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February News; Nuts and Bolts and other things
Topic Started: Feb 2 2016, 07:25 AM (74 Views)
Raferties
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Lorekeeper
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Well, well, well, the first month of the New Year has already flown by! Seems like just yesterday we were ringing in 2016, and now here it is February already.

And of course, February means … Valentine's Day!

Posted Image

(Also known as Chocoholic Day)

But that's not the main focus of this edition of Sundered News. This news is all about the nuts and bolts of the site. And by that I mean the new Nuts and Bolts Forum! This will be the place where a lot of behind-the-scenes things will take place, as well as many projects that will be rolled out for the site as a whole.


Site Developments (About the Nuts and Bolts Forum)

The first of these if you have not seen it yet is the Description Exchange! I believe Heron (Belial) gave it a solid explanation in the first post, but the basics of it are if you ever end up with a companion shiny with no description, missing personality, fade, etc, you can post it here and hopefully some fellow Sundarian will make the description for you. There are rewards for doing this: for every 2 descriptions you make, you get 1 star to buy creatures with.

This is also a 'beta' for a possible site-wide feature: the ability to 'Bank' stars, storing them up for use later. Example: I make 2 descriptions, earning 1 star. I don't really want any of the one star creatures at the moment, so I Bank it back. Another 2 descriptions later, I have another star, giving me two to use. This can repeat endlessly, and be called in at any time. These creatures can even be left blank to toss back into the Exchange, or pre-described as usual.

The admin team may occasionally throw up random creature for descriptions. These may end up being given away as prizes for contests, used in the Veiled Shrine, or any number of other uses. This will also give those wanting to describe creatures more to do, rather than wait for others to have creatures available.

The next phase will roll out on Wednesday. It was supposed to be rolled out today, but the end of the month crept up on us, and so we're using the News to give a little head's up in case things go sideways.

What is this new thing, you ask? Well, on Wednesday come to Sundered, and look up at the Banner. Refresh a couple of times, and you should see something amazing happen! The banner will change, randomly, to a different one! This is a code that a wonderful user on the Zetaboards support forum helped us with, allowing us to not only have the banner randomly change with each page alteration, but link specific ones to specific themes (so wintery for winter, pinks and hearts for Day of Love, etc). Right now we only have a few banners though, so that needs changing!

At current, there are three Banners (made by Cassandra) since we have yet to find the address for the old banner (Sorry!) though you have to switch to Wintertime to see the winter one still. But that's not hardly enough! What can I say; we're greedy admins! We simply want more. So that's where you come in: On Wednesday, we will open Banner Submissions. While some of the details are still being ironed out and more information will be provided, the basics are you can create a banner with a few simple requirements (such as 'Must say Sundered Weyr') in a set size limitation, and email it to the Sundered address. When it is found to meet all criteria, it will be added to the (hopefully growing) folder of Sundered Banner images, added to the randomizer, and you will get rewarded with your choice of prizes! Neat, huh?

Also on Wednesday we will have details up for the Shiny Creature Picture Submissions. While saying firelizards are 'small dragon' is pretty self-explanatory, and everyone knows what unicorns look like, some of our critters are a little more… exotic, and thus need extensive descriptions. Or… a picture! As with our horde of Banners, we will be opening up submissions for people to select a creature species and draw it, then submit it to have it added to the database as the official entry. We will have a list of creatures needing pictures, and all you will have to do is PM an admin with your pick, create an image of it following a few guidelines, then submit it. As above, after it is evaluated by the admins to make sure it looks like the species and all requirements are met, it will be added to the database, and you will be able to pick from some choices of rewards.


Bondings
We have had a flurry of bonding activity here of late, which I can tell you has pleased the entire admin team to no end! Tide handled a wonderful Hippocampi bonding (I'm still giggling about Anari getting soaked!) and Absent has presented a watery mystery for those of us harkening to the trickle of the Lake. Also, one of Miunari's characters, Selena, has some friends-of-a-friend looking for company, so why not stop by the and see if you can attack a canine companion? Lastly, the Dark Towers still loom, though their doors will close soon on anyone who might challenge their ominous might. Best hurry if you're going to test your mettle and see what wonders, and danger, lay within!

I've also heard rumor that there may be a special bonding in the works for sometime later this month. Keep your eyes open!

Also, there's a couple new Advancement in Bonding Hosting: Absent, in a flurry of posts, is now capable of hosting long and short bondings, and at some point Gwydion slipped in there as well! Congratulations!

