Day 9 Progress Report!

[M]

Okay so it's been almost all of ten days since I hit the create board button and as of Sunday, 1 week on we've gone into public beta.. scary! A lot of work has been done, not all of it is visible yet but this is just a update on what's the good, the bad, and the ugly, the awesome and how far along we are till RP opens! THE GOOD: - Member Profiles - Done! - You're now safe to fill in your character profile without us messing around with them again (HURRAY!) They're a bit longer then normal, that's because we include power weaknesses and Animagus information all in one. We also have a couple of new fields unique to Wizards Without Boundaries to help us balance the board and defeat the evils of marysueism. Face Claim/Visa's/Abilities/Weaknesses - Most Character's who have Face Claims/Abilities have been approved and set. You'll be able to tell if yours has been approved by the green fields, if they're done a staff member will write in, initial and date the APPROVAL field. Because the Profiles are so wonderfully easy to edit and modify these provide record keeping and confirmation so people don't go changing faceclaims or powers willynilly. (Not that anyone would.. I'd hope!) You can find full listings of who has what and sign ups in the Forms and Records Department! While you wait! Waiting sucks.. I know.. but there's still plenty of things you guys can do while we nut out the fine print and get the site settled.. we aim for roleplay testing to start FRIDAY! Yes. THIS FRIDAY! In doing so we hope that you guys will be good and follow the rules (even if we haven't actually written or posted them all yet!) but I'm sure common sense and courtesy is all that's needed. That said there is a awful lot that you can do NOW! Right now while you wait, everything from setting up your characters Passport to store all their info together, filling out a Extended Profile where you can store extra information about your character.. check out Marcus' one here for a idea of how it works! Register your character's email address (twitter coming soon!!!) Request Forums! or consider adopting one of the major schools/broadcasting networks or wizard businesses.. there's a lot to chose from! Or if we haven't got something or somewhere your after request it! Now's the perfect time to shape and mould the world for what you guys want! The Bad Troll in the Dungeon! One downside of being public now is that we're getting visitors, which.. on one hand is amazing, but also means that we're opening ourselves up for abuse. and boy it didn't take long! Apparently I wasn't the only one up late Sunday so I'm sorry to "Q" and Kay and anyone else who had to put up with crap. Unfortunately it means that for the moment the guestie-friendly cbox has been swapped for the more advanced (but ever so annoying) non-guesty friendly one. Which sucks, but there you have it. My advice with it is to make sure you click on SHOW ARCHIVE next to the log in button (located in the top corner of the cbox) it has a infuriating habit of logging you out if you don't chat awhile and is only on the main page atm. It also means that at this point in time, we're in non-advertising mode. Basically, we're running on word of mouth only until we're out of Beta and comfortable to start advertising to bring in new members. That means our guest-friendly boards are down so people wanting to leave messages will have to do it though the contact form. Sorry for the inconvenience there, but there's always one bad apple around willing to troll and frankly, while I'd hoped they would be more mature, it's not fair to leave members and staff open to take the brunt of the attacks. It's cowardly, it's childish, you have issues with the site, you send a email or contact M directly, don't take it out on others. The Fugly! As you guys would know (and I've been the first to admit), our old cbox was pretty crudy. that's because one downside of rush-building a website is that you haven't had time to go shopping for the best stuff, I chose Forummotion against Proboard for a couple of solid reasons 1. It was there, 2. it was free (because I wasn't going to pay immediately for something I didn't even -know- was going to be used) 3. It had some fancy features that left me gobsmacked in awesome... and that was before I learnt how it worked!! 4. It had a built in advanced chatbox (which is the one we're using now). 5. It's Open Source! Meaning that we get the best of the best in new features as they happen. Which all boils down to you will probably see new things appear in the coming months as we learn how to use the software better! Mind the Ads: Right now you guys are probably being subjected to some dreadful banner ads.. sorry guys! I'm waiting for money to transfer to my paypal right this moment, we should be fully upgraded and paid up by the end of next week at very latest! So expect our own domain name, more upload space and saying goodbye to ads forever YAY! in the meantime M highly recommends using Adblock! (trust me.. you'll never go back!) for Chrome : https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom or firefox : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/ Boring Skins I actually find it amusing that the one thing the troll insulted was the skin. Considering it only got the header put on it (with some very clever coding might i point out!) that morning! Ironically it would have been much eaiser to make a big flashy fancy skin (there's about a bazillion pre-made templates out there after all!) However frankly I thought they where all rather boring. Roleplay shouldn't be about the text, or who has the shiniest skin or graphics. It's about the people and the quality of writing and storytelling. To which while I'm sure if I put my mind to it I could give us a amazing dynamic superskin with all the bells and whistles (I'm a programmer after all!) but what would you guys really want? Having to wait half a hour for a page to load or getting straight to your posts and getting on with it? I figured roleplay first, shiny later. Why should we have to have a header a mile high or graphics that are -pretty- but hurt your eyes? Or worse look like every other site on the web! Wizards Without Boundaries is designed to evolve and tailor into what you guys want. I certainly would have never thought i'd chose a white skin lol. I've always been one to hate them but I think.. for the moment, it's right. a clean slate, simple, elegant, confidant in itself without being overbearing. Wizards Without Boundaries is not every other site, why should we look like it? We don't want to have to follow the latest trends and styles but pick and choose from the best of all worlds. That said lol I could be way off.. but that's where you guys need to tell me what you guys want! The Awesome You Guys! I started working on this website about 11am Sunday, told "Q" about it around 4pm Sunday, one week later you guys got to learn of it and it's been amazing to see your curious, interested and excited to be a part of this world. I also want to make it 100% totally and utterly clear that we do not expect or aim to force members to stop roleplaying at other boards, frankly we don't care as long as you guys keep your timelines intact and refrain from double dipping (that is rping the same character on 2 boards at the exact same time). Some of you might decide to move characters over and that's your choice, we aim provide a fast-track service for established characters from other boards so that they can keep their ties and history intact. The New and Shiny One big advantage of starting afresh is getting to do things differently and here we've got a lot of features. and we're discovering more every day! I haven't got a handle on yet. - Coloured Topic Titles? Create Tables in bbcode? Screw that go and use HTML if you want! (just tick the box under options!) Hellyeah we've got it! and better yet we're enabling it for you guys too! .. just eh... don't go crazy k? But there's a few quibbles along with it that we've been working to iron out along the way which you can read about in Tech Support Okay so...... guess i better stop jammering and get back. to. work! Things coming soon! Our Principles! - Equal, Open, Fair, Transparent, Safe and Fun for ALL! Bruce and Brian's guide to good (and bad) Roleplay - what do fish? sausages? Cross dressing and babies have to do with the rules? You'll find out soon as we do! Twitter! School and the Education System Information - It's -very- different and -very- awesome Learn more about globalisation International Travel for Wizards and Witches Character Approvals on the 21st (to Celebrate Mel's birthday!) Full Roleplay! - FRIDAY! And lots of cool other stuffs! Singing Out - M