EvilSeph
Administrator
For quite a while now we have been working behind the scenes, preparing what you see here today. I hope you like it. We are surely proud of our work. After quite a bit of testing - and far too much time - we decided on the 30th of November to finally go live. The downtime was longer than expected but I think we can all agree that it was well worth it.
If, for whatever insane reason, you do not agree with me, lend me your ear and I think I will be able to convince you by the end of this post.
Functionality
Where to begin? Seriously, we have added so much over the past few days. I'm exhausted.
[FIELDSET=MfM Arcade]
I see that despite having our different interests, we all seem to be unusually drawn to the Arcade. I guess we really are all gamers at heart or maybe we all just enjoy a little competition. Either way, we've brought you an Arcade and we can already tell you guys love it. Soon enough we'll take competition to a new level and start hosting tournaments either just for fun or possibly even for some prizes.
So what are you waiting for? Go check out our Arcade if you haven't already! Just promise to return to my post and read it till the end…
We'll be adding new games soon
. But if you have a specific game that you absolutely can't live without on the MfM Arcade, then please let us know![/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=MfM Live Leaderboard]
If you have and use Xbox Live then you'll enjoy this. By request of the current reigning champion, Abe Froeman, we have added an MfM Live Leaderboard that pits your stats against the hardcore gamers in this community. Are you good enough to knock our Abe off the top? Let's find out by putting your GamerTag into your profile and MfM Live will take care of the rest.
So head on over to the Edit Profile area of your UserCP and fill in the box that looks like this:
[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Prefixes]
When that first game came out that forced us to use so much space just for a thread title to categorise it (i.e. [PSP][PC][NDS][X360] and so on), we knew we would have to devise a better, more userfriendly and nicer looking method to categorise our posts.
Introducing Thread Prefixes, one of the features that will allow us to better organise the vast amount of knowledge that is being gathered up in our community by the day. For example, once we have it all setup, we'll have a list of prefixes like: PC, X360, NDS, PSP, MULTI in our Games Discussion section and whenever you post a thread in there, you'll be required to pick the prefix that is the console on which the game you are talking about refers to.
That's right. No more manually writing [PC][X360] in your thread titles.
Once we have all of our posts prefixed, we have also added in the ability to see all the posts that have a specific prefix by clicking on the prefix you want to see.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Tagging]
While prefixes could very well prove useful in our quest for organization, if a game, for example, is available on multi-platforms the best we can do is use the Prefix "Multi". Then we'll have to take advantage of our new taxonomy system to handle listing out all the different platforms the game is available on.
Basically whenever you create a thread, you should be creating tags of important keywords that describe your thread. Don't worry, our forums will provide you with suggestions and most of the tagging will be handled automatically anyway but just so you know.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Post Style Choice]
If you're a space nut like myself and NeilR then you'll be happy to know that we no longer force a post style on you. Just like we felt that making you endure the pain of having to use a certain style width, we also believe it would not be fair to force you to use a Post Style you did not like.
To choose your Post Style (Classic or New), go to the Edit Options section of your UserCP and scroll down until you see this area where you can make your selection:
You can thank for Zero. this one.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Top 5 Stats]
This new information-filled box is your window into a lot of the happenings in our community. While you cannot customize the box itself, you can collapse it OR turn it off completely if for whatever reason you don't find it interesting like the rest of us.
Click on the button marked in red to turn off the Top Stats or to view more in a separate page. Click on the button marked in blue to collapse the box.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Members that have visited today]
I did not realise how large we have already become in such a short amount of time, until I had a look at the Members that have visited today block that we recently added. It is really nice to be able to actually see how big our active community is at a glance. But best of all, if for whatever reason you want more space, you can collapse each part of the What's Going On box.
[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Usergroup Legend]
Though we may not be as colourful as other communities, we thought it would still be nice for you to know what colour means what anyway. So we added a nice little legend in the Who's Online area.
[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Title Grabber]
If you're a frequent user of our IRC channel, you'll recognise this feature as what our bot "http" coded by Nimsical does. Whenever you post a url our forums will grab the title from that url and automatically convert the url that you posted to a link with that page's title to that url. It's a bit wordy to explain but try it out and you'll immediately know what I mean.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Cool Looking Image Resizer]
Whenever you're posting an image that you find interesting or you'd like to show off to everyone else, don't worry about resizing it into a thumbnail. We've taken care of all of that for you. Once you post your image it'll be resized and mixed with some JAVA magic.
People can then click on the automatically created thumbnail and it will enlarge to a larger size. The enlarged image may be moved around by clicking and dragging it and you may browser through multiple images by using your arrow keys.
