[Max]

As announced on the GSS frontpage, I am now free again to work on this community and its projects. After some consideration, I have decided that the first priority is going to be the forum update that the moderators and I have been working on for some time now.

Over the past several months, we have been bombarded by spam bots. A new version of the forum software should mostly eradicate this problem, and so we intend to upgrade these forums soon.

However, when we upgrade the forum software, we break the skins/themes of the forum. Instead of recreating the current skins for the new forum software, we are instead going to introduce the new skins that will accompany the new GSS website. If there is enough demand, we may ultimately also include the current elemental themes.

While we are doing all this work (upgrading the software and creating the new skins), we are also going to be reorganizing the forums a bit. Many of you have noticed that many forums are disused, and so we will be consolidating some while creating or renaming others. The moderators and I have been discussing our plans for almost six months now, and we will be further refining them up until launch.

So the obvious question is, when will it be launched? I have learned from my work with GSW that it is not a good idea to give launch dates and then miss them. So while I will not give a date, I assure you that we are going to work as quickly as we can, without sacrificing quality or thoroughness. I will be giving a one or two day warning when we will be taking the forums offline for the final upgrade and launch, but otherwise we will limit the number of announcements we will make.

Feel free to ask questions or give suggestions in this thread or the Forum Suggestions forum. While we would like to please everyone, keep in mind that we cannot implement every idea that every member desires. And please do not repeat ideas such as RPing which have already been thoroughly discussed.

[Neo]

Good thing to see you posting here Max, and it's also good to hear that you have more free time now. Just don't spend it all on GSSF and GSW, as social life is a lot more important! At this moment, besides the spambots, IMO things are going rather smooth. Although I am not on a lot, it occurs to me that the place is very active, and I can hardly imagine any improvements!

Maybe as a quick brainstorm idea, how about skins that do not inlcude the elements, but morely focusses on the characters. Meaning like, green for Felix, yellow/blue for Isaac etc. Each skin would have it's own banner, and of course I could help making those -- I would go for a somewhat simplistic, vector-ish style -- and that you could base them on the main characters -- meaning; not chars like karst etc.

Just a quick idea, though.

Anyway Max, good luck on your projects, and remember to just take your time :P

[PDM]

The forums are fine. Work on GSW.

>:O

[Golden Legacy]

I'm glad everyone will soon see the changes to the forum we've been planning for so long.

[I'm Always BROKE]

I don't really think the forums need any change... Maybe make the Golden Sun forums somewhat smaller, since almost nobody posts there anymore. But otherwise it's fine as it is now.

[Golden Legacy]

It's fine for the same, niche group of dedicated members that have remained here for so long. However, it wouldn't hurt to update the forums.

It's necessary, simply because there is so much "potential" for activity that is lost simply in the way the forums are organized. And if we look to the future (i.e. when GSW is released, and the new GSS site), we should prepare a suitable environment for the boost of activity/members.

And besides, everyone needs change. It shakes things up a bit, makes it more exciting.

[Lemontime]

If you need any graphics help, ask me :P

[Neon]

PDM, on Mar 30 2007, 11:03 AM, said:

The forums are fine. Work on GSW.

>;)

So selfish.

The forums are currently the backbone of the website. I think Max has made the right decision to work on these first before returning to GSW.

I look forward to seeing what you do with the forums, as well as the eventual site redesign.

[PDM]

Fornicatey our sofa, Neon.


It would bring plenty of users back to the forum which could be revamped at a later date to keep them here. :D