There's some exciting things afoot for this website. With the addition of new staff (and all of those who offered to help, thank you! I'll be in touch soon) I've found a lot more motivation. It's amazing what a little help can do.
One of the things this is leading to is a complete overhaul of the backend of the website. The benefit for every one is that it will be completely and totally controlled from a control panel, which is not 100% true of the site currently (aside from news posts and some custom work done by Alan). The hope for this is that, essentially, anyone can be taught to update every function of this site with extremely minimal, basic HTML knowledge (and even most of that can be copied and pasted from example elsewhere on the site).
This should lead to far quicker updates (particularly in terms of the game pages as they'll be the most affected by this), amongst other perks. The benefit for users beyond this is a lot of neat little options that normally haven't worked like I would have liked. This includes a full site search, RSS feeds for any search you like (so, let's say you really care about Yukari, search her out and subscribe to the resulting feed and you'll be told every time something about her pops up anywhere on the site), larger thumbnail images all across the site, video adjustments (embedded and downloadable) and so forth.
I know we're coming off a pretty recent redesign (although it will likely follow this current art style very closely), which makes this somewhat of a surprise (and perhaps even an annoyance to some). However, I bring this up largely because 1.) I want to reiterate this site isn't dead (I've even been offered help by a few people on the Demonary... yes it is real, Alan finished the coding on it several months ago) and 2.) there will probably continue to be few news updates until that time comes.
Thanks a lot for your patience and understanding during this, but it will definitely be worth the time (I'm aiming for December at this point). I've worked very hard on this site over the years, I'm proud of that work and I hope to improve upon it significantly in the months to come.
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Logged Tony has 485 Posts (+10/-0 Karma) |
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You're not going to overhaul it to a completely based CuteNews site management system, are you?
That stuff is easy to penetrate. :-/ The best would prolly be a custom build...if you can manage it. XD
"When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car. " ~A Very Wise Man
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Logged QBasic has 159 Posts (+11/-0 Karma) |
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You're not going to overhaul it to a completely based CuteNews site management system, are you?
That stuff is easy to penetrate. :-/ The best would prolly be a custom build...if you can manage it. XD
I'd fucking kill him.
i am the bird of hermes
i devoured my own wings
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Logged DeadSeraphim has 2 Posts (+10/-0 Karma) |
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CuteNews isn't even worth the time, really.... but I've had software set up to do news posts since the start. The main issue has really just been every thing else. It's not hard for me, but the effort to make sure people get it just isn't worth it lol.
I've got a pretty simple setup going through another piece of software that will work out fine. It's essentially what I'd ask anyone to do if it were custom to begin with, so that's not really a concern. Alan is handling other aspects of the site that do need to be custom, but I'd want them to be separate to begin with... so it's working out well so far.
I'll keep you guys posted as to any major developments.
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Logged Tony has 485 Posts (+10/-0 Karma) |
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Hmm...this isn't related to the build of the site, but rather site content: videos wouldn't be a bad idea, right? And I'm not talking about just trailers either. With a beast like Youtube and Veoh lurking about, its cakewalk for anyone to have a server-full of videos for free and open to the public for speedy demand. Putting up entire cutscenes, battles, tutorials, etc would be cake-walk, and improve upon the site even more so, ya?
"When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car. " ~A Very Wise Man
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Logged QBasic has 159 Posts (+11/-0 Karma) |
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Well the videos stuff is a good idea, that can be like graphic walkthroughs. And in that way we can share strategies and other things.
Signature under construction 'cause the last one died.
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Logged Emilio Morales has 1133 Posts (+25/-0 Karma) |
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Yeah, that's actually something that I've been asked before... One of the people who contacted me to help with the site is specifically interested in doing that. Not a full walkthrough or anything, but like you're saying, kind of like for special things... boss walkthroughs, etc.
I actually have quite a bit of bandwidth to spare, but like you say Youtube is so easy to use and it costs nothing. Plus it gets links into the main site and whomever made it gets their name up there. It's definitely something that would help set the place apart.
We did have one YouTube video, although someone else put it up for me. I did this like "first 45 minutes of Persona 3" video, but it was so long it required a director's account which I didn't have. I did upload it myself to Gametrailers and Gamevideos, though, which we could also do with these.
If that's something you or anyone else want to do, I'm totally open to that. I'd be more than willing to put a very heavy focus on them on the main site or whatever else the creator of each video wants. We could, for example, add a strategy section and link to the videos. Obviously, like most things it's not something one person could do so the more people interested the better I would say. I do think it's an excellent idea.
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Logged Tony has 485 Posts (+10/-0 Karma) |
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Anybody can make videos; just run down to a local Best Buy and pop 30$ for a VHS Converter. Those things are like little boxes that allow you to plug your VHS player into your PC and digitally transfer tapes. But it practically works with anything...including video game systems.
"When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car. " ~A Very Wise Man
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Logged QBasic has 159 Posts (+11/-0 Karma) |
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