Bring back postbit HP/MP bars?
 

I posted this in my journal and some mods suggest I drop it off in here too.

But I was hoping for a return of our old school system included HP meter, MP meter, job classes and moods. However, if the rest of GFF is fine without them, I am totally content as well. Just wanted to toss this idea out there.

Stumbling upon these images did make me feel nostalgic.
OLD SKOOL MEMORIES<--

Personally, I'm just as fine without them. They really were just for show, and I think they would need to be recoded for vB3. There's also the stretching of the postbit that would go along with them. Of course, the EXP bar lives on in parenthetical form.

Also, I edited your thread title.

Actually, I do believe the general consensus is that we don't want it back.

I feel without it, it makes for a leaner, better-looking userbit area, that isn't entirely filled with clutter. It also saves us froma having those "HEY WHAT DOES THAT MEAN" threads that were made at least weekly.

;_;

Oh well. I understand what you guys are saying.

Styphon - thanks for the edit.

I think the moods were limited so some relatively normal smileys Yamamanamamamamama, but yeah, the HP/MP bars, despite looking interesting and such, did tend to draw too much attention from newbs.

If it was implemented, I'd like to see it as a user CP option, that was off by default. Because I really wouldn't mind seeing the EXP bar again. Just for show of course.

The HP/MP bars were lame, however moods could be added, as there's an empty space where they used to be. I'm undecided about the job classes.

I posted about it in the journals, but I'll post it here too for public notice.

I would like to see the classes return, but only on the condition that "Dragon" is changed to "Dragoon".

I mentioned in the journal that I'd like to have the HP/Xp/MP bars back, but now I'm not too keen on the idea anymore. For one thing, the bars are too long and will make the board all stretchy.

The HP and MP bars in particular don't do anything at all, so that can go. As for the XP bar, we already have the % beside the level, so that's not needed either.

I think the current post count section looks nice enough as it is.

GFF isn't an RPG. I really think doing away with the bars was one of the best ideas ever. Classes were similarily pointless.

But one thing I've always wanted to ask is why do we still have levels and a percentage meter if the HP/MP bars are gone? It's always seemed out of place. I don't think anyone honestly uses those as a gauge for anything. (Well, Majestic did, but he doesn't really count.)

Someone fill me in on what "job classes" means, please.

Are you asking for an explanation of the concept, as it would apply to a Final Fantasy game, or of an explanation of how it would affect GFF?

Job classes where basically a tiny image that was under the postbit, Alice. You chose one from a list of about 20. It was nothing special.

The idea was taken from Final Fantasy and other RPGs.

GFWiki's article saves the day :).

It was one of those useless features that sets a postbit under your avatar. Personally, I would definitely like to have that feature back even if it is just for kicks. Provided we do get to remake many of the user class banners (I just need the font!)

As for the HP/Mp bar feature... I don't know, GFF already looks like a RPG, with the level mod under our avatar. I'd be all for it if it were a optional feature like the custom username feature.

The font is called Fight Club, or something like that. I think you can easily find it on Google.

Oh just this little silly picture you could have under your username. Like plumber or warrior or something dumb like that. It didn't affect anything. It was mearly there. I guess if you were a Nintendo guy you could put plumber as your class or something but it was mostly pointless.

I'd be interested in moods. Not sure how often I'd change it but it'd be a good idea. We'd probably need to make a custom mood set that fit in there.

Haha, wow found it already. Thanks Aardork!

Now we just need a general agreement to actually have that feature back ._.

I'm down with moods. It makes things a little more human and personalized, in my eyes.

I also do agree with the return of "job classes." They were fun to pick out and change every once in a while. But I do think that the HUGE bar and font that represented jobs were bad. That Fight Club ripoff font is tacky, especially since our new GFF banner got more sexy looking.

My suggestion for brining it back would be to either create a more lithe and sleek job class banner, or use a sprite from one of the many games that use a job system. Removing the Member # could help solve space issues. (Get over it. The only number that counts is bobo's. :mad:)

I side with the man on this one. Classes are lame. Also, if they do come back, and one of them is Dragoon, official boycott follows.

lol.

After reading each post, I feel as if job classes were definitely useless. My only reason for wanting them back would be for added customization (and nostalgia too). I could do without HP and MP bars because they attract unneccessary attention and made posting a chore just to keep stats high, but the mood would definitely work out.

So this is my updated stance.

I only used the job class feature for two months before the forums went down, and they were removed completely.

I don't think the HP/MP bars are necessary though. I found them useful in the past because I had an idea of what my postcount statistics were, but they didn't add anything to my posting experience. They were interesting additions though.

The idea to optionally turn on the HP/MP bars sounds like a good one, because that would be something that everybody could personalize GFF with.

However, I really think that they don't add too much to the forums as a whole, so pile me in with the group that's saying "No".

If HP/MP bars are coming back, can we please fix MP so it's possible to have more than 25% of your max once you get a decent number of posts.

Also, I wouldn't mind having some sort of mood field even though I doubt I'd ever use it. Maybe ditch the broken gender icons and throw it in that spot.

I was just thinking, what if the job classes went along with each forum and your class would change to the forums class that you post most in. For example if I post most in Marios Warp Room my class would become Plumber or whatever. If I suddnely get more posts in another forum my class would change.

A little bit confusing

A whole LOT confusing.

oh well, I am bored and I was trying to make this postbit thing useful-ish

I think that would actually be a neat way to represent chocopie with an image in the postbit, though.

Hmmm... well that's basically taking your top forum in Chocopie and automatically giving you a tag for it. It's not a bad idea and sort of identifies where you hang out the most on the forums but I wonder how useful it would be.

lol sup RR?

The more I think about it, the neater the idea sounds. It would definately give the forums something distinctive about them, and a sprite to represent each forum would be perfect (sup community contest for selecting sprites).

I'd kill to have a Tonberry carrying a knife be the mascot for the Kitchen.

Yeah but how many people would actually have that? ='D

I'd say it'd be nice to have maybe your top 3 forums as small icons or something. That way MAYBE just MAYBE you could have that Tonberry.

Could we make the sprite for TQP just be Squall?

While we're brainstorming, /r/ the sprite for General Game Music Discussion be http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...yMusicIcon.gif.

I fully support this ChocoPie Picture business, but only if the Testing Forum's image is a praying mantis.

what's this? I'm getting support for an idea? I guess it's scottys time to shine!

I'm throwing in my 2 cents into the hat of... um...

okay, so that metaphor went nowhere, but I think it'd be a nifty idea to have icons for your most posted in forums. Kind of like a GFF GamerCard!

Ooooh, the possibilities THERE...

This is pretty cool! The class system would actually mean and represent something.

Now that I think about it, moods are stupid when they're not tied directly to posts. Ditch the idea, and PLEASE fix the gender icons! They work when you view a person's profile, and is annoying to check everytime. I like to know what input I should give a person based on what genitals they have. :/

So does that mean there might finally be a use for that Sass icon that someone posted a while back?

Instead of returning it for an eternity, maybe we could have a GFF Nostalgia week or something... Everything about the early days of GFF, back for one week. Then afterwards, the would never be heard from again, until someone brings it back up two months later after missing that one week. It's not a horrible idea though, and it would shut up the fanboys/fangirls of the olden days for a while.

Even though before I liked the HP/MP bars, looking at it now, it ruins the whole simplicity of how the forum looks now, so I guess, it's fine the way it is.

I think the picture based on your most-posted-in forum would be pretty cool, but I wouldn't want the postbit to be streched out any (seeing the former class pictures in the wiki, I'm sure the postbit would be streched). I wonder what the pic for My Stuff would be?

An image of a dick?

I can see it now: "Why is your imag a dick?"

I like that idea.

I think this is a great idea, on the condition that all the icons aren't too bent.

So why not dump some of the useless info in the current postbit?
 

Hey, that's a awesome idea scotty. I like it so much I actually made a few new userclass banners, I'll put it in my journal later today =D.
Maybe if we got rid of the "user #" and "Since xxx 2006" lines that would solve the minor postbit stretching problem. Other than displaying seniority in the forum I can't see it being as neat or aesthetically pleasing as a user class banner based on where you post most often.

I must say this is a pretty bad idea. Please don't add anything to the postbit. Its very much fine as it is.

It'd be kind of awesome if your HP went down when you got flamed. Of course, I'd probably end up dead if that idea were implemented...

NOTE: Not a serious suggestion.

Why not bring back those stat bars? They weren't useful, but one the same end, it doesn't sound like they hurt anything.

Compared to what our postbit has now the only thing it would do is considerably stretch the postbit vertically. I can't say I'm in full support of that idea though. I'd be happy with just the userclass feature or mood icon, maybe both.

Edit:
Oh yeah almost forgot, here's the journal entry containing some of the user class banners I made.

Stupid feature no one needs. But getting the mood feature back is top priority. Look at that wasted space to the left of the member rating thingy. Bring back the moods.

apart from the feature is bit pointless, I think it quite interesting. I would like to know how hp and mp reduced though.:) by being trolled by other people? or by trolling other people?

No, it had something to do with posts-per-day and post count for HP and threads-per-day and thread count for MP, I believe.

If anything, we can also argue that it might have encouraged spamming by some in order to boost these useless numbers.

Thats true. The system encouraged spamming unfortunately.

Do any of the members of administration have anything to say about this?

those are pretty cool Kairyu, I hope this feature gets used.
Another thing, the userclass banner can be a quick link to the chocopie

True, but that would make the forums now more lively, no?

And also, if the mods were doing there jobs, and the members did their part... then I don't see a problem, besides a far more active forum, which I think we could definitely use.

I think it would be cool if we could have small emoticon sized images for this. I'd say there is room for 5 of them if you put them to the left of the flag. You could even have an option to limit the amount of them there. So let's say the first three are of the first 3 forums a users posts the most in, in order from 1 to 3. The next one could forum a user has been most active in this week. The last one could be the forum the user is currently viewing or if that user is even online or invisible. These would all dynamically change based on data collected from the forums like Chocopie of course. Wouldn't that be neat?

Hmm. I used to have the original formula for this (from vb2), but I can't seem to find it.
Either way, MP is changed by posts per day * :abunchofequations: and I know for a fact that HP is changed by total posts * :abunchofequations:.

Decided to try it out with my top 3 forums: Mario's Warp Room, The Sewers, and Moderator Hut

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/4...umiconsit4.jpg

Hmmm... it's okay. I feel like it's a tad crowded though. I might just need to make better icons though. I dunno. 8-bit graphics seem to look fairly nice as icons though which goes with the gamingforce name deal. Not sure.

This can work, just needs some refinement. If you're going to go for the offline/online icon, that offline/online text line can be removed.

Or move the rating down below the icons, or something.

I dunno, just needs some thinking or something. I really can't do that right now, it's just not in me to think.

It's nice, buddy. But it feels too cluttered. Maybe if you completely lost the ratings cubes it would work better, but multiple graphics on the same line just makes it seem like too much.

I like the way it is now. Mood might be fun, but why do we need two OTHER icons in there too?

I don't know about 8-bit images, Acer. Even if it's gamingforce, they don't really match the theme Bobo's building here. try adding lensflare.

lol I know they aren't that great, lurker. I'm just making roughs here. ='D

I came up with another idea. Somehow have it generate your top 3 forum icons and display each in the corner for about 5 seconds or something. Less clutter!

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/7...constopgs4.jpg
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/4...sbottomdy9.gif

How's that? =o

I still really don't understand why we need this. Do I really want to have flashing shit going on in the corner in my eye while reading?

However, member ratings five bars should always be present, and they should be yellow to indicate your rank. That would look a lot better.

It is less cluttered, but still, I don't know Acer. Might be a little early still before we dick around with Bobo's layout again.

It's just an idea. I mean if you were to put something in that corner. What would you put? Would it be fun just to put a tiny image of your choosing that fits in a 24 x 24 space instead?

I kind of like that last example, Acer. It's nothing too flashy, and it shows a bunch of info.

Going with the styleset, I'd have to say that the icons would be better off enclosed somehow with an image such as http://benji.axalian.nl/dlist/images...m_old_lock.gif is.
That is assuming that they would be implimented at all.
This styleset is better off with enclosed/square graphics than it does with those that are oddly-shaped.

Yeah, I'm done with that for quite a while.

Well I just thought about it because we did have moods in that space before at one point. I don't think it's as big as display names. It's not needed either. Just an idea.

Acer, I liked your last example. I appreciate your attempt.

I like these ideas, really. The HP/MP/XP bars and chocopie images would be neat, but perhaps the former should be optional.

I'm not a huge fan of the animated one, but that's just because I hate animation.

I think just one picture of your top forum would be pretty neat and wouldn't require massive changes to the postbit or clutter it up much.

how about replacing the gray rectangle where the ratings and flag are with a banner representing your top forum. Like this but better:
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/729/bannerhu2.gif

Well you definitely get the best of all the features but now it looks like a mess, to be honest =p.
Maybe if you grayscale the banner itself with the other icons on top it might look a little more pleasing. Something like this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r_example1.jpg
Well you get the idea :).

That's not a bad idea, but seems kind of redundant. I'd say have the grayscale banner be the user's top forum and the icon be the forum the user is currently viewing. How's that?

I'll second that. Now we just need better images to represent each forum.

Seems a little cluttered to me, personally ;_;

I am going to have to fully agree with this. Let's save GFF and bring back moods.

Fine by me but it'd have to pull it from a new mood emoticon list b/c you can't have ol' xbox in that tiny space.

That looks like all those Winamp skins that people make, thinking that just putting a photo of their favourite artist in the background is a good idea.

it was just an example of what I meant, I threw it together in 2 seconds with the first random image I could find. I just wanted to get my idea across so more talented photoshopers could take over