That should clear up everyone's questions, right? Good ...
As a development team and as a company, we know that the forums are extremely important to some of you, and we know that some of you have put a lot (!!!!) of effort into building up the community here, especially those who have written the more creative poetic stuff. C'mon, how many of you have > 5,000 posts, raise your hands. That amount of effort is *staggering*. Seriously, I think the highest post count I've seen was ~8400? Over 2.5 years, that'd be like 10 posts EVERY DAY since AG2 launched.
The effort of migrating that much data from AG2 to AG3 is almost as staggering, since the guy who wrote the AG2 forum software didn't make it terribly efficient, and the way we're linking accounts, etc., between the two systems might cause problems. Trying to migrate it to AG3 will be a pretty big job, and it will probably fall in my lap since I'm sorta the database guru around here, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's up to me whether I want to do it or not. If Dan says do it, I do it.
Whether we start over, and wipe everything, and build a new forum engine, or implement someone else's forum software, remains to be discussed internally because it's not a critical feature for us yet. That doesn't mean it's not important to us, it just means we have to get core features working like, y'know, logging in.
Will we migrate old posts into the new forum software? It depends whether we can find an easy way to make the old forum data compatible. Nothing's *impossible* but it's also not practical for us to spend development time (read: dollars) for us to spend a big amount of effort trying to sort stuff out so it's all perfect and pristine.
If we start over with forum posts, will we archive the old forums? Again, nothing's impossible, but I can't answer that right now.
What will happen to your armor points for forum posts? Well, since armor points are also up in the air regarding the same sort of "wipe vs migrate" discussions, I can't answer that question right now either.
Please direct people asking about the future of AG2 forums to this thread if they start asking questions in other forums/threads. I'll post updates to this thread as I have more information.
Me agrada mas la version actual de armor games en cuanto al diseño , la siquiente version tiende a verse muy compleja y a verse saturado de elementos
I was just reading in Salvidian's Tavern Thread about AG usership [this: http://armorgames.com/community/thread/9993446/one-dilly-of-a-pickle-aint-it ], and I saw where he said that AGv3 will completely delete the content in the forums [quote:
AG3 will also result in a clean slate for the forums... By deleting all of the material there.
].
If this is true, then my message to the AG people behind this plan is DON'T DO IT![i] If you wipe the forums, you will destroy countless crucial game guides, good conversations [like Cen's late thread about internet behavior], and beloved games [like You're Banned]. In short, you will kill, gut, and hand out to dry the community that forms the backbone of AG's success and popularity, which will in turn cripple AG and eventually lead to its downfall and consignment to the internet's rubbish heap. Now mind you, I have no problem with deleting all the locked stuff and threads that haven't seen daylight since AG's inception. That would actually free up a huge amount of server space for AG. But slaughtering the rest of the forums would be nothing short of suicidal for AG, and a giant middle finger emblazoned with "F-U" to the people who inhabit these forums.
C'mon AG, do the right thing here. Don't eviscerate the thing that makes your site such a popular haven for the denizens of the internet. Keep the forums as they are.
They mentioned if it's too difficult for them to transfer over the data then they will start anew.
I'm willing to wait 10 years if it takes them that long. These forums are the best around and deleting them would be deleting years of the site's heritage.
They didn't say that. They mentioned if it's too difficult for them to transfer over the data then they will start anew.
Rumors pointed in my direction say the forums aren't transferable. That's what I heard from small-talk, anyways.
I was just reading in Salvidian's Tavern Thread about AG usership [this: http://armorgames.com/community/thread/ ⦠le-aint-it ], and I saw where he said that AGv3 will completely delete the content in the forums [quote:
A lot of the thread is based on rumors. Because we don't know much about AG3 due to the lack of admin/public communication, I had to go on the highest accepted rumors. The thread is also based on common knowledge of most of the users. Read with discretion.
These forums are the best around and deleting them would be deleting years of the site's heritage.
I also imagine it being difficult to get them started again. Right now I'm comfortable in the forums, and I assume many others are as well, because we have all these threads to browse through and possibly post in. Imagine the forums being wiped. How would we start? Would people be willing to continue after all their precious threads have been deleted? Specifically regarding the AMW, but if they keep those threads and not any of the other sections, that'll be looked at as favouritism, and would imply that the other sections aren't important enough to keep.
My idea is to improve as soon as possible to maximize the new site, and to turn off the old ... I recommend it for every game and insert cups (gold, silver and bronze) ...
My idea is to improve as soon as possible to maximize the new site, and to turn off the old ... I recommend it for every game and insert cups (gold, silver and bronze)
This has nothing to do with the forums. Don't post this everywhere.
but if they keep those threads and not any of the other sections, that'll be looked at as favouritism, and would imply that the other sections aren't important enough to keep.
But keeping the AMW is favoritism. Minus the stickies,The S&S threads will be pointless after AG3. The Newcomer's threads will be pointless. The AG3 forum will, obviously, be pointless. The Video Games threads are all repeatable. The really, really, good Game Walkthroughs would be a good thing to keep. The GD threads for Flash Games would be the only thing to keep. Gantic's list of popular games in Forum Games would be the only thing worth keeping. Every thread in the WEPR is repeatable. Same in Popular Media and The Tavern. The Programming forum threads can be removed.
When you look at it, about 95% of our threads are outdated, irrelevant, repeatable, or are outright useless.
It's wiping away the sites history. I also don't think that it'll be easy for us to start over from scratch. We have ten-twenty active regulars, I doubt it'll be much different than it is now in terms of activity. However now we have threads to post in. We don't have to recreate all those threads just to post. It seems like a tedious task.
At first, yes, it'll be a major pain in the (censored), but I know I'll try and renew some big threads myself. Or at least try. I'm planning on keeping screenshots of some big, major posts that affected AG dramatically but weren't/aren't stickied.
It will be a tedious task. But if it has to be done, then it has to be done.
Then, of course, you can always count on the newcomers to post those repeatable, and often duplicate, threads. I really, really, hope some of the ideas we came up with in the past few weeks will actually be considered and implemented sometime before AG3 so we have some fresh blood to go off on.
Talking about the AMW, anyone who wants to keep the works that were created yet have not saved them anywhere else could just copy and paste into notepad and save it for when the AG3 forums surface.
Yeah, there's always that option. My concerns were the competitions though. I'm sure it would be of value to have a record of who-won-what-and-when.
Sadly, it seems that looking back on the forums via the Wayback Machine and other cache sites may not be an option as AG blocked the community from being crawlable :/
Yup, I tried MrDayCee's link to AG1, and tried to go to AG2's earliest days to get some info. Too bad it won't work. That's why I'm going to screenshot and upload everything myself.
If anyone's curious, the button to hit when you want a screenshot is "PrtScrSysRq." It's near the top of most PC-compatible keyboards. When you hit it, open up Paint and hit CTRL + V. Then the screen will be pasted onto Paint. Merely save, upload, and share.
