Larian Studios Forums General Chat RPG Chat Web Programmer request/proposition

Hello all -

A friend of mine has graciously agreed to host me on his domain, which hosts several in-progress gaming and music related sites he is working on in his spare time. I would like to develop a website devoted to RPG's, not only Divinity and its followers but perhaps also several other classic-style games as well, and maybe more in the future.

So here is the request: I am a competent graphic designer and am very good at layouts and the like for websites, but I know next to nothing about web programming (though I am slowly gaining knowledge on it). So I am wondering if any of you who are knowledgable programmers and also fans of these styles of RPG games would be interested in co-administrating/developing a site with me.

The language would be PHP with a MySQL database backbone. Probably it would involve developing moderately complex custom scripts to tie in seemlessly with the site. Most if not all would be form processors of one kind or another. The usual: form-to-email; a basic CMS setup for adding/modifying/modifying news, reviews, and articles and the like; and perhaps an image gallery script that utilizes PHP to manipulate uploaded images/create thumbnails; also perhaps some kind of user authentication and basic user control panel system (for profiles, tracking of files and things uploaded, and so forth). And possibly, down the line, some sort of "vault" system to contain custom files, user-created content, mods, and the like for various games. Underlying concerns overall would be validation and security (of course).

Why all this? Of course I could just do a static site and update it in my spare time but the future of such sites is for those enabling user interaction of some kind. Also, for the anticipated size of this site a few years down, it needs to be dynamic so it can grow with its community and be easily maintained and updated. I don't want to be as big as GameSpot or anything like that! I'm focusing on more of a niche for RPG's only.

I have looked into the available open-source CMS but these are either too bloated for my needs or simply too complex for me to customize as I would like, and many suffer from a serious need to comply with newer standards, which is somewhat important to me as a forward-looking individual. I tend to be minimalist in my design approach. I don't need "super mega scripts for everything under the sun" like Nuke systems offer, etc. I find that kind of system to be overwhelming and mostly inefficient (no offense to anyone who might work on such things, they are good for a lot of people but not me).

This is of course a labor of love not a commercial venture (yet) so the only income might be from small advertising or donations or Amazon wish-lists and the like, which I would gladly split with this person if it ever came to that (donations of course would go right into the webspace fund). But for now it would be work-for-free, for the experience and to put something on your resume if nothing else, which I know firsthand is a lot to ask, as I am a designer myself and know the time involved. But also I am not planning on doing this overnight or even in a month's time. It would probably be a few months of tweaking and developing, of course, or more.

If anyone is seriously interested, you can email me: arya (AT) atomicfantasy (DOT) com or if anyone has questions or wants more details just reply below.

Thanks all for reading through this lengthy post! lol So sorry for that!

Arya

golly, that's impressive work u're throwing yourself into. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> by the way, welcome to the forum, if no-one has yet 2 welcome u. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

wish i can help but i'm only starting to learn PHP (now that i have an OS that can support it). if u don't mind a newbie. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

anyway, all the best to u.

Thanks. I was welcomed in before, but it was quite some time ago when I first joined. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The Winter is Coming...

I am sorry I am unable to help. Nevertheless, what would you say of WordPres? You can tweak it and include in your site. Of course, you'd have to know some php, which I don't, but maybe janggut can help?

Welcome!

Wish I could help, but my PHP skillz=[nocando!!!]

I was so suprised when I walked into the apple store, walked up to a computer, looked around, clicked on dreamweaver, and made a whole frontpage in HTML. I thought I forgot it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ouch.gif" alt="" />

So I'm re-laerning it, then on to stuff.

Im sure somebody can help you thought!

And post linky link when you can!

DATD: Valar morghulis.


Yes the problem I'm expecting is that most people with enough skill to do this are probably very busy already and not going to just do a project out of the goodness of their hearts, lol. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Not that I blame them at all. If I had the skills I'd be out putting them to use for MONEY too! So I am considering I will maybe need to pay some company to build the CMS. Thought I would ask around first on the off-chance.

Well, when and if it gets going I will definitely share the links!

For graphics you could ask Marian...if he has time <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

hello arya,

for php, u might want to check out PHP-Nuke which should be easy enough for newbies. in fact, i'm starting to learn PHP using that as well.

as i've said earlier, if u don't mind newbies, then there may be a few who are willing to help out.

hello rhaps... er arya...
as a matter of fact i'm a web programmer
well i might be interested but my loc is in France...