With word having spread a bit farther it seems only right to spread it here for all to see: the new site has entered a sort of alpha testing phase.

A couple notes up front, so you're not thrown too far off when visiting it for the first time:

#1 -As discussed in a few places previously, and with Whut's blessing, the ultimate objective is to rebrand and reboot the community under the GamerSyndicate.com domain. Currently the new site uses a look&feel nearly identical to WDFNews.com but this is only temporary until I get a new theme put together with a graphics designer.

#2 - It's alpha. What this means is that it's not feature-complete, but enough of the basics are there and functional for the site to be usable for forums and messaging.

#3 - I've set up forums there to support the testing phase; places to report bugs, provide suggestions, and (for shits and giggles) a general forum for whatever. Just in case anyone wants to chitchat there.

#4 - Though it's alpha and that usually implies a likelihood of data loss, I'm not planning on any intentional wipes of the user database or forums, though eventual restructuring of the forums might naturally lead to some lost topics once the testing phase forums aren't needed. That said: no promises. One little refactoring has already caused avatars to lost, but hopefully that kind of thing will be the extent of data loss.

So, without further ado: http://www.gamersyndicate.com

Da fuq?

Hello friends. April 11th marks 27 years on this earth for myself. 26 was one thing. It rolls off of the tongue and gives the false sense of security when reflecting on how little one has accomplished in life. "You're still young... this man-child attitude can last a little while longer..." 27, however, is an ugly, foul number. No longer do I feel the safe protection of my "20s." It is so polarizing, in fact, that I actually thought I was turning 26 this year until I stepped back and said "no... wait..." and thought about it. I know you old fucks will start spewing that "27, waaaaaaaah try 45" crap that you always say when people younger than you reflect on their aging. To that, I say, fuck a log. It's my birthday, so can it.

I started this community 13 years ago. The thought of that is staggering. I was so much different back then. It's frightening to step back and come to terms with the fact that life passes by so quickly. It doesn't feel as though it's been 13 years.

Anyway, my secretary of state, Caitlin, has organized a little shindig to commemorate my 27 years as a drain on society. I don't know if you can view this: WHIP THAT GHOST RIDER! or not, but it's the event page for my birthday. It'll be at The Garage in Seattle. I know none of you live anywhere even remotely close to Seattle, but I figured I'd invite you all the same. We'll have lanes (paid for) after 10pm. It'll be drunken celebration at an acceptable level (there won't be lasers. I shall have words with management).

If you can't make it, then consider sending me a thoughtful present or money. I know I haven't done anything for you all in years, but even after 27 years, I am convinced that the world revolves around me.

The last bit was a joke.





No it wasn't.



Hope you're all finding yourself and those you love in good health and happiness. I also hope you are happily finding good health in fondling yourself.


-WDF


P.S. For those of you interested in what's been occupying my time, Illuminist.net It's a little not updated, so sorry about that. Currently I am finishing up my sound design for The Mystery of Edwin Drood which opens in two weeks. You should support the arts and go see it.

As I've mentioned in various places for some time, I'm tentatively working on a custom software solution to host community sites. The obvious motivator for it right now is for this community. If it'll be what is ultimately used, I don't know, but having been around the block with CMS software packages and always being disappointed in some way, well.... if you want something done right, do it yourself.

I'm close to having the core CMS features complete and it'll eventually be handy to have some testers. I can make my own user accounts and do things until I'm blue in the face, but it's not the same as having others interact with things their own way.

When I bring testers in, the present features will be:

User Account Self-Management
- Registration
- Forgot Password E-Mail/Reset
- Activation E-Mail Resend
- Profile Settings

Member List

Groups & Clubs
- Join (public groups)
- Request Membership (private groups)
- Leave Groups
- Notification PMs/Notification Settings (group moderators only)

Private Messages
- Send PMs
- Read PMs
- Delete PMs
- E-Mail Notification of new PMs

The obvious big missing piece there is the Forums. I'm trying to get the fundamentals down first which will go quite a long way towards making the Forums easy to add. For example, the Group memberships will dictate Forum access and the Private Message write/read logic will be largely the same. This makes the Forums a natural component of the website rather than having a detached, "different" feeling like is so common with CMS websites.

And then the Forums will be the jumping off point for news articles.

