As expected, we ran into some problems, but in theory the new site is up & running. It will most likely have sporadic issues and possible further downtime, but I expect that we can iron these things out over time.
Read the various stickies in the forums to get a gist of how things work now. Feel free to let us know about any problems (we've already found a few). Please avoid the temptation to bash everything immediately.. it's a big change and maybe a bit underwhelming, but we think it'll work out well for the long-term. It's also a work in progress as we have a few perks we want to add in, and there will be inevitable usage issues that we can attend to as they crop up.
The main issue you may encounter is with the DNS not updating fast enough-- that is, with your machine seeing our old IP address for various urls. We did not have the foresight to correct this ahead of time nor the insight to correct this now, but it should resolve itself by this evening at the latest. The way to test if you have the correct server info is to do the following calls (on windows; other platforms are similar):
Start->Run->cmd
ipconfig /flushdns
ping www.byond.com
ping secure.byond.com
ping files.byondhome.com
Those will return either 67.228.127.155 (old) or 50.22.142.18 (new). If they all return the new server, you are updated and in good shape. If not, most likely it is only files.byondhome.com that isn't resolving (since you are reading this at www.byond.com on the new machine already). That is only used for Member file uploads so just avoid doing those for a day and you'll be fine. If you are really impatient, you can correct this by editing your 'hosts' file. On Windows 7 and related, this is in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts . You would just add the following lines:
50.22.142.18 www.byond.com
50.22.142.18 secure.byond.com
50.22.142.18 files.byondhome.com
Ideally you'd want to pull those out in a day or two after the DNS properly updates in case we change our IPs at a later date.
Jan 25 2012, 2:42 am
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Tom
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Seriously, it's like a ghost town. I hope I didn't scare everyone off!
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Well, I don't really get why we removed the blogs and replaced them with forum? Instead of making a blog post, people will make a forum post.
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Yes, that's what I've been trying to tell people all along. You're not losing much functionality (we can even bring some styling back). But doing it this way gives us better organization and centralization (especially useful for moderators). Also, the new home/alert system makes it way easier to follow users and games.
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One last thing, is there a way to get my older CSS's code back ? I forgot about saving it.
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Yeah, we have all of that stuff archived.
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Odd the new layout is well nice .. but will take some getting used to.
Good job to the team anyway :). | |
I think it needs some refinement, maybe some more color. We were focused more on functionality. We've tried to take the best pieces from the old site and merge them into a single component that we use everywhere, so it's really consistent. I think you'll like it after using it a bit.
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The site really needs more style. It feels like when you visit a site and the style sheet and images wont load and all you see is the raw text.
Also, the "Iccusion Entertainment" key lost all its fans. | |
Well, hopefully you are at least loading the table borders and such (if not, do a hard refresh). I don't think it looks bad; just too pristine. We'll work on it.
Your key lost its fans due to an oversight in the way we filtered out guilds (we only expected it to happen for things like DreamMakers, not production keys). That's something we can correct.. although at the moment that key having fans does nothing unless you intend to post under it. Although one concept we could have is fanning a production key in a way that subscribes you to the games it produces. | |
Well, about the In-Development sub forum, I see that you need your game to be listed in-order to post information about the future development, while in-order to get your game listed, it must be complete or it'll be marked as 'In-complete'?
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If your game is incomplete (visible but not ready for admin review), or pending (visible and ready for admin review), it'll be in In Development. If it's Listed it will move to Original Games or Fangames depending on where it belongs.
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Tom wrote:
Well, hopefully you are at least loading the table borders and such (if not, do a hard refresh). I don't think it looks bad; just too pristine. We'll work on it. I see the borders and stuff. But it's just hard to see where things start and end. There's not enough style, it all feels like a text file with borders to try and divide things up. The white on white is a bad idea. Use colors to show where things are different instead of just borders. Like multiple shades of the blue or gray. If you want a white background, don't make the background of these posts white also, it's too hard to tell what is what. Your key lost its fans due to an oversight in the way we filtered out guilds (we only expected it to happen for things like DreamMakers, not production keys). That's something we can correct.. although at the moment that key having fans does nothing unless you intend to post under it. Although one concept we could have is fanning a production key in a way that subscribes you to the games it produces. I don't plan on making posts on the key. So if that's the only thing fans of keys are for, then it's not a big deal, I guess. | |
Also the red BYOND icon top left used for notifications stops spinning on latest release of Google Chrome.
If anyone can also confirm just to make sure its not me. | |
A.T.H.K wrote:
Also the red BYOND icon top left used for notifications stops spinning on latest release of Google Chrome. Yeah, I can confirm. Also, I'm liking the feel of the forum, I think I can get use to this. | |
Tom wrote:
Yes, that's what I've been trying to tell people all along. You're not losing much functionality (we can even bring some styling back). But doing it this way gives us better organization and centralization (especially useful for moderators). Also, the new home/alert system makes it way easier to follow users and games. We lost hubs unless we pay an extended price for something we had a right to before for free. You don't get people to buy a product by taking away the rights you had to it for free and raising the price for it by almost 50%. I now have to pay 24$ if I wish to make a library. Freeware ahoy! Also this design is... uh, how long has it been in the making? Looks like really early 2000s proboards. | |
That's false. You pay $24 to have your game listed on BYOND. The software is free. If you wish, develop a game and have it listed on another site. However, if you wish to get your game listed on BYOND, money is required. This makes sense.
Edit: You can make hubs, however can't submit then for listing. | |
Ok I'm at work so I'm just looking at the site from my phone looks great so far, can't wait to check it out properly. Yeah I did think some people.thought they were loosing more than they did lol
It is a site change deeper than we have had previously so implementing a custom Css editor now would be a bit of hassle, but that is mostly the only thing we lost but once things are ironed out hopefully there will be some customization allowed. Nice job, I want to go home early to test it properly lol | |
Avainer1 wrote:
That's false. You pay $24 to have your game listed on BYOND. The software is free. If you wish, develop a game and have it listed on another site. However, if you wish to get your game listed on BYOND, money is required. This makes sense. No. You need to pay 24$ to make a hub in general now. It got worse. Except it doesn't make sense. You don't get people to donate by "offering" them a perk they had as a free user but you took it away for the free user. Without exposure, software won't last, thus killing any point of it being "freeware", because you have to pay FOR exposure. Sure, you can download BYOND for free... but for it to have any merit or use from a making stand-point you need to pay an inflated price to do what used to be free. | |
No. You need to pay 24$ to make a hub in general now. It got worse.I just tried to make a hub on my nonmember alt, how come it was successful? Except it doesn't make sense. You don't get people to donate by "offering" them a perk they had as a free user but you took it away for the free user.BYOND does not ask for donations in exchange for perks. BYOND -sells- memberships. You can donate as much as you want with the membership though. Without exposure, software won't last, thus killing any point of it being "freeware", because you have to pay FOR exposure.You can get exposure from outside the BYOND community, or do it like the rips do. Masspaging/inviting. A lot of BYOND members are kind enough to 'sponsor' a game they life via buying the creator a membership or donating a kind amount of money. Sure, you can download BYOND for free... but for it to have any merit or use from a making stand-point you need to pay an inflated price to do what used to be free. The only thing you pay for is getting your game listed. I am not sure if it even applies to libraries as well... | |