The New Stronghold Website - A Goblog of My Progress!

I've been updating the members of the Stronghold Guard with my progress over the past few weeks, but I thought it might be fun to keep all members of the Stronghold updated - so that's what I'll do here!

The new website is running on entirely different software, so once I got it installed I converted all of the content from the forum and imported it into the new forum (any new posts made here are being brought over too).

The new gallery is up and running, but I still need to bring the existing gallery images over to it. The new gallery will allow you to upload images yourself, create categories, comment on images, and the latest images uploaded will appear next to the forum

I've also set up an evolution of the Tribe Database - it has its own area on the new website, and it is no longer a simple forum topic. You can add your Tribe's details and sort the database in various ways (alphabetically, by date of entry etc), you can leave comments on each Tribe, upload images of your Tribe, plus today I'm adding the ability to record your Tribe's wins, losses and draws on the battlefield within the same database.

Goblogs are also evolving. On the new website they look and feel like proper blogs. You can add your own blog banner, each Goblog post can be individually commented on if the Goblog owner wishes it, Goblog posts can be shared through various social media websites, and there are many more options and features to try out. The latest Goblog updates will appear next to the forum, and you can even use an RSS import feature to create a Goblog here if you already have a blog on a different website (your Goblog will update automatically when you post something new on your blog elsewhere).

Pet Gnoblars have successfully been migrated over, though they're being renamed to Pet Gobbos. I've also added Pet Gobbo leaderboards (weekly, monthly, yearly, all time), and you can see how many Pet Gobbos were awarded for each forum post, Goblog etc. I aim to add Pet Gobbo medals for reaching specific milestones

The Bellower blog is returning as a Goblog, fully integrated with the Stronghold website with its own dedicated link in the main menu, and the new Bellower also acts as the main source of Stronghold news on the new website. The latest Bellower post appears at the top of the forum. Members will be able to quickly and easily submit content to the Bellower too.

The latest Stronghold Youtube channel video appears next to the new forum, as do the latest tweets from the Stronghold Twitter account.

You'll also have more options when creating posts, personalising your Stronghold profiles, and there's more to come!

This has been a lot of work for me so far and there's a lot more work to be done (new graphics for instance!), but I've made a lot of progress already - I reckon I'm about half way finished at this point

As I said before, going forward the Stronghold will be a place for fans of Ogres, Orcs, Goblins and any other races of destruction across Age of Sigmar, Oldhammer and Kings of War. The new Stronghold website will fully reflect that.

We are "Dedicated to Destruction"

A Massive Thank you to you, for all your hard work and keeping this community together through a transition that many have/are finding hard

Happy to do it! Should also add that the new website scales well to different sized screens for those of you browsing on mobile devices

This sounds incredibly exciting! I truly look forward to viewing all the hard work that you've put into this, Hragged! I know I personally have been dealt quite a hobby blow due to AoS (and real life, too, but in a good way ), so it's nice that I can still sneak on here once in a while and see the community hang on until a hopeful resurgence of true-9th appears (I'm still clinging to the little hope! lol)

I always felt that the Gallery was something that was sorely missing from the forum (since it hadn't been updated in several years on the old site), so I'm looking forward to re-integrating my photos, and perhaps even taking some new ones just for kicks and giggles!

For the Tribe Database, it would be kinda fun to even have a map from the Old World and the tyrants can place a marker or something near where they pictured their tribe to be located within the Mountains of Mourn That's probably super overkill (and technically obsolete due to stupid End Times...), but heh, just a fun thought

Anyways, many cheers and feasts for Hragged! Keep on keeping on!

I'll look into something like that for a future update Sazel

I've now added a downloads section and an articles section to the new website, which both allow members to submit their creations as quickly and easily as posting a new forum topic! Comments can be left on all submissions.

The articles section is divided into the following categories:

Brutal Cunning
(Tactics and strategies)

The Halfling Cookbook
(Hobby tutorials)

Fireside Sagas
(Fan fiction)

Tribal Rule
(Homebrew rules)

Uvver Stuff
(Miscellaneous)

Some of those names were of course reused from the forum, and speaking of the forum it's undergoing a lot of changes too! I'll tell you about some of those changes now

With the ability to submit content to other parts of the website, I want to avoid 'doubling up' of content. So for instance, members can submit fan fiction to the fan fiction category in the articles section and discuss them there too, so there's no need to have a forum section doing the same thing. Similarly, there's no need to have two places to submit and discuss homebrew rules and painting tutorials.

In light of changes to the website to make it much more open for submissions, the focus of the website shifting to cover multiple games, the introduction of a full blogging system and more, I've been able to boil down the forum sections to the following key discussion categories on the new website (with a few new names!):

Stomping Grounds

    The Mortal Realms
    (Warhammer Age of Sigmar)

    Mantica
    (Kings of War)

    The Old World
    (Warhammer Fantasy Battle)

    Outlands
    (Other games and off topic)


Forces of Destruction

    Crafty Creations
    (Hobby activities)

    Guts and Glory
    (Battle reports)

    Might Makes Right
    (Rules questions)

    Marauding Hordes
    (Army lists)

    The Trading Pit
    (Buy, sell and swap)

The new rules questions section will act a little differently than those we've had before. When a rules question is answered, members will be able to up-vote the correct/best answer to make it easier to find a rules consensus when reading a rules question topic.

For all forum sections found under the 'Forces of Destruction' heading, there are topic tags. This means when you start a new topic within those forum sections, you'll be asked to attach a relevant tag suited to your topic. So for example, if you have a rules question about Age of Sigmar