HUGE CHANGES FOR JGO - PLEASE READ!

[Riven]

Oh the irony...

I'm not using dirt cheap hosting, so that we can have reasonable uptime and proper support when things go wrong.

The server is/was perfectly fine. There is a serious malfunction in the network of my ISP. It's either a faulty router or the datacenter is under attack of some sort. Very few packets reach the JGO server at the moment. The packet loss is insane and the PING is flaky at best, often suffering from expired TTL which means the route was at least 54 hops long and was cut off.

I'm going to see how it goes, I have absolutely no way to fix the current problems.

[Nate]

Also, I am running indiespot.net and a handful of tiny domains on it for family, and they contribute to the hosting cost. That reminds me to make a new invoice for my dad in MS Word.

Eh, you are charging your dad but not JGO users...

[Riven]

Also, I am running indiespot.net and a handful of tiny domains on it for family, and they contribute to the hosting cost. That reminds me to make a new invoice for my dad in MS Word.

Eh, you are charging your dad but not JGO users...

It's for his business, not his personal emailaddress, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[sthwicked]

As this is my first post I would like to say hi to everyone first.
So... Hi!

I had an idea about the logo/graphics for your forum. So I did it yesterday.

As I see it JGO letters would make nice logo (as kappa pointed it earlier).
I wanted to make it look like old school / pixelated graphics. Also used similar colors from your old logo for letters. (got used to it )
In the end I've added platformer like graphics on top of the letters.


It was fun making it. Maybe you'll like it.

There are four versions, but the only difference between them is in the 'J' and 'G' letters.





[Edit: just followed Rivens advice]

[Riven]

Keep it coming!

You should put the image in your post, instead of linking to it -- so it gets more exposure.

[CommanderKeith]

0.99 EURO per month for the domainname (that's not very cheap, I know)
23.80 EURO per month for a high end VPS account.
11.90 EURO per month for the remote backup service

Total: 36.69 EURO per month

It's very selfless of you to take on the hosting costs Riven. In the name of sustainability and 'many hands make light work' I'm sure there are lots of us who would be very happy to chip in. Obviously it's more than just money too, it must be sucking up a lot of your time. I think a paypal link like they have on LWJGL would be cool.

I couldn't resist doodling a logo.

Love that! Just needs JGO on the cup.

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/2558212/1/JGO?h=386d96

Pretty good too, but the letters aren't clear enough.

I would prefer something else then just a special font with effect, no ? (also maybe there is something to do with "JGO")

I agree, the fancy font designs aren't as cool as the pictures

[dishmoth]

Being cynical, if we wanted to make JGO look all important and influential...



But I doubt the owners of the images/trademarks would want them to be associated with my shoddy artwork.
Simon

[Orangy Tang]

Being cynical, if we wanted to make JGO look all important and influential...



But I doubt the owners of the images/trademarks would want them to be associated with my shoddy artwork.
Simon

If were going to go for that style, it'd be nice to have logo + one game and have a bunch of variants which cycle through.

[fruitmaze]

Being cynical, if we wanted to make JGO look all important and influential...



But I doubt the owners of the images/trademarks would want them to be associated with my shoddy artwork.
Simon

If were going to go for that style, it'd be nice to have logo + one game and have a bunch of variants which cycle through.

Sounds like an interesting idea! So would the Javagaming.org text style be the same, and the background change?

[princec]

We're ok with anyone using our graphics for logos and such for this purpose I like the idea of cycling through several Java games in the background... except there are only about 2 that anyone's ever heard of! haha

Cas

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[fruitmaze]

We're ok with anyone using our graphics for logos and such for this purpose I like the idea of cycling through several Java games in the background... except there are only about 2 that anyone's ever heard of! haha

Cas

Well I think it's fine to combine both known and unknown games in the logo as long as it visually looks good.

[Preston]

The new forum's fast! Lovely.

Plus all the old posts of the users do count now. Well, database migrations have also their good sides. No greenhorn anymore. :-)

Thank you very much, Riven & ChrisM.

[TheAnalogKid]

I love dishmoth's logo style. Though I'd rather limit the emphasis of yellow and give more space to games in the background. I'd also put more emphasis on the JGO text outline, like an electric blue for example.

[Riven]

The new forum's fast! Lovely.

It sure is!

Plus all the old posts of the users do count now. Well, database migrations have also their good sides. No greenhorn anymore. :-)

That didn't happen automatically. It was one of the many issues that were solved in my migration script. There are many left too... over the years the database got kinda messy, and the updates from 1.1.5 to 1.1.12 didn't really make it better.

[heX-]

What do you guys think?

[TheAnalogKid]

Ugly and boring, sorry.

[Riven]

For the sake of joining the contest, here is mine:

[heX-]

hmm.. Riven that logo is already used?

[Riven]

hmm.. Riven that logo is already used?

What are the odds!

[heX-]

@Riven ?!?!
btw, loved the new Appreciation++ buttons, i would like if you make that kind of buttons for New Thread , post reply etc etc...

[Riven]

This is just a huge plot for Riven to get even more data for his "special" signatures ..

So true. Text-only now

[woogley]

So true. Text-only now

Aha, so that explains the var_dump I saw earlier in the main template. Trying to find some available variables eh

[Riven]

Oh yeah!!

PHP drives me crazy. Every once in a while I create this huge data leak to figure out some variables

[woogley]

Why has "Personal Text" replaced signatures? o_O

[Riven]

Multiple reasons:

• signatures are often used to push personal projects in the face of people that aren't interested.
• signatures are sometimes used to display large banners that undermine the goal of a forum.
• bloated signatures make the entire forum look bad.
• all spam bots either put the spam in the post or in the signature, problem solved.

Now that 'Personal text' is used, there is just enough room for a 'real' signature (not to be abused as ad-space) and it gives the forum a neater look. It is not possible anymore to put images in 'Personal text'.

For people that are interested in peoples projects, they can go to their profiles and watch the 'original signature'.

I might add a 'view full signature' link to the post-footer. Did that!

[Riven]

Additionally, I cleaned up the sidebar.

The [ Appreciate! ] button now shows up besides [ Quote ] in the post-header.

[SimonH]

Um, I did quite like the links in my sig... Maybe make it OK if you've got 100+ posts?
*niggle, fret!*

EDIT: Also um, I'm now getting a repeated 'unidentified new posts' popup dialog box - me not want!

[Riven]

Um, I did quite like the links in my sig... Maybe make it OK if you've got 100+ posts?
*niggle, fret!*

Ofcourse everybody like their own signature...

EDIT: Also um, I'm now getting a repeated 'unidentified new posts' popup dialog box - me not want!

We can do it two ways:
1. every time I make modifications, I put JGO into maintenance mode
2. every time I make modifications, you get an occasional hiccup

[SimonH]

We can do it two ways:

Er, either? 
Sorry! Burst pipes today so well stressed - still waiting for plumber...
Keep up the good work!

[Riven]

The forum will now display whether there are new posts since you loaded the current page.