyed to see that Jagex was changing their attitude regarding fansites. For so long it was just the opposite with fansites being viewed almost like the enemy. While we appreciate all of the support they currently provide, like other sites we wish they would be more open with upcoming projects, updates, etc. we understand that if something is written down that people will expect it to happen, especially if a timeline is given, but sometimes it feels like they are being a bit overly secretive. They get everyone hyped about an update or new release and then nothing… no word on how it is coming, if it is still happening, etc. fansites can be used to help Jagex spread the word about upcoming things in game and we believe that fansites could be used more to their advantage if they would involve fansites more.

Q: Do you still play Runescape? If yes, how often?
A: All of the owners have active memberships in Runescape. While not all of them are able to play as often as they would like, they do still pop-in from time to time to check on things.

Q: Are there other Runescape fan sites you personally use as a Runescape player?
A: Of course we check out other fan sites. And various members of the site prefer various aspects of other sites which are being taken into consideration for the revamping of the site. We will not copy other sites but do use them for inspiration based on input from our members/users.

Q: Do you follow/read Runescape blogs and news papers from other sites?
A: Various members of the site keep very close attention to these areas.

Q: Is there something you don't mind revealing about your RL (age, country, hobbies etc.)?
A: MrStormy is 49 and lives in the United States. He works as a consultant doing work with backup, storage and recovery of data with a major company.
Stormys_Amazon is also 49 and is working on her dissertation for her PhD in Instructional Design. Her area of study is learning via games. She also helps with other sites owned by Global Gaming HQ (the company that owns RuneHQ).
Dravan, Apuredelite, and Roklykthat also live in the United States in various locations. All have jobs they also work.

Thank you very much, MrStormy, Stormys_Amazon, Dravan, Apuredelite, and Roklykthat!

P.S. And, by the way, I love the new site design :)

Monday, January 10, 2011

Interviews with Runescape Fan Sites: Global-RS

Today's interview is with Aliensvortex, founder, owner and developer of Global-RS. Global-RS is known for their high quality guides. I also love Global RuneScape Herald - an awesome Runescape newspaper. It used to be one of best (if not the best) in 2007-2008 (it's not as active anymore, but there are some promising signs of revival :))
Enjoy the interview!

Q: How would you describe your site in a few words?
A: A small, but friendly and helpful RuneScape community with high quality guides and tools for RuneScape players of all levels.

Q: Can you tell us about major milestones of your site? A little bit of a history?
A: The site was started in March 2005. Back then, I didn't really have any experience with making websites, but a few friends and myself decided to try making a fan site for RuneScape anyway. I don't really remember what inspired me to do it, but I enjoyed it and quickly learned more about coding web sites and everything else related to running websites. However, I soon realized that the others who started the site with me had lost interest, so for a few months I did everything by myself. It started out as a site on a free web host, and it wasn't until September 2005 that I actually got a domain name for Global-RS.
Most of the milestones actually coincide with the anniversaries of the website: In March 2006, a set of advanced skill calculators was added to the website. In March 2007, we released the item database, and in March 2008 we released a lot of small community-oriented features such as hiscore history, community hiscores and upgraded the calculators from 2006. We didn't have a major new feature in 2009, but in 2010 we released a new design, which is the one currently used. Most of the other features on the site are a product of continual development.

Q: What were your original goals for the site?
A: I felt that the existing fan sites put quantity over quality, and I wanted to do it better myself. Over time, I realized that it is simply impossible to make a comprehensive site with absolutely everything. Therefore, today we're focusing less on a having information about everything, and instead focusing more on making the existing content we have the best possible (you could say that we're still putting quality over quantity). This was partly due to the Knoweldge Base, which didn't exist when Global-RS was started. Instead of focusing on basic content which already exists in the Knowledge Base, we're now focusing more on walkthroughs and tools that can help players beyond the plethora of information Jagex has published in their Knowledge Base.

Q: Was it the first web site you ever created?
A: No, I had created a few other websites, but I doubt they were ever seen by anyone but my friends. Global-RS is the first website that has attracted a significant number of visitors.

Q: What technologies were used to create the site? Did you add new technologies into the mix after you created the original version?
A: Originally, the site was made with basic HTML and frames. However, updating the menu became tedious as I added more pages, so I decided to learn PHP to deal with that, while relying on simple HTML for the content.
The underlying PHP code was completely rewritten for the March 2008 update, when all content was moved to a MySQL database and made editable through an administration panel. Since then, I've used more and more JavaScript for various features on the site, but as I've said earlier, it has mostly been a continuous development with no major switches in technology.

Q: Is there a unique feature/service your site provides to Runescape players?
A: We've focused a lot on good tools on Global-RS. For example, in the monster database, it is possible to open a calculator that shows how many times you have to kill a monster to either level up attack, strength, defence, hitpoints, ranged or slayer using any of the combat styles, which is something really useful for training combat. In the past we've had several other unique features that have later been copied by other fansites. For example, we were the first site where it was possible to only list members-only or free-only quest guides. We were also the first site with the ability to compare item stats, and the first site to have a hiscore history which shows any player's skill progress over time. We're also planning more features that do not exist on other sites, but which we will not reveal just yet.

Q: Which feature/service took the most time and effort to create?
A: The current version of the item database took a lot of time to create. It is also very time consuming to keep it up to date.

Q: Which feature/service was the most complex from the programming stand point?
A: Right now I believe either the item database, calculators or forum hiscores were the most complex because in all of those projects, I had to spend a lot of time learning about things I didn't have any previous experience with. However, I'm currently working on a new (somewhat secret) project, which is quite unique, that is extremely complex - much more complex than any previous single project.

