Hey all!
Just wanted to give you guys a notice beforehand about upcoming updates, upgrades, and migrations.
As we’ve been doing with all of our legacy sites, we’re moving over to our latest and greatest project backend and forum software which once complete, gives us much better visibility over operations and allows our staff to more easily keep an eye on things. As well as providing a code base we have much more control over to stay on top of bugs, issues, features, etc.
Most of our communities are rather small and have been more or less quick migrations with downtime generally remaining within the several hours range.
However, due to SC2Mapsters long history and robust forums, the forum downtime could be as long as several days. Our hope is to keep this as minimal as possible, but because of this extended downtime we wanted to make sure we let you guys know before ripping the cord out.
We’re doing our best to make the transition as smooth as possible, but will be here with open ears waiting for suggestions, ideas and constructive criticism along the way.
I want to clarify that this will not affect the migration of the base SC2Mapsters CurseForge site, as that migration should only take several hours to complete - as with our many previous migrations. Only the forums will need the additional downtime to import due to their size.
The migration is scheduled to begin within the next few business days (likely early next week). After it is complete, we will be posting updates along the way on our Twitter @CurseForge and if you guys have any questions feel free to reach out to me via PM here before migration, or @MrFlamegoat on Twitter anytime during the migration or after. We will have an additional post welcoming the new community into the updated and improved family of sites.
Wow, I know that was a lot of talking and fluff, but I do want to stress that we’re doing what we can to communicate better with our various communities. So please don’t be afraid to reach out to myself or the other Community Staff members!
Your Friendly Community Helper,
MrFlamegoat
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Posted Dec 18, 2016What kinds of features are coming?
Project Showcasing & Live Chat
Hopefully live chat with groups/channels and dragndrop file sharing? perhaps a proper way of showcasing our projects, WITHOUT needing to provide the actual project file? We need a place for people to link from the starcraft 2 arcades, from our map info section, where players can talk to the developers outside of the sc2 arcade, share feedback, screenshots, and discuss strategy. A Showcase-place where we developers can provide patch-notes and heads ups, just as you have done here for the site..
Profile Types & 5 Star Ratings
There needs to be profile types and a 5 star rating system. Aside from Admin, Moderator, Author, and Member. The profile types need to be more specific to what we are here for; Admin, Moderator, Developer, Tester, and Player. Because the bottom line is that Developers need more testers. If profiles had ratings, I as a developer could go to find a Tester with high ratings and expect my interactions to be of quality.
Climbing Rank/Incentive
In order for a Player to become a Tester, they would have to receive a set amount of ratings from Developers. This would give new members something to come here for, as well as solve a problem on the arcade; It's hard to find Testers. In order for a Player to get promoted to Developer they could climb up to the Tester rank and continue to test games, receive more ratings and by that time they'll have an understanding of the development process to earn the Developer profile type. Perhaps some profile picture achievements.
Portfolio for Developers
This is where people go as they start dabbling in the game developing process. I personally know 3 people who started here and became paid professionals. There are 3 factors that get people hired, Who you know, Portfolio, How many places receive your resume... and yes, in that order. Who you know gets addressed here with the improved form of communication with live chat. The groups within live chat and drag n drop file sharing allow for smoother interactions leading to contacts you will stay in touch with in the future. The Portfolio would get addressed by automatically adding images uploaded for our projects to a simple viewer on our Developer profiles. Easy-to-navigate portfolios have been key in the hiring process for Crystal Dynamics, Ubisoft, and Blizzard. Employers will just skip a person if the portfolio isn't smooth. An arrow on both sides of the images is enough. Videos of games being played would be great too, but maybe that's asking too much? It is a reasonable request considering this is a site that supports sc2 map development.
I have 32 people in a Skype channel right now that would be more active on sc2mapster IF any of these features were added. This does not include how many people who have been removed from the group since 2012 due to their inability to take this process seriously, because of the missing features.
Hope this helps. This is what I'll be implementing into my own site for bridging the gaps between unreal and unity as well as the players and developers within.
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Posted Dec 16, 2016@3yks: Go
I'm hoping that we minimize 4 year load times to only our extra terrestrial community goers over on Mars.
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Posted Dec 16, 2016@wargirlwargirl: Go
Phenomenal cosmic ideas! Itty bitty dev team.
We're getting there, though! I can't promise there won't be bumps and bruises, but we'll be listening on the other side. Once migrations are complete, we can start focusing on fixes, features, and the like.
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Posted Dec 16, 2016@QueenGambit: Go
Really happy to hear the enthusiasm! We're really looking forward to the changes internally, just because our hands have been more or less tied on bringing features and updates to you all.
Much excite!
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Posted Dec 16, 2016I have been waiting for this for years with lots of answers but no ACTION COMING from CURSE.
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Posted Dec 15, 2016Does this mean the forums won't take 4 years to load? If so I'm all for it.
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Posted Dec 15, 2016YES FINALLY! I will put my pitchfork away :)
I actually sent a message to Curse asking if they can update the site. I received a reply from ZeldoKavira which read:
"Hello Queen,
We have been talking about this a lot internally and It is looking like this site will be updated by the end of year!"//
Thank you Curse for your efforts. I can't wait to see what we can accomplish moving forward.
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Posted Dec 15, 2016Amazing! SO excited!