Forum & Website Overhaul

I am going to be frank the website and forums are antiquated!! We need a completely new website and forums. There are many MMORPG that have been around far longer then LOTRO that have far superior websites. The newer versions of vBulletin will run circles around this version. Also hosting the website and forums in the cloud would be the way to go and should offer a huge performance boost. I know Cordovan has said it would love a website and forum overhaul when can we reasonably expect that to happen.

Thanks

Yup, no one here disagrees with you. It's a pretty big project, though, and resources have just not been aligned in a way to make this happen. So, no ETA.

Sorry, but it won't ever happen. SSG just doesn't have the money. There will always be some higher priority to allocate scarce resources to.

Previous thread: https://www.lotro.com/en/forums/show...postid=7966021

(Just my opinion, of course.)

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Originally Posted by Thurallor

Sorry, but it won't ever happen. SSG just doesn't have the money. There will always be some higher priority to allocate scarce resources to.

Previous thread: https://www.lotro.com/en/forums/show...postid=7966021

(Just my opinion, of course.)

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Respectfully, I disagree. While a full web site overhaul may never happen, we do have a formal intention to move to vBulletin Cloud and archive the current forums to become read-only. Obviously there are some questions that need to be answered and prepared for, one of the biggest being community acceptance of having to start fresh, and not have their names saved. We would also permanently unhook your game log in credentials with your LOTRO forums credentials.

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

Respectfully, I disagree. While a full web site overhaul may never happen, we do have a formal intention to move to vBulletin Cloud and archive the current forums to become read-only. Obviously there are some questions that need to be answered and prepared for, one of the biggest being community acceptance of having to start fresh, and not have their names saved. We would also permanently unhook your game log in credentials with your LOTRO forums credentials.

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I don't like that Idea at all...it's like throwing history in the trash.
Within a few months all 13 years of Forum banter will be lost in space. (Well, maybe some has been lost already since the last forum revamp).
I appreciate being able to go back and review/research all that data.
It will quickly become lost like cuneiform, which at least took several hundred years to get lost.

Maybe that's just the way-of-the-world now.
Here today, gone tomorrow.

There must be some way of making it "read-only" and still keep it a click away from access.
If you can do that (and you actually do it) then I might not start a violent, bloody revolution. But it's a close thing...my patience grows thinner with the years.

For thirteen years I have had ONE solid thing I can count on. I can go to the LOTRO Forums site and find something I was thinking about, or reminiscing about.
OK, there might be more than ONE solid thing...but that is an important one.

I can make a new name.
Separating log-in credentials and Forum credentials is a good thing.

What exactly does "archive the current forums to become read-only." mean?

I am concerned about that.

Will we be able to quote stuff from the "archived" forum?
Will we be able to post a link to threads in these archives?

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Originally Posted by Boraxxe

I don't like that Idea at all...it's like throwing history in the trash.
Within a few months all 13 years of Forum banter will be lost in space. (Well, maybe some has been lost already since the last forum revamp).
I appreciate being able to go back and review/research all that data.
It will quickly become lost like cuneiform, which at least took several hundred years to get lost.

Maybe that's just the way-of-the-world now.
Here today, gone tomorrow.

There must be some way of making it "read-only" and still keep it a click away from access.
If you can do that (and you actually do it) then I might not start a violent, bloody revolution. But it's a close thing...my patience grows thinner with the years.

For thirteen years I have had ONE solid thing I can count on. I can go to the LOTRO Forums site and find something I was thinking about, or reminiscing about.
OK, there might be more than ONE solid thing...but that is an important one.

I can make a new name.
Separating log-in credentials and Forum credentials is a good thing.

What exactly does "archive the current forums to become read-only." mean?

I am concerned about that.

Will we be able to quote stuff from the "archived" forum?
Will we be able to post a link to threads in these archives?

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"archive the current forums to become read-only." That means that they will probably keep the old forums just like they are now but in a read only state they will disable account creation and disable the abilities for users to post new threads or reply to old ones. The old forums would not disappear they would be there for historical reference only. Also a lot of the great threads could be reposted in the new forums with a note about it being from old site. If they are going to make a new forum the best way to do it is to start from scratch and not transfer over the user databases and all the posts. You would not have all those unused accounts sitting in the database and hogging up great usernames. There are many user accounts that have not posted since 2007 or ever even posted at all. The performance of a cloud based new forum would be a night and day difference and would be more secure as well as your game credentials would not be linked to the forums. Well yes there will need to be discussions I am all for a brand new forum. Cordovan and team would love it as well as you can see from his post. From and administration standpoint and a user standpoint the newer versions of vBulletin are just going to be better and work better with modern browsers and be an all around better experience.

