I really LOVE the new "new post" and "red hot, read this" icons, those are awesome! Glad to see the correct timestamps in the My Replies section, and read/not read link colors working.

Now thats all working, I think I can live with all the various forum changes. I understand all the reasons, so kudos, even though I may have my own personal preferences on occasion.

I would still like a slightly larger default font, but overall the new forum is working great. It is much faster now, and I have not experienced any errors past the first day or so.
I am running IE7, by the way.

I'm not having too much problem with the forum other than what I mentioned in the OP. The only new complaint I have is the way the forum always loads the first page of a multi-page thread. Not only does it do this when opening a thread, but it also does it when posting or editing a reply. It's a hassle to wait for the first page to load, click the page index, then wait for the last page to load. If it's not possible to fix the forum so it remembers your place like it used to, it should at least default to the last page.

Yes the page list is definitely welcome.

Sentient species taste better...

Thanks.

I do want to repeat my belief that the operation aborted issue and the PNG alpha transparency issue are related.

I would expect that the alpha transparency issue is something more easily resolved because it's something that exists at all times whereas the occurance of the operation aborted errors are random and intermittent. For example at work I get operation aborted very infrequently and at home I get them very frequently. Also it seems that the likelihood of their occurance is far higher on multipage threads as opposed to single page threads. In fact I can't recall a single operation aborted on anything but a multiple page thread.

IIRC the last time the forums were updated (about a year ago?) there was a similar issue. In that case it was a matter of medals not being displayed at all but again it had been an issue with alpha transparency and also there was some kind of crash or page hang that was associated with it and the prevalence of the error was dependent on the length of the thread. The symptoms in that case were awfully similar to the current symptoms.

In any case these are merely suggestions from an interested layman.

I agree with GW on this one. I find this ad incredibly intrusive. I understand the need to recoup some of the cost associated with running this site. I also agree with Mumble that people should be encouraged to register. They should not, however, be *annoyed* into registering.

I wouldn't object so much if registration actually mitigated the problem. I have been registered for some time, and shouldn't have even been able to see the ad. Thing is, I have to be signed in to make it go away, and the only time I actually sign in is when I have something to say.

As far as ads go, this one is not too bad. It's not one of those flashing, shaking, epileptic fit causing ads that are so prevalent on the web these days, but the geography it occupies, (smack in the middle of the thread) makes it almost as obnoxious.

One of the things that I have always admired about Stardock's handling of this site is (was) it's lack of outside advertising. It keeps the look of the forum clean and professional. There are gaming sites that I used to visit on a fairly regular basis, that I now rarely, if ever visit, for just this reason. (The exception being, of course, Stardock reviews).

Stardock, as a company, and as a gamer's philosophy, is a step above all others, and I would sincerely like to see it stay that way.

I'll end this reply while it is still more constructive criticism than rant, and ask you to please remove the ad, or at least move it into the sidebar, where it will be less intrusive.

Just my 2bc.

Some of our sites are partly ad-supported (Wincustomize for one), though I would expect that it's just a mistake that that slipped into the GC2 variant of the forums code. I'll see if I can find out.

Something I've noticed the past few days was when I hit the forum link for "Everything" I use to see a nice list of recently active threads. It's still there, but it doesn't really seem to capture the recently active threads very well anymore. I can go to other sub-forums and see threads that should have been on that overall.

All this did was really make me go to each sub-forum now and check the posts in each instead of a 'one stop shop' like I use to have.

Is this a bug or a feature?

The forum search function is still messed up, but now in a different way. When I type in a search it diverts to a Google search results page. Is it ever going to be restored so that you can search within the forums themselves?

One negative effect of this is that it makes it a lot harder to find users in order to send PMs. This hampers communication between members of the GC2 community...definitely not a good thing.

Sentient species taste better...

In Opera today, I'm getting an occasional error about the GetMedals function failing.

Now when I search the forums, I get no results for anything, and sometimes I get this screen:



It seems like every other day it's something strange and different. I'm hoping the tweaking will be completed soon.

Sentient species taste better...

In Brad's new MP thread, Opera shows many of the posts with text in the same black as the primary background (text is faintly visible in the shaded boxes and in every post when I select it). Things look fine in Firefox.

Ten Thousand More Curses Upon the Browser Warriors. They made a modern web dev's life so much harder than it should be...

p.s. The "no paragraph breaks for you" thing for Opera folks also seems to be back, at least for OPs. Around 1920 EDT, I tried doing one in Opera and had to switch to Firefox to clean it up.