Q: Is there a feature/service of the site you are most proud of?
A: The item database, forum hiscores and calculators.

Q: Did you start the site alone or with friends?
A: I started the site with friends who lost interest after only a couple of weeks, so I was effectively the only one that ran the site in its early stages.

Q: Are you the only developer of the site's code?
A: Yes.

Q: What is the most difficult/challenging task you have to do to maintain the site?
A: I'd say the community part is the most difficult, because it's a completely unpredictable factor which takes a lot of time. Especially when there's any sort of "internet drama", which does happen from time to time. It is often hard to keep everyone happy, but we try the best we can.

Q: Did you even had to deal with hostility and/or attacks from other fan sites?
A: Not from any major fansite, no. We used to have a clan which sometimes got into trouble with other clans and people from both clans were joining the other clan simply to spam and flame. We've also had instances of small, new fansites that tried to PM every active member on Global-RS asking them to join the new site, but those issues were usually resolved quite quickly.

Q: Did you ever consider making money with the site or is it just a hobby?
A: I've considered it. I do not think the users would mind if I did actually made money with the site as it would allow me to spend more time working on it. However, I am currently spending more (on hosting and domain names) than I earn from advertisements, so it currently isn't more than a hobby.

Q: What do you think about the current Jagex's fan sites support program? Do they do too much, too little? Is there something you'd wish would go differently?
A: I think they were too late in recognizing the importance of fan sites in the RuneScape community. They've certainly done a much better job working with fan sites lately, but I think they can still improve in many ways. For example, we'd love to have more interactions between our members and Jagex such as by having a Jagex account posting officially on our forums from time to time. Also, many fansite owners are very interested in getting direct access to more information from the game, such as up-to-date item prices (we can only get approximate prices from the GE website), possibility of accessing players information such as non-ranked skills (even free players which do not have an adventurer's log). I also think that they've been a little strict with the advertisement policy they have with fan sites (we are not allowed to advertise for other games, which makes it hard to use certain advertising networks as they insist we should have gaming ads as a gaming-related site).

Q: What kind of Runescape player are you? Which Runescape aspect is most appealing to you: quests, role-playing, skilling, pking, minigames etc.?
A: Mostly a skiller. I rarely do mini-games, pking or role-playing, and I'm not a very active quester either. I used to play daily, but lately I haven't been able to play as much due to "real life" issues getting in the way.

Q: Do you follow/read Runescape blogs and news papers from other sites?
A: Yes, I regularly check blogs and fansites to keep up to date with what's happening at other sites.

Q: Is there something you don't mind revealing about your RL (age, country, hobbies etc.)?
A: I'm a 20 year old Norwegian male. I've actually worked on Global-RS since I was 14! With the coding experience I got from working on Global-RS, I've gotten a great job as a part-time web systems developer, and I'm also studying computer science. I'm also very active in Norwegian politics, but it's something I intentionally never discuss on Global-RS. I also love hiking in the mountains, skiing (hey, I'm Norwegian, what do you expect?) and rock climbing.

Thank you very much, Aliensvortex!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Interviews with Runescape Fan Sites: Rune Village

Today's interview is with hiker, founder, owner and one of the developers of Rune Village. Rune Village is one of the oldest and most comprehensive Runescape fan sites out there. Enjoy the interview!

Q: How would you describe your site in a few words?
A: An active forum community and source of guides for quests, skills and general information as well as databases of characters and items from the Runescape world.

Q: Can you tell us about major milestones of your site? A little bit of a history?
A: The main site came online the first week of November, 2002 and the forum followed a few days later on November 13, 2002. New members were just a trickle until the following spring when it seemed that membership seemed to take off in a single day. All of the sudden we were getting 150 to 200 new members each day. This growth continued though 2003, 2004,2005 when we reached our peak forum membership of about 65,000 members.
At that time we had an active community of traders, PK's and graphic artists, but with the elimination of the Wilderness, free trade, and the Jagex policy of not only refusing to recognize fan sites, but actually telling players to stay away from them, our membership dropped dramatically during that time.
However, we have remained a close-knit community, and although we are smaller these days, we have many Villagers who have been members for 6-8 years. Recently we have redesigned the forums, and our guides team is in the midst of re-writing and updating our extensive guides library, and well as adding new material. Jagex's recent reversal in now supporting fan sites has helped a bit.

Q: What inspired you to start a Runescape fan site?
A: There were not many fan sites in existence -- only one good one, and their graphics were pretty plain. I thought we could do a good job of presenting the material in a more pleasant manner.

Q: What were your original goals for the site?
A: To be a comprehensive community for Runescape players - forums, guides, data and news.

Q: Had your goals changed over time? If yes, how and why?
A: Not really... at one time we had got a bit behind on maintaining some of the guides, but we have an ongoing program of updating going on now. Our guides team posted 28 new or updated guides on Christmas eve!

Q: Was it the first web site you ever created?
A: No. I've created 100's.

Q: What technologies were used to create the site? Did you add new technologies into the mix after you created the original version?
A: The usual web technologies -- html, php, mysql, flash, javascript and recently a bit more java and some C/C++.

Q: Is there a unique feature/service your site provides to Runescape players?
A: We have several unique features, including a searchable world map. But probably the most unique is our items database. Individual item records are connected to the jagex computers and they display that item's current price on the Grand Exchange in real time, as well as showing a price graph for the previous 30 days. We also have our own chatroom, which is a bit unique.

