Dev Site update

So Mufasa gave a basic update of whats been going on. We figured that I take some screenshots of how everything is looking so far.

On the dev site I've been working on XenForo, Poker and getting them to work together. Unfortunately poker is having a few issues that I'm working with the developer to get fixed.

I made a "Dark" version and a "Light" so users can select what best suits them and their eyes, Personally I like the dark version. I have some changes to make but this is generally what it'll look like. There is a potential later down the road for more themes to select from but for now there is only two.





The poker lobby is there, but with a few of the issues/bugs. I am currently working with the developer to get these fixed. I'm unable to do much at this time so its currently a basic lobby (It will change). It does work on Computers (of course), Phones, tablets, and anything else that supports HTML5. So in theory it would work on Xbox One and PS4, but I'm unable to test at this time.



There is a few new poker features such as "Bad Beat Jackpot" and "Royal Flush Jackpot." However we think that they should only apply to ring tables (maybe Sit-n-Gos, we didn't discuss that yet).

We have a few plans to bring ring tables back as the primary source of chips for the leader boards, Rather than only playing "tournaments."

As far as teams go, I'm working out some details before being developed. The way I was telling Mufasa about teams, that they will be completely managed by the team leader, forums, member roles, member permissions. So there shouldn't be any assistance by the site admins to do anything (such as make a team thread) like on the old site. However that isn't final, something i was passing along to Mufasa.

As far as earning Chips, there will be a lot of ways to earn chips. There will be a daily login like the old site, but there will be other ways. One of the ways is being active in the forums and posting meaningful threads/posts (no junk), among 15+ other ways to earn or lose chips. None of which involves looking at an ad for a period of time lol

Then there was a few updates that 99.9% of the people will never actually see (behind the scenes stuff) so its not really worth mentioning much about.


When I have more info I'll make another post.


-Joe


P.S. I forgot to make today's tables (AM tables)... Sorry.

Looks way KOOL!

yep,  DARK would be my choice too,Joe...looks sharp!
Question:  Will all FORMER Standing,Chip counts "Cashier" and account information be CARRIED OVER to the new site or will we be Starting from Scratch aka "0"(zero)? ..... just Asking 'cause my account had almost 40 million chips before someone screwed the pooch(and to quote Our dear delusional  President,Donald T...."SAD"...

I'm a thinking the later bro...............albeit a wild guess.............

joe
both the black and the white are easy to read.

the one space that you have reserved for the Suds League, should be replaced by something that we
can use for something else. the Suds League never got started.

when can we start forming the teams again? will there be a limit as to the size of the teams? since the crash, the people that have be playing what is happening to the chips that we have been winning? will
they too disappear?
diane

looks great Joe either color would be fine with me Great Job by You Na d Mufasa

Either version, Dark or Light, is fine with me and the Lobby looks good. I go to the site daily and try to get in a few games when there are players and will be looking forward to seeing the new site up and running. I know you have been working hard for us getting this together, thank you. I wish I could be of some help with the $$$ but am unable to at this time. Keep up the good work.

HK

Roy is going to send a mass email from the offsite so please do not be offended if you get an email asking for help for the server payment its just i cannot fund the site myself if the donations dont come in.

long story short if we miss one payment the site will be lost for good because i do not have the extra to pay anymore the bills go up but the paycheck stays the same...

Hate to be bearer of bad news but, Yes, all chips will be reset to a starting amount and everyone will need to create new accounts for V3. Mufasa and I talked about this and think its best for a few reasons. Ring Tables became useless, even before the attack and everyone was playing tournaments only. No one was actually losing chips, so there was really no "gambling". Just saved and held onto them. So we plan on making chips not so meaningless. So tournaments will change and we want ring tables to be the main source of building up chips and getting ahead on the leader boards rather than tournaments with no risk involved.

To help bring people to the ring tables I'll set up some bots so there is a way to play even if your the only one. As people join the table bots will leave, if people leave the tables bots will join to keep the tables going.

We also plan on bringing back the Freeroll league.

As far as teams goes, that will come next with a max of 20 players I think. Then we'll set up rounds and scores. We gotta have a baseline and poker working before we start building teams and scores.

