Newly added to Interordi Accounts today is the ability to change your username or delete your account by yourself.

Many of you have had an account for years, and the name you picked on registering might not fit you anymore. You now have the option to pick a new username to your liking, which will be used on the forums, Creeper's Lab and Osmium. Should you wish to delete your account permanently, the option has been added as well.

To do any of this, login to your Interordi Account at https://account.interordi.com/ and click "Edit your profile".

The set of community rules has been updated today to better reflect the current expectations from all members. This new set of instructions is aligned with our Discord server and IRC channels, so that everyone knows what to expect across the network.

As far as the forums are concerned, this loosens some restrictions that were mostly relevant to old school forums and aren't expected in this day and age. Most notably, double posts are no longer forbidden, although they're still frowned upon if done too quickly. Likewise, people are now allowed to have more than one username, especially since it's required for some things like playing with multiple Minecraft accounts.

As an extra clarification, the wider Interordi Terms of Use already forbid anything like harassement, discrimination, illegal content and so on. These apply here as well as on any other platform where we're present.

Thanks for reading!

This is it: the next generation of forum software for Interordi, IOBoard v2.0.

This is something that's been under development for more than five years, done between other projects, until I finally decided last year to prioritize it, so it's been a loooooong time coming. IOBoard's core design was shaped all the way back in 2005, and was heavily inspired by a 2002-era base. It had evolved since then, of course, but it had definitely aged, and not always gracefully.

The page layout was awkward, with misplaced links (why was "Mega Man Games" next to "Stats"?) and originally built with 800x600 screens in mind. Today's 1080p (or even 4K) screens and mobile devices need something a bit different. The interface was fairly common at the time but no longer represents people's expectations: "that site looks old" was a common saying among newcomers.

On top of this, a lot of the posts are getting old (the archives date back to March 2002), so I've made some adjustments to account for this. For example, when you start typing a name to send a private message to someone, a list of possible matches will pop up. That list will be limited to members who have been active in the past year only, narrowing down the results quite a bit.

Everything that used to be here is still available: members, posts, messages and so on have been preserved.

To summarize the main changes:

• Completely new layout with full mobile support.
• Major structural changes to be more reliable and allow new additions.
• Improved, richer player profiles.
• Post syntax now accepts Markdown on top of BBCode.
• Modern conveniences like logging in by email address.

There's a lot more, so please read on for the full details!

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The first and foremost goal of this major update was to refresh the visuals. The older format worked, but didn't match with modern expectations and didn't scale at all. On mobile and 4K screens, fonts would all adopt different sizes, seemingly at random, and navigation menus were hard to hit. The objective here was to get something refreshed, modernised, easier to use and with proper better mobile compatibility. I still have some tuning to do here and there, but the overall picture matches my vision on design.

This is not to say that it was only a coat of paint that I applied to an aging codebase. I used the opportunity to rewrite entire functionalities to modernize them and open up new possibilities. As I was telling myself at the time, I broke the system's spine and built a new one. Most notably, everything related to dates has been rewritten from scratch. You can now go into your profile to select your local timezone instead of providing an offset, and the times displayed all over the place will match your local settings, even according the Daylight Savings.

The Minecraft player profiles have received a huge overhaul, with a much better presentation and new information being made available. One such element is the new Skulltulas tracker: you can see which of the 100 Skulltulas scattered across the Lost Woods you've found so far, with the data being displayed in near real-time. More like this will be added in the coming weeks and months!

Forum posts can now be written using the Markdown syntax, which is the one that you might be already familiar with from Discord, Reddit, GitHub and others. This is an addition on top of the existing BBCode syntax and allows you to quickly get some formatting in without fussing around with overly complicated syntax. You can select on each of your posts if it should be formatted using Markdown + BBCode, BBCode only, or nothing at all. You can also set a personal default in your user profile so you don't need to change this all the time.

The registration process has been streamlined, helping to bring new faces in more quickly with less noise getting in the way. The Minecraft username can be specified directly when registering, simplifying the whitelisting process, and people now have the option to register for the newsletter right away too. Part of this went live a few months back; it was lifted from this version and made available on the older one for the sake of welcoming new players more easily.

Speaking of the registration, new fields have been added on the Networks page. All the games that are covered on the Interordi network, including those in the off-site group, are now listed. While there's no direct purpose for these right now, like adding your Minecraft username to whitelist you on the servers, I still suggest that you do it for any game that applies to you. It tells potential players that you're involved, and new features are planned down the line!

A new default theme is available: Interordi, in shades of white and green, based on the upcoming remodel of the main Interordi website. For those who want alternatives, don't worry as two more are coming within days. These new additions are: Mega Man, the classic all blue many of you are familiar with; and Neon Dark as the obligatory dark theme, enhanced with glowing hues. You'll find all these by going to edit your display preferences in your profile.

Among more minor elements:

• The private messenger no longer opens in a new window: this makes it consistent with the behavior of the rest of the forums and works better on mobile devices.
• The views counter on topics has been removed, it got inaccurate quickly as it also included search engine hits.
• Post signatures now have an enforced height of 200 pixels.
• Logins are possible by username or email address (make sure the latter is valid in your profile!).
• The list of unread topics is saved to your profile instead of using cookies, so the same topics will have the same status on matter which device you use.
• Uploading images won't ask you to set their dimensions, that's handled automatically.

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Our forum game, Cyber Grid is temporarily disabled while its layout is being rebuilt in the same way as the rest of the forums. I didn't want to wait for that to be completed considering how little traffic it currently gets. I'll first see to any further tuning and improvements that the core forums need, then I'll move on to that. For more information, please see my latest post in the Game Log!

There are multiple minor changes and quality-of-life improvements all over the place, I hope that some of these will please you!

Now, you might be wondering what to do next:

• Go to Edit your profile and set your proper timezone!
• While you're there, try out a new forum skin... as soon as they're available!
• Go to your networks and add any missing account names to unlock features in the future!

As you might have noticed already, the forums are now running in HTTPS.

What does that mean, you might ask? It's simple: added security. This is especially important for the forums, as you submit your password in order to login. Previously, it was possible (but unlikely) that someone could intercept your Internet traffic to steal your password. Under the new setup, the entire communication is encrypted from end to end, making that impossible. Depending on your browser, you might see a green padlock in the address bar to confirm this change. This will remove the security warnings that have started to appear in some browsers, too.

You can choose to access the rest of Interordi.com in HTTPS if you so desire. Only the forums have the mandatory security added for now.

I also placed a redirection a few days ago so that all calls to interordi.com would include the initial www, ensuring that the base address is always www.interordi.com . If you used to access the forums through http://interordi.com/mboard/ , you'll need to login again. Otherwise, you won't notice a thing!

Early last month, I added a Discord server linked with the chat in use at the Creeper's Lab. It has since been expanded to cover the entire Interordi.com network and its multiple topics, and I'm inviting you to join it today!

For those of you not familiar with Discord, it's a chat client growing in popularity in several gaming communities. Much like IRC, you can connect to various servers, chat in global rooms, private message people, and more. On top of that, you can also voice chat with others, making it a simple-to-use option for those looking to talk out loud, possibly while being engaged in a game. You can download the computer client, mobile apps, or simply learn more on the Discord website. Once you have it installed, hit the big + button at the left to add a server, select join, and enter the following address: https://discord.gg/sM6swvT

Here's a list of the main channels we already have:

#creeperslab
Linked with the in-game chat of the Creeper's Lab, this is where Minecraft players can chat with each other about everything and nothing. This also connects to our IRC channel.

#avianslab
Linked with the in-game chat of the Avian's Lab, our Starbound players can share their adventures with each other.

#interordi
The generic channel to talk about anything related to the Interordi.com network as a whole, and to give suggestions and comments.