Q: Which feature/service took the most time and effort to create?
A: Probably the interactive world map - which is being revamped, by the way. Although that would be a close tie with the chat room.

Q: Which feature/service was the most complex from the programming stand point?
A: Again, I'd have to say either the world map, which was/is done by our Staff Administrator, Glodenox or our custom chat, which was originally programmed by meepster, and recently updated by fantasy_guy (fire_adept).

Q: Is there a feature/service of the site you are most proud of?
A: I'm proud of it all. For the past 3-4 years, the site has been developed and maintained by teams of Villagers, and I'm proud of *all* the work each of them has done. It has all been volunteer workers doing a professional job.

Q: Did you start the site alone or with friends?
A: Started it alone.

Q: Are you the only developer of the site's code?
A: I was originally, but for the past four years or so, it's been development teams made up of members who volunteer their efforts and directed by a Staff Administrator.

Q: How much time do you normally spend supporting the site? A few hours a day? A few hours a month?
A: A few hours each day.

Q: What is the most difficult/challenging task you have to do to maintain the site?
A: Keeping up with everyone and focused on their tasks.

Q: How many staff members do you have? How did you find/chose them?
A: We have about 12-15 involved in writing and editing guides and site maintenance. They were recruited or volunteered. We have another group of about 15 that are moderators and admins, and they were all selected from the members.

Q: Are there aspects of web site management you were able to completely delegate to others?
A: While "the buck stops here", I try to delegate as much as possible, so that all the staff have some personal responsibility. Our Staff Administrator generally guides the technical side of things and our Administration team directs Moderators for the forum, site chat, and clan chat.

Q: Did you even had to deal with hostility and/or attacks from other fan sites?
A: Only once or twice have we had real hostility from another site. We have had several who attempted to unlawfully reproduce our information or link to images in violation of our copyright. We have generally been successful in getting those sites closed.

Q: Did you ever consider making money with the site or is it just a hobby?
A: I'd love to make money with the site, but it's all we can do to pay the bills-- especially since we have always had a policy of limited ads to make the user experience more enjoyable.

Q: What do you think about the current Jagex's fan sites support program? Do they do too much, too little? Is there something you'd wish would go differently?
A: I think they were years late in realizing the impact that fan sites have on their business. I'm glad they have started to support us and would like to see more, but it's a new program, and both sides are pretty much feeling their way along right now.

Q: Do you still play Runescape? If yes, how often?
A: I had quit for about 3 years, and have recently started to play again.

Q: What's you Runescape goals, if any?
A: To get all my skills above 50, and hopefully a couple of them up to 99.

Q: What kind of Runescape player are you? Which Runescape aspect is most appealing to you: quests, role-playing, skilling, pking, minigames etc.?
A: Mostly enjoy questing and role-playing.

Q: Are there other Runescape fan sites you personally use as a Runescape player?
A: Well, if I absolutely had to go to another fan site, I'd probably go to tip.it, just based on the quality of their information.

Q: Do you follow/read Runescape blogs and news papers from other sites?
A: Not really. It's about all I can do to keep up with my own.

Q: Is there something you don't mind revealing about your RL (age, country, hobbies etc.)?
A: I currently live in Nashville, Tennessee, and I really have been a hiker for most of my life- ever since childhood, having hiked the entire 2200-mile Appalachian Trail in a single trip.

Thank you very much, hiker!

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Interviews with Stellar Dawn Fan Sites: Stellar Dawn Central

Today's interview is with Ren, founder and co-owner of Stellar Dawn Central. Stellar Dawn Central has the largest Stellar Dawn community and currently is the only Stellar Dawn fan site officially recognized by Jagex.
There is more to it, though. Stellar Dawn Central is one of the few sites where various Jagex related news are discussed (it is my "go to" place for this kind of information) and, of course, it is the place where Ren publishes his awesome reports (RuneScoop and Tip.it users should be familiar with them). BTW, the latest report about Jagex's finances in 2009-2010 just appeared, check it out here.
And now the interview. Enjoy!

Q: How would you describe your site in a few words?
A: Stellar Dawn Central (formerly MechScape World) is the first Stellar Dawn / MechScape fansite. We have an amazing community and cover all things Jagex.

Q: Can you tell us about major milestones of your site? A little bit of a history?
A: We launched the website on the 23rd of October 2007 and the forums on the 10th of November 2007 back when Jagex saw fansites as a threat and wouldn’t even confirm that MechScape existed. However, things quickly changed when Mark Gerhard became CEO and I got a phone call from Jagex on the 13th of February 2009 which featured various Jagex staff including Gerhard himself. I’d been up all night doing coursework and was pretty nervous so probably wasn’t on my best form but it was really great to chat with them about how Jagex wanted to work with fansites.
On the 16th of February 2009 Jagex sent us the first official concept art for the game ever released and later that day we suddenly got a huge spike in traffic. We managed to get 3,000 unique hits and had 347 people using the forum in a 20 minute period and were blown away by this level of attention. At first we feared the site might be under attack, but I asked one of the people who had just signed up to the forum and they told me that they had heard about our site from a tweet by Jagex (the first time Jagex had promoted a fansite through Twitter). After that we became the first fansite in years which Jagex would allow to be discussed on the RuneScape Official forum and on the 13th of May 2009 we became the first MS/SD recognised fansite. PoultryChamp managed to get Jagex’s first face-to-face interview with a fansite on the 24th of March 2009.
We achieved 40,000 posts on the 16th of January 2009; 50,000 on the 23rd of February 2009 and 100,000 on the 18th of July 2009 and are currently approaching 300,000 posts. On the 28th of April 2009 we achieved 8,000 registered members and now the figure is up to over 12,000 (including several Jagex employees who post from time to time). However, the community’s history is perhaps better defined more in terms of the various changes in management such as PoultryChamp joining me to run the site and the various competitions and in-forum events we have had such as the Art Contest, the Pliigi Invasion, the Easter Egg Hunt and the Not-so-Cold War.
Of course one can’t talk about milestones without mentioning the cancellation of MechScape and its rebirth as Stellar Dawn which was announced first on our forums by Mark Gerhard himself on our birthday, the 23rd of October 2009. This led us to change our name from MechScape World to Stellar Dawn Central on the 22nd of July 2010. The change took a while because we didn’t want to change the name before there was Stellar Dawn related content and we wanted to co-ordinate it with an update to our forums. Furthermore we wanted to go for the right name so we spent a long time consulting the community and evaluating the various possibilities to help ensure that our new title would be fit for the future whilst respecting our past.