Let the bots have it then................cya

Just to clarify, Teams scores, Team lifetime scores, and Freerolls are still based off of tournaments. Ring tables we want to be a primary source for chips for individual scores and lifetime scores and possibly use chips for cosmetic things on the site (An Idea I have yet to pitch to get input from everyone and Mufasa). Tournaments that has a decent chip payout, will most likely have a reasonable buy in.

Whats the point of having Ring Tables and Sit-N-Gos if no one is willing to sit at them when "tournaments" made them obsolete?

As far as new accounts, I mentioned over a month ago with a new site the it would be fitting for new accounts. No one objected and very few people gave suggestions moving forward. I also recall some one mentioning how Ring Tables are never used anymore from long before the attack.

We're trying to bring the site back close to how it once was before people left, for numerous reasons. From the site being unsecured (yes people left because they seen the "Your connection to this site is not secure."), worried about their passwords, to the site became boring with nothing to do but tournaments.

If we're going to want to attract members (old and new), who is going to want to stay if the first thing they see is all the empty tables? No one would be willing to give it the chance. How could they if they can't play.

If tournaments are the only way to progress, how would anyone new to the site have a fighting chance? Someone that can join 10-16 tournaments a day vs someone that can join only 2 or 3. We want skill involved more than availability to top on the (individual) leader boards. Its about balance. It stops being fun and competitive if someone is exploiting the system. Like an exploit I was told about involving team chips to get a high rank in the leader boards.

So I do believe this is a step into the right direction to have an active site again. I'm pushing to bring the site up to date so that there is less cheating/exploiting, less security holes, less of a chance for being attacked again. Unless people don't want to see the site to grow, then what am I even doing then? I sure don't benefit from any of this. I do what I can in my free time.

Rather than just saying "welp, I'm leaving." I'd suggest voicing an opinion or concerns one may have. A lot of what we're doing is based on feedback. If no one gives feedback, we'll just roll with it assuming everyone is fine with it.

We are close to having everything function like it used to be possibly even better. We have new poker, new forums, a bit cheaper server. Once I get these bugs worked out on the new poker (I'm getting help from the poker developer via e-mail as I don't know anything about java and why I'm getting some errors I do). Teams and score calculations will be worked on next. Leader boards are simple, as all it does is display scores (I think its like 20 lines of code tops depending how complex the leader board is). If I got help (with some coding side of things, other than poker issues) everything will be done a whole lot faster. But I'm only one person, and can only do so much in my free time.

So as I said in the past, feedback is appreciated, if needed pm me or Mufasa.

I wasn't clear in my previous post, I apologize.

TY 4 the update...get the site up and running full tilt....you and Wes can deal with the piss n moan fest afterwards........(and you know there's gonna be one)

Joe...I know both you and Mufusa are trying your best and we all do appreciate your efforts...so thank you and here is my personal feedback with some other ideas that maybe you could use to create a new site

You have now made the site secure...so there should be no concerns about those issues.  You are also making this site accessible to a wider audience  i.e those with with mobile etc that hindered people from playing previously...so there should be no concerns about this either

You are right......people don't want to play at a site where there are empty tables ...however if you think that tourneys are responsible for the lack of ring play or sit and go play...you are wrong.  Tourney play is completely different from either and if you think that cutting down tourneys is going to bring players back...it is not.  At the moment with so few players the tourneys are not playing because they are like ring play...and hence the reason those that have rejoined the site are waiting to play in a game with multiple tables

People stopped playing the rings because it was a bingo fest...and it is like that at every free site I have played....those that are tourney players just do not enjoy that kind of play...there is no challenge in accumulating chips playing bingo and you can do that at any poker site.  Yes sitngos are slightly different but they only are successful when you have a lot of members...as they are a type of mini tourney...ideal for those that do not have the time to play a full tourney game

This site was unique...because it offered team environment and that is what it greatest advantage is...the sooner this can be up and running the better as that is the only way you will get some members to return...it is your point of difference.  

