Oolite Bulletins

Greetings, fellow commanders.

I recently began my journey into the game Oolite. The original Elite was before my time. I only began gaming around 1990 and stuck to consoles until the 2000s. I found this game about a year ago and tought it was the most boring game in the universe. In my attempts to fill my space sim void, I decided to give it a second chance a few days ago. Turns out I simply didn't know how to play at all. This game is amazing. Since I realized this I have been reading everything I can on the wiki and finally decided to join the community today.

As a young Jameson I saw opportunity for easy credits in smuggling controlled goods from station to station. Among my most questionable deeds was human trafficking. Being on the wrong side of the law I quickly found myself in hot water. I may have also fired my pea shooter of a laser at a GalCop once or twice. The heat was too much so I traded in the ol' Cobra MKIII for a Cobra MKI with a clean title. Since then I've found transporting passengers and parcels to be quite lucrative. Should hold me over until I can afford something with more cargo space and a bigger laser...

Hi six_shooter, welcome to the boards!

six_shooter wrote:

As a young Jameson I saw opportunity for easy credits in smuggling controlled goods from station to station.

A high-risk career choice, is that... as you discovered. Welcome aboard, six_shooter!

Welcome to The friendliest board this side of Riedquat, six_shooter.
I'm glad that you're enjoying the game, and finding exciting ways to 'earn a living'

Welcome to the Oolite community Six Shooter

G'day six_shooter! Welcome aboard!

(and thank you to whoever stickied the thread!)

six_shooter wrote:

Greetings, fellow commanders.

This game is amazing. Since I realized this I have been reading everything I can on the wiki and finally decided to join the community today.

An excellent choice young man - and I am only calling you young man because you said you can't remember the original Elite game... Welcome to the Oolite family... We've got all sorts of people here - just like a real family... some you will never realise you were related to until you go to a funeral....

All sorts of fun to be had too apart from playing the actual "game"... I (personally) like playing around with the audio, textures and scripts within the OXPs of the OOniverse... but I am told there is a whole 'nother world waiting for me out there once I learn to speak GnuStep/Java/XML/HTML or something or other... At the moment I am just concentrating on speaking sensible English!

Diziet Sma wrote:

G'day six_shooter! Welcome aboard!

(and thank you to whoever stickied the thread!)

Actually "they" didn't "sticky" this thread - probably because it was one of those good ideas that "they" didn't think of before a "Noob" did.

Maybe it might be an idea if you gave "them" a nudge to not only sticky this thread to the top of this section but - perhaps - stick it up there on the front page - the Board Index!

Just saying/thinking...

SevenT wrote:

Diziet Sma wrote:

G'day six_shooter! Welcome aboard!

(and thank you to whoever stickied the thread!)

Actually "they" didn't "sticky" this thread - probably because it was one of those good ideas that "they" didn't think of before a "Noob" did.

Maybe it might be an idea if you gave "them" a nudge to not only sticky this thread to the top of this section but - perhaps - stick it up there on the front page - the Board Index!
.

Replying to one's own message has to be the lowest of the lowest experience in 30 years of using BB experience but - I will do it it....
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To be be plain-speaking... when a new-user logs onto https://bb.oolite.space/index.php for the very first time all they see are three main selection menus.

All they see is this totally boring screen... that we subjected to in the 90's - but we should not really have to put up with in the 21st Century. It is simply NOT user-friendly any more. This is the stuff you could get away with in the 1980's "Time Passes....." but alas these days even a supporting BB has to keep up with the times...
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Oolite
Announcements
Discussion
Expansion Pack
----------------------
Oolite-Development
Suggestion Box
Testing and Bug reports
Oolite-Mac
Oolite-Linux
Oolite-PC
Porting to other platforms
-----------------------
Trouble with Trumbles
Fiction
Outworld
-------------------------------------------

To someone coming onto this BB for a first time this menu means nothing...

There is one thing I would change however...

The main/front menu would look like this....