That said, this will be pretty bare bones for some time. Polls, attachments, etc. are on the roadmap, but are of secondary importance.

Now for some questions for the community members...

Are you interested in helping test the site?
It could work well out the door or you folks might blow it apart. I don't know. This is completely built from scratch using coding concepts I've developed over a decade of UI development. Some of those I'm not even sure will scale well.

WYSIWYG or BBCode Editor?
I'm honestly torn on which direction to go. I love the flexible design options of a WYSIWYG editor, but as a perfectionist, making it work just right could drive me mad. I've already spent an embarrassing amount of time on this.

Flat or Threaded Forum Views?
I've never used threaded mode in my life and would love to completely ignore its existence, but if folks actually like it, I'll explore supporting it. I have noticed it's not even an option given to users here...

We've had some recent developments that I thought warranted a "State of the Community" address, to get all the new info in one place and state some plans for the future.

Out With the Old

The old Tempest, generously rented by bragr, supported by donations, and kept working by bragr and drakhen, is gone. The recent lack of interest and donations in it lead to bragr rightfully not renewing it. I've seen to it that bragr has been reimbursed for the costs of the last rental period, so all the loose ends have been tied. And no, bragr, I need not a nude photo nor a trip to your dungeon. I insist not, in fact. There would be too many things I wouldn't be able to un-see.

Also, don't spend all that money on one dealer.

In With the Little New

To ensure we have a TF2 server and to capitalize as much as possible on the influx of new TF2 players, I've put up a 16 slot, official maps TF2 server and called it The Tempest. Add "junior" on the end if you want to be specific.

I know 16 slots aren't a lot and even with that there's occasional (but rare) lag, but it's the best my little old server can handle. Any more than 16 and I suspect we'll see a significant drop in performance. It's done remarkably well over the past 2 days getting and staying populated without any of us having to seed it and, even better, I've seen some folks come back a few times, so it's gaining a following for us.

At the moment only Muff, Rumour, Drakhen, and I are admins/gods on it. In the near future I'll start a thread to see if anyone else would like to be one on it. And probably some threads to discuss map rotation and plugins (though know now I intend to keep it light-weight).

And Out With a Little Bit More

To ensure the Tempest Junior runs as smoothly as possible, I've taken down the Prophunt, Trade, and L4D2 servers. Prophunt seemed to be a fad that died off fast. The Trade server never really got to working right. And the L4D2 servers, while regularly used, weren't used much by any of us and didn't seem to bring any interest to WDFNews.com. That and I failed at keeping them all updated. So no real losses there.

The Road Ahead

I still intend to buy a new server, focused for game hosting, that we'll be able to run a few game servers off of. That should hopefully get us back to the old days of having multiple TF2 (or whatever) servers of various modes. But saving is a slow process. I get $100/month to put towards personal pursuits like this, but that also goes towards gifts and shit.

That said, the donation link on the left now points to my Paypal account dedicated towards WDFNews.com.

When I get a chance to figure it out, I'll be sure that donations of a certain amount gives first-rights access to the TF2 server, and I'll see if there are other kinds of rewards I can offer. Raffles for giftable games, maybe? We'll see!

And of course... the new site. With the focus of my attention coming back towards the community here, I'm hoping to plunge myself back into that code. I actually got a decent amount of the code rewritten during my last round, but crashed into a wall of disinterest when it came time to begin working on the forums code (it's a general CMS, so not just forums).

I think that's it for now. I'm sure I'm forgetting something so expect some edits.
As always, hit me up if there are questions, problems, or an interest in helping.

I have not renewed The Tempest and it is no longer online. There seems to be a declining interest in TF2 and the server has seen barely any action in the last couple of months. Also donations have been almost nonexistent for the last couple of months. I can't see any reason to shell out another $300 for a server no one plays on, with little hope of getting my money back. It was good while it lasted, and we had some great times on it, but I think its time to end it rather than try to drag it through another 6 months.

If anyone else wants to take up the Tempest banner, they are more than welcome to.

There is now a pDs minecraft server, and a forum dedicated it. More info about it can be found there.

Currently the server is pDs (and friends) only, and to get the IP, you need to ask Rikaelus.

We are still working on rules, but for now: Don't be a dick (or don't touch what isn't yours).