Site Status and Transition - Please Read!

[Eric]

[setfield][B][I]If you only use Myth-Weavers for sheets, you may want to skip down to the FAQ and read the questions on how this change affects our sheets. Most of this message details with changes to the forums.[/I][/B][/setfield] Hello Weavers! As we get into Spring, it's time for a big update. We have been hard at work developing the required functionality, and we're ready to begin the final transition from the current iteration of Myth-Weavers ("OGMW") to the next generation of the site ("Project Baldr", or just "Baldr"), a process we previously announced would begin around the end of March. However, we have decided that doing the transition over the summer, when people (which in this case is loosely defined to include the developers) take vacations and have competing priorities for personal time, is not going to give us the appropriate prep time to ensure that the transition happens smoothly. Therefore, we are now targeting an initial launch date for Baldr for the first week of August 2023. Stretching out the cutover for a few more months has some upsides. It gives more time for users to learn and test new features in Baldr; some additional features that were planned for "post-launch" have a chance to become "pre-launch"; and the developers can schedule and rehearse the transition tasks so the final switch should be a bit more "turn-key" all around. [setfield][B][I]tl;dr - We're officially replacing the existing Myth-Weavers forums with the Project Baldr forums starting this August. If you've been an active participant in the open beta, you're aware of most of this information but might want to familiarize yourself with the key dates outlined below.[/I][/B][/setfield] For those unfamiliar, here are the key changes that will occur on or about August 5: [fieldset=Launch Overview] [b]Shifting URLs[/b] [list][*][url=https://www.myth-weavers.com]www.myth-weavers.com[/url] will point to Baldr, and a legacy URL will point to OGMW. [*]Both sites will remain cross-linked, similar to how the two sites link to each other at present. [*]URL redirects will prevent existing links on either site from going bad.[/list] [b]Changing Registration[/b] [list][*]Baldr registration will be enabled, while OGMW registration will be disabled. [*]One final account synchronization will be performed, with additional niceties like post count being fixed to reflect OGMW + Baldr post total and account creation date set to when everyone joined OGMW.[/list] [b]New Games Must be Created on Baldr[/b] [list][*]The ability to make new games on OGMW will be turned off. Existing games will be able to continue playing as before.[/list] [b]OGMW public forums to Read Only[/b] [list][*]The public forums - Introductions, Site Discussion, General Discussion, Gaming Discussion, GM Workshop, Creative Corner - will become read-only on OGMW. [*]Active "sticky" discussions will be restarted on Baldr by staff.[/list][/fieldset] After the launch, we'll continue to expand and enhance Baldr while gradually sunsetting OGMW. [fieldset=What Comes Next] [b]Future Growth[/b] After the initial release, we aim to expand Baldr features beyond what could be done on OGMW. There is no fixed timeline for any of them, but the new infrastructure for Baldr makes them possible. Examples include: [list][*]Game-specific card decks (for systems such as Savage Worlds) [*]Additional system-specific image dice [*]Overhauled character sheets system (easier to make new sheets)[/list] [b]Around January 1, 2024[/b] The Games and Ads forum on OGMW becomes read-only. This date allows still-running games on OGMW some leeway to advertise for replacement players. Since more than half of ads are already on Baldr and new game creation will have already shifted, this might happen naturally at an earlier point; however, we won't make it official until this date. [b]Around April 1, 2024[/b] OGMW will become entirely read-only. All content will remain accessible (exact details TBD, as we weigh how to make sure we accurately preserve your gaming history while ensuring privacy), but it won't be possible to create new content or edit existing content.[/fieldset] We know you'll have questions as we approach one of the biggest site changes since the "v4" interface was launched in 2008. Here are answers to the most common ones, which includes where to get help if we haven't addressed your specific interest. [fieldset=FAQ] [b]Why? Why make this major change when the existing site is completely functional?[/b] OGMW is built on a 15-year-old version of vBulletin that was heavily modified by well-meaning developers who now, as mid-career software engineers, know enough to regret the decisions that were made by their younger selves. Rodrigo made three separate attempts in 2016 to try to update the site to a more modern infrastructure, and each time ended with failure that required rolling back to the original. OGMW is stable, but can't easily be extended to provide new capabilities for the users. With the underlying software no longer receiving updates (vBulletin has released two major versions since 2016), we have had to be especially vigilant about our security posture, and spend valuable time assessing and mitigating potential vulnerabilities. Rebuilding the site on a new foundation gave Rodrigo and Eric the ability to apply their extensive software development experience to doing things better, no longer hamstrung by interwoven features that could only be painstakingly separated for enhancement (if at all). We have made conscious decisions during the design and deployment of Baldr to make sure we don't modify (read "hack") the core platform, ensuring we'll be able to take advantage of vendor support and upgrades. Removing roadblocks surrounding authentication, extensibility, and integration has also allowed us to re-vision forums, sheets, and dice as separate capabilities that can be combined as needed to support play-by-post, hybrid games, and other options on the horizon (e.g., full Discord games with access to sheet data). The level of creative output over the past two years rivals what was put in during OGMW's initial development, fueled by the knowledge that now we'll be able to deliver on some of the capability promises we made. [b]I only use sheets. How does this affect me?