New stuff

We are currently in development of the Napalm Character system which allows you as a user to define and present each of your in-game characters. This is primarily focus on role-playing games, but there will be certain exceptions such as Second Life characters.

In light of providing the highest level of functionality we are building this system with what I will call a Data Template method.

What this means is that we do not assume that all the information you wish to present for your character is always the same. As to say that your character in WoW will have more or less the same information as your character in Everquest, or EVE, etc. This is something that almost all other web properties do, and we have always thought it stupid.

You should not have to attempt to fit a square, triangle, octagon, etc all in a round hole. It just does not make proper sense.

So we are building 'templates' for each character type, depending on the virtual world which the character lives in.

So as an example in an MMO like WoW you have a lot of what would normally be considered 'default' information, however with a MMO like EVE you end up having some completely different types of stats and character information. This is important for us to consider and therefore Napalm's character system to consider.

Your Help

What we need from you is two things. First we need help listing the different MMOs available. While someone would be hard pressed to find an MMO I have not played (excluding the hundreds of web based) it is still difficult to compile a broad list from memory.Second we need the individual types of information which need to be stored for a character in each game.

Before I post this thread I will create a Global -> Characters forum ('global' because it will be used in more places than the user pages). Anyone who wants to post a new template will create a new thread inside that forum called 'Template -> Whatever'. So for example you could post a 'Template -> World of Warcraft' thread with that template as the post body. If there is already a thread created for the game you are interested in, then create a new post in that thread. If, for example, you have something to add to an already posted template.

Structure

Here is how we are going to structure these threads.

You can put whatever commentary you wish, but the actual template needs to be presented in the following way. This may seem a bit foreign to some of you, and more familiar to others (specifically those that have experience with any kind of database). No matter who you are however, it's not very difficult to understand.

For each information type, you need to provide a label for that information, the type of information, and the maximum amount of that information.

So an entry for a character name would look like:

Name ... Text ... 24

This would be an information with the label of 'name', the type of information is 'text' (only letters), and a maximum length of 24 letters.

Likewise an example of a stat would be like:

Mana ... Number ... 3

This would be information with the label of 'mana', the type of information is 'number' (only numbers), and a maximum length of 3 letters.

The information types are: Text (only letters), Number (only numbers), Mixed (letters and numbers).

Also, this is not required, but if some of you are the developer types and are familiar with data formatting standards (such as regex) it would be helpful for you to provide that type of commentary for the information types suggested. Please do this for only the types of data that you know. So don't just make assumptions on things, but if you know for example that a particular game requires a first name and a last name, then that is valuable information which we need to implement.

Conclusion & Clarifications

Just to be clear, I ask that if you don't actually _play_ the game, please do not post a template. I am hoping that I don't have to reopen all my MMO accounts to double check all this information. That is why we need you!

Lastly, this has ran on longer than I expected, but I get hyped when talking about this stuff. I look forward to seeing what you post.

Thanks!
Spot