hopfog

Thank you for the feedback!

I definintely agree that it's very confusing for new players. There's a lot I can do to improve the onboarding and making your own character different is a great idea.

Regarding "Something went wrong" I presume it's because you have Adblock installed, which blocks Coinhive (the JS library/service I use for the actual mining). I should probably add some kind of notification about whitelisting the site if you want to be able to mine.

Regarding taking it further I have a lot of ideas and this was just an experiment where I wanted to explore the concept of using cryptocurrency mining as a monetization method. Browser mining gets a lot of justified heat with rogue sites running the miner without notifiying users. I do however believe there's good potential of it being used as a legitimate way of microfunding, as long as it's user-initiated and the user is perfectly aware of what the mining entails.

Thanks again!

This doesn't have an API though so I don't really understand how you would use it for rewards. With Coinhive you can verify the number of solved hashes per user server-side.

I used to be involved in Steemit with some success, mostly by writing articles about the Steem blockchain itself and how to interact with it.

The appeal for me as a developer is that you're working with an unrestricted firehose API. If you want to build something you don't need to worry about limitations or breaking some terms. You can build your own Steemit front-end if you want since the back-end is just another node on the chain.

The community is really nice and I made many good friends. Regardless of the future of Steem I consider it a success and a tell-tale of real life applications for blockchains.

Thank you! The site is down but I read a blog post and it sounds a lot like what I have in mind.

I've been toying with the idea of using tokens as an in-game currency in my MMORPG. The problem is that the normal currency is inflationary due to monsters dropping it as loot. I do have sinks to control inflation but I'm thinking that the tokens should be tied to a fix value.

What is fixed and scarce however is land (you can claim plots and build houses, shops etc). Would having a server with land tied to a token make sense or is it a bad idea?

I think Steem is pretty interesting from a developer perspective. Since all data lives on the blockchain it's like having unlimited and unrestricted API access. It's very different from having to submit to whatever restrictions and rules centralised social networks usually put on their APIs, if they have one at all.

Thank you! I never did MUD programming but I played a lot of MUDs. I always dreamt of making my own though and a lot of my old ideas have been incorporated in this.

And yes, it will probably never be finished but that's the beauty of it. It's my own sandbox I can always work on.

Do you have anything to share?

Thank you! I'm glad to hear that. Being one guy doing all the coding and graphics that's all I can ask for.

I actually had to take the server down a few days ago due to a bug crashing it every time someone logged on so you can't play it right now but here you go: http://canvaslegacy.com/

The bug is fixed but I forgot to branch the repo when I started on the new patch so can't deploy anything right now (since I'm working in master).

It's a browser game that requires no account so normally you would be able to open the link and start playing immediately.

Some media in case anyone is interested: https://www.facebook.com/pg/canvaslegacy/photos/

My approach has been to put it out there as soon as I had something playable, with an obvious disclaimer that you play at your own risk and may lose everything. I don't know if that counts as shipping but at least I get to see people experience it.

You're right though that I may not count as a real indie game developer since I do it purely for fun.

If building games is a hobby you have no problem doing it on your spare time. For me, making games is leisure time.

Absolutely true. I would take it one step further - don't even worry about making something people want to play. Make something YOU want to play.

The best experience of my life has been making an MMORPG per that motto. It's now at a point where I get completely absorbed playing it, to the extent where I forget that I'm playing my own game. It's a really awesome feeling.

I don't have any expectations on making money off it, or even have players at all. That other people seem to enjoy it as well is only a bonus.

I have a soft spot for removing barriers and making things accessible so this really resonates with me. With a single click of a button I'm connected to the network and have started mining. Pretty awesome!

I also love how the P2P is visualized in a straight-forward way. I definitely think this will help demystify blockchain technology. You immediately realize that you're part of a decentralized network and that blockchain nodes are nothing else than other nodes like you.

Another way companies are connecting your online profile with offline activities is by using one of the many call tracking services. Basically when you visit a site using these you will be shown a unique phone number. When you ring it the service will tie your web session to the call. The company will see the caller's whole web user journey and any subsequent visits.

Yes, the rates are quite good if the system works as intended. From the article:

> “Hello Erik! Today you are guaranteed 300 SEK per hour in “generated amount” when you deliver with Uber Eats during 11:00 am – 1:00 pm & 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm. Hope to see you online!”.

The problem is that you need to accept 1 - 1.5 deliveries an hour to activate this, which wasn't possible for the journalist due to the reasons you're mentioning.

Uber is now revising the incentives system:

http://www.breakit.se/artikel/7575/efter-breakits-granskning...

http://www.breakit.se/artikel/7608/efter-kritiken-sa-forandr...

Disclaimer: I work for one of the companies handling the salary administration.

Thank you! Yes, during the effective hours I get in everyday I get more done than on my previous job where I had to do 8 hours.

We have our office in the capital where my co-founder also lives. I live in a smaller town outside of it. Unless I move there (which is not possible due to the prices and I like my town) one of us has to commute and from a business perspective it's much better to have the office in the capital when meeting customers etc.

