3 suggestions:

[The Mullinator]

1. A weekly poll. Virtually all HL2 websites currently have one and it would tell people new to the site that there is a very large community here.

2. A small display on the front page that would show the threads that are currently the most active.

3. Something that has been asked about many times... The links at the side, what is going on with them now? They have been just sitting there useless for so long now.

 

[The Dark Elf]

4. you know at the top of the forum it has the location eg: Halflife2.Net > Site Forums > Halflife2.Net > 3 Suggestions: well I was wondering, could the same be added to the bottom of a page from a thread too? I've got mine setup at the maximum 40 posts per page so its easier to go through and use the mouse wheels to go up and down, just thinking it would be kinda cool to have the path at the bottom too, save scrolling back up

5. 60 seconds between each post. It's 30 seconds at the moment yeah? 60 seconds seems to help slow down spamming and loads of silly posts from one person turning up too quickly. Make it so the mods don't get effected by it and then you've better chance getting in there before someone has a chance to post too many things between being noticed and being banned, if their out to cause trouble

6. Customisable Page refresh. Settings like, refresh every 1 or 5 or 10 minutes or no refresh.

7. Option in the user cp to set it so once you've viewed a forum section, that all threads in there are marked as read. I usually forget to mark them read, the ones I'm not interested in or have just read, then forget I've read them and end up going back and realising

8. Fenric to be declared lord and master of the world.. oh wait thats from another list, err forget that one..

 

[Sulkdodds]

9. Make these changes.

 

[The Dark Elf]

I was gonna do some tutorials and things to try get on here too. Just need to find out some info from gabe first

*nudges the other XSI users" why don't you guys do some stuff too.. Afterall we've got hundreds of Max users to teach the ways of the dark side

 

[The Dark Elf]

Here's a few tutorial idea's

1) info and details on using normal and spec maps (I'm planning to do that one, again once I know what limits the engine has for those maps as they may be different to how I've used them before for film)

2) using procedurals to create all kinds of textures instead of straight images (again another I wouldn't mind doing. Though likely to be a Lightwave only one as I find thats the best for procedural work

3) creating normal maps from high res models and baking them onto low res models (I would have done this but I don't use the XSI method for it, so not as much use globally for new users, so I shouldn't do this one)

4) modeling with LOD in mind and higher poly objects

5) proper UV mapping

6) Pro scene lighting tutorials (I could do this if nobody else wants to)

7) Entry level animation tutorials for XSI (needs someone who can speak in laymans terms otherwise its gonna confuse newbies to XSI)

8) Using digital photo's as textures, covering things like removing the darkness and shadows and highlights in photographed surfaces so their more useful as textures

9) weapon modeling. How about those guys in the model section show how they did some of their models? Good way for them to show off to others

10) mapping tutorials, ok so some might have been done in the past for HL1 but it wouldn't hurt to have newly made ones geared to better quality maps ready for HL2. The principals are apparantly the same so shouldn't be too hard

11) Sound effect tutorials. How to do different kinds of sounds, best software to use and so on

Thats all I can think of right now, I'm sure there's more though, and thats just tutorials

how about a section with prefabs, but instead of prefabs the old way, proper 3D models, likely in .obj or dotxsi format, low poly and UV mapped, covering all kinds of subject matter and ready for when HL2 ships so people can download them, convert them to whatever format is required and put them into their mods.. things like chairs and tables and just the usual stuff you'd see all the time but can be a chore to model again and again... Could do the same sort of thing with sound FX too? Maybe have those with a talent for music submit royalty free tracks people can use

 

[The Dark Elf]

Another suggestion.. go to this thread to see a worst case
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=271394#post271394

How about a maximum image res allowed? Cause these big images which don't need to be so big just mess the flow of things up

 

[LoneDeranger]

Originally posted by Fenric1138
Another suggestion.. go to this thread to see a worst case
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=271394#post271394

How about a maximum image res allowed? Cause these big images which don't need to be so big just mess the flow of things up

I don't think it's possible or practical to determine the size of the image. Especially if it's remote linked.

 

[Chris D]

Fenric, the time between posts in the forum can be anything. I could post something then LoneDeranger could post something a second later. However if I made this post, then tried to post again it wouldn't let me because it limits each user from posting too soon to prevent individual spamming.

Have you not e-mailed Gabe yet? If you let me know which information it is you need to know (PM) then I'll get it sent off to Valve to help you get a tutorial up. If it's good I'm sure we'll distribute it as much as possible for you.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by Chris_D
Fenric, the time between posts in the forum can be anything. I could post something then LoneDeranger could post something a second later. However if I made this post, then tried to post again it wouldn't let me because it limits each user from posting too soon to prevent individual spamming.

Have you not e-mailed Gabe yet? If you let me know which information it is you need to know (PM) then I'll get it sent off to Valve to help you get a tutorial up. If it's good I'm sure we'll distribute it as much as possible for you.

eh? hehe i dunno what your on about mate but I'm talking about image sizes, I mentioned that thread as an example, how big images made things look untidy and wondered if there could be a limit on the size of image someone links to

oh wait... lol ok you read the post before my recent one haha sorry man, i have just woken up so I'm not all there yet Well what I mean is, there's the 30 second limit on posting, so you post something, then can't post again until 30 seconds have passed.. I dunno, i guess 60 seconds would help cut down on double posts, _especially_ if editing previous messages is allowed even within that 60 seconds.. maybe make it 2 minutes between separate posts, so if someone wants to say something else quickly in that thread, they can still edit it on the end of their previous message, cutting down the double posts when people could have just edited their message (and I'm just as guilty of doing this as others are )

As for the tutorials, haven't had time to think about them, lot of cr*p going on in the real world thats slowing me down, my dad's terminally ill and a business partner decided to use it against me and cause a ton of sh*t which needs sorting, still need to work out exactly what I need to know so I can ask Gabe short to the point questions and get the right answers so I don't end up doing tutorials that turn out to be inaccurate when HL2 ships, which would be a bit embarrasing

 

[Brian Damage]

:E The ability to pm images to people.

:E More Smileys!