Hey folks,

Mikey here with an update on the forum.

A major upgrade is needed. We had a server outage late last week which had the forums down for a while, and once we were back up, we decided to update the software, but that failed in a major way. We returned to a backup of the forum, but I notice some avatars are missing. Sorry about this. For the moment, I'd advise you to re-upload them.

We're going to look at a move to a faster server also - which will help make things zippier.

So here's the plan:

After consulting with Dev on the time frame, we're going to do a fairly large upgrade, and import the old forum into a fresh new install of the forum database. This will bring us up to date software-wise, but we'll then look at installing mods and upgrades to the forum.

Although a fairly simple process, things can and do happen that mean that pieces of data are lost, posts go missing, or we could experience downtime longer than we anticipated.

What does all this mean to you?

Well, the number one thing we ask you to do, is back up, copy or download things that are important to you - such as private messages, images, etc.

We'll announce ahead of time when the upgrade will occur. Be prepared for us to be down for a few days - as much as 5 if things are tricky.

Thanks.

Any questions, feel free to post below.

Mikey
hevydevy.com

Sounds good!

What new stuff are you planning to put onto the forums? or is it just upgrading servers and stuff at the moment?

I know a few people are pining for a shoutbox.

Shoutbox and quick reply. Anything else is just added awesome.

First thing is to get a stable foundation happening. Once that's in place, we can add bells and whistles

Shoutbox and quick reply. Anything else is just added awesome.

I miss the old shoutbox

[The Dev]

Yay for Mikey!!!

Everybody: hip hip...

HOORAY!!!

Yay for Mikey!!!

Everybody: hip hip...

HURRAY!

Dammit, somebody beat me to it....

HOOOOORRRRAAAYYYYYYYY. Although I haven't had any probs so far in the edition

please update the look of the forums. the new site looks so very nice, it would be awesome if we could get the same treatment here.

You could look at getting vBulletin. You have to buy it but it's well worth it and not that much for a great forum. You can transfer the database from phpBB to vBulletin no problem.

vbulletin is horrible

sorry, you must wait sixty seconds between our inaccurate and highly underwhelming searches....

vbulletin is horrible

sorry, you must wait sixty seconds between our inaccurate and highly underwhelming searches....

Not to start an argument here, but the forums I use which have vBulletin don't share this problem. Searches are pretty instantaneous for me, perhaps their search capability could use work, I can't really speak to that, but in my experience vBulletin works much faster and is more intuitive than phpBB.

Each to their own though, I guess

Let's get some motherfucking strobe lights in this bitch.

vbulletin is horrible

sorry, you must wait sixty seconds between our inaccurate and highly underwhelming searches....

Not to start an argument here, but the forums I use which have vBulletin don't share this problem. Searches are pretty instantaneous for me, perhaps their search capability could use work, I can't really speak to that, but in my experience vBulletin works much faster and is more intuitive than phpBB.

Each to their own though, I guess

We'll stick with phpBB for the time being. Right now this whole place is slow for a couple of reasons:
- it's on a shared server that is being spanked for bandwidth by other users
- the forum backend is a bit of a mess.

I'm hoping you'll see a significant improvement in response times after the upgrade.

Stay tuned for an announcement about that.

Mikey
hevydevy.com