Episode 265 - Drunk Duck updates and the future
Apr 4, 2016
For Quackcast 265 I wanted to steer the direction toward the idea of future fixes and features for Drunk Duck! We talked a bit about the 2nd wave of fixes that will be happening now- HippieVan worked to gather people's suggestions for the most important bugs that needed fixing (with our limited funds), and features people want added, and then did a survey to find what people though were the highest priority. It was a lot of work and took a few weeks to come up with the results. Bellow is a summery of what she learned:
Topics and Show Notes
Top results in bug fixes:
- Numerous issues with pre-uploaded comics – 61%, 14.5 points
- When browsing the “comics” tab, the first page of comics is listed by rank, after which it switches to alphabetical. – 32%, 6.5 points
- Multiple page/bulk uploader sometimes ends up with pages out of order. – 25%, 4.5 points
Top results in new features:
- A reply feature for comic comments. – 21%, 5.5 points
- Improve the comic search function – 21%, 4.5 points
- Add the option to choose the exact time/hour when pre-uploading comic pages. – 21%, 4 points
- Active/On Hiatus/Complete tags for comics – 18%, 4.5 points
- More options/more customization for page layout – 21%, 3.5 points
“Specific results aside, it looks to me like the main issues people are concerned with generally are: pre-uploaded comics, dealing with comments, and browsing via the ”comics“ tab. Issues concerning the front page were surprisingly not in any of the top results - I suspect partly because most of the survey-takers are heavy users who don't rely on the front page as much as newer/more casual users.”
Though in all we had about 17 bugs on the list that people wanted fixing. I put all the priority ones at the top of the list but also kept the rest on there because I'd prefer bugs are fixed no matter what. Unfortunately when I gave that list to Alexey, our programmer he said that just fixing all the bugs would eat up most of the budget with very little left over for features (which are a lot more complicated to work on). I might ask him to drop some of the bugs in favour of a couple of the features though because that's really what people would prefer to see added to the site: something new, visible, a tangible benefit.
On that subject though we would REALLY love to get into planning for the future features for DD! The sorts of things we're talking about for THAT are BIG changes: like changing the front page to modernise it; choosing a better colour scheme; having a really useful notification area for DD members that have all your info, notifications, favourites, PQs, comic comments and reply comments all in one single place so you can manage all that easily and naturally in one go-for ALL of that we need our DD community to decide what the want out of that stuff and to help design it, not have the designs just forced on them as in the past.
Above all we want to capitalise on the two things that make DD stand out above the pack: Our focus on community, and our oddball reputation as a site that welcomes and promotes the diverse and the weird, we are truly DRUNK DUCK, not really some corporate, slick “The Duck Webcomics”. We don't all think in the same way as they seem to on some comic sites, our artists don't work in the same styles; there's a slightly grungy, irreverent, off-centeredness that has always characterised the essence of DD and we'd like to reflect that in any redesign.
You can also still donate to our Indiegogo to help us with these future developments!
Gunwallace gave us a lovely track for the comic Wounds!
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Undead 20XX - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Undead_20XX/
Donate to our Indiegogo - http://igg.me/at/DrunkDuck
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Kawaiidaigakusei - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Pitface - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Featured music:
Wounds http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Wounds/, by caleb131, rated M.
- See more at: http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2016/apr/04/quackcast-265-drunk-duck-updates-and-the-future/
Episode 262 - DUCK Radio 3
Mar 14, 2016
WELCOME to the final part of the Radio D.U.C.K. trilogy! This is where we put all the rest of Gunwallace's amazing songs AND a special treat for you as well listeners: Jimmy's Folly. Our radio DJs have gone just a little crazy this time… the brutish, hard rocking Jimmy Storm, demonic Anastasia Ravendale, and dried up old Rhet Blanket battle it out over the on air turf in the strangest way possible… BRINGING THE THUNDER! Gunwallace's amazing comic themes meanwhile are just as juicy as ever.