Go ahead and try it out on any of the images posted above.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Anti Double Post]
This is one feature that has really been requested. Whenever you make a double post your new post is delete and automatically merged into your previous one. But please try and keep the double posting to a minimum. It's good posting practise anyway.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=New UserCP]
We figured since we have changed pretty much everything anyway, why not give you guys a cool looking UserCP too? As with most of the things on our forums, you can collapse each of the sections if you don't need them.
[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=New Thread Button in Threads]
It has always never made sense to me as to why this is, but vBulletin does not provide you with a New Thread button when you're viewing a thread. Since this doesn't make sense to me, I thought I would change it. Now you can make threads on a whim because something someone said reminded you about an interesting topic.
[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Improved Custom Style Width]
Although we have had the Default Style Width feature for a while now, today I was prodded by birdman to change it so that you can type in your own width setting. As I found this idea interesting, I went straight to work.
Thanks to birdman for bringing up the idea you can now choose a width from the ones we have provided or, alternatively, you can type in your own width provided it is between the range of 800px-2000px or 80%-100% inclusively. This is for those of you, like birdman, who just have to have some reason to be in between what we offer.
[/FIELDSET]
Speed
Although most people would say our forums were fast enough already, I stubbornly would not agree to that and set out to make things even faster. If you have not noticed it yet, I am surprised. The difference between before and now is quite substantial.
If anything, at least I am satisfied with the speed now
Style
If you've observant you would have noticed that I am not using the default style, mfm_dark. What am I using? Well, I suppose I could tell you. Even though we thought our work was ready to be placed on our live server, we were still working on even more things behind the scenes.
Based on the poll about what style you guys would like, we knew that some people would never settle for a dark style and so we set out to create the perfect light-alternative to mfm_dark, which we rightfully decided to name mfm_light. Having been using this for a while now, I can honestly say I am torn as to which one I am going to use moving forward. Both are truly equally great styles.
It is my pleasure to be the one to officially unveil to you our answer to your requests for a light alternative style: mfm_light. You already have gotten a taste of it in my screenshots above, but why not experience it for yourself? If you're lucky, I will have already allowed you to switch by the time you read this.
I hope you guys like mfm_light. We sure do.
Whew, that was a lot. I'm not even sure if I covered it all.
As always, please do not hesitate to provide us with feedback by posting in this thread.
Lastly, please join me in giving thanks to all the staff for all their hard work putting all this together.
If, for whatever insane reason, you do not agree with me, lend me your ear and I think I will be able to convince you by the end of this post.
Functionality
Where to begin? Seriously, we have added so much over the past few days. I'm exhausted.
[FIELDSET=MfM Arcade]
I see that despite having our different interests, we all seem to be unusually drawn to the Arcade. I guess we really are all gamers at heart or maybe we all just enjoy a little competition. Either way, we've brought you an Arcade and we can already tell you guys love it. Soon enough we'll take competition to a new level and start hosting tournaments either just for fun or possibly even for some prizes.
So what are you waiting for? Go check out our Arcade if you haven't already! Just promise to return to my post and read it till the end…
We'll be adding new games soon
. But if you have a specific game that you absolutely can't live without on the MfM Arcade, then please let us know![/FIELDSET][FIELDSET=MfM Live Leaderboard]
If you have and use Xbox Live then you'll enjoy this. By request of the current reigning champion, Abe Froeman, we have added an MfM Live Leaderboard that pits your stats against the hardcore gamers in this community. Are you good enough to knock our Abe off the top? Let's find out by putting your GamerTag into your profile and MfM Live will take care of the rest.
So head on over to the Edit Profile area of your UserCP and fill in the box that looks like this:
[FIELDSET=Prefixes]
When that first game came out that forced us to use so much space just for a thread title to categorise it (i.e. [PSP][PC][NDS][X360] and so on), we knew we would have to devise a better, more userfriendly and nicer looking method to categorise our posts.
Introducing Thread Prefixes, one of the features that will allow us to better organise the vast amount of knowledge that is being gathered up in our community by the day. For example, once we have it all setup, we'll have a list of prefixes like: PC, X360, NDS, PSP, MULTI in our Games Discussion section and whenever you post a thread in there, you'll be required to pick the prefix that is the console on which the game you are talking about refers to.
That's right. No more manually writing [PC][X360] in your thread titles.
Once we have all of our posts prefixed, we have also added in the ability to see all the posts that have a specific prefix by clicking on the prefix you want to see.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Tagging]
While prefixes could very well prove useful in our quest for organization, if a game, for example, is available on multi-platforms the best we can do is use the Prefix "Multi". Then we'll have to take advantage of our new taxonomy system to handle listing out all the different platforms the game is available on.
