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Stratics 2020

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Stratics 2020
"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." --Lao Tzu

Hail and Well Met!

Another year is drawing to a close and slowly but surely, we are working towards improving Stratics for all of you. 2020 is going to be a big year, in early January we will be undergoing a server migration to improve performance and implement numerous changes to our format.
During the week of January 5[sup]th[/sup] we will bring Stratics down in order to conduct the migration, software updates, and configuration. The exact date and time TBD (to be determined) and a notice posted on the forums.

We have planned since our acquisition of Stratics to bring back much of what made Stratics, well… Stratics. As part of our progress into accomplishing this goal please be prepared for the following:

  • https://stratics.com will point to a new Stratics Central site built on Wordpress.
    • Much of the content that was found on LOTRO Stratics, EVE Stratics, SWTOR Stratics, the previous Stratics Central and other portals in the past will be available.
    • Site News, general gaming news, tech news etc. will be published here.
    • As part of a multi-site setup, we will be able to easily and efficiently add additional portals as needed if specific types of content show enough popularity.
  • https://stratics.com/uo will be the new UO Stratics built on Wordpress.
    • Shard News, Editorials, Content Reviews etc. and UO related content will be published here.
      • Community Members are encouraged to draft articles and submit them for review and publishing.
        • Guides on official content can be submitted and will eventually be archived separately in the Stratics Community Wiki
      • The Article system on the Forums has no means to export to Wordpress and is not available for Xenforo 2.1.x updates. Articles will be manually moved after migration.
    • 'uo2.stratics.com and 'uo.stratics.com' will continue to be treated as archives and available at their respective addresses. They have already been migrated and are live on the new server.
    • uo3.stratics.com just seemed silly!
  • 'community.stratics.com' will once again be the forum address.
    • Currently, we are testing the implementation of a single sign-on solution between the Wordpress sites and the Forums.
    • Links to the Wiki and Forum Media Gallery hopefully will be updated to minimize any breakage.
    • Some features of the Stratics Professional program will not be available after Migration, however other features will be available as compensation. More on this below.
  • The Stratics Community Wiki will be moved to a new Subdomain.
    • Unfortunately, due to MediaWiki changing API’s on updates, there are few options for single sign-on. Users may be required to register separately. Options will continue to be explored going forward to integrate a single sign-on solution.
    • The Wiki will be exclusively used for archiving game information such as:
      • New Creatures
      • New Items
      • Quest Arcs
      • Past News Letters and Patch Notes
      • Guides
Our goal is and has always been transitioning back towards a content first system. While the Forums are an important part of our community, they are less effective as a means of drawing new people to Stratics. Our current setup harms the site in terms of search engine optimization, and ad monetization which is essential to the long term continued operation of Stratics. Before anyone reads too much into the previous statement, Stratics does and is expected to continue to generate funding in excess of operating costs. However, with the server upgrade our operating expenses have increased and revenue needs to increase to compensate if we are to continue to expand on the reserve fund we maintain for re-investment into the site at the current rate.

The All-In-One approach that currently exists is primarily a mishmash of adaptations for Xenforo, which while functional have neither the power, flexibility and most importantly the efficiency to live up to our expectations. The changes we are making assures we have the right tools to get the job done going forward. For this Migration the focus is on usability and functionality, major aesthetic improvements will be done in a later update or incrementally over time. The bulk of the feature changes will be occurring on the Forums. Please read this overview of some of the major changes coming.

