From the Admin's Desk: v4 Edition blog - jacksonj04

Hi everyone,
For those who are new and those who just don't know me, I'd like to introduce myself again. I'm Nick, aka jacksonj04, and I'm one of the site managers here at Mod DB. I'm also the guy responsible for making sure you - the community - are happy, content, and know how to make the best use of the site.

As you've probably noticed, Mod DB has recently moved into this new version - v4. It's changed. A lot. So, I'm here to help answer a few questions and solve a few problems which have cropped up since we launched.

What's happened?

Mod DB has been upgraded from v3 to v4. It's a big change in how we organise things, and a big change to how a few things work. It's also a lot more of the same - we still support independent game development including mods and indie games, we still want to help you find new things to play, and we still want to help developers to show off.

The new things include (but aren't limited to) personal blogs, better connection of content, multiple platform support, and better support for development groups and indie games.

What are these 'link' things?

Linking is v4's big feature, but like an iceberg you only see the tip of it. It's something we've been planning and working on in some form since v2, and it works like this:

You can now connect things in ways you couldn't before. Whereas in v3 you couldn't create a mod of a mod, or an addon for a mod, you now can simply by adding the appropriate link. You can also add links to groups and engines (More on those later), or to more than one item of content, which is very handy when you write reviews.

Where has my mod team gone?

We've replaced mod teams with our new Groups feature (See below). Because Groups is a lot more powerful than the old mod teams, we've decided to not automatically create them to give you the opportunity to get it right instead of having to fix our mistakes. If you've somehow been thrown out of a mod you administer, let me know and I'll fix it for you.

OK, so what are Groups?

I'll start with describing the new social features in Mod DB, as that deals with Groups. We realised a while back that the best development happens when you can connect with other people to share skills and ideas. With v3 we told people seeking this to go to the forums, but in v4 we decided to leap on the social networking bandwagon and introduce two features: Friends and Groups.

Friends is exactly as it sounds - it's a personal list of the people you want to keep in touch with. We're looking at new ways of using Friends for things such as recommendations ("Your friends were interested in...") or improved searching, but for now it's a simple list.

Groups is how we deal with a few things, and is one of v4's biggest improvements. A group is a collection of people, which can be used for almost anything. If you're a development team, just create a group for it. Inside the group's control panel you'll find options for letting people add content, adding members, and customising your profile. When you've added members, you can fine tune their permissions for adding and editing content. When you edit your mod's (Or game's) profile, you'll find you can select your group as the developer. This then uses Linking to tie the two together. If your team develops two mods, just set them as the developer for both.

You can also use Groups for finding people of the same interest, for example by creating a "Source Developers" group or a "Concept Artists" group. Finally, we also use Groups to deal with some official things such as the "Ex-Staff" group and "Old-Timers" group.

Where has my modWatch gone?

Nowhere. Your modWatch is still intact, but now lives under Updates. We've expanded the system so that you can now watch almost anything across the site, and have everything delivered to one place. All the mods you were watching will now create a new update for you when something happens.

Being able to watch anything is really nice - if you find a user who writes interesting blogs then you can watch them and see when they add new content. Likewise if you're a developer interested in the Unreal 3 engine, you can watch the engine and be notified of new features and news articles about it.

A few people have asked for some form of list of what they're subscribed to. Whilst you don't really need to know this, as they only bother you when there are actual updates (At which point you get an easy stop watching link anyway) we'll be releasing a change in the next couple of days so you can see everything in your Updates page.

Why are some things missing or still the v3 version?

There are a few reasons for this. Firstly a few things simply weren't ready in time. The forums, for example, are still being rewritten to tie better into features such as Friends (Wouldn't it be nice to see your friends opinions in one place?). Other features are waiting to see how you use v4. Help Wanted may end up being tied to groups, or user profiles, or something else depending on how the community (You) use what's already there. Finally the video feature is simply waiting for the hardware to be fine-tuned, since this is something we can't do without content.

At the moment the big missing features are private messages, help wanted and topsites. Video is being implemented as I write and should be available soon. The forums are still running on v3, and will be moved to v4 when they're fully updated. All these features are high on our to-do list, and they are all at least partially in place. Expect to see them in the next couple of weeks, starting with private messaging and video.

XYZ has lost its formatting!

We know, and we've got our team of content monkeys fixing things as I type.

Game XYZ isn't linked properly!

We know that as well. Again, our content monkeys are busy working though the list of games and adding engines and groups as appropriate.

You're missing game/engine/group XYZ!

Go add it. Unlike v3, all members can now add content including games, engines and groups. Don't be alarmed if we suddenly wrest control of big names from you though. If you add a group for id Software, it's possible that one of our editors will step in and tidy it up because it's a big name. On the other hand, if you do a good job we'll leave you alone to run it.

So I can add more stuff now?

Yes, and we encourage you to do it! If you want to write a review, a blog post or an article just go and do it. If it meets our quality standards, we may well pick it to be featured on the front page. You may even be hand-picked by our editors to join our writing team.

You haven't helped me. I still have an unanswered question.

Ask it by posting a comment on this blog entry. I'll reply in person, and then sometime next week I'll collect them all into another update like this one.

All that's left for me to say is "go have fun".

Nick "jacksonj04" Jackson
Site Manager