[/b] If you are a sheets-only user, no problem! Aside from a new login screen that uses your registration email address instead of username, and some minor face-lift items to sheet navigation and sharing as part of the new modular sheet viewer, you'll see the same sheets you saw before. You'll want to make sure you know your registration email address, which can be found under the [URL="https://www.myth-weavers.com/profile.php?do=editpassword"]Email & Password section of your OGMW User CP[/URL]. [b]What happens to character sheets?[/b] Character sheets will remain largely unchanged in this upgrade. Some URLs will change, but the old URLs will continue to redirect to their new addresses. The sheet viewer has been rebuilt to include sheet management and organization. Although this has introduced some regressions on certain templates, these issues will be resolved before the cutover. On the plus side, the Baldr infrastructure changes have put us on a path to be able to more rapidly and safely deploy new sheets and updates to existing sheets. [b]I'm a play-by-post user. How do I get started with Baldr?[/b] We have an extensive [URL="https://test.myth-weavers.com/index.php?/articles.html/articles/baldr-new-user-guide-r9/&do=getNewComment&d=1&id=9"]New User Guide[/URL] that we've been building over several months, covering how to do many things on the new site. We strongly recommend reading through it to get a feel for the changes. If you have a question that isn't answered by the guide, you can ask in the [URL="https://test.myth-weavers.com/index.php?/forum/5-site-feedback/"]Site Feedback[/URL] forum on Baldr. You can also ask about additional features if they're not already on the list, and report bugs you may find. [b]Will I still be able to roll dice like OGMW?[/b] We offer a comprehensive Dice Tower integrated with each in-game post, which includes traditional "command line"-style rolling similar to OGMW as well as a full-featured graphical user interface option for assembling complex rolls. The underlying syntax is different since the Dice Tower can perform more functions than the OGMW roller; these changes are described in the user guide. We also have inline rolling capability within posts, which leverages the Tower's "command line" experience. [URL="https://test.myth-weavers.com/index.php?/articles.html/articles/dice-tower-r10/&do=getNewComment&d=1&id=10"]Look here for info![/URL] [b]Do I have to learn HTML?[/b] Not at all! Baldr actually uses a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that is quite robust, and closer to a rich text editor application like Microsoft Word or Google Docs. If you do know HTML and want to exercise even more detailed control over your post content, there is a Source button that gives you a raw HTML editor. [b]Can I still use BBCode?[/b] While we aim for users not to need BBcode for posting on Baldr, there is a BBcode converter in testing with the Community Supporters right now that will convert almost all OGMW-specific BBcode into its Baldr equivalent, and display the result in the post editor. There are a handful of tags that aren't supported yet (mainly language-related) and a number of others that won't be supported for technical reasons (mainly dice-related), but it's a pretty close approximation of the OGMW post editor. That said, do not feel obligated to become a Community Supporter to have access to the BBcode converter; anything that you could do with BBcode tags on OGMW, you should be able to do on Baldr with the toolbar buttons (or we'll keep developing until it's so). [b]I'm a GM on Myth-Weavers. Do I have to remake my existing games?[/b] OGMW will remain available for play for about the next 12 months, so it's not strictly necessary to move any games yet. That said, the construction of games on the two sites are different enough that there is not an automated way to copy them from OGMW to Baldr. So, if you anticipate your game may last more than 12 months, you probably want to become familiar with the new features and play around with the setup. There is no auto-archiving on Baldr--OGMW auto-archiving only exists because of vBulletin performance limitations with large numbers of forums--so you can do this without worrying that there isn't any active play yet. There's also a lot of active discussion in the GM Discussion forum so you can get tips and tricks from community members, including our beta tester cadre. [b]I want to make the switch for games I GM, but my players are hesitant. Any suggestions?