Incoming Features/Changes

  1. Xenforo (The forum software) will be upgraded to Xenforo 2.1.x
    1. Every attempt to update features and plugins will be made, but please be aware some of the 1.5.x series plugins may have no alternative.
    2. Xenforo 1.5.x end of support is December 31st making updating essential.
  2. Theme availability will no longer be split between Regular and Stratics Pro users.
    1. Everyone will have access to all themes.
  3. To compensate for the above Stratics Pro Users will gain the following perks.
    1. Ability to embed GIF’s from Gliphy into posts
    2. Access to customize portions of the aesthetics of the forum to enhance your own experience
      1. These customizations will only apply to your account. Please be cautious of any images you use, those that violate the RoC cannot be uploaded to Stratics, either directly or as part of a screenshot when replying to a post/thread!
  4. Nested Replies
    1. When replying to a post other than the original post in a thread your reply will nest directly below the post you are replying too. Up to 5 replies deep.
    2. Popular threads have a tendency to get cluttered with side conversation, this feature will improve readability and flow.
    3. Similar to modern Social Media Sites
  5. Feedback/Reputation System for the Trade Forums
    1. Users will be able to give feedback to buyers and sellers for transactions.
    2. Abuse of this system will result in users being banned from the Trade forums entirely.
      1. This system will help infrequent traders in determining who they can trust.
  6. Q&A Forums
    1. Users can pose questions and the community vote on the best answers.
    2. Facilitates community members finding the answers they need by highlighting the best answer.
    3. Similar to Quora and numerous community-oriented support sites.
  7. Warning Acknowledgements
    1. When a user receives a warning, they will be required to acknowledge it.
    2. Information concerning the nature of the warning will be given along with information on how to appeal a warning.
    3. Until a warning is acknowledged users will not be able to post, reply, give likes to threads/posts or view PMs on Stratics.
      1. This is to encourage usage in part, of the following feature.
  8. Stratics Unleashed
    1. A re-invention of No Holds Barred
      1. Trolling and Flaming most personal attacks are allowable, any content that would result in an automatic ban or involves the release of personally identifiable information is still not allowed nor are PM’s or Instant Messages Chat Logs, etc. without the consent of all parties involved.
    2. Community Members will have to Opt-in. Instructions will be released on how to do this at a later time.
      1. If you don’t opt-in you won’t even see the forum!
      2. It provides an outlet for the keyboard warriors among us to unleash themselves without disrupting the remainder of the community.
      3. Regular Moderation Staff will not be overseeing this forum. We will either hire a dedicated Moderator for it, assign it exclusively to an existing Moderator or an Admin will oversee it.
  9. Various Quality of Life features that have been integrated into Xenforo as part of the 2.1.x series.
Please if you have questions ask, and let us know what you think of some of the proposed new features.

---- EDIT ----

A couple of notes before I forget
Bookmarking threads on the forums is coming back!

Some of the new features may be cut or implemented slightly differently depending on feedback.
 

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Since I know a lot of folks use the "UO Classic" theme.

UO Classic is a modification of the base Xenforo theme, which is good and bad. No Xenforo 1.x themes will convert over to Xenforo 2, rather an approximation based on the Xenforo 2 base theme is automatically created. It won't be possible to make UO Classic look identical without a complete rewrite of them however, I'm modifying the generated one to have as many of the same basic aesthetics as possible. Please note I'm using an older Database backup to work with and will export the theme for adding when I do the migration so don't worry about all the old post dates.

uoclassic2.png

Here's an example of the Giphy embedding that Stratics Pro members will be getting access too. Gif's will be limited to those with a PG-13 content rating.

giphy.png
 

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Likes are going to become more interesting, hovering over the "Like" button is going to let you do more than just give a thumbs up.

reactions.png

Another coming Stratics Pro perk is the ability to add a personal touch to the forums in various places. These will only be visible to you!

Covers.png



You're going to be able to pare down the forum list to just those forums you use with the improved Ignore functionality.
ignoremore.png
 

Kirthag

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if you need help with WP, or need any of the previous custom code work, let me know.
 

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Is there a way to fix the links within posts so they work? When clicking on them it says page not found.
Where's the link at so I can look at it. There are a lot of links to various places I can look into fixing them, but I need to find all the different variations out there so that by fixing one set, I don't bork another.
 

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Will Stratics come back to tapatalk ??
I can't login on my Phone now :(
You’ll need to join the right group. Search for “Stratics Community Forums”. And join it to access the forums via Tapatalk again.
 

TanAge

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Ahhhhhh OK thx for the help

Gesendet von meinem CLT-L09 mit Tapatalk
 

TheGrimReefer

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Where's the link at so I can look at it. There are a lot of links to various places I can look into fixing them, but I need to find all the different variations out there so that by fixing one set, I don't bork another.
This is just an example. At end of OP there is a link to another post but when clicked u get the error


Also items with links to the wiki are not working. For example:
 

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This is just an example. At end of OP there is a link to another post but when clicked u get the error


Also items with links to the wiki are not working. For example:
Yea I know about the wiki part, working on a fix to do them site wide. As for the other one, I fixed it.
 

El of LA

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"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." --Lao Tzu
Totally behind you guys on this! Thank you for all the work, all the thought that has gone into this and I wish you all great success with it! I'm glad to be 'on the team' and will do all I can to support and assist!
 
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