MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT - PLEASE READ

[Knightshade Dragon]

Hey guys and gals,

I wanted to give you a little bit of 'state of the nation' but without all the lies.  To kick off the new year, we have decided to move to a very powerful dedicated server with roughly 28x the bandwidth (No, I'm not joking), and roughly 12x the throughput (again, I'm not joking).  It will enable us to begin to move GamingTrend in the direction I've always wanted - one stop shopping.  In the coming months we will begin looking into things such as demo and video hosting, podcasts, and many other improvements for the site including rebuilding EVERY page from the ground up to be more efficient and easier to use.  

As a result of this shakeup, I'm doing data migration for the next few hours.  At the Nth hour I'll lock the forum and migrate it over to ensure we don't lose data.  I figured you'd like a heads up just in case things don't go 'according to plan'.  

This is a big step for us, and for you our readership.  I'm glad to be able to share in it with you guys.  Without you it simply wouldn't be possible...

[Lockdown]

Awesome news and congratulations to the whole staff!

(do we have to bring Devil over in the move?  I wouldn't mind if we just left him here.)

 

[Nth Power]

Sweet news!  It's great to hear the site will be evolving towards bigger and better things.  

[Dreamshadow]

Ooooh...popdcasting.  Ron, stop that, you're making my brain work again over these things.  I don't know if  you want to inflict my voice on anyone.

[Sam Hell]

Grats man, this is one of my favorite web sites. It's great to see it doing well and growing  

[Knightshade Dragon]

Ooooh...popdcasting.  Ron, stop that, you're making my brain work again over these things.  I don't know if  you want to inflict my voice on anyone.

I don't know either, but uh...maybe we'll risk it.

[Devil]

I'll track you down wherever you are...again!!

I thing there should be a podcast of Poncho weeping in the corner of his room when his Flyers and Steelers get bounced in the playoffs.

[warning]

We rock.

Ooooh...popdcasting.  Ron, stop that, you're making my brain work again over these things.  I don't know if  you want to inflict my voice on anyone.

As long as we don't have to listen to this voice!

[CrayolaSmoker]

Ooh!  If you do a Podcast I want to be a frequent guest and/or caller!  

[whiteboyskim]

Awesome news and congratulations to the whole staff!

(do we have to bring Devil over in the move?  I wouldn't mind if we just left him here.)

 

There's always the possibility of the transfer not going quite as planned and certain people being "accidentally" left behind. I'm just sayin'...

[gellar]

Grats on the move Ron.

gellar

[Turtle]

Perhaps you really could go with a One stop shopping solution by having "buy this game here at <so and so online retailer>" links where appropriate?  I recall we do have one of those game databases.

This way, we can support the site directly by buying through referral links.

[Knightshade Dragon]

That is absolutely on the list of 'to do' items Turtle.  I'm working on some affiliateships with appropriate companies.  I'd like to do the same for hintbooks and such as well.  

[Turtle]

Oh and one more thing.  This is kind of a rip-off of another site called boardgamegeek.com.  But basically, they also categorize their board games not just by genre, but they tag games with various features that it includes.

So if a game had a cooperative multiplayer mode, its entry would include a tag called coop that was searchable in the advanced search option.  You could search by number of players, whether it had multiplayer, etc...

That'd be a great way to improve the game database without adding that much more complexity.

I mean, it's pretty common to see a forum post where someone asks for a list of games that have certain properties like coop, or perhaps 4 player multiplayer.

[Gratch]

Wait, there's a main site?    (I keed, I keed...)

Congrats KD.  Sounds great!

[stiffler]

Oh and one more thing.  This is kind of a rip-off of another site called boardgamegeek.com.  But basically, they also categorize their board games not just by genre, but they tag games with various features that it includes.

This very thing already exists in the database.  Check out the "Advanced Search" link on the main page below the search box.  I just searched for all the games that support the steering wheel!  It does lack the ability to search by co-op multiplayer, though.  Hopefully the database monkeys are better at keeping track with that kind of stuff than I was. :wink:

[Knightshade Dragon]

Ya beat me to the punch Stiffler, but it does illustrate one of the primary points of our redesign - there are some features that even long time readers aren't fully aware of.  We have one of the single largest databases of current and next gen games on any independent site.  Often, our site is more accurate the the behemoth sites. (that statement comes straight from publishers and developers)

I'll see if might be able to pry co-op in, but we'll really need reader help in filling those in.  Its not like that is often line-itemed on the back of the box or in a press release.

[Calvin]

Holy crap that sounds awesome. Way to go Ron.

[CeeKay]

Grats guys!


podcasts.... would that mean I could put my own brand of wackiness into a audio recording.... hmmmmm.....   :twisted:

[PaulBot]

Rock on with yer bad self!

[TheMissingLink]

git 'r done!!

(why did I type that, I HATE that phrase)

Best of luck, GT staff!

[Knightshade Dragon]

Hahah.  Thanks TML.  We are working out the bugs and such now.  Already liking the new digs.  I think you will too....but I'll dare say that isn't the only big surprise we are working on for you guys ...this one is just more 'immediate'.  

[TheMissingLink]

OMG, you got me a job!?

[Thin_J]

The idea of not having to venture out into the various file sites for new demos makes me happy.

Especially after all the crap I went through trying to get the Empire at War demo last night.

[unbreakable]

Now Ron is going to get everything set up great, we will love the place for a year.  Then IGN will offer him $500 million, and the site will be assimilated  

[th'FOOL]

Now Ron is going to get everything set up great, we will love the place for a year.  Then IGN will offer him $500 million, and the site will be assimilated  

That will NEVER happen (unless I get a cut...)

[unbreakable]

IGN never asks a second time...

[mytocles]

warning wrote:

We rock.

I agree.  

Today's Word for the Day: "Understatement"  :lol:

[Bob]

Wow.

Not to be a stick in the mud, but here's to hoping this isn't a "bite off more than you can chew" situation.

[Knightshade Dragon]

No problemo Bob.  I had to weight that as well.  I've taken some steps to ensure that it won't be a problem.  As they say, you gotta spend money to make money, yes?

[CrayolaSmoker]

I thought the saying was, "You gotta run adds that piss off your user base to make money."  :mrgreen:

[Knightshade Dragon]

Crap, you are right Crayola.  Let me dig out those flashing "j00 may hv rleedy wun!1!!!" ads with the sound.  

[Knightshade Dragon]

Update - We are moving DNS over the weekend, so if you get some oddity with the site it is probably just DNS settling.

[Knightshade Dragon]

DNS should be almost entirely settled.  Let me know if you know of people that are unable to resolve the site.  

[depward]

We rock.

Ooooh...popdcasting.  Ron, stop that, you're making my brain work again over these things.  I don't know if  you want to inflict my voice on anyone.

As long as we don't have to listen to this voice!

Dude!  I just saw this!  Not cool!