Suggestions for changes or improvements to Space Empires Universe

Is there a way to make the forum space wider by temporarily the left/right side? The actual space for threads is way too skinny.

One suggestion is that we can skip preview for a message and just post directly.

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There is too much clutter on the site in general. Does that right side panel really need to be displayed everywhere?

I agree; the side panel should only be shown on the top level of the forums.
Once a visitor has delved into the topics, they don't care about the sidebar anymore.

This is particularily important on lower resolution screen settings, or browser windows that are not maximized.
I often have a small browser window so that it does not block my view of the IRC channel, and so that I can see the SE4 window in the background while posting.

Personally, I would turn that left sidebar into a horizontal bar; at the moment it causes a big chunk of wasted black space whenever the screen is scrolled down to read a thread.

Would it be at all possible for the forum to allow people to link their PBW account in?

Having a notification of which PBW turns you have available to play would be handy.
It would also help to keep the games running faster since there will be less chance of forgetting.

Subforums would be a great addition as well; consider the mods forum...
A subforum for each mod or mod family would keep things organized.

Change the forum program to something a little less dated. Use a new forum pogram that has enhanced features, functionality, and a whole lot better user interface.

My suggeston is to simply move the right panel info below the left panel (menu). This would eliminate the right column and allow the main forum panel to flow all the way to the right.

Nuf said, Cheers!

P.S. I agree, an option to preview 'or' post directly would be good in the initial edit page. (having to preview then select ok, seems kind of redundant and there is an edit button if a mistake is made.)

I heavily agree with AT
Either that or get someone to give this a complete overhaul as it looks just terrible imo

Definitely, the one thing to always keep in mind is that this is not and should never be the only space empires site.

There should be a nice big set of links to the many sites already existing... they should be supported where possible; diversity is good.

First impressions are always quite important. This site needs to be a useful addition to the community, and not be seen as an invading force.

The biggest problem in that regard is that the community is already saturated with great forums. Shrapnel is the official forum in our hearts, having proven their good intentions over the better part of a decade. Despite the change of publishers, they still support the community whole heartedly, and have earned truly immense respect. SE.net is the official unofficial forum, and it is run by one of the "first ones" in the SE community and has built up a lot of momentum.

What this place really needs is a unique role to play, rather than being just another forum.
A portal to all the space empires sites would be very useful.

If we are looking for a niche to fill, what the community needs most right now is a PBW 2 site. Forums should be a secondary feature, as in the current PBW; small forums for each game's players to discuss things, and other forums for general issues and admin requests.
An officially supported server would have the horsepower required to handle the more difficult turn processing in SE5, and should have more uptime, reponsiveness and interface features.

File U/L D/L system - one other functionality that I don't see yet are functions for uploading files. This was and is a key feature on many forums to promote sharing of mods, AI scripts, ideas, etc. Unfortunately, the beta forums never were given that feature and suffered/still suffer as a result. I assume that functionality will be built-in soon?

Ugh, this is really hard to follow. New replies to a post go above all other replies to a post. But, a reply to a reply goes below the reply (and is indented). It is impossible to follow a conversation this way. phpbb for life!

I don't think "points" is a fair measure of contribution so I would get rid of them. Sure do a post count or something, but calling them points gives the wrong impression IMO.

I'd also suggest that the signature code insert a dashed line or something so that we know it is separate from the post (as I've down with mine as an example).

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You will be able to create a Group for your MOD (public or private). They you can have your own pages, forums, etc for you mod and even link to an official website for that MOD.

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You pain will be legendary even in Hell!

Is it just me, or are visited links a very dark purple/black?

On the black background, many of the links simply dissappear.

The one big thing that would save the points/score IMO, is if something like the following were implemented:

- Points are finely divided into categories - IE:
Posts in Forum X, posts in Subforum Y, story pages written, and so on.
- Each user has the ability to weight each category (including negative weights) to form a total score that only they will see.
- The calculated score would be displayed in all the same places the points/posts totals are normally displayed.