[/b] Start by making sure they're aware of this FAQ. A lot of the common concerns are addressed here. If they tried Baldr during earlier parts of the beta period and were put off by the incomplete nature of things, let them know that we've put significant effort into making sure the core features of the site--forums, games, advertisements, dice, and sheets--are all now ready for prime-time. If they're struggling with the new post editor, point them to the BBcode converter (already available to Community Supporters) as a way to ease into the change. By all means, encourage them to post any questions in the Site Discussion forums on Baldr, or in the #project-baldr-open-beta channel on our Discord server. We have dozens of experienced users, testers, and staff who are ready to respond on just about any topic. [b]I use the Myth-Wiki. What's happening on that front?[/b] The Myth-Wiki will not be making the transition to Baldr, though existing content will remain in read-only format following the same schedule as OGMW. Baldr provides a capability called Pages that can be added to any game. Pages are "posts on steroids", effectively being miniature web pages that use the same WYSIWYG editor as posts without the conversational features of a topic. Currently these capabilities are centered around content written by GMs, but we are looking to allow GMs to extend editing privileges to players (or even the community at large). [b]I have an issue with the site, or an idea to help make things even better.[/b] Great! Please post your concerns, bug reports, and feature requests in the [URL="https://test.myth-weavers.com/index.php?/forum/5-site-feedback/"]Site Feedback[/URL] forum on Baldr. Staff and volunteers actively monitor it and we'll answer promptly. [/fieldset] [fieldset=A few closing thoughts from Rodrigo and Eric] We've stewarded Myth-Weavers as a free resource for play-by-post gaming for more than 15 years, and we're looking forward to doing so for many more. We recognize change is hard, but we've really reached the limit of things we can do incrementally on a version of vBulletin that was new before most of the dev team went to college. Here are some of our reasons why we believe upgrading to Baldr is the right decision. [list][*][u]Enhanced security.[/u] To be clear, we've been taking appropriate measures to ensure the security of the site and its data. Having better security tools baked into the system, though, is the right thing for us to do to protect the information you've entrusted to us. [*][u]Platform support.[/u] Running 15-year-old software is asking for trouble in the fast-moving web application world. Our key operating system and platform software dependencies have their own life cycles, and we have to upgrade with them or risk security issues or hampered disaster recovery. For vBulletin, we are several years past the point where updates have been published by the company. [*][u]Active ecosystem.[/u] Invision Community is a modern suite in active development, with a large community that we can turn to for support, or even to purchase pre-built features and tools to integrate with our site. This broad community no longer exists for our current version of vBulletin. While we could move to a newer vBulletin to regain this benefit, doing so would still be a significant change for all the users, staff, and developers. We judged Invision Community to be the better product for what we wanted to do with the site. [*][u]Moderation tools.[/u] We live in a different world than the one OGMW was designed for, a world with extremely sophisticated bots for spam, disinformation, etc. This necessitates better tools for protecting our community, and staff now has them available, either fully automated or easily at our fingertips. [*][u]Mobile support.[/u] While not everyone uses mobile devices to post on Myth-Weavers, mobile usage is continuing to grow. The iPhone 1 was released just after OGMW debuted, for some perspective on how old the site is. Members have been asking for better mobile capabilities for years, and Baldr gave us the opportunity to make it happen. (Same comment about newer vBulletin applies here.) [*][u]Integrations.[/u] Newer software helps us make it easier for gamers to find and join Myth-Weavers. For example, Social Login capability (under consideration, not yet deployed) could allow users to create an account linked to us from their Facebook or Discord profile. [*][u]Velocity.[/u] This is perhaps a more technical topic than we'd otherwise write about, but the fact is that deploying Invision Community--in particular its authentication and application programming interface--has allowed the dev team to be more productive and to sustain development efforts longer than we have been able to for many years. We've gotten to the point where integrations are no longer approached like potential mine fields, and bug fixes don't provoke dread of creating instability or breaking the site entirely. Many of these "back-end" enhancements don't really get much limelight among the user community, but sheets are a good example of how we can get things done much faster now than we could before. [list][*]In a few weeks, we were able to build and deploy a new UI for viewing and managing sheets, including sorting, filtering, and access control. [*]By using modular design, we were able to reduce the potential for bugs in common features (e.g., a sheet would have become unusable if the user had added custom auto-calc, a Community Supporter feature, while subscribed and then let their subscription lapse). [*]We were able to locate, isolate, and plan to fix various style issues with some sheet templates that never looked quite right (different/competing stylings for iterations of the sheet code base).[/list][/list] [/fieldset] Thank you all for being part of the Myth-Weavers family and sharing this journey with us. We look forward to gaming with you for many years to come. We will keep you in the loop with additional announcements as the transition progresses.

