Guilds on the Horizon

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ID:13666
 
Jun 13 2006, 2:54 pm
After all this talk, we're finally getting close to the initial public release of guild functionality. For this initial release, we will have the following features:
  • Every BYOND Member site can become a guild
  • Every guild can have its own forum with multiple sub-forums
  • Other BYOND Members may join your guild
  • Guild members can have ranks that you specify
  • Ranks can have various privileges, including:
    • Manage guild members (accept or reject membership applications, set member ranks, etc)
    • Manage guild settings (all settings pertaining to guild functionality)
    • Manage files
    • Manage forums
    • Edit CSS
    • Post to the blog (equivalent to the current Contributor functionality, which will go away soon)
    • Ban users
    • Manage the entire site, including non-guild settings

  • Individual sub-forums can set read, write, and moderator access according to guild rank
  • Admin action log to see who did what with their privileges.

Essentially, with this first release, you'll get two added features: your own forums, and the ability to allow other people to control certain settings for your site. We expect this to be a big help for sites like BYOND Labs or some of the bigger game production groups on BYOND. It will be interesting to see what personal sites do with this functionality as well.

The last bit of work has centered around integrating forums into the guilds. When you activate guild features on your Member site, you get to create a forum. If you have existing hub entries with hub forums, you can choose to move one of those to the guild forum. Unfortunately you can only move one, because moving multiple forums means merging post ID records, thread databases, and a lot of other nasty stuff that should never be mentioned in public.

Here's the initial UI for creating your guild forum:



Once you've created your forum, you get links to manage all forums, plus a link under each rank to manage that rank's forum privileges:



At the forum management page, you can easily create new sub-forums or edit them to set permissions for all ranks:



Once you've created a couple of forums, your Manage Forums page looks like this:



There are two ways to set forum privileges for your guild ranks. The first is to set privileges for all ranks, one sub-forum at a time. You see that in one of the above screen shots. The other way is to set one rank's permissions for all sub-forums:



The main forum index is now populated with a couple of new forums, ready for heated discussion:



Of course, it wouldn't be complete unless you could edit your CSS to modify your forum page's style:



We have a couple of loose ends to tie up, but we're hoping to get this release out within a week. After the rollout of this phase, we quickly move on to phase 2. Phase 2 may or may not include, at our sole discretion:
  • Tie-ins with BYOND Passport so that client.CheckPassport() can be used to check guild membership and rank.
  • An API for updating guild member ranks from within authenticated games.
  • Alternate front page templates for your BYOND site, possibly including: blog (current layout), game list (kind of like hub channels), forum, summary of all... others?
  • Guild member favorite games contribute to the ordering of the guild's game list.
  • Much more + your suggestions!
Jun 13 2006, 3:02 pm
Nice. Can't wait!
Jun 13 2006, 3:09 pm
Shweet.
Jun 13 2006, 3:10 pm
Hooray.
Jun 13 2006, 3:11 pm
<3
Jun 13 2006, 3:12 pm
Nice. Worthless comment I know. I like how the forum thing is going though, it'd be easier to get all the things into one place while also using it for other things. I know some people use a hub entry for that anyway, but still, it'll look nice with the css and that.
Jun 13 2006, 3:22 pm
Sounds cool. Would we be allowed to be members of multiple guilds?
Jun 13 2006, 3:29 pm
An API for updating guild member ranks from within authenticated games.

HOT!!!!
Jun 13 2006, 3:44 pm
Shiny.

Just as long as that API is secure. :-)
Jun 13 2006, 3:57 pm
Yey!
Will the new Members site be the new overall BYOND site? (due to the games list, guilds, etc.)

Or will it still be disconnected from the main BYOND.com site?
Jun 13 2006, 5:05 pm (Edited on Jun 13 2006, 5:21 pm)
Yesh.
EDIT:
Holy cow. We're like brother, Mike. You use the same Firefox theme as me!
(iFox)
Jun 13 2006, 8:11 pm
Boid: Can you not guess that this guy is using a Mac laptop? Or at least a Mac desktop? Why would he use iFox when he could use a iMac(Or a much better mac).

Anywho, the guilds are looking good, and I already have plans for mine, plans that will probably never happen, but We will see.
Jun 13 2006, 10:17 pm
I use mac too?
.O
Jun 14 2006, 7:00 am
:)
Jun 14 2006, 10:05 am
QUESTION: Now that the hub is being removed, and replace with this...
Game List via categories kind of thing, does that mean were going to go back to using channels?

Example; when I hit the game tab on my pager, would it display each category, and then clicking on that category would branch to the games?
Jun 15 2006, 6:26 am
Your questions answered!

Would we be allowed to be members of multiple guilds?

Yes. As a BYOND Member, you can join as many guilds as you like.

Currently things are structured so that only BYOND Members can join guilds, but I can see utility in allowing non-BYOND-Members to join in a limited capacity. We'll have to figure that out, as it's a balance between making things more useful for guild owners (who may want to invite non-BYOND-Members to join), versus encouraging BYOND Membership signups.

Just as long as that API is secure.

Yes, that's the number one concern. I'm hoping to work something out using world.Export() so that it's compatible with existing BYOND versions. In that case, we'd release a DM library to encapsulate the functionality. But if it can't be done with absolute security, we may have to scrap that and build in something like world.guild / world.guild_password. Hopefully it won't require that.

Will the new Members site be the new overall BYOND site? (due to the games list, guilds, etc.)
Or will it still be disconnected from the main BYOND.com site?
Now that the hub is being removed, and replace with this...
Game List via categories kind of thing, does that mean were going to go back to using channels?

Well, nothing's changing with the main site just yet. We're still working on the overall concept of how guilds will fit into the site so it's too early to scrap the current channel system. We'll have a much better idea of how things will fit together when we see how people actually use the guild functionality. There may very well be uses we haven't thought of.

There's also the fact that the channel system is quite powerful, it just never quite got the use that Dan originally envisioned for it. There's a lot of good stuff there, and hopefully we'll ultimately be able to take the best of both. The goal is to make the site easier for new players to search and find what they want, as well as to build multiple communities (guilds!) around the things people like best.

Example; when I hit the game tab on my pager, would it display each category, and then clicking on that category would branch to the games?

That's certainly a possible interface enhancement for the pager, but it wouldn't necessarily be tied to guilds.

Or at least a Mac desktop?

Yes, the screen shots were taken on a G5 Power Mac. The real thing. Not some copycat theme. ;)
Jun 15 2006, 7:43 am
Well; is BYOND ever going to be fused back together into one site again?

I liked it back when everything was right at your fingertips, not this "seperate sections of the site."

The (old) main forum seemed ALOT more inviting, but now after this split, it seems most of the "smart people" went to Developer and "other people" went to Games.

Are you planning on fusing back the forums (or even the main site) anytime soon? ;)
Jun 17 2006, 8:22 pm
Don't listen to what Flame Sage said, the developer part is the only place we can hide!

And about guilds, I guess since they are on the horizon that means we only have to wait about six more months? =P
Jun 18 2006, 3:22 am
"Within a week", he said... which means they have three more days to make good on that estimate! ;-)
Jun 18 2006, 10:27 pm
I'm pretty sure "week" is BYOND-Guru Sp33k for "1 month to 4 years," Crispy. But then again, BYOND has been going through many changes. That definition could very well change with it. =]

I'm pretty excited about these guild functions. I just hope we won't have to pay for another key's membership to have a team guild. Let's take Polatrite for an example. Would he be able to create a guild for "Solus" with a single membership on his main key?
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