Forum Software Update - May 21

In any online community, keeping the environment that you’re using up-to-date and easy to use is essential. That’s why, on May 15, we’ll be upgrading the forums from the current vBulletin software to XenForo.

Thankfully, due to some preparation tests we ran this past week, the process should be smooth. The forum will be down for approximately two hours while we make the change, but during the transition all the existing information, including usernames, passwords and threads and posts will be carried over intact.

With the new forum, we're presented with an interesting opportunity to re-examine the way we go about doing certain things.

First and foremost, at least in my mind, is the Ideas section. I’ll make a new post going over that in detail but the basic intention is to give the Idea section more a more defined structure. What this will involve is reworking some of the sub-forums to make their purpose more clear, but as I said I'll go over that in a different post.

Second is the Code of Conduct. While a rigid CoC is helpful for maintaining order, there is such a thing as being “too” rigid. I definitely want to promote more discussion around the games and I've come to realize that a couple sections of the Code of Conduct may make that difficult. We will start out with a trial run of an updated Code of Conduct to see how things work out and if everything goes well, we’ll make that the official one going forward.

Upgrading to XenForo will get rid of many of the problems we've been experiencing with vBulletin over the years and hopefully a new forum and a slightly more lax Code of Conduct and better feedback for Ideas will promote positive conversation around the games. If there are any other sections of the forum that you think should be overhauled, please make sure to let me know. Tell your friends!

 

Sure sounds good....looking forward to trying it on for size.

 

Sounds great! I would like to see the section on Hidden Blueprints updated, you can't find anything there without reading a bunch of threads.

 

Thanks for the update and for the constant efforts to make the forum and the game fun and interesting.

PS: Please tell me you laughed as hard as I'm laughing at the second sentence of paragraph 5.

 

I didn't think of it that way the first time, but this was my face when I read it again: ಠ_ಠ

 

This sounds good.

Any chance we can get threads to socialize via the Forums or some threads for forum games/off topic discussions/god-natured spamming? I've seen those on many other game forums and they're usually what makes people want to take a look at the forum/stay there and discuss.

 

@ Das liebe Beil Yep, an off-topic forum sounds like a good idea and I've been thinking along the same lines.

 

Will facebook connect transfer directly over too?

I dont remember any login info for this site.

 

We'll need to make a different app for the Facebook connect, but yes, we'll have that as well.

 

Off topic areas......not as strict code of conduct? Sounds exactly like it use to be before the one whos name we cant speak...cough cough DEL cough cough TAN cough cough changed it to what we have now.

 

Is that a, uh, good or bad thing?

 

Good thing in my opinion

 

this is really good and with the new forum it seems like there will be less restrictions for what we are able to do and that is good.and a suggestion i would make is this-

could have the forum set up like this-

section 1: announcements and under that you have a sub-section for all of the games, making it easier to find info faster. also a announcement subsection for general info about the forums and server update/maintenance ect.

section 2: FAQ: then have it have sub-sections like the announcements

section 3: general discussion-
have al;l game general discussion areas and then general discussion where people can just discuss what they want that isnt related to the game. or could be related to several games at the same time

section 4:ideas section and in here you just have the way you want to arrange the ideas section

section 5: have an area that splits off into the 4 games subsections like the anouncements section would, and have support/bugs link thatll bring you to support and then you submit what you need to

EDIT: also at the top of the home page have a code of conduct forum that goes over it.

also now that we are moving to a new forum i think all the veterans that have been around before the switch should have a cool name or someting that says we were here on the original forum

SDIT 2: some of you might be thinking why have it set up like this and here is why-

so thatthe whole forum would actually be used instead of how it is now where only a few certain parts of the forum are used and it would make things alot easier to find and get to

 

I would like to see a little more room for off-topic discussion in threads, as long as it's not arguing or anything bad then I see no reason why people can't have a bit of fun. I've had many posts removed that were harmless fun and it was a bit upsetting.

 

hopefully it stops the mysterious self deleting that happens to me and possibly a few others? when there is any possible reason for it too happen

 

Me, id like to see a complete, and comprehensive craft guide. Which means listing the item/cost/location of every crafting item. I think it would be invaluable to any new player. Or maybe even to an experienced player. There are times when you may want to go and craft something and cant remember where to find the ingredients. So, you go to the forum where you ask. Most times, the response you get is very very vague. Something like, "oh its in this city or its a "boss drop". But, they may not be able to remember what job or what boss will drop what??..so, it would be a tremendous help in knowing exactly where to get things. You could even make the list in chronological order how they appear in the game..

 

Update: The upgrade will go down on May 15 at 2:00 pm PDT.

 

so you dont just want help, you want everything pointed out for you as well? wheres the fun or challenge in that?

 

Update on the ...update: While the original import test ran smoothly we unfortunately encountered complications. Our IT guy thought it was best to abort the update for now and re-run some tests.

We've moved the transition to next Wednesday, May 21.

 

sounds good. hope whatever had happend is an easy fix for the guy. will be counting down the days again lol