Site Overhaul?

What if the user uses a diffrent language and isn't quite proficent enough to understand that line? It would be a shame, seeing that many talented people in these forums seem to be using a translator. A pretty bad one, may I add.

You certainly like this Drupal thing, any ideas how long it's gonna take for the site to get this drupal?
And yes, the achievement and noob section sounds like a very good idea!

Just thought of something...

...if/when we swap board hosts...would we lose all our current topics and post counts?

Everything should be transferred normally. It's possible that forum polls would not be transferred properly, but I will try not to let that happen.

Besides learning how Drupal works, it's actually quite easy to set all of this up. I'm a bit worried about auto-promotion, which may be a new idea that nobody's thought of before and in that case I would have to make my own module for it. But it's very extensible and should be easier than IPB to modify. I've already gotten the hang of reskinning the thing, and it's a lot easier than skinning IPB was. Part of that could be my increased skills in CSS, though, but all of the tools are in the same place and put together in a much better Web 2.0 sort of way so it's way easier to work with anyway.

Don't forget that many of those number left a long time ago over whatever the hell they were all fighting over. In fact, if you look at the stats, the day with the highest number of users online at once was about a year ago, wasn't it?

I've found a good existing way to do auto promotions, which could also tie into a store/achievement system. It's all looking good.

I want to know opinions on the look and feel. How do you like or dislike the forums v2? How about the new v3 skin (besides missing features like Quick Edit)? Do you like the main site better or worse than the forums? Do you prefer a bright skin like The Town?

Personally, I like the v3 skin. I don't think a bright skin like The Town fits this place at all.

actually what about a literature section? you know an extra section to discuss from books to movies etc....

well rpg town V3 looks more ordered but in my opinion it looks a bit empty....

as for the noob thing well I've made a plan of sorts...
why not place a question while making the new account: "Have you any experience with RPG MAKER?"
the possible answers would be yes and no. selecting yes will allow open access to the full place while
placing no would get you to the noob section. however to avoid noob spamming there's a pledge to follow:
"selecting "yes" means you already have skill on RPG MAKER meaning if you get caught spamming or
making noob-ish questions well.... admin decides the consequence"

at least that's how I'd deal with with the noob issue...

(btw... if all accounts were to be re-made is there a way to carry my rank over? I honestly don't want to
start as a foreigner again.... that title made me feel unconfortable.... you know left out......)

We can see how things go. I'd like to have a period where we try out the new site before I import anything. In that time I think we should try starting from the bottom and see how it feels.

It would be easier to start over with user points, but I may be able to award them to you after the switch to improve your rank.

I'll stick with v2 though, my computer gets real bitchy sometimes most-times...
My computer's a bitch...

The only reason been "Quick Edit", I could never live without

Yes, but it means I have to load a whole new page, while quick edit stays on the same page, I do also like fast reply as well, but it doesn't have a smilie bar but I can make do, I dont know if V3 has a fast reply box, shall check, yes it does, and it's better looking than v2's, but I'll still stick with v2

I'm guessing we should make a poll to see how good v3 is.

I'd like to know what you guys think of this screenshot. It's a shot of the Drupal skin I'm putting together. This is of the forums, though you can see other goodies like the navbar at the top (ignore the lack of a bottom border for now), the RPG Palace banner, and menu block styles. And admire those awesome View/Edit/Track tabs!

The design is a hybrid fixed-width (what we have now) with liquid width. It will scale from 960px wide to 1200px wide. What you see is the 1200px. At 960px the content area is the only thing that shrinks, and it is flush with the banner.

The main site is going to be updated into this system as well. I would like it if somebody would volunteer to take the raw data from the download system and reimport it to Drupal. I'm still deciding how to best organize the content, but after it's all in the system it will be searchable and people can comment on the submissions.