I understand that your reasons for resetting chips....I also understand that to some their old chips meant something...more emotional than value...they were acquired and accumulated over the years and they form a happy memory for most...so perhaps instead of losing them all previous members could recieve 10000 chips per million that they had before and new players could receive just 10000 chips

With that being said....all games including tourneys could then have buyins.....in tourneys the buyin price could reflect the payout...i.e a 10k payout --buyin 200 chips  or a 100k payout --- 1000 chips. Tourneys shouldn't start if there are less than 15 players and they should be cancelled if they don't have the numbers after half an hour or an hour---that way the sitngos can be encouraged when there are smaller numbers of members.

To make things fair for individuals, teams etc-----a new way needs to be devised so that ring players sitngo and tourney players can all contribute to team scores as well as getting a true individual winner at the same time...and the only way this will work is by points and NOT chip count...so I suggest that as well as a chips being given points are also given for your finishing place i.e

1.  Those that enter ring games get 1 point each 10k they win

2  Sitngo games  ...those that finish in top 3 get 1st =5points   2nd= 3points  3rd = 2 points

3.  Tourneys...top 10 players in each game get 1st= 10 points  2nd=9points 3rd=8 points______10th =1 point

It is these points that will contribute to individual scores and team winners for the round...not the chip count....those winners can be paid out in chips..... by having points each team is no longer affected by chip counts no new players are disadvantaged...each round starts off equally as there are no carry overs...and those that love their chips or do not want to be part of a team are also not disadvantaged in the lifetime area

These figures are just examples to give you an idea and will probably need to be worked on going forward...hope it is worth consideration

Ring games, sngo, tourneys are not the reason people quit the site.....yes they contribute....but if you have peace harmony and fairness..i.e happy people...they are your biggest assets  tc xx

Sharron123 wrote:

Joe...I know both you and Mufusa are trying your best and we all do appreciate your efforts...so thank you and here is my personal feedback with some other ideas that maybe you could use to create a new site

You have now made the site secure...so there should be no concerns about those issues.  You are also making this site accessible to a wider audience  i.e those with with mobile etc that hindered people from playing previously...so there should be no concerns about this either

You are right......people don't want to play at a site where there are empty tables ...however if you think that tourneys are responsible for the lack of ring play or sit and go play...you are wrong.  Tourney play is completely different from either and if you think that cutting down tourneys is going to bring players back...it is not.  At the moment with so few players the tourneys are not playing because they are like ring play...and hence the reason those that have rejoined the site are waiting to play in a game with multiple tables

People stopped playing the rings because it was a bingo fest...and it is like that at every free site I have played....those that are tourney players just do not enjoy that kind of play...there is no challenge in accumulating chips playing bingo and you can do that at any poker site.  Yes sitngos are slightly different but they only are successful when you have a lot of members...as they are a type of mini tourney...ideal for those that do not have the time to play a full tourney game

This site was unique...because it offered team environment and that is what it greatest advantage is...the sooner this can be up and running the better as that is the only way you will get some members to return...it is your point of difference.  

I understand that your reasons for resetting chips....I also understand that to some their old chips meant something...more emotional than value...they were acquired and accumulated over the years and they form a happy memory for most...so perhaps instead of losing them all previous members could recieve 10000 chips per million that they had before and new players could receive just 10000 chips

With that being said....all games including tourneys could then have buyins.....in tourneys the buyin price could reflect the payout...i.e a 10k payout --buyin 200 chips  or a 100k payout --- 1000 chips. Tourneys shouldn't start if there are less than 15 players and they should be cancelled if they don't have the numbers after half an hour or an hour---that way the sitngos can be encouraged when there are smaller numbers of members.

To make things fair for individuals, teams etc-----a new way needs to be devised so that ring players sitngo and tourney players can all contribute to team scores as well as getting a true individual winner at the same time...and the only way this will work is by points and NOT chip count...so I suggest that as well as a chips being given points are also given for your finishing place i.e

1.  Those that enter ring games get 1 point each 10k they win

2  Sitngo games  ...those that finish in top 3 get 1st =5points   2nd= 3points  3rd = 2 points

3.  Tourneys...top 10 players in each game get 1st= 10 points  2nd=9points 3rd=8 points______10th =1 point

It is these points that will contribute to individual scores and team winners for the round...not the chip count....those winners can be paid out in chips..... by having points each team is no longer affected by chip counts no new players are disadvantaged...each round starts off equally as there are no carry overs...and those that love their chips or do not want to be part of a team are also not disadvantaged in the lifetime area

These figures are just examples to give you an idea and will probably need to be worked on going forward...hope it is worth consideration

Ring games, sngo, tourneys are not the reason people quit the site.....yes they contribute....but if you have peace harmony and fairness..i.e happy people...they are your biggest assets  tc xx

Well said regarding people not playing the rings.. a few old members  started  harassing players if they dared  leave and " bank " chips after a big bingo win...that was  when  it became normal pratice  to   have everyone just throw their chips in pre flop and  see..

