Welcome to the new Europe!
This forum upgrade is the most significant change to our community since our initial upgrade from phpBB to vBulletin 11 years ago, and finally brings us into the present day in more than one way. Design, functionality - everything has been updated to reflect the passing of time, powered by the new XenForo software (very conveniently named).
This upgrade would not have been possible without the many members who have contributed towards funding this upgrade, and it is to them that praise should go first and foremost. As for my part, I am happy to report that I have managed to convert the majority of content to the new forum. Some functions, like groups, are no longer available in the new software, but have seen little use anyhow. The same goes for the factions information under the avatars, which provided no information that cannot be provided elsewhere (more on that very soon). Reducing clutter was one of my main priorities when designing this first draft of our new forum layout.
Following is a list of some of the changes to ease yourself into the new software, in no particular order. Please excuse me if I forget something, as I inevitably will, with the amount of changes being as huge as it is.
New Platform
We have a completely new software that operates in different ways. As such, you will probably need some time to get accustomed to everything. The new mobile view should work far better on smartphones and tablets, and this is an important change to reflect modern usage patterns.
Wiki
Highly anticipated for many years by a large part of the userbase, we now, at last, have returned to having a wiki that is completely integrated into the new software to boots. Please take a look around and get cracking, and there will be tweaks coming inevitably as we all learn what works with the new software and where I might have to set additional permissions to allow people to edit certain things etc. The new wiki forum will be a valuable resource in organizing community exploration of this new resource.
Also, the new wiki is completely integrated into the forum, and entries mentioned in posts can be hovered over and a preview will be provided in a popup. Exploring the world of Europe is now a highly context-sensitive affair, and I have a strong feeling this will vastly improve the feeling of world building we are striving for and encourage people to seek out information about characters and nations, as it is literally away merely one click of a button.
The wiki has been made possible by your donations, as the software is not free - but it was an investment well worth it in my opinion!
Discord Integration
Feel free to conveniently jump into our Discord from the sidebar!
Name Changes
Members can now change their own account name once every few weeks.
Images
For the first time in many years, normal image viewing without any additional plugins in your browser is again possible. Hotlinking and inserting copyrighted images remain off-limits, please host image resources on your own hosting accounts, like Imgur!
Forum Reorganization
Looking back, usage of all OOC forums that relate to RP threads has been all over the place. We had different forums for coordination, OOC threads and factbooks, yet threads have been posted all over the place. We also have far too many outdated stickies. Forums have been reorganized into more easily understood categories and old clutter has been removed. As mentioned above, a Wiki forum now exists. For our Nationstates friends, better tools for self-organization have been provided in the form of more subforums, and I hope that they will be active contributors in the new Europe, that will also hopefully see a resurgent use of its Off-Topic section.
Bot and Dice
There's a new automated bot posting system which does not have many features for now, but can among other things throw dice, which will be explained more thoroughly at another point. Essentially this gives warmods an additional tool to decide the outcome of battles based on the tactical situation, quality of forces involved and so on.
The Future
Eventually there will be a new version of our forum software being rolled out, Xenforo 2.0. Looking ahead into the future, I will of course upgrade the forum after a reasonable amount of time has passed and most of the bugs of the new release have been ironed out - I do not expect this to happen before sometime in the middle of 2018 at the earliest. Still, some of the addons we use will require updating, but might not receive official releases by their original authors. As such, I am planning to use any funding remaining after this (not yet finished) upgrade to pay developers to update these products for us. I hope that when the time comes around, I will be able to count on everyone's donations again to fund these crucial developments for our community and ensure that we will be able to keep the forum up-to-date and secure.
Thanks for reading up until here! Let's hope that the next 11 years will be as memorable as the previous 11 ones on vBulletin.
- Xen
This forum upgrade is the most significant change to our community since our initial upgrade from phpBB to vBulletin 11 years ago, and finally brings us into the present day in more than one way. Design, functionality - everything has been updated to reflect the passing of time, powered by the new XenForo software (very conveniently named).
This upgrade would not have been possible without the many members who have contributed towards funding this upgrade, and it is to them that praise should go first and foremost. As for my part, I am happy to report that I have managed to convert the majority of content to the new forum. Some functions, like groups, are no longer available in the new software, but have seen little use anyhow. The same goes for the factions information under the avatars, which provided no information that cannot be provided elsewhere (more on that very soon). Reducing clutter was one of my main priorities when designing this first draft of our new forum layout.
Following is a list of some of the changes to ease yourself into the new software, in no particular order. Please excuse me if I forget something, as I inevitably will, with the amount of changes being as huge as it is.
New Platform
We have a completely new software that operates in different ways. As such, you will probably need some time to get accustomed to everything. The new mobile view should work far better on smartphones and tablets, and this is an important change to reflect modern usage patterns.
Wiki
Highly anticipated for many years by a large part of the userbase, we now, at last, have returned to having a wiki that is completely integrated into the new software to boots. Please take a look around and get cracking, and there will be tweaks coming inevitably as we all learn what works with the new software and where I might have to set additional permissions to allow people to edit certain things etc. The new wiki forum will be a valuable resource in organizing community exploration of this new resource.
Also, the new wiki is completely integrated into the forum, and entries mentioned in posts can be hovered over and a preview will be provided in a popup. Exploring the world of Europe is now a highly context-sensitive affair, and I have a strong feeling this will vastly improve the feeling of world building we are striving for and encourage people to seek out information about characters and nations, as it is literally away merely one click of a button.
The wiki has been made possible by your donations, as the software is not free - but it was an investment well worth it in my opinion!
Discord Integration
Feel free to conveniently jump into our Discord from the sidebar!
Name Changes
Members can now change their own account name once every few weeks.
Images
For the first time in many years, normal image viewing without any additional plugins in your browser is again possible. Hotlinking and inserting copyrighted images remain off-limits, please host image resources on your own hosting accounts, like Imgur!
Forum Reorganization
Looking back, usage of all OOC forums that relate to RP threads has been all over the place. We had different forums for coordination, OOC threads and factbooks, yet threads have been posted all over the place. We also have far too many outdated stickies. Forums have been reorganized into more easily understood categories and old clutter has been removed. As mentioned above, a Wiki forum now exists. For our Nationstates friends, better tools for self-organization have been provided in the form of more subforums, and I hope that they will be active contributors in the new Europe, that will also hopefully see a resurgent use of its Off-Topic section.
Bot and Dice
There's a new automated bot posting system which does not have many features for now, but can among other things throw dice, which will be explained more thoroughly at another point. Essentially this gives warmods an additional tool to decide the outcome of battles based on the tactical situation, quality of forces involved and so on.
The Future
Eventually there will be a new version of our forum software being rolled out, Xenforo 2.0. Looking ahead into the future, I will of course upgrade the forum after a reasonable amount of time has passed and most of the bugs of the new release have been ironed out - I do not expect this to happen before sometime in the middle of 2018 at the earliest. Still, some of the addons we use will require updating, but might not receive official releases by their original authors. As such, I am planning to use any funding remaining after this (not yet finished) upgrade to pay developers to update these products for us. I hope that when the time comes around, I will be able to count on everyone's donations again to fund these crucial developments for our community and ensure that we will be able to keep the forum up-to-date and secure.
Thanks for reading up until here! Let's hope that the next 11 years will be as memorable as the previous 11 ones on vBulletin.
- Xen
