What happened?

[phry]

Just mulling some ideas around the old noggin...

...and good ideas they sound too! So long as Neo Geo for Life exists, any changes to keep it fresh is more than welcome as far as I'm concerned.

An editable wiki-style character database is a great idea and should hopefully encourage a lot of contribution from users and guests alike.

It could also *possibly* include a section for non SNK fighting games etc etc, so we could cover other stuff that might be of interest to people (eg the Fist of the North Star game), and maybe even a little anime.

Hopefully this will result in converting a few people to the greatness of snk. Visitors to these will be drawn to the might of Neo Geo! (like what NGFL has done to me )

I'd definately be up for helping - may it be contributing content, editing the database or anything else where I can be of use.

[Kazuya_UK]

Hey guys/gals,

Think the time has come to change stuff with the site now. I've been getting a bit fed up lately because the main site is being spammed like hell, and the comments are getting filled up with random junk as quick as I can delete it and ban IP addresses (and unfortunately using the current script I can't change it so that you have to register to post comments). The submit news/reviews/broken links forms are getting spammed up too, and my email inbox is filling up with more random crap about generic viagra than Ron Jeremy could shake his oversized man tool at

I need to do something about it, so I think I'm going to kill two birds with one stone and install a content management system that will be able to handle the full site, so instead of having lots of random scripts for things like posting news etc etc, it would handle everything. It would also mean that people can sign up for one account to do everything - forums, posting comments on the site, uploading images to a gallery (yea, can get he fanart section going properly again for a start, and maybe add a collections page if people want that), and so on so forth.

There's a few I have been looking at and so far I'm thinking that I might use PHP Fusion:

Link -->

PHP Fusion (not to be confused with the Fusion PHP news script I have used up until now) looks decent and would work very well for us, but I am worried about the forums that come with it. They look very basic, so I am hoping there is a way of implementing some other forums into the site, otherwise I may look for a different system. And yeah, this does mean that I am considering moving the forums away from proboards - I don't honestly think it would be too big a deal now as we could still keep peoples post counts (if they really want em ), and we could keep this forum here for the time being as an archive. I do like thr idea of having our own hosted forums because it gives us more freedom on what we do with them, whereas proboards frown upon certain things... for instance, foreign language boards, which is something that can get your forum deleted. I remember when we had all the dutch members that seiryu got over here and we had to stop the dutch language thread because I didn't want to get in trouble, which was a shame really.

Our host actually offers quick installs of many CMS's, so I could have the relevant script installed in seconds, and it would just be a case of transferring the content of the main site to the new one and also setting up the colour scheme and layout to suit our needs (there could also very easily be user selectable colour schemes/skins).

I will possibly go ahead and install 2 or 3 different scripts and see which one works best and offers exactly what we need, and I'll be in touch with the mods and a few other members if people are interested in helping test it out etc. As we speak I'm messing with the PHPFusion script, so expect more news on this soon.

Really need to do this now to stop all the spam and crap, and it will benefit the site greatly anyway imho. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome

Kaz

[werD]

Sounds great!
I personally don't care about my forum posts, number of posts etc. Change anything you want.

-Drew

[sukotsuto]

That's probably the fresh coat of paint we just need to get things going again ;D

Sounds like an awesome idea! The foreign language boards should attract more international members too, seeing that the arcade gaming scene is still going strong in some countries (Like the Philippines or some coutries in South America).

[Goemon]

Damn, that really sucks about the spam attacks the site. I like idea of changing things to PHP Fusion. If posting on the site was simplified as you mentioned Kaz, i'd definately do it alot more.

About moving to new forums, that would be fine with me. I don't mind even if we have to lose our post count.

[fusion24]

i reckon the online craze is slowly dying out. even i manage to beat the addictions.

[fusion24]

ta for the linky i forgot that i stillhad registration at neo-geo.com

[Kazuya_UK]

Thanks for the replies guys! I have decided upon definitely using PHP Fusion, and have already got a little test site of it up and running. Spent the morning getting the colour scheme to match the sites main scheme, but it still needs a little fine tuning to get the font sizes and other things just right. As I mentioned it's really easy to get themes for it so people can change their colour scheme anyway if they don't like the default. Also, I have had feedback occasionally about the font size being too small, so I might try to increase it a little, or maybe have two seperate themes for the default colour scheme: one for small fonts, another for large fonts. Shouldn't take long to sort out.

Let me play with the design a little and I will have something to show soon. I'll let the mods know where the test site is if they want to have a look and suggest anything, but if any other members are interested in helping to test it too then let me know

Kaz

[Kazuya_UK]

VERY VERY VERY early preview just so you can get an idea of how things will be




Click for a hi-res version -->

That is one of the themes I got, which I think looks really nice and suits the site well! However, I already finished making a theme which has exactly the same colour scheme as the current one for those that prefer to stay using that, along with a few others that I uploaded. I won't post any more preview now for a little while, but I will keep people updated with what's going on and as I mentioned before, I will need a few people to test the actual site itself sometime soon

Kaz

[Goemon]

Looks great to me

[phry]

That does indeed look great Kaz. The theme suits the site well, whilst still giving a fresher look too, plus content management is an excellent idea as is greater freedom with the forums. Definately up for testing. ;D

[Kazuya_UK]

Mods please see the members area - if you dont still have a pass please msg me

Kaz

[circa2113]

Nice job on the new site so far. Can't wait to see some of the things you have mentioned implemented. I think the fan-input would be a lot better and the site may grow a good bit.

[werD]

Looks great. The shoutbox is a nice touch too.

[Kazuya_UK]

Thanks werD!

Another preview with much more of the functinality worked out!



VERY hi-res image -->

Getting there now! ;D

Edit: Just as a side not I found a way to change users post counts, so when the new site is up and running, if you would like your post count restored, it is not a problem. The forum itself doesn't allow you to do it, but editing the actual MySQL table database where all the data is stored works wonders . There's a new ranking system with more user ranks depending on how many posts you have too, so it's totally your choice on whether you want to be bumped back up to where you are here, or whether you'd prefer to work your way back up the ladder... that is, if anyone really cares about post counts

Kaz