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Argh. I figured I'd share this blurb with everyone because it will vastly impact the functionality of our forum. After carefully going over both invision power board and vbulletin, both are definitely two very different pieces of software. In terms of price, over a 3 year period both will cost us about the same, but with different functionality. The pros of ipb are the following: - Support there seems nicer to their community - They actively work on their software - They have more than one basic theme - Their pm system is drastically improved over vbulletin - They have an official gallery Cons of ipb: - Their gallery is not impressive - In comparison to vbulletin, their reputation system is non-existent - Their blogs cannot be categorized. - Their permission settings seem inferior to vb's. - Their mod community is noticeably smaller compared to vb's and seem to focus more on paid modifications. - If their import script doesn't work, I'd have to pay them $60 to get our stuff transferred. - Their facebook connect feature is very very basic and is only good for registering new facebook members. Pros of vb: - I know their coding, and I'm used to modifying it myself. - Alot of basic functionality that we are used to now is still there (ipb is missing quite a few basic things that would drive me mad.) - vB has almost all new developers, which I'm actually glad for because the software has been pretty stagnant for about a year now. - The initial cost of vb 4 is cheaper for me over switching to ipb. - vb will now include a CMS package. - Their mod community is pretty damn big. Cons of vb: - This whole bullshit, 'buy this product right now crap or be screwed.' - They have let basic feature requests go ignored for almost a year. (but they have new developers now.) - They are heavily modding their forums to look cheerful and pleasant when they pissed off alot of people. - Their album gallery functionality needs alot of work, (but it doesn't cost extra). - We have no idea when vb 5 will actually be released. If its an earlier than 2-3 years, I'll feel a bit ripped off. So wtf. Both of the forum packages seem like good pieces of software. But, we're pretty broke and I think we might end up having to go with vb after all, because its the cheaper of the two up front costs. Also, ipb's admin panel and functionality looks like a mess compared to what I'm used to with vb. Someone stab me.

vBulletin still hasn't released its newest 4.0 version yet, so we have another maintenance update to perform. This update should only take a few minutes once I start it, so don't expect much if any downtime.

So yeah, this will be more of a rant than an actual update but its relevant because its about the core software that runs our community. [ame=http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=313353]vBulletin 4.0 Development Update - vBulletin Community Forum[/ame] vBulletin's initial plans were to release vb 4 in beta testing by the end of the second quarter of this year, which would have been the end of July. That hasn't happened. Everyone in the vb community has been wondering about the progress vb 4 has been taking and finally they have given us an update. 4-5 weeks for alpha testing. If we are lucky we'll get to upgrade AC to vb 4 beta 2 by the end of august or early september. Unfortunately, even then they may not release it in beta version to the community because they may try screwing us all by forcing us to pay for an upgrade for the first time. If vb would release more info on what their plans are and set some actual release dates or prices for their highly anticipated upgrades and add-on products they'd set alot of minds at ease. Unfortunately, they are only making people resent purchasing their product to begin with.

The next vBulletin update should be released in beta by the end of this month or the beginning of the next. That will be the upgrade that will include the new style layout which will screw over our current themes and some of our plugin mods/extra features. However, there should be quite a few new features that should compensate for whatever we may loose. And as far as I know, the arcade should work in vB 4.0. Shortly after vB 4.0 is released, vBulletin will release their custom cms which we will probably purchase and make Ancient Clan into an actual site again instead of just a forum. But we'll have to see what functionality that program has before we make more definative plans at this point. Just keep in mind that changes are coming to AC... soon. and I better be impressed with what vbulletin comes out with. *kicks vb*

As per my blog entry here: http://forums.ancientclan.com/blog.php?b=222 All our current themes will have to be converted to the new layout. This may take alot of time to get all our themes switched over, so we need to know, which themes would you like too see available first? Post your top 3 or 4 themes or just the 1 or 2 that you always use, we'll see which ones are the most popular and port those over first.

vBulletin, the blog, the chat box and the arcade have all been updated! The most noticeable difference is the chatbox, which has been completely overhauled. The chat box is now located in all threads and in the arcade. Enjoy. Our ads have been updated too. All guests will now see ads at the top of the forum, in the first post of a topic and at the bottom of the page. Currently members only have to see the ad at the bottom of the page, but I might be turning that one off as well. So for all guests viewing this post, remeber to register to disable most of the ads and to get your arcade scores saved. Also, at the top right of everyone's profiles in the mini stats block you'll see the chat box now keeps track of all your total chat count (like your post count and blog count) and there is now a link to your arcade scores too.

I was looking at the vbulletin website the other day and they made an announcement about the newest version of vb they're working on, version 4.0. Aside from a 3.8x or 3.9 version thats supposed to come out in a couple weeks, the new 4.0 version is probably going to come out in a 6 months to a year (I base this on vb staff's inability to never announce anything anywhere near its actual release date). But it is interesting nonetheless, because version 4.0 is a complete rewrite of the forum code. But the nice thing, is that they announced that they are working with current code modders to make sure existing mods will directly work with the release of the new version. Which means we should be able to keep the arcade, mood feature, vbadvanced on the homepage, etc. even after a major upgrade like this. Very nice. http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=280752