Changeloggery

Planned Updates updated

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:36:00 -0500

I realized the other day the Planned Updates section was a simple bullet list only because it used to be in sidebar on the old changelog. So I’ve been fleshing things out, adding explanations where needed, and even threw in some new ideas I’ve been mulling over.

Check it out right here or on the left as always.

(This will surely spark a flood of new suggestions… be gentle!)

Memory Card Manager added

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:28:50 -0500

Added the option to selectively delete entries in your Memory Card.

You can find it on your Memory Card page. Now you don’t have to live with that flubbed update in your history forever!

Unplayed option added

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:31:00 -0500

Updates

Unplayed option added for the Unfinished status

*phew* That was a tiring update. Easy from a programming standpoint but changing anything to do with the something as core to the site as the game statuses has very far-reaching implications.

You’ll find if you try out the Unplayed option it’s a bit different than any of the other statuses on the site. This is very deliberate. We didn’t want to split up the Unfinished tallies between two different statuses. It’s the core number of any collection on the site and not something you should have to do addition to get. Instead we made Unplayed a sub-status. The Unplayed checkbox will only appear when Unfinished is selected. Unplayed games are displayed as a green sub-set of Unfinished in the percentage bars (which you can mouseover for the numbers). The symbol itself is just like the Unfinished medal, but colored green as a nod to the New medal and the newness of any Unplayed game.

Filtering unplayed is also slightly different. Some users might want to focus on the games they have played first and finish what they started. Others might be interested in trying a new experience. With that in mind, we wanted to allow filtering by any combination of Unfinished and Unplayed. However, Unplayed games = Unfinished games in the grand scheme of backlogs and will be included by default whenever you view your Unfinished games normally.

We had one hell of a time deciding on all the different design aspects of this update. That’s probably why I felt compelled to discuss it a bit here. Hope you all like it!

P.S. I forgot to update the Fortune Cookie and the sigs. I’ll take care of that ~~tomorrow~~ as soon as I can tear myself away from Zelda. :sweat:
P.P.S. If you’re one of those shady types that nulled your unplayed games, don’t forget to use stealth save when you switch them over to Unplayed if you don’t want your Memory Card spammed.

Filtering Revamped

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:04:55 -0400

Updates:

Game list filtering redone. Added an “Apply Filters” button so you can apply multiple filters at once without having the page reload between choices. Filtering by system is still instantly applied.
Added a filter option for game comments.
Added the new regions to the filter options. (Oops!)

Bug Notice: The entire site is apparently appearing shifted to the left of the page for some users. I have been unable to replicate it, which makes fixing it problematic. Clearing the browser cache seems to fix the problem for most, but not all, users.

Interesting results, but nothing terribly surprising. Judging...

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 13:51:00 -0400

No surprises here.

C64 was the main write-in.

Pretty even love for the genres!

<3 pixels!

#13's results warm my heart <3

Another look at #10 and #11

Backloggery: The Change Maker?

Interesting results, but nothing terribly surprising.

Judging from #10 and #11, the average user seems to join up with ~150 unfinished games. From there, they either start chipping away and eventually halve their backlog or they continue to buy until they’ve doubled their collection! Could the Backloggery be slowing dividing into two factions; those that oppose Bak’laag and those that worship their Dark Lord?

The Backloggery - Four Years!

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 11:45:35 -0400

The Backloggery is four years old today!

Four years ago today, I crammed a registration system onto some really poorly written code I had written for Try4ce, Xavean, and I to track our backlogs and The Backloggery was born! Four years later, most of that poorly-written code has been replaced with slightly less poorly written code. Huzzah!

Really though, the site has changed a lot over the years. You can see a sampling of these changes in the images at the bottom of this post. But what about us? How have we, the users of The Backloggery, changed since we started using it? Are we beating more games? Are our backlogs growing? Are we buying less or more? Let’s find out!

The Backloggery Four Year Anniversary Survey

I’ll post the results here once they’re in. <3 statistics!

A huge thanks to the community for all the support you’ve shown over the years. I’m extremely lucky that the best online community I’ve ever been a part of happened to form around my own website. Let’s go for four more years!

I didn’t actually have an image of the really early site, so this first one is a mostly complete recreation using old code.
The Backloggery circa 2007. Click here for more images!

New regions added

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:09:00 -0400

Site Updates:

中國作為一個地區加入選項
중국은 지역에 옵션으로 추가되었습니다
Brasil foi adicionado como uma opção de região
Gave the Canadian Flag halfsies on the North America icon

This update brought to you by Google Translate. :science:

Game Comments have arrived!