If you only use Myth-Weavers for sheets, you may want to skip down to the FAQ and read the questions on how this change affects our sheets. Most of this message details with changes to the forums.

Hello Weavers! As we get into Spring, it's time for a big update. We have been hard at work developing the required functionality, and we're ready to begin the final transition from the current iteration of Myth-Weavers ("OGMW") to the next generation of the site ("Project Baldr", or just "Baldr"), a process we previously announced would begin around the end of March. However, we have decided that doing the transition over the summer, when people (which in this case is loosely defined to include the developers) take vacations and have competing priorities for personal time, is not going to give us the appropriate prep time to ensure that the transition happens smoothly. Therefore, we are now targeting an initial launch date for Baldr for the first week of August 2023.

Stretching out the cutover for a few more months has some upsides. It gives more time for users to learn and test new features in Baldr; some additional features that were planned for "post-launch" have a chance to become "pre-launch"; and the developers can schedule and rehearse the transition tasks so the final switch should be a bit more "turn-key" all around.
 

tl;dr - We're officially replacing the existing Myth-Weavers forums with the Project Baldr forums starting this August. If you've been an active participant in the open beta, you're aware of most of this information but might want to familiarize yourself with the key dates outlined below.

For those unfamiliar, here are the key changes that will occur on or about August 5:
 

Launch Overview

Shifting URLs

• www.myth-weavers.com will point to Baldr, and a legacy URL will point to OGMW.
• Both sites will remain cross-linked, similar to how the two sites link to each other at present.
• URL redirects will prevent existing links on either site from going bad.

Changing Registration

• Baldr registration will be enabled, while OGMW registration will be disabled.
• One final account synchronization will be performed, with additional niceties like post count being fixed to reflect OGMW + Baldr post total and account creation date set to when everyone joined OGMW.

New Games Must be Created on Baldr

• The ability to make new games on OGMW will be turned off. Existing games will be able to continue playing as before.

OGMW public forums to Read Only

• The public forums - Introductions, Site Discussion, General Discussion, Gaming Discussion, GM Workshop, Creative Corner - will become read-only on OGMW.
• Active "sticky" discussions will be restarted on Baldr by staff.

After the launch, we'll continue to expand and enhance Baldr while gradually sunsetting OGMW.
 

What Comes Next

Future Growth
After the initial release, we aim to expand Baldr features beyond what could be done on OGMW. There is no fixed timeline for any of them, but the new infrastructure for Baldr makes them possible. Examples include:

• Game-specific card decks (for systems such as Savage Worlds)
• Additional system-specific image dice
• Overhauled character sheets system (easier to make new sheets)

Around January 1, 2024
The Games and Ads forum on OGMW becomes read-only. This date allows still-running games on OGMW some leeway to advertise for replacement players. Since more than half of ads are already on Baldr and new game creation will have already shifted, this might happen naturally at an earlier point; however, we won't make it official until this date.

Around April 1, 2024
OGMW will become entirely read-only. All content will remain accessible (exact details TBD, as we weigh how to make sure we accurately preserve your gaming history while ensuring privacy), but it won't be possible to create new content or edit existing content.

We know you'll have questions as we approach one of the biggest site changes since the "v4" interface was launched in 2008. Here are answers to the most common ones, which includes where to get help if we haven't addressed your specific interest.
 

FAQ

Why? Why make this major change when the existing site is completely functional?
OGMW is built on a 15-year-old version of vBulletin that was heavily modified by well-meaning developers who now, as mid-career software engineers, know enough to regret the decisions that were made by their younger selves. Rodrigo made three separate attempts in 2016 to try to update the site to a more modern infrastructure, and each time ended with failure that required rolling back to the original. OGMW is stable, but can't easily be extended to provide new capabilities for the users. With the underlying software no longer receiving updates (vBulletin has released two major versions since 2016), we have had to be especially vigilant about our security posture, and spend valuable time assessing and mitigating potential vulnerabilities.

