New Website & Forums | Server News | Forum

For the last few weeks I have been testing some new back end stuff that will eventually be implemented into our sites. At the moment, there is a temporary site set up on a non-publicized url until we're ready to implement the changes.

Change of Site Function
Some of the stuff you'll eventually notice when we implement the changes:

• Site Design & Navigation

We're going to make it easier to get information people need, both visitors, newbies, and veterans. Currently, our navigation is ehh.. We're going to simplify things and make it dummy proof.

We're also going to make it easier to vote on several systems, utilizing dropdown navigation. When someone thinks 'Where do I vote?'. they just click on the navigation that says 'Vote'.

• Information Delivery

We implemented the wiki in order to give detailed easy to use tutorials on many aspects of the server, but not everyone uses it. We're going to expand on the wiki, but also change the basics of information to be on the main site, in an easy to use guide on everything from rules to portal ships to shops.

We're also going to shrink the blog post format and make it focused simply on server news, which will be updated MUCH more frequently than the current posts.

Change of Forums Functionality

The good news about the forums is that the platform I'm testing is going to allow us to import all the old forum content and groups and users into it, which is hugely valuable to sustaining old content and not losing the over 3,600 posts you guys have contributed over the last year.

The point of the new forum platforms:

*Subscribe to forum threads (email notification of replies)
*Better searchability
*API integration for our eventual dedicated solution
*SEO indexing
*Better embedding ability for images and videos
*Better user profiles (add images, better forum signature)
*Better forum statistics including who's online now
*Post ratings (Users can give forum posts a star rating)
*Rich text editing of posts

I just wanted to update you guys all on some of what I've been doing over the past few weeks. I'll be calling on staff to help with testing on the test site until we have it where we want it, then I'll announce a downtime date, and the site will begin migrating to the new stuff.