Q: What inspired you to start a Stellar Dawn fan site?
A: I was inspired to create a MechScape fansite because at the time there weren’t any fansites, I was excited about the game and had research about it I wanted to share. I’ve always been a big fan of the sci-fi genre and have been following Jagex since when I started playing RuneScape in February 2001. As a programmer I have always respected and been interested in Jagex as a company so was really stoked to discover that they were working on a second major MMORPG.

Q: What were your original goals for the site?
A: The original short-term goal was to share my research and convince people that MechScape was real because at the time Jagex hadn’t publicly announced it and many doubted that they were working on a sci-fi MMORPG. I also wanted to establish the site as the premier MechScape fansite, build up a community and ultimately when the game was released to have all the usual fansite offerings such as guides and tools.

Q: Had your goals changed over time? If yes, how and why?
A: The focus changed from MechScape to Stellar Dawn and I no longer have to work hard convincing people that the game exists, especially now that Jagex have launched StellarDawn.com. My current goal is to maintain our position as the #1 Stellar Dawn fansite, keep up with my research and analysis and prepare for the launch of the Stellar Dawn beta (sign up at here)

Q: Was it the first web site you ever created?
A: No, the first website I created was a silly Geocities site which I created in NetScape Composer back in 1997. I’ve created various sites since, but Stellar Dawn Central is my most successful endeavor (thanks of course to the contributions of many people). The website theme was designed by PoultryChamp who has been doing this sort of thing for years.

Q: What technologies were used to create the site? Did you add new technologies into the mix after you created the original version?
A: The original MechScape Central site was hosted on Google Pages so didn't really use any technology. We soon moved to a proper web host and use PHP, MySQL and CSS. Our forums run on IP.Board which I really like, and we've fairly recently upgraded to IPB 3.1 which has more functionality.

Q: Is there a unique feature/service your site provides to Runescape/Stellar Dawn players?
A: Our forum is unique in its blend of an awesome community and a fairly liberal approach to what people can post (so long as it’s suitable for 13+ and isn’t spam, flaming, RWT, etc). We are usually the first to discover new information about Stellar Dawn and are one of the few sites who also focus on news and analysis relating to Jagex as a company. For now we're also the only recognised fansite for Stellar Dawn and have Platinum status, which has meant that Jagex employees post on our forums from time to time and give us exclusives. Oh, and we’re the only fansite with space pie!

Q: Is there a feature/service of the site you are most proud of?
A: I’m most proud of our community. Most people find the site due to MechScape / Stellar Dawn and many are still eagerly awaiting the SD’s release, but considering it’s been three years without a beta the reason people have stayed active is primarily because they enjoy being part of the community.

Q: Did you start the site alone or with friends?
A: I started MechScape Central on my own but MechScape World / Stellar Dawn Central has always been a joint project. At the moment I’m running the site with PoultryChamp (Laura) and she’s in charge of paying the bills and ensuring the website doesn’t go down while I focus more on research and content.

Q: How much time do you normally spend supporting the site? A few hours a day? A few hours a month?
A: Stellar Dawn isn’t out yet so there aren’t the usual activities such as managing guide submissions yet, but I do spend hours a day on the forums and am always keeping an eye out for relevant Stellar Dawn or Jagex related news. Most of my time on the forums is taking part in discussions but I always keep an eye out for potential mod / admin work which needs to get done. Two recent time-consuming projects were the changeover and rebrand from MechScapeWorld.com to StellarDawnCentral.com and the upgrade to the latest version of IP.Board, but PoultryChamp and Max did a lot of the work on the forum upgrade.
Being first for Jagex and Stellar Dawn related news is a time-consuming endeavor as you always have to be on the lookout. Fortunately I don't have to do all the research myself any more as others such as Pliigi do a great job at finding things and posting them to the website. When the game is released we'll be needing our staff to work really hard, but we'll also be depending on submissions from our community.

Q: How many staff members do you have? How did you find/chose them?
A: We have 5 administrators and 6 moderators who pitch in and do plenty of other things that need to be done as well as 7 other members of staff. When the beta is out we’ll need more staff but there’s not that much for people to do at the moment. For the general staff positions we had a formal application process but for the mods/admins we offered people who we knew would be good at the job the position, usually people who had been long-term users of the forum who had proved that they had sound judgment and were active members of the community.

Q: Did you ever have to deal with hostility and/or attacks from other fan sites?
A: We've had sites steal our content which we’ve had to deal with as diplomatically as we can. However, we’ve also had many positive experiences such as the multi-fansite event a couple of months ago.

