Hi everyone!

First off I'd like to apologise for my extended absence from the shard. I know that the classic excuse is "busy life", but for me this is an understatement. I've been managing a team, doing a management qualification, working on my band, and now I've been offered another job, so life is manic right now.

However, with that out of the way, I'd like to bring your attention to the forums. In light of the recent development focus from GM Bob and Broadband himself, and of course the extended support from GM Echo and the rest of the Obsidian Staff team, I felt it only about time that we gave a bit of focus to the forums.

I've always believed very strongly that the forums are an integral part of the game and form the core of the Obsidian community. I also feel that we can do more to link the game to the forums and vice versa, which I will be speaking to Broadband/Bob about in a development context when I see them.

So, what can you do?

I would very much like to get some suggestions from you all about how you would like YOUR forums to look. Examples would be

• Is there a section that you feel needs improvement?
• What about a forum section that you have seen elsewhere that you would like to see here?
• Is there a section that doesnt work and should be changed or removed?
• Do you think that the forums could use a visual facelift like the main website?
• What other ideas do you have?

Please leave your comments here. I will be collating these so PLEASE make them relevant, and constructive.

Thanks, and <3 to you all.

GM Thassius

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Thassius
"Blessed are the noobs, for they shall inherit Obsidian" - Thassius

forum is great thassius, now we just need stafff to communicate over the phone. Echo is always on (mostly) and bob is the only person to fix things so if we get them two on the phone together than everyone should know whats going on the majority of the time. thank you for posting thassius


I propose a goat emoticon
and cant really top the boogie mans idea about making it the same theme as the website.why isnt the server status on the patcher

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The synonymous term freedom of expression is sometimes preferred, since the right is not confined to verbal speech but is understood to protect any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used.

The forum could use a visual face lift to match the caliber of the main page. It would be strange to get used to (other forums I frequent have done the same) but its not a hard adjustment. Maybe something more UO themed?
Another board I visit added a feature to change back to the old layout if you have a gripe about getting used to the new one so maybe that would be a cool feature to add.

The selection of topics we have to post in is OK the way it is. The only recommendation I could make would be something like another board I visit has. Its called Post Whores. Its pretty much a place for people that want to get their ego boost in post counts by posting things like the "99 bottles of beer song" and other random things.

You can never go wrong with adding more emoticons either

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*bump* thanks for the suggestions so far but... more? :0)

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Thassius
"Blessed are the noobs, for they shall inherit Obsidian" - Thassius

keep on rocking in the free world man.

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LOV FOR LIFE

hahaha, thx, my band had their first gig on friday woooo!

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Thassius
"Blessed are the noobs, for they shall inherit Obsidian" - Thassius

I'm not sure if this is really all that earth-shatteringly useful but...

How about a ranking system for forum members? It seemed kind of cool when they implemented that at the Hellgate Guru forum. You would get tiny little hash marks and medals based on your veteran status and number of posts.

I don't know. That's all I've got. Other than that, "if it ain't broke don't fix it!"

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Speaking to you from the third eye of the society machine.

i like the black look it looks great on hd screens
and is relaxing yay! i just got my hair braided and am happy over someones house

-chips

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this is CHIPS!

Im actualy satisfied with the forums the way they are at the moment and couldnt think of anything to improve them :/
maybe that ranking system that cyber mentioned would be neat

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"Blessed be the noobs, for they shall inherit Obsidian" - Seer Thassius

maybe could link the player profile with their ingame progress? Causing viewing other players then you see perhaps deeds made ingame such as player killed or got most houses for example... or best skilled gmed etc

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Ambient - GM Crafter
Pagan Hellfire - GM Mage
Black Coffee - GM Fisher/Chef/Alch

I game on Ubuntu!

Similar to Ambients idea (or maybe ive just elaborated on his idea), but in terms of having a player profile - how abouts a feature of uploading pictures of our chars & adding some info for them ourselves. So like we can have 5 characters ingame, so similarly 5 slots on said 'forum player profile' - adding a little info about skills and whatnot.

Could save on people having things like 'TaX Man [GM Warrior]' in their sig & also probably less intensive than actually linking the forum to the ingame character (the way I hear it used to be on the server stat, i.e. click a name & see a profile <- dunno if this actually happened btw coz i wasnt around then )

Anyways tis just a thought!

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Miner/Smith/Lumberjack/Carpenter/Cartographer
Alchemist/Fisherman/Tamer/Warrior/Daemon

ill be kinda mad on the because of my situation but they do sound nice

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this is CHIPS!

Here's something super simple that might be more handy than you think: a link back to the Obsidian main page http://www.dxgaming.com/obsidian/

In fact, didn't somebody already suggest a tighter integration between the main page and the forums? So you can nav around both with ease?

But it's no biggie. I still like the color scheme here since it's easy on my CRT burned eyes at night.

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Speaking to you from the third eye of the society machine.

that link is posted on the main page...right under the Obsidian News tag

I think the forums are great as is. Easy to read and navigate...no flashy things to distract, but at the same time looks professional. The only suggestion I have is this: Remove the banners and advertisements that advertise cheat codes etc.

Ok... So I feel really dumb now...

However... A nice little quick link at the top of every page would be nice! Touche!

HOWEVER! If that's all we have to talk about then... Everything is great!

Again: If it isn't broken, don't fix it!

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Speaking to you from the third eye of the society machine.