The Escapist Site Update: Forum Titles and Private Messages

As you're chatting on the forums, you'll notice a few new features.

First up is the private message envelope. Click that to send people private messages. You'll be able to tell if you have private messages by checking on The Escapist's front page, right where you'd normally log in. Right near there, you can also update your profile.

Inside your profile, you can update your vitals and such, as well as link to your own avatar. Here's mine:

Awesome, no? The image dimensions are 75x75, but try to make it look good at 50x50, just in case.

And finally, you'll notice beneath your name a title. Everyone starts off as an Anonymous Source, but where you end up from there is up to you. Enjoy!

Permalink

In the profile there's also a section for a signature, but that signature doesn't seem to display anywhere. Bug, or feature not yet implemented? ;)

Intentionally left out until I figure out a way to shoot people with sig pics over the internet.

"I just got back from the auto de fe."

Auto de fe? What's an auto de fe?

Enjoying the updates to the site. Couple questions...
1. A WarCry membership (at least until recently) came with a forum title. Is this in addition to my new Escapist Title, or would it replace it? (Holy post count, batman. Level up!) Answer me these questions three, ere I never use the phrase "post count" again. Please.
2. What would be a good place to host my avatar, that won't force me to move it anytime soon?
3. Who's been stuck with the task of procuring a feature for Monday's?

The first time I saw History of the World, Part 1, A. I was way too young to understand all of it, and B. I loved every minute of it. Woe be unto me the day I went searching for Part 2... alas, never to see the full version of Hitler on Ice, or Jews in Space. A sad, sad day.

Answers in order:

Geoffrey42:
Auto de fe? What's an auto de fe?

It's what you oughtn't to do, but you do anyway.

Geoffrey42:
1. A WarCry membership (at least until recently) came with a forum title. Is this in addition to my new Escapist Title, or would it replace it?

Two forums, two titles.

Geoffrey42:
2. What would be a good place to host my avatar, that won't force me to move it anytime soon?

www.imageshack.us is a good place. I've used it a number of times.

Geoffrey42:
3. Who's been stuck with the task of procuring a feature for Monday's?

I'm not sure what you're asking here, but as the Acquisitions editor, I'm nominally in charge of procuring all of the features. Also, Monday is typically my day to write an editorial, when I'm not busy with other things (like today).

Russ Pitts:

Geoffrey42:
3. Who's been stuck with the task of procuring a feature for Monday's?

I'm not sure what you're asking here, but as the Acquisitions editor, I'm nominally in charge of procuring all of the features. Also, Monday is typically my day to write an editorial, when I'm not busy with other things (like today).

It seems like the Escapist has been beefing up its week-long appeal. Tuesdays are Issue days, Wednesdays are Zero Punctuation (thanks be to you for the acquisition/production, thanks be to Yahtzee for the sheer genius), Thursdays are for Shoot Club, Fridays are for Inside Job (at least recently).

Maybe, as you say, Mondays are days to get your stuff done. Then we all benefit from the fruits of your labor for the rest of the week. Or maybe it's all just part of your master plan... Monday seemed the next logical step. It's a thought that's occurred to me ever since Zero Punctuation hit, and I never thought of a good place to air it. I was on a roll anyway, so I threw it in. Interrogation technique, used to great effect in Legally Blonde, and to disastrous effect in Holy Grail. Either way, I appreciate your taking time out of a busy day (like today) to answer my silly questions. I look forward to girding Flossy up on imageshack.

Edit: /girded

There's Flossy.

Your analysis isn't wrong, Geoff, but you're overlooking the bi-weekly editorial stylings of our talented pool of freelance ... editorialists, like Sean Sands, Andy Chalk and Adam LaMosca, all of whom join us on one weekday or another. And, like I said, Monday is usually my day to shine. We also have Game Design Fridays once a month, with a short game design by Scott Jon Siegel. Perhaps these features need flashy titles.

I did indeed overlook the bi-weekly editorial content. I sort of lumped it in with news posts and flavored press re-releases (now with more wit!), probably because it was seemingly unscheduled, and as stated, doesn't have a catchy title. For those ritalin-snorting EFF-PEE-ESS-twitching hooligans running around Yahtzee's threads, flashy feature titles are a must if you plan on holding their attention spans. Even for me, things that only happen once a month aren't often enough to warrant a mental scheduling spot, even WITH catchy names like Game Design Fridays.

Nice to see some new features on the forums. I'm having some serious trouble updating my profile though. Everytime I hit save it comes up with an error saying "There was a problem saving your Profile!"

No explaination. Just doesn't work.

Help?

What were you doing when you tried to update it?

This is pretty classy. However, it keeps saying there was a problem saving my profile. I've tried it a few times now, and don't seem to have done anything out of the ordinary - just getting the same error message Goofonian had.

Joe:
Intentionally left out until I figure out a way to shoot people with sig pics over the internet.

There is, I'm certain, a way to disable image tags in signatures.

You know, I was worried someone might be bothered by Flossy here.

And then, I saw the "wrestling" abominable snowpeople.

*phew* I'm relieved.

Man, I loved that game. Has there ever been a skiing game since with that much freedom?

Joe:
Intentionally left out until I figure out a way to shoot people with sig pics over the internet.

We don't really need sigs, do we?

Joe:
What were you doing when you tried to update it?

I've tried everything I could think of. Changing everything. Changing only the text boxes, just changing my birthday. It all gives me the same error.

I'm all for no pictures in signatures! Forum avatars are my limit, I might have to find one now but probably not.

I love my avatar(d).

Howdy Folks, I'm the developer who wrote the Profile Module. I've looked into some of the reports here and it does seem there was a slight problem creating new profiles. Sometimes it's not easy being a programmer when things explode from a left out apostrophe. That doesn't happen when writing articles? :P

Anyhow, if you could so kindly try to create your profile again I'm fairly certain you'll have better luck. I'll be monitoring this tread if something else comes up. Thanks!

Geoffrey42:
1. A WarCry membership (at least until recently) came with a forum title. Is this in addition to my new Escapist Title, or would it replace it?

So, as far as titles go, here's the order of precedence (greatest to least):

1. Titles assigned to user accounts by forum admins
2. Automatic Moderator/Administrator titles
3. 'Membership' title
4. Post count titles

Although they do share the same system, there's currently no title for membership on this site (since we kind of don't push it at the moment) - I'll bug the editors and see if they want to imagineer one up.

Arbre:

Joe:
Intentionally left out until I figure out a way to shoot people with sig pics over the internet.

We don't really need sigs, do we?

I'm rather enjoying the lack of signatures, but as long as they're optional to see, fine.

NiteRaven:
Howdy Folks, I'm the developer who wrote the Profile Module. I've looked into some of the reports here and it does seem there was a slight problem creating new profiles. Sometimes it's not easy being a programmer when things explode from a left out apostrophe. That doesn't happen when writing articles? :P

Anyhow, if you could so kindly try to create your profile again I'm fairly certain you'll have better luck. I'll be monitoring this tread if something else comes up. Thanks!

All working beautifully now. Cheers.