Helm Games :: Helm Games 3.0

Helm Games :: Helm Games 3.0 - early releaseHelm Games 3.0 - early release
Submitted by: Nick Rathman at 04/14/07

A few weeks ago I made a post about our upcomming network "Anarch Net" and "Helm Games 3.0". Unfortunately, Anarch Net has been delayed a little while so that I could finish HG3 in time. Afterall, I did promise that it would be out before the end of spring break (and for me, that ends in like a day).

So, now onto the features.

The 2 most obvious features are the flash news displayer and the new comment formatting.

First I will go into the news displayer (It is the big TV with buttons on it by the way). Basically it is just a simple flash app that displays the latest 3 articles and provides links to them. It's nothing special, but I think it makes the front page look alot more interesting. For those of you without flash, or if you prefer it the old way, you can click on the link "No Flash?" which should be somewhere in the upper left section of the front page.

Now for the new comment formatting. As you can see (just scroll down), it looks alot different. Where before it was just simple text with a line seperating each comment, it is now a styilized speach bubble. Much better IMO. Also, the submit comment form has been styled, just for the hell of it.

There is also a third major feature. Tags. A fairly generic feature in websites these days, but I think that for what we are, it is suitable. Each article has certian "tags" assigned to it. You can click on the tags related to that article, or you can click on the link in the sidebar to browse them all. The tags feature will help you find related stories to the article you just read. Right now there isn't many tags (mostly because its just a big pain in the ass to go through the few hundred articles and assign them tags), but as time goes on the list will grow.

I could go into alot more detail about other little features/improvments I have added, but I will spare you the time and just list all of them off. So here are all the improvments/features etc. I have added:

New comment formatting
Anti spam system
Tags
Articles reformated
Flash news displayer
Fixed various bugs
A little counter at the bottom showing how much spam we have stopped :p
Article listings somewhat reformated
Network buttons added at the bottom.

Since this is an early release, there is actually still a bit more to be done. A few bugs still need to be fixed and the news archive will be having an update. These will happen within the comming weeks.

Oh and if anyone care, I have scrapped the "Centurion" feature that was planned earlier. If anyone is curious about it, ask in the comments.

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Comments

http://[http]http:

This is a test comment to show you folks what it looks like now.

Nick - 04/14/07 04:28:37

the flash news display is a little weak IMO, it is really boring, nothing to make it look cool, no colors. If you look at IGN's, it is really big, can hold more stories, and has pictures in the background. This can be imporved greatly.

darkrider0076 - 04/14/07 05:44:34

Even though I made it, I agree. It is a bit on the bland side, eventualy I will be remaking its entire interface so that it looks alot better and is bigger, so similar to IGN

Nick - 04/14/07 06:46:29

col, while it is a nice addition, it could use improving, but for now it shows that the site is evolving and is thriving and you are wanting to make the site better

darkrider0076 - 04/14/07 08:08:23

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