GuildPortal Change Log Entry
11/16/2009 7:16 PM

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Event/Raid admins now have a new button under sign-ups, when viewing the event, called "Confirm All."  When clicked, all members who have signed up, but who have not yet been confirmed for attendance, will be confirmed.  Also, they'll be notified of it via web-based mail.

GuildPortal Change Log Entry
11/11/2009 4:32 PM

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Occasionally, the hamster dies.  Often, it's right after you've just purchased a cute little fuzzy coat and hat for him to wear.  Well, late last night, the little guy was taken out in a mob hit.

Our database server experienced a hardware failure, so crunchy that it didn't matter that the affected piece had a redundant friend waiting to take over.  The failure caused the actual database files to become corrupted, and it took the database administrators most of today to repair the affected tables.  It's actually quite a feat, to their credit -- the database is huge.

We apologize profusely for the extended, unexpected, and of course, unwelcome downtime that we experienced.  We are currently working on some clean-up, and throughout the rest of the day the site may respond a little more slowly than normal.  We appreciate your patience!

On a more positive note, we have replaced the hamster with a far superior, genetically-enhanced one with a life expectancy of... Well, he'll outlive us all, anyway.

GuildPortal Change Log Entry
11/6/2009 12:12 PM

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A new widget that lists items that have dropped on raids, newest first, has been added.  You can head to your Control Panel -> Site Pages and select a page you'd like to add it to, then click the Add Widget tab.  It's listed as "Recent Raid Drops."

GuildPortal Change Log Entry
11/3/2009 6:48 PM

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Gallery images are now automatically optimized when uploaded by guild members, to keep page load times speedy.  When a Super Admin uploads images via the file manager, however, it is completely optional.  Initial testing shows size savings of up to 70%, so your images won't just load faster, they'll also take up less space, leaving you more to play with.

GuildPortal Change Log Entry
11/2/2009 6:53 PM

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To get starting with this new feature, click the Edit button under your calendar and then click "Custom Areas."

GuildPortal Change Log Entry
10/29/2009 5:58 PM

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Custom Post Rank Titles are available with tonight's code push.  When set, they appear underneath the number of posts made by members.  In order to set the titles, click the Edit button at the bottom of your Forums, and then click "Post Ranks" (it's along the top).  The images that are used for the stars are customizable here as well.  We know they're accessible elsewhere, but figured they kind of go hand-in-hand with the titles, so we lumped them together.

For those who do their own custom CSS, we've added a class for the area where rank titles appear called "rankTitle," mostly because we have no imagination.  A couple days ago we also added classes for quoted text in forums: "quoteTitle," "quoteContainer," and "quoteBody."  For those who do not use custom CSS, quoted text in your forums (moving forward) will look a bit better, picking up style from your current settings.

Also, the long fight against the WYSIWYG editor's stubborn refusal to work with pasted custom Javascript in any uniform way from browser to browser is -- or had better be -- finally over.  Keep in mind this applies only to admin-level entered content.  Javascript entry isn't something the editor will allow in public forum posts, for example.

Rounding out tonight's push are a bunch of fixes for support tickets.

GuildPortal Change Log Entry
10/28/2009 7:57 PM

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As of October 2009, GuildPortal has been providing guild hosting and management services for eight years. Over two-hundred and thirty-seven thousand guilds, and their over four million members, have passed through our gates since then. Each day, we are visited by tens of thousands who call GuildPortal their guild's home on the web.

It hasn't been an uneventful eight years, however. The arena we work in is full of examples of guild hosting companies (and even the games they support) falling to complacency, disinterest in the support side of things, or a simple failure to rise to the needs and challenges presented by their clients, the possibly most unique, diverse, and savvy group of people you could hope to meet. They are the guild leaders, officers and members who play Massively Multi-Player Online games.

More, they are participants in a shift at the very core of what we call "entertainment." They live in homes where, with the possible exception of one or two shows, the television has had its one-sided conversation ended with the push of the power button on a remote, in favor of one interactive world or another, where they and their friends are the feature. They demand more and more of the world-building companies as the years go by, pushing said companies to do things they'd before said were just not possible. For example, I personally remember a conference at the E3 where an informed gentleman on a panel told us that clothing would never flow, and grass would never sway, in an MMO.

Along with the demands and desires they have for the games they play, go the requirements they have for the web hosting providers they use for their guild web sites. For the past year, we at GuildPortal have re-focused our attention on what got us so far in the first place -- close contact with the people we serve. Whether through support tickets or via the Admin Community, whether a new feature request or something just not working the way it should, our aim is to work with our admins and members the way we did when it all started -- by making them major decision-makers, an integral part of the team.

We chose to start GuildPortal because we loved what MMOs represent, we continue to do it because of the people whom we feel honored to serve, and we have seen that those who do not (whether game, guild hosting provider, or any other business) find themselves eventually as muted as a television show during raid time.

As always, thank you for making GuildPortal your guild's home on the web!

- Sandy and Aaron Lewis

GuildPortal Change Log Entry
10/22/2009 6:32 PM

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A new PayPal Donate Button content type tops the list of changes with tonight's code push.  The idea is to make it easy for guild admins to get help with funding for their web site, voice server, Porsche... what have you.  And now for the rest of the story: