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[Matthew N. Wright]

[1714021865]

1714021865

[1714021865]

1714021865

[1714021865]

1714021865

[geek-trader]

This is the bitcoin betting fighting game?

Because I suck at fighting games.

I gamble at more traditional gambling games - black jack, ponzi, and this new minesweeper thing (in my sig). 

but then, I'm old, and new things scare me.   

[MtRev]

I agree with Kais, when I first visited, it wasn't even working. You should never had made it public until it's actually completed.

Try having a FAQ with screenshots and arrows pointing to simple text. I know it's pretty straight forward when you actually test it out, but normally, you have less then 10 seconds to capture your viewers attention before they leave your site.

[newMeat1]

I've got a few ideas...

It took me awhile to find the link to Bitfu. I now see that it's in your signature, but still, that was a few wasted minutes. How about, whenever you type Bitfu, you link it to your site. That will get many curiosity clicks. Go fix this now  

When I go to the page, I'm not convinced that it is, indeed, a "flying car that uses only solar power." What I see is a white screen with minimal text/graphics. Doesn't look too impressive.

Let people play for free. It will help spread the word. Accept BTC as payment for small tweaks/advantages/customizations to help people stand out. It's amazing the crap that people will pay money for, as evidenced by Team Fortress 2.

If nobody is online, don't say "0 people online." That is a buzzkill

Other than that, I think the idea is cool. It could really take off. Because of the aforementioned problems, I was too cheap to try it  

[GamblingPurveyor]

The first thing I notice is that it takes a long time to load all those visuals. (I'm 78% loaded as I write this). You could make the site load a LOT faster without losing much visual quality by using indexed-palette images instead of TrueColor ones. Just as a test, I applied this process to your scroll_left.png, and got the size from 119KB to only 48KB. As you can see, the visual difference is imperceptible:

   http://i53.tinypic.com/30hmrnd.png

Once they're loaded, however, the site is beautiful.

Secondly, I couldn't deposit money because I wasn't logged in. The message didn't come with a link to login or register. In fact, in searching around, I can't even find the login/register link. How can anyone log in if there's no link? This is actually a strike against your interface. Since you require a login before anyone can play, there should be a login/register link conspicuously placed in the upper-right corner of every single screen.

You might want to reconsider not allowing anonymous play. While, yes, it's possible for somebody to abandon their money by closing their browser, that occurrence is actually pretty rare. If you want people to put up money, there should be as few steps as possible in doing so. On my site, which saw 78 BTC in wagers today, there's a deposit address on the very first page you see, so all you have to do is send your Bitcoins. The more obstacles there are, the fewer people will play, which brings me to:

This is a tiny market. With my site's house edge, the 78 BTC of wagers today amounts to only 0.35 BTC worth of long-term expected value (short-term, I lost money today). The fact that it takes several days of research and several more days of moving money through slow financial institutions for most people to be able to get their hands on Bitcoins is a very big obstacle. (However, many successful fiat-accepting online casinos require you to send them paperwork before you can play, so it is possible to run a successful gaming site with Bitcoins)

Even once you fix all of that, you'll run into the problem of network effects. If I go to your site and see that nobody else is playing, then there's nothing more for me to do there. Because of this, the first question in my mind when I went there was "how many other people are connected right now?" There was no way for me to find this number. It should be right there on the front page.

Betco.in got past this problem by being very persistent. When I first saw that site, there was almost never anyone playing it. It was left up even though it wasn't making any money. The owner even turned off the rake for a while. Even now, there are still only one or two tables active during the busy times. It was because of this that I chose to make a single-player game instead of a multiplayer one. You don't need 2 people to play video poker.

Because I suck at fighting games.

Looking at your game, I discovered that it's not a true "fighting game" in the tradition of Street Fighter. Instead, it's more of a rock/paper/scissors game, which is closer to a traditional concept. If more people understood this, you'd get more players.

[GamblingPurveyor]

I found the login link. NoScript gave a warning about "Clickjacking" when I clicked the OpenID link. When I approved the script anyway, it said "We were unable to process your login. Please try again."

[GamblingPurveyor]

What service was giving the error?

http://openid.anonymity.com/

IMO, if you're going to require logins, you should handle them directly. The direct approach is much
less bug-prone.

