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I'm setting up a vbulletin based site called www.gamescrim.com. I want it to be a place where online game clans as well as individual gamers can go to meet up and get games going. I'll also want to fill the site with content related to online gaming to be an information resource for newer or inexperienced gamers.
Here are a few of my ideas, and maybe some of you could give me some suggestions on what I might be able to do. I've ran vbulletin for going on 5+ years so I'm pretty familiar with how it works but I've never created any mods for it. I'll also have a few questions I've been thinking of if anyone wants to try to answer them. First off a few mods I've already installed and I'm pretty sure I'll need:
vbAdvanced
vb tournament/ladder mod
Ideas:
1. Have chatrooms. Currently online gamers get together and play(especially FPS gamers) through IRC chat. IRC is not noob or user friendly, it would be great to integrate chat into the site. I have the site unlocked and you can see I have a chat product already turned on and it functions as a basic chatroom. I don't suppose there's anything that will allow different chatrooms to be created for different site members/teams?
2. Most online gamers use ventrilo and teamspeak voice systems to talk to each other, ventrilo more than others for now. I will be setting up a dedicated ventrilo server just so members of the site can talk to each other voice to voice, I was wondering if there would be any way to integrate ventrilo into vbulletin to make it super easy for members to voice chat. I know for a fact I can use a simple script and show who is in the ventrilo server, the channels, etc., and that may be good enough.
3. Xfire is a really great IM tool that allows online gamers to not only chat but to see the status of the games they are in, and auto join those games. You can even auto join ventrilo servers through it. Xfire usernames are already enabled in profiles and postbits, is there anything further I could do to integrate? I haven't been able to figure out how to ask for an xfire username when new members sign up either, they have to put it in their profile afterwards, where would I go to set that up?
4. I have seen the Tournaments/Ladders mod and have it installed. It looks really well thought out, and I plan on really trying it out this weekend and seeing what it can/cannot do. Would this work really well for an online FPS(specifically Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2) league/ladder? One thing I noticed I would really like is for the tournaments and ladders to email users when games are challenged/scheduled, haven't seen an option for that yet.
5. Calendar and scheduling is a really big deal with online gaming, if you can schedule games with other teams in advance, it makes everything work a lot better. Calendars are built into vb, but I definitely want to try to make that work with a tournament/ladder system as well. If I could have teams scheduling matches, scheduling ladder/league games, and have it show up on a central calendar, that would be great.
6. Uploading files. Because it's going to be an information repository for online gaming, specifically first person shooter PC games, I'm going to need a downloads manager. Not only that, it would be great if I could integrate the downloads manager system with the tournament/ladders.
More specifically, in most FPS games you can record yourself actually playing the game and play it back later. These are often called demos, and they are useful for both catching cheaters and also for learning and teaching new strategies and methods. If my members and teams could upload demos for each match they play in, it would be amazing and that is my ultimate goal. Right now I just don't know if it's possible.
7. Public game server stats integration. This is not as important as everything else, but we will be setting up a Modern Warfare 2 public server specifically for GameScrim.com. I have seen it done in other games with other teams, never by myself, but I know it is possible for games to report stats(highest kills, most deaths, ranking server players, etc.) on certain websites. I know this will be probably easy once I find the right person who has done it and can show me, just not sure if anyone has messed with a script like that with vbulletin.
8. Catagorizing site members and teams. With the tournament/ladder mod, users can create and/or join teams inside the tournament module. Would it ever be possible for users to join a team within the module, and also have them show as having joined that team in the normal user manager? For example, say I join the rfF gaming squad in the ladder, so that was the team I was on for GameScrim. I would think it would be nice if, even if just under the postbit, it showed what team the member was on, and if it could show up in the user list too.
9. Custom theme.......I do have to admit I've done my share of skinning so I know I could do this, I'm just not sure if I can spend a lot of time on it. Anyone who can recommend a great vb themes site with great artists, specifically a theme that would fit the bill for an online gaming site. I've done some google surfing around and there are a ton of sites for this now, hard to pick one.
10. Advertising. To start off with I may just do simple banner advertisements, but eventually I may do more and I noticed we have quite a few advertising mods out now.
So yeah, I know that's a lot of stuff.......I came up with the idea yesterday afternoon after drinking a half gallon of Red Bull on the way to a meeting, so it will take some time to flesh it all out but I was really hoping to get some input and suggestions from all of the experts here. The site won't need to be ready to go until November. Check it out and any comments or suggestions are welcome.