#offsite-gaming
You want to game with friendly, familiar faces in a different setting than what is available on the servers that we manage? Check out some possible games off-site, ask questions about them or just exchange in general.

#nsfw-slabafterdark
For when you feel naughty naughty and have the need to share. Viewer discretion is advised. This doesn't mean that anything goes: we still expect people to not go overboard.


Feel free to drop by to say hello!

I've reorganized the order of the forums to make navigation easier for newer users. Most notably, the forums about the same topics are grouped together: the place for the Creeper's Lab is right next to the general Minecraft talk, the Mega Man PC Website's spot is next to the various Mega Man channels, and so on.

Addtionally, I've added a brand new forum for the Avian's Lab. If you have any questions to ask, stories to share or suggestions to offer, this is the place to look into!

To help accomodate the flow of new Minecraft players who have trouble getting through the forum registration status, the ever-present Masterlink has been promoted to Super Moderator status. He'll be able to assist and clean up this place as needed. Welcome aboard the forum moderation staff, Link!

On a related note, I've returned both Breakman and Necro to the standard user rank to account for their inactivity around here. They had been moderators for over 10 years each, and definitely helped a lot back when the forums were much more active, so I'd like to extend a very big thanks to the two of them. Your efforts haven't been forgotten.

I'm pushing tonight a set of improvements to the forums, mostly to improve account registration, searching and editing. Details below!

New features and improvements:
- Memberlist searches will now match network usernames as well as forum usernames
- The "Your Networks" page now explicitely says what should be entered in each field
- Only members who have posted at least once are able to edit/copy post themes
- Hide empty sections from a member's profile
- Improved account registration page
- Bug fixes


With all players on the Creeper's Lab needing a forum account to actually play, I figured I'd improve the registration page. This is especially important as many of the new users aren't that familiar with message board systems. As such, the new page now has a cleaner layout and directly validates the information entered in the "required" section, including if a given username is available or not. Pro-tip: if a user registered but did NOT activate his account yet, he can reenter his username on that page to be offered an option to resend the e-mail.

Another big element is the memberlist, which now searches by forum usernames AND network names. This is handy while looking up those who use different usernames in different places. For example, our local Master of Deaths in Minecraft is known as MagicMarker101. However, here, he is registered as DAELENXD. Any of those two names (or partial versions of) can be searched for, and the wanted account will be listed!

Further improvements are always planned down the line. Don't hesitate to let me know if you feel strongly about something that should be added or changed!


As an added note, to help everything related to the forums running smoothly, I'm happy to announce that MediaKlepto has been promoted to Super Moderator! She joins the forums staff to help with getting new members registered properly ("I didn't get the e-mail!") along with all other related duties such as spam clean-up. Congrats, Media!

Edited by Dr. Cossack on August 5, 2014 at 9:42:46

EDIT: April Fools! Will update later with more info.

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After the success of donations over at the Creeper's Lab, I'm announcing today the addition of microtransactions to the Interordi.com Message Board, along with the introduction of credits.

Credits are basically a form of virtual money, linked to your account and used to access some premium features and topics. Most of everything will remain as open as before, of course, as I want the community to keep thriving and growing in this social media era. Credits can be purchased through Paypal (more on that below) or obtained through the forums using various means.

As I've indicated above, I'm only taking this step after witnessing the success of donations on the Creeper's Lab, which has allowed the community and the server to grow quite a bit in the past several months. I've also taken some lessons from Reddit and their Gold program.


Some topics will now be marked as premium, and will need to be unlocked in order to be viewed. Likewise, some of the optional forum features such as Quick Reply have been turned into premium features. The main posting page remains available, of course. To see the number of credits currently available at your disposal, look at the upper right corner of any page, right under the "Last active" value.

The money thus raised will be used to cover the ongoing server expenses, most notably the ever-growing need for disk space. Any extra money raised will be reinvested into more additions or better hardware.


