Graphic Artists!

[Az]

We're looking to relaunch the main IPY site and forum. One thing we seem to be lacking is an amazing, off-the-rails graphic artist.

Do you have a flair for web art? Think you could help us put together an AMAZING web presence?

We'd love to have you helping out!

Beta accounts, as always, are up for grabs. ;)

[Tharok]

lol I started on a signature, sorta the reverse of the main page , with a Stone-like IPY logo with demon wings instead of angel wings. But i havent had time to work on it some more and also halfway I figured out , the forum doesnt allow graphical signatures and I felt like an idiot haha.
I was going to add a circle behind ipy and between the wings with the Summon Demon symbol engraved in it, basicly a circle slab of stone with engraving. Start detailing the wings and make some magma visible from the cracks in the ipy logo.

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/7210/ipytest1.jpg

But i'm sure there are some web artists around too.

[Violent Dave]

Been doing web design for about 11 years now. I'm well versed in Adobe products including Flash and Photoshop as well as development in CMS platforms. I've worked the lead on everything from independent personal projects (CCNGTA, Citizens Coup Network, Hosting company), small business (Chiropractors, carpenters, lawyers, etc) , to multimillion dollar enterprises (H&R Block, Ice cream chains, gas station chains, golf courses, etc) in terms of web, design, and marketing. I think we've already talked this over before Az, you said you had a guy filling that role already. Did something change?

[Boogie]

Been doing web design for about 11 years now. I'm well versed in Adobe products including Flash and Photoshop as well as development in CMS platforms. I've worked the lead on everything from independent personal projects (CCNGTA, Citizens Coup Network, Hosting company), small business (Chiropractors, carpenters, lawyers, etc) , to multimillion dollar enterprises (H&R Block, Ice cream chains, gas station chains, golf courses, etc) in terms of web, design, and marketing. I think we've already talked this over before Az, you said you had a guy filling that role already. Did something change?

Sounds like the position is filled as far as YOU are concerned. ;)

[Violent Dave]

Sounds like the position is filled as far as YOU are concerned. ;)

Hah! Would appear so!

[Boogie]

lol I started on a signature, sorta the reverse of the main page , with a Stone-like IPY logo with demon wings instead of angel wings. But i havent had time to work on it some more and also halfway I figured out , the forum doesnt allow graphical signatures and I felt like an idiot haha.
I was going to add a circle behind ipy and between the wings with the Summon Demon symbol engraved in it, basicly a circle slab of stone with engraving. Start detailing the wings and make some magma visible from the cracks in the ipy logo.

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/7210/ipytest1.jpg

But i'm sure there are some web artists around too.

Really like the cracks and few places the IPY is not uniform. Looks like the wings are made with zbrush? Personally I would like to see a lot of the straight edges on the IPY get destroyed a bit more. Like the idea overall :D

[Tilly]

Hah! Would appear so!

Lol aww no, Az is probably just sorting out a list of what is needed and hoping to catch lots of Graphic Artists so he doesn't ask people to do too much solo.

[Violent Dave]

Lol aww no, Az is probably just sorting out a list of what is needed and hoping to catch lots of Graphic Artists so he doesn't ask people to do too much solo.

Yeah I would imagine he's a busy guy at this stage.

[Hercules]

Can I just make a simple point, that vBulletin sucks donkey balls?

I am far from a graphic artist, but our guild site is pretty hopping now, and I'm working on integrating the front page CMS. You should look into it, I can help you get it set up -- http://forums.sinnersamongsaints.org

vBulletin is full of problems and the template you have here is nothing short of terrible; the font colors are off, if you type in a search box the font is "#FFF" so you can't even read it, etc. Not to mention, it's slow as all hell. Check our forums out, let me know... we use Invision Power Board for forums, and there is a CMS component you can get called IP.Content, as well as a shopping cart (Nexus), blogs, and more. For a community like this it's something worth looking at for all the community features, not to mention the fact you can actually integrate the whole thing (with some coding) right into RunUO's account database and link in profiles or whatever if you want to.

Just a thought, anyway. Don't use our forums as an example of what can be done as I'm a very poor artist and limited on time.

