[DEVBLOG] Introducing the EVE Gate forum

[Mangala]

Forum and EVEgate to be integrated.

LINK: http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=837

Introducing the EVE Gate Forum
Reported by CCP Alice
Hi, I'm CCP Alice. I'm working with Team Occam's Razor, and we are responsible for bringing a new feature-rich forum to EVE Gate as part of the Incursion expansion.

TL:DR Graphical representation of the forum upgrade:


 

Our aim is to further embrace and empower the existing social network in EVE Online, and moving our beloved forum to EVE Gate has given us the opportunity to bring about vast improvements in this area for our players. We believe strongly that our players deserve a forum experience that is stylish, intuitive and easy to use.


The EVE Gate forum features:

Front page
A simple and sleek landing page to help you get to where you need to go, as fast as you need to get there. It has the forum categories and their channels, including information such as last post timestamp and link, new post indicator, all the usual.



 
Channel view:
When you go into a channel, you'll see what you were used to seeing in the old forums - stickies at the top, followed by the player created threads and relevant information for each thread. Threads with DEV or GM posts are highlighted by a colored badge.  




Thread view:
Once you go into a thread, it's all fairly straight forward. Each post shows the avatar picture, name, corporation and alliance information (if set to visible). In addition, to the usual options, we have also included two new features:



DEV, GM, CSM, ISD and External Partner characters will have a colored badge overlay on their avatar.

For the ever busy amongst you, we have included a Quick Reply that will allow you to post a reply to a thread without loading a reply page with full formatting options.
 

So, there are a few things you'll have noticed in the images that I haven't mentioned so far:

Like
Each post has a Like button. This allows you to Like a post which is pretty self-explanatory! Once a post has been Liked, you'll see a running total of Likes received and also an option to Unlike if you change your mind. Underneath each poster's avatar there is a running total of the number of Likes they gave to posts and the number of Likes they have received for their posts. In the channel view you can see the total number of Likes for each thread, quickly highlighting hot topics.

Share
Each post has a Share option, so you can share it to a social networking site of your choice outside of EVE Gate. So now you can finally tro.. err, let the world know about your 1337 posting skillz!

RSS Feeds
On the front page, in channel view and within threads, basically on every page - there is a link at the bottom of the page to subscribe to an RSS Feed for that page.

Wait..

Did I just say that?

Yup, that's right, an RSS feed for every channel and for every thread within each channel. This will make it much easier for you to follow what's going on in the forums by receiving updates in your favorite RSS reader application.

Favorites
Each thread has an option to "Tag as Favorite", adding it to your Favorites page where you can easily find it again and quickly spot any new activity.

Search
Admittedly, the old forum search function was not up to modern standards. It is our hope however, that the search function of the new forum will be a giant leap forward. Advanced search options currently include search by character, topic name, channels and DEV/GM posts.

Additional Features
As part of a general business shift to offer more features as a slight premium to power users, there will be some advanced analytics available to individuals who wish to purchase them via PLEX. The exact nature of these features is still being settled upon (with the help of the CSM) but being able to distinguish different characters of the same account is one such feature planned.

What's that I hear you say.. you want moar? Well aren't you a demanding bunch!

Okay. Okay. Fine. Would you like to be able to bookmark your search criteria for later? DELIVERED.

Still not enough? Would you also like to be able to subscribe to an RSS Feed of your search criteria? DELIVERED.

Oh and by the way, this is just the beginning. We have plenty of ideas we want to explore for search further down the road.


 
And now for some practical information:
Forum settings will be in your EVE Gate profile settings page with the usual options for toggling images, corporation/alliance information and your signature.

The old forum will remain on eveonline.com in an archived state for read only reference and won't be ported to the new forum. This was a technical decision and besides, we are all happy to start with a nice, clean slate on our awesome new forum. Now it just remains to be seen who will get that coveted /first post.


Deployment Schedule
We still have a lot of work remaining before we launch the forum on EVE Gate, as we want to launch with a solidly working, polished product. Before we commit to a final design and implementation, we want to get your feedback. To that end, we are going to put the new forum technology up on Singularity first and have you begin evaluating it next week.

Stay tuned for announcements regarding testing of the new forum on Singularity and thank you in advance for your input and help.

Race you to that first post when we launch the new forums on EVE Gate! :p
 
-CCP Alice & Team Occam's Razor

[Mangala]

Currently on the SISI test build:

http://testforums.evegate.com/

Not possible to login to the test forums, but thats how the EVEO forums will look when it goes live.

[Mangala]

http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=859

Hi Everyone!

