[April Fools] Your *New* Ren'Py Account

[PyTom]

I've gone ahead and made a change that will affect everyone on this forum - although, the extent of this change will not be apparent for the next month or so. As of a half-hour ago, you (assuming you're logged in at the moment) are no longer a member of the Lemma Soft Forum. Instead, you are now the holder of a Ren'Py Account.

Admittedly, right now, there isn't a huge difference. Instead of using PhpBB's built-in password database, I'm authenticating logins to an LDAP server on Erika, the new forum server. You should be able to log in and out of the forum normally, and it really shouldn't affect you much. However, this change is the first in a series of steps that will be enabled by your Ren'Py account. What will we be getting?

Account Management Diversity - Less Spam

One of the big things here is that I'm putting together a new site for user registration and password reset. In a few weeks, when I'm comfortable that the new site is working properly, I'll disable direct forum registration, requiring all new users to utilize their Ren'Py account. The reasoning behind this is to help us deal with spammers. My feeling is that spammers are used to registering on a phpBB forum, so they find it easy. If we make them learn a new interface to register, they won't bother.

On the other hand, if a new user spends 30 more seconds to registe, that's probably not a big deal - especially if the legit user is motivated enough to be a real contributor.

Multiple Website Single Sign-On

The next step will be to unify the login on the various Ren'Py websites. The eventual plan would be to have the Ren'Py account work on multiple sites - like the wiki, the games list, and renai.us. Right now we have multiple passwords for each of those sites - which isn't optimal. I'd also like to add more tools to the Ren'Py project, like the redmine project management tool, and that would be one more login unless we have a way to avoid it.

Save Synchronization

One technology I think will be important as the Android port matures is save synchronization. It would be nice if you could be playing your game on your pc at work, then pick it up on your cell phone while driving home, and then be able to play on your home pc. Actually, that seems like a good way to get fired or into a car crash, but you get the general idea. Ren'Py stores save games on a server, and other computers with the same Ren'Py account would be able to synchronize the data.

Social Achievements

Getting a good ending is quite an achievement, one that you might want to share with your friends. And while we have things like RenTweet, I'm not sure that's a good solution. It requires you to authenticate once per game, and if Twitter changes its APIs, RenTweet might stop working.

I think a better solution is to link social achievements to your Ren'Py Account. Since I'll be running the central server, I can ensure that a stable API is maintained, even as new services come online. So we could have Facebook and Twitter support early, and if/when people start using Google+, we'd then be able to link your Ren'Py Account to that as well.

Micropayments

Finally, I think a Ren'Py account, shared between games, is a reasonable place to implement a micropayment system. The idea would be to link the Ren'Py account with something like stripe.com and allow people to purchase DLC for a game. To be honest, I haven't really worked this bit through yet - but it seems like something that might be worth pursuing.


Anyway, I have the first version of the accounts portal up and running. You can try it out here:

http://account.renpy.org

There isn't much to see there, at the moment - just the ability to log in, change your password, or to reset your password if you've forgotten in it. But realize that this is a down payment on a much larger set of things that will happen in the future. I've been working on this for a while now, and I really think that a unified login system - the path we've started down - is something we'll need going forward.

(This is open for discussion - it's just a global because it's an important change. I'll be putting this thread in the Ren'Py forum in a couple of days.)

[OokamiKasumi]

http://account.renpy.org takes me to a "401 Authorization Required" page. ):

[Crocosquirrel]

Yep. Same here.

However, it's not a bad idea to do this sort of thing. Getting fired and/or into a car crash, not so much.

[redeyesblackpanda]

I think this is awesome! I look forward to the new system. Fewer spambots are definitely worth the slightly longer time that it'd take to create an account. As for the error, I get a 401 error.

[gekiganwing]

It's almost April 1 2012 now... and I sense this might not be authentic. If so, cue up the You've Been Trolled song.

[Hijiri]

It's almost April 1 2012 now... and I sense this might not be authentic. If so, cue up the You've Been Trolled song.

It's the 31st in the US, and it was posted around 10 PM EST so I doubt it can be a prank. But still, best to take it with a grain of salt.

[Samu-kun]

Does this mean that we get trophies for each girl we bed in eroge? That's something Japanese publishers should have thought up of a long time ago!
Tom's getting trickier and trickier with each passing year....

[sake-bento]

Does this mean that we get trophies for each girl we bed in eroge? That's something Japanese publishers should have thought up of a long time ago!

Ideally, the trophies would show up underneath your username so that forum members can all see which girls you've gone for. Not sure if this is feasible, but would like to see it done.

[Samu-kun]

What if they show up as little icons underneath your sig, like Sake's signature?

Soon, the whole wide world will be able to know who's the biggest lolicon in this board!

[KomiTsuku]

An LDAP, huh? I assume it will be running on that brand new Pentium II server you got for the forum?

[dott.Piergiorgio]

Nice fish, Tom !

Now I'll continue the mine ^W fishsweeping on the 'Net sallying forth on the fish-fields of the Net with my redoutable fishsweeper [1]

[1] I known, the correct term is fishing vessel or trawler, but these are maritime terms, I prefer a Naval one

Best regards from Italy, and good fishing !
Dott. Piergiorgio.

[LordShiranai]

I, for one, welcome our new Ren'Py account overlords.

While posting to Twitter is fun, I found it was ultimately too easy for players' followers to completely ignore text they had no interest in. With the new achievement system, players will be able to more visibly spam their friends with information! This will truly be the next step in taking advantage of the social-media-web cloud.

I also think DLC is an excellent idea. Major publishers have ignored Ren'Py for too long because (unlike PSN and XBL) it currently provides no way for them to charge extra money for content that should have been part of the regular game. This finally opens up the path for Bioware, the leading developer of Western dating sims, to use the best VN engine on the market and still ream players with expensive, day-one downloadable content. It's a clear win-win for all parties!

[sake-bento]

I also think DLC is an excellent idea. Major publishers have ignored Ren'Py for too long because (unlike PSN and XBL) it currently provides no way for them to charge extra money for content that should have been part of the regular game. This finally opens up the path for Bioware, the leading developer of Western dating sims, to use the best VN engine on the market and still ream players with expensive, day-one downloadable content. It's a clear win-win for all parties!

We're actually planning to take advantage of the DLC system with our new game, First Person Shooter: The Visual Novel. Look forward to it!

[PyTom]

I don't think I fooled anyone, this year - but for the record, this was this year's prank. Actually, it's not far from the truth - I'm considering doing at least some of this.

[redeyesblackpanda]

I... feel like an idiot...
(Good one, OTL)