Rebuilding the site on a new foundation gave Rodrigo and Eric the ability to apply their extensive software development experience to doing things better, no longer hamstrung by interwoven features that could only be painstakingly separated for enhancement (if at all). We have made conscious decisions during the design and deployment of Baldr to make sure we don't modify (read "hack") the core platform, ensuring we'll be able to take advantage of vendor support and upgrades. Removing roadblocks surrounding authentication, extensibility, and integration has also allowed us to re-vision forums, sheets, and dice as separate capabilities that can be combined as needed to support play-by-post, hybrid games, and other options on the horizon (e.g., full Discord games with access to sheet data). The level of creative output over the past two years rivals what was put in during OGMW's initial development, fueled by the knowledge that now we'll be able to deliver on some of the capability promises we made.

I only use sheets. How does this affect me?
If you are a sheets-only user, no problem! Aside from a new login screen that uses your registration email address instead of username, and some minor face-lift items to sheet navigation and sharing as part of the new modular sheet viewer, you'll see the same sheets you saw before. You'll want to make sure you know your registration email address, which can be found under the Email & Password section of your OGMW User CP.

What happens to character sheets?
Character sheets will remain largely unchanged in this upgrade. Some URLs will change, but the old URLs will continue to redirect to their new addresses. The sheet viewer has been rebuilt to include sheet management and organization. Although this has introduced some regressions on certain templates, these issues will be resolved before the cutover. On the plus side, the Baldr infrastructure changes have put us on a path to be able to more rapidly and safely deploy new sheets and updates to existing sheets.

I'm a play-by-post user. How do I get started with Baldr?
We have an extensive New User Guide that we've been building over several months, covering how to do many things on the new site. We strongly recommend reading through it to get a feel for the changes. If you have a question that isn't answered by the guide, you can ask in the Site Feedback forum on Baldr. You can also ask about additional features if they're not already on the list, and report bugs you may find.

Will I still be able to roll dice like OGMW?
We offer a comprehensive Dice Tower integrated with each in-game post, which includes traditional "command line"-style rolling similar to OGMW as well as a full-featured graphical user interface option for assembling complex rolls. The underlying syntax is different since the Dice Tower can perform more functions than the OGMW roller; these changes are described in the user guide. We also have inline rolling capability within posts, which leverages the Tower's "command line" experience. Look here for info!

Do I have to learn HTML?
Not at all! Baldr actually uses a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that is quite robust, and closer to a rich text editor application like Microsoft Word or Google Docs. If you do know HTML and want to exercise even more detailed control over your post content, there is a Source button that gives you a raw HTML editor.

Can I still use BBCode?
While we aim for users not to need BBcode for posting on Baldr, there is a BBcode converter in testing with the Community Supporters right now that will convert almost all OGMW-specific BBcode into its Baldr equivalent, and display the result in the post editor. There are a handful of tags that aren't supported yet (mainly language-related) and a number of others that won't be supported for technical reasons (mainly dice-related), but it's a pretty close approximation of the OGMW post editor. That said, do not feel obligated to become a Community Supporter to have access to the BBcode converter; anything that you could do with BBcode tags on OGMW, you should be able to do on Baldr with the toolbar buttons (or we'll keep developing until it's so).

I'm a GM on Myth-Weavers. Do I have to remake my existing games?
OGMW will remain available for play for about the next 12 months, so it's not strictly necessary to move any games yet. That said, the construction of games on the two sites are different enough that there is not an automated way to copy them from OGMW to Baldr. So, if you anticipate your game may last more than 12 months, you probably want to become familiar with the new features and play around with the setup. There is no auto-archiving on Baldr--OGMW auto-archiving only exists because of vBulletin performance limitations with large numbers of forums--so you can do this without worrying that there isn't any active play yet. There's also a lot of active discussion in the GM Discussion forum so you can get tips and tricks from community members, including our beta tester cadre.

I want to make the switch for games I GM, but my players are hesitant. Any suggestions?
Start by making sure they're aware of this FAQ. A lot of the common concerns are addressed here. If they tried Baldr during earlier parts of the beta period and were put off by the incomplete nature of things, let them know that we've put significant effort into making sure the core features of the site--forums, games, advertisements, dice, and sheets--are all now ready for prime-time. If they're struggling with the new post editor, point them to the BBcode converter (already available to Community Supporters) as a way to ease into the change. By all means, encourage them to post any questions in the Site Discussion forums on Baldr, or in the #project-baldr-open-beta channel on our Discord server. We have dozens of experienced users, testers, and staff who are ready to respond on just about any topic.

