GarageGames.com Site Update: Jan. 16, 2009
by Jacob Fike · 01/16/2009 (4:08 pm) · 69 comments
Launching the website has been a little like one of my favorite games, Left 4 Dead: intense, cooperative, and full of zombies.It's been a few days since you heard directly from the web team. I know there's been a lot of activity on the site, and I am glad to have had awesome co-workers to take care of keeping you guys in the loop so I could focus my energy on the first update to the new site.
After making sure the site did not crash down over our ears (thanks Ops team!), the web team immediately huddled and make a SWAT list of things we wanted to tackle based on the feedback we received. So here is what you should find on the new site:
- Redirect URLs should now be working: This one gave me the most headaches because something went wrong between the test servers and the live site, but it should be working fine now. HUGE thanks to Orion for his short-term solution.
- Missing forums have returned: iTorque, GreenEar, and Collada are all available. We also pulled Constructor out of the Artist Corner into its own category.
- International Sales: There is now a Country drop-down list on the billing information form, this should help our international customers.
- What's my password?!: There's a new reset password option on the login page in case you're having trouble logging in.
- TDN lives: You should be able to log into our online wiki once again.
- Download links have been added to resources: So now you can get all those files back.
- Return of Watched Threads: All of your previous watched threads have magically returned (don't worry, it won't remove any you may have marked as watched since the new site went up).
- Edit comments on forums and blogs: Fear typos and 1 am comments no more!
- Unread forum threads functionality is back: You can mark all forum posts as "read" so you can always log into the site later and see what's been happening in your absence.
- The Markup Lite cheat sheet is back: No more guessing to try to remember how to add a video or otherwise pretty-up your post.
- Tweaked bulk accounts for educators: It should be easier now to manage student licenses if you are working for a school.
Thanks, and I'll keep you posted when the next update goes live. I'll be fighting off zombies until I see you next time.
About the author
As the CTO of Avalon Labs LLC, I am responsible for the technology behind Fellowstream, our team-based to-do list.
#62
01/17/2009 (5:57 pm)
Wow nice to see this update Good work. I never lost hope. 
#63
It's a good job for a few days work. The web team must have been busting their tails these past few days to get this much done, and they - and the GG management who are directing them - deserve recognition for their rapid response to the problematic re-launch of the site. Good work, guys. ;)
01/17/2009 (8:07 pm)
I noticed that clicking the links for page 2, 3, 4, etc. of blog replies now brings you to the top of the next set of replies, rather than forcing you to scroll through the blog again and again. Nice - that was a minor thing I suppose, but more than a bit annoying. :)It's a good job for a few days work. The web team must have been busting their tails these past few days to get this much done, and they - and the GG management who are directing them - deserve recognition for their rapid response to the problematic re-launch of the site. Good work, guys. ;)
#64
01/17/2009 (8:29 pm)
Great job guys.. just a quick note though... i can't seem to get advanced search to work when i only check all forums... Doesn't matter what i search for, there are no results....
#66
01/18/2009 (4:04 am)
Thanks for the quick response guys. Great job! Keep up the good work.
#67
I would like suggest multiple themes, and my favorites.
01/18/2009 (8:04 am)
Thanks guys, thats good to go. I would like suggest multiple themes, and my favorites.
#68
01/18/2009 (7:57 pm)
Grats on remaking the site. Now would you please fix whatever it is you changed that is causing my son's copy of Marble Blast Gold to crash every time it exits, keeps it from saving video settings, and wiped out all of his saved times? Thank you. 
#69
01/19/2009 (6:05 pm)
Good job guys! Its great to see the super fast response time on many of the critical issues. 
Torque 3D Owner Ted Southard
I noticed today that clicking on some of the really old watched threads I'd like to "unwatch" resulted in getting a "You do not have access to that forum" message. So now I have a list of watched threads I can't get rid of. This is probably related to the consolidation of forums (I believe the watched threads are all TGE), so it may be necessary to have a "delete" button on these watched threads to be able to delete them from the list, or have a way to scroll or page through the list (there's no indicator of how many threads I'm watching, which would be nice to have).
That's it for my second round of bugs noticed...
Edit: Interesting find. I just tried to click on that arrow to the right of the Search field, only to find that it wasn't a button. A little misleading, since people will see an arrow like that and click it like a button. Not a huge deal, but it puzzled me for a full 30 seconds.