
Originally Posted by
2WD*|Lorden
World at War has been around for a long time. So has our forum software. Over the last 15 years and more, WaW has provided a safe, fun community to thousands of players who wanted more out of their team-based FPS games: More coordination and teamwork, a sense of purpose to winning battles, a leadership structure. 32 successful tournaments later, WaW is still alive and kicking strong. We're aiming to seeing it be stronger and more vibrant than ever. Our forums have always been a critical part of our strategy, a place where tactics can be discussed, where players can be rewarded in a lasting manner for their heroics on the battlefield, and a place where our history can be preserved. However we've come at a crossroads: Our technological stack is starting to show it's age, and player expectations have evolved over the years so that new players are less willing to jump through arbitrary interface hoops on the promise of a future payoff. When I began researching this project, I had a few goals in mind:
Backend optimizations:
- Making sure the software would be supported in the long term: Our current software has been end-of-life for quite a few years, and at any time a critical vulnerability could be found and remain unpatched, leaving us vulnerable to data loss and system failure.
- Cleaning up our file structure in order to provided more regular and useful automated backups for disaster recovery.
Frontend requirements:
- Providing a modern, sleek new look to the forums.
- Ensuring that we wouldn't lose any of our current features, thread and post history.
- Providing a supported long-term platform for our custom features, notably the award and ranking system we use.
Usability improvements:
- The forum is a means to an end. The less hassle it is for players to be on-boarded and integrated into the community, the better.
- This means a smoother mustering process with less copy pasting/following of instructions. The automated form system will accomplish that.
- Basic registration and login improvements. Being able to login using your email address, or register through your Facebook, Twitter, Discord, Steam account through federation. No more forgotten passwords!
- Username changes should be automated. This includes Divisional tags when joining a new campaign, and promotions should be handled automatically. The only tags a player should have to set himself are in-game.
- Teamspeak required a lot of micromanagement for both players and divisional staff. Being able to use Discord and have it be integrated in the forums removed the need for extra configuration. Usernames and channel access should be automated based on your forum information.
- Discord also provides a nice half-way point between forums and chatbox -- A place where live text discussions can happen in topic-appropriate channels, which members have (for the most part) always access to.
I believe these changes will allow us to welcome a whole new generation of players to our unique tournament system. This is why we need YOUR help to make this happen. A one-time investment in license costs and custom development work will allow us to accomplish all of these goals and prepare ourselves for the next 15 years of WaW history. Any funding you can provide to help us get there will ensure the long-term health of our technological stack. We've got a new game to run tournaments on and our admins are excited and working hard to get new blood to try us out so now is the best time for this project!