PlanetSide OpCenter

[CyberHawke]

Greetings --

I'm sitting here at work on a conference call (*yawn*) and thought it to be a great opportunity to, yet again, plug PlanetSide OpCenter (http://opcenter.cyberhawke.com/) . A lot has been changing as I continue to add new features and functionality. There's more work to do, and I will listen to any reasonable suggestions from the PlanetSide community. Visit OpCenter and register today!

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OpCenter was developed to be a PlanetSide community tool in which outfits, as well as individual contributors, could organize and schedule assaults - and other PlanetSide related activities - across the world of Auraxis. In using OpCenter, an outfit could schedule a mission of small or large scale; such as a simple patrol mission around the perimeter of an important base, or on a grander scale, the ability to invite the entire affiliated empire for an assault on a continent.

What kind of missions can be planned? Examples:

Assault: Assaults on enemy territory/bases
Patrol: Lookout missions
Special Ops: Surveillance/Infiltration missions
Exploration: Scout/Territory Exploration missions
Defense: Defensive "work" shifts to protect empire sphere-of-influence
Maintenance: Tasks assignment/sign-ups; such as being responsible for base energy supply

Powered by a modified WebCalendar PHP/SQL backend, OpCenter's scheduling system provides each outfit with their own calendar, and keeps all events private to that outfit, unless otherwise specified. For each mission, members of the outfit can "sign up" for the event at the click of a button, and their alias will be added to a running list of attendees.

What OpCenter Is Not
OpCenter is not a resource for technical information regarding the intricacies of the game. OpCenter will not maintain detailed information about the different certifications, weapons, vehicles or implants, for example. There is definitely a plethora of information out there about PlanetSide (like right here at PSU), so PSOC sticks to its function of serving as a mission planner, and leaves the Reporting and Information Gathering to the more experienced Official and Community Sites. OpCenter will, however, maintain a list of valued resource web sites for usage during your planning. Check your Resource Panel on the left upon visiting.

How OpCenter Works
Register for OpCenter Access
Registration is FREE. I have no current plans for advertisements for anything other than affiliated PlanetSide Community Web Sites.

Create A Character
Use the "Add Character" feature to create a data representation of a character that you play on your particular server. You may edit this character's information (everything but the character's name) or delete the character at any time using the Edit Character tool. Currently members are limited to one character-alias.

Create/Join an Outfit
When you first register for OpCenter access, you will be placed into the default OpCenter outfit for your server-empire combination (e.g. US_East_NC, for single players on US_East in the New Conglomerate). If you are an outfit leader, you may use the Create Outfit tool to register your outfit with OpCenter. You will be asked to supply an Outfit Password, which will be required in order for other OpCenter users join your Outfit. The creator of the Outfit may Defer Ownership of the outfit to any other active Outfit member, and additionally is required to do so before joining a different outfit (if there are remaining Outfit members still registered). If you are currently a member of a PlanetSide Outfit, and it is already established in the OpCenter database, you may use the Join Outfit tool to associate your account with the selected Outfit, as long as you know the Outfit Password.

Outfit Rosters
OpCenter strives to give Outfits the best tools possible. Currently OpCenter has a Outfit Roster in place so you can manage your team. We plan to put in additional features and are looking for suggestions on how to make the utility more useful. Drop in to our Forums and post a suggestion.

Browse/Join Operations
This tool is the mainstay of OpCenter. It will display a calendar application, from which OpCenter Registered users may create new, and join existing missions/operations. All operations are only viewable by your outfit (or the default OpCenter outfit if you are not a member of an official outfit).
Outfits may invite any or all other outfits that are on teh same server and play for the same empire.

Additional Feature: Intel Report
When you login to OpCenter, your empire-color-coded name will appear in the top left of the menu system. In between you name and the full OpCenter menu system is a little widget called, "The Intel Report". This displays the currently known number of operations planned for each empire, on your server for this week. If you see 7 missions planned for the Terran Republic and your empire doesn't have anything planned... it might be a good time to cover a base!

Additional Feature Requests
I will entertain any feature ideas the community has. I have a few brewing already with some community sites, but the more the merrier. I will likely post a vote for the good ideas and let democracy prevail; however, if the idea is just obviously the right thing to do, then I will do my best to get the feature implemented.

PlanetSide OpCenter (http://opcenter.cyberhawke.com/)

-- CyberHawke, OpCenter Admin

[Streamline]

Sweet Duely noted :love:

[Headrattle]

Great idea, I know a few inthe official forums priase your idea.

But, I think you might as well add all of the servers(east,west, central) for now, so we can get organised beforehand.

But then you might be waiting for more people to join.

Still, great idea man.

[Fire_Monkey]

it roxxorz my boxxorz,

Great idea, looks nice

[CyberHawke]

Originally posted by Headrattle
But, I think you might as well add all of the servers(east,west, central) for now, so we can get organised beforehand.


Actually... I don't know the official server names yet... they have not been released. People have speculated that the server names will represent their location (e.g. US East), but that is not the case according to one of the Developer's Chats.

I asked "Briley" in the PSU IRC channel about when the server names will be released, and he did not say when that would happen (and mentioned that he did not know them yet either!).

Certainly I want to know ASAP so that I can make the necesary adjustments to OpCenter's Infrastructure. I also plan to provide a one-time-use utility for users to move their account and outfits from the Test server to a new server, when the names are put in place.

-- CyberHawke, OpCenter Admin

[Hamma]

Its a great site, i reccomend everyone take a look.