 Myself  ( and I am sure  quite a few  others)   choose  to  attempt to play poker  not bingo.... ya  we all  ( and i do mean ALL  ) are guilty of  chasing a  flush or a straight and calling a big raise pre  river  in the free rolls but they were hardly  the   all out bingo fest the   Rings  were...

 The site   still  needs a generous amount of freerolls  to keep people playing as many  wont play the rings and  without  enough freerolls they will lose interest and fade away..

 Should the freeroll payouts be  reduced?.. I would say yes  since  there is no  risk they should not be paying the  amounts they were  especially after  a person who shall remain nameless  increased  them to beyond  ridiculous in some cases...

 The main game on this site   should be  the  Team of the week... as  such  should it have huge payouts??  Perhaps  not  but  as  winner perhaps all members on the team get some chips and those that actually played that week  get  extra... this  should be  not  from the allowable  dispersements of 100 K a month from the team but  from the site  after the win..  Justa  thought  to keep that game relevant  and  encourage players  to sign up and play..

The   "Extra " games  funded by the members huge bankrolls   while nice  and  done with good intent, just fed the chip stashing frenzy some players had... they wil be missed  but   Well done  to those that tried  to use their  chips   to help  keep games  going...all done with  good intent but also  adding to the   fall of the  fatcat empire  with greed (   sort of our version of the fall of the roman empire  )

I fully understand having the chip counts starting over  as it would be a nightmare to manually  set every players lifetime score,   but i also  sense some that  viewed the accumulation of  chips as  a vision of pride  and accomplishment  will be discouraged  and  want  to leave,  so   posting that instead of  threatening to leave  to offer  suggestions  is a bit harsh,   you need  to remember that  people invested a lot of  time in accumulating them and of  course they  will feel a bit of  resentment in losing  all that time and  effort...  hopefully  in time they realize  with every  re-birth there  comes  change.. it may not seem for the good at first    but in time  with solid  management and care     I  think most will realize  change wasnt just for change  sake it was for the good of the site and all its members.

The biggest concern  to me  right  now is    just getting players  to return, I have said before its a huge red flag that more are not posting  " where is the site" or  " how do I log in??"   it seems they just disappeared. Many I am sure do not use the forums and just have no clue the  site is like a pheonix  rising from the ashes....  With a better poker program and the   uniques team play concept  I am sure  we  will get some new members  but  we  also need the old  guard  , the   core of fatcat  to return as much as possible...


As for  reducing the team limit  to 20 it seems    those that have  complained  will be getting their way.. I   disagree  with it,  but What happens happens,   Rush had  more than 20 members  but less than the 20 active members proposed ...  IF  and  WHEN the site is back up to speed I will  start Rush and add those members  that request to come back  to the team as they request, when and IF  the team reaches the  20 player limit , and another  member of  Rush asks  to rejoin  at that oint I will leave the team and give them my spot,  and leave the site  (  I am sure that will appease  and please  quite a few  members of the site  lol)   I have said before and will say again I will NOT pick and  choose  who can still be members of  Rush  and  who  cannot rejoin rush its just not right... Also teams love to keep their members who have passed on within the team... would these players count towards the 20 player limit? Perhaps since its the " NEW" fatcat some may say just let them go, which I understand but fatcat is as much family as team so I doubt most will agree to let the past go in this case

great post Sharron .....miss you!    Bryan, hang in there,bud......change is good....Remember,it takes change to make a dollar!

cattails321 wrote:

great post Sharron .....miss you!    Bryan, hang in there,bud......change is good....Remember,it takes change to make a dollar!

