183 replies to this topic

[Brad]

As many of you already know, the new year will be bringing many welcome changes to this community.  Up until now we have been fairly quiet about the details, but with the arrival of the new year we think it's time everyone was given a peek at some of the upcoming changes.

First and foremost we will be migrating to a new domain that will better reflect our purpose as a flight simulation community.  We will unveil the new domain name in the coming months.

Second, you will be seeing a new logo soon:



And finally, here are a few more planned features to whet your appetite - these have been in the works for the past year or so and will be rolled out individually over the next few months:

• Migration to IPB 2.x (forum software upgrade)
  
• FS Videos to be moved out of the file library (Downloads) and into their own section with an interface much like Google Video and other popular video interfaces that we are all familiar with these days.
  
• Optional premium membership program that will allow account upgrades such as ad removal, user profile enhancements, and more.  Current features will not be reduced or removed for free accounts.
  
• More features will be announced in the coming months.

This community has come a long way in the last 3 years, and you have yourselves to thank for that.  These changes are being implemented in order to maintain our current progress and further our goal of providing the most enjoyable, informative, and immersive flight simulation community available.

Brad and Jon

[wyoairbus]

Sounds very cool! I like the new logo and making the videos like google video will be awesome

[Martel]

Video section is a great idea!
Hopefully, Video quality and size won't be messed with though.

[Mango]

Excellent !    Would a own multi player server (for members only of course) be a good idea ?  

[dolbinau]

Great ! Any news on the knowledge base? I remember fox suggested a Wiki a while ago...

[SwitchFX]

Great news! I just saw this, I agree a lot that this forum has progressed in very large steps!


I only have a few thoughts no and then that worry me to some extent.

~When we do the forum software upgrade the forum will be down for a good 4 hours. When done will be expect all the topics to be in their order as we left them? Or will each forum's topics be trimmed to zero and all the topic and posts be moved into the search database?

~As far as ad removal goes that's a huge plus for our IE users, but for many of us FireFox users including me have adblock, flashblock, and JSBlock running and no ads show up. I don't mean to intrude on that fact.

~Will the member panel contain a option to put the account into invisible mode when signing in? Instead of having to click the little tick at sign in?

~Not a question but I digg the new logo. Reminds me of an airline logo I've seen before or a travel agency.

GOOD WORK!


Sorry to add, but on the forum I used to mod on before I stepped down. Paid supporters got to see the forums graveyard and were able to post in the topics as the mods had the ability to do the same thing also. Just and idea.

Edited by SwitchFX, 02 January 2007 - 03:19 AM.

[The Boss.]

What's the point of having a graveyard if every Tom, Dick and Harry can see it?

Edited by Ben., 02 January 2007 - 07:02 AM.

[Brandon-M]

this is looking great!! will we still use ore current profiles and nicknames?? or will it all be new?

[Chief_Bean]

radioactive_ham, on Jan 2 2007, 02:54 PM, said:

this is looking great!! will we still use ore current profiles and nicknames?? or will it all be new?

I think it will stay They're just migrating to new software

[Mango]

SwitchFX, on Jan 2 2007, 03:12 PM, said:

Sorry to add, but on the forum I used to mod on before I stepped down. Paid supporters got to see the forums graveyard and were able to post in the topics as the mods had the ability to do the same thing also. Just and idea.

Say what...?

[Brad]

Quote

Would a own multi player server (for members only of course) be a good idea ?

This is something we've discussed - we'll give it some more thought.

Quote

Any news on the knowledge base? I remember fox suggested a Wiki a while ago.

We will definitely be placing more emphasis on the KB, but a wiki is not currently on the roadmap.

Quote

When we do the forum software upgrade the forum will be down for a good 4 hours. When done will be expect all the topics to be in their order as we left them?

Other than looking at a new interface and having more features, you'll not notice anything different with the forum content.  We will likely be archiving very old content at some point in the future, but not during this migration.

Quote

Will the member panel contain a option to put the account into invisible mode when signing in? Instead of having to click the little tick at sign in?

I believe IPB 2.x adds this feature.

Quote

on the forum I used to mod on before I stepped down. Paid supporters got to see the forums graveyard and were able to post in the topics as the mods had the ability to do the same thing also. Just and idea.

There will be private discussion areas for supporters, but I don't forsee the Graveyard being one of them.

Quote

will we still use ore current profiles and nicknames?? or will it all be new?

Yes, all forum content (posts, post counts, member titles, etc) will remain unchanged.

[Gym_Class_Hero]

What if we are able to see graveyard topics that we created?

What will premium membership cost BTW?

Edited by 3ckpilot, 02 January 2007 - 03:00 PM.

[Brad]

Graveyard access is not currently in the cards at all.

Premium membership will be very reasonable - its main purpose being to merely offset the opportunity costs associated with removing advertisements.

[SwitchFX]

Sounds great, but you forgot to respond to the ads question. I would guess about 65 percent of the users here use firefox.

All those ad blocking, flash blocking, and JSblocking extensions just get rid of the ads. I understand that the rest of th majority use IE or Opera. IE doesn't have a adblock feature stock but I have seen and used upgrades for it by 3rd party companies. I'm not sure with opera's browser.

What would happen at that point?

[Gym_Class_Hero]

Will extended post editing time be part of a paying package (maybe 1 hour for paying and the average 20 minutes for free acounts)?

[The Boss.]

Yeah that'd be very good,

[Saabdriver]

Very excited to see the changes!    fs2004.com has been my homepage for a long time and I look forward to seeing the new look and features!

Steve

[Mango]

Brad, on Jan 3 2007, 12:14 AM, said:

Quote

Would a own multi player server (for members only of course) be a good idea ?

This is something we've discussed - we'll give it some more thought.

That would be a very nice addition which will help to decide for a membership as well. I guess FS2004.com (or the coming domain name) would be the first FS site to offer such a service ?     

[kewlceo]

SwitchFX, on Jan 2 2007, 04:11 PM, said:

Sounds great, but you forgot to respond to the ads question. I would guess about 65 percent of the users here use firefox.

You never asked a question. Here's what you said (a statement, best I can figure):

Quote

~As far as ad removal goes that's a huge plus for our IE users, but for many of us FireFox users including me have adblock, flashblock, and JSBlock running and no ads show up. I don't mean to intrude on that fact.

See? No question marks. What is your question?

[SwitchFX]

Thanks for Clarifying Rick,

My question is what the purpose of the ad removal would be if it's a benefit to IE users only?

Edited by SwitchFX, 03 January 2007 - 02:35 AM.