Metal_Man88
Administrator

It has been a little while, due to school and other things, but I've been at it again.

Today I've taken out a bunch of really old and useless pages and combined useful information. Silver also helped make the FAQ (under the Help button) so your questions won't be unanswered as much as they used to be.

I cleaned up the introduction, and in general, the site now better reflects the current game and people running it. While back in the old days, long, whimsical pages about the roleplay being an idyllic place and a hub of Sonic RP sites was the norm, they neglected the issues at hand, issues which came to rest squarely on the GMs.

But now we've updated our info, for all the new and old people to see a more modern look at how things run here. In the process I also stomped out some really yucky old formatting leftovers from the past days.

And now the front page is no longer a cloud of vaguely redundant links followed by an arbitrary version number. In fact, odds are you're reading this from the front page, as the news posts are no longer buried away where no one can find them, but now are visible from the front page.

Anyway, this has become a bit longer than necessary, so I'll sum it up--the site will continue to be updated and, in time, will get new skins, so as to better accomodate the continued increase in members it has had. So, have yourselves a nice New Year as things get a lot more... shiny.

Metal_Man88
Administrator

The Map is the newest site feature. While it is simple, it allows one to warp around the map of Mobiusrp to various locations, making it MUCH easier to figure out who's near who and to plan out the location of scenes. It also allows you to do wacky things like play Zone Roulette or whatever else you'd do with a list of 97 locations all over the world.

Also up and coming is a new FAQ and some tweaks to make it easier for new people to see all the documentation this place has to aid them in joining.

Metal_Man88
Administrator

I've updated the Story, and we're in a new plot! The Eggman plot to be specific, read the link for details.

And I've updated the story page, reviving Debt's old RP logs. Just note they're not quite Web 14 and full of curse words and stuff, so read them at your own risk. :p

Metal_Man88
Administrator

For the longest time, we've had the same old graphics. Now these new ones will probably look the same, but so that my 2.5 hours of work aren't forgotten, I'll give a breakdown...



(This image won't show on the boards, look on the site to see it.)

The top is the new, the bottom is the old. Notice the ugly white bar on the bottom? And that weird line in the middle of the top one down there? Yeah.

Toby made a mistake when making these, accidentally adding in that white bar. It may have added contrast, but it looked bad. It caused issues with moving them around and, for some weird reason, wasn't on the bottom of it.

So I learned how to make my own website graphics; using my knowledge I replaced those with a simple single bar on the top one so it'd show up clearly, without being jarring or weird.

What does this mean? Look for future enhancements and an eventual site scheme picker. With the same knowledge I have here I'll be able to give us a new, updated top pic and more.

Thanks for reading all of this, since it took me so much random time. @_@

Metal_Man88
Administrator

We have a system to keep track of what's active and what isn't. You can set your own characters as inactive if they've been used a decent amount before and you've faded/stopped using/just inactive with them. GMs will also mark bios they find are unused for long periods of time inactive; you can of course mark them active again at your leisure.

Some other behind the scenes changes moves us ever so slightly closer to having themes, and makes life easier for GMs to an extent.

Oh, and the story should be updated more now that any GM can edit it.

Metal_Man88
Administrator

If you're reading this, the login scripts have been updated. This means more password security, but it also logs you out. If you have trouble using your password I can make you a new one; just drop me a line.

Also, more updates are forthcoming.

Metal_Man88
Administrator

Updated the GM utensils a bit. No more shall they be plagued by excessive load times.

...

Also, I'm going to clean up the bio submission regexes so they don't give weird errors.

And add the map, and update the story. In fact, I'll make the story editable in general by GMs to keep it updated.

I hope to cut down on the code clutter. We're becoming rather big, and that means a lot of bios for the system to look at.

Metal_Man88
Administrator

Yes... that's an update. The Emerald Radar is up... it's a bit simple, though.

I plan to do more involving maps, locations, and more precise descriptions of where they are in the future, but this in itself means that I'm back in action with updating, and the curse of the lack of Emerald Radar is over.

(The Emerald radar was originally planned by Toby eons ago, forgotten, and only now completed... 3 years)

Metal_Man88
Administrator

School's winding down, so you'll probably again see my face on this page more often. Most importantly in today's news we have the inactive character deleter, and also Story Page updates. Also we have the new and improved cut script put up. I'll eventually begin the things which require major coding, don't worry--just a little slow due to my schoolwork.

Metal_Man88
Administrator

Commenting has been reinstated. However, having seen (A.) People with bad bios deleting GM comments and (B.) Random people without bios leaving stupid comments on bios and also (C.) Otherwise normal people leaving nasty comments on binned bios (which is really not the point of keeping them anyway) I have opted for only allowing the bio owner and GMs to post comments in whatever bio the comments are posted in.

Additionally, only you can delete your own comments. Of course, I can delete any comments and additionally block access to them if necessary.

I fixed a minor gaffe with special characters (HTML-wise) on the front page and also made the Mycharpanel neater when it comes to code behind the scenes. Additionally I am optimizing the tables and will work on fixing up a 'wait and comment again' vote so it properly is ignored once it runs outta time.

There's also a handy feature allowing GMs to see your past revisions. I suggest you revise your bios more carefully now, as it will become bleedingly obvious when you make edits simply to evade what a GM vote says now. Furthermore we'll be able to track your activity very well.

Speaking on this, one of my next utilities will be an inactive member deleter. Anyone who has not gotten a bio approved (or even attempted to submit one, possibly) in two months will have their account deleted. This is because the memberlist is for members, not just random internet wanderers.

Depending on how annoying the problem of inactive or useless members becomes, I may automate it, so watch out, inactive people who are clogging up space.

Finally, I will be asking people who have characters and haven't put them up yet to do so so very soon, for there is no longer an excuse not to. Last time I checked we had more fields and better support than Toby's server.

Oh, and for the players currently in, the current plot's goin' good, but if you want to join in, be sure to talk to Dranar in the IRC room.

Metal_Man88
Administrator

Hello again.

The site has been updated; GMs got some more features, and we're moving towards a proper theme-changing engine for it. Also planned: Emerald Radar, scene logger, zone map/information database.

Things are becoming more stable, so there shouldn't be as many bugs to worry about. I hope you're all enjoying the work so far--it took many hours to do.

Also, Dorksnet is acting unstable, so don't be surprised if the GMs and admin aren't opped at times... it has this tendency to split on opa-ages.net, which means we may be on any one of three servers. Make sure to check all the Dorksnet servers if you wind up joining and not seeing anyone in the room.

We should get a theme to test the theme changing stuff with sooner or later, I plan to revive the old theme as a choice, for starters.

Metal_Man88
Administrator

Hi.

This is the first news announcement of the new system, and as such I have a huge chunk of news to display. Let's start from the beginning.

Firstly...

Toby's old site is dead. Siterise died today (January 18th) and isn't returning any time soon.

All people with characters who were approved on the old site and wish to rejoin may re-register and resubmit their bios. They will likely be approved quickly (Grandfather Clause and all.)

Rules have been changed slightly, be sure to read them.

I am updating this site rapidly, but there are even more on the horizon. It is likely Guide will make a new staff picture (eventually), and Amy will help make us a new site layout. Until then we will be exclusively using the old layout for the site and the various layouts we have now for the Board.

I'll probably have more to announce in the coming weeks.