Dungeon Master Forum

Welcome back everyone! After nearly two weeks offline, the forums are back, bigger and better than ever! I apologise for the delay in getting this done, but I decided to take the opportunity to work on a number of issues. Here's what's been done:

1) Ian Clark's Forums

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Ian Clark's DM WEB has now been merged with these forums. All the posts from his DM,DM2,CSB,DMUTE, Theron's Quest, Nexus, Clones, Other Games and General forums have been moved to their respective forums over here. The Admin forum was ignored and all polls were also ignored as the converter script couldn't handle them. Some posts were not brought over: the script just wouldn't convert them, so there may be a few gaps in the odd thread here and there. However, the bulk has been maintained. If you previously posted on Ian's forums with an ID that you also use here, your post counts have increased accordingly.

I have also brought across the Unofficial DM BBS posts from Ian's Forums. These are now archived here for reference in a locked forum. To avoid creating hundreds of new registered users from the names in this archive, I entered all the data MANUALLY and posted everything as Guest users. Posts made in the forum WILL NOT COUNT TOWARDS YOUR POST TOTAL. I also posted everything from Beowuuf's original archive using it's original post date by continually changing the date on my PC... this was very time consuming, but it does mean that the archive is a 99% accurate copy (i might have made the odd mistake) of what was on Daniel Durgan's BBS before it went down the pan...

2) Cowsmanaut's Network 54 Forum

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I thought I might as well also include these old forums here too. Again, Beowuuf had saved all the original data as TXT files, so I also pasted these in by hand using their original post dates. Some of the data in this forum could be moved into the Creative and/or News forums, but this is your call COWSMANAUT. As an administrator, you can move these posts around even though the forum is locked. However, you may wish to keep this archive as it stands and copy anything important into new posts in other forums.

3) Miscellaneous Style Updates

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I've made various style changes to nearly all the styles. Chronicles has had link colours and fonts changed, and all other styles have minor tweaks here and there. There is also a test style: codexDarkFull. I am experimenting here to see how the forums work "embedded" within another page framework. You can try this style out, but the menus don't go anywhere yet. I've created this for the future when my site is online: I'll be linking directly to these forums so users can choose if they want to see the forums in the same style as the site... comments on this are welcome.

4) Functionality

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some of the phpBB code has been modified slightly. Topic lists within a forum are now correctly ordered by date (previously, phpBB ordered them by the order of posting -- which doesn't match the dates if you've been populating the database messing around with the dates on your PC... ). However, the index page has not been changed and may still list the latest post as being earlier than the ACTUAL last post. This was unavoidable.

5) Usernames

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The old usernames with the EZ_ prefix have been renamed to just their name. If any of these matched IDs from any of the other forums, posts have been consolidated where practical. A new intro message is now visible on the index page for new users. This disappears when you login, so if you can't see it you're probably already logged in. PLEASE NOTE: If you previously registered here, but didn't post anything (post count=0), then your profile may have been deleted during this maintenance. You will need to re-register your username. Apologies for this but it was unavoidable.

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Please note that all obvious spam and pointless posts from Ian and Cowsmanaut's old forums have not been copied here, so final post counts won't be quite the same.

I hope you enjoy the benefits of having (nearly) everything in one place! Only dmweb.free.fr forums to go....

Gambit37

very nice work in copying
i love having all in one place
thank you very much for your work!

wow, you seriously rock!! OMG this is a massive undertaking.. I had no idea you were doing all of this extra stuff at the same time too..

Anyway, awesome job and thanks for the effort you've put into this. I hope you got something out of it because I'm starting to feel guilty. all I have to do is pay.

moo

Wow! that looks like many many hours of work. A big thank you to Archmaster Gambit!!

About bloody time too gambit, you big slacker

Just kidding, fantastic work as usual and its good to be back online, I better get back cracking on that editor now


Well done that man, kudos to you mate.

Odd, couldn't post earlier from work
Just wanted to say fantastic job! Many many thanks

And before everyone thinks that there is nothign beyond Archmaster...I added a few extra ranks before the site went down
Anyone who played Lone Wolf gamebooks might guess the next rank...

I read them Lone Wolf, but years ago and only in German. So what are the new ranks? Can't we stick to DM-related ones, like Lo to MonArchmaster, if nessecary at all?

Thanks everyone... for your thanks! But don't clap, just throw money. I could really do with some right now!

Good job, Gambit, and thanks for the time you spent on this.
I hope you'll have some more to help me migrate the encyclopaedia forums. We'll see that in some weeks when I have more time to do that.

In Lone Wolf there was one rank above Archmaster, and i think two more is all we shoudl need in quite some time! (1300 posts and 1500 posts ) : )

I know what the ranks are a) because I remember from Lone Wolf and b) 'cos I'm an admin and I've seen them!

Lone Wolf, last of the kai. Those were the days. Bloody fab gamebooks, far better than most of the crappy FF ones, which is rather ironic considering they were the first. Going off topic now, but have seen that the FF books are being re-released? Up to about number 12 already I think, but in a different order from the original series and with Sorcery now part of the series too!