I think that the experience does need updating but at what cost?

Archiving these forum pages > well the last time we did this was in the world consolidation and obviously even though it is just down the page and can be accessed it still lost its raison d'etre. This is one step further in that it will I'm guessing, not be incorporated into the new forum at all and will be stand alone. Therefore linking will not be possible and so just a copy paste which will make anything used that way open to abuse.

Fresh start - forum names and dates > well if these cannot be rectified by some kind of database upload then you folks need to think seriously about what that will mean. I will hazard a guess that it will be a huge detriment to yourselves and the community as a whole. I have been playing since 2008 and a lot of folks have invested even more time from prior to launch. I think it is a disgrace that you would even consider a solution that erases someones yearly investiture when they see how long they have been playing.

Names > have we not learned from the pain of server consolidation and now from the Bombadil transfer issues. No way can you allow a fresh start of naming. Imagine the screaming and gnashing of teeth when someone who has had their name for 13 years gets it "stolen" (yes that is what it would be) from them by a newb or someone who thinks it is funny to grief by taking someone else name.

Come on Cordovan, we all want a better experience and I'm sure you want it to deliver that better experience especially so folks on small devices get a cleaner and more mobile visibility but as I said above "At what cost?"

You need! to find a solution whereby we do keep our names and forum dates as a minimum. If this is cost prohibitive then I would prefer to stay where we are.

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Originally Posted by LabadalofDorlomin

Fresh start - forum names and dates > well if these cannot be rectified by some kind of database upload then you folks need to think seriously about what that will mean. I will hazard a guess that it will be a huge detriment to yourselves and the community as a whole. I have been playing since 2008 and a lot of folks have invested even more time from prior to launch. I think it is a disgrace that you would even consider a solution that erases someones yearly investiture when they see how long they have been playing.

Names > have we not learned from the pain of server consolidation and now from the Bombadil transfer issues. No way can you allow a fresh start of naming. Imagine the screaming and gnashing of teeth when someone who has had their name for 13 years gets it "stolen" (yes that is what it would be) from them by a newb or someone who thinks it is funny to grief by taking someone else name.

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Well I have done a forum move before on another website. They had it setup in the user transfer to only transfer over usernames that had actually made a post within like the past 5 years. Usernames inactive longer then that or accounts that had not made a single post did not get transferred over the users also retained there original join date on the new site. Also the old forum would will still be there for reference I don't think they would ever delete that I am sure they will find a solution but like he said I don't think this will be happening in the near future. But they need to do something eventually.

There might even be plugins and template modification they could do to allow you to quote stuff from the old site.

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Originally Posted by Boraxxe

I don't like that Idea at all...it's like throwing history in the trash.
Within a few months all 13 years of Forum banter will be lost in space.....

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Having experienced a couple 'total loss' cases on Kobold-side, both forum-wide and thread specific, I can say it does royally suck to lose that history. Even if 'archived', it still sinks deeper into the virtual dust becoming harder and harder to find.

Sadly, it seems the only things that never seem to go away on the interwebs is the stuff you wish actually would disappear.

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Edit: Forum handles. When you come to know people by a particular name for years, that name uniquely identifies the real person behind the screen. I *firmly* believe everything possible should be done to preserve each person's current identifier in any move forward.

We have so many errors/lags with forum in last years. If turning this forum in current state to archive read only state means we can login on forum without encountering error page 10 times, people must pay that price.

I am mostly concerned about losing access to all of the existing posts and losing my join date.

It's time to move forward and create new history. The past is done and over, these forums are tired and stale and are becoming a barren wasteland. How many ex-code masters go back and look at the old archived website? Not many if any I would say. After a year or two will many here do the same?

Worried about keeping a name? I'm sure they can come up with some sort of solution. That said, how many active forum users are there now? and while some are attached to their forum identity others might jump at the chance to created a new identity. You can always note your past identity in your new forum posts.

