P.S. Stone had little to do with this, I hijacked his account and asked him to remain silent today. Don't be mad at him.
- Jeff
So Jeff and I have been hard at work on a very special surprise. We've done a very good job so far at keeping the whole thing under wraps, and it's definitely payed off. After almost a year, we are finally ready to announce the next generation RHG system. A new RHG system that's beyond what anyone has ever seen or done before. One that's fully automated, taking all the work out of your hands so that all you need to worry about is being creative and animating.
You simply create a profile for your character, and our system keeps track of your score. There's a rhobust and expansive battling system which allows you to challenge any other RHG character at any time, but also a matchmaking system similar to the ones you find on video games which will pair you up with another RHG in the same rank as you waiting for a battle. Once you're paired, you agree on terms with the other user and the battle begins. You must each submit your finished animations before the deadline you agreed on, and then your animation goes live for other members to watch and rate. The winner is determined by the person with the most votes after a certain number of days, and that person gets a point automatically!
Clans are also available in the system, also being fully automatic. We've made it as customizable as possible, allowing you to have a clan index page with as much or as little flair as you'd like. Each clan will get their own subdomain to display themselves, and you'll have access to a low-level programming language similar to HTML with complete documentation so you can have a much easier time showing off what your clan is made of. You'll be able to have widgets through this language that show things like the latest RHG battles from your members, recent news updates, or recent posts from the clan forum.
Did I say clan forum? That's right, each clan gets a small and simple threaded forum which members can use for discussions. You're no longer limited to a single large topic, clans will get the ability to run their own small community within the greater RHG experience. Clan leaders will get many great tools at their disposal to set up a customized heirarchy, allowing as many or as little members into their little slice of heaven as they want. Clan leaders will also get moderation controls over their clan forum, and can add other clan members as mods if they choose. The possiblities are nearly endless with what we have made.
Starting today, the RHG system on the forums is being depricated in favor of this new system. The new system will be available soon at http://www.fluidanims.com/, and all you will need to do is remake your RHG character once the new RHG system goes live on the 23rd of this month. There is one important thing to remember: in an effort to spread the RHG love to more people, as well as help push your talents and skills as a community the new RHG system will be fullbody only. When you remake your RHG, make sure you draw your profile picture and animate your demos in fullbody. A failure to do so will result in your RHG being deleted until you get it right.
The reason why we've frozen the RHG forum system now is to give ourselves and you guys time to get ready. There's no point in keeping it up for the rest of this month now that we're gearing up for the big release of the new system, as any battles you're working on will not count, and all the points may end up being reset while we transition. Clan leaders will have time to let their members know, as well as prepare themselves for the new clan system. There will be an opportunity in the next week or so for clan leaders ONLY to get their RHGs set up in a private beta so they can make their clan and have it ready for when the site is released.
We're very nervous and excited about this news. This is the biggest thing to happen to our community in a while and it's going to be awesome. We hope you guys get as much out of the new system as you can, because we had a great time building it, and we're anticipating all the awesome things that will come out of it.
Update from Jeff:
This was posted later in this thread, for those who miss it, here's a screenshot of a recent beta build:
- Stone & Jeff