Q: What do you think about the current Jagex's fan sites support program? Do they do too much, too little? Is there something you'd wish would go differently?
A: I think that it’s great that Jagex have a fan site support programme and that it's certainly not something which ever would have happened back when Iddison was CEO. However, there are plenty of opportunities for the program to be improved. There should be more APIs to allow easy access to relevant data and for Stellar Dawn there should be more fansites supported and more support for those fansites. Hopefully as Stellar Dawn approaches release Jagex will be more willing to share information and concept art with fansites and take part in interviews.

Q: Are there any Runescape fan sites you personally use?
A: I’m sure there are lots of great RuneScape fansites out there but as I’m more focused on Stellar Dawn I don’t spend that much time on my account “me” playing RuneScape these days. However, I’ve been visiting Rune Tips (tip.it) since early 2001 and it has always served me well.

Q: Do you follow/read Runescape blogs and news papers from other sites?
A: The only RuneScape blog I follow is the RuneScape Reader’s Digest which I visit all the time. If I hear about an interesting editorial I’ll check it our but I don’t regularly read RS newspapers.

Q: Is there something you don't mind revealing about your RL (age, country, hobbies etc.)?
A: I am a British guy in my mid-20’s who has BSc in Computing, does volunteer work for environmental causes and works as a self-employed techie. I am a big fan of the authors Sir Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and George R. R. Martin. I enjoy watching Anime, Sci-fi, House and The Daily Show. Oh, and if the rumours are true I'm actually a robot badger from the future.

Thank you very much, Ren!

Friday, January 7, 2011

Interviews with Runescape Fan Sites: Tip.it

Today's interview is with _Peter_ , who is the lead tech administrator at Tip.it. Of course, Tip.it does not need an introduction, everybody knows this site and most of us use it. My favorite section being Tip.it Times (not surprisingly :)). Yet, just as many other Runescape fan sites, Tip.it has a side which is "hidden" from their users - that is a team of developers who work hard to deliver services to Runescape players. I hope this interview will shed some light on that "hidden" side :) Enjoy!

Q: How many developers are working at Tip.it?
A: It depends what you consider to be a developer. All of the "Website Crew" team contribute and are basically who make the site what it is. If you're wanting to know who writes the code to make things work behind the scenes (as in adding features and such, while not writing the guides for example), then there's perhaps 3 or 4 actual developers, myself included, who work on this.

Q: What is your role at Tip.it?
A: I'm the lead tech for the website and also the forum. Basically it's my job to (as much as physically possible) ensure the smooth running of both, and to develop, or aid in development of new features for both; as well as maintaining existing code.

Q: How and when did you start writing code for the site?
A: My first project was the dynamic signatures, and this was before I was actually an administrator or even Crew. I originally started as an IRC Staff member, and it was suggested we start some of our own dynamic signatures off. I began coding them, with tripsis creating the graphics, and eventually had some running prototypes and such. It was at this point there was a bit of an internal switch around and I was given my current position, and here we are.

Q: What is your main motivation for working at Tip.it?
A: Great staff, great community, first RS fan site I joined, need I say more?

Q: Is Tip.it the first web site you ever worked on?
A: Not the first, but by far the biggest. I've always enjoyed experimenting with my own web projects and offering to help others with their projects.

Q: What technologies were used to create the site? Were new technologies added into the mix after the original version?
A: The site was originally just HTML based with static pages, right back in the RSC days (before my time). A little later on, some PHP was used in conjunction to MySQL to create some simple databases for items and such. The newer site for "RuneScape 2" was then created using the same technologies (PHP/MySQL).

Q: Which feature/service took the most time and effort to create?
A: I wasn't around for the original creation of the website, and I can only really comment on the time taken to create features which I was a part of. Some of the Crew really need to be credited here as they've come up with a lot of the calculators/planners using just JavaScript, some of which are awfully complex, and I'd count this as part of development. I think one of the most time consuming and difficult things we did to date was to switch our forum software from phpBB to Invision Power Board. This involved a lot of staff learning the ropes again, as well as any custom features we had having to be recoded to work with the new software in order to try and make our users feel at home like they did on phpBB.

Q: Which feature/service was the most complex from the programming stand point?
A: Most complex is probably the Quest Calculator. When the initial developers first started storing data for quests, there was no idea that a Quest Calculator would be created, and so it took quite a large amount of logic and code to get around the barriers involved with something like that. In fact the Quest Calculator is occasionally under maintenance as someone discovers a bug that we didn't know existed.

Q: Are you implementing new site features alone or together with other developers? In other words is there a shared development environment set up for Tip.it developers?
A: Yes and no. Some projects, I or other developers choose to code individually, and for others, there is collaboration. However I'd say that at some point or another, one of us has added to another's work in almost every case.

Q: How much time do you normally spend supporting the site? A few hours a day? A few hours a month?
A: A few hours a week probably. I spend quite a lot of time on the forum reading although I choose not to post all that much. It also depends what I'm doing with University and if I have an active project. I'm the kind of person where if I have time off from University and a project to work on, I'll spend many hours per day working on it until it's done.

Q: How do you decide which feature should be implemented and when?
A: Usually by public demand but also suggestions from staff. Occasionally there are other factors, for example the Grand Exchange Centre was created because RuneCrypt.com, as a fansite, closed. They handed us their historical data that they had been using to generate their GE graphs, and so we couldn't have it sitting there doing nothing.

Q: Do you still play Runescape? If yes, how often?
A: Not any more.

Q: Are there other Runescape fan sites you personally use as a Runescape player?
A: When I used to play, I would often alternate between Tip.It, RuneHQ and Sal's for guides.

Q: Do you follow/read Runescape blogs and news papers from other sites?
A: It depends on the topic. If it's something which could be relevant to Tip.It on other sites, then yes I will keep up with it, otherwise, no.

Q: Is there something you don't mind revealing about your RL (age, country, study, hobbies etc.)?
A: I'm a 22 year old University student studying Computer Science from England.

Thank you very much, _Peter_!

P.S. Also a special thanks goes to tripsis who helped me to obtain the interview.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Interviews with Runescape Fan Sites: Runescape Bits and Bytes

Today's interview is with Shane and Mike, founders, owners and developers of Runescape Bits and Bytes (or RSBandB). RSBandB is one of my favorite fan sites, largely because of their outstanding Runescape newspaper (the Informer!). In my opinion the Informer! and Tip.it Times are the best Runescape editorials out there and they maintained their elite status for several years now. Also RSBandB blogging community helped me a lot during the early days of Runescape Reader's Digest and I am grateful for that. And, of course, there is RuneWire - totally unique micro-blogging service for Runescape players, I used to have a lot of fun with it (when I played more often...). Anyway, here goes the interview. Enjoy!

Q: How would you describe your site in a few words?
Shane and Mike: Innovative, unique, and tight knit.

Q: Can you tell us about major milestones of your site? A little bit of a history?
Shane and Mike: We started the website in August 2004 with launch features including dynamic signatures and skill calculators. In 2005 we added RSBANDBUpdate! which is our podcast, currently the longest running active podcast. Later in 2005 we released our first goal signature system, a first for the Runescape community. Later we added RSBANDBInformer! in 2006 which is our Runescape newspaper with a variety of types of articles. In 2007 we added RuneWire which is our RS based micro-blogging service. You can find a full account of our history here.

Q: What inspired you to start a Runescape fan site?
Mike: I made some RS2 calculators for personal use since other sites were getting out of date. I had also made myself a dynamic stat signature for use on another fan sites forums. It was Shane's idea to make a fan site out of those tools.

Q: What were your original goals for the site?
Shane and Mike: To continue to release exciting and innovative features.

Q: Had your goals changed over time? If yes, how and why?
Shane and Mike: Our goals have remained the same. At any time either of us have at least one project in development. No secrets today ;)

Q: Was it the first web site you ever created?
Shane: No. I started making HTML websites when I was 13. I gradually progressed to PHP and made a website or two for a gaming clan.
Mike: Yes.

Q: What technologies were used to create the site? Did you add new technologies into the mix after you created the original version?
Shane and Mike: We use a traditional LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) setup on CentOS. Over time we have moved from more managed hosting to less managed hosting and now to the point where we fully manage our server ourselves. We also implement our own frameworks for administering the website.

Q: Is there a unique feature/service your site provides to Runescape players?
Shane and Mike: A large variety of features one finds at RSBandB were unique to RSBandB. Many of these features were later also implemented by other fansites. We are continuing to implement unique features as is in line with our goals for our website.

Q: Which feature/service took the most time and effort to create?
Shane and Mike: With only two of us developing maintenance becomes an issue. Maintenance is something that takes the largest proportion of our time.

Q: Which feature/service was the most complex from the programming stand point?
Shane: RuneWire.
Mike: Website administration and moderation tools.

Q: Is there a feature/service of the site you are most proud of?
Mike: Community High Scores but there are still more features planned for them.
Shane: RSBANDBUpdate! (podcast)

Q: Did you start the site alone (meaning you and Mike) or with other friends?
Shane and Mike: Just Mike and Shane

Q: Are you the only developer of the site's code?
Shane and Mike: Just Mike and Shane

Q: How much time do you normally spend supporting the site? A few hours a day? A few hours a month?
Shane and Mike: Oh god, too much.

Q: How many staff members do you have? How did you find/chose them?
Shane and Mike: 17. They were members of our community who showed initiative.

Q: Did you ever consider making money with the site or is it just a hobby?
Shane and Mike: Our dream is that someday the site will pay for itself, but we have never planned to make a profit off it.

Q: What do you think about the current Jagex's fan sites support program? Do they do too much, too little? Is there something you'd wish would go differently?
Shane and Mike: We'd like to point you to a guest article written by one of our former staff members for RSBANDBInformer!
We have also discussed fansite support on our forums with our members. That discussion can be found here.

Q: Do you still play Runescape? If yes, how often?
Shane: I try to play for fun as much as I can. I try to farm daily. I do check out the updates weekly for the podcast.
Mike: Rarely. When I feel like I have the time for it, I'd rather be working on RSBandB.

Q: What's your Runescape goals, if any?
Shane: 40m Farming XP. Possibly top 100.
Mike: I was working on raising all my skills above certain levels. Right now my goal is all above 80. Someday in the far future I'll try and get all 99s on the same day.

Q: What kind of Runescape player are you? Which Runescape aspect is most appealing to you: quests, role-playing, skilling, pking, minigames etc.?
Shane: Skilling/questing.
Mike: I like to be efficient. I'll find the best way to do something and use that to train my skills.

Q: Do you follow/read Runescape blogs and news papers from other sites?
Shane: RuneScape Readers Digest (serious)
Mike: Some of our community members have their own RuneScape blogs and I follow the ones I know about.

Q: Is there something you don't mind revealing about your RL (age, country, hobbies etc.)?
Shane: Currently, 23. Canada. STAR TREK!!!
Mike: I am currently 22, live in the same city as Shane, and enjoy playing lots of video games.

