Making Egg Trainer 7

by Kayne Ruse

In today's article, we're going to have a look a poll that I released to see what people want from the MERN-template. I'm sure there will be some surprises, so let's begin.

The poll asked people to rank features from least important (1) to most important (5) for a PBBG.

The Results

The chat system is kind of leaning towards the positive, but there's also plenty of push back. This, I think means that I should continue with my initial plans for including one, but not to stress too much over it.

Interestingly, the opposite seems to be true for the news feed system - a lot of responses are middle to low importance. Well, the news feed system already exists (and was one of the first things I implemented), so I think I'll leave it for now.

This isn't much of a surprise - I knew moderation tools would be needed, as they are for any multiplayer game.

This is a surprise. It seems payment systems are split roughly between the two extremes. I've used PayPal in the original build of Egg Trainer, but I don't want to force people into one specific payment provider (stripe is supposed to be really good for developers). I may instead host some tutorials on installing your favourite option in the documentation wiki.

I don't know about you, but this seems like a very big "meh" to me. Not every game needs energy systems. I wonder if I should include an optional backend for this at all?

I don't know about you, but this seems like a very big "hell yeah" to me. It seems a lot of games need a leaderboard - which makes sense, since these are multiplayer games at heart, and people love competition. I'm actually considering writing a modding tutorial where I walk the developer through creating their own leaderboard backend.

I don't really know what to make of this one. It's an obvious "yes", but I also shouldn't have grouped four different things together. I suppose this could be called the "economy backend".

Remember the Yip Yips from Sesame Street?

Well. Documentation and tutorials got a resounding "yes". Thankfully, I've already began working on them using github's wiki feature. Hopefully by the time this article releases, there will be a lot of content there to help you out.

How the heck?

OK, so I threw this one in as a lark. I was not expecting... this. Exactly half of people said yes, so I will need to include some sort of styling template or tutorial at some point; most things in the client already have CSS class names. I'll definitely have to make this optional, since half of the people said no.

Misc. Feedback

The final section was optional for people to give their honest, and anonymous thoughts. Let's have a look at them.

For me, the main barrier for this product right now is working with you. Your overall arrogance takes away any motivation to be your client. This is not meant as mean, but sincere feedback. Offering something for other people goes beyond the product and the creator's ego.

This is very true. My ego can sometimes overtake me. If that stands between my tool and a user that needs it, then I really need to sort this out. Hopefully, they'll be willing to look past my own flaws, or at least be interested in using the project without my interference.

I don't know what MERN templating is.

Totally valid - I haven't been super clear as to what the MERN-template is or what it's purpose is, partially because I didn't know myself. But I know now that the template is a game engine written from scratch to support a very niche type of game.

You’re code is shit, your picture on GitHub. You look like some fat fuck

Oh wow. Your comments cut so deep. And your grammar is devastating. How will I ever recover?

Security is the MOST important thing. Database security, account security for players, and checks to prevent hacking or manipulation of data.

Absolutely. I'm going to discuss security holes in the wiki, eventually, as there are things like the default admin account that need to be seen to. I highly recommend anyone to do their research on how to harden a server if they're going to use the template in production as well.

Love the project if you're on discord and would like some help or to discuss this template further please do get in touch. I'm a student currently looking to do some opensource work to expand my portfolio. Always loved PBBG's. I'm <username> on discord or throw me an email at <email>

Thank you! I'm going to contact you after I finish writing. Also, for anyone who wants to contact me about the project, or about anything at all, I always include my business email in the end section below!

Conclusion

So, after gathering feedback and processing it, here are the features, from most important to least important, filtered through my own needs and wants.

  1. Full Documentation
  2. Chat System with Strong Moderation Tools
  3. Modding Tutorials, Namely Leaderboards
  4. Styling Templates And Generators
  5. Economy Support
  6. Payment System Tutorials

If you think I made a mistake, or interpreted the results wrong, that's totally fine! Feel free to contact me either on Discord (Ratstail91#6600), or via my business email below.

My name is Kayne Ruse of KR Game Studios, you can find me on the net as Ratstail91, trying to get my tongue unstuck from a pole like in the movies.