I'm sure the shoutbox will stretch down a little further to accommodate all the lovely shouts you are planning to fill it with(!). The Inner Circle is a forum exclusively for the use of druid townies, to talk about the best ways to make sacrifices to the pagan gods. It's a secret forum though, so don't let anyone know I told you about it.

Yeah, I really like this! As I say I still think this colour scheme works very well, though it's a nice spin on what we have here. This might sound fussy, but there isn't a great deal of space between the post header and the actual words themselves (between the light blue header and "First post body"), which bugs me a little, as well as the fact that the forum width is longer than the banner, but I'm probably just being fussy. The tabs are a great idea, and I am curious (in a good way) about this 'Give Points' button: I'm presuming this is to show one's appreciation of a helpful post/valuable contribution - does this mean we are having a shop of some sort?

I'll certainly be willing to sort through all the data, though my next few weeks are still up in the air/potentially rather busy (moving into a new job).

The new banner is the same one that's been on the main site for many months now. It was contributed originally by a very nice member that I can't remember the name of now, who is no longer active.

As for the "Give Points" button, that takes points away from you and gives it to that person. I'd like a different place to put it. However, I've just implemented a "Vote Up/Down" system which gives each member one vote to give points or take away for good posts.

Right now I've got two kinds of user points planned: "Promotion Points" will promote your account, while "Store Points" can be used towards certain goodies. I may as well ask, though:

Would we all rather that a user's promotion points be separate from store points? That is, if somebody has 500 points, and wants to buy something from the store for 300 points, should they be demoted from the role earned at 400 points? Or should they keep their role after they've earned it, until they do something stupid and get voted way down?

I'm also considering different promotion points for different areas. Maybe somebody posts a lot in Game Making, so they get promoted there, but has never really participated in general discussions so doesn't get into the Debate Panel? Not that I'm going to bring back a category that's been dead for years...

On a separate note, would it be useful or confusing if you could post topics in multiple forums? It would not be an easy feature to implement (I'd have to create the forums in a roundabout way instead of using the built-in forum functionality) but if it's worth it I would be willing.

This thing about the different types of points and whatnot seems terribly convoluted and a little off-putting. My usual stance with extras that I deem "gimmicky" is to leave them well alone, but would these impact upon your ability to post? I'm not all that fond of the idea of not being able to access particular forums until you've got a certain amount of points/respect amongst one's peers: it just seems a little condescending to me. I like the fact we have different titles depending on how much we've posted, and I guess if you have relatively superficial rewards like gaining smilies when you've reached a certain level/post count would be fun. I'm just concerned that imposing too many restrictions on new members may not be the best way to encourage them to stay with us. If I walked into a pub and sat down on a chair, and was subsequently told that only publicans of a certain rank were able to use that particular chair, I would be less inclined to earn my place to sit on that chair and perhaps more inclined to tell them to stuff their chair and go to the pub down the road. Have you any message boards in mind that use a similar points system, and if so do they actually work? I'm not all that convinced yet.

Posting topics in multiple forums might come in quite handy in a small number of situations (perhaps if you want to advertise your website that hosts your pixel art, you might want to post it in both Creation Gallery and Site Advertisement, perhaps) though I don't think it'd be worth the effort really. I'm not sure how other townies check the boards, but I tend to use the 'View New Posts' button every time I log on which, well, lets me view all the new posts(!), so this sort of feature wouldn't make a difference to the way I use the forums. It depends on whether people think it's useful, really.

Apologies if I am coming across as a bit of a pessimist! I do genuinely think that we need to keep the forum design as simple and as user-friendly (for both newbies and oldbies) as possible.