Some people could rank stories highly, some people could rank posts in their favorite mod's forum highly.
This would allow each person to have a personal ranking of everyone on the board and shows them who is contributing most to the things they like.

Going both ways at the same time is defintiely not practical.

A flat reverse (user option) chronological would be simple and good as shown by Shrapnel over the better part of a decade.

As I understand it, that would be completely separate from the main forums which mostly defeats the purpose...

I'd also use a slightly lighter grey for the main text. There isn't enough contrast with the current colour.

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Edit:

Sorry I misread. You were saying personal ratings. I was thinking that you had users being able to influence a "public rating" which I thought could be abused.

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Space Empires Depot | Space Food Empires!

Indeed. This idea is really to demolish the public-ness of the scoring.

It makes it a score in-the-eye-of-the-beholder, and should help avoid pointless post-padding, since posts are no longer guaranteed to be beneficial to your score.

yea, this is kind of... hard to follow a thread of conversation.
I personaly dislike forking conversations in forums, if things go off topic a bit, then so be it. it's not that hard to bring them back.

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an se5a is a ww1 fighter, it is also a car.

Sorry, but in my opinion this thread behavior is more geared for a stream of consciousness type blog, not a game forum. I find I like the behavior of the normal beta forum much better and easier to follow. This is giving me a headache.

We may be upgrading the forum system. It's on of the options we are exploring.

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Your pain will be legendary even in Hell!

I like the new dropbox options - I'm assuming that these will be settings we can eventually change in our profile?

I also think there should be dedicated buttons for "Reply" and "Add New Topic" etc. where appropriate rather than just text links.

It's certainly getting better though now - keep it up. I also like the Hex background and the Post Comment button!

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The forum should convert all of the angle brackets which are not part of an allowed tag into "& gt" and "& lt", rather than simply making them vanish.

I noticed the new hex background. Some subtle hints of a starfield would be nice to add to it.

Indeed. Just for nostalgia's sake, doesn't the hex background remind you of the board for Avalon Hill's Stellar Conquest?
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TAZ

In reading this, I guess some of the suggestions are already taken in and dealt with? I had no problem setting my viewing preference to flat/oldest first. I agree with the stuff about the right panel - put it under the left panel to leave more room on the page.

TT

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Ah yes. But given the fact that the right panel contains useful information, I don't want to disable it.
Staying tuned for future updates,
TT

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A+ Se GdY S++ Fr- C* Cs* Sf- Ai++ Au>M! M- Mp! S@ Ss+ R! Pw+ Fq++ Nd? Rp++ G++ Mm++ Bb-- L-- Tcp

I am dead serious about this. These forums suck horribly. They suck so bad that they out such a black hole. Take a good look at the forums of Spaceempires.net and or Shrapnel. These forums will only TURN PEOPLE AWAY from posting here. They suck that bad.

Err... we can be a little bit more constructive here eh? What are some suggestions you have AT?

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Kwok is right, pissing and moaning about what's wrong isn't gonna do much good except tell the webmaster here what isn't wanted.

I'd first off move all of the right-hand column to the left and limit recent comments and life discussions to something between 3 and 5 with a link to the recent posts page. Hell, we could elimite both of those areas with recent posts - but we want to show community activity.

Next thing I'd do is drop the border contrasts down to a bit brighter than the hex in the background to bring focus back to the text.

Forums need to be looked into to see if there is a more robust script avilible. Maybe even a mod. I thikn howard dean's drupal had one, it's worth investigating.

Now style wise, if you're gonna have a space empire's community page here, we need that header to have some stars, planets, and a big space ship for eye candy. Actually, strike that. We need a montage of space empires 5.

I thik those 4 little things will go a big way for site. Hrmm. I got a few more ideas, but let me think them over.

HRG Azselendor

Um...How do I edit my post/comment? If that is possible it should be noticable.

Nevermind. Now I see it...How do I delete my post?