-Neo
Here are a few of my ideas, and maybe some of you could give me some suggestions on what I might be able to do. I've ran vbulletin for going on 5+ years so I'm pretty familiar with how it works but I've never created any mods for it. I'll also have a few questions I've been thinking of if anyone wants to try to answer them. First off a few mods I've already installed and I'm pretty sure I'll need:
vbAdvanced
vb tournament/ladder mod
Ideas:
1. Have chatrooms. Currently online gamers get together and play(especially FPS gamers) through IRC chat. IRC is not noob or user friendly, it would be great to integrate chat into the site. I have the site unlocked and you can see I have a chat product already turned on and it functions as a basic chatroom. I don't suppose there's anything that will allow different chatrooms to be created for different site members/teams?
2. Most online gamers use ventrilo and teamspeak voice systems to talk to each other, ventrilo more than others for now. I will be setting up a dedicated ventrilo server just so members of the site can talk to each other voice to voice, I was wondering if there would be any way to integrate ventrilo into vbulletin to make it super easy for members to voice chat. I know for a fact I can use a simple script and show who is in the ventrilo server, the channels, etc., and that may be good enough.
3. Xfire is a really great IM tool that allows online gamers to not only chat but to see the status of the games they are in, and auto join those games. You can even auto join ventrilo servers through it. Xfire usernames are already enabled in profiles and postbits, is there anything further I could do to integrate? I haven't been able to figure out how to ask for an xfire username when new members sign up either, they have to put it in their profile afterwards, where would I go to set that up?
4. I have seen the Tournaments/Ladders mod and have it installed. It looks really well thought out, and I plan on really trying it out this weekend and seeing what it can/cannot do. Would this work really well for an online FPS(specifically Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2) league/ladder? One thing I noticed I would really like is for the tournaments and ladders to email users when games are challenged/scheduled, haven't seen an option for that yet.
5. Calendar and scheduling is a really big deal with online gaming, if you can schedule games with other teams in advance, it makes everything work a lot better. Calendars are built into vb, but I definitely want to try to make that work with a tournament/ladder system as well. If I could have teams scheduling matches, scheduling ladder/league games, and have it show up on a central calendar, that would be great.
6. Uploading files. Because it's going to be an information repository for online gaming, specifically first person shooter PC games, I'm going to need a downloads manager. Not only that, it would be great if I could integrate the downloads manager system with the tournament/ladders.
More specifically, in most FPS games you can record yourself actually playing the game and play it back later. These are often called demos, and they are useful for both catching cheaters and also for learning and teaching new strategies and methods. If my members and teams could upload demos for each match they play in, it would be amazing and that is my ultimate goal. Right now I just don't know if it's possible.
7. Public game server stats integration. This is not as important as everything else, but we will be setting up a Modern Warfare 2 public server specifically for GameScrim.com. I have seen it done in other games with other teams, never by myself, but I know it is possible for games to report stats(highest kills, most deaths, ranking server players, etc.) on certain websites. I know this will be probably easy once I find the right person who has done it and can show me, just not sure if anyone has messed with a script like that with vbulletin.
8. Catagorizing site members and teams. With the tournament/ladder mod, users can create and/or join teams inside the tournament module. Would it ever be possible for users to join a team within the module, and also have them show as having joined that team in the normal user manager? For example, say I join the rfF gaming squad in the ladder, so that was the team I was on for GameScrim. I would think it would be nice if, even if just under the postbit, it showed what team the member was on, and if it could show up in the user list too.
9. Custom theme.......I do have to admit I've done my share of skinning so I know I could do this, I'm just not sure if I can spend a lot of time on it. Anyone who can recommend a great vb themes site with great artists, specifically a theme that would fit the bill for an online gaming site. I've done some google surfing around and there are a ton of sites for this now, hard to pick one.
10. Advertising. To start off with I may just do simple banner advertisements, but eventually I may do more and I noticed we have quite a few advertising mods out now.
So yeah, I know that's a lot of stuff.......I came up with the idea yesterday afternoon after drinking a half gallon of Red Bull on the way to a meeting, so it will take some time to flesh it all out but I was really hoping to get some input and suggestions from all of the experts here. The site won't need to be ready to go until November. Check it out and any comments or suggestions are welcome.
-Neo
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