Hive 2.0 Discussion Thread

[BlackEnvyX]

Since I didn't see one, I figured I would make a thread about the upcoming Hive 2.0 which the Hive's staff is hard at work on.

There's several things I think we all as a userbase want to know.

- Estimated date of completion
- New features
- Will it be easier to upload, update and keep track of resources on this new forum engine

And various other things.

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

This is the Hive 2 mother thread from late 2013 and some of its spawns are spread across this search result list.

This quote from an earlier January news post reveals more up to date details.

2015 is the year where Hive upgrades from vBulletin to XenForo. This is something I have been working on in my freetime for the past year. The vBulletin system we are running has many addons / extensions which need to be converted to XenForo. So far the Pastebin and the Night Elf theme have been converted but the resource section is still in development. Right now it supports uploading of models, maps, textures but we still need icons and tools, furthermore search / filtering still needs a bit of work. When the resource section is done, the chat needs to be ported / rewritten. Finally, all existing content will be imported. We can't wait to show you what we have done.

Consume the information while you can! Mwahahaha.

 

[BlackEnvyX]

This is the Hive 2 mother thread from late 2013 and some of its spawns are spread across this search result list.

This quote from an earlier January news post reveals more up to date details.



Consume the information while you can! Mwahahaha.

This sounds exciting, and it's been over a year in development now so that's gonna yield some great results!

 

[Ralle]

There will soon be a beta version for you to try out. This will contain the resource sections and pastebin. I will not have added the chat and custom bb codes at that time.

 

[Gismo359]

That would be amazing! Can't wait to see that!

E:Goddamnit, april the 1st!

 

[Rui]

We should probably merge all the Hive-2-related threads and make a sticky, as the subject is recurring.

I know we have people around here who hate Facebook with a passion, but we've had several discussions in the past and we've come to the conclusion that the Hive is as much a wc3 modding site as it is a social site. Therefore, adding more social features would be quite positive for the website — those features should also extend what is already available with profile comments and the like. For example, threads recently created or threads chosen by the user himself could be pinned in his profile: this would provide a mechanism to bring attention to the user's art showcases.

 

[WhiteFang]

There will soon be a beta version for you to try out. This will contain the resource sections and pastebin. I will not have added the chat and custom bb codes at that time.

I'm really looking forward to this.

the Hive is as much a wc3 modding site as it is a social site. Therefore, adding more social features would be quite positive for the website

I agree with Rui,the Hive is a social site as well as a modding one.

 

[Chaosy]

We should probably merge all the Hive-2-related threads and make a sticky, as the subject is recurring.

+1

I know we have people around here who hate Facebook with a passion.

Facebook is a great website, but it is heavily missused by 90% of the userbase. For that reason I hate it. With that said, no facebook 2.0 please.

For example, threads recently created or threads chosen by the user himself could be pinned in his profile: this would provide a mechanism to bring attention to the user's art showcases.

While this could be used for a good purpose, it would just be an advertisement war.

 

[WhiteFang]

While this could be used for a good purpose, it would just be an advertisement war.

You have a point,yet i can't help but doubt that there will be a advertisement war

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

While this could be used for a good purpose, it would just be an advertisement war.

I agree. Let's do it!

I'm implying that it should be okay to advertise Hive Workshop related things on Hive Workshop. How is it a war, if it's stickied on someone's profile with it being their own decision to do so? It isn't because it wouldn't cause conflict.

 

[Chaosy]

If the user got a thread containing his work, then anyone will be able to see it in that section if they're interested. In the end you would actually just use your fame (if you got any) to promote your own stuff even more. This is already something that can be done in your signature.

if it's stickied on someone's profile with it being their own decision to do so

Being added by free will doesn't make it less nor more of an advertisement.

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

And why should it be so bad for it to be advertised somewhere else than in a signature? Why not give the freedom to have something stickied if it isn't harmful? What if the signature is out of space? You know what I'm getting at. The stickied threads, or something similar, will help make it easier for showing off work. It's already been showcased that we will have a feature like that in the future btw.