Oolite
Welcome to Oolite - How may we help you?
Announcements
Discussion
Expansion Pack
----------------------
Oolite-Development
Suggestion Box
Testing and Bug reports
Oolite-Mac
Oolite-Linux
Oolite-PC
Porting to other platforms
-----------------------
Trouble with Trumbles
Fiction
Outworld
-------------------------------------------

That's all I would dick around with. In the simple addition of the "Welcome to Oolite - How may we help you?" main menu you can stick in so many friendly menus that you may never even get them to play the frikking game.

For a start off - that's where the "Introduce Yourself" thread should be transposed (and reduxed)

You could also have a departure-lounge.

It could also be like an airport terminal - smoking or slightly smouldering.

Furballs could be handed off to the local bar in the "Departure Lounge"

Oh no... I'm not going there... as my mates at Arnor said when they released "3D Sculptor" into the CPC world "It is only limited by the limits of your imagination" - which basically meant "Yeah - we don't know what the fuck to do with it either!

Welcome aboard six-shooter. The people on the boards are great, don't be shy in asking questions about the game even if you think it's a daft one or one that has been asked before. You don't get flamed for asking most times people will guide you to the topic you're asking about and on the rare occasion I ask an original question it gets a great response. Enjoy your time here and in Oolite.

SevenT wrote:

To someone coming onto this BB for a first time this menu means nothing...

We had this discussion quite recently, hadn't we?

I don't get why the index page should mean nothing. It's an index page, and it does exactly what it says on the tin: it indexes the various forums (sections) these bulletin boards consist of. Not more and not less. And that's exactly what it's supposed to do.

SevenT wrote:

Welcome to Oolite - How may we help you?

And here's where I sense a misunderstanding, and where we may be talking over each other's heads. Because a section named like this would be simply false, it would be a lie.

This here is the Oolite bulletin boards. It's an internet forum. It is not Oolite. Oolite is a single person computer game. A single person computer game is not an internet forum.

Yes, this internet forum is dedicated to Oolite, so much is true. But it is not Oolite. Therefore we cannot welcome anybody to Oolite here, only to an internet forum dedicated to Oolite.

This is an important and necessary distinction. It is clearly made by the naming of the forums and subforums of the board, which are dedicated to various aspects in and outside of Oolite on the very meaningful and appropriate index page.

[rant]It's amazing how we take things for granted. I come from the generation that first computed using punch cards and paper tape, working with physically huge machines with very little ability. The idea of being able to start up a computer on my desk, entering and seeing information displayed instantly on a screen in front of me, and being able to connect to millions of people worldwide wasn't even in our imaginations.

Fast forward nearly 50 years, and our expectations of 'user-friendly' are very different. I guess the same has always been true of changing technology, and it's very easy to get 'left behind' at some point. I obviously have fairly low expectations for the presentation of a forum; this forum I find easy to use, uncluttered to the eye, and generally effective. Maybe it's because my background is science/engineering, and I'm utilitarian in my approach, but I am into a lot of different games, and I find some of the forums horrendous to use. Having my eyeballs peeled by animations and blazing banners just isn't my idea of fun, whilst trawling through endless attempts to make games seem more than they are is guaranteed to offend me![/rant]
...right back to the topic...

1984 - Played Elite on my trusty ZX Spectrum as soon as it became available ... totally addicted instantly, despite the horror of the Lenslok! Stayed up playing most of every night until I made Elite. Several times!
1986 - Played Elite on a friend's Amstrad PC ... hated it! The control was abysmal.
1994 - Played Elite II Frontier on my Amiga 600 and then 1200 ...hhhmmm... well, I loved it, and hated it. Those Newtonian physics just didn't do it for me. Loved many of missions and other stuff. Made Elite a couple of times.
2004 - Discovered Oolite v.1.06 tucked away on a MacWorld magazine CD - relived the excitement of 1984 ... but without the horror of Lenslok!

I suppose it could say, "Welcome to Oolite Bulletins - A forum of information and discussion about Oolite" ...?

Star Gazer wrote:

I suppose it could say, "Welcome to Oolite Bulletins - A forum of information and discussion about Oolite" ...?

Funnily enough that's exactly what it's saying in the forum header. (Just look at the top of this very window if you don't believe it.)

...other than the "Welcome to" bit and the "A forum" bit...

Hi, I never heard of Oolite or elite until earlier today but I just downloaded it and I'm enjoying it immensely. I will probably be playing it lot from now on.