tramdesign.net

Site Progress

Filed under TRAM Design by Paul "Tunnleram" Ille on August 8th, 2009

I stayed up late last night and worked on the site a bit. Then I woke up late morning and started working on it a bit more. I made some progress, but that progress seems slow. Things take time.

The Community Talk section of the front page is coming along. I’ve integrated post counts, views and replies which are kinda kewl, but I still have to figure out a way to handle quote blocks better. Instead of bothering with images, I took the lazy way out for now and simply replaced all images with [img]. I’ve also capped the posts so it only shows an excerpt. I had to use an iFrame to integrate the forum which I’m not a fan of, but it works. I always hate seeing that white box on initial page load.

I finally got access to the old Planetwolfenstein website so I downloaded everything from there and I’ve started to move things over to tramdesign.net. I’m happy that I didn’t lose that stuff. I’m finding a bunch of things I didn’t even know I had such as development screenshots and such. I think I may post some of them in the forums.

Meanwhile, I’ve setup the Projects page and also the Community page so those are checked off the list. The Contact page works, but it’s got some ways to go.

Eh, I guess I won’t bother listing what I have left to do since it appears I have more to do than I’ve done so far, but I have to admit I feel good getting this site up and running again even if there’s no traffic anymore.

Tags: Design, TRAM Design

TRAM Design @ Planetwolfenstein

Filed under TRAM Design by Paul "Tunnleram" Ille on July 25th, 2009

I just came across news that IGN is doing a migration (IGN merged with Gamespy who runs all the planet sites) and they are going to wipe all Planet fan sites on August 31, 2009 or sometime thereafter.

I also read they were going to start to charge for hosting. This of course is sending searching for a way to access the site because to be honest it’s been so long I can’t even remember how. This site and the forums luckily are on my own hosting, but there’s still so much I have to move over.

IMO, the Planet site community has gone downhill when it comes to hosting. Gamespy was originally a grass roots game design fan based setup that seemed to care about games and building a community. Then they started getting corporate and merged with IGN which from what I’ve seen is a total mess and not at all advantageous for fansites. I get that they want to make money. I do. I guess they way they’ve changed over the years has left a bad taste in my mouth. They could barely centralize information for fansites or get their add code right when it was just Gamespy. Add IGN to the mix and kaboom.

Anyhow, I hope I can get all of the files from the old site because I’ve got quite a lot there that I’d rather not lose. I’ve contacted tech support at Gamespy. We’ll see.

Tags: Design, Gamespy, IGN, Planetwolfeinste, TRAM Design

Forums Updated to phpBB3.0.5

Filed under TRAM Design by Paul "Tunnleram" Ille on July 12th, 2009

So it’s about time I updated the forums. They’ve been on version 2 forever. Well, I bit the bullet now that I’m trying to get the site revamped a bit. The link to the forums stays the same (http://www.tramdesign.net/forums), but you’ll notice that the default look is still in place. It’ll take me some time to put that in line with the main part of the site, but I will.

In the meantime, please let me know if you have any issues with the forums, not that they get used much anymore. I can’t blame anyone for not showing up. At the same time, keep in mind, there are all nice new shiney goodies for you to enjoy now :)

Tags: Community, Design, Forums, TRAM Design

New Site Design

Filed under TRAM Design by Paul "Tunnleram" Ille on July 7th, 2009

Well, you can’t say I’m not trying lol. With so many things going on and so many projects (non-game design) it seems impossible to keep all the balls in the air, but I’d really like to get this site going again, upgrade it’s design, upgrade the forums and have it put to good use. Hopefully I can see it through.

This time however, I think I’ll be making a break from Gamespy. I’ve been with them for years now, but the IGN thing is kinda annoying and they’ve just gotten so far away from what they originally were. When I was first involved with them back in the late 90’s it was really kewl, but now it’s all corporate-like and it just doesn’t feel the same. There’s no reason not to completely use tramdesign.net.

Anyhow, I think the design of the site is mostly done. I’m going to use Wordpress backend to make things easier on myself, but of course it will result in a much simpler website with less functionality. I’m sure it’ll be fine though.

If you want to know what I’ve been up to, head on over to Paul Ille [dot] com and read a few posts. Most notably this post which sums up the great things going on with my life, but of course, all great things require time.

/raises glass

Cheers! Let’s see how it goes!

P.S. – The Planetwolfenstein site still exists. You can get there using the following link – http://tramdesign.planetwolfenstein.gamespy.com/

Tags: Design, TRAM Design