Events

Well, our one current Event, the Vallentine's Day Banner contest, has passed its deadline, and any further submissions will not be counted. We will be looking at the submissions and organizing them for voting shortly. Good luck everyone!

Also, sadly, a Junior Weyrwoman has passed, and has willed the safekeeping of some companions into the hands of others. Perhaps she left you something as well? Though it seems she was something of a psychic, and certainly knows far more than she may have let on in life. Don't be surprised if some secrets are outed, or some details otherwise unknown are spoken of.


Archiving
As some of you may have noticed, several threads were moved to the Archive of late. These were some bondings that had wrapped up, as well as the Giant Egg event and some Life Around Haven threads. This was done so that BP could be awarded to participants, but please if there if a LAH thread that needs to be reopened to continue don't hesitate to ask! Any admin would be willing to move it back to its previous thread, and resume counting posts from the last point on (hence why Kay posted the tallies at the end).

Other things
As an aside, this is just a small reminder to everyone that should you need to say something OOC while in an IC thread (Life Around Haven, a Bonding, etc) please keep it to the end or the beginning of an IC post. Putting OOC posts separate will clutter a thread, as well as throw off post counts for bonding permissions and BP totals for archived threads. Purely OOC posts do not count for either. If you have a question to ask your RP partner, it is better to either put a short message at the end or beginning of an IC post, or use the PM system. Less chance of things getting missed or forgotten.



Well, that about wraps it up for this edition of Sundered News. Any needed updates will be posted after this, and keep your eyes open Wednesday for the new features to appear.

The Admin Team!


(Edit: I -knew- I missed somewhere where I'd accidentally put Selene instead of Selena. My apologies!)
Edited by Raferties, Feb 9 2016, 11:56 AM.
Note: Until further stated, Scarheart, Belial, and Cassandra have standing permission to powerplay Raferties or Anari.
Raferties and his Shinies ~~Anari and her Shinies~~ Keldos and his Shinies~~Cobalt and her Shinies~~Taki and her Shinies~~Kemori and his Shinies
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Raferties
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Well... this is annoying.

I implemented the Random Banner code, but for some reason it's only working on the Day of Love theme. I'm in the process of trying to figure out why this is, but until then if you want to see it in action, please switch to that theme.

Also, should you have some trouble, as in you try to switch themes and it gives you an error, simply go to the main page and switch from there, and it should fix the problem.

Edit: Well, it's working for all but Old Style (Wintertime only has one banner at the moment). Temporarily I have set the default theme to Day of Love, until this is resolved.

Edit: Somehow I fixed the issue, though I don't honestly know how. We now switch you back to your regularly-assigned Banner.
Edited by Raferties, Feb 3 2016, 12:08 PM.
Note: Until further stated, Scarheart, Belial, and Cassandra have standing permission to powerplay Raferties or Anari.
Raferties and his Shinies ~~Anari and her Shinies~~ Keldos and his Shinies~~Cobalt and her Shinies~~Taki and her Shinies~~Kemori and his Shinies
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Deleted User
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I acknowledge the February News post. =D
I don't know if you want us to do this or not, but I figured that it couldn't hurt.
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Raferties
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Nah, no acknowledgement needed unless there's a major rules change, and that would be said in the Post itself. :)
Note: Until further stated, Scarheart, Belial, and Cassandra have standing permission to powerplay Raferties or Anari.
Raferties and his Shinies ~~Anari and her Shinies~~ Keldos and his Shinies~~Cobalt and her Shinies~~Taki and her Shinies~~Kemori and his Shinies
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Miunari
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The Lost One
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*ist still curious on why you always call her Selene instead of Selena*
I'm excited for that mystery bonding^^
My heart wants what it wants ღ

Primary Character & her Shinies
Selena Damons, female Shapeshifter, bold #00A6FF
Anaizth, male Silver Mottle Dragon, bold #5a5959

Voyath, female Green Dragon, Bold #07ab21
Miu, female Shay Illaro, Italics #A3EAFF

Secondary Character & her Shinies
Naya, female Kitsune, Bold Italics #6B0D6B
Elendeth, male Black Mottle Dragon, Bold Italic #00031c

Yui, female Void Astrum, Italics #470047

Tertiary Character &[url=XXX]her Shinies[/url]
Nika, female human
Valorn, male Valor Unicorn
Fenrir, male Sylvan Illaro
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