Welcome to our new forums!

[ShadowCharlatan]

The forum migration is now complete. We are now using Simple Machines Forum, or SMF. It is considerably leaner than vBulletin, doing the job of a forum and not a lot else (thankfully).

With different forum software comes different functionality. Some of this will be exciting, enabling us to do things we want to do. Other observations will be disappointing, because much-loved features of vBulletin will no longer be available. On the whole though, this change will enable us and unleash us more than it will hold us back. The state of our vBulletin forum was causing the DM team and some players a lot of grief. With any luck, things are going to be a lot easier and faster with this forum.

Here are just some of the nice things that will come out of this change:

Forum management improvements, better experience in Minor/Plot factions

We had quite a lot of challenges creating and managing boards on the previous forum. No longer. Now small factions and plot-based factions will have a better experienced, more connected to other players and DMs. Now we can feel in control of our forums again.

Leaner, faster. Less unnecessary feature bloat. More customisable.

Player faction forums
Now that we have left vBulletin, player faction forums can be requested again. As before, you will need to nominate at least 3 player faction members to get a player faction forum set up.

Faster application turnaround, nicer application process
It should be easier for DMs to manage some administrative aspects of applications now. We will also try out using a form for applications, to make things a bit easier and a bit less nebulous and intimidating for people approaching apps.

A sexy new look. (Also mobile responsive.)

Probably a lot more...

As with any significant shift, there will be a little bit of pain as we adjust. Here's what you need to know:

How do I get access to the new forum?

If you used the old forum, then all your accounts were migrated to the new forum. However, passwords are handled differently on this forum. Because of this, to regain access to your account, you will need to use the "Forgot My Password" functionality on the new forum. Unfortunately, some email addresses (notably hotmail/live/outlook/etc) may not be reachable by the "forgot my password" email function as is. Therefore, if you are unable to recover your account through the "forgot my password" function, you should contact a DM to get access to your account. You can do this on IRC or in the old forum. DMs can give you a temporary password to access your new forum account, delivering it by private message on the old forum, or by email to your user's email address.

How do I get my faction forum access back?
Permissions are also handled differently on the new forum and were not migrated across. To get your access back, simply request forum access again from the DM team using the forum request "helpdesk". Create a ticket there and just describe the access you need.

What happened to my avatar/PMs/signature?
Most content and users have been preserved, with some exceptions such as private messages, signatures, avatars, and perhaps more. This was a manual process, so I focused on the necessities and I did not see the value in migrating some things. Please take the time to retrieve anything you want to keep from the old forum, or take this as an opportunity to change things up.

How do applications and private boards (reporting exploits, private suggestions, private discussions) work on the new forum?
The new forum uses a helpdesk/ticket system to handle applications and other private boards. This is because the forum's permission system does not (by itself) give enough fine control to handle these. Applications will work much the same as they have always done, though.

Players will be able to fill out their application as normal, generating a 'ticket' which DMs then administrate in a private DM forum. Then once a vote has occurred, application results will be delivered back to the player.

Where are my Player Character Notes (PCNs)?
Because forum permissions deliver less fine control on SMF, we can no longer support ongoing or new PCNs in a satisfying manner. But we will try to use the ticket system for this as well, and see how it goes.

If you want to retrieve your PCNs for existing or past characters, feel free to request this from a DM.

Help! Alt accounts don't work on the new forum!
On the new forum, you cannot reuse the same email address for multiple accounts. If you want to make an alternative account, you must use an alternative or dummy email address to sign up to the forum. The email address doesn't need to be real.

This place is a mess! What's with the weird code and bad formatting?
Moving from one forum to another can create formatting issues. You will see some of this throughout some threads and posts. You can expect that important threads and new forum content will look just fine moving forward. But some archived content will look a little odd. It is probable that we can find solutions to this, so no need to worry.

Welcome to our new forums!

[ShadowCharlatan]

Please also make sure to post any bugs and suggestions about the forums as we work through the growing pains.

Thanks. :)

And thanks to deltaTime, Halfbrood, gracken, and Gentleman for their assistance. And to the rest of the DM team too, who will be working hard to fix things up and help fine tune everything.