AfterDawn forums, now running on xenForo

As of today, we have finally retired our old warhorse -- a forum engine built and maintained by our own development team. We used our old, custom-built forum engine for 13 years and it has served us very well. But as the forum technologies have evolved, it simply became impossible for us to keep up with the modern 3rd party forum engines. After months of evaluation and testing, we have finally switched our forums to run on xenForo, a forum engine built by a group of former vBulletin employees.

Here's the quick summary of what is new:

responsive layout (=page adapts nicely to mobile, tablet and desktop use)
support for Facebook, Twitter and G+ logins
improved private messages
better editor
etc..

Ketola has described the main changes in detail in his thread, so read more about changes from there.

As the switch was a pretty massive project, it is inevitable that some bugs are hiding somewhere. If you find anything weird, like 404s, etc, please, let us know!

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 11 Jun 2014 13:11

Mrguss

Q1:
It's the main reason that we see way to many Video-Games News Now & people hardly posting anything there !?

Live Free or Die.
The rule above all the rules is: Survive !
Capitalism: Funnel most of the $$$ to the already rich.

11.6.2014 15:20 #1

Dela

Originally posted by Mrguss: Q1:
It's the main reason that we see way to many Video-Games News Now & people hardly posting anything there !?
Video game news is a result of E3, has nothing to do with forum.

As for forums being slow, that's a more complicated issue, but for example, Google seemed to turn against quite a lot of elements of previous forum, so that didn't help.

11.6.2014 15:24 #2

Mrguss

Originally posted by Dela: Originally posted by Mrguss: Q1:
It's the main reason that we see way to many Video-Games News Now & people hardly posting anything there !?
Video game news is a result of E3, has nothing to do with forum.

As for forums being slow, that's a more complicated issue, but for example, Google seemed to turn against quite a lot of elements of previous forum, so that didn't help. I like the "new" trend that twitter have:
You can promo the @Afterdawn Account to gain more A.D. visitors.
This web-site is great & can be greater for new people, since they can easily login now.

NOTE:
The quick & friendly to use logins bottoms of Facebook & Twitter and/or "G+" need to be more visible on top of the x page. Like others web-sites. In stead of the dark page.

Just saying.

P.S.
I like the new way to be able to use avatars. Thx.

Live Free or Die.
The rule above all the rules is: Survive !
Capitalism: Funnel most of the $$$ to the already rich.

11.6.2014 16:05 #3

Dela

Originally posted by Mrguss: Originally posted by Dela: Originally posted by Mrguss: Q1:
It's the main reason that we see way to many Video-Games News Now & people hardly posting anything there !?
Video game news is a result of E3, has nothing to do with forum.

As for forums being slow, that's a more complicated issue, but for example, Google seemed to turn against quite a lot of elements of previous forum, so that didn't help. I like the "new" trend that twitter have:
You can promo the @Afterdawn Account to gain more A.D. visitors.
This web-site is great & can be greater for new people, since they can easily login now.

NOTE:
The quick & friendly to use logins bottoms of Facebook & Twitter and/or "G+" need to be more visible on top of the x page. Like others web-sites. In stead of the dark page.

Just saying.
Ye there's a few things like that that need to be worked out. Essentially the way the forum is right now is the default XenForo theme, whereas the design of the forum is still underway. What is there is not is basically a default XenForo with the older posts, accounts etc. migrated to it, so its likely to change quite a bit in appearance over time.

11.6.2014 16:37 #4

Mrguss

Cool, Thx.

Live Free or Die.
The rule above all the rules is: Survive !
Capitalism: Funnel most of the $$$ to the already rich.

11.6.2014 17:22 #5

marcusita

I think the new look is quite sexy, this was the first forum i joined on the internet nearly seven years ago, from then i went on to be the most hated asshole in the PS3 scene.

I don't visit as much as i did back in late 2007/early 2008, but this place will always hold a special place in my heart and i hope one day to see it just as popular again, as it was when i first joined.

Thank you for this website and thank you for being the place that broke me into using discussion forums :)

★☆A Complete History On The PS3☆★
http://ps3history.com/

12.6.2014 15:56 #6

DXR88

The layout is clean i'll give you that but it doesn't have that unique feel anymore.

18.6.2014 12:40 #7

dRD

Originally posted by DXR88: The layout is clean i'll give you that but it doesn't have that unique feel anymore. It will, but we need to get the main site redesign ready first.

Petteri Pyyny (pyyny@twitter)
Webmaster
http://AfterDawn.com/

21.6.2014 09:29 #8

AfterDawn: News