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:20:27 -0400

Site updates

Enabled the game comments field
Cleaned up/rearranged the Now Playing list a bit
Changed the dropdown arrows for compilations to a more visible style.

Terse! And now I’m going to go play Minecraft while I wait for the quibbles, compliments, and bug reports to roll in.

Small Avatars No Longer Resized

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:36:45 -0400

A tiny whim of an update. Avatars smaller than 80x80 are no longer enlarged to 80x80 but rather displayed at their original size. Larger avatars are still shrunk down. All avatars now retain their original proportions instead of being forced to be a square 1:1 ratio.

Ongoing tinkering with the game comments update. Still trying to figure out how to best integrate all that text into the Now Playing and game list displays…. *ponders*

Server Transfer is complete!

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:27:56 -0400

Server transfer is finished. You’ll be able to access the new server as the DNS propagates. DNS propagation could take up to 48 hours but it should be much less for most. Some people should already be able to access it.

Transfer went well overall! Just had one small hitch that held things up a bit but everything seems fine now. Now to kick back and hope it was worth it!

A Server Upgrade Approaches.

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:23:00 -0400

As promised, the site’s server will be upgraded soon. How soon? I was thinking maybe Thursday, but then it turned out my host is surprisingly quick so…. tomorrow (Tuesday)!

Sorry for the shorter than planned notice!

During the change, the site will be in maintenance (read-only) mode to help prevent any data loss. How long this lasts depends on the DNS propagation and will vary for everyone as the change propagates throughout the Internet. (This will take quite a few hours at least, as part of this process will depend on my host. Hopefully they continue to be surprisingly quick!) The new server won’t be in maintenance mode so you’ll be able to update your Backloggery as usual once you can access it.

The upgrade itself is significant but relatively modest. It’s virtually impossible to predict how performance will change in practice but it will definitely be >1 units of fastness faster! The site has been running pretty smoothly since the remake launched, so this can only make it even better!

Thanks Everyone!

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:19:15 -0400

Just wanted to formally thank everyone for the great turnout at the fundraiser stream yesterday! Not only was attendance higher than I expected but we ended up raising $1,805! That’s about double what I was ballparking for a best case scenario. I can’t overstate how grateful I am to have such a supportive and generous community. You rock!

For the record, we ended up streaming for 16.5 hours straight (!!) and I eventually managed to finish out Superman 64 with a bit of help. After the buggy POS froze on me twice when I was just moments from the final victory, I ended up using a cheat code to finish the job and claim what most agreed I had already rightfully earned.

I’ll keep you posted over the next few day as I figure out the timing of the server upgrade. Hoping to do it pretty quickly!

Thanks again, everyone! Maybe we’ll make this a yearly tradition if there’s enough demand…. *ponders*

Superman 64 Fundraiser and a small update

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 21:41:36 -0400

Superman 64 Live Stream Site Fundraiser
Monday, July 4
10:00 AM EST - ??? (Shooting for around Midnight)

We’re raising money for a server upgrade! Join us and watch me suffer through Superman 64 for hours on end. Try4ce will be hopping on the other stream channel in hopes of completing Punch-Out!! on the NES in a storied rematch with Mike Tyson. If one of us miraculously completes our task, we’ll move on to another game.

We’ll be streaming for a period of time dictated by the amount of donations we receive. The more we receive, the longer we go! It’ll be progressively harder to unlock the next hour as things progress, ala the great Desert Bus streams for Child’s Play. But, since we’re a relatively small site and this is just to help keep us going instead of for charity, we’re gonna set the bar comparatively low. The upgrade is an increased monthly fee, not a one-time expense, so we don’t have an exact goal in mind. Whether it’s to help fund the new server or just to say thanks for all the work we do, every bit is appreciated!

Any donations received after this post goes up will count towards the fundraiser total! So if you can’t make it but still want to participate or if you just want to help get the ball rolling, click here to donate!

The next planned update is the comments/mini-review section for game entries. However, I’m still figuring out how I want to integrate all that text into the layout. (Probably some sort of AJAX expandable thing?) It’d probably be best if we get the site on the new server before I roll that out. I know a lot of people are chomping at the bit for that update and I’m sure it’ll be quite the spike in activity.

Assuming everything goes well, I’m hoping to do the server upgrade within a week of the fundraiser!

In the meantime, I did a small update to the Memory Card. It now displays a yearly breakdown of your changes as well as a progress index for the year.