I use the Myth-Wiki. What's happening on that front?
The Myth-Wiki will not be making the transition to Baldr, though existing content will remain in read-only format following the same schedule as OGMW. Baldr provides a capability called Pages that can be added to any game. Pages are "posts on steroids", effectively being miniature web pages that use the same WYSIWYG editor as posts without the conversational features of a topic. Currently these capabilities are centered around content written by GMs, but we are looking to allow GMs to extend editing privileges to players (or even the community at large).

I have an issue with the site, or an idea to help make things even better.
Great! Please post your concerns, bug reports, and feature requests in the Site Feedback forum on Baldr. Staff and volunteers actively monitor it and we'll answer promptly.

A few closing thoughts from Rodrigo and Eric

We've stewarded Myth-Weavers as a free resource for play-by-post gaming for more than 15 years, and we're looking forward to doing so for many more. We recognize change is hard, but we've really reached the limit of things we can do incrementally on a version of vBulletin that was new before most of the dev team went to college. Here are some of our reasons why we believe upgrading to Baldr is the right decision.
 

• Enhanced security. To be clear, we've been taking appropriate measures to ensure the security of the site and its data. Having better security tools baked into the system, though, is the right thing for us to do to protect the information you've entrusted to us.
• Platform support. Running 15-year-old software is asking for trouble in the fast-moving web application world. Our key operating system and platform software dependencies have their own life cycles, and we have to upgrade with them or risk security issues or hampered disaster recovery. For vBulletin, we are several years past the point where updates have been published by the company.
• Active ecosystem. Invision Community is a modern suite in active development, with a large community that we can turn to for support, or even to purchase pre-built features and tools to integrate with our site. This broad community no longer exists for our current version of vBulletin. While we could move to a newer vBulletin to regain this benefit, doing so would still be a significant change for all the users, staff, and developers. We judged Invision Community to be the better product for what we wanted to do with the site.
• Moderation tools. We live in a different world than the one OGMW was designed for, a world with extremely sophisticated bots for spam, disinformation, etc. This necessitates better tools for protecting our community, and staff now has them available, either fully automated or easily at our fingertips.
• Mobile support. While not everyone uses mobile devices to post on Myth-Weavers, mobile usage is continuing to grow. The iPhone 1 was released just after OGMW debuted, for some perspective on how old the site is. Members have been asking for better mobile capabilities for years, and Baldr gave us the opportunity to make it happen. (Same comment about newer vBulletin applies here.)
• Integrations. Newer software helps us make it easier for gamers to find and join Myth-Weavers. For example, Social Login capability (under consideration, not yet deployed) could allow users to create an account linked to us from their Facebook or Discord profile.
• Velocity. This is perhaps a more technical topic than we'd otherwise write about, but the fact is that deploying Invision Community--in particular its authentication and application programming interface--has allowed the dev team to be more productive and to sustain development efforts longer than we have been able to for many years. We've gotten to the point where integrations are no longer approached like potential mine fields, and bug fixes don't provoke dread of creating instability or breaking the site entirely. Many of these "back-end" enhancements don't really get much limelight among the user community, but sheets are a good example of how we can get things done much faster now than we could before.
  • In a few weeks, we were able to build and deploy a new UI for viewing and managing sheets, including sorting, filtering, and access control.
  • By using modular design, we were able to reduce the potential for bugs in common features (e.g., a sheet would have become unusable if the user had added custom auto-calc, a Community Supporter feature, while subscribed and then let their subscription lapse).
  • We were able to locate, isolate, and plan to fix various style issues with some sheet templates that never looked quite right (different/competing stylings for iterations of the sheet code base).

Thank you all for being part of the Myth-Weavers family and sharing this journey with us. We look forward to gaming with you for many years to come. We will keep you in the loop with additional announcements as the transition progresses.

[Aavarius]

Very excited about about the new site improvements that can come with a back-end that isn't a nightmare to operate!

I think just about every concern I had with the Baldr version has been addressed by this Beta process.  I'm having to really scrape the bottom of the barrel to find things to complain about now.  Much thanks to the staff I've interacted with for being so open to feedback and community ideas.  It's been neat to watch it all come together.

