Null Parameter
08-04-2008, 02:49 PM
XForgery August Update (1 of ?)
Hello everyone! And Welcome Back to the next update of Halo3Forgery!
This is going to be a smaller update then last time, as I can't keep that epicness up forever. So, we'll go through a few things that have changed around here; some you probably noticed, others you most likely did not.
Site Overview (My, how we've grown....)
Maybe you have noticed lately, and maybe you haven't; but we've been having a very large increase in the number of new members. In the month of July we got 13 new members to the site, 7 of which were in the last week. We're hoping to keep this trend going as we have a lot to give to the Halo 3 Forging community.
To the new members who are reading this: Welcome! We hope you enjoy your stay here at Halo3Forgery; and as I keep saying, enjoy yourself. This is a great community, and we are always willing to include and help out anybody.
Site Updates (Times be a changin')
There actually isn't too much to add into this section this time around. We can't make site changes for every update. ;)
Navigation Bar (Where did it go?)
The one major difference that has been made is in the navigation bar, at the top of the page. After it was pointed out that our site wasn't friendly to small screen resolutions (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/showthread.php?t=236), we decided to remove a few items from the nav bar. The first, and most major one, is the removal of the Search link. This has been replaced by the Google Search Bar that you can now see below the nav bar. This was done for two reasons.
Google Search rocks, as it indexes all of the text on each page.
If people use the google search, it also gives us some advertising income to help support the site.
If you still want to use the site search (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/search.php), as it offers site specific features that Google can't, that is still available. You can find a link to it at the top of any forum or thread; you'll see a "Search this Forum" or "Search this Thread" link.
The other item changed in the nav bar you will have only noticed if you use the Default Style. There used to be an IRC Chat (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/misc.php?do=startircchat) link, but that has been removed. You can still access the IRC channel from the front page in the navigation panel. Speaking of this, we would like to see more activity in the IRC channel as the site grows. So, if you are ever online and looking to chat, go join the IRC. :D
Image Resizing (OMGWTFBBQ?!? No more thumbnails?!?!)
If you haven't read it elsewhere, you can read it here right now. You don't need to worry about posting thumbnails or anything in your map posts anymore as images will automatically be resized to fit the screen. The images can then be clicked to see the full version.
Be warned though, just because the images appear smaller once loaded does not mean that they don't have to be loaded completely to begin with. What I mean here is that just because all of your amazing screenshots will now fit on the page without any resizing does not mean that you should post 10 pictures that ate 1920x1080. The entire image is still loaded, it is just resized afterwards to fit the screen. If everyone posts gigantic images, it will slow load times a lot. Just be logical about it.
Another side note about this topic. You may have also heard this in other places as well, but I will reiterate it officially here. In the rules, for those of you who read them, it states that you may only place 5 images in a post. This restriction is being lifted, assuming that the privilege is not abused. Feel free to post all 10 pictures of your map into the post. :thumbup:
Community Interaction (Lets get together, yeah yeah yeah.......)
We have heard your suggestions (and cries of injustice). We are currently working on ways to get our old, new and future members together, to interact, be constructive or just have fun.
Yes, I am talking Custom Game Nights; and other things of that sort. There is nothing official, yet, but trust us when we tell you that it is not far off.
To give you an idea of things to come, some of the suggestions we have received are:
Weekly Gatherings over XBL to play on H3F Maps
Each Staff member hosts a particular night of the week for custom games, forging, whatever.....
If you have any other ideas, feel free to voice them.
H3F Moderation (When Old School meets New Sk00l)
As some of the original members from B.net may know, the original Founder of our Forgery off-shoot group, Kilq, had to leave us for personal reasons. If you didn't know, he has returned (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/member.php?u=37).
Being the original founder of the group, he will be taking over a moderator role here at H3F. So, welcome him back with a roar of thunderous applause.
July Forgery Challenge Winner (Are we there yet?)
I'm sorry for the delay on this, but we decided to postpone the announcement of this to coincide with this first August Update. Let it be known, that I did have plans to announce this in July though, and we physically could have done it; we just didn't want to. :p
So, without further ado, I give you the winner of the July Forgery Challenge (Team Doubles).
Refraction (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/showthread.php?t=200)
http://halobabies.net/forums/gallery/pic.php?mode=large&pic_id=364
By: UC Gollum (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/member.php?u=22)
Gollum will receive his month of Supporter status (we look forward to seeing you write us a blog), along with his Challenge Winner Badge.
There was some stiff competition amongst the maps, and you can check out the final reviews within each map thread, but we wanted to give some recognition to one map in particular that we thought met the standards of a winner, but it just needed that extra little something to put it over the top.
So, the Runner-Up for the July Forgery Challenge is:
Gecko (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/showthread.php?t=186)
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b74/InFaMoUS2/Gecko1.jpg
By: xInfamous2x (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/member.php?u=27)
We hope that you will check out these great maps, along with all of the others that were entered into the challenge. There were a lot of great submissions, so take advantage of it.
Random Ramblings (What your mother never told you about Halo3Forgery)
This time on Random Ramblings....
Here's one that I enjoy doing. If you scroll to the bottom of the Forum Home (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/index.php), there is a list of the people currently online, under the title Currently Active Users. If you click this title you will be taken to a list of all the members currently online, along with what they are currently looking at or doing on the site.
Now you can spy on people anytime you want! ;)
I hope to see you next time on Random Ramblings.
