You may recall the post I made here about making a website similar to http://www.nid15.com. since then I’ve started working on the website, and I thought it was time to reveal the beta version of website:
The goal of the petition is to get Sega to remaster the old Panzer Dragoon games and release them on the current generation of consoles. HD versions of Zwei and Orta would fit perfectly on XBLA/PSN. Sega may no longer have the source code/assets for Panzer Dragoon Saga, but the game would need to be rebuilt from scratch anyway. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to accomplish.
So I thought “why not” and made a website dedicated to petitioning Sega. I’m still calling it a beta, but it should be functional in the sense that you should be able to sign the petition. That said I’m not going to post this on TWOTA and other forums just yet, as I’d like to see if the beta version works. So I’d like to ask the people here to try and sign the petition and for now, not to spread the link around. Once I think it’s ready, I’ll move the website to the primary domain and “launch” it by posting the news on TWOTA. Unless something unexpected happens, the existing signatures will be preserved when I launch the website.
I’d appreciate any and all feedback on the website, for example concerning browser compatibility problems, features that I should add, design improvements, navigation and of course any errors you encounter… Anything that could improve the website. I’m realistic enough to know it’s going to start out very slow, but the website is going to be a long term project. Much like TWOTA, I intend to continue improving the website based on user feedback.
The website worked fine on my end, no errors encountered. It looks good so far, clean, easy to navigate and to the point.
Just got a 360 recently and would love to revisit the Saturn trilogy again in HD. Haven’t played PD Saga since I bought it at the end of the '90s, I’ll try to resist the urge and save myself for the remake if it ever happens ^^
Thanks to those who have signed the peition so far. One thing I’d like to note: please check your spam folders should you not receive the email. So far I’ve noticed it tends to send the confirmation e-mails to the spam folder when sending to Hotmail. If it does this consistently I’ll need to figure out why. I also realized I don’t have any option in place to resend the confirmation e-mail, I’m going to add that functionality as well. To those who don’t want to register an account on these forums, you can still use the contact form on the website to contact me, or email me directly at draikin@panzerdragoonrevival.com should you encounter any problems.
Msg went to my inbox as well. The only thing I noticed is that it didn’t update my name on the list right away. It seemed to take a bit of time before it did show up.
That’s actually kind of odd, seeing how the moment the signature is validated it should be displayed in the list instantly. I don’t quite have an explanation for it being delayed. Could be due to browser caching I guess…
I’m starting to wonder however if it’s a mistake to require email confirmation? I’m already seeing people sign the petition but not clicking the confirmation link. I don’t see any indication something went wrong with sending the mail and the links do seem to work, so I’d appreciate it if someone who didn’t click the confirmation link could tell me why they didn’t/weren’t able to confirm it. I’d like to make it as easy as possible for people to sign the petition while still being able to show Sega the majority of the signatures are actually real. I’m looking into launching the website “officially” somewhere this week. I hope this will draw in more signatures. Usually people will be more inclined to sign a petition that already has a substantial number of votes. That said, there’s no rush either.
I just signed it. No problem with the email confirmation, and the signature appeared instantly once I had confirmed it.
You could always remove the email confirmation and approve the signatures manually yourself. That way you’d be able to filter out all spam, however it would have the downside of the signatures not appearing instantly.
The problem with the manual approval is also that I don’t know if the e-mail address is actually valid, making it possible for anyone to basically start signing the petition a dozen times using a fake names/email. I’ll continue to monitor how many emails aren’t being confirmed and make a decision based on that. I think it’s about ready for launch now, I’ll probably post the news tomorrow.
It could be a cache issue as I signed from work and I have it set to clear the cache every time I exit. I hadn’t closed Firefox, I just tried reloading the site. Not a big deal either way, I thought it just might be good feedback for you.;p Thank you for going through the effort of setting the petition up. I really hope it is successful and we see some efforts from Sega to do something. If we won the work lottery I so would put a good portion of money toward buying the rights from Sega. As much as they have sat on the brand, I can’t imagine they would fight that hard against selling it.
EDIT: in what seems to be perfect timing from my webhost, the website is now offline due to a problem with a server reboot
EDIT2: website is back online.