[Jedaii]

Great news! Thanks for your hard work with this transition.

[jokomaisu]

This is all very cool to learn. Thank you for all the hard work!

[eltorin]

This is brilliant, thank you for the hard work, the new site is great!

[cailano]

What an amazing site and community you guys have built. As a fellow web developer I know how much effort is involved in this kind of thing and as a fellow gamer I very much appreciate the tools you’ve given us to tell our stories with. 
 

On to the next era! Long live Myth-Weavers!

[GaryD20]

I'm fairly new to Myth Weavers. Never used the OGMW, started right with Baldr. I've been on Tavern Keeper, Gamers Plane, and Role Gate. Myth Weavers has quickly become my favorite site. The community is great, the developers and administrators are great, and the site itself is great. Love what you are doing here. Long live Myth Weavers! 

[Powderhorn]

Happy to hear it!  Now you should tell us all your wonderful feelings... on your blog I see in your signature 😉

[GaryD20]

Ah, the blog. I've actually been on hiatus from it for the past several months. Had some real life issues that kept me from it. Funny you should mention it though. Have been planning on starting things back up with it next week.  I'll definitely be spreading the word about Myth Weavers! 

[Malkavian Grin]

Wonderful news, keep up the good work! Thank you for all you do! As a web developer (yup, me too!) I can appreciate the improvements and all the hard work that goes into this site.

I saw you are trying to implement a deck of cards system for things like Savage Worlds. I would LOVE to see any progress made in regards to that! I'm currently building my own on w3schools but because I can't afford a paid account, I can't read/write on the server. It's a huge pain, but I'm making it work with...GET variables! Why yes, I AM mentally unstable, thank you for asking XD Maybe we can compare notes on the code. I'm currently trying to figure out how to seed it properly and hitting a snag. Trying not to install a whole library but... oof.

[cailano]

@Malkavian Grin you should use Github pages! Completely free and great for hosting front-end apps.

[Malkavian Grin]

1 hour ago, cailano said:

@Malkavian Grin you should use Github pages! Completely free and great for hosting front-end apps.

Going to PM you in a sec, so as to not clog this thread.

[melange]

On 4/16/2023 at 4:34 PM, Eric said:

[b]Will I still be able to roll dice like OGMW?[/b] We offer a comprehensive Dice Tower integrated with each in-game post, which includes traditional "command line"-style rolling similar to OGMW as well as a full-featured graphical user interface option for assembling complex rolls. The underlying syntax is different since the Dice Tower can perform more functions than the OGMW roller; these changes are described in the user guide. We also have inline rolling capability within posts, which leverages the Tower's "command line" experience. [URL="https://test.myth-weavers.com/index.php?/articles.html/articles/dice-tower-r10/&do=getNewComment&d=1&id=10"]Look here for info![/URL]

Will I still be able to roll dice like OGMW? We offer a comprehensive Dice Tower integrated with each in-game post, which includes traditional "command line"-style rolling similar to OGMW as well as a full-featured graphical user interface option for assembling complex rolls. The underlying syntax is different since the Dice Tower can perform more functions than the OGMW roller; these changes are described in the user guide. We also have inline rolling capability within posts, which leverages the Tower's "command line" experience. Look here for info!

The thing that's held off for me starting anew on Baldr was sheet roll integration functionality, I originally assumed it'd be part of the sheets release but saw it was pushed to a future update on no particular timeline (though at the end of the day, I know it's done when it's done).  Will that be complete before this transition happens?  That's part of what I'd consider "roll dice like OGMW" but it's not mentioned in the list here.  Thanks!

[Eric]

2 minutes ago, melange said:

The thing that's held off for me starting anew on Baldr was sheet roll integration functionality, I originally assumed it'd be part of the sheets release but saw it was pushed to a future update on no particular timeline (though at the end of the day, I know it's done when it's done).  Will that be complete before this transition happens?  That's part of what I'd consider "roll dice like OGMW" but it's not mentioned in the list here.  Thanks!

Sheet dice will definitely be done in at least as capable means as on OGMW. My personal stretch goal is for better than that, but it will depend on how much free time I have to make magic happen 😄

[farothel]

So if I've read this correctly, we can still use OGMW after the 5th of August for games that are in progress? Just asking since I would like to port my game over on a nice chapter break and not in the middle of something.