Basically whenever you create a thread, you should be creating tags of important keywords that describe your thread. Don't worry, our forums will provide you with suggestions and most of the tagging will be handled automatically anyway but just so you know.
[/FIELDSET][FIELDSET=Post Style Choice]
If you're a space nut like myself and NeilR then you'll be happy to know that we no longer force a post style on you. Just like we felt that making you endure the pain of having to use a certain style width, we also believe it would not be fair to force you to use a Post Style you did not like.
To choose your Post Style (Classic or New), go to the Edit Options section of your UserCP and scroll down until you see this area where you can make your selection:
You can thank for Zero. this one.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Top 5 Stats]
This new information-filled box is your window into a lot of the happenings in our community. While you cannot customize the box itself, you can collapse it OR turn it off completely if for whatever reason you don't find it interesting like the rest of us.
Click on the button marked in red to turn off the Top Stats or to view more in a separate page. Click on the button marked in blue to collapse the box.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Members that have visited today]
I did not realise how large we have already become in such a short amount of time, until I had a look at the Members that have visited today block that we recently added. It is really nice to be able to actually see how big our active community is at a glance. But best of all, if for whatever reason you want more space, you can collapse each part of the What's Going On box.
[FIELDSET=Usergroup Legend]
Though we may not be as colourful as other communities, we thought it would still be nice for you to know what colour means what anyway. So we added a nice little legend in the Who's Online area.
[FIELDSET=Title Grabber]
If you're a frequent user of our IRC channel, you'll recognise this feature as what our bot "http" coded by Nimsical does. Whenever you post a url our forums will grab the title from that url and automatically convert the url that you posted to a link with that page's title to that url. It's a bit wordy to explain but try it out and you'll immediately know what I mean.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Cool Looking Image Resizer]
Whenever you're posting an image that you find interesting or you'd like to show off to everyone else, don't worry about resizing it into a thumbnail. We've taken care of all of that for you. Once you post your image it'll be resized and mixed with some JAVA magic.
People can then click on the automatically created thumbnail and it will enlarge to a larger size. The enlarged image may be moved around by clicking and dragging it and you may browser through multiple images by using your arrow keys.
Go ahead and try it out on any of the images posted above.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=Anti Double Post]
This is one feature that has really been requested. Whenever you make a double post your new post is delete and automatically merged into your previous one. But please try and keep the double posting to a minimum. It's good posting practise anyway.[/FIELDSET]
[FIELDSET=New UserCP]
We figured since we have changed pretty much everything anyway, why not give you guys a cool looking UserCP too? As with most of the things on our forums, you can collapse each of the sections if you don't need them.
[FIELDSET=New Thread Button in Threads]
It has always never made sense to me as to why this is, but vBulletin does not provide you with a New Thread button when you're viewing a thread. Since this doesn't make sense to me, I thought I would change it. Now you can make threads on a whim because something someone said reminded you about an interesting topic.
[FIELDSET=Improved Custom Style Width]
Although we have had the Default Style Width feature for a while now, today I was prodded by birdman to change it so that you can type in your own width setting. As I found this idea interesting, I went straight to work.
Thanks to birdman for bringing up the idea you can now choose a width from the ones we have provided or, alternatively, you can type in your own width provided it is between the range of 800px-2000px or 80%-100% inclusively. This is for those of you, like birdman, who just have to have some reason to be in between what we offer.
Speed
Although most people would say our forums were fast enough already, I stubbornly would not agree to that and set out to make things even faster. If you have not noticed it yet, I am surprised. The difference between before and now is quite substantial.
If anything, at least I am satisfied with the speed now
Style
If you've observant you would have noticed that I am not using the default style, mfm_dark. What am I using? Well, I suppose I could tell you. Even though we thought our work was ready to be placed on our live server, we were still working on even more things behind the scenes.
Based on the poll about what style you guys would like, we knew that some people would never settle for a dark style and so we set out to create the perfect light-alternative to mfm_dark, which we rightfully decided to name mfm_light. Having been using this for a while now, I can honestly say I am torn as to which one I am going to use moving forward. Both are truly equally great styles.
It is my pleasure to be the one to officially unveil to you our answer to your requests for a light alternative style: mfm_light. You already have gotten a taste of it in my screenshots above, but why not experience it for yourself? If you're lucky, I will have already allowed you to switch by the time you read this.
I hope you guys like mfm_light. We sure do.
Whew, that was a lot. I'm not even sure if I covered it all.
As always, please do not hesitate to provide us with feedback by posting in this thread.
Lastly, please join me in giving thanks to all the staff for all their hard work putting all this together.
