Okay, I have some good news and bad news. I apologize in advance if my post is difficult to follow. I'm very tired right now.

The bad news! Let's do that first. Some of you may have noticed, shortly after our server move we were having some downtime issues. This was because the RAM amount in our initial package was not enough for our purposes. We were consistently using 80+% of our available RAM, and hitting our limit several times a day, resulting in downtimes. To fix this problem, I had to upgrade us to a more expensive package which significantly increases our RAM and doubles our bandwidth and disk space. It costs $4.75 more than our original plan, and our monthly payment is now $34.70. That puts us slightly above what we were paying on Hiker's host, but I think the cost difference is worth it considering the fact that we also have 24/7 support from the staff at FutureHosting. I'll be contributing some of my own donations as well, which is something I've not done before because I've never been 100% certain where that money was going. But things are different now, so that's not an issue anymore.

tl;dr: Our monthly cost has gone up by $4.75 yay.

*cough*

Now for the good news! The new homepage is finally ready for a test release. It took much, much longer than I wanted it to... but RV projects have always taken an absurdly long time to complete, and I'd hate to break tradition.

I want to thank Demon for working with me on this project... he's been a big help. These past two months have been pretty stressful for both of us - the project ended up being not quite as easy as I'd originally expected... but we got it done, and that's all that matters! Click the image below to access the new homepage. You may need to log out of the forums and then log in through the homepage (click the Login link on the top).



REMEMBER! TEST RELEASE! Some things will still need to be put in place, like The Library for example, and there may still be some bugs and glitches. Please post here if you find any.


Anyway, let me explain how this works....

The purpose of the new homepage is to put our content out there for the rest of the internet to see, instead of keeping it hidden away in this forum. However, I don't want you guys to think of this as a content-dump. The content we put up there needs to be well-written and formatted, and it ought to be something that you've put a decent amount of thought into. If you've ever worked for The Villager, try to remember the standards they set for their articles. The new homepage will function very similar to The Villager.

That also means that we'll likely have a staff group responsible for reviewing and publishing material for the homepage. The decision isn't final yet, but I think that that the members of the Scribery and Villager group should be given that responsibility, assuming they are interested. Remember this is a test release, so we'll have quite a few things to discuss and settle in these next couple of weeks.

During these next couple weeks, I'd really appreciate it if you could all play around with the new homepage and post here if you find any bugs or glitches, or if anything just doesn't seem right. There are going to be some issues I'm sure, but hopefully nothing too scary. I'd also appreciate some general feedback on what you think of the new site.

Oh, you may have noticed that the new logo says "The Village" and not "RuneVillage". You can think of that as our new name! If I recall correctly, it was generally agreed upon that we need to change our name to something else. We are no longer a runescape-only fansite, and the name "runevillage" has been irreversibly damaged due to the events of last year, and our falling out with Jagex. I have not purchased a new domain name yet, but you can be pretty sure that the new domain will contain "thevillage" or "village" somewhere in it.

Lastly, I've said this a few times already, this next phase will require the effort of the entire village. The homepage is not going to magically become active and interesting all by itself. If you want this site to survive, then I expect you to help out in some way. That's the reality of our situation. Please try to think of some ways in which you could help out. Post any ideas or suggestions you may have.


Thank you.

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I love it, it looks amazing!!! Thank you Jackstick and Demon.

Does this mean that the RVET now becomes VET?

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There are 10 types of people in the world, the ones that understand binary, and the ones that don't.

Thanks Lou for the help with the avatar.

Good question!

...

...

Very good question.

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I like how it looks!!
I will play around with it after work, but so far I approve of everything I see

Thanks boys!!

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My first trip to the home page in approximately 7 years and... I like it! Thanks to Jack and everyone else involved for their hard work.

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I like the new homepage. It looks great and pretty!

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Full of win right here.
I'm still laughing as I type this.

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Goten is dead!

I lol'd.

Also, aside from the Library not being in place, you can't access the chat via the homepage nor the Facebook thing. And Twitter, but I don't think we even have one. o.O

Other than that, I love this new layout. I just hope we keep this one we have for the forum. It's nice, too.

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Add me on Steam! Click this thingy!
If you're in the Runevillage group, it makes it easier to identify you!

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Kikori wrote:

Topsummoner wrote:

Riptide wrote:

I used to get you and J@n mixed up. Except your funnier. And nicer. Happy 21st bro!

Oh man Jan, you just got zinged by Riptide. How much does THAT suck?

Well, statistically speaking, slightly more than a giant suckusaur. A dire one.

