Weekly suggestions are done, just a couple of really small changes coding wise. Tokens can now be purchased from the token exchange at a more reasonable price and fixed some issues with smilies triggering in the wrong places.

New thread in the suggestion forum by me, go reply to it now if you want to have your input on the new template. We're discussing what should be displayed in the real time "combat log" at the top of the page.

The new template is pretty much finished and ready to go, but I'm still not happy with it yet. As always I'm not going to let a deadline force me in to releasing something before I like it myself and as such it will not be released today.

As the template is quite controversial with some people, I want to get it perfect before bringing it here. I've addressed countless issues raised with it, giving the option to move sectors to the top / bottom, re-adding quick links to the side, etc. But at the moment I'm not remotely happy with template control page. It is nowhere near as intuitive as I wanted. Also the active combat log is yet to be functional and the page expands in its set width when 1 side bar is removed. Meaning lots of pages display in a distorted way as the were never designed to stretch.

To speed up the release please go on to the development server (if you're an avatar) and help me test it, that's what the dev server is for. There is a thread in the main forum there for constructive feedback.

Competition is back up in the Main Forum, old one was taken down due to staffing changes. So please re-submit your entries, I'll be finishing off the new template this week-end. Should hopefully be done and online by Sunday or Monday.

Next on my list of stuff to do is the Staff System, as I put that on hold to do this. Next week will also see work re-commence on Vortex Online along with the renewal of the Weekly Suggestion system. So get posting smaller suggestions in the suggestion forum, I'll be implementing one of them each week. We lost a few staff recently so expect hiring to begin again soon.

New competition is up in the main forums, we're opening all 4 gang logos up to possible re-design. Not 100% sure that all of them will be yet. All associated colors will remain the same eitherway. Post your ideas to win cool stuff!

The new template is coming to the main game next week, not sure if it will have fully customizable backgrounds at launch as I have issues with remote linking of background images. The plan is to allow players to upload an image to our server to use as a background image, but that requires obvious security measures that must be tested out.