Thank you very much, Shane and Mike!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Interviews with Runescape Fan Sites: Grand Exchange Central

Today's interview is with Absenm, founder, owner and developer of Grand Exchange Central. The site is a very unusual and very focused (in a good way). And when I think of innovation done by Runescape fan sites, Grand Exchange Central with it's Mock Grand Exchange feature is probably the first site that comes to my mind. Enjoy the interview!

Q: How would you describe your site in a few words?
A: The Grand Exchange Central is a safe place for RuneScape players who enjoy the economic side of RuneScape. Merchanting in RuneScape has negative tones, and the goal of the GEC is to be a safe information and training tool that is focused on changing merchanting from a negative to a positive.

Q: Can you tell us about major milestones of your site? A little bit of a history?
A: The GEC started out as a simple script I could personally use for my blog. When I wrote in my blog about items I thought were good investments, I wanted to have realtime data displayed in my blog. In concept this was a cool idea. But in practice I soon discovered that posting realtime data in a blog actually was a bad idea. When I'd write an article about good items, everything was fine. But over time those items may become bad investments, and thus the realtime data removed all sense from the blog post.
But the fact that I had the scripts to do the calculations and store the data still seemed to me to be a powerful tool. So I took my focus away from simple realtime data for a blog, and focused instead on making a site that improved upon the official RuneScape Grand Exchange Beta website.
The official GE website was an okay tool for RuneScape investors. But it lacked a lot of resources that merchants could use to make better investments. I started out the GEC slowly. First just giving realtime data on tradeable items. But once I had that data easily accessible I started making tools to use that data. I liked the idea of "indices" that could show how categories of items where performing over time. I called these Runedexes. This was not an origional idea to me. I first fell in love with the concept from the Grand Exchange Market Watch. Then I started making specific lists of items. First there were the normal lists, like most valuable items, and items that had the greatest price drops/falls. Then I started getting the GEC a little more advanced. We got lists of items that were bottoming out (near their historic low) or peaking (near their historic high). Then we developed a detection formula that could potentially spot items that were suffering from clan manipulations. Other lists followed.
While we were doing all this, I had this wonderful idea of creating a GE market simulator. We call it the Mock Grand Exchange. Visitors could make mock accounts on the GEC website, be giving a certain amount of mock GP, and trying out investment ideas without the risk of losing real RuneScape GP. This added a fun aspect to the otherwise static and intimidating process of researching RuneScape investments.

Q: What inspired you to start a Runescape fan site?
A: I already explained how the GEC started, so I'll focus on how the original blog started. While playing RuneScape, week after week I would see all the changes going on. It was an exciting time in the world of RuneScape. I wanted to talk about these things, but none of my real life friends played the game. So I decided to express my views publicly in a blog where other RuneScape fans could read and comment on my ideas.

Q: What were your original goals for the site?
A: Originally, I just wanted a place to quickly find historical information about tradeable items in RuneScape. I kind of wanted the GEC to become the Wall Street Journal of RuneScape.

Q: Had your goals changed over time? If yes, how and why?
A: My goals for the Grand Exchange Central are basically the same as when I started. I still want a safe site for everyone. I still want it to have the best investment tools available on the internet. I still want to remove the bad stigma that is sometimes associated with the word Merchanting.

Q: Was it the first web site you ever created?
A: No. For a brief time about a decade ago I had an antivirus help website. But it was straight HTML code, and mainly only provided links to antivirus resources. Back then blogging wasn't as popular as it is now. That first website of mine could have easily been a WordPress blog in today's world.

Q: What technologies were used to create the site? Did you add new technologies into the mix after you created the original version?
A: My coding background is very limited. I wrote my first program in BASIC almost thirty years ago when I was eight years old on a RadioShack Color Computer 2. But I never really got into programming. It was only ten years ago I tried my hand at limited HTML coding. It was only a couple of years ago, when I first wanted a more dynamic aspect for my RuneScape blog which meant I needed to teach myself PHP and mySQL. I had, and still have, no formal programming education. It's all been trial and error as I learn and improve the GEC.
The GEC itself is extremely heavily dependent on PHP and mySQL. With the exception of the forums, the entire site is custom made. This has been a blessing and a curse. Even though there are several thousand pages accessible on the GEC, only a few pages need to be coded to build all the pages visitors see. Yet that also means that even the simplest changes require making sitewide changes to some very important scripts. One mistake can take down thousands of pages, and even take down the entire site.
Currently the only new technologies I'm looking into are integrating with Facebook Connect and developing HTML5 graphing. Visitors can share various things already from the GEC to Facebook. But I'd eventually like to add the ability to logon to the GEC using Facebook. But I'm talking technologies here. We have ton of new features we are adding that use our current technologies. PHP and mySQL are still very powerful tools.

Q: Is there a unique feature/service your site provides to Runescape players?
A: That would be the Mock Grand Exchange. As I mentioned before, this is a virtual Grand Exchange that allows visitors to try out investment strategies without risk.

Q: Which feature/service took the most time and effort to create?
A: The Mock Grand Exchange. This changed the entire direction of the Grand Exchange Central. Before the MockGE, anyone could use all the features. But the MockGE required user accounts (which is why I added the forums... so I could use the forums user accounts for the MockGE). It require required fairly complex coding to mimic the real GE. It required detection of Official GE price updates almost immediately. Plus it required a fair bit of politics. How to mimic the GE without stepping on Jagex toes? It had to be an effective tool without duplicating the real thing. Also, since members can compare their performance to other members, I had to find a way that new members could still "compete" with older members who might have more mockGP.

