Wow!?

[PuNk! ™]

Well...
I made a brief return just before Christmas and hasn't this place come back together nicely since then!? Pleasantly surprised.

Who feels like bringing me up to speed!? Seems as if I've been asleep for an almighty long time, I'm assuming a lot of work is due to Heiko - correct me if I'm wrong, just slightly bewildered and extremely happy to see this place has made a somewhat formidable return to the land of role playing. What a remarkable change!

Sad to see most of the shop was lost due to the update of the proboard, but perhaps simplicity is the best key - we did have over three-hundred items in that shop. I'm quite eager to learn the new ropes, for once, I feel as though I haven't a clue how to manage the necessities of Issuing Orders, after being at the helm for the past five years... Give or take.

For those wondering why I disappeared, I struck up a new career with the Metropolitan Police (becoming a police officer here in rainy ol' London) and my shift pattern started to inhibit my ability to come online and continue my commitment (and growing errands) on the site. After delegating a lot of power to the staff and to whom I seem to owe so much thanks too all these years later for their incredible hard work and effort in keeping this place afloat through those tough times, I wouldn't have even been able to keep this place going by myself. So apologies for my personal absence.

So if someone wouldn't mind bringing me up to speed on everything, that would be lovely.
~Danny

[Ziu]

Glad to see you back, Chief. Congratulations on joining the force!

Some things I've gathered from being on the site for a few days:

- The Wiki is incredibly outdated, to the fact it looks like it (literally) lost the plot. Layouts are a mess, Wikia software changeover made everything look more like a mess, it's pretty scrambled.

- Activity has been on the low but consistent side. We have a small group of people signing in and chatting, but little roleplay right now. We get hundreds of guests, in comparison, that lurk around.

- Heiko's been doing a brilliant job of fixing up the shop and layout. It's taken several months of work to get everything back into order. Do you have a list of items that were in the shop?

- Battle activity has also been low, but the third Defenders & Attackers battle is now up. It's an experimental battle this time, with a bunch of Soviets vs. a pack of feral dogs in a blizzard.

- Lots and lots of outdated guides. They need to be redone and brought up to speed with how the forum's currently working. Ask Heiko for specifics.

[Heiko Alkema]

Dec 30, 2013 14:59:19 GMT Ziu said:

Glad to see you back, Chief. Congratulations on joining the force!

Some things I've gathered from being on the site for a few days:

- The Wiki is incredibly outdated, to the fact it looks like it (literally) lost the plot. Layouts are a mess, Wikia software changeover made everything look more like a mess, it's pretty scrambled.

- Activity has been on the low but consistent side. We have a small group of people signing in and chatting, but little roleplay right now. We get hundreds of guests, in comparison, that lurk around.

- Heiko's been doing a brilliant job of fixing up the shop and layout. It's taken several months of work to get everything back into order. Do you have a list of items that were in the shop?

- Battle activity has also been low, but the third Defenders & Attackers battle is now up. It's an experimental battle this time, with a bunch of Soviets vs. a pack of feral dogs in a blizzard.

- Lots and lots of outdated guides. They need to be redone and brought up to speed with how the forum's currently working. Ask Heiko for specifics.

Summary: Just like normal.

[PuNk! ™]

Thank you! Well I've been a part of the Metropolitan Police for the past two years (November just gone), but can't say it gets any easier though...

It seems as though there's still a way to go, yet so much has been done; from what I've seen. I think the main priorities are most probably getting the forum it's self into shape once more, which Heiko has been fixing. If there's a schedule you're working too Heiko, then by all means, shoot it my way and I'll help. Right now, as I've mentioned, I'm slightly bewildered by it all.

You asked for a shop list Ziu? I have the entire shop coding stowed away in a backup on a USB somewhere on my desk. However, I feel that code will be useless with the new proboard update.

So how does the system work now Heiko? Do we still have staff orientated moderators or community based moderators? Plus - I see a new currency system (still based on the Command Points however [CP]), are they issued in the regular same way on completion of threads?

Not to swarm you with questions or anything. Just eager to help and understand with what you've done with the place since my absence.
~Danny

[Heiko Alkema]

There's no schedule to speak of, just working my way through things updating a thread here fixing stone formatting over there.

As far as the shop/CP system goes its basically the same as before except it's a combination of two plugins. One governs the actual currency, CP, which I've made editable to yourself, Mac, Nathan and me. It's set to automatically give out 2CP for every post in the neutral areas so that we don't have to close those anymore and potentially cut short a promising thread so that it can be cashed out. For battles it will stop be manually distributed by us.

