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Get Ready for the Future!

Oct 17 2011 05:56 PM | AndY in Community


Hello!

It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, you'll be happy to know (if you didn't already) that we haven't been tanning on a beach in the Caribbean for the past year (and let's face it, no one wants to see us half-naked on a beach anyway); instead, we've been hard at work on many surprises that we'll be unveiling slowly over the next little while.

To kick it all off, we have a slew of site and server upgrades that we'll be applying soon, and I figured I'd give you all a quick rundown of what to expect (I'll be updating this thread whenever new information is available):


⇒ Server Upgrades
  • Our public sites (http://overwatchmod.com and http://community.overwatchmod.com + the pages you see in-game) will be moved from our partner's server to our very own VPS. This will give us much more control over the hosting environment and will allow us to make specific changes to it to improve site response time and speed. In short, you'll get a much snappier experience navigating our online content.
  • Before we move anything to our VPS, we'll be taking it offline and performing some maintenance/running some software updates on it. There will be a bit of downtime that'll only affect our IRC network (+ the WebChat page) and our public SVN repositories (so you won't be able to check for updates on the Dev build). The downtime will be minimal (~a few hours).

⇒ Site Upgrades
  • All of our sites are getting a huge face-lift. The current design is nice, but it's a bit too monochromatic (and is getting old). The new design is much more modern, will incorporate different colours and will (eventually) be spiced up with some art! You'll find a preview of the new design at the bottom of this post. Note that it's still a work in progress (it'll very likely go through a few more iterations before we settle on a final design/colour scheme), and I'll try to update the image every now and then to show you the changes.
  • The software that powers our community will be upgraded to the brand new 3.2.x branch (see below for details).

⇒ Community Site: What's New?
  • As mentioned above, the software that powers our community will be upgraded to its latest version. All the changes listed in this thread + a few others added in subsequent updates will be included.
  • Our entire URL scheme will change. I'll add more details over the coming weeks, but as an example: http://community.overwatchmod.com will change to http://community.redmatter.ca (we're basically going to be grouping all of our projects under a single community).
  • The 3.2.x branch of the community software we use removed some features you might have grown accustomed to. Here are some examples (off the top of my head):
    • Topic Descriptions
    • Manage Notes (in your UserCP > Settings)
    • Online Status (can no longer see the status of a member when viewing a thread)
    • Profile Picture/Avatar (now merged into one)
    • Post Icons (they were terrible anyway -- the new Tags feature is much better)
    • ...

⇒ Images

View attachment: Site111017.png View attachment: Site111017_2.png View attachment: Site111017_3.png View attachment: Site111017_4.png


⇒ Final Comments & Revision History

I'll be adding much more information to this thread over the coming weeks, so keep an eye on it!

As always, you're more than welcome to post any thoughts/feedback you have on all of this. There's still some time before we roll out the upgrades, so we can still make changes if needed.


AndY
Oct 17 2011 04:48 PM
Added a few more images!

The Joker
Oct 17 2011 09:48 PM
Good to know about the website, and that Overwatch is ready to kick start that throttle and get back on that bike toward active development! And by the way, owc_prison is going well. I hope to update you personally in the near future. Talk to you soon Andy :thumbup:

WAXT
Oct 18 2011 04:51 AM
A new redMatter symbol and a store? Nice, what will you be selling?

AndY
Oct 18 2011 09:19 AM

View PostWAXT, on 18 October 2011 - 04:51 AM, said:

A new redMatter symbol and a store? Nice, what will you be selling?
The logo's just a placeholder. As for what we're selling, we'll talk about it after the announcement (the store's empty for now).


Edit: What do you all think of the new design?

Gabe(HUN)
Oct 18 2011 10:33 AM
Oh My Gosh, New Announcement!!!
The design very beautifull I think: the built will be the same, as the current, but with these colours I guess, it's pretty cool.

But I will exciting about two things:
1. An announcement about the V2: pictures, videos, informations etc.
2. Same question, as Waxt asked: Store?

rickinator9
Oct 18 2011 11:08 AM
I will accept any store if you will clear it a bit, now perhaps. Will this store offer in-game stuff where you can get better stuff by buying it or will it be non-virtual items?

Oh and Gabe, you can always be a full-time employee, as I am full time lazy

AndY
Oct 18 2011 02:21 PM

View PostGabe(HUN), on 18 October 2011 - 10:33 AM, said:

Oh My Gosh, New Announcement!!!
The design very beautifull I think: the built will be the same, as the current, but with these colours I guess, it's pretty cool.

But I will exciting about two things:
1. An announcement about the V2: pictures, videos, informations etc.
2. Same question, as Waxt asked: Store?
Glad you like it! Can't wait to roll it out and let you see it live. :)

Once all the site/server stuff is done, the v2 announcement won't be far behind.


View Postrickinator9, on 18 October 2011 - 11:08 AM, said:

Will this store offer in-game stuff where you can get better stuff by buying it or will it be non-virtual items?
Could be both! «

And it could be neither. ;o

How about a moustache store? http://www.spoonflow...hop_preview.png

AndY
Oct 18 2011 02:31 PM

View Postrickinator9, on 18 October 2011 - 11:08 AM, said:

Will this store offer in-game stuff where you can get better stuff by buying it or will it be non-virtual items?
I guess the real question is: what would you like to see in a store? Or, more generally, what could we offer you that would be worth your hard-earned cash?

Feel free to reply in here or start a new thread. :)

Gabe(HUN)
Oct 18 2011 03:20 PM

View Postrickinator9, on 18 October 2011 - 11:08 AM, said:

Oh and Gabe, you can always be a full-time employee, as I am full time lazy

Why are you saying this?

AndY
Oct 18 2011 03:22 PM

View PostGabe(HUN), on 18 October 2011 - 03:20 PM, said:

Why are you saying this?
I'm guessing because of your signature. :p But I didn't understand the joke either. :X

rickinator9
Oct 18 2011 03:39 PM

View PostAndY, on 18 October 2011 - 03:22 PM, said:

I'm guessing because of your signature. :p But I didn't understand the joke either. :X
That's because only I understand my jokes, so you will be jealous. I hope that if the store would come in-game, that it would not sell stuff that would affect gameplay.

AndY
Oct 18 2011 03:51 PM

View Postrickinator9, on 18 October 2011 - 03:39 PM, said:

I hope that if the store would come in-game, that it would not sell stuff that would affect gameplay.
If you mean items that give one player an unfair advantage over another, then no, we definitely won't be doing that.

AndY
Oct 21 2011 02:22 PM
Maintenance start date and time posted. We'll hopefully have everything back up and running before the end of the month. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Steam for updates.

SPARTdAN
Nov 03 2011 06:35 PM
Excellent!

AndY
Nov 08 2011 01:37 PM
Hello lovely new site! :D