Hi Rune-Server
In this announcement I will outline the small things that have happened, as well as what will be happening.
The biggest change we've seen over the past months is the fact that the official server is getting well on it's way. There have been numerous updates to it. Now, a lot of you give the server a lot of criticism. You may think it may deserve it. You might be right, but instead of looking at it like this, you should be thankful that someone is actually taking time to work on it instead of complaining about how long it's taken.
About the server itself, I'm not 100% certain on what the key points are, but I will list as much as I know about the progress from what I get from my conversations with Kevin and Dan. I know that the official server has a perfect object system that is very effective and at the same time, optimized for the best performance. Instead of continuously loading an object, the object loads once and then it's over. When one walks near the object, the object will load when it needs to. If no one is in the area, the object doesn't need to load, and therefore will not. This means less lag on the server. As most of you know, the following has also been perfected. As always, Kevin is working hard on completing all of the skills, and also further developing combat.
Very soon, administrators as well as server developers will be able to go on the server and help Kevin with the development. This will be a sort of "alpha" test, rather than a beta test.
Some of you have been asking me for new skins for the website. I have a nice one ready. I just need to talk to Kevin about it, as I do not have the ability to upload skins. If Kevin likes the skin, then we can add it for your use.
As of now, there are two groups in my opinion that need working on. The first one, is the designer group. We need to have some sort of fix for this group. As of now there are approximately six designers total, including the moderator of graphics. I'll be speaking to beh3moth more about this though. My suggestion is to have the necessary abilities or requirements for designer to be at a slightly lower standard than it is now, or removing the whole group.
The next group is the veteran group. I'll be making a thread in the veteran section regarding this as well. This group used to mean the population of the community that has been here for a long while. Now days the user-group (or its meaning) has evolved more into a group of dignitaries. I, as well as the large chunk of the veterans believe this should be fixed. There's been many attempts to fix it. As time progressed the meaning of the group, or the eligible people were bound to change. This has taken place already, and the veterans feel they need to be distinguished differently from the people who may have now positively contributed to the community and are also fairly long time members, or another example would be some ex-staff members. To fix this I propose that I make a new user-group named "Dignitary". This will be for people who should be recognized, but may not entirely be a veteran! More thought about this will lead to specific requirements and such about this user-group and the current veterans.
I've noticed that not many people actually heed the 10 character posting minimum. Many people simply write "mts" or "message too short", in order to continue on with their posting. To eliminate this whole matter and make your forum-ing better, I've reduced the limit to three characters. With this comes a higher expectation of responsibility of you. I don't want to see people spamming with this liberty. If this happens to be the case, the minimum character amount will be reinstated.
Many people complained about our image resizer. I have removed the image resizer for your convenience until further discussion with Kevin. The same will go for this change. It can be reinstated as quickly as it was taken off.
There's been lots of mod changes in the past month. Some mods retired, others were demoted. Give our new moderators a chance, especially if they are new to the team. I'm sure they will do a spectacular job.
In order to make moderation easier, and improve the following of our rules, I've created a sort of system for the forum. This will greatly help our moderators, and also some people can use it if they wish. It is a new BBcode, the first of many to come. What it is, is a BBcode that posts an automated message that will correspond to the rule broken. I have only added the BBcode for advertisement as of yet. Simply click on the BBCode button for it, type in your name, and it's done. This tool IS more for moderators, but members can feel free to use it if they wish, ;)
This is an example. Of course this system will be improved, and more will be added. The first picture shows the BBCode (with the red symbol) and second picture shows the result.
Spoiler for EXAMPLE GIVEN:
Spoiler for Just added, check this out too:
I have added the quick edit function, so there's no need to change your whole page on your browser to simply edit your post. Accessing the edit function remains the same, the edit button. Instead of opening a new page, your post opens in a "quick" style of editing. :) Hope this bring more ease to forum-ing for you all.
Also, the amount of reports that are coming in have greatly increased. Thank you for actively participating and helping make rune-server a better community. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.
Please remember to post username, usertitle, and account merge requests in the appropriate sections rather than sending me a private message. In my opinion it makes it much more organized, and personally it's easier for me ;). Don't forget to use the layout of the requests.
Thanks again,
Numbers
Rune-Server Administrator