In response to needing to login before betting, i agree thats turns some people off, but after seeing how quickly users here can jump to conclusions and label things publically as 'scam' even when a loss of BTC is their own doing. Also at the moment im using mybitcoin for deposit handling since im ignorant of a more personal approach as of yet (id love to handle the transactions directly!) and as such cannot just leave a public wallet id.

I found that handling transactions directly is actually easier than interfacing with another Web site like MyBitcoin. You just get bitcoind running, and connect to it with a JSON-RPC or HTTP library. The tradeoff is that because bitcoind is a dedicated background process, you need a VPS.

The rest of the advice has been well recieved and I offer no excuses, especially the image size problem. I wasnt aware if the mentioned option for decreasing file size.

I recommend you read Yahoo's Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site. It contains a lot of useful information.

[opticbit]

I found the login link. NoScript gave a warning about "Clickjacking" when I clicked the OpenID link. When I approved the script anyway, it said "We were unable to process your login. Please try again."

Im on my iphone so apologies for the brevity in advance.

As you found, the login, deposit, etc all exist,(even the number of users is displayed on the bottom left) i guess i just didn't make it clear. As i had already assumed, writing a tutorial is going to probably change all of that, maybe remembering who has seen the tutorial, making a prrmanent icon on the screen for easy review or asking if someone wants to see it when they first open the page.

As for the login not working, thats undoubtebly due to my lack of experience (im completely new to OpenID) but i have tested google and facebook, and they work just fine. What service was giving the error?

I realize this needs to be mentionef somewhere and a login needs to be clearly visible (it was in the earlier version that everyone seemed to like) but accounts are created automatically by logging in.

In response to needing to login before betting, i agree thats turns some people off, but after seeing how quickly users here can jump to conclusions and label things publically as 'scam' even when a loss of BTC is their own doing. Also at the moment im using mybitcoin for deposit handling since im ignorant of a more personal approach as of yet (id love to handle the transactions directly!) and as such cannot just leave a public wallet id.

The rest of the advice has been well recieved and I offer no excuses, especially the image size problem. I wasnt aware if the mentioned option for decreasing file size.

Ill get to work tonight on correcting these flaws and develop a more helpful design that 'carries' unknown users into the proper functions.

Thanks guys!

brevity!?!  almost time for a TL;DR
course I've been drinking for the past few hrs...

I haven't heard of the site till now, and noticed the posts about it takeing long to load, so Its been loading while I read the comments, and should be done by the time I start to write this comment... Checking now....

ok first problem openid double pop up- One click would be nicer.

lol I'm # 187

Ok so yes Load times and delays are a pain...

When learning a new site I do things methodicaly so first click temple
next two clicks nothing there.

next click meditation.

go back how do i go back.  wtf, ok, i need to log out and log back in to go back, oh wtf ok well login takes me back, ok.

next fight is um fuck I forgot what I was going to say...

ok so NSF, wtf where do I pay.

Oh there it is bottom right Keep it there...

Broken rule don't gamble when drunk...

Google chrome Mybitcoin pop-up blocked.

waiting for payment confirm, now I know why btc bubble closed up, cause of My Bitcon this is taking for ever.

ok mybitcoin is fucked up, took for ever to to pay from my local wallet... Paid from my bitcoin works fine.

new invitation what is this google+ and I'm e-mailing someone else?

practice = free play?

Invite = for money?

in invite it does not show the result of game play, just goes back to the history page.
balance does not update at the end of the round, or in the next round.

how do I withdraw my balance?
.089 BTC sitting there.  .011 lost in rounds, don't know if thats the correct number, history shows I won more than I lost.
Played .01 btc in all the rounds except a couple for .001. with person not computer

Playing with person or person not clear.

I'm usuing chrome could be related, maybe not a problem in firefox??

holy shit I've been at this for an hr time for bed.

Played quite a few rounds.

what beats what??? rock paper scissors...

MD5 prior to bets would be nice.

Plese Return .089 I can agree to what it seems to be reporting as my winnings/losses.
 to 1FmsQpPz2M3C1DMZUQw3Gx8mfb9HfwYRM9 or fix withdraw button and let me know.

Fix the mentioned problems...
Add a referral option to gain more people and I'll put it in my sig for a little while, and it will go to my referral links page (check my sig) also since this is gambling it will go on my controversial links page (check witcoin), once fixed.

looks nice, seems to have some issues that needs looking into.

get some graphix for your kick punch block selections, post some odds or something. (not required repairs, just to make it look better)  actually odds would be nice in the lesson section, guess your working on that.

one last thing... in the chat section I have to click to send, let me hit enter.

