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Harakiri Tiger

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  1. Harakiri Tiger
    Lately I've been procrastinating more than I should be, so I felt I should make a to-do list for ACU. This way everyone can see what I'm planning on doing and what I'm getting done, as well as see if their suggestions are being considered. Not everything on this list will get done anytime soon, since some of it is unrealistic for a short-term goal. I figure this will help me stay more focused on what I need to do, though.
     
    My problem is that I just don't have the time and energy to do all of this. At times I have the energy, but not the time. At other times I have the time, but not the energy. My biggest problem is my job and trying to do too many things at once on ACU. I work a 50 hour work week, and while it's not a hard work week since I'm self-employed at my own store, it does make it hard to focus on any one thing. It also cuts into my time greatly. I think my problem with ACU is that I keep focusing on random things that pop up instead of prioritizing what needs to get done, though. This causes me a lot of confusion and wasted effort. In the end, it comes down to all work and no play, which makes Niji want to go away!
     
    Hopefully this list will help me stay more organized and prioritized. If it does, it'll make my job a lot easier. If not, oh well!
     
    Anyway, on to the list!
     
    --------------------------------------------------
     
    ACU Hub

    Add more alternate text for SEO. - (Priority: Low)
    Change to a divider based page. - (Priority: Low)
    Make the buttons roll-over instead of hotspot links. - (Priority: Low)
    Switch to the transparent version of the hub image. - (Priority: Low)
    Add a background image texture to the hub. - (Priority: Low)

    ACU Homepage

    Consider changing to a WordPress Page. - (Priority: High)
    Update with current news and content. - (Priority: High)
    Feature member content. - (Priority: High)
    Rework the banner, sidebar, and footer. - (Priority: Medium)
    Enable the ACU Store (Zazzle) link. - (Priority: Medium)
    Alter the light-up on mouse-over of the sidebar buttons to be brighter. - (Priority: Low)
    Add more divider tags to the content section to allow for post details, if not using WordPress. - (Priority: Low)
    Adjust the color schema, but maintain the general blue theme. - (Priority: Low)

    ACU Arena

    Rework the banner, sidebar, and footer. - (Priority: High)
    Add an information divider at the top with links to important info for the Arena. - (Priority: High)
    Create the 360 and PS3 top 25 rankers lists. - (Priority: High)
    Fix sidebar link to homepage. - (Priority: High)
    Consider changing the sidebar's location for more fluid Arena functionality. - (Priority: Medium)
    Create individual ranker page template and make an example template using an AC NPC. - (Priority: Medium)
    Alter the light-up on mouse-over of the sidebar buttons to be brighter. - (Priority: Low)
    Adjust color schema, but maintain the general red theme. - (Priority: Low)

    ACU Wiki

    Add a Main Page template to serve as the front page of the wiki. - (Priority: High)
    Add copyright information, disclaimer, about, and privacy policy to wiki pages. - (Priority: High)
    Fix the navigation bars on the left to allow for proper utilization of the wiki and forum. - (Priority: High)
    Make a navigation category for the Armored Core games. - (Priority: High)
    Create a general article for the Armored Core series. - (Priority: High)
    Create an article for each individual game. - (Priority: High)
    Make an article for each games parts list, missions list, and arena list. - (Priority: High)
    Add reference links to all the major topics for wiki discussion. - (Priority: High)
    Add categories to articles and clean up category pages. - (Priority: Medium)
    Draft layout for special sections such as ACDC winners and metagame discussion, etc. - (Priority: Medium)
    Add custom hooks and modules to the wiki to allow for increased utility. - (Priority: Medium)
    Add the intro to each games article as an embedded YouTube link. - (Priority: Medium)
    Create sub-articles for each part with full statistics and images. - (Priority: Medium)
    Create sub-articles for each mission in each game with full walkthrough, important info, and pictures of key mission features. - (Priority: Medium)
    Create articles for each game's formulas and mechanics. - (Priority: Medium)
    Add playthroughs of each mission as an embedded YouTube link to their respective articles. - (Priority: Low)
    Fully flesh out wiki help navigation category articles with links and mini-guides. - (Priority: Low)