Episode 261 - D.U.C.K. Radio2
Mar 7, 2016
Radio D.U.C.K. has come again for part number TWO! Bringing you ALL of Gunwallace's lovely tunes, one after another. This time we get to meet Evangelist for DD Reverend Carlton Crackers, SciFi Hour with Kurt and Steve, Woman 1 and Woman 2, a return of DJ and Rhett Blanket, and introducing BILLY-BOB Banes and JETHRO Ozoneocean! All these fantastic personalities are the mind children of scriptwriter and musician Gunwallace, and played by Gunwallace, Banes, Ozoneocean, and Pitface. Enjoy the music and remember the name of Gunwallace!
Episode 257 - Accents in Comics
Feb 8, 2016
Using accents and different languages in comics can be a challenge, or at least a challenge to represent. Some people will actually have their text IN a different language or even a made up language in the case of aliens, and they'll have translations in a footnote. Some will use pointed brackets to represent the different language, some will use different fonts, and some won't bother showing that there is a different language being spoken at all. We spoke to Tantz Aerine and Pitface about this because that's something they both have to tackle in Brave Resistance and Tantz's solo comic Without Moonlight because it's very central to the plot: Tantz uses different colours for the languages. Pitface phonetically represents different accents in her comic Putrid Meat quite expertly. However, there can be challenges to phonetic representation when you get it wrong, most frequently in the case of Irish and Scottish accents! This was inspired by a newspost by Hippievan! Listen ad enjoy Gunwallace's audio interpretation of Aidana. VERY Pink Floyd!
Episode 250 - Tradigital art - Digital VS Traditional
Dec 21, 2015
There's not really a difference between digital and traditional art - art is art, your tools and media don't really matter, what's important is how its meant to be seen and what it's meant to be used for. But, people do like to discuss this though and so do we so that is exactly what we did! We opened the floor to people's opinions and experiences on the subject and everyone had their say. Gunwallace's theme for The Dragon Fists of Smorty Smythe reminds me strongly of The Journey of the Sorcerer by The Eagles!
Episode 249 - Bad Drawing advice!
Dec 14, 2015
All too often we try to give out GOOD drawing advice and USEFUL tips on how to do art. Well that all changes here: this time professors Ozoneocean, Tantz Aerine, Banes, and Pitface (our throbbing Head of department), come together to tell you the very worst ways to produce artwork, with the help of a few of our contributors. The advice will help you to become the most horrible artist ever. Gunwallace's theme this week is a creepy sounding classical piece for the creepy classic comic Caggage!
Episode 244 - Horror playlist
Nov 9, 2015
This week's Quackcast marks the end of the Halloweencasts! Late, I know, but we recorded these all in advance. We dressed in costume again, which you can see in our VIDEO. Banes as the arctic death wolf, Pitface as the evil Nancy Regan, Tantz as a fierce Greek pirate rebel, revolutionary warrior, and myself as a horrible, horrible glam metal rocker. The topic of discussion was inspired by another newspost by Banes, this time the subject was “your horror playlist”, so we chat about all the scary, horror themed stuff we enjoy around this time of year. Gunwallace's theme was for BARBARIAN ADVENTURE, I LOVE this track! It's heavy and bluesy, reminiscent of Lenny Kravitz or Cream.
Episode 241 - The Vampcast - Costumecast - Part 2
Oct 19, 2015
I vant to suck yer blud… Well Tantz Aerine does anyway. This is the second part of our Vampcast, talking about vampires in comics, lore, movies and popculture in general. We were STILL in costume, watching each other on vid at the time, getting distracted and Ozone was getting drunker and drunker on some very RED wine. Tantz was of course the vamp, Pit was a deathknight fairy princess, Banes was the scary polar werewolf, and Ozone fieldmarshal bigpants! You can see the vids of our exploits I uploaded last week. There exists an elusive 3rd vid, but we were all too drunk and tried by that stage… at least Ozone was. Gunwallace provided us the lovely Alt rock '90s style theme to the SciFi anime comic Throviria!
