New Staff and Desktop Application Update

Hey everyone!

First off, I would like to introduce our new website staff.  Please join me in welcoming Joshua, Peter and Sam. They've been apart of the site now for almost two weeks, and they are all doing a fantastic job.  Their main responsibilities lie in keeping the Statistics pages looking good, and there is quite a bit of work to do.  I never really thought the website would get to the point that I would be recruiting outside assistance, so they are working with me through some growing pains while I get all the proper tools setup.

I'm sure as the website grows and expands even more, their responsibilities will also grow.  I'm glad to have them as a members of the team! :) If you wish to learn more about the new additions to the team, you can find more info on the About page.

Secondly, I have some new information and screenshots for you on the ingame parser. I've spent the past couple weeks fine tuning the combat log parsing code, updating the ingame overlays and fleshing out the solo parsing system.  While there is still a little bit of work left to do, the vast majority of the solo parser is complete.

This first screenshot is the entire solo parser in action (the image is extremely large). I have a multiple monitor setup, so on the left side you will see the main application running. On the right side, the game is running and all ingame overlays are running also. (P.S. I use a Nostromo for keybindings).

This next image is a look at the options available on each ingame overlay.  Each ingame overlay will remember its own options, position on the monitor, and size of the window, so you will be able to setup the parser how you like it and then not have to worry about setting up the windows every time you run the application.

Window Scaling does what you would expect and scales the window down in size. This slider goes from 20% to 100%, with 100% being the default. (Note: I'm running 1920x1080 resolution to give you an idea of the size of the window)

One of the new options available is "Auto Dim". This feature will automatically dim the window after a certain period of inactivity, which you can set from 1 to 20 seconds.  This screenshot below shows the window mid-dim. The screenshot after shows the window in full dim... it's just barely visible. Mousing over the window or new activity will cause the window to come out of dim.

Each fight is saved in the solo parser, allowing you to go back and look at previous fight data. To accomplish this, there is a drop down box at the top of the solo fight that allows you to choose previous fights.  I haven't quite come up with the final solution to non-boss fights, as you can see below. As of this moment, any fight that appears in the "Boss" filter tab on the website will be listed by name in this dropdown. So, if I fought Kephess, instead of "Generic/Trash Fight" appearing, it would say "Kephess the Undying". The numbers in the brackets are the start and end times.

The parser gives you a few options with respect to your companion and they mirror the options available on the website. You can choose Player, Companion, or Player + Companion. The options do pretty much exactly what they describe.  It is also completely retroactive, so if you wanted to see how just your companion did for one fight, choose the fight and then choose "Companion" and only his/her stats will be displayed.

The "Detailed Stats Breakout" button does not do anything at this point, but my idea for this button is to create a new window that is not an ingame overlay designed for people with multiple-monitor setups.  You will be able to click this button and get a new window containing all the same information offered in the ingame overlays plus more.  I don't have the plans on this window finalized yet and am still kinda working through it, but I think it will turn out well.

I have plans to add a "Just the Stats" ingame overlay for those of you that don't care about bargraphs or numbers specific to the spells and just want to see the main stats like Damage, DPS, Heals, HPS, etc. This window will be modeled just the same as the other ingame overlays but will just be numbers.

And lastly, I want to work on adding more options to the ingame overlays that give you control over the information being displayed. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to present these options yet and how much control I will be able to provide, but I think the more the better. This will probably not be implemented until a later date.

So, what's next?  Well, I will spend the next couple weeks finishing up the solo parser, stabilizing the server code and begin drafting concepts and ideas for the group parser.  The more I do, the more I realize needs to be done.  It's coming along very nicely, but I still cannot offer a solid time frame of when the parser will be ready for release.

Thank you everyone that has emailed me and expressed interest in participating in the testing phase(s) of the parser. I hope to have more information available for everyone soon with respects to testing the solo portion of the parser. If you are interested and have not yet contacted me, feel free to email me at james@torparse.com.

Thanks!