    ACU Forums

    Check to make sure all user groups have proper access to the different sections of the site. - (Priority: High)
    Add and flesh out any important information about the arena in the tournaments sub-forum. - (Priority: High)
    Make a site transparency post in the board news & rules section. - (Priority: High)
    Make forum and sub-forum guidelines for each forum and sub-forum. - (Priority: High)
    Correct the forum and sub-forum descriptions and make them more descriptive and in-depth. - (Priority: High)
    Create new banners for the forum skins. - (Priority: High)
    Create ACDC templates and guides for each AC game to minimize workload related to ACDCs. - (Priority: High)
    Create simple AC design templates, both vertical and horizontal, for each AC game. - (Priority: High)
    Create ban lists and topics for their discussion for each of the AC games. - (Priority: High)
    Create game rating, review, and discussion topics for wiki reference for each AC game. - (Priority: Medium)
    Create wiki guidelines and tips topic to help wiki editors understand how to manipulate the wiki. - (Priority: Medium)
    Create a wiki featured video walkthrough guidelines topic. - (Priority: Medium)
    Create general wiki discussion articles for parts, mechanics, missions, metagame, etc. - (Priority: Medium)
    Flesh out the staff café section with guidelines and guides for moderators and global moderators. - (Priority: Medium)
    Create help and example topics for most sub-forums. - (Priority: Medium)
    Locate AC guide and walkthrough writers and see if they'll upload their work to ACU. - (Priority: Medium)
    Add links or make a topic to the quick AC builder programs. - (Priority: Medium)
    Add topics and guidelines for the voting up of standard members into elites. - (Priority: Low)
    Updated user groups and ranks topics to reflect any current changes to the groups. - (Priority: Low)
    Add tutorial topics for using ACU features to the board tutorials section, such as fan-fiction blog organization. - (Priority: Low)
    Add more skins and modify them to work with current modifications. - (Priority: Low)
    Consider changing media discussion into non-AC discussion. - (Priority: Low)
    Create an AC gallery topic (vanity videos) in the AC general discussion forum. - (Priority: Low)
    Create an ACU store discussion topic for members to brainstorm up ideas for potentially interesting merchandise. - (Priority: Low)
    Create FAQs for each of the AC games. - (Priority: Low)

    ACU Blog (List Needs Re-evaluation)

    Check to make sure all user groups have proper access to the section. - (Priority: High)
    Encourage member participation in the Blog section. - (Priority: Medium)
    Start a community fan-fiction. - (Priority: Low)
    Look around for AC fanfic writers and see if they'll upload their stories to ACU. - (Priority: Low)
    Encourage rating and commenting of blog posts. - (Priority: Low)
    Encourage use of internal categories. - (Priority: Low)

    ACU Gallery (List Needs Re-evaluation)

    Check to make sure all user groups have proper access to the section. - (Priority: High)
    Add information on moderator approval to the ACU Gallery Rules portion for each section. - (Priority: High)
    Create a category for AC related artwork that doesn't fit a specific game. - (Priority: Medium)
    Collect more artwork from the net and upload them to their respective albums. - (Priority: Medium)
    Encourage member participation in the Gallery section. - (Priority: Medium)
    Check image descriptions and titles to insure proper labeling. - (Priority: Low)
    Encourage rating and commenting of images. - (Priority: Low)

    ACU Downloads (List Needs Re-evaluation)

    Check to make sure all user groups have proper access to the section. - (Priority: High)
    Make sure upload and download limits work properly for each group. - (Priority: High)
    Upload all of my AC save game data and an AC Garage. - (Priority: Medium)
    Encourage member participation in the Downloads section. - (Priority: Medium)
    Check uploaded files descriptions to insure proper instructions for use are available. - (Priority: Low)
    Create a category for uploading AC Garages. - (Priority: Low)
    Create a category for uploading AI Arenas for SL and SLp. - (Priority: Low)
    Create a category for uploading other AC related files. - (Priority: Low)
    Create a category for uploading non-AC related saved games. - (Priority: Low)
    Encourage rating and commenting of files. - (Priority: Low)

    ACU Chat (List Needs Re-evaluation)

    Upgrade to 6.0 when it becomes properly stable. - (Priority: Medium)

    Other (List Needs Re-evaluation)

    Be lazy. - (Priority: High)
    Add content to the ACU MySpace and Facebook pages. - (Priority: Medium)
    Add video content to the ACU YouTube page. - (Priority: Medium)
    Add more content to the ACU store and open it for member use. - (Priority: Medium)
    Spring cleaning on March 1st. - (Priority: Medium)
    Advertising campaign. - (Priority: Low)
    Add a Jukebox to the site. - (Priority: Low)
    Add the IBproBattle RPG to the site. - (Priority: Low)
    Actually do these things. - (Priority: Low)

    --------------------------------------------------
     
    Ok, that's all of it! Off to work I go. I'll probably never get any of this done.
  2. Harakiri Tiger

    Rush Hour!

    By Harakiri Tiger,

    So, I haven't been able to work on ACU at all in the past two days since I was reformatting my PC and adjusting everything to the custom settings I like. I've barely gotten anything done at all and probably shouldn't be typing up a blog post, but I need to take a bit of a break. Procrastination is a part of my DNA, I think. I look for reasons to do it all the time.
     
