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 237 - The Songcast
Sep 21, 2015
For Quackcast 237 we asked people about the songs that inspire them when they do their comics, which songs go with which parts of their comics, what would be the ideal comic movie theme, what songs or music get you in the MOOD to do your comic, and finally; just how great are Gunwallace's fantastic comic theme tunes? And speaking of theme tunes, the masterful Gunwallace has given us a Salsa theme for Taco El Gato!
Episode 180 - Colour your world! part 1
Aug 14, 2014
For this week's Quackcast I asked people what colour techniques they use and BOY was I surprised by the high calibre of the responses! We had some heavy hitter contributions, people with colour skill beyond what I can conceive of, and I'm no slouch myself when it comes to colouring. We had such good contributions and the subject is so complex that that we decided to split it over two parts so we can properly discuss this very technical concept: COLOUR! Colouring is an important and advanced skill when it comes to comic art. At the most basic level you can restrict yourself to a simple palette with no shading or tones, if you want to be more advanced though there is no limit to how complex you can get. Hopefully the advice presented here can help you with your artwork!
Episode 132 - An Interview with Pinky TA
Jul 8, 2013
Ozoneocean has an interview with his OWN webcomic character! The fabulous Pinky of Pinky TA comes to life for reals and submits to interrogation from her creator... The fourth wall is smashed wide open for this one as Ozoneocean tries to uncover the secret of Pinky's real hair colour and just what IS behind those bottomless pants? ...not much it turns out. This is an interesting experiment, trying to see how else you can explore and promote the imersive creative world that is your webcomic! For next week's Quackcast we would love YOU to submit your OWN character interviews, either as answers to the interview questions I have listed in the link bellow (in the forum), or just answers to questions you've invented yourself. You can even email a recording of it direct to me at ozoneocean at yahoo dot com.
Episode 111 - Banes Overcomes Character Obstacles on His Own
Feb 4, 2013
For this episode we asked many of our esteemed DrunkDuck creators to weigh in and enlighten us on the subject of creating and overcoming obstacles for their characters. This of course ties in with Quackcast 109 where we discussed aspects of that topic with Pit Face and Tantz Aerine. Here we specifically asked: "Obstacles, challenges for your characters. How do you create 'em? How do you and your characters overcome them??? Just tell us about the things you go through with your characters and their plotlines!". Due to a small misunderstanding Banes heroically handled this entire Quackcast on his own!
Episode 87 - Up with people: Heroes and Villians
Jul 23, 2012
What are the Do's and Do Not Do's when it comes to creating protagonists and antagonists??? For Quackcast 87 we asked for people's opinions on making heroes and villains, we asked who are some of your fave heroes and villains? What makes your own characters such good heroes or villains? What are YOUR Do's and Donts, how do YOU prefer to construct your heroes and villains? Is the hero just a hero because they're the protagonist? Or are they a classic hero? What's the difference between heroes an protagonists? Villains and antagonists? etc. Some clever and intelligent people weighed in on this and shared their opinions on it with us.
Episode 75 - God Save the Genejoke! In 3D!: Part 2
Apr 30, 2012
I officially rename my co-host Banes as "Columbo-Banes" because just as we're about to fade into nothing, winding up, he comes in with "just one more thing" which just happens to be a freaking brilliant suggestion that makes us fired up all over again with great stuff to talk about, but also making us go longer and longer. In the end though, he's a loveable rogue that always solves the case... In a crappy raincoat. Genejoke continues to regale us with tales of three dimensional lore. We delve into filters, effects, lighting, colour, animation, programs, hardware, and then he gives some good examples of 3D comics on the interwebulatortron. Also, we meet the rest of his lovely family, in the distance. We finish up with a flush! ...or a flourish? No, it was definitely a flush.
Episode 65 - Men and Women in Tights
Feb 20, 2012
Banes and Ozoneocean round off the topic of superheroes, beating that wonderhorse to death well and truly. There's a lot of reminiscing here about ancient superhero pop-culture and along the way we discuss silver age and golden age comics, supervillains, second stringer superheros and why the remain that way, the gender and culture appeal of some characters, evolution of superheroes towards realism and grit, then webcomic superheroes, especially those on DD, and then finish up with why we like superheroes. Sidekick Captain-Ozone continues to echo disturbingly from the void while the real hero, Ultra-Banes, continues to bring the humour. We decide that it all comes back to Superman and Batman, who are the ultimate prototypes for the two main types of superheros: super, good, and perfect Vs normal, flawed, and human.