I was hoping to have the Paypal integration ready today, which would have allowed you to purchase credits and automatically have them granted to your account. However, a few nagging technical issues need me to delay this slightly. Please bear with me as I try to get this working as soon as possible. When this is live, I'll be able to properly announce the conversion rate between money and credits. I'm doing my best to make this ratio as reasonable as possible.

To get everyone started and acquainted with this new system, you're being granted 500 credits. This is enough to unlock 10 topics or 5 board features. I invite you to try it, look around and see how it works. Those who unlock the six main features will be granted a special prize to recognize their efforts and contribution! Additionally, as a demonstration on how credits can be earned through the forums without paying, you'll find a value of 100 credits in the Announcements forum, right below this posting. Others have been scattered around the place, allowing you to add some funds to your virtual wallet.


I fully realize that some adjustements will be needed as we go: what is considered a premium feature or not might change, as well as the fee to be paid for each unlocked. I'll keep everyone posted on these subjects.

Please feel free to share any concerns or questions below, and thank you for your ongoing support!

Edited by Dr. Cossack on April 2, 2014 at 0:45:22

Edited by Dr. Cossack on April 2, 2014 at 0:45:39

I've extended the message board FAQ to include answers to some of the most obscure forum features, such as achievements and badges. The page's redesign now allows me to easily add or update entries as needed, especially as new features get added over time.

If you have questions that you never bothered to ask, or suggestions about some elements that'd benefit from a more detailed explanation, reply to this post and I'll do my best to help!

NO, IT'S NOT!! Despite the fact that the forums are back in the colors you expect them to be, Cyber Grid is real and sticking around the board. If you enjoyed the gameplay, rest assured that there's plenty more coming! If you had some problems with it's design, please be patient. I've got several improvements coming. For more information about Cyber Grid, please see the topics in the new forum.

If you enjoyed the Battle Network theme that the board had on April 1st, it's now available as the "EXE" skin in your profile options!

One thing to note is that the items that some of you obtained in the previous years (or even this year!) have been renamed to badges. I now have an actual idea of what to do with those, which will be revealed later on. Additionally, the old RPG stats are gone. Those were only for cosmetic reasons, now we've got a new fancier display that's actually tied to something!

Of course, now some of you might be asking: "well, what was the prank?" The prank is that many of you expected the game to be one, which it isn't...


Cyber Grid is here to stay. Do you want it to? I'm hoping so, but I'd like to hear back from you! What was published on April 1st is only a small subset of what the game was designed to do, and the small team that worked with me during it's construction came forward with a lot of good ideas. Please keep playing it, report any problems and comment on it in the proper forum! Tell us you love it and want more! Feedback is important!


Some of you might be asking "Y U NO DO FUNNYS?" The answer is simple: you haven't seen what happened on the Minecraft server... I'll post a topic about that soon.

UPDATE: Despite the posting date, this is all serious.


"- Battle routine, set!
"- Execute!!"

Do these words sound familar to you? They might - many of you have read them multiple times over the course of the Battle Network series. While the series has been over for some years now, what if you could create your own NetNavi? Go fight some viruses and opponents? And, most importantly, play against other human opponents?

What if you could do that right here, right now?

This is what Cyber Grid is all about!

It's a web-based, multiplayer Battle Network-like RPG game! Integrated within IOBoard, the game exists within it's own section and is available to all registered users of the forums. Once you enter the game, you create your own character (a NetNavi), define it's characteristics, define a strategy, then go battle against computer and human opponents alike! Not a fan of the Mega Man series? Never played a Mega Man Battle Network game? It doesn't matter, as no background knowledge is required to enjoy Cyber Grid!

How to access this game? Follow the Cyber Grid link in your user options! If you're not logged in, you'll have to do that first.


Note that there are probably some game balance issues that'll need to be ironed out. As with any online game launches, I fully expect several tweaks to be necessary! Those will be posted in the Game Log.