Custom System Ordering Added

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:50:09 -0400

The System Arranger has been added under options. This allows you to rearrange the list of your systems that appear on your main page and in your navbar.

New systems added to your backloggery will now appear on top by default.

I apologize in advance for any OCD reordering madness this might trigger. :ninja:

Compactorized Game Lists

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:41:33 -0400

When the remake launched, one of the most common complaints I received was that the game lists had too much empty space. That was intentional as I felt the the old site made all the game entries run together, however, after looking it over and toying around with different things I decided I overdid it.

The new style is a sort of halfway point between the previous two. Much more compact but the headers let each game entry stand out and the separate boxes for each system fit in with the new style of the site.

Other than that, just a few bug fixes. Lots more left to do, as always. I’ll start on the custom system ordering soon.

Privacy Options, Close Account, and More Systems

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:15:00 -0400

Privacy Options and Account Closing

Public - Anyone can view your page or contact you
Semi-Public - Anyone can view your page but only users on your Multitap can contact you
Semi-Private - Only users on your Multitap can view your page or contact you.
Private - Only you can view your page. No one can contact you.
Close Account - Closed accounts may be purged at any time. Use with caution.

Should be pretty self explanatory. Closed accounts will never be completely deleted (to prevent identity confusion and user impersonation) but they may be purged of all games entered and other profile information.

More Systems Added

Origin
Impulse
Games for Windows
Xbox 360 Games on Demand
Windows Phone 7
APF-M1000
Game Wave Family Entertainment System

Once again, kudos to anyone who actually knows what all of those are. Next up, more bug fixing, custom system ordering, and then the long overdue comments/mini review/whatever I call it section for game entries.

Maybe The Server Upgrade Can Wait

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 21:26:00 -0400

Perhaps I spoke too soon yesterday. The site seems to have run pretty smoothly all day today. That’s probably what I get for trying to gauge site metrics during E3 and so soon after registration re-opened. I’ll keep an eye on things for the next week or two and see how things pan out. Many apologies for the (potentially) false alarm!

Global privacy options for accounts are coming tomorrow, including the ability to close your account. I’ll try to work on something more exciting next!

(Oh, and I’ll add the rest of those systems to the site too!)

New Systems added and a Server Upgrade coming soon

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 16:43:39 -0400

Systems Added:

PlayStation Vita
Wii U
Nintendo 3DS Downloads
Virtual Console (Handeld)

There’s a bunch more I need to add still but I wanted to get these up real quick now that E3 is underway.

Strangely Ordered System lists

In theory, the navigation links for your systems should be ordered in descending chronological order when browsing your collections. A long while ago I had planned to make the ordering customizable but halfway through working on that feature I shelved it to start on the site remake. It didn’t seem very important at the time. But as more and more systems were added into the site, it’s resulted in them appearing out of order for some users. This is pretty annoying. I’ll try to finish this update as soon as I can. It seems like there’s always a million things to do whenever I sit down to work on the site. It’s hard to prioritize….

Server Upgrade Coming Soon

While the site remake has made things run far more efficiently than before, we’ve also had… *checks* …3,476 new users sign up since registration opened last Friday. That is a frightening amount of growth for a little site like us. During peak times things have been bogged down pretty badly. I’m hoping to get the upgrade done as soon as I can.

Please help me cover these higher server costs by using the the Linkbox and donating! I lost my regular job due to my illness last year so I can’t afford to make up the difference myself like I used to. I’ll be doing a Live Stream Fundraiser Marathon of Superman 64 during some Saturday in the near-ish future as well.

Registration is open!

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 09:01:00 -0400

And the server is already struggling under the flood.

I’d consider it a personal favor if you just create a new account now and wait to start adding games until things have calmed down. XD

Registration will open: June 3

Tue, 24 May 2011 16:19:05 -0400

I was hoping to open registration this week but that seems extremely unlikely at this point.

I’ve been working on bug fixing, security, some legal stuff, and a few other tweaks as much as I can the past two weeks since the remake launched. Probably too much, actually, because I’m getting pretty burnt out. But, the legion of bugs has finally been whittled down to only about a dozen pretty minor ones. Along with that, I’ve been building a few new admin tools that’ll come in handy, especially once registration is re-opened. Oh, and I’m finishing up the last of the new registration code and testing it. Important!

So with all that in mind, and with the hope of having time to enjoy the holiday weekend, I’m officially setting the date for registration to re-open at June 3.