Post by Griever on Apr 2, 2011 5:08:00 GMT -5
There are a lot of things being done behind-the-scenes to make the forum generally more awesome, but while I was planning some of it out, I realized that you guys have no idea about most of it. And I thought...why not? So I decided to fix that! Here you go, a list of things that are coming soon, or at least whenever I get them done; some aren't exactly small projects!
Keep in mind that this list is in no particular order, so you may see something nearer the bottom of the list get finished and added before something on the top. The things here are in various states of actually being added: some are already started, some are just vague ideas, and some are fully planned out but haven't been worked on yet.
-Completion of Cities Directory
-Changes to the Map - COMPLETE!
-Addition of a Second Map
-Updates to the Reference Sections
-Another Contest - COMPLETE!
-In Character Threads Cleanup - COMPLETE!
-Sidebar Updates - COMPLETE!
-Bestiary Updates
-Advertising Rewards - COMPLETE!
Suggestions and comments are, as always, more than welcome! If you'd like to see something added that isn't listed here, dislike anything mentioned, or want to add something, go ahead. This thread will be updated whenever a new update is considered or when one is completed.
Keep in mind that this list is in no particular order, so you may see something nearer the bottom of the list get finished and added before something on the top. The things here are in various states of actually being added: some are already started, some are just vague ideas, and some are fully planned out but haven't been worked on yet.
-Completion of Cities Directory
UPDATE: All locations except FFIII's have images. FFIII's locations will, unfortunately, have to go without images, unless someone can give me some good images that are large enough to crop to the proper format (no smaller than 480px wide). Information is being gradually filled in for the cities that don't have any yet, and all posts have been reformatted and properly alphabetized.
Included in this is filling out information for every city that currently has none, adding some, removing some, and generally cleaning it up to make it look prettier. Some of the posts already up will be rewritten to sound better, and some reformatting in general may occur to make it look better, including (potentially, it would take a long time) reordering the list alphabetically to account for cities that were added later.
-Changes to the Map - COMPLETE!
Basically, I'm an idiot, and when I edited the map, I somehow managed to merge the layers. This means it's extremely difficult to edit right now, and I'll have to redraw all of the lines before I can do any of this. But you can expect to see locations added, locations removed, and some cities moved around by the time it's finished!
-Addition of a Second Map
UPDATE: In progress. The second map is up for viewing, but is still missing locations from some games.
Yes, a second map. This is something I've been planning since we opened, but that I never got around to doing because I know it's going to take quite a while. Our current map covers cities only (which isn't quite true, hence some things being removed), but this one will cover non-city locations: for example, places like Macalania Woods and the Sunleth Waterscape. While it will be a separate map from the one currently up, the locations on it will be placed around the cities when I make it, so we won't have a city on top of Taejin's Tower or something like that.
-Updates to the Reference Sections
While games like FFVIII and FFXIII give a lot of information directly from the game that make reference sections easy, the others look sort of bare by comparison, and most games in the series don't have a reference section at all. I'd like to change that, though it's going to take a lot of hunting of material to put up!
-Another Contest - COMPLETE!
ANOTHER ONE. REALLY. I know it's been forever since the last one, but I haven't really had many ideas about what kind of contest it could be or what kind of prize I could offer. I DO intend to do one, though, and any ideas you guys have are always welcome!
-In Character Threads Cleanup - COMPLETE!
The Characters subforum gets a semi-regular cleaning, but the IC threads haven't been cleaned up at all. This is fairly minor and something I'm planning to do pretty soon, but old threads that have had no replies, that heavily involve characters we no longer have, or that contradict what characters are doing/where they are now (especially due to those reasons) will be deleted. This only affects a few threads, but if there's anything in particular you want to make sure stays, let me know now!
-Sidebar Updates - COMPLETE!
As you probably noticed, the Awards section of the sidebar was removed, since we never gave out any. It's an idea that may be revisited later, depending on interest, but right now the left sidebar looks a little bare. I'm planning to change this by adding a section for useful links, particularly for guests and forum newbies, though I'll try to think of things that will be helpful to everyone. I've also been considering a character count box; I've seen this on a lot of forums, and it could be fairly useful for anyone looking to make a new character, in order to make things more balanced. That doesn't mean anyone's going to say NOES WE HAVE TOO MANY MALE HEROES YOU CAN'T HAVE ANOTHER!111!1!!1 or anything of the sort, though! Alternatively, this may go in the Characters subforum as another sticky. The Current Events box may also be replaced with a general plot box, since it's never been updated anyway. Our plot's too big and has too many characters to try to keep a running list of events in a sidebar section, I think, though a thread may be established for that purpose.
-Bestiary Updates
UPDATE: The Bestiary is now Bharune's to update as she sees fit. Rather than fitting into a thread, it will be contained in its own subforum.
I haven't forgotten about it! Squall was brought back on staff to work on it, having compiled the original bestiary back when we were on Freeforums, but there haven't been any updates in quite a while. I'd like to change this, though some consideration of the format will have to be done to make it more thorough. If anyone would like to help with this, I have no problem admitting I'd really appreciate it! It's a huge project, and definitely not an easy one.
-Advertising Rewards - COMPLETE!
Another thing I've been considering for quite a while! Right now I'm fairly certain I'm doing most of the advertising for MR, and while I don't mind it at all, we'd get a lot more exposure if more members were helping out. I'm not blaming you guys, really! I'm just offering some shiny little rewards for doing it. I know for sure one would be a custom user title, though others are still being considered, which is the main reason this hasn't been implemented yet.
Suggestions and comments are, as always, more than welcome! If you'd like to see something added that isn't listed here, dislike anything mentioned, or want to add something, go ahead. This thread will be updated whenever a new update is considered or when one is completed.