Hi all. I don't post here much, mostly template editing questions and suggestions, but that'll change as I learn to become more of a coder instead of just a graphics and design man. I run PlanetAgeofMythology on the GameSpy Network and I just launched a new version of our forums yesterday. Upgrading from 6.1.x to 6.4 was a task, especially with all of the features that I had to code back in, but it paid off in the end.

PlanetAOM Forums

I'm posting this here to maybe get some suggestions and feedback from you guys. I'd say that my forums are about 80% completion-wise and I'll finish up what is left to be completed over the next few weeks.

I couldn't have done any of it without the help of this board and I'd especially like to thank PrimeTime, LK, and twslex for answering my many questions and PMs.

It looks great. Can I ask a quick question? How does the Planet Gamespy thing work. I know that they have a different BBS system and you're running UBB.

Thanks.

GameSpy does use ForumPlanet for almost all of their Planet sites, except for PlanetAOM. Ever since I've been running my site, about three or four years now, I've used UBB and my members have grown quite fond of it. GameSpy wants us to use ForumPlanet; however, half of my members have already said that they'd leave the forums if we were to go that route. I explained this to GameSpy and I guess I have an understanding with them because of this, although they'd still prefer to use ForumPlanet.

GameSpy is a great host... all the space you want, tons of publicity, lots of tools at your disposal... they're just really strict on following their rules like the design of their sites, banners, etc.

Thanks for the info, I know the guy that runs the Phobos Lab Doom III site, but to be honest I haven't been there in ages.

I like what you are doing with our board Xiphoid_pAOM. The blend of colors and graphics set the tone...And the Avatars are awesome.

Very nice colors, and the graphics are even better (especially the header image). Although you turned UBBAccel off and this server is free, your board is very fast! You may want to remove the moderators column from forum summary cause it takes much room, if your moderators agree.

I'm kind of a fan of AOM and I've noticed many subjects are interesting and there isn't any unanswered topic, and your members also support each other Also this board seems to welcome new users...

Conclusion: (one of?) the best boards I've ever seen, keep it up Maybe participate in the next Member Spotlight?

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

Does the UBBAccel make that much of a difference in forum page load time? I was always kind of afraid to turn it on... though I might run the test script tonight and see if it would work.

Yeah, our mod column is getting crowded and the only reason I left it up there was so that the mods could get more prestige. I'm going to take it out temporarily and see how much it cleans up the look.

LK, I missed this Spotlight contest by a day. Our server crashed on the 25th, our launch day, because so many people were trying to post, send IMs immediately, etc, and I didn't want to enter the contest with a broken link. I'll surely be in the next one though.

The Accelertor can really speed things up... try it out. Some hacks, unfortunately, rely on having the cache off, so if you have any such installed, things will get hairy.

Thanks for the info, Charles. I have noticed that in a few of the hacks that I've installed that there's certain code for php, which, of course, I haven't been adding since I wasn't using the accelerator. It'd be a real pain going back and changing all those places and ensuring that everything else worked.

I just added custom name colors to recent visitors, thanks to PrimeTime.

Well keep doing an awesome job.

I have to admit that it is one of the best UBB's that I've seen, I agree with LK (no surprise there) it would be nice to see you in the spotlight contest.

Thanks X. The amount of appearance mods done to your board is amazing. I'll certainly try to make it into the next contest.