I'd like to thank the following people who helped me at some point with this project. All four handled parts of the game design, data entry and bug fixes, and that help was precious!
- The Helldragon
- J_Hibiki
- Arkane
- Sb20


Cyber Grid reuses several concepts of the Battle Network series yet shakes things up quite a bit with a radically different battle engine. There's a fine line in the Mega Man world between "too much reuse" and "too many changes", and I hope that we got the right balance to keep things fresh while sticking to what made the series fun in the first place. This is, hopefully, also easy to understand for non-fans of the Mega Man series.

Note that this project is definitely not aiming to compete with the folks at MMBN Chrono X, or do something similar to them. They're going to create a full-blown sequel; what we have here is a multiplayer web game based on some concepts of the series only, which will hopefully also be attractive to non-Battle Network fans.

I'll be monitoring closely the launch for any problems or bugs that you might encouter. If something doesn't look right, please post in the appropriate forum and I'll give it a look.


Enjoy!

Edited by Dr. Cossack on April 1, 2013 at 16:44:03

Edited by Dr. Cossack on April 2, 2013 at 0:38:53

"I can't read that purple!"
"I'm ignoring your posts because of their blinding color!"
"Always typing color codes for each post is annoying!

Annoyed by colors that don't display well on your selected board skin? Want to make your posts stand out a bit more? Looking for that shiny factor? Well, I've got something for you!

Introducing: post themes!

As hinted with the last update to IOBoard, I've added a new component that allows you to use and build post themes that will be applied to all your posts automatically. You can use this to do anything from simply changing your text color to creating a completely custom look for all your posts, including fonts and backgrounds.

Two main creation options are available: simple and full-featured. Simple will allow you to easily pick colors to be applied to all your posts, while the full-featured editor allows you to define your own CSS properties on your posts' containers. Be creative!

I've added a few themes to get you started right away with a special look. Here's a preview!




To find those, click "Edit profile", then "Post theme" in the left menu!

These themes are also available to be copied then modified, so you can use them as a basis to make your own, custom look. Granted, not all of us have the knowledge or the skills to pull this off. As such, I suggest that those who do take the time to create some different post themes, then set them as public to allow others to use them! I'll be happy to answer any quetions on how the use the tool in this topic.

UPDATE ON 2013-02-24: I have added a new field, "Share with". You can enter the username of a single board member there to share a given theme with him only, and no one else. This is useful if you create a post theme for someone else and want him to access it without marking it as public.

Don't like this idea? You'd rather read the board easily instead of having to look at various colors all over the place? You can instantly disable all post themes from your profile options. Additionally, if you want to disable only the colors used by a given member, open his profile then select the appropriate option at the bottom left of his page.

You've now got the tools. Surprise me with the results!

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Also included in this update are two extra changes:
- Bigger posting boxes
- Clickable BBCode icons

The second item will save you from the trouble of remembering the various BBCode tags or check in the board FAQ. When typing a post or private message, you'll find a row of icons on top of the text area. You can use these to automatically insert to tags to format your posts!

Edited by Dr. Cossack on February 24, 2013 at 11:05:42

With the recent retirement of ION Gamma and based on a suggestion from some members, I've added more network options for you to fill in your profile.

Now listed alongside Minecraft, Steam, Tumblr and others, you can enter your profile information for your Playstation Network, Skype, Nintendo Network ID, Xbox Live Gamertag and YouTube accounts. This is completely optional, but allows other members of the board to contact you directly if they want to get in touch with you! That information can be viewed directly on your profile

As posted yesterday on the Creeper's Lab, achievements have been added for the players active on the server. This means that all board users now see the achievements links a bit everywhere. While these only apply to Minecraft players for now, I've got plans to extend that in the future. If you have something in mind related to that, or have any ideas that you'd love to see the achievements system used for, don't hesitate to speak up!

Edited by Dr. Cossack on August 28, 2012 at 12:54:01