Age Registration

[greendragoon]

I recently went over to the Alcugs Wiki to get my age registered on the big list of numbers. Since it's my first time I have to create a user account in the forums. I did so and I got the usual go to your email and look for a confirmation link. So I did. Nothing happened. I waited a full day. Still nothing happened. I went back and requested that it resend my confirmation and confirmed my email address. 6 hours later and still nothing.

Is it usual for the registration process to take this long? Or is the site known for having problems?

[Aloys]

No, it shouldn't be so long the webmaster (Almlys) must be away or something.

BTW. [off topic] shouldn't we transfer this whole thing on our wiki now? Almlys might not like it but it doesn't really make sense to have it over there when it could (and should) be over here..

[greendragoon]

I don't know to much about the plugin fork, but are there still age developers there that haven't migrated over here?

[Robert The Rebuilder]

BTW. [off topic] shouldn't we transfer this whole thing on our wiki now?

You may recall that Starfyre attempted that back in 2006 over at Age Builders, but with disasterous results.

greendragon: I have an active account over there. If you tell me your age information, I can add the info to the Wiki.

[greendragoon]

Sure. 173 is the first available slot. Here's the info:

Hex: 0x0000AD
Num: 173
Filename: beacon
Name: Age of Beacon
Author: greendragoon

Thanks for doing this. There's not a huge hurry, I just wanted to get this done now so there are no delays when the age is ready.

[Chacal]

Name: Age of Beacon

One letter short of making this the greatest Age EVER.

[andylegate]

Age of Bacon?

[greendragoon]

Name: Age of Beacon

One letter short of making this the greatest Age EVER.

I wouldn't want to risk such an important age on my first attempt.

[boblishman]

OK...now I'm confused too ... Age registration and Sequence Prefixes are going to become VITAL over the coming months ... as more and more writers create ages that they want to share.

It seems that not enough importance (and too much confusion) is surrounding this issue and it needs some kind of "consolidation" and "standardisation". Eventually, two people are going to use either the same name (or the same sequence prefix) for their ages ... with disasterous results for all those downloading them.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but i was under the impression that a NEW set of Sequence Prefixes was being issued at the ULM site (http://ulm.hbyte.net/ , starting from 10000, and that this started several months ago. This is where I have requested my SP numbers, and they are the ones I am using. However, there is no list of Age names (pre-registered or otherwise) that I can find on that site (only the uploaded Ages and those awaiting uploading) ..., so, although (hopefully) I have unique Sequence Prefixes, I am not able to check there as to pre-registered (or pre-existing or "proposed") Age NAMES... I have to go over to Alcugs.

This brings us back once again to the GOW vs Alcugs "situation" (unfortunately) ... and something that the GoW Councillors need to address. Once again we have major confusion for "newbies" arriving here and then being told "The GoW has forked away from Alcugs ... but, you must go to Alcugs for your Age Name/Sequence Prefix registration". This makes no sense whatsoever, especially as new sequence prefixes are being allocated at the ULM (http://ulm.hbyte.net/).

Now, I don't want to rake up any more animosity over the "fork" ... but, come on guys, either bite the bullet and "fork" ... or don't, and work alongside Alcugs. Personally, I am happy to go with whatever decision is made (I had no involvement with Alcugs and have only been involved in Age creation since late 2007) but, this issue is eventually going to come back and "bite us on the bum".

IMHO (and it's only that, as a "newbie") I would like to see the Wiki here contain

a) The information (or at least a link) of "old" Alcugs registered Age names and Sequence Prefixes (to avoid duplication in the future)

b) either:

(i) A list of allocated Sequence Prefixes AND "Registered" (or "Proposed") Age Names over at http://ulm.hbyte.net/

or

(ii) A list of allocated Sequence Prefixes and "Registered" (or "Proposed") Age Names somewhere HERE at the GoW (preferably in the Wiki.)

c) More than a "passing reference" to this issue in the GoW Age Creation Tutorials. (This issue is VERY IMPORTANT for the future of Age Creation)

(One of the reasons I'm getting so vocal about this is that I have seen this happen before with a different game that I used to create content for. That content also needed unique identifiers, and very often, in the begining, users created content that conflicted with either other users content (or even the game content itself). This was resolved by creating a SINGLE user database for ALL creators (regardless of whichever forum or website they belonged to) and these (equivilent to) Sequence prefixes were actually requested and allocated by the tool that created the new content. This way, the confilicting identifiers were eliminated.)

Now, I realise that Blender (as far as I know) has no internet interface to do this... but, hey, wouldn't it make sense (after all, we have some GREAT code writers here) for the GoW to create a tool that does both request AND allocate Sequence prefixes (and Age Names) on a centralised database? ... (oh, and don't say "Jesus, not another thing to download before I can get started Age creation" because, lets face it, it would probably be easier than the present (non-existant and confusing) method of trying to establish whether your new Age´s Name (and Sequence Prefix) is "unique" or not ...

I know most of the GoW Councillors are busy involved in GoWPyp Plugin development... but, come on guys, the current situation is an "accident waiting to happen" ... and (IMHO) this needs the immediate attention of the GoW Councillors

(/rant)

[Chacal]

This is one case of where "there can be only one". You can't have two sequence prefix registries. There's already one at Alcugs. We can't start a new one unless the other one shuts down, and there's no reason for it to shut down. Hence, the only registry is at Alcugs.
As for a new set of Sequence Prefixes being issued at the ULM site, this is the first time I hear about it. Again, the only registry is at Alcugs.

You're right that we need an explanation in the wiki and a link.