Q: Which feature/service was the most complex from the programming stand point?
A: The whole site. LOL. The truth is, not being a programmer, almost everything has been a challenge. But if I had to pick one thing, it is getting the graphs right. Since the start I have used a nice FLASH app to create the GEC graphs. But I was never particularly happy with it. And once I got my iPhone, it became more important to me to look into graphing in HTML5. That is something I have been looking into for almost a year now, and have yet to implement. Only on the GEC mobile pages do I touch HTML5 graphs. But our mobile site is very limited, and the graphs are not particularly interesting. Yet.

Q: Is there a feature/service of the site you are most proud of?
A: Most members would probably think this is a minor feature, but I still smile when I think about it. The Clan Manipulation detection formula. Our Clan Manipulation detection mathematics are not perfect, but they do provide a nice level of logic and reasonable accuracy. The GEC uses what we call the 4x4 Rule. Any items that have increased and/or decreased in overall value by more than 4% for four days out of the last five days are flagged as potentially being manipulated. It seems to be fairly on the spot, and I'm a little smug about that.

Q: Did you start the site alone or with friends?
A: I started the site by myself.

Q: Are you the only developer of the site's code?
A: Yes, I'm the only developer. Again, I have no formal training in coding and I'm pretty much the only person that could understand my admittedly poor coding design. Though over the past year I have been updating portions of the site to be a little more clean.

Q: How much time do you normally spend supporting the site? A few hours a day? A few hours a month?
A: That really depends. There are times where I can easily put in 20 or 30 hours in a week on the site. But then there are times (like recently) when an unholy convergence of personal conflicts happen an I have almost no time at all to work on the site. Sadly, with me, it is an all or nothing type of situation. When I'm working on the site (about 40 weeks a year) I'm putting in at least 20hrs a week. The remaining 12 weeks I'm doing almost nothing but putting out any small fires (maybe a few minutes a week).

Q: What is the most difficult/challenging task you have to do to maintain the site?
A: Finding the free time to write (or rewrite) quality features. I have a backlog of features/fixes 13 pages long I want to implement. Coming back from those before mentioned unholy convergences is always hard. What to do first? What amazing features can I add that will make up for my time away?
I am thankful that I am a very anal person, and therefore I wrote the site with backup contingencies that allows the GEC to run itself in most situations. Every once in a while something horrible will happen that seems like it will require my immediate attention. But then I'll discover that the GEC somehow self corrected and is functioning properly. At those time I sit back and say out loud "Wow. I didn't know it could do that."

Q: How many staff members do you have? How did you find/chose them?
A: I have two staff members. Unfortunately one of them has disappeared over the past six months (that happens to everyone from time to time). But my other staff member Stramel has been an incredible addition to the site. He keeps an eye out on our forums, keeping them safe for our members, and tries to answer questions as best he can. I choose him and my other staff member based on their involvement in the forums and maturity level. Pretty much if someone is being helpful in the forums, and PMing me with questions and suggestions, and they do not present a negative attitude, I'll eventually ask them to become a mod. Over time, I hope to have more things for mods to do. But right now their job is focused on the forums. Though Stramel does have some limited ability to make minor changes to item detail information.

Q: Are there aspects of web site management you were able to completely delegate to others?
A: I wouldn't call it completely, but I have pretty much handed almost all control of the GEC forums to Stramel.

Q: Did you ever have to deal with hostility and/or attacks from other fan sites?
A: Not specifically from other fan sites. I usually am approached from other sites to merge or work with them as partners. I'm looking into a separated partnership with one such site right now, though I haven't had much time to follow up on it. However, every once in a while I do have to deal with attacks on the site as a whole from persons unknown. This happens to any sizable site, and is standard business. But as a community, I have heard very few negative comments about the GEC. Usually the only negative comments I see are about site design. And usually I agree.

Q: Did you ever consider making money with the site or is it just a hobby?
A: It is a hobby, though I do have some Google ads that go toward paying my web hosting costs. I wouldn't say I make any profit off the site. When all is said and done, I probably make about $0.17 an hour for my time.

Q: Do you still play Runescape? If yes, how often?
A: Sadly, I play almost never now. What little free time I have to play RuneScape, I need to spend working on my site. Thankfully, the nature of my site doesn't require me to be an active RuneScape player. It does preclude me from giving much investment advice these days. But my members can take care of the advice part. I focus my attention on the mathematics, which doesn't require my involvement in game. That said, I do miss playing.

Q: What kind of Runescape player are you? Which Runescape aspect is most appealing to you: quests, role-playing, skilling, pking, minigames etc.?
A: When I was playing actively I stuck to trying to making money through combat. And the quests were pretty fun. Ironically, I didn't use to GE much to make money. Though I did fully adore merchanting when I made a small fortune off Strange Fruit a couple of years ago when the Random Events update occurred. Everyone knew about the update for a few weeks before, and I just knew those fruit were going to skyrocket. That was a ton of fun.

Q: Are there other Runescape fan sites you personally use as a Runescape player?
A: Whenever I need advice or quest help I use Tip.it. There are a lot of quality sites out there, but Tip.it was the site I used when I first started playing, and therefore they are the first (and usually the only) place I need to go.

Q: Is there something you don't mind revealing about your RL (age, country, hobbies etc.)?
A: I live in the midwest USA. I play darts and do computer consulting. Love the Green Bay Packers.

Thank you very much, Absenm!

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