[HawkEye]

i am goin to go look at it. yay.

[Arthell]

I know of atleast 1 mmorpg where the devs didnt know the server names until they seen them when the servers first started up for retail. :D

[Big Bro]

Cyberhawke,
Keep up the good work. Our community NEEDS something like this, whether it's a web page or some other way of keeping track of events. I think this will play a key role in helping to maintain alliances. I'd like to see alliance functionality where outfits can band together and create missions for their alliance to view. That would make a big difference in my opinion. Right on! :D

[CyberHawke]

Originally posted by =NCG=Big Bro
Cyberhawke,
Keep up the good work. Our community NEEDS something like this, whether it's a web page or some other way of keeping track of events. I think this will play a key role in helping to maintain alliances. I'd like to see alliance functionality where outfits can band together and create missions for their alliance to view. That would make a big difference in my opinion. Right on! :D

You're in luck! When you create a mission, you have the opportunity to choose additional participants. By default, the list contains every outfit (including the general pool of non-outfitted personnel*) from your empire, on your server. Click the "Select" button to add (CTRL-LEFT click) additional outfits to the mission roster. Upon submission, the event will show up on the outfit calendars of each selected otufit.

* Since the common pool outfit does not require a password to join, missions displayed on the calendar for the common pool are at risk of discovery by persons from other empires who choose to spy. Outfit calendars are password protected (you have to be a member of the outfit) and as such can only be discovered if someone leaks the information.

Thanks for all of the positive feedback. I certainly hope it is used upon game release!

-- CyberHawke, OpCenter Admin

[NeoTassadar]

I hope you have some kind of restrictions that lock other empires' players out of the others' planning (besides usernames, come on), or else you're not going to get much of that when the first few planned assaults meets several dozen Boomers, crossfire Lashers, and other similar large ambushes.

[Big Bro]

Originally posted by CyberHawke
You're in luck! When you create a mission, you have the opportunity to choose additional participants. By default, the list contains every outfit (including the general pool of non-outfitted personnel*) from your empire, on your server. Click the "Select" button to add (CTRL-LEFT click) additional outfits to the mission roster. Upon submission, the event will show up on the outfit calendars of each selected otufit.
...
-- CyberHawke, OpCenter Admin

Yes, thanks for the tip there! I didn't know you could share like that. Will definitely be using that for any alliances we are involved in.

I guess what I was suggesting is actually having formal alliances supported by the site. Having leaders/admins of the alliance prevents people from sharing missions with your outfit that you really don't care about.

I know it take a lot of work to develop that kind of stuff, just wanted you to consider it.

[CyberHawke]

Originally posted by NeoTassadar
I hope you have some kind of restrictions that lock other empires' players out of the others' planning (besides usernames, come on), or else you're not going to get much of that when the first few planned assaults meets several dozen Boomers, crossfire Lashers, and other similar large ambushes.

When you click "Add/View Missions" you will be directed to your outfit's calendar. You cannot view any other outfit's calendar. What I said in my post was that if outfit A invites outfit B to their assault on base Y, when users of Outfit B log in to view their calendar, they will see "assault on base Y" on their calendar. I'm not sure it can be explained any better.

-- CyberHawke

[Marlboro Man!!]

very nice site indeed:D

[CyberHawke]

Love the sig, Marlboro Man. Change the cowboy to a MAX and I might have to rofl.

[Marlboro Man!!]

:D :love:

[NCG JMan]

Daaamn. I like it CyberHawke. Great idea. OMW to check out the site now :cool:

Just checked out the site. I hope our NCG group uses it. By BigBro's posts, it sounds like it's a done deal. Again very clever idea. http://www.dslextreme.com/users/jdh333/images/smileys/thumbsup.gif

[Hamma]

bump. because people need to know about this ;)

[Tolvy]

I heard about this site months ago. It's pretty cool. I haven't used it yet but it looks like it would be very handy for larger outfits.

[Hamma]

Not only larger outfits, but coordinating between outfits for bigger attacks ;)

[CyberHawke]

And you don't have to be an outfit member, either. By default, you are placed into a general outfit of all <insert empire> on your server. That General Outfit is treated by OpCenter as any other, allowing roster/character/certification control as well as Mission Scheduling. Granted ANYONE can be in the general pool, so secrecy is at risk (see the forum about that concern for my explaination).

[Squeeky]

Go register at this site :)

[Hamma]

lol, I forgot my PW.

Suppose I will tweak it when I get home :P

[CyberHawke]

I had wiped the Database for the official release of PlanetSide, so that I could weed out the registrants who did so just to mess around.

If you would like to try out OpCenter without registering use the following credentials:

Username: Demo
Password: demo
Server: Emerald

[Hamma]

I re-registered yesterday and forgot my pw :lol:

[CyberHawke]

I'll catch you on IRC tonight :)

[WildEagle]

SOUNDS GREAT I'LL GO NOW

[CyberHawke]

And please feel free to send me enhancement requests.

Currently only 178 users are re-registered on OpCenter, and the mission traffic is light... if there is not a significant interest in OpCenter, I may elect to discontinue development in favor of actually playing PlanetSide. I appreciate your shameless plugs on OpCenter's behalf :D

Additionally, SOE has continued to neglect my pleas to be linked on their Fan Site Links section (I haven't received a single response from them), so traffic to OpCenter has been greatly limited. I appreciate those web sites, such as PSU (although I don't appear on the Links page, Hamma :rolleyes: ), that continue to link to PlanetSide OpCenter.:D

-- CyberHawke