Plan G
Plan G is a plan to speed up the joining process of the MRC by using automated forms in a wizard format. Plan G ‘’’ONLY’’’ deals with the joining process of the MRC, not any part of Project Sandbox that is in place right now.
New Member, First Character
Step one would of course continue to be registration of the member in the basic phpBB registration sequence.
From there a message will be displayed asking the member if they want to make their first character.
When they click on that hyperlink to crate their first character (and for any future characters) they are brought up to a form with the basic character information.
After filling in and submitting the basic character information, they are taken to Step 2, in which the character selects what type of role they wish to fill, and then the background, and various other details that makeup the physical and mental angles of the character.
From there on to Step 3, which is an automatic feature of PHP conducting dice roles and filling in the actual stat numbers of all of the basic stats for the class type chosen in Step 2. The new character is now allowed to select from a combo/dropdown box the rest of their stats, with a few suggestions thrown in. This section will be JavaScript heavy because it will include on-screen help menus created from scratch describing each property and how it will help the character in later life.
From there Step 4 thanks the member and lets them know that their character is in a queue for review.
GM Approval
Over on a GM only screen that has been part of the planned upgrade for ARCTech for a long time, GM’s with Joining Permissions will see a screen with a list of people who have character to be reviewed. Since stats are already made, and have to be mathematically correct, that work is out of the way. All that’s left is the series of PM’s that will be sent back and forth having the character continue to edit their background until its fully in place.
This will take place in a special window, with revisions enabled. Unfortinatly it will be database intensive, but it’s the only way to ensure integrity.
Once a background is viewed as OK or near completion, the GM will be able to send an automatic PM to the member that is a form letting them know where to report on the Beginhill. Several training squadrons will be preset in this form and will be set to a default setting by the Beginhill Director in yet another control panel that has been planned for development for a long time.
Downside to implementing right now
There is a major downside to implementing right now, and that is none of this will be in the phpBB 2.0 ARCTech planned format. Instead its going to rely on an older set of scripts that I had worked on and abandoned a LONG time ago, and with the assistance of Xuric who has created a beta of the Character Control Panel in plain old PHP a long time ago as well.
These forms will be separate from phpBB, and may even eventually be separated completely from them in order to avoid licensing issues.
The good news is this type of development is much faster and easier on me as a programmer, and even Xuric will find it easier to work with in the long run. We can even use these forms as the prototype for the future transition to phpBB 2.0 or even phpBB 3.0 if we wish.