Being added by free will doesn't make it less nor more of an advertisement.

I already know this. I'm not trying to make an advertisement be perceived as not one. An advertisement is an advertisement and that's that.

 

[Cherrymage]

I have to agree with SCN about this. It is better if some threads (including their map development threads, but excluding SE threads, of course) can be pinned in a user's profile.

About the custom bb codes, will that some resource descriptions won't work properly if the custom bb codes are not included?

P.S. Will all the Social Groups and its contents be carried over to post-beta Hive 2?

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

P.S. Will all the Social Groups and its contents be carried over to post-beta Hive 2?

If you put together the clues, basically everything is being carried over of that sort. The good things will obviously stay or be improved and the faulty parts of the vbulliten system are supposed to be gone or improved.

 

[Chaosy]

And why should it be so bad for it to be advertised somewhere else than in a signature?

It's not bad, it's pointless. Adding a fifth wheel to a car wont do any good. Resources are displayed already. I am pretty sure tutorials would be added to that section too. So there are only threads like your map project or art showcase left. Those can be linked in the signature easily.. just check my signature. Technically speaking I can have 10 tabs with links. Currently I have 16 links in mine, and I can add more if I use a URL shortener to work around the character limit. Complaining about space is bullshit.

I am not exactly against the idea, since it doesn't harm anyone indeed. But getting hive 2.0 delayed because of something that don't bring anything useful to the table is a little sad.

 

[Rui]

(...) In the end you would actually just use your fame (if you got any) to promote your own stuff even more. This is already something that can be done in your signature.
(...)

Yes, I agree, I guess. I'm not giving up on the proposal, but I acknowledge this to be a problem — and am, of course, interested in listening to solutions you may offer.

(...)
I am not exactly against the idea, since it doesn't harm anyone indeed. But getting hive 2.0 delayed because of something that don't bring anything useful to the table is a little sad.

This proposal's main goal was to serve as a startup for some discussion. One I already appealed for the community to have some time in the past.

The point is not to force everyone's dream Hive on Ralle, but since we're the people using the website, we should probably be a little more active on the revamp of its design. Sometimes Ralle could even be out of ideas. As far as I know, Archian has been the only one giving suggestions to him, but people were often dissatisfied with them.

Anyhow, you spoke of delay. That brings priority to mind. On top of coming up with ideas, we should decide what priority is given to them. This list of proffers helps Ralle see what the community is after.

 

[edo494]

In my opinion we should get hive 2.0 to roughly the state of hive 1.0 so it is released and fully functional to current standard, and then start implementing some bigger things into it.

Maybe add some very small, almost no-time-wasting stuff to hive 2.0, but yeah...imo priority should be getting the site up in at least the state of current site, and improve it after that.

Its always better to have half year of beta or lets say a "bare" forum, rather than 2 years of nothing, and then get giant pack going up. We should also remember that the number of users will most likely not rise dramatically as time passes(without release, that is), so the longer something takes, the less enjoyed it will most likely be(I cant speak with real numbers, since I have pretty much none but lets be real here, I dont feel like the site is getting more and more active every day, not really the opposite either, just very slightly)

 

[Rui]

I knew people wouldn't post anything after my post somehow <.<' I must say I'm a little disappointed by the lack of participation in here. I've heard a dozen cracks from the jesters mocking the sole idea of a new Hive, but proposals are apparently difficult to come by.

So I'll just continue loneriding against abstinence with a new idea.

Threads like http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...hy-you-didnt-finish-your-map-projects-264325/ among others I've seen sometimes fit into more than one forum. Perhaps moderators should have the ability to make a thread appear in multiple forums. Currently, something similar happens with redirects, but they don't come back to the top of the thread list when a new post is submitted.

 

[BlackEnvyX]

I knew people wouldn't post anything after my post somehow <.<' I must say I'm a little disappointed by the lack of participation in here. I've heard a dozen cracks from the jesters mocking the sole idea of a new Hive, but proposals are apparently difficult to come by.