Ok I'm up too late time for bed.

[opticbit]

Fuckin A. That was actually very helpful believe it or not. You gave me the average person's point of view in a step by step rundown. Now I know what people are thinking when they first go there. I can only do so much as the developer to beta test, and since I know what's wrong with things already, and can provide plenty of 'developmental excuses', its important for me to hear from the community who doesn't know what line of code was supposed to do what so I can help shape it better. Thank you.

As for the refund, I'll check the database to make sure your balance is 0.89 and send it back immediately. I'd send the entire 1.0 BTC back (since you were just testing it for me) but I'm afraid that didn't go to me, it went to another player (and they might not appreciate that )

P.s. Go back to a previous menu by clicking the logo. Since youve made it clear this IS confusing, Ill make 'back' arrow button now. ^^

go back doesn't always show up.

I only started with .1


Got .09 back thanks.

[opticbit]

#1)
I believe that was DrunkBit you played with...
DrunkBit has the intelligence of a 5 yr old, very important for testing things for the public.  SoberBit may only be as smart as a 12 yr old but I take what I can get.  (I'm 12 and what is this)

I'll have to try again Some stuff might make more sense.

Sorry DrunkBit forgot micropayments don't work so well going from mybitcoin to a personal wallet.

I can understand not wanting automated bad with draws, Might want to put a warning up and instructions on a manual withdraw.

#2)  I never even saw the preloader, It was in a tab while I was starting this, I' go look right now... Load time not so bad.

#3) haven't tried yet.  Need to get some food, so i'm going through quick.

#4)  OK

#5) Sometimes wasn't always sure if I was playing the computer or a person... and what happend.  Maybe some type of status info box on one edge of the screen.

#6) Understandable.  Just post something to clarify it somewhere obvious.  People Like to get their BTC.

#7) forgot to mention I'm on a Mac too.

#8)  Some type of status info needed to reassure that you are playing against a human and not the computer.

#9)  Everyone loves BTC referral rewards of 1-5% of lifetime losses is typical for gambling sites, check my list of referral links.  see what others offer. Special weapon stuff could be fun too- once developed.

#10) I was in no condition to figure that stuff out a few hrs ago. Nice to have on display.

#11) I didn't use it much, but Its nice to be able to chat with other users.

Glad I could help. good luck. 

[ex0420]

I played i few games. Just waiting for my challenges to be accepted.

[GamblingPurveyor]

The site loads a lot faster now. However, I wasn't able to see the log in window until the preloader was nearly finished. You should load the images used for logging in first, then load other assets.

I still can't log in. Same error as before.

[GamblingPurveyor]

Facebook and Google/YouTube are both a PITA to get accounts on, and they have questionable privacy practices. I won't register for Facebook or Google or Twitter just to register for another site. It's probable that your third-party login provider only allows OpenID from certain whitelisted providers (such as, once again, Google). Until you implement or install a stand-alone login/registration system, I'm afraid I won't be able to play.

[k]

Hi,

tried to test it out. It's not very clear exactly how it works. Maybe some text explaining things might help.

Sent some money in. Put a challenge up yesterday. No takers today. Canceled it and tried to figure out how to get my 0.1 BTC  back. Couldn't figure that out, how do I get it out by the way? Put up another challenge (#369) - I'll leave it there till tomorrow if there is anyone interested in accepting it.

thanks

[Tronlet]

Facebook and Google/YouTube are both a PITA to get accounts on, and they have questionable privacy practices. I won't register for Facebook or Google or Twitter just to register for another site. It's probable that your third-party login provider only allows OpenID from certain whitelisted providers (such as, once again, Google). Until you implement or install a stand-alone login/registration system, I'm afraid I won't be able to play.

Where did you hear this? I knock them off in a couple minutes if I need a fresh email account for something simply because Gmail is the fastest to sign up to, twitter is equally easy. From your post it seems you haven't ever had any firsthand experience.

[evoorhees]

Just looked very briefly... had a suggestion.

On the home page that user FIRST sees when visiting the site - embed a widescreen (but not too big) video of actual gameplay... just 20 seconds or something. Then user can see the action, and will be tempted to pursue it.

As it is now, user just sees obstacles, no sexy action