Worried about losing some of the creative and informative posts on this forum? Recreate them anew, updated with new vigour and enthusiasm on the new forums. Most if not all of those old informative posts are obselete and out of date with information long past the point of being any use anyway. A new forum will allow players to get all the latest up to date information and stop people having to search through years of out of date stuff. Anything still relevant can be copied over and stickied in the relevant forums.

And while we are at it the Website needs dragging into the Fourth Age as well. The game might be 13 years old, but if we are to stay alive and attract new players, we need to have a site that reflects that we are looking to the future and not stuck in the past. New images, videos, new pages on characters and places, this needs to happen too.

Get it done SSG!

Cheers :)

I just had an idea.
Let's say we actually do lose our Forum ID, (someone decides they want your name and sort of steals it from you) maybe we can have access to the sub-line (the line right below your name) and have the option to put in our former name?

Like this:

Decrepit
(formerly: Boraxxe)


I don't like it much, but it's at least a way to let folks know who is spewing worthless gibberish again.

A new forum be nice, been waiting awhile, the current one is starting to turn into SLOTRO, while other places are fast moving,

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Originally Posted by Fealhach

It's time to move forward and create new history. The past is done and over, these forums are tired and stale and are becoming a barren wasteland. How many ex-code masters go back and look at the old archived website? Not many if any I would say. After a year or two will many here do the same?

Worried about keeping a name? I'm sure they can come up with some sort of solution. That said, how many active forum users are there now? and while some are attached to their forum identity others might jump at the chance to created a new identity. You can always note your past identity in your new forum posts.

Worried about losing some of the creative and informative posts on this forum? Recreate them anew, updated with new vigour and enthusiasm on the new forums. Most if not all of those old informative posts are obselete and out of date with information long past the point of being any use anyway. A new forum will allow players to get all the latest up to date information and stop people having to search through years of out of date stuff. Anything still relevant can be copied over and stickied in the relevant forums.

And while we are at it the Website needs dragging into the Fourth Age as well. The game might be 13 years old, but if we are to stay alive and attract new players, we need to have a site that reflects that we are looking to the future and not stuck in the past. New images, videos, new pages on characters and places, this needs to happen too.

Get it done SSG!

Cheers :)

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Exactly cheers as well:)

Under no circumstances would I want to give up my username.

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Originally Posted by auximenes

Under no circumstances would I want to give up my username.

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Even if it means staying with this outdated, broken, security hazard of a forum?

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Originally Posted by auximenes

Under no circumstances would I want to give up my username.

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I think on a new forum you can keep your name just use same username when sign up?

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Originally Posted by Boraxxe

I just had an idea.
Let's say we actually do lose our Forum ID, (someone decides they want your name and sort of steals it from you) maybe we can have access to the sub-line (the line right below your name) and have the option to put in our former name?

Like this:

Decrepit
(formerly: Boraxxe)


I don't like it much, but it's at least a way to let folks know who is spewing worthless gibberish again.

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That seems pretty easy to do by enabling user use of the title creation system.

I get that the name thing is a serious pain point, but ultimately we cannot reasonably do both; either we start with a new forum, or we keep the old one. We want to not have to incorporate literally 3-4 different account management systems, some of which are historical objects contributing to the very issues people are experiencing on LOTRO.com and the forums, into vBulletin Cloud, among other reasons. Especially if our goal is to permanently remove the attachment between your game account and your forum account.

I think in reality "most" regulars here will not have an issue getting their name. We can make deliberate name-sniping-to-harass/troll a forum offense and deal with it on a case by case basis. Assuming most are willing to log in relatively quickly after the change was made and grab their name, few will run into issues. Meanwhile, seriously thousands if not tens of thousands of names will be freed that have been dead for more than a decade and newer. Yes, you'll have to grab your name, but since most "forum regulars" log in with enough frequency to get the job done, I suspect it'll be more of a worry than an actual issue.

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

Meanwhile, seriously thousands if not tens of thousands of names will be freed that have been dead for more than a decade and newer.

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Can we do this on the game worlds as well? Not delete the characters, but issue a mass rename for all characters that have not logged on since e.g. Jan 1st 2011?

There are likely a lot of old, old names that people might want to use, but they left the game a decade ago.