Before we got the office I did 6 months from home and I was highly ineffective. Remote work is just not for me.

The commute itself is rather pleasant and I can work on the train if I wish, although I mostly use the time to read HN and relax.

Running my own SaaS with 1 co-founder. Every day is different but in general:

- 9:00: Arrive at the office after a 50 minutes commute.

- Bookkeeping, coding, support, administration, legal and answering emails.

- 11:00: Go the gym.

- 13:00: Lunch.

- 14:00: Rocket League.

- 14:30: Same as #2.

- 16:10: Take the train home.

Even though the effective working hours in a normal day are few I do get a lot of stuff done during those. I'm also compensating for the occasional crunch periods where I work 12 hours a day and weekends.

I used to work as a rater through Lionbridge back in the EWOQ days and I honestly have nothing bad to say about it. The pay was quite good and it was all remote work where I set my own hours. I never had a problem with not being a "real Googler". I always saw it as working for Lionbridge, not Google.

Granted, I was in the privileged position of only having it as a side income while studying so I never expected any job security to begin with. In that context it was great though.

This is amazing and I got so many ideas on how to tackle the scaling issues I have with my own multiplayer drawing website. In the aftermath of r/Place I went into some of the factions' Discord servers and posted my site, getting 50-100 concurrent users which caused a meltdown on my server. It was a good stress test but also a wake-up call.

Again, amazing write-up. Thank you!

Thanks! Looks good so that's definitely something I should look more into.

To be honest I haven't really benchmarked it. Maybe that's something I should invest time in to see if there's some obvious bottleneck I can fix. Thanks for the suggestion.

I'm thinking about it but I'm no server admin so it feels a bit scary. I could probably do it quite easily but it would be a security nightmare.

I don't think that's possible for me. I have some future monetization plans but that requires features I don't have yet. At the current state I have a hard time seeing anyone would pay for it. Also, due to how the back end is structured it's not possible to scale horisontally at the moment so all I could do with money is beefing up the current dyno, not adding more.

Looks cool but seems like it's aimed at mobile and not websites? Also, how do they differ from Firebase?

My previous experience with Firebase makes me hesitant to use a BaaS. It works great for simple stuff but as soon as you want more control it becomes a mess compared to just having your own server. It might just be me who haven't wrapped my head around the mindset correctly though.

I actually used Firebase for the first version but ran into a lot of different issues, mostly due to the lack of control. That's why I migrated to my own Node server where I could have my own back end logic to control things.

This was many years ago though so maybe I should have a look at it again.

I'm in the unfortunate position where this question actually matters from day 1. I learnt the hard way a few days ago when I hit the bottleneck (about 50-100 concurrent users) and I'm not sure how to proceed.

It's a multiplayer drawing site built with Node.js/socket.io. I'm already on the biggest Heroku dyno my budget can allow and it's too big of a task to rewrite the back end to support load balancing (and I wouldn't know where to start). Bear in mind that this is a side-project I'm not making any money of.

I had a lot of new features planned but now I've put development on hold. It's not fun to work on something you can't allow to get popular since it would kill it.

The Button and Robin were awesome but this was on another level. I loved hanging out in the different factions' Discord servers and observe troops being rallied and defenses coordinated. It was an amazing 72 hours and I wonder how Reddit will top this next year.

I was also really impressed with how little obscenity there was. I fully expected it to be overrun by trolls. In retrospect I agree with the article that the technical limitation for creating was a contributing factor. If you want to see what happens when no such limitation exists and trolls get the upperhand, check out the timelapse of my own multiplayer drawing site:

https://youtu.be/qIJ3XFPRsSw

Yes, you are right. The thing is though that I'm making the game mostly for myself and I always tell my players that they are playing at their own risk. It's very early alpha and they may lose everything.

I tried fixing it initially but eventually gave up and put the whole development on hold for 6 months. Also note that the problem gradually got worse. In the beginning it wasn't such a big deal but eventually became post-apocalyptic when players had a hard time finding even the most basic resources.

Another aspect is the amount of support I had to take care of when the player base was at its peak. It almost made me burn out, consdering that it's a side-project that I'm not making any money of. So when this major bug started affecting the game and the active players began dropping it was almost a relief. I never expected that anyone wanted to play it to begin with. I just put it out there as soon as I had something playable.

So after a long hiatus the joy of rewriting the front-end made me motivated to work on it again. Perhaps not the best strategic move but it feels good to be back. :)

It's actually almost unplayable right now since a bug I haven't managed to pinpoint is messing up all the mines (ugly codebase doesn't help). They're completely strip-mined and the economy is broken with a few players sitting on all the resources. I wouldn't recommend starting until I've managed to fix it in and restart the world.

I'm currently in the process of rewriting the front-end from the old jQuery mess to React. It's like 95% feature complete but as soon as that is done I will start investigating what's going on with the mines.

Anyway, here it is: http://canvaslegacy.com/

Again, I strongly advise against starting right now since you won't experience the game like it's supposed to be. It's hard mode even for seasoned players. :)