I have never been against change...and a lot of this change i feel is for the good however change just for change sake , or change because some have more and we dont want to work for what they have so punish them to make it fair isnt necassarily " good " change in my opinion....

Time will tell how this all shakes out... I like everyone else will be watching and deciding..

Coach

With regards to team size......can understand your point and I too would not like to see or be forced to choose...teams meant so much more than being a number ...they were family... and all teams did not have 20 active members---so I don't see importance of such a limit.....true a bigger team has the ability to make a difference but in actual effect it often hinders them moreso than a small team....besides if the point system was adopted there could be a way of it not matter what size team you have...all you need to do is drop the points of the lowest players and only take into account the top 20 scores of each team...reducing or limiting team size will have no benefits IMO as you are always going to get inequalities....so why force this issue...teams are families not numbers...if you change this  it changes the dynamics that made this site what it is...a second home

Also agree that this site biggest hinderance for getting new players is its ability to join the site...it has always been complicated and not explained very well at the point of joining...I have actually had to spend a lot of time showing and explaining to those joining as well as current members how to do things or the rules and in fact many of the players needed step by step help...this needs to be made easier and if it can't it at least needs to be explained with clarity at time of joining as I know many that have given up before they have even started

I know Mufusa said Roy was going to do a mass email (newsletter)...as yet has this been done as I have not seen one.  Joe you are creating a new forum...it should have the ability to do a newsletter...many sites are now sending newsletters out to their members notifying them of special upcoming events weekly to keep players interested. When people join site they have to use an email addy......you need to make sure that the new site has the ability to be able to send a mass email(newsletter) to its members as it is a way for those not wanting to join forums etc to keep up with progress and keeping them informed...it is also great publicity that it is free at a single click of the button

Thank you. We want feedback, I encourage it, because if I don't know what people want then I will never know.

The new poker if the player count is not met when it starts then its "voided" out and don't hang on "registering" like it does now.

Interesting idea for ring tables, I need to check to see if the amount of chips won at ring tables are even recorded to see if that's even possible. But If it's not recorded, then maybe the amount of chips earned per round gets X amount of points towards team points and/or Freeroll points?

SnG's I can see being exploited heavily. Say 8 -10 members of one team sit and goes "all in" first hand just to get points and repeat that over and over. That would be hard to find a balance as I can't really restrict who sits at them.

I personally was never on a team, so Mufasa did have to explain the details to me. But Tournaments was "meh" to me, and I didn't care about the leader boards when I did play mainly because I wasn't active. So I enjoyed ring tables more. I was literally asked if I was new, and I've been a member for almost 12 years now (again not active though).

From my understanding, Team scores and Freeroll was all based on what place you got in the tournament. That is what I have written down for scoring for the new site, Member's "Score" is how many chips is earned (or lost) that round. And "Lifetime Score" was basically who had the most chips (reason I use quotations).

-------------------------------

For team limits, Its to prevent too many people on one team. A MMO game (tens of thousands of people) that I'm fond of and dropped playing to help out. It had a Clan limit of 80 members and some of us thought it was quite low, so we had "Sister Clans," but we had friendly competitions in this game still. I'm not saying to do or not to do this, as I don't know if there was (or will be) a rule, but I feel there are other options then just quitting. 20 players per team seems like a good starting point. There is the option to increase the cap.

-------------------------------

I think we need to figure out a way to save the accounts that are active if possible or go back the last 2 years for activity plus remembered loved ones...

The new accounts IDEA was mine so if your going to complain about that idea please send me a message.

Here is why i brought that up we have over 50,000 accounts, we may have out of that many that have been active the last 2 years maybe 200 accounts if that, thats almost 1 gig worth of files to integrate into V3 of the site... plus the old database may not work properly and we may lose everything anyways by starting over we can build on the new database was my intention.


NOW if you all feel that we have to salvage the old database this may cause the launch of the new site and poker to try and get that old database to work with the new... This can cause errors for the new sites access.

another option is to try and salvage the active accounts only but same possible issue mismatch from old to new...

all im saying is we are trying to get a clean slate to minimise errors is all.