    I still need to upload all my PS2 AC savegame data for the Downloads section, a bunch of images to the Gallery, fix some skins for the Forum and make them visible to the regular members, find and install the "Who's in Chat?" modification, customize and modify all the networking sites main pages, and maybe do something on the Wiki.
     
    Topping all of that off, I still need to make a large sum of posts on the forum. It's completely blank right now! Haha. No guide posts or rules or anything. The best blank slate forum on Earth, I suppose. Kakumei is finishing up the Homepage and Arena right now, and I probably need to make an example Arena Ranker page, too.
     
    Anyway, off to work I go again! Gotta get something done at least!
  3. Harakiri Tiger
    I finally have Internet at work! Yay!
     
    Now when I'm sitting there staring at a wall for 10 hours I can instead be staring at the Internet! I just ordered the stuff yesterday and I should be getting it installed and setup by this Thursday, which is tomorrow. This means that the amount of time I have left to work on ACU before opening day just increased exponentially. Instead of just 4-6 hours left, I have nearly 36 hours of potential time. I'll most likely spend 99% of that time procrastinating and playing games and browsing YouTube instead. Yay!
     
    Sue me. Yay!
     
    Anyway, so far I've finished modifying the Blog, Gallery, and Downloads sections. I've started uploading some savegame data to the Downloads sections and I'm thinking that I might look around for some AC screen savers or encourage the community to make some. I'll probably fill the Gallery up a bit on Friday. I have a small number of AC pics that I can upload and, once again, hopefully the community can provide what I don't have and maybe upload some fan art, too. I'm really leaning on the community, in the end.
     
    The Hub is done. It looked absolutely gorgeous on Kaku's glossy LCD monitor. It's doesn't look so gorgeous without that super sleek appearance, tho. Either way, this is just the first incarnation of the Hub. Next incarnation should come with light up buttons and a slightly more detailed background. It's pure black as of right now, haha. After that I'll get to work on the flash version of the Hub. That version will spin and rotate and light up and such. My worry is the filesize. I want to keep the front page Hub capable of loading quickly so people have easy access to any specific part of ACU they want without having to go through all the rest. I want it to look good and impress too, but fancy flash graphics get boring after the 1000th time loading them. We'll see how I do.
     
    I still haven't worked on any part of the Arena Ranker pages or Arena homepage. That's not to say the Arena isn't usable, though. It's perfectly usable and such, but until I get the pages done it'll just be a point system, which is pointless. People want prizes. They want things they can show off and arbitrary points on a fan site aren't something most people want to brag about. The Ranker pages should be good at providing a prize that doesn't cost money, haha. Any tournament hosts can always buy AC and ACU related products from the Zazzle store for their tournament winners too if they want to offer real prizes. Should make for an easy solution to the little dilemma AC tournaments have been having since AC4 came out. Hopefully I get the Arena stuff done before the 31st.
     
    I'm so lazy, though!
     
    I still have no idea what I'm going to do about Team Forums and I'm wondering if I should add an Armored Core General Discussion sub-forum. Simply for discussing AC related things that aren't tied to a specific generation of series. It seems like a good idea but that would be another forum to the already large Armored Core directory. I suppose I'll think about that over the next few days and see what I decide.
     
    I'm happy to say that I've relocated the ACU Wiki databases to a separate MySQL database from the Forums. That means there won't be as much clogging and slowdown happening. I shouldn't have waited so long to move it, but I just lose all my motivation every time I look at that thing. The Wiki seems like it'll be so much effort to get going, but there needs to be one. Haha. Most drive-by users are more comfortable browsing a Wiki than they are browsing a forum for Armored Core related information. I suppose I'll be leaning really heavily on the community when it comes to the Wiki, won't I? That's what a wiki is all about though, right?
     
    Uninstalled FlashChatv6 and re-installed a more stable older version. If you're logged into the Forum it'll auto-log you into the Chat as soon as you load the Chat. I'm leaving the background and sounds to the default theme, though. Anyone who doesn't like being reminded of the Jetson's can simply disable whatever sounds they dislike or mute all sounds in one fell swoop using the Chat's options panel. I still don't have Brian's "Who's in Chat" mod, either.
     
    I finally have Internet at work!
  4. Harakiri Tiger

    Working on ACU!

    By Harakiri Tiger,

    I just finished cleaning up the Forum!
     
    Thinking up names for the User Rank Titles was easy enough. I just used the ones from another forum of mine with a slight bit of tweaking! They fit in just the way I was hoping they would. Which is good for me, because I was worried at first that they would seem awkward. Streamlined seems to always flow better than specific. I'm sure someone will gripe.
     