CCP Paradox here and I am working with Team Occam's Razor. This is the team that is responsible for EVE Gate and the new Official Forums.


"When do we get the new forums?" "The new forums will never come out!"

Well if you're reading this, chances are the new forums are already up and available for public testing!


You can find them here: https://testforums.evegate.com/


Please also give your feedback, comments, suggestions and ideas in this post here: https://testforums.evegate.com/default.aspx?g=topics&f=287

(You may have also noticed, that the Forums are running securely via HTTPS!)

In the interest of being Internet, if you want the TL;DR version please read these quick questions & answers:

 

So what is new to these forums?

There are quite a few new features to the Official EVE forums. If I was to name a few:  RSS Feeds, Better Search function, favorites and a quick reply function. There are more details about the new features, listed below.

 

What happened to the old forums?

They will remain available on eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp but in an inactive archived state. That board will be read-only and only serve as a reference to older topics. A tough technical decision was made, and was agreed that a new start was the best way forward for the new forums.

 

Why are the new forums in EVE Gate?

The forums are now interconnected into EVE Gate. Here at CCP, we are dedicated to maximizing human interaction. One way that we are aiming to do this, is through innovative iterative developments for EVE Gate and the Official Forums. For example clicking on the Portrait of an Author will take you straight to their EVE Gate profile, handy!

 

But I want to be able to (awesome thing here)!

We're just getting started!

We want all feedback, suggestions concerns and comments, you can post them here: https://testforums.evegate.com/default.aspx?g=topics&f=287
Remember, those posts which are constructive and have the most number of likes have a high chance of being taken into our teams' backlog!

We will be constantly working to improve the user experience of EVE Gate and the Forums, so if you have an idea of what you would like to see please don't be afraid to be vocal about it.

 

 

I want to read more, tell me what I can do with these new forums!

Sure! Read on, and I'll try and enlighten you with what the new forums have in store for you.

If you missed the last DevBlog CCP Alice sent around, I'll give you another overview of some of the features you can expect to use in the new forums:

 

Quick Reply

For when you need to be first, there is quick reply. Designed for those short comments you need to make a thread, we hope that this will encourage players to make contribution to posts, no matter how small the contribution.



Click the above picture for a full view.

 

Post Editor

Posting replies is also much simpler now, as well as the Quick Reply function as above we also have a newly designed editor. This editor is much more user friendly, you can also see a history of the last 10 posts. Have a look below!



Click the above picture for a full view.

 

You can also preview your post much easier now, and will preview with formatting as you would expect. Check it out:



Click the above picture for a full view.

 

The new forums will be using BBCode for formatting and smilies. This is the same as the previous forums. There will be more to follow on this!

 

RSS Feeds



 

You can see the RSS Feed Icon at the start of each thread, on the Original Posters post. It's also visible at the bottom of each forum.

Keeping track of the latest posts in a forum or thread can be tough. One new way to do this is with the RSS Feed functionality we have included in the forums. Pretty much every page you see, you'll notice your browser is telling you there is an RSS Feed on it!

This way, you can view the feed by using your preferred RSS application so that you can keep up to speed on the latest updates.

 

Favorites

You can keep track of specific threads of interest to you. This way you can easily find them through the forums without having to favorite them in the browser itself. When you're done with a topic that you have marked as a favorite, you can simply untag it as a favorite.




 

All of your favorites can be found in a simple page that is always available via a tab in the forums. Have a look:



 

Likes



Click the above picture for a full view.

 

We have introduced a Like button available on every post. You'll be able to see how many have liked a particular post, and choose to like it yourself. If for some reason you change your mind, you have the option to Unlike it also. For each individual character there is a running total of the number of Likes they have received for their posts. And also, in the channel view you can see the total number of Likes for each thread which will show where the more

 

Search

Yes, this is the big one. We're saying goodbye to our old search function from the previous forums, and saying hello to a new method of searching. This search function will search the forums only.

You'll be able to search for terms such as phrases or inflectional terms.

You can search by user, topic or forum.

And also search for posts made by Devs or GMs.

And what's more, is you can Bookmark that current search, or view it as an RSS Feed. Handy if you like stalking a particular person's trolls posts.



"With the New Forums done, what kind of stuff will you be working on next?"

I hear you ask. Well, the team's work is never done. We're going to be constantly working on improving the forums as per our own backlog and from player feedback. Please remember to post your comments, suggestions and feedback here: https://testforums.evegate.com/default.aspx?g=topics&f=287

Until next time guys, see you on the forums!

 

-CCP Paradox & Team Occam's Razor