So I'll just continue loneriding against abstinence with a new idea.

Threads like http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...hy-you-didnt-finish-your-map-projects-264325/ among others I've seen sometimes fit into more than one forum. Perhaps moderators should have the ability to make a thread appear in multiple forums. Currently, something similar happens with redirects, but they don't come back to the top of the thread list when a new post is submitted.

From my personal experience with the "Xenforo" host which is what Hive 2.0 will be hosted on, all I can say is that it has multiple features that VBulletin doesn't even come close to. Don't get me wrong, VBulletin is a very flexible host but at the same time for something you pay 400+ a year for for a license + server fees and upkeep, it's decidedly underwhelming.

 

[Ralle]

I knew people wouldn't post anything after my post somehow <.<' I must say I'm a little disappointed by the lack of participation in here. I've heard a dozen cracks from the jesters mocking the sole idea of a new Hive, but proposals are apparently difficult to come by.

So I'll just continue loneriding against abstinence with a new idea.

Threads like http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...hy-you-didnt-finish-your-map-projects-264325/ among others I've seen sometimes fit into more than one forum. Perhaps moderators should have the ability to make a thread appear in multiple forums. Currently, something similar happens with redirects, but they don't come back to the top of the thread list when a new post is submitted.

Hello Rui,
I am sorry for disappointing you and not being more open for discussion about how things should work, but believe me I have taken a lot of things to heart over the last 5-10 years of the current site's operation. I will also be ready for feedback soon.

Right now I am still working on the resource sections. Most of the features are there already and now I am just doing polishing and some Admin CP pages. When I feel the resource section is ready, I will open it up for people to test. This is only a matter of weeks. I will probably start with the staff and then later allow everyone to try it out. At this point I will listen hard to everyone's feedback as I wouldn't want to upgrade the site to a broken platform.

 

[Rui]

Ralle, I was referring to everyone else's abstinence, not yours =P

What I'm trying to say is: users should come forth and tell you how they'd like the site. Ultimately, it's your decision what to take to heart. The principle here is the same which justifies the whole Analysis ➟ Design ➟ Implementation cycle, ye know? First find out what someone's after, then design based on that. It's dumb when some feature doesn't work the way people would like just because no one was arsed to give it a thought before it was implemented.

Anyhow, thanks to those who did participate.

 

[Ralle]

Well, I can shed a bit of light onto what is different in the new system. Keep in mind we are using a forum-in-a-box called XenForo. What I am building right now is the resource section.

Keep in mind the goal of Hive 2 is to move the Hive to a modern compatible forum platform because vBulletin 3 is old and vBulletin >3 is crap. Priority 1 is to make a feature compatible system and then move all content. Feature (insert awesome suggestion here) may not exist from day 1 because it is not essential, but I will definitely expand with new features after the move.

Here are some details about the new resource system:

1. Everything is a bundle. A bundle is sort of like an archive of resources. When you click "Upload Map" you select a map and click "Upload", a bundle is created containing your map. You now have the ability to add more maps, this should be used for uploading special versions of the map or something like that. Usually there will always only be a single map in a bundle so this is a bad example. Bundles make more sense in relation to models. You upload a model and also an icon or alternative textures. Everything in a single contained bundle. By default when clicking "Download" the user gets the model, textures and icon(s). In certain cases we may also permit using bundles as the current "Packs" system but I do have plans to replace "Packs" with a similar system that contains bundles.

2. Multiple authors. A bundle can have more than one author. It may be up to a moderator to add the extra author or not (that can be specified in settings). If you are an author of a bundle, you are able to edit it (perhaps add an updated icon to that awesome model).

3. Search and filtering. This will be a bit different. By default you search by bundle size, rating, tags but you can also specify that you are only looking for bundles that contain models (or other types) and require a min/max number of polygons, team color, team glow. If you want maps you can require min/max number of players, wc3/tft and campaign.

4. Multiple resource sections. A resource section is basically a custom type of forum that can only contain bundles. It can also dictate which types of resources it can contain. For a maps section it would make sense to only require maps, but for models it may make sense to permit icons and textures too. For spells it may make sense to permit maps, models and icons.

5. Image previews everywhere. Bundles can contain any number of screenshots / image previews. You can also specify which screenshot / icon preview / texture preview / map preview to use as the primary image shown on the listing page.

6. Drag and drop (or not). The upload pages are super cool now. You can drag and drop resource files (or old-school click and pick) into a dropzone and it starts uploading in the background while you write the description. Any errors that may occur will be displayed to you and you can fix them in-line, most of the time there is no need to re-upload. The new upload pages took a long time to make but I hope you will like them. For model uploads you can remove/add/update textures without re-uploading the model, everything on the same page with drag and drop (or not).

I am still polishing the resource sections but they are 90-95% ready.

Now, about the pastebin. As I showed you in Christmas of 2012(?) I have already made the pastebin. It's simple but it works.

We also need a XenForo compatible chat. One way to quickly do this is (to GhostWolf's dismay) port the existing piece of crap over. That's one solution, but I would prefer to rewrite it, but as I have a plan to have the whole site ported this year, I will wait with the chat to see how much time I have left when the rest of the site is ready.

Reputation:
XenForo does not have reputation. It has a like system. I know... But there exists an addon which I will adapt to our style (gems, hell yeah) and expand it to allow repping of all sorts of things.

BB-codes:
This will be a bit of a project. I will have to write addons for XenForo to support all our rich bbcodes. This is not hard but still needs to be done.

User Galleries:
There exists an official user gallery addon for XenForo.

Social Groups:
There are a few addons that add this feature, none of them are official but they are pretty well integrated into XenForo.

Award System:
There are a few of these as well. I may have to rewrite a few bits but it shouldn't be too hard.

Frontpage:
There's one addon called XenPorta that may give us a frontpage, but do not fear. It is not a daunting task to make one from scratch if I have to.

 

[Daffa]

Resources Section :
Can't say for sure, but it looks awesome!

Pastebin :
The current one is alright, though the Editor support for text would be great.

Chat :
I fear it's a little difficult with navigating current chat, especially the commands isn't really accessible (and this comes when we forget about them), though I'm not an avid chat user, so I won't complain about it too much.

Reputation :
D:
Let me take a screenshot of my over 1K rep before it's gone ;_;

User Galleries :
Does this one differs a lot with the current gallery system? Just curious.

Social Groups :
I really hope this one really do good for us social group users

Award System :
Does old awards on users will cease from exist during the port? I hope not. I mean those award (especially contest winner, UotY and merit are very valuable).

 

[BlackEnvyX]

The bundle idea sounds like it will allow an extra level of flexibility to be attained when it comes to searching / posting resources and I find that pretty neat.

Also as Daffa stated will awards / rep be carried over into the new system? It's hard to believe a host as powerful as Xenforo wouldn't have a rep system.

 

[Ralle]

Resources Section :
Can't say for sure, but it looks awesome!

Thank you.

Pastebin :
The current one is alright, though the Editor support for text would be great.

I believe that is basically the only difference.

Chat :
I fear it's a little difficult with navigating current chat, especially the commands isn't really accessible (and this comes when we forget about them), though I'm not an avid chat user, so I won't complain about it too much.

I will rewrite the chat eventually, the only doubt is if I will do it this year.

Reputation :
D:
Let me take a screenshot of my over 1K rep before it's gone ;_;

...

User Galleries :
Does this one differs a lot with the current gallery system? Just curious.

Mostly similar, but better in many places.

Social Groups :
I really hope this one really do good for us social group users

It will definitely be better at alerting people of new content.

Award System :
Does old awards on users will cease from exist during the port? I hope not. I mean those award (especially contest winner, UotY and merit are very valuable).

...
I have stated in one million places that data will not be lost. Especially not awards and rep.

The bundle idea sounds like it will allow an extra level of flexibility to be attained when it comes to searching / posting resources and I find that pretty neat.

Also as Daffa stated will awards / rep be carried over into the new system? It's hard to believe a host as powerful as Xenforo wouldn't have a rep system.

All data will carry over.

It is indeed very neat. Allows for much flexibility.

I forgot to mention another good point. People who upload user interfaces can upload it all as a single bundle. That is VERY neat.

 

[SpasMaster]

I believe that the lack of suggestions is (ironically) due to the large amount of suggestions provided by the users. What I mean is that I've seen so many ideas and suggestions thrown all around the hive throughout the years and I see most of them have been implemented. I remember contacting Ralle with several ideas including:
• Multiple authors of a single resource; that's happening in Hive 2.0.
• Pastebin entries with no expiration date; It's already been here for quite some time and I believe my thread was the reason for implementing it.
• Some sort of reward icons for achieving feats on the Hive such as owning a Director's Cut or being an author of a Hosted Project (or both, [brag]*looks at myself* teehee[/brag] ) or something else; I dunno if this is happening, but it's not a big deal since both the examples I provied are rewards by themselves, but I gave the suggestion regardless.
• And more that I don't remember...

And that's just me. I am convinced that there are far more intelligent and creative people around here that expressed their opinions and/or contacted Ralle with them. Maybe it was recently or long ago. That's how I'd explain the lack of suggestions right here and right now.

---

But since we are getting creative here, let me give a suggestion (I have just one right now): More bbcode options! I'd love to see a couple of bb code features and I have no idea if it's possible, but here we go:

• Drop-down menus: I cannot express how useful these would be for a map description and other forum uses.

Hidden

• Mouse-over tooltips: move your mose over a link or image link and get tooltip information. For example, if I move my mouse over the image, I get some sort of tooltip.

Hidden

OR

a similar thing where you move your mouse over an item and you get some side-bar information like it's done in the dota site.

I have no idea if it's possible to do any those, but I'd love to have them and I am sure people can get very creative with them. I hope my rambling was helpful in some way and I can't wait to see what Hive 2 has to offer! Cheers!

 

[MasterHaosis]

Oh its nice to hear that new Hive is comming closer.
I think that XenForo will be more flexible than current Vbulletin.
Ralle, I like those ideas. Drag and drop is faster and better, multiple screenshots viewing in assets are also good ideas.
Ralle, do you have some screenshots of how those bundles or resources systems look like ? (test versions you are using atm)

 

[Rui]

(...)
1. Everything is a bundle. (...) You now have the ability to add more maps, this should be used for uploading special versions of the map or something like that. Usually there will always only be a single map in a bundle so this is a bad example. Bundles make more sense in relation to models. You upload a model and also an icon or alternative textures. (...)

About maps, I'd prefer a version history. I understand this is doable, but we should have a tab labeled Version History so there's no mistake. This is a great addition, of course!
As for models, I thought it'd be a little confusing at first, but I guess I'll end up liking it. I dislike the random icons popping up in the icon section, sometimes of poor quality, but getting away with it due to being associated with a model.

2. Multiple authors.

I like the idea of course. What about people who aren't authors, just major or minor contributors to the resource/bundle? I realize we can use the description, but their name might deserve to appear in some prominent place as well.

Reputation:
XenForo does not have reputation. It has a like system. I know... But there exists an addon which I will adapt to our style (gems, hell yeah) and expand it to allow repping of all sorts of things.

Reputation has caused so much polemic over the years that I believe the userbase should thoroughly discuss how they'd like the reputation system to work.


Thanks for taking the time to share this, Ralle!

 

[Daffa]

Thank you.I believe that is basically the only difference.I will rewrite the chat eventually, the only doubt is if I will do it this year....Mostly similar, but better in many places.It will definitely be better at alerting people of new content.
...
I have stated in one million places that data will not be lost. Especially not awards and rep.

All data will carry over.

It is indeed very neat. Allows for much flexibility.

I forgot to mention another good point. People who upload user interfaces can upload it all as a single bundle. That is VERY neat.

I'm glad it will be far better than the current. And of course, that all our hard effort aren't wasted, those awards ^^
Sorry that I forget you mention that the data will be carried over completely before, though you did a lot of time saying it

 

[Ralle]

@spasorc
Tooltips is definitely a good idea. I think I have responded to it before. It's cool.

Dropdown menus? I would like to see a link where people have implemented that.

@MasterHaosis
Thank you . I can show screenshots later, or you can all just try the beta .

@Rui
Version history is on my [Maybe] list. It's also a feature that we don't need from day 1 but that I would still like to implement.

Major / minor contributors? Are you kidding me? You've asked for multiple authors for years and now you want more?

We are moving rep over into Hive 2. Dropping it during the conversion will put people's rage on the system and not on the staff if you know what I mean. I want people to generally like Hive 2. Besides, I think the positive aspect of rep overshadows the negative by a large amount.

@Daffa the Mage
No worries

 

[Daffa]

Thanks

Not to repeat this once more (and again), but before others do ; when will the beta is launched?

 

[Sclammerz]

Hive 2.0 is coming... How nice.

 

[Gismo359]

You know, something I always wanted is allowing cells in tables to span over multiple rows/columns. Something like this:

 

[WhiteFang]

You know, something I always wanted is allowing cells in tables to span over multiple rows/columns. Something like this:
View attachment 144582

I kinda like this idea

 

[fladdermasken]

LaTeX BBCode!

LaTeX BBCode!

LaTeX BBCode!

 

[BlackEnvyX]

You know, something I always wanted is allowing cells in tables to span over multiple rows/columns. Something like this:
View attachment 144582

I really hope this ends up being possible on the new host, it will allow for more complex map development tables, progress monitors, etc.

 

[Rui]

Any additions from general HTML are welcome.

 

[WhiteFang]

I forgot to mention another good point. People who upload user interfaces can upload it all as a single bundle. That is VERY neat.

Very neat indeed.It will be much easier to download

 

[BlackEnvyX]

This question is directed @Ralle if he has time to read this.

Would you ever possibly consider implementing a points system / shop with little aesthetic things and items as a little fun extra feature on the hive (points earned from contests, posting, etc) I believe XenForo's host is compatible with such things.

 

[Ralle]

This question is directed @Ralle if he has time to read this.

Would you ever possibly consider implementing a points system / shop with little aesthetic things and items as a little fun extra feature on the hive (points earned from contests, posting, etc) I believe XenForo's host is compatible with such things.

I am not opposing it. I just don't want to fill the site up with systems either. If we stopped using rep for contests and started using a monetary-esque system, the importance of rep would decrease, this is good. But.... this is definitely not something I am looking into in the near future.

 

[Deleted member 212788]

I am not opposing it. I just don't want to fill the site up with systems either. If we stopped using rep for contests and started using a monetary-esque system, the importance of rep would decrease, this is good. But.... this is definitely not something I am looking into in the near future.

Alternatively, you could simply adapt rep to serve as the currency and instead of having several different values per user, you simply expand the uses of the one we already have. It doesn't have to work like a monetary system either but instead like levels in any game where reaching a certain point unlocks some cosmetic stuff.

 

[Daffa]

Alternatively, you could simply adapt rep to serve as the currency and instead of having several different values per user, you simply expand the uses of the one we already have. It doesn't have to work like a monetary system either but instead like levels in any game where reaching a certain point unlocks some cosmetic stuff.

Though it has to be reasonable when it comes to the bonuses and it's not necessary at Day 1 anyway, so it doesn't have to be implemented quickly.

 

[Ujimasa Hojo]

I've read about the bundle resources. How many maps can be placed in the one map "bundle"?

 

[Ralle]

As many as you want. But a bundle really should only be used for things that MUST be together like a model and the icon for the model. Two different maps shouldn't be together.

 

[Rui]

That restriction can be better enforced if you can have only 1 primary map and then the version history =P but you've told me what your stance is on that.

 

[Ralle]

Well, the multiplayer campaign is a good place to use a bundle.