Hey gang! As advertised this past month now, a number of users and posts have been purged from the database. Please see the below lists for a summary. Should anyone have been deleted accidentally, feel free to re-register (nobody with 10 posts or more was deleted, nor was anyone who had posted "important" threads such as character profiles, guides, etc..nor was anyone who was active in late 2011 or later). The forums will likely not go through this kind of database purge in the future again, as database size should no longer be an issue going forward (regardless of how big it gets). Not that many posts were actually removed and most that were had already been moved to a pre-deletion admin section in the weeks leading up to now. Additionally, the -old- wiki link has been removed (though the old wiki itself is still technically up and accessible if needed for awhile longer until all character profiles are properly backed up).
I've been slaving away at the new RPC site design and I'm finally near the final stretch. Everything has been redesigned from the ground up...literally. A few more tweaks/additions and everything will be set to go live. The new site will differ quite a bit from this one in multiple ways. My goal going into the redesign was to keep things simplistic, elegant, and powerful all at the same time. The colors are far more subtle and not as 'in your face' as these current forums. I'm putting a bit more effort into fonts to keep it down to only a couple throughout the whole site for a more appealing look.
There's less imagery used, such as no graphical borders every other place. In this way, there's significantly less to load for each page. Even the existing images have been optimized for better memory usage (the background image for instance uses a mere 1/7th of the memory that this current site's old background used...and it looks waaay better too!). There's a lot more usage of shadow effects throughout the forum to keep an elegant appearance as a result of the removal of borders. Ellie has also been a huge help by helping design the new awesome logo (seen above in this post) as well as the background image. You'll be happy to know that she's been working on the vast majority of graphics, with only minimal input from me . That means no pixelated and/or grainy images!
Another focal point for the redesign was freedom of choice. Don't like the new fancy text editor for some reason? You can change it in your control panel (between 3-4 choices). Don't like the way the new post page viewing layout looks? Change it back to traditional style via your control panel. Don't like all the javacript? Disable it and the site will still be just as functional. Don't want alerts to certain things? Pick and choose what to disable/enable. Don't like the sidebar? You can get rid of it. There's a LOT of customization this time around and abilities to disable/enable certain aspects of the site and how it looks and acts for you individually. You can even choose what language you want the system-side text displayed as (English, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Spanish, German, and French).
The site is far more powerful than our present one in every way (except the lolgallery, as stated in a previous topic). Javascript is utilized more often for simplistic and good looking dropdown menus. Should one have javascript disabled for whatever odd reason, the navigation should still work without the need for drop down menus (though it'll require an extra screen to click through). Another big goal of mine was to allow for high levels of compatibility, even if images and/or javascripts were disabled, such as for low end mobile devices. Keep in mind that there are still going to be some graphical glitches with such devices though. But I'll try to make tweaks over time as needed.
A number of new and enhanced features are being introduced. One of my personal favorites is the new text editor. It allows for a 'what you see is what you get' mode that shows your post's format without having to hit a 'preview' button.
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There's also a new auto-detection feature for videos and audio files. Simply posting a link to a YouTube video, for instance, will automatically embed the video into the post without having to use any codes like:
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[video]link to video[/video]
There's finally a 'latest threads' sidebox, the gallery sidebox is improved, a customizable alert system similar to Enjin's is in place, and profile pages have been completely overhauled to diplay more relevant information, among a myriad of other things. I'm also looking into other features such as a blogging feature, but that will have to come a bit later after the site's launch. A full list of modifications will be made available at the site's launch in a few weeks.
The site has been tested on multiple browsers and not too many issues seem to exist. The few that do mostly involve Internet Explorer (and those are largely minor issues). Following the database merge, most things should be converted to the new site's coding format with little issue.
There are three known issues regarding the merge you should all be made aware of. 1) The tabs system utilized in the Linkshell registration process is not operational on the new site at this time. As such, that format will not likely transfer over. I'm actually working on an improved Linkshell section that'll show exactly how powerful (and user friendly) the new site is, so hopefully it'll be done in time but if not, it'll still probably be added a bit later. 2) Attachments technically transfer, but for some reason not all of them transfer fully and end up unoperational on the new site. For this reason, please backup any important attachments you may have put on the forums (by attachments, I mean actual attachments, not image links since those will be fine). 3) Your profiles will partially be wiped. Things to be wiped include your avatars, linkshell, custom title, likes given/received, and possibly other minor settings. Signatures will transfer since those are just mostly links anyway, as will usernames, passwords, private messages, and all posts. In fact, it seems deleted private messages are restored upon the merge so you may need to re-clean out your PM folders after the move.
Images in the gallery will not transfer. Please back them up, along with anything else mentioned above that may not transfer.
The wiki -content- will not be impacted. However, you will now be unable to login with your forum credentials after the move. After the merge, you will need to register to the wiki separately in order to login. This is because the new forum software does not have an up-to-date bridge between their software and the wiki software. I'm going to try to set this up so only NEW users have to sign up separately. Current registered members will hopefully be able to login with their existing wiki name/password. For the near future, I am looking to fully integrate the wiki into the forums/main site completely. The only hangup here is twofold in that 1) it will require another transfer of information and 2) the new wiki software will be -vastly- inferior to the current one. Feedback on this issue is welcome/encouraged. Some public "beta" testing on the potential new wiki software will be done before any final decision is made.
I sincerely hope the new site will be up to everyone's standards. I've been working really hard to make every tiny aspect as perfect as possible. I've actually completely stopped character developments on my Rp characters this past month and focused strictly on the new site design. This isn't to say the site will be flawless, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you'll all be very impressed with it as a whole. A new RPC for a new game is only appropriate I think. I dare say that the new site will make sites like Enjin feel slightly archaic in many regards ^^;.
We are now only a few weeks away from our 3 year anniversary. As a result, some of the current site's images have been altered to reflect that (you may need to refresh your browser for some of it). A prelude to the rebirth if you will.
If you have any questions about the forthcoming site overhaul, feel free to ask. The target date for the launch is February 8th, though this is just an ETA and not definite at all, so be prepared for a spur of the moment maintenance message at any time in the forthcoming weeks.
Hope everyone is as excited as I am for our rebirth! Here's to another 3 years and beyond!
Users Deleted:
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Total posts deleted: ~2,200
Classifieds: Now disabled