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Originally Posted by maartena

Can we do this on the game worlds as well? Not delete the characters, but issue a mass rename for all characters that have not logged on since e.g. Jan 1st 2011?

There are likely a lot of old, old names that people might want to use, but they left the game a decade ago.

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In most cases GMs will happily allocate you the name for use if you submit a ticket and the person has been offline for whatever amount of time meets their criteria, as I did this recently because there was a name I wanted.

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Originally Posted by krypto182

I am going to be frank the website and forums are antiquated!! We need a completely new website and forums. There are many MMORPG that have been around far longer then LOTRO that have far superior websites. The newer versions of vBulletin will run circles around this version. Also hosting the website and forums in the cloud would be the way to go and should offer a huge performance boost. I know Cordovan has said it would love a website and forum overhaul when can we reasonably expect that to happen.

Thanks

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I think a new Forum in the Cloud has some huge advantages, and a number of issues:

Advantages -
1) SSG can speak to the community even if the data center is down!!
2) Performance should be much improved.
3) Backup and recovery is no longer an issue/worry for SSG
4) New features and modern look
5) Users would be able to link to their emails for alerts (if they wanted)

Disadvantages
1) It is very unlikely that information can be migrated from the current forums. So they could be left up READ ONLY and then its a new beginning.
2) Everyone will need to get their ID again because migrating the login IDs is just not reasonable - not to mention 95% of the ids are probably dead.
3) People need to get use to the new forums (and yes some will complain)

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Originally Posted by SavinDwarf

I think a new Forum in the Cloud has some huge advantages, and a number of issues:

Advantages -
1) SSG can speak to the community even if the data center is down!!
2) Performance should be much improved.
3) Backup and recovery is no longer an issue/worry for SSG
4) New features and modern look
5) Users would be able to link to their emails for alerts (if they wanted)

Disadvantages
1) It is very unlikely that information can be migrated from the current forums. So they could be left up READ ONLY and then its a new beginning.
2) Everyone will need to get their ID again because migrating the login IDs is just not reasonable - not to mention 95% of the ids are probably dead.
3) People need to get use to the new forums (and yes some will complain)

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I agree with you. Some of the concerns over the disadvantages combined with a ton of required work taking away available time to do it by the people who need to do it is why it hasn't yet been done. We do, however, currently intend to do this at some point in the future when everything aligns.

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

Some of the concerns over the disadvantages combined with a ton of required work taking away available time to do it by the people who need to do it is why it hasn't yet been done.

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And that won't change, IMO. There will always be a "game-breaking issue du jour" that is (and should be) a higher priority for scarce human resources than fixing the forums which, besides the flakiness, are entirely adequate. The forums are, after all, ancillary to the product, and non-revenue-generating.

Who among us would think it's justified to spend two man-weeks migrating the forums, while we still suffer with major bugs that interfere with actual gameplay? I guess this work is well-suited for outsourcing or contracting (being unrelated to the company's core expertise). But if you're going to put an engineer on it, I'd rather you have him dig into the existing source code and just fix the problem. It's probably something very localized that can be quickly fixed, once identified.

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Originally Posted by Thurallor

...But if you're going to put an engineer on it, I'd rather you have him dig into the existing source code and just fix the problem...

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I think it's probably a completely different skill-set.

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Originally Posted by Boraxxe

I think it's probably a completely different skill-set.

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I'd be very surprised if SSG didn't have at least one software engineer who thought he was up to the task. But even if they decide to outsource it or contract it out, the choice remains as to whether to pay someone to fix it or to migrate it.

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Originally Posted by Thurallor

I'd be very surprised if SSG didn't have at least one software engineer who thought he was up to the task. But even if they decide to outsource it or contract it out, the choice remains as to whether to pay someone to fix it or to migrate it.

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Well, lots of folks have complained about the website/forums.
They should be fixed.
It would make many happy if they were brought up to current standards.
And many (I think you, Thurallor, would be included in this group) would be happier if their limited resources were spent on "other" things.
It's a marketing decision.

I think, if push came to shove, I would vote with you. I care much less about the forums than I care about the magic world of LOTRO.

But on the other hand, if they can fix the forums so they don't (bad word here) me off, and it doesn't affect LOTRO improvement too much, then I can live with it.