PenguinGuy wrote:

Lets see if I remember how to play...

EX REX IS MAFIA SCUM FOURTHVOTER UNVILLAGE BLAH BLAH BLAH SCUM BLAH WINE IN FRONT OF ME BLAH BLAH META GAME BLAH BLAH BLAH SMELLS OF ELDERBERRIES BLAH

Right?

We have a twitter machine.
I remember there was a topid asking who all had access to it.

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Fixed the Chat, Twitter, and Facebook links. That said, I think we will need to make changes to the Twitter and Facebook accounts (or recreate them entirely) to reflect these new changes.


@Riptide: There are currently no plans to make any major changes to the forum's layout, but I would at least like to replace the old logo with our new one (which I'll probably do in an hour or so), and perhaps change the banner as well. I like our forum design and I think it's still pretty fresh, considering it's only about two years old. It could use some touch-ups here and there, but otherwise I think the general design will remain how it is for the foreseeable future.

Let me know if you guys disagree, and would like to see the forums redesigned to match the homepage. I'm not making any promises or guarantees on that, though.

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I wouldn't mind the forum looking like the mainpage. But I think I'm a minority here
I'm attached to the people and laughs here, not how the forums look.
For the effort it would take, I'd suggest leaving it like this. ...do you think a dual themed web site would scare away any newcomers?

Also, you mentioned $4 more a month. Which made me wonder how are we doing for the foreseeable future?

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This new home page is an ugly abomination in which all people associated with its creation should be try, convicted, and executed for crimes against humanity. However, I'm sure if the head staff at the Village decided to promote me to Village Czar, the main page can be overlooked...

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Signature made by: Chicken.
HENNER MONTH! AWESOME! HENNER IS AWESOME! HENNER RULES! I LUVS TEH HENNER!

1) I love it! It's so great. Good work, Jackstick and Demon! I'm really grateful for all of the work you guys have put in, and I want to see this succeed too.

2) I am known at work as our best tester. You will regret asking us to post bugs muahahahahahahaokwhatever.

• I didn't even need to log in, it immediately recognized me as Sayaka--sweet.
• Haha you can tag articles under multiple things and it all works great, neeaaaaat
• It uses Gravatars instead of our forum avatars? Is that changable? Wait how does that even work? Where did it get that from?
• I notice all of your test posts (and Ead's post today) are missing their avatars on the comments, but your most recent post (and both of mine, countering my idea that only comment replies get avatars) is fine. Is this because Gravatar support was only introduced recently and is not backwards-compatible with old posts? That's weird, but ok. Also, we should have a default, like for Rex and Ead for instance.
• The main site's server time is 12 hours ahead of schedule. It's 9:12 PM right now and the server says I just posted at 9:12 AM tomorrow.
• "Logged in as" above the reply box is in black text and therefore impossible to read.
• Check out the first Village Noir article: http://runevillage.com/archives/village-noir-by-frank/. A bunch of the lines in the post do not word-wrap and it's extremely awkward!

As always, don't take any of this as criticism--I genuinely want to help the main page get better, so I'm just posting what I find.

Good job you guys.

EDIT:
Also I am loving the new logo and the new favicon!

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.

.Legendary themed months are back! Maybe.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Needs more Minecraft

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There is a village, which is hidden in the shadow of a mountain.
Everybody is suffering from a lack of light.
One day, the eldest of this village leaves for the mountain with a teaspoon in his hands.
The others ask him what he intends to do.
He replies that he is going to move the mountain.
"But you will never succeed!" they cry out.
"No, i will never succeed, but somebody has to start."

~~~The Wising Up Song - Misty's Big Adventure

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Kikori wrote:

Runevillage the forum is pretty well much done. Runevillage the group will eventually die, but as long as we're still friends with each other in the end, it's still a pretty big thought in our heads. Runevillage the family is forever, no matter where we settle down. If absolutely nothing else ever comes of Runevillage in the future, that alone is a pretty damn awesome thought.

Looks hawt.

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Awesome Squall sprite courtesy of Goten! Check here if you'd like a runescape or game-themed sprite!

Jackstick = hiker... trufax.

Love the new page! <3

Dakota.

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Any chance we can get the image at the top changed? It looks so weird now that The Village has replaced RuneVillage.

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Awesome sig made by Goten!

then reduce the ram ? what was raking up the ram ? use top and then hit the greater than symbol twice. there is no way you should be hitting that high.

we were never close to getting near the bandwidth sp a double is pointless.

on the plus side the front page now looks awesome

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If you comment on something that is on the mainpage, does that effect your forum post count and rank?

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