For the shop, on a technical basis, it
works almost exactly the same. The differences are that you can nite buy multiples of any item (eliminating the grenade being reported in the shop), and I haven't yet devised a way to make items appear in the mini-profile.


As far as our user of it goes, we've decided to change how we make NPCs and vehicles. Instead of being unchanging, fixed loadouts, were going to move to a more customizable system where you purchase a "canvas" or "blank" unit and then equip him as you see fit by purchasing equipment for him like you would for you're self. We're in the process of hashing out a similar thing for vehicles. Buy a tank hull and out fit out to be one of the many variants built on that hull.

Another change I'm writing on is breaking up the huge monolithic division rosters into smaller more manageable pieces and giving each parent unit it's own sub board. I also want to make the officers in those units moderators of just their own sub boards so that staff is required to make every change to the rosters.

Other than those relatively minor changes along with some image changes here and there, it's still just the same old IO.

[PuNk! ™]

Alrighty!

Well seems as though everything is coming together piece by piece, I'm just attempting to get my bearings, still feeling somewhat bewildered by all the new options, selections and layouts - amongst other random things they've added into the V5 update for Proboards.

Are the character skills still functioning or are they a redundant thing on I.O now? Such as the STR/END/FRM/etc...

I'm finding the customizable unit thing interesting, but one thing that does come to mind, is what about all the unique units we added many moons ago? With all the unique weapons and skills, etc... Do they still exist (or come to exist)? Or we allowing members to purchase those weapons for their NPCs now? Just trying to work my brain around the new functionality. Plus, where do they do this customization? In their division orrr...?

Don't mean to sound like I'm swarming you. Oh, congratulations on the promotion by the way Heiko.
~Danny

[Heiko Alkema]

Dec 30, 2013 17:05:39 GMT PuNk! ™ said:

Are the character skills still functioning or are they a redundant thing on I.O now? Such as the STR/END/FRM/etc...

It hasn't really been discussed as yet, it's kind of on the back burner until more important things are settled out. The board with all the skill threads still exists, I've just hidden it until we decide what to do with it.

Dec 30, 2013 17:05:39 GMT PuNk! ™ said:

I'm finding the customization unit thing interesting, but one thing that does come to mind, is what about all the unique units we added many moons ago? With all the unique weapons and skills, etc... Do they still exist (or come to exist)? Or we allowing members to purchase those weapons for their NPCs now? Just trying to work my brain around the new functionality. Plus, where do they do this customization? In their division orrr...?

For the special skills, like medics or engineers, purchasing a medic bag or engineer's tool kit and giving it to the NPC would essentially replicate the old skilled NPCs.

The NPCs purchased equipment would be listed along side them in the Division rosters. Since the standard rifles of all nations are free, those rifles are the standard equipment of all NPCs unless something else is purchased for them. Since that is universal, there's no need to list basic rifles in the rosters cutting down the work to hardly anything.

You can see examples of this already in practice in the rosters of the units that I have already gotten around to breaking up.

[Deleted]

Ziu
Official vocab guidelines insist on service, stating that "force is too aggressive."

@everyone
I have just finished compiling a mostly complete list of infantry weapons for the Americans, British, Germans, Italians, Japanese, and Soviets. All I await is the order to post them.

A big shopping list really. Just needs to be double checked and screened. There are probably a few things that can be excluded from it, such as German MP18/28 and MP34/35.

Also, I'm ready to go as far as vehicles. All my resources are together and organized, FINALLY! All that is needed is to hash out the specifications format and cut unnecessary vehicles out.

Nice to have you back Danny!

[Edward"Butcher"McMillan]

Holy virgin BBQ sauce Batman...

Don't really know where I should start with the whole "I'm kinda back thing" but I would like to get IO back into my normal routine even though life still isn't normal for me, miss this place, and the title "WOW?!" seemed to be a good spot to do some catch up and wow indeed.

Heiko, holy crap, you've done some work son, got a nice promo to go with it, would say thanks but I'm sure at the rate my activity decayed and stayed there it would carry little weight.

Anyway, would like to be back for good, but will probably be spotty for a while, none the less I haven't forgotten and hope to be of some use in the near future

-JT

[Heiko Alkema]

It's always good to hear nice things.

Good to see you pop in, and I hope you can stick around like you want. So good to see the influx of faces, old and new.