Would hate to lose my name. But would hate even MORE to lose my join date. That's the true badge of honor.

As a java web application developer, I read these forums, see Cord's posts, and can 100% feel the pain. My work supports code first written around 2005 (or perhaps a bit earlier), and it's a real pita sometimes. New devs don't know the stack, your senior devs eventually retire, and it's a hard sell to your stakeholders to justify rewriting stuff which currently works, especially knowing how long it'll take to re-write it...time which could be spent on new things rather than old things. When you do re-write something, someone has to decide how much is re-written, what stack is used, how compatible it should be with the old application, etc. Game development is a bit of a different beast from forums/web development. We use different tools, different libraries...SSG would either need to be lucky and have someone who keeps up with web forum technologies on the side, would need to cross-train someone, or hire someone with the skill set...but then they probably don't need a dedicated web developer beyond the initial massive project. It would be fun to do, though...well, fun for a crazy developer who likes those kinds of things. Hmm...I wonder if they could do some kind of automated data export from the existing forums, then use a script to auto-populate new accounts from our existing accounts, or something like temporarily reserving user names based on a person's email account with the option to import account data from the old website...yep I think too much. :)

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Originally Posted by amandakay

...your senior devs eventually retire...

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That's gotta be murder.
You have that one guy. He's always there. His work is flawless. He never makes waves.
And then, he's gone.
And no one thought to give him a sponge to absorb that savvy.
You can't get him back.

Ack!
Whadda ya mean, everybody's mad?
It worked yesterday!

Grin.

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Originally Posted by Inkling

Would hate to lose my name. But would hate even MORE to lose my join date. That's the true badge of honor.

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If we could manually add it to our title on the new boards that would help although some players would fabricate that date. It would hurt to lose the join date since to me it's an important indicator of what knowledge the player (probably) has.

Choosing a new forum software is hard. I recently registered on half a dozen new sites and their forums. Having first hand experience setting up forums, upgrading and maintaining, and having dealt with several different "manufacturers" of the software I am extremely and totally opposed to tag based hierarchies with infinite scrolling implemented by, to name one, Discourse. There is material for a lengthy discussion, but I just wanted to mention what I would NOT want to see on this site.

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

I think in reality "most" regulars here will not have an issue getting their name. We can make deliberate name-sniping-to-harass/troll a forum offense and deal with it on a case by case basis. Assuming most are willing to log in relatively quickly after the change was made and grab their name, few will run into issues. Meanwhile, seriously thousands if not tens of thousands of names will be freed that have been dead for more than a decade and newer. Yes, you'll have to grab your name, but since most "forum regulars" log in with enough frequency to get the job done, I suspect it'll be more of a worry than an actual issue.

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I wouldn't mind to get a new forum name, but having someone else post "in my name" would IMO be a problem.
People could express an opinion that is seen as the one of the previous owner - and by doing that in a smart way, people might not notice. Or they could behave in a bad way, that is just below the CoC radar. As a forum moderator you definitely know how provocative people can be without direcly violating the CoC. This is the art of trolling and its target is to NOT give you enough reason for a ban.
Will it be a few individuals? Who knows. People can prepare a list of names and register all of them them within an hour of opening the forums, using well-known anonymization services. And it would be your work to clean after them, one by one.
Or there might be no problem at all.

The one thing that we can be sure about is that there will be a sufficiently long time window for people to grab a name. We have time zones, sleeping times, RL obligations and the uncertainty of the new forum launch. Most people will probably register within 24 hours, which means that names can be grabbed with ease.

The potential solutions, in descending order of my preference

1. Problem is ignored, but there are no trolls. Possible, but I doubt it.
2. Allow people to keep their name (technical solution required, e.g. sending people a mail with login token might be sufficient)
3. Generate a script that grants forum titles with old names.
4. Block all old names for some limited time (e.g. a year), such that it is clear that these are no longer the same users.
5. A lot of work for support (a single troll can register 100 accounts with ease, a script is set up within minutes). Please note that this might not be resolved quickly. Trolls could save up a few accounts and start more waves.
6. Problem is ignored and a lot of people will be angry because they won't get their name or their name is abused (regardless if within or outside of CoC)

5 is quite low on the list, because IF there is a problem, the numbers will be too high for support to handle this in a proper way.

