Forum Revamp Ideas Thread

You have a choice of: http://www.xfire.com/cms/xf_promote_xfire/



being my favorite.

Yeah Xfire awsome, get it if you don't have it, if you do have it use it more and if you do have it and use it then make sure you have me added to your friends list!

Xfire really good, you take screenshots with it, make vids, voice chat and whole load of things. Also it very rarely gives you any problems when using it so it a great program to use!

Possibly the admin team will setup an AoF clan that u can all apply for so that everyone in AoF that has Xfire will be in a private user list with a area for AoF on the Xfire site. If u want ofcourse...

Oh yeah i was going to do that a while back but i didn't know many from AoF with xfire so i didn't do it. Might do it soon then if we agree it good idea.

If we still had something like the test site we had before could start on redoing the Portal itself and work out from their

Ok since theres good vibe with Xfire i think we should use it and make it mandatory since its free but, before we 100% use it..i believe you can chat "text-based" with it rite? does it have a feature when u received a msg you get an "alarm" sound like that of MSN??

If so we use it as our communication tool...

btw kudos too cugix for mentioning Xfire!!!

its not alarm but in most games it sends a popup ingame were u can communicate, out of game the window box on your desktop bar at the bottom of the screen flashes when someone speaks. It also allows for Mic/TS type chat in voice allowed room & has the ability to have rooms of unlimited amounts of users in it.

It also records a large variety of game status for example it has recorded my freelancer hours since i started MP FL & it has the ability to produce a sig with your user details. check my sig...

it sounds like your all after different parts of a community based website (see http://www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/ for what i mean) you probably won't get all the stuff you want in here easy and quick cause there will obvo have to be some intergrating etc.

also (and im just guessing here), im guessing that some of the people use the dreaded internet explorer or the crappy (sorry) safari browser to go online and it could be a good idea to keep the site W3 compliant (see below for what W3 validation does).

i also agree that starting on the portal page is the best way to begin, that gives us themes, designs and layout ideas for the rest of the site.


WHAT IS W3 VALIDATION

Most Web documents are written using markup languages, such as HTML or XHTML. These languages are defined by technical specifications, which usually include a machine-readable formal grammar (and vocabulary). The act of checking a document against these constraints is called validation, and this is what a Markup Validator does.

Validating Web documents is an important step which can dramatically help improving and ensuring their quality, and it can save a lot of time and money (read more on why validating matters). Validation is, however, neither a full quality check, nor is it strictly equivalent to checking for conformance to the specification.

By validating a webpage you can increase load time, reduce bandwidth and make your users happy! Oh, and make sure the site works on lots of browsers!

by making it mandatory your not ensuring people use it you just make them do something they may not want. Why not add a new field in the profile & registration forms and make it optional or reward in some way for doing so. People need incentive not hassle.

can u tell us more about this dolphin thing. looks interesting.

also making Xfire mandatory is a step to far down that line i think. If we make it clear on the updates to the site with a block & one of those advert images i posted earlyier and abit of text under it i think that might prove the point... also maybe we should look into an advert banner thing to put on the AoF page in Xfire to link it back to the site to use it as a way to gain more members.

i'll quickly setup a demo for you, hang around takes ten mins

Simply put, it is an easy way to manage an online community with all the features people keep coming
up with here.

Now, for more details, here is the complete list of features:

- User blogs.
- Payments system (good for extended profiles or ad removal).
- Multiple languages included.
- IM.
- Video Chat.
- Simple page builders.

- Invite / Tell A Friend
- Online / Offline Statuses
- Personal Media Galleries (Video, Music, Photo)
- Shared Media Galleries (Video, Music, Photo)
- Friends List
- Guestbook
- Events
- Classifieds
- Profile Rating
- Newsletters
- User Profiles
- Profile Views (& Who Viewed)
- Media Rating
- Block Members
- Articles
- MD5 Password Encryption

- User-friendly admin system
- .... (got bored full list at www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/features ask me about individual features and it'll be easier)

ps. demo is taking longer than expected

Alot of the features make it seem as if we should call it The Poker Den. seems extremely business related community features. at the end of the day we want to operate a free gaming community.

judging by the list of features im taking a geuss that its expensive aswell because it has the ability to be used as a business.

hahaha, use it free it just contains a few links at the bottom of the page. You'll see in the demo in a min

good gear and the word free on the internet are never found on the same page. lets see this demo thing. is their any fee to get in in the first place or is it free altogether?

the demo (www.safefilestore.com/misc/) is obviously straight from the box and some of the more date site features would need to be trned off but thats just unticking a box!

it's completely free as long as you host it somewhere

feel free to register and mess about, admin i'll pm you the admin login and i'm gunna delete the site in two days time after you've all had a play...

Pm the admin to Geromix & anyone else that wants a look l8r. we are a leadership body.

ive had a look round the settings and its actually not bad. problem would be hosting becuase i think we already got most of the peeps agreeing that paying for a site would not be the step forward so i doubt they will take this. we shall see what everyone thinks but its nice.

yeh i know exactly wot u mean and paying probably isn't gd. judging on the amount of active users, if we had 50 people pay 6p a month (fuckin hell thats only 72p a year) you could get it!

Anyway, as a quick way to see if people would pay for a more community driven site, i've squashed the front page (www.safefilestore.com/misc/) and added a poll at the top, that way, if we get 50 people we know we can have a hosted site so get people to answer the poll. Also leave your name in the shoutbox underneath!

(You can only answer once from a computer and you don't need to signup to vote)

6p? as in 6 pounds in uk dollars??

no 6 pence in england money (£0.06)

for the US:

0.06 GBP=0.0879449 USD

TBH i think that if u get a site like that u should consider more on building both a gaming & a mass forum community aswell. Also we must remember that players like good sites and for our games like all the web browsers tbh the site is one of the most important things. Take freelancer, its easyily to recruit & build on tbh. you make afew allies, u get a good Rp & your gonna grow as long as the server grows.

These other games they dont make as personal a contact with the player as with flying a ship about and supporting each other. no offence not saying u guys dont support each other. the 2 things they do before they join is check ur stats & ingame profile for your clan & then they check ur site. if they both look good then they are attracted to the organisation.

Ok 6 pence is your dollar or cent? ok 6cents will be so cheap so im guessing its $6?

im not so good with currancy

6p + 94p = £1.00