Dr Zaius
Chief Defender of the Faith
- Joined
- May 1, 2001
- Messages
- 8,902
- Reaction score
- 408
- Location
- The Forbidden Zone
- First name
- Don
- Country
As some of you have noticed, Gamesquad has not been updated in about three years. The most important reason for the lack of updates is that vBulletin, the software which powers the site, has gone is a direction a lot of existing vBulletin users do not care for. The company which owned and developed vBulletin was bought out and nearly the entire staff of original developers quit over disagreements with the new management, which had a very different vision for the direction of the software.
The good news is, after the original vBulletin developers left they formed a new company and engineered a new forum suite, and it's a quality system.
Since I no longer have confidence in vBulletin as a product and greatly dislike what has been done with virtually every aspect of the current state of the product, I intend to migrate GS to the forum system designed by the original devs. I have not decided on a date yet.
At this time I can't tell you for 100 percent certain what all the changes will be. But here some things will you may expect:
With a move of this type, there will probably be some new things you will like and some old things you will miss. Just keep an open mind and understand there may be a few growing pains.
The good news is, after the original vBulletin developers left they formed a new company and engineered a new forum suite, and it's a quality system.
Since I no longer have confidence in vBulletin as a product and greatly dislike what has been done with virtually every aspect of the current state of the product, I intend to migrate GS to the forum system designed by the original devs. I have not decided on a date yet.
At this time I can't tell you for 100 percent certain what all the changes will be. But here some things will you may expect:
- Every attempt will be made to keep all of the existing posts and I do not anticipate a problem with that.
- You will still have an avatar. However, avatars may change in size and you may or may not need to re-upload your avatar once the transition to the new software is complete.
- There may be changes to signatures, so you may need to re-upload your signature.
- At this time I am not 100 percent certain we will be able to keep the country flags. I will attempt to do so if practical.
- The "Clubs" function will probably be lost. Something similar may or may not take its place, but don't count on that being there.
- The "Downloads" function will more than likely be lost. It is unlikely this will be replaced as part of the initial transition, so if there is content in there you need, get it NOW!
- The "Blogs" function will probably be lost. This is, however, something important to me and I am searching for a replacement system.
- There will be a much improved homepage for Gamesquad.com, and at long last you will start seeing news and articles again. Yay!
- Our current "reputation" system will likely be replaced with something, however, it may be quite different than what we currently have.
- Expect some general forum reorganization. Exactly how deep the changes will be, I'm not sure at this point. But expect at least some changes.
- New theme. Yes, there will be a new theme as it's new software. However, it won't be something radically different than what we currently have. If I had to guess, probably an easy-to-read blue of some kind.
- "What's New?" function may different than what you're used to.
- Advertisements, paid subscriptions, crowd funding. All options are under consideration to keep GameSquad going.
With a move of this type, there will probably be some new things you will like and some old things you will miss. Just keep an open mind and understand there may be a few growing pains.