Hi everyone,
I'll try to provide some explanations and context to the best of my ability. I know that many are disappointed over the site's stale state, and I am ashamed and annoyed by it as well.
As UBerserker said, real life has consumed a number of regulars in the community, including those responsible for high profile content/projects. Sadly, this includes me! Between insomnia, depression and work, I have not been able to find motivation and sufficient free time to make as much progress on USP as I wanted.
For the most part, plans to refurbish the site have been held up by a wish to fuse the "main site" and the forums into one single entity, to make the community and the news a seamless affair, since the main site used to get few visitors. However, those plans had ground to a halt as they turned out to represent a significant technical challenge.
Due to shoddy workflow and development practices in this current state of the website, it has proven unmaintainable to me. The current software is riddled with security issues which forced me to lock down registration to prevent bots from signing up.
Here's a look at my inbox with current "new registration" notices. Making *any* changes to the current website is nothing short of a huge pain in the butt, and even something as tiny as upgrading the phpBB version means losing all custom modifications made to the forums; before that can happen, the main site needs to be in place.
As for the main site; in the current iteration, I had coded it from scratch as an add-on to phpBB3, however it has soon become riddled by bugs and could not be accessed anymore. Instead, now a new version is in the works, using the "Drupal" software which I am way more familiar and proficient with, seeing as I work with it daily. This will be built on an actual "content management system", which will allow contributors and staff to *easily* submit reviews, articles etc. with modern-day styling and features like a WYSIWYG editor etc.
Also, the new Drupal-based system will allow me to easily expand the site & keep it updated once it's released. Example features can include file hosting, allowing users to make & maintain their own project overview sites, comments on reviews & articles, etc. etc.! The sky's the limit, basically. And the best part is that I don't have to release the base site with any of these; they can all follow up later, without leading to a disaster like the current site situation.
So, the plans are to create a separate "main site" using Drupal, which has some progress done already, but is being held up by the fact that I'm chronically drained of sleep and prefer to play games & unwind in the free time that I have. The forums will remain a separate entity running on an upgraded version of phpBB3, which will sadly mean losing the custom styling & features and reverting to a more "default" look, which will take the community some getting used to. A more customized, stylized USP look for the forums will follow up after.
Also, while the site may seem inactive and dead, plenty of regulars are actually collected in the
Discord server! You can get in touch with me, personally, pretty much any time there, since I'm usually online. I also have a dedicated #devblog channel on the Discord where I like to post progress, screenshots, and answer questions about the new USP iteration. Here's some screenshots!
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