[big yellow marker]The Give Points option makes me think of the Like button on facebook, an idea which I rather like(!), though I think it would work better if it flagged the individual posts as being particularly helpful (e.g. if someone posted an effective solution to a gamemaking problem that worked a treat) or even if it's merely an entertaining response. I don't see any reason why you couldn't have both, perhaps even rolled into one. If such a system were implemented it might be a good idea to have the ability to comment on the post as an option (e.g. a user might 'like' a response to his thread 'How do I make a cutscene' and could add a comment such as 'This was an easy to follow example that was very effective', which would attach itself to the top of that particular post). There is a danger that such a system could be abused by people posting silly comments, but I think on the whole it could work quite well, and would be a nice way of showing one's gratitude to a fellow user.[/big yellow marker]

egg_dragon: I really can't see the resemblance!!

RAVSO: Alas, not yet - Karl was commenting on the shoutbox in Meu's screenshot of the new forums.

That one sounds real promising... ooh maybe if my project gets real good I might fit it on "prestige projects" XD

hmm the only problem I see with this mew would be persons who "spoil" the surprise.

well let's say someone unblocks a new forum and tells someone else. then the other persons would
probably demand to enter it... or something like that but it's probably not gonna happen so
ueah sounds real good.

I'm very close now, as I think I've figured out all of the technical details and have finished as much of the skin as is necessary (What? You say I never finished the v3 skin for IPB even though I worked on it twice as long? That's just proof that the IPB skin system sucks!) It does some really cool things, but does not support Internet Explorer 6. It is really no issue for you to upgrade your browser either to Firefox or a newer version if IE, especially given that any OS that supports RMXP will also support IE7.

I still want more feedback on my ideas. Here's what I'm thinking at this point:

Users start with basic privileges, ability to post new topics in Newbie Spawn Point (nouveau Spam Bin), and can view and reply to topics in all other forums. Cannot see specific forums inside Game Discussion, instead those topics show up in Game Discussion container.

Users earn points by posting and by getting their posts voted up. Promotion points come from post count, and Store points come from votes. Store points also come from inviting other people to come to the forums. Store points can be used to buy Promotion points, or to do some nifty things like buying sticky topics, or anything else I can think of.

With enough Promotion points, users earn the right to create topics in various forums and they can see the more specific subcategories. There may also be other rights involved.

With enough rights, users can create and moderate Groups. These Groups are categorized under a forum, so you could have a Project group (like a Netplay or Community Game group) that you invite people to work on with you, and make some posts public. You could also have a New Loyals Gang group, across the whole forum where all posts are public and it's just an interface to allow you to see all posts by group members.

The downloads system is built into the forums, if they are still "forums." Under Resources you can create image galleries if you have a bunch of stuff, or you can just attach your files to a post.

The goal of the promotion points system is to ease people into the new features, especially new members. Any and all topics are permitted in the Newbie Spawn Point category, including spam-and-mayonnaise-sandwich SPAM. The goal of the new features are to make it easier for people to find what they're looking for and participate in the community. The groups are there to allow people to form smaller communities in the larger RPG Palace.

I'm ready to start importing data and testing, if we all like my plan. I'm open to revisions.

I will try to transfer accounts, but I'm not sure if I will be able to transfer passwords. They are hashed in the database, see, and unless the hashing method is the same and I can transfer the salt value the data isn't any good.

The reason I thought of doing the points that way is because I want promotion to be an automatic path, and you don't need to go to the store to do anything. If nobody ever sees your posts and votes on them, how do you get promoted? Also, if you get store points, you can use them to promote yourself faster.

How would we all feel about using this editor for posts?

It looks like no matter what path I take, we are going to lose all polls. I can look harder if they're terribly important to us, but I don't think there's anything I can do short of coding the conversion myself. We should be able to make new polls after the conversion.

It also looks like we'll probably lose passwords, and everyone will need to set a new password using the "Lost my password" link.

We will also lose display names, so your log-in name will be what displays next to your posts. As such, I have disabled display names and reverted all of us so that we can get used to the idea.

No, display names are sort of an Invision concept, designed mainly so that you can have a different display name on multiple pieces of Invision software which use the same authentication mechanism. Usernames will, however, have fewer restrictions, thereby removing the need for display names as we've been using them.