Actually, it seems that my starting post(in "Bug Reports") could noy be edited; even before I did the second post.

DavidGervais said, "My suggeston is to simply move the right panel info below the left panel (menu). This would eliminate the right column and allow the main forum panel to flow all the way to the right."

I agree. This is what I came to post about at this moment. A sentence should be a line across a page not crammed together into a little block as if it was dropped into a compactor. (View www.shrapnelcommunity.com as a prefered arrangement.)

Other than that this site is looking good. I'm sure other enhancements will be applied as it evolves. Oh, I read this one before; Some stars in the background hexes would be nice.

A post edit should not move it to the most recent post nor should it label the post as new. Perhaps just an edit tag with a time would be sufficient.

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-Let us edit our starting posts and their titles; actually the later posts too. It seems random what we can edit.

-When we "Post comment" I (and others) prefer it not return back to the Home page. Perhaps it should return to the "Room"(example: return to "Space Empires V" room).

-Some of the posts seem out of order according to their post times. Such as those in "Space Empires V and VI: Expansions and the Future: Tell the Company What's on Your Wish List". I have not checked elsewhere. (*See "Edit" below)

-It seems random what we can edit and order of some posts according to time. Is the edit function causing this "out of order" effect? If so, then, it would be best to keep posts at their original spot even if there is an edit done. Having an edit appear in "Recent comments" is resonable.(*See "Edit" below)

*Edit* I now think I get it. Duh! They are out of order because people are using the "Reply" option. Right?
That is cool that it works this way!
I also like the title for every post feature!

-I not certain yet but it seems as if the "Comment Viewing Options" might be some times randomly changing causing the confusion.
But I do like "Comment Viewing Options" how they are arranged to be easily accessible and not complicated.

-Show the "room roadmap/location" that is at the top of the site also at the bottom of the site under the "Post comment" button. This way we'll be able to make sure we're at the place we think we are before posting. We won't have to scroll all the way to the top to double check.

*Edit* Also show it at each post? When I click on some Recent Comments I do not know where I am. I have to check at the top.

Couple suggestions:

1. Make it possible to edit and re-categorize a thread starter post.
2. Remove the white box surrounding avatars.
3. And another vote for moving all the stuff on the right column down below the left column, for more room.

"-When we "Post comment" I (and others) prefer it not return back to the Home page. Perhaps it should return to the "Room"(example: return to "Space Empires V" room)."

-----Actually, it would be better to not return ant where after posting. Just have it stay in the same thread. This way we can stay and read what someone else posted before the thread was refreshed; and then respond.

-----Also, It would be nice to have a button at the bottom that will return us to the subject room(similiar to shrapnelcommunity.com).

If this monologue continues, people might start accusing you of padding your post score.

Your lord and master (below Foamy) LordHavoc

I could care less about my post score. This is a forum where ideas are supposed to be expressed.

At first I liked the "reply" option withit placing the post askew and below the topic post. But now I'm having second thoughts. After the thread gets long many of these replys may be missed as we read the latest regular posts in the thread.

-----Perhaps keep the "reply" option but have the reply post appear at the end of the thread(like normal posts) and have there be a quote of the topic post.

How more constructive do you want me too be. I was as direct as I could be. I am not a forum programmer but I do know that there is better forum software out there.

What I really don't like is that I have to space above my signature in order too post. Shouldn't the signature be hidden from the comment section? And where are my on the fly options such as add attachment, add signature or not, spell check, (Not that I need that), smily avatars... etc?

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"Travel the path of integrity without looking back, for thre is never a wrong time to do the right thing." - Unknown.

You make me miss the good old forum.

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

The table for the forum section needs to have it's background colours revised to be either consistent with the formatting of the threads or at least so all the text is easily ledgible - right now the light grey fonts are not showing well on the off-white background.

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Space Empires Depot | Space Food Empires!

The front page news item need to be made more distinct from each other - right now it comes off as cluttered.

And we can certainly use an image across the header for the site...

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