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Originally Posted by SavinDwarf

Advantages -
1) SSG can speak to the community even if the data center is down!!
2) Performance should be much improved.
3) Backup and recovery is no longer an issue/worry for SSG
4) New features and modern look
5) Users would be able to link to their emails for alerts (if they wanted)

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This is a Jim-dandy idea!

I for one welcome our new Internet forums! <-- Obligatory meme reference :)

Wiping tear from eye ... in all earnestness, this is really a good idea. You won me over SavinDwarf when you said "cloud" in your full post.

I work for a prominent global IT consultancy particularly adept at projects like these; I know first hand they can work well. This is the kind of work that puts a spring into my step each day. Really looking forward to SSG deciding to take the plunge. LotRO is the bee's knees.

(Side note -- PHP ... well, that's what it is. :rolleyes: )


Cheers,
Gloimli @ ex-Windfola

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Originally Posted by Inkling

Would hate to lose my name. But would hate even MORE to lose my join date. That's the true badge of honor.

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not really...we have people who have been here since 1969

I'm quite happy to dive in and grab my name again. I can live with the old forums getting archived.

My biggest concern is my avatar pic and my subtitle! Can I put those back??

I'd also be sad to see my post count go to zero. It took me 5+ years to get to 1000. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Echoweaver

I'm quite happy to dive in and grab my name again. I can live with the old forums getting archived.

My biggest concern is my avatar pic and my subtitle! Can I put those back??

I'd also be sad to see my post count go to zero. It took me 5+ years to get to 1000. :rolleyes:

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One option I have been exploring is whether users could just upload their own avatars and titles. While it could be a moderation headache (my bet is it is only a minor one), it might be cool. Dunno how that works in the cloud, but I assume there is a way to do it. I believe it would be similar to images in that they would need to be hosted elsewhere and linked to through the profile UI.

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

One option I have been exploring is whether users could just upload their own avatars and titles. While it could be a moderation headache (my bet is it is only a minor one), it might be cool. Dunno how that works in the cloud, but I assume there is a way to do it. I believe it would be similar to images in that they would need to be hosted elsewhere and linked to through the profile UI.

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For sufficiently small file sizes, would it not be possible to host them? Avatar pics seem like a pretty common user-customizable feature for forums.

Not a huge deal, but curious.

Having a custom avatar pic and title is kind of a status symbol on this forum, and I'd be lying if I said that meant nothing to me. But this is one of the few forums I'm a part of where I can't change my avatar without admin intervention.

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

... While it could be a moderation headache (my bet is it is only a minor one), it might be cool. ...

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The Internet, this is Cordovan. Cordovan, the Internet. It seems you haven't met. :)

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Originally Posted by gcpate

The Internet, this is Cordovan. Cordovan, the Internet. It seems you haven't met. :)

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Maybe, but if so we could yeet it.




















*There, I have now put yeet into the Dev Tracker

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

...
*There, I have now put yeet into the Dev Tracker

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Yes, you have yought.


/bow

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Originally Posted by gcpate

The Internet, this is Cordovan. Cordovan, the Internet. It seems you haven't met. :)

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trying to make aware that gameplay at the moment is almost impossible server feezing major rubber banding and disconnections game needs major fix many people fed up with the game atm is a shame as i love the game but you need to be able to play it

Thank you for Cordovan for actively responding and engaging with my thread. I know this is something you want to happen and I appreciate you explaining the challenges that are in the way and how things need to line up to make this happen. I look forward to the day we can have a modern forum/community site.

TONS of websites have changed from vbulletin to newer software and kept/migrated their old ones.

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Originally Posted by IcarusLSC

TONS of websites have changed from vbulletin to newer software and kept/migrated their old ones.

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Yes, indeed they have. But often at a cost... and vbulletin is not an old software v 5 is out and the forum is running the version 4 branch. https://www.vbulletin.com/

The customizations of this forum makes it a respectable effort to upgrade to a new version and in this Cordovan needs to decide whether to keep with vBulletin or migrate to something else. If migrating to something else you need a database mapping tool and an experienced developer to handle that. Export to SQL, review consistency, check for oddities and customizations, use the tool to push to a new database, review the result and fix what's wrong. Especially the last part can take time.