I liked the FF books too, but yes, read the Lone Wolf ones first, and yes, they were far far better
The only trouble with the later ones (13-20) were that as a *********** you pretty much just read a story and chose a few paths to go, the gamebook element seemed less in those since

As for FF, yeah, i noticed the first few, and was surprised at the gaps.

hey Gambit.... what's this about money? What happened to that job you had lined up? Or have I spaced out again?

Well, I still have the first Lone Wolf book here (haven't touched it for years), but at the first glance, those ranks don't seem to be in there, and even if they would, it's in German, and retranslation often get strange results. SO WHAT ARE THE NEW RANKS?!?

Money? What's that? Can't remember what it looks like. Just got my bank statement today and it ain't pretty...

I did start a freelance job at the beginning of June. The work itself is easy, but they're messing me a round now. The job is 'on hold' while they sort some stuff out with the client, and they haven't paid me yet for the first milestone, which is two weeks overdue. Even when they do, it'll barely cover my now whopping overdraft.

On top of all that, my tribunal has been adjourned to September (gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh), so anything I could have exepcted to win from that I won't get until November at the earliest. And now my lawyer wants £1000 costs because he was expecting it finish last week and he can't wait any longer for some payment.

When the shit hits the fan, it really sticks doesn't it?

Ayone know an easy way of quickly making loads of cash?

Thank you for your work Gambit, I didn't realize it was such a tedious task until you described it... posting by hand, changing the time of your clock!? Thanks again for your time!

I noticed there are only 350 post in the Dmute forum. The original has some 1200 if I remember well. Surely it wasn't only spam.
Is it that you didn't finish or did you select only important threads?

About FF and Lone Wolf...
Sorcery! and The Way of the Tiger (where you played as a ninja) where also above the average.
i remember having started to write the fifth book of Sorcery!, back in those days. The Archmage wasn't dead of course! (the final fight was very disappointing)

Ooops, I just realized some of the dmute post went to the Custom dungeons forum. Forget my question, Gambit!

Yes, Ian's DMute forum originally was the ONLY forum he had until he created all the others. So it contained all kinds of stuff, not just DMute. I moved all the posts to their respective forums over here.

Way of the Tiger was cool. I still had mine until recently, and sold four of them on eBay for £25!!

Zyx: Never played way of the tiger, but even now i could still spit out most of the spells of Sourcery!
I remember wantign to do a computer game continuation of the book, i had twelve new spells, and a reason why you came up with them, and a reason why you couldn't use the ZED spell again until ..well until the game let you! (also explained why the mage never came back who cast it before)

Gambit: Woah! That is some run of luck, or the not good variety. I hope it turns around soon!


Lunevar: You'll just have to wait for Gambit to reach 1300 posts : ) I promise 1500 is completely DM
I'm thinking of putting one for 2000 at 'oh god where has my life gone' or soemthing : )

ouch.. you ever concider the life of a gigilo?

Don't they have some kind of governmental assistance you can use to get out of debt?

or something?

I really hope things get better for you. Cheers.

Yes, I could have signed on the dole again, but due to timescales, freelancing work, and the tribunal it just hasn't been worthwhile. You wouldn't believe how long it takes to get aything done in this country...

Well I'll add my congrats to Fuzzy and Gambit for their Archmasters... but I'd also like to know a) what new ranks there are (can that be posted somewhere with an announcement ?) and b) if we're going to get new ranks added as those two keep collecting posts every time they reach the limit ? Somehow that does not seem very useful...

I'd suggest if you reach Archmaster rank (no more if I was asked) you can freely choose your title as a bonus instead of adding more ranks each time the regulars and old timers descend the limit.

Regards, PitD

The specialist rank is doable - any poster who reaches that position can get a specialist rank such as the admins currently use, just name your title : )

And since admins usually use the specialist ranks, i don't think new ranks wil be constantly added, the two i have just now might go anyway, who knows... - do you know how long it takes to get 1500 posts! : )

Well if you start a) posting the complete list of ranks and b) posting it somewhere we can find it easily later unlike the previous list I have no objections. Still think Archmaster is Archmaster and should be on top since everybody agreed, but if you have a new sporting aim I'm glad for you.

Regards, PitD

Christophe: Now that Ian's forum has joined here, shouldn't you remove the link to it in the Encyclopaedia? I mean, it only points to a closed ezboard forum now that is pointing here anyway.

You're right Lunever, I just removed the link on my forums.

Christophe: While talking about it: So when will your forum join here?

Lol, I think we can show our appreciation for Gambit's hard work by not asking him merge a huge set of new forums
*for a while, hehe*

Thanks Beowuuf. But if anyone really wants to show their appreciation, I have a PayPal account...

Regarding Christophe's Forums, I don't mind doing it, but it will be a lot more work than for ezBoard. There *is* a Phorum->phpBB converter but it's not very good.

Anyway, I think there's bigger issues than just saying they should be merged. There's much more specific stuff over there such as the CSBWin forums and DMBuilder, and that'll create even more forums over here. We already had *that* discussion and it was generally agreed that too many would be off putting.

On top of that, there's the uploads forum that Christophe still wants to maintain; seems little point moving everything else here if those will be left behind...

Come on, more discussion about this guys!