    All the current User Groups are finished as well. Their permissions are set and I don't think they'll need any tweaking. With that said, I have to admit that I have added no advanced groups for normal members yet. Also, I don't have anything in the way of special features or compensations for donators. SpellCheck just tricked me, by the way. It said that donators is spelled donaters. What an ass. Anyway, I'm thinking I'm just going to use the advanced groups that I've been using on other forums. Their titles are more generic, but they provide less conflict as far as this Raven/Linx thing is concerned. Which is, by the way, a pain in the ass argument.
     
    I need to add a few more sub-forums around the board. It's easy enough to think up and add sub-forums to all the non-AC related content, because that's what all of my sites have always specialized in. My problem is thinking up sub-forums for AC content. It's safe to say there'll probably be griping about why the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st generation forums even exist instead of a singlular retro forum. My hopes for those forums is that they'll gain content slowly but surely, mostly because I plan on providing motivation for members to use them. They also provide good discussion locations for Wiki users, especially since each generation has such different mechanics and design templates.
     
    The biggest debate, in my mind right now, is whether I should actually add Team Sub-Forums or just provide a form of redirection for IPBFree forums. It's easy enough to add tutorials for creating your own IPBFree forum and customizing its basic features. The advantage is that ACU doesn't have an excess bulk of moderators and relatively useless forums with little content and activity. It also keeps my sub-forum depth, and related permissions settings, smaller and easier to handle. As far as physical space problems go, I have no complaints. The advantages to having the Team Sub-Forums actually located on my forum and not on some IPBFree forum is that if some team grows big enough or popular enough they'll bring activity into ACU itself. It also seems to serve as a successful pastime for people. I suppose people like being in a roll call or something. If I do add team forums, I will add a custom Team field for user profiles so they can show off their teams in their posts as well as profiles. If it promotes rivalry, then it promotes activity. Especially once I get the full Arena system working.
     
    Speaking of which, the Arena seems to be easily handleable. Making the custom webpages for the Top 25 Rankers is more than simple enough. Each one gets to display their emblem, image of their AC, AC design, and pilot/AC bio. Of course, these can be customized to contain links to other parts of the website as well. The pages won't be user customizable though. At least I don't plan on it. I may have to change it someday, but I doubt there'll be such extreme tournament activity for a while, at least. Anyway, it's not the custom pages that's slowing down the development of the arena. It's the color scheme and general appearance. I just don't know what to make it look like. I can't seem to make up my mind. I've been having the same problem with the Homepage. What should I make the buttons look like? I don't know. I'll figure something out soon enough I suppose. The actual scripting will probably only take about 5 to 10 minutes.
     
    Either way, the Hub, Homepage, and Arena will be finished in due time. They're not really hard, just hard to think up colors for. Though the Hub doens't present any problems with colors at least. I'm thinking orange for the Hub, red for the Arena, and blue for the Homepage. We'll see if that sticks. Haha.
     
    I need to clean up the Wiki, Blog, Gallery, Downloads, and Chat. The Chat isn't really a big deal, though. All I need to do is uninstall version 6.0 and install version 5.0. It's just that 6.0 has too many bugs. I can't say I blame them, though. TuFat hired a new coder to do their work for them and the guy is recoding the entire FlashChat program from ground up. So 6.0 is still in a beta, really. We'll see about getting 6.0 after it becomes 6.1. Until then, it seems like people will still have to put up with the underlining and formatting problem in the current version of FlashChat.
     
    I need to remember to get Brians "Who's in Chat" modification sometime later on, too. Most people like being able to see who's chatting without having to go to the Chat's index page or actually log into the Chat.
     
    There's the Wiki, too. God damn that Wiki. It's an asshole. I really have no idea how I'm going to manage it considering how much work it takes to keep its database in good condition. I may have to uninstall it and re-install it into another SQL database before I open the site to the public. It can cause the whole site to slow down as far as page creation goes. Of course, that's not really a problem right now... There aren't any pages, haha. But eventually!
     
    Lastly, I need to add all my skins to ACU and adjust them to fit all the new navigation buttons. That means tweaking for certain. I also need to add a FlashChat link to them and then check how they work with the Portal and other components. I almost forgot! I need to touch up the MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages for ACU. I wonder if anyone's already tried adding ACU as a friend? I also need to make some content on Zazzle for ACU. Revenue is always good for a motivator, so I can't forget about Zazzle!
     
    Oh well, seems like there's still a lot of work left. Especially considering everything I didn't talk about. I'll just need to have it all done by this next Saturday. Of course, none of this work compares to the amount I'll have to do once it comes time to start adding content to the site. I'm afraid the 17th through 30th, the weeks I've dedicated to adding content, will be a nightmare.
     
    I wish I had Internet at work.
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