Ill let you all decide on the accounts but if it takes longer because of issues and they cannot be worked out then we may have to start over anyways...

anthony is trying his best for what we do have and if he can salvage the old database and get it working with the new site great but if it messes up then we may not have another option but to start over....

Any one else have any other options please let me know we are all ears.

the BOTS idea is part of the new poker program to create activity when the players are not on the site they leave when members start playing so that was why that was brought up the options in the new poker is available if we decide to use them is what Anthony was posting about if it works great if not we will disable them.

As for any other issues we are still working on the new stuff and when we figure out the member database we can then start testing but we do hear your concerns and we have talked but we are not 100% if the old will mix with the new...

yea i know im not that good with words... Go figure.

here is the email i got from this forum earlier today...


FC Off Site Forum
11:19 AM (7 hours ago)

to me
Main thing we need now is everyone who is able to support the site. a couple of members and myself have spent so much money on upgrades and starting over we have a great plan in action and allowing the members to connect with poker in several platforms as in IOS and android too it would be a shame that the site close because we cannot get the server paid each month. the server cost is 218 and the fee for having the checking account is 12 each month its a lot better than 282 + 12 so we are trying to be more efficient at the same time. i refuse to mix personal with business is why the cfc has its own account but when we are short i put my own funds to cover the balance not met. Im struggling as is without funding cfc and this month has put me over the top so i ask anyone who can to send something for cfc. if we fail to pay the server on time that will be the death of cfc because i do not have the extra to keep the site going. thats my plea to the members is all. thanks Wes AKA Mufasa. could you please forward this message to any members you know that don't use the forums. thank-you, Admin


This is exactly what i wrote to roy last night.

Thank you Roy for sending this out. Not sure who all got it... but it was sent...

Joe...rings ...there was meant to be no teamplay and limited to 3 players max from one team depending on size of table...winnings and betting were infinite .....not only was there bingo and although you weren't meant to teamplay,  they did.....passing and folding to teamies when only two left in hand...or ganging up with betting against another non teamie...duno if you can expect anything else......they used to leave the table and bank winnings as total chip count counted towards team....hence rings had many ways to abuse the system......you will always get abuse and will never stop it ...where there is a will there is a way...but you can limit it

sngo...... players still were limited to how many were from one team depending on size of table..no teamplay...all seats needed to be filled before play could start...buyins and prizes paid to top three... yes you could still abuse...but less often it happened than rings because winnnigs were finite like tourneys

Winning round for teams was based on the amount of total chips earnt from round that each team had from their players

Winning individual round was the person that had the most amount of chips earned in round

Hence the reason the object was to make the most chips...bigger payouts attracted more players and hence ring games were often used to make or break a teams chip count...some were making a million chips in one sitting...tourneys and sngo games had limited winnings and you had to get into a position of being able to win chips ie  top 15 for tourneys or top 3 for sngo...bigger payouts created more interest...but this was because of the huge winnings that some ring players were getting for very little skill used as well as time...most big tourneys would take 2hours to complete...on the rings you could make what they earned in tourneys in 5 minutes....with no skill.  Hence the reason for changing to a points system

Muf  as i said i can understand the logistics involved  with setting  every players life time score, my point was  just that   some people  will be upset as they thought of the chips as a badge of honour.. of  showing how long and how well they played......   also they   ( well many  ) loved  to share those  chips back  to the other members by sponsoring  games  with the chips they accumulated..

My point was instead of  saying they are complaining... to try and understand   their  thoughts...it was a badge of honour  and  a chance  to share  with friends on the site
Myself   I am ok if thats the way it is.... the  chips were  not  really worth anything...  and now we all have the  challenge of  building our  " nest egg" yet again....  if the poker program is improved, and the rings are   controlled even with lower payouts   everyone can once again find their spot in the all time  fatcat hierarchy...

 This is just a  suggestion.... perhaps have a link   or permanent post showing the  " lifetime" scores of the  top 100  prior  to the fatcat re-birth? or if possible where players can check their "old"  lifetime scores  before the  new fatcat   reset/startup?

 This  could be something to appease people  and prevent bad feelings regarding  their thoughts that  they "lost"   something   or  perhaps even just wasted all that time  accumulating  chips for all those years ?