That’s very much appreciated WindRider. In return I’ll be sure to get that Rand Doula page translated for you. I can build and improve the website, but I don’t really know where to start to try and get the word out, so I could use the community’s help with that.
I’m thinking about dropping the email verification for the signatures completely by the way, as it seems a lot of people aren’t clicking the confirmation link. For now I’m going to manually approve those signatures that aren’t being confirmed by email.
[quote=“D-Unit”]That’s very much appreciated WindRider. In return I’ll be sure to get that Rand Doula page translated for you. I can build and improve the website, but I don’t really know where to start to try and get the word out, so I could use the community’s help with that.
I’m thinking about dropping the email verification for the signatures completely by the way, as it seems a lot of people aren’t clicking the confirmation link. For now I’m going to manually approve those signatures that aren’t being confirmed by email.[/quote]
I appreciate that. Also, thats a good call on the signatures, some people seem to completly forget to confirm the email
What do people think about multi-language support for the website? I’m thinking of getting it translated to Japanese for example, in which case I might as well add a Dutch translation since that’s my first language. My French is mediocre, I’d probably require help for that translation. For any other languages I’d definitely need help.
The real problem is moderating the messages written in other languages though. I could probably try to add some automatic translation using Bing translator or something like that (Google’s translation service is no longer free), although for Japanese the translations often make no sense.
[quote=“D-Unit”]What do people think about multi-language support for the website? I’m thinking of getting it translated to Japanese for example, in which case I might as well add a Dutch translation since that’s my first language. My French is mediocre, I’d probably require help for that translation. For any other languages I’d definitely need help.
The real problem is moderating the messages written in other languages though. I could probably try to add some automatic translation using Bing translator or something like that (Google’s translation service is no longer free), although for Japanese the translations often make no sense.[/quote]
Thanks Windrider, I’ll certainly keep that in mind.
A potential problem I see is that, while I think supporting multiple languages makes the petition stand out more, it might still preferable to have as many comments in English or Japanese as possible since I intend to send the petition to Sega Europe/US/Japan at some point in time. On the other hand, having messages in a lot of different languages does show that this really is a worldwide petition.
One change I’ve just made to the website is the removal of email confirmation. A shame of the time spent developing the functionality, but half of the people didn’t confirm their signature so it just wasn’t working. Now signatures are added immediately, but the comments aren’t shown until they’re approved.
With that in mind, I’d need help from the community with moderating languages that I don’t understand at all. This would probably involve assigning moderators that can login to see and approve the messages that I can’t read. That’s functionality I’ve yet to add but it’s certainly possible.
I might have to ask people signing the petition for help in spreading the word as well. The following campaign for example is actually in the process of achieving it’s goal, so I think it makes a good example:
But we simply don’t have enough people at this point to follow their approach. The Panzer Dragoon community itself may be in need of a revival, before we can think about trying to revive the franchise
So, we might have a little boost over the next few days, lets see if we are lucky (more on that later).
On another note, has anyone tried to ask the Smithsonian Museum to have a petition book of something like that on the Art of Videogames so that people could sign when near the Panzer Dragoon expo?
Sounds interesting I’m actually in the process of searching for ways to contact different gaming websites. Once the time is right, I’ll send out an e-mail to all of them, hoping some will post an article about it.
That’s not a bad idea. I have been keeping an eye on their website but personally I can’t visit the exhibition. One way to draw attention to PDR would be to donate 250$ and ask them to display “Panzer Dragoon Revival Project” or something like that. Perhaps such a donation would also help convince them to display a petition book (or better, let users vote using the actual website, or an offline version of it so I can merge the database later on). But I’d imagine that would require someone to actually physically be there to ask people to vote (and keep an eye on the book/website). They are looking for volunteers though.
Meanwhile I’m still working on localizing the website. I hope to have it working by the end of the weekend.
I think I have the basic functionality for language selection working at the moment, I hope to have everything working tomorrow. I’ll probably add an additional page with more info about the games, but other than that I’m probably not going to add to much other stuff for the time being. If anyone is interested in helping translating the website, please let me know. French and German in particular are two languages I’d like to add. Japanese as well, but I’ll probably ask the person translating the scans for that. The Dutch translation is something I can add myself. Windrider, I’ll contact you regarding the Portuguese translation.
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