[Boogie]

Can I just make a simple point, that vBulletin sucks donkey balls?

I am far from a graphic artist, but our guild site is pretty hopping now, and I'm working on integrating the front page CMS. You should look into it, I can help you get it set up -- http://forums.sinnersamongsaints.org

vBulletin is full of problems and the template you have here is nothing short of terrible; the font colors are off, if you type in a search box the font is "#FFF" so you can't even read it, etc. Not to mention, it's slow as all hell. Check our forums out, let me know... we use Invision Power Board for forums, and there is a CMS component you can get called IP.Content, as well as a shopping cart (Nexus), blogs, and more. For a community like this it's something worth looking at for all the community features, not to mention the fact you can actually integrate the whole thing (with some coding) right into RunUO's account database and link in profiles or whatever if you want to.

Just a thought, anyway. Don't use our forums as an example of what can be done as I'm a very poor artist and limited on time.

Vbulletin is cheap, and gets the job done. This template is pretty crappy, and even broken in some browsers. But it doesn't stop people from QQ'ing about their favorite topic of the moment. :D

[leviathan]

Site is fine right now. Please work on in game content.

[Hercules]

I'm not saying they should deviate from working on the game, but if they intend to give the site attention it's better to opt for a system that has expandable capability to support the nature of this social environment. Don't do it tomorrow, but plan for it. That's how all things are accomplished anyway.

IPB uses less queries, takes less tax on the server, loads faster, provides a neat plugin system that can support very IPY centric things, provides a account convergence system (IP.Converge) that allows you to have multiple account bases access the forums/site, has pre-built and very good software like Blogging, CMS, shopping cart, ticket support, and bug tracking. The bug tracker is actually free and *really* nice.

You're free to stop by our site and take a look at the functionality -- it far surpasses vBulletin and many vBulletin customers swapped to IPB after vBulletin was sold to another firm. There's another forum called Xenforo which is excellent, but it's *just* a forum and doesn't have any of the additional capabilities that IPB has.

[Boogie]

I'm not saying they should deviate from working on the game, but if they intend to give the site attention it's better to opt for a system that has expandable capability to support the nature of this social environment. Don't do it tomorrow, but plan for it. That's how all things are accomplished anyway.

IPB uses less queries, takes less tax on the server, loads faster, provides a neat plugin system that can support very IPY centric things, provides a account convergence system (IP.Converge) that allows you to have multiple account bases access the forums/site, has pre-built and very good software like Blogging, CMS, shopping cart, ticket support, and bug tracking. The bug tracker is actually free and *really* nice.

You're free to stop by our site and take a look at the functionality -- it far surpasses vBulletin and many vBulletin customers swapped to IPB after vBulletin was sold to another firm. There's another forum called Xenforo which is excellent, but it's *just* a forum and doesn't have any of the additional capabilities that IPB has.

Someone is clearly getting commission checks from IPB

[Hercules]

Someone is clearly getting commission checks from IPB
No, not really. IPB couldn't pay me enough to get me interested :)

That said, you can do the research yourself on this if you prefer, but given the needs for what a 'social' site IPY may yet become, IPB is the best of the bunch. Like I said, Xenforo is a great *forum* but it doesn't have the additional capabilities that IPB does.

[Violent Dave]

vB isn't that bad and this template isn't to bad either. It can use some tweaking is all. There's a lot of sites out there that just make you cringe when you see some of the stuff they incorporate. You'd be surprised how much time I spend making some seemingly minor modifications to sites and design elements that make things really shine. A website isn't ever really done in my opinion. It's an ongoing process that continues to shape over time and if you ever do stop working on it, rarely is it because you feel its complete.

[Hercules]

vB isn't that bad and this template isn't to bad either. It can use some tweaking is all. There's a lot of sites out there that just make you cringe when you see some of the stuff they incorporate. You'd be surprised how much time I spend making some seemingly minor modifications to sites and design elements that make things really shine. A website isn't ever really done in my opinion. It's an ongoing process that continues to shape over time and if you ever do stop working on it, rarely is it because you feel its complete.
It's not about the template, or even about the features.

