Recent Updates and Changes.

[Suicide]

Good evening everyone! It's that time again where I spend about a week or so setting things up for the clan and it's about time you all knew what's been set up.

So, what have I done?

- Added the Left 4 Dead and Ventrilo server information images to the front page.
- Changed the Counter Strike image on the front page to a better graphic.
- Added a "Servers" page to the forums (link located in upper navigation bar).
- Installed and fully set up admins on the Left 4 Dead server (all members in the treasury thread are added except for PegLegs and Panda who will need to give me their STEAM ID's).
- Created a public GFC group (named the Global Fortress Network).
- Added support to the forums for the vBulletin Desktop Notifier.

So what does this all mean? Well it'll take a fair bit of explaining.


Global Fortress Network

I'll start with the Global Fortress Network. To aid in GFC's expansion and the new steam community integration features in Left 4 Dead (soon to be others as well) I have added a public group for those who are not GFC Members but who like to play with us online regardless. Instead of having them join the main GFC group I have created this group for them. This way new possible recruits and friends can easily get in contact with us on Steam games and can easily join our servers.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Glo...mmunityNetwork

I would like all GFC Members to join this group when they have the chance. Also, all GFC Members will be given "Officer" status in this group as well.


vBulletin Desktop Notifier

I have added support to the vBuletin Desktop Notification applicatrion. When this application is running it will inform you as to when a post has been made on the forums and in which thread. I have added this in hope that more posts and user activity to appear on the forums. Currently the forums are a bleak place for posts with new members. They come, see little to nothing posted recently and leave. I want to fix that so here we are.

You can download the desktop notification application here:

http://code.google.com/p/vbulletin-d...downloads/list

The URL's to be placed in the settings fields are:

Forum URL: http://www.global-fortress.com/

VBXRS URL: http://www.global-fortress.com/vbull...ml-rpc-server/

You will have to log in with your forum username and password for it to work.

Also, this video will show you the whole process:

http://nsuers.com/projects/vbxrs/screencasts/client/


Servers Page

To allow ease of access to our server information I have added the Servers page to the forums. With this we can manage our server information and have it all easier to find for new registrants on their first visit to the site.

http://www.global-fortress.com/index.php?pageid=servers


Left 4 Dead Admins

I have fully installed and set up admins on the Left 4 Dead server but it's not Mani Mod which you would all be familiar with already. I will post the commands list links later. For now we can relax and know that the server now has administration!

You can find a list of admin commands here.

http://wiki.alliedmods.net/Admin_Commands_(SourceMod)


What's Next

Well the next step that I will be taking is to install a SEO Sitemap mod on the forums to create a list of links and submit them to Google and Yahoo for a higher page ranking. I also want to install a SEO URL Rewrite mod which will create search engine friendly URL's. I hoping that these will help increase our page views and to help boost player numbers.


And to finish off, something I found funny about our site according to the Google bots last month.

Thank you all for the work you have been putting in and Merry Christmas everyone!!!

[Leon]

Very cool, I just downloaded the desktop notifier.

[Suicide]

I'm glad to hear that Leon =D

I'll be running it myself from time to time. I've been thinking about making a desktop application for GFC for a while but had to wait untill I knew enough about programming to do it. Now that I have found this we can use it =D Yayness!!!

[Suicide]

I've just added a link to the SourceMod admin command list in the first post.

http://wiki.alliedmods.net/Admin_Commands_(SourceMod)

Listed here as well. The line below should be typed or copy and pasted into console so that you can access the admin menu by pressing the "-" button.

bind "-" "sm_admin"

[shadowmazer]

but ... but ... I don't want to press the "-" button!!

[Suicide]

Then you can bind it to something else :P

I just used the "-" key since that's what I've been using to access the CSS admin menu for the past few years.