That is why changes to the core code and database of any site or forum must be documented and avoided because once you step outside the manufacturers standard tabla and database layout you will get issues that will require manual hands on to fix. I never touch the core code of any software if I can avoid it, instead I look for additions or plugins that can do the job for me. Not to long ago I migrated a forum that was created in 2005 to a new and different platform. My only reason for doing this was the fact that the existing platform was not being actively developed at a satisfactory rate, so I decided to change to something that was. It cost me time and money and the forum was not very large compared to this one, but still about 20,000 entries and still a lot of manual work after that. Not to mention a completely new interface and administration I had to learn how to handle.

But the 4.2.3 version SSG is running is old.
Version 4 started in 2009, the last version of that branch is 4.2.5, and has been declared end of life years ago. Last security patch for 4.x was issued 4 years ago.

Anyway, the trouble with migrating is not just migrating the users and messages, but the several old authentication systems hooked into the back of it, Cord mentioned before. Disengaging the forum authentication system(s) from the game one(s) was one of the main goals he said. (Yes! Cord provided technical detail! :D) And most of that effort would be for naught, as it is safe to assume that a very large chunk of the accounts are dead.
He also indicated that he would prefer a cloud solution, where vBulletin Cloud seems to be a likely candidate.

As for custom migrations: forget it. Such migrations are always way more expensive then expected and always result in more data loss or data quality loss then expected. No exceptions. Believe me: part of my job is figuring out ways to overcome the mess custom migrations created.

Thats fine, i did not in anyway exclude or try to ignore what was posted above, the integration with the login and account is only one more example of things that makes a migration difficult, if even feasible.

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

Respectfully, I disagree. While a full web site overhaul may never happen, we do have a formal intention to move to vBulletin Cloud and archive the current forums to become read-only. Obviously there are some questions that need to be answered and prepared for, one of the biggest being community acceptance of having to start fresh, and not have their names saved. We would also permanently unhook your game log in credentials with your LOTRO forums credentials.

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Old player here that regularly plays LOTRO & use the forums. I think that these conditions are fair & agree with the change if they improves the forums readability organization & appearance.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

archive the current forums to become read-only.

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I missed that part. So no migration and this place dies.

I have, in different roles, taken part in related decisions on a few other large forums and I have always been opposed to such a plan. Always. To me, you kill the history of the main topic, being that a game, a software or a community for knitting ladies. Sure, a lot gets irrelevant over time and a lot may need to be cleaned out, some sections of the forums may need a restart, if not for anything else, to cope with the game development, but to archive 70% or more and make it read only, or eventually dump it.... that is a very tough call and very disruptive to people who have been active, in our case, since 2007 and still may browse through old topics and threads reminiscing. Don't do that.

For me, I really don't have an issue with my name, if it means better forums, than I'll make the sacrifice, and it's not that big of a sacrifice.

Have you ever thought about migrating the website and forum to Wordpress? Not too long ago I completely migrated an older website of mine to Wordpress and replaced the forum, which ran via Simple Machines, with the plugin wpForo. The migration took more than an hour, because the forum is very extensive, but everything went smoothly. And Wordpress basically offers many, very useful plugins. I'm not a programmer, but I think that you can learn the settings etc. very well and understand them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kirchenmaus

Have you ever thought about migrating the website and forum to Wordpress?

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Don't say that too loudly. The whole thing used to be wordpress, including the lorebook. Decoupling wordpress from the game authentication was a brutal and painful process for these guys.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kirchenmaus

Have you ever thought about migrating the website and forum to Wordpress? Not too long ago I completely migrated an older website of mine to Wordpress and replaced the forum, which ran via Simple Machines, with the plugin wpForo. The migration took more than an hour, because the forum is very extensive, but everything went smoothly. And Wordpress basically offers many, very useful plugins. I'm not a programmer, but I think that you can learn the settings etc. very well and understand them.

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While i do use wordpress occasionally I kinda think "MONEYGRABBING FEATURELESS SLUGGISH PLUGIN WH0RE" in the same sentence... I spend more time avoiding the gazillion 20$ pitfalls then actually editing a site. And Wordpress has no good Forum integration, I do run wpforo on a site and it is decent, but you have this <iframe> feeling all over...

Quote:

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Decoupling wordpress from the game authentication was a brutal and painful process for these guys.

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Oh, ok. I didn't know that.
Never mind.