Official HG Update
It may seem quiet from the outside looking in, but the owners and EXCOs have been keeping busy with enacting some changes at the upper management level, some of which we will be able to announce properly over the course of the summer.
Management Updates
The owners and EXCOs held several discussions over the future of HG, which subsequently resulted in Socvazius, Jayhawk, GillB, and I meeting in person over the Spring at different locations on the future direction of HG and redefining its mission.
There are some major changes taking place, but at the moment we cannot comment on them until the transition process is near completion and everything is a done deal. Expect to see some major announcements these coming months.
So that seraphs can expect some of the changes, and so that we can gather feedback from the seraphs, we gave them an early preview of the concept and overview a month ago.
PM System
A Private Messaging system is in the works; an early alpha will be available to a select few on the staff to test in July 2007, before going into a invite-only beta later this year. This will allow us to figure out bugs in the system, as well as giving us the chance to allocate the resources (CPU cycles/RAM/Disk Space) we will need before launching the system to the public.
The dates announced are subject to change, but if all goes smoothly and without any distractions (like drama bombs in the forums, security vulnerabilities found in our software, or a show-stopping bug that needs to be fixed ASAP), the PM system will be available to the general public before the end of the year.
Site News
StarCraft II Heaven and Spore Heaven will be joining the HG Family this month.
What is archival and why sites are archived?
When a site is fully archived, it means the site is no longer supported by staff – the downloads, forums, etc. are read-only, and the site’s news and content sections are no longer updated.
When a site is partially archived, it means the site has a skeleton crew, usually only to approve the occasional downloads, post news once in a blue moon, and moderate the game’s forums. In most cases the site’s content and news would ceased to be updated, unless the community submits articles to update. This is a special case that usually happens to a site that shares a staff and forums with other HG sites. For example, the City Builder sites (Caesar III, Caesar IV, Pharaoh, Children of the Nile, Emperor, Zeus) fall into this category and have done just that.
Currently, sites are usually archived in some form because of one or more of the following reasons:
- The Staff on the site decides to archive the site (C-B sites were semi-archived this way, so was Empires: Dawn of the Modern World Heaven),
- There is a lack of staff participation/activity/interest on the site, and
- The community abandons the site (or there wasn’t a community to begin with)
- The game’s developers/publishers decide to duplicate the functions of a fansite (having forums, news, hosting scenarios/replays), and is doing a good job at it
If there’s a staff constantly keeping the site updated, even if the game is a decade old, and there’s a community people not part of HG Staff interested in what the staff has to offer, we’ll do everything we can to make sure the site stays up.
That criteria will probably be readjusted and tweaked to allow for the directional changes that are coming ahead.