That's it for this update. Read, Let it soak in, Love it. :wub:
Hello everyone! And Welcome Back to the next update of Halo3Forgery!
This is going to be a smaller update then last time, as I can't keep that epicness up forever. So, we'll go through a few things that have changed around here; some you probably noticed, others you most likely did not.
Site Overview (My, how we've grown....)
Maybe you have noticed lately, and maybe you haven't; but we've been having a very large increase in the number of new members. In the month of July we got 13 new members to the site, 7 of which were in the last week. We're hoping to keep this trend going as we have a lot to give to the Halo 3 Forging community.
To the new members who are reading this: Welcome! We hope you enjoy your stay here at Halo3Forgery; and as I keep saying, enjoy yourself. This is a great community, and we are always willing to include and help out anybody.
Site Updates (Times be a changin')
There actually isn't too much to add into this section this time around. We can't make site changes for every update. ;)
Navigation Bar (Where did it go?)
The one major difference that has been made is in the navigation bar, at the top of the page. After it was pointed out that our site wasn't friendly to small screen resolutions (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/showthread.php?t=236), we decided to remove a few items from the nav bar. The first, and most major one, is the removal of the Search link. This has been replaced by the Google Search Bar that you can now see below the nav bar. This was done for two reasons.
Google Search rocks, as it indexes all of the text on each page.
If people use the google search, it also gives us some advertising income to help support the site.
If you still want to use the site search (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/search.php), as it offers site specific features that Google can't, that is still available. You can find a link to it at the top of any forum or thread; you'll see a "Search this Forum" or "Search this Thread" link.
The other item changed in the nav bar you will have only noticed if you use the Default Style. There used to be an IRC Chat (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/misc.php?do=startircchat) link, but that has been removed. You can still access the IRC channel from the front page in the navigation panel. Speaking of this, we would like to see more activity in the IRC channel as the site grows. So, if you are ever online and looking to chat, go join the IRC. :D
Image Resizing (OMGWTFBBQ?!? No more thumbnails?!?!)
If you haven't read it elsewhere, you can read it here right now. You don't need to worry about posting thumbnails or anything in your map posts anymore as images will automatically be resized to fit the screen. The images can then be clicked to see the full version.
Be warned though, just because the images appear smaller once loaded does not mean that they don't have to be loaded completely to begin with. What I mean here is that just because all of your amazing screenshots will now fit on the page without any resizing does not mean that you should post 10 pictures that ate 1920x1080. The entire image is still loaded, it is just resized afterwards to fit the screen. If everyone posts gigantic images, it will slow load times a lot. Just be logical about it.
Another side note about this topic. You may have also heard this in other places as well, but I will reiterate it officially here. In the rules, for those of you who read them, it states that you may only place 5 images in a post. This restriction is being lifted, assuming that the privilege is not abused. Feel free to post all 10 pictures of your map into the post. :thumbup:
Community Interaction (Lets get together, yeah yeah yeah.......)
We have heard your suggestions (and cries of injustice). We are currently working on ways to get our old, new and future members together, to interact, be constructive or just have fun.
Yes, I am talking Custom Game Nights; and other things of that sort. There is nothing official, yet, but trust us when we tell you that it is not far off.
To give you an idea of things to come, some of the suggestions we have received are:
Weekly Gatherings over XBL to play on H3F Maps
Each Staff member hosts a particular night of the week for custom games, forging, whatever.....
If you have any other ideas, feel free to voice them.
H3F Moderation (When Old School meets New Sk00l)
As some of the original members from B.net may know, the original Founder of our Forgery off-shoot group, Kilq, had to leave us for personal reasons. If you didn't know, he has returned (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/member.php?u=37).
Being the original founder of the group, he will be taking over a moderator role here at H3F. So, welcome him back with a roar of thunderous applause.
July Forgery Challenge Winner (Are we there yet?)
I'm sorry for the delay on this, but we decided to postpone the announcement of this to coincide with this first August Update. Let it be known, that I did have plans to announce this in July though, and we physically could have done it; we just didn't want to. :p
So, without further ado, I give you the winner of the July Forgery Challenge (Team Doubles).
Refraction (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/showthread.php?t=200)
http://halobabies.net/forums/gallery/pic.php?mode=large&pic_id=364
By: UC Gollum (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/member.php?u=22)
Gollum will receive his month of Supporter status (we look forward to seeing you write us a blog), along with his Challenge Winner Badge.
There was some stiff competition amongst the maps, and you can check out the final reviews within each map thread, but we wanted to give some recognition to one map in particular that we thought met the standards of a winner, but it just needed that extra little something to put it over the top.
So, the Runner-Up for the July Forgery Challenge is:
Gecko (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/showthread.php?t=186)
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b74/InFaMoUS2/Gecko1.jpg
By: xInfamous2x (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/member.php?u=27)
We hope that you will check out these great maps, along with all of the others that were entered into the challenge. There were a lot of great submissions, so take advantage of it.
Random Ramblings (What your mother never told you about Halo3Forgery)
This time on Random Ramblings....
Here's one that I enjoy doing. If you scroll to the bottom of the Forum Home (http://www.xforgery.com/forum/index.php), there is a list of the people currently online, under the title Currently Active Users. If you click this title you will be taken to a list of all the members currently online, along with what they are currently looking at or doing on the site.
Now you can spy on people anytime you want! ;)
I hope to see you next time on Random Ramblings.
That's it for this update. Read, Let it soak in, Love it. :wub: