So we are finally going to do a major overhaul to the 2old2play community website. It has been a while and after years of hacking and adding to an old and archaic system we figured it was time to move all the content over to the next generation of Content Management Systems. Like a lot of projects we work on with clients, we found Drupal to be the easiest method in creating a better overall CMS for the site. This is not to say that we do not use other CMS’s for projects. Word Press is still the best method in a fast deployment of smaller “blog type” web sites. It works well for clients who just want to get something out there in order to have a web presence. There are also ways to extend it even further if you wish to grow and scale the CMS, but when mass amounts of different content come into play, Drupal is still the king.

Try Drupal 6

This will be our first step into the world of Drupal 6. With the completion of mods like CCK and Views, Drupal 6 looks to finally be a viable option for creating a complete dynamic web site. With Drupal 7 right around the corner we figure the late and great Drupal 5 is finally coming to a close. The new security measures, better, API, and easier admin area should be enough now to get anyone to switch. The only road blocks with Drupal 6 seem to be the module hold outs from developers who have still yet to commit to Drupal 6. This mostly comes into play when you look at the field addons for CCK. For us, this is an acceptable loss for the future of our community. As time moves on, mods will no doubt come back inline with 6 and we will be ready to implement them.

A Community Focused Design

I have always liked the current design of 2old2play in terms of its look. The only issue I have with the design is how it functions for the end user. It’s a bit convoluted and hard to understand for even the longest of members. A lot of this happened as the site grew and we continued to ad new features. Things got moved and pushed around until a lot of the navigation ceased to make sense. Old and useless features still remain a part of the navigation and new features take far to long to find in order for them the be useful. The biggest issue, however, is how little our homepage really reflects the site and its’ members. If anything, 2old2play is about the Clans that it hosts and the members of those clans. Our homepage doesn’t do enough to inform new comers of what 2old2play is about. It also means that when new people sign up, they have a lot of trouble deciding where to begin. Do they blog? Do they search for a clan? How do they do these things? The main focus on the new design will be to show new members a clear and easy path on how to really become a part of 2o2p.

The Beginning

Currently we are working on moving the unbelievable amount of content off of 2old2play and into the new mock version. Along the way we are going to be cutting out features and content that we deem obsolete to reduce the over all mess that 5 years of gaming can bring. I’m hoping to keep up some posts over here and on 2old2play to feature our progress as we move forward and solve the problem of moving old content into a new CMS. I’m sure issues are going to arise and if these blogs can help others in the Dev world then that will just be an added bonus. Until next time.