It's about the expandability for this community. IPB gives you a possibility to easily connect your RunUO accounts into the forum system (with some programming). vBulletin doesn't. Not to mention that IPB has a shopping cart system and all the other addons that can integrate RIGHT WITH IPY.

[Violent Dave]

Ok you'll have to pardon my ignorance here because I haven't really worked much with vB or IPD (I'm assuming this is Invision Power Board right?). Both are PHP based with a MySQL database and have a similar set of 3rd party add-ons from what I can tell with Google-fu. Are you saying IPB has an already set bridge add on for a RunUO database to a Invision front end? I'm very interested in seeing that, could you please link it? I don't have a shard or a forum on this platform but I'm just interested in how it would display the character data. I always wanted to build a Flash based collateral web app. All of these systems are running on MySQL which damn near every modern web language can in some form or another and I really hope that's not what you're basing your stance on because that would be like saying your orange is better then Az's orange because its orange.

[Boogie]

Ok you'll have to pardon my ignorance here because I haven't really worked much with vB or IPD (I'm assuming this is Invision Power Board right?). Both are PHP based with a MySQL database and have a similar set of 3rd party add-ons from what I can tell with Google-fu. Are you saying IPB has an already set bridge add on for a RunUO database to a Invision front end? I'm very interested in seeing that, could you please link it? I don't have a shard or a forum on this platform but I'm just interested in how it would display the character data. I always wanted to build a Flash based collateral web app. All of these systems are running on MySQL which damn near every modern web language can in some form or another and I really hope that's not what you're basing your stance on because that would be like saying your orange is better then Az's orange because its orange.

I seriously doubt it has anything to do with UO or any other game save maybe WoW, out of the box.

I think what he's saying is that it's got a framework that CAN integrate with the database, and that those tools are flushed out pretty well if you wanted to take the time to link it all up.

[Violent Dave]

I seriously doubt it has anything to do with UO or any other game save maybe WoW, out of the box.

I think what he's saying is that it's got a framework that CAN integrate with the database, and that those tools are flushed out pretty well if you wanted to take the time to link it all up.

Yeah reading it over I'm not to sure what he's saying. I'm sure there are merits to IPB over vB and vice versa but citing the ability to link a MySQL database with a RunUO database (also MySQL) with some programming would be moot because vB has a MySQL backend database as well. The only thing that would give IPB an advantage in that department is if there is a pre-defined turn key solution ready to go for that very purpose which I would love to see if it exists.

None of this really has much to do with the OP tho. :P

[Hercules]

Yeah reading it over I'm not to sure what he's saying. I'm sure there are merits to IPB over vB and vice versa but citing the ability to link a MySQL database with a RunUO database (also MySQL) with some programming would be moot because vB has a MySQL backend database as well. The only thing that would give IPB an advantage in that department is if there is a pre-defined turn key solution ready to go for that very purpose which I would love to see if it exists.

None of this really has much to do with the OP tho. :PApologies for the late reply... been busy :)

The MySQL database is irrelevant in this, because all passwords are stored hashed for every forum out there. What IPB gives you is a system (IP.Converge) to link up the forum accounts to any authentication you want to write it against. For example, there are Converges that link into Joomla, Wordpress, and other things already. RunUO would just be another one.

The benefit to this is pretty simple. It means that you can write an IPB plugin (using the API) to have your forum user reach out and talk to your RunUO system and pull data out of it. Let's say for example, that you want to display your character's paperdoll in your profile page in the forum. (I am making up that there is a paperdoll with an image out there in RunUO). You can't just say hey, give me the paperdoll for this character. How do you know what character? How do you know the forum user? What the Converge system allows you to do is programmatically link the forum user into his specific RunUO credentials, and pull SPECIFIC information out of RunUO and into the forum for whatever purposes you want.

Now granted, this isn't something you can flip a switch and have done, but if the programmers that worked on the server are willing, I don't imagine it would be a difficult task to take care of. Of course, this system can extend to "manage your account" and things like that, all that work though a single login (your forum login), and using the API can give you a LOT of options.

Anyway, it is related to the "graphic artist" part of the thread only because IPB is overall a better forum anyway, and the look and feel with that will change as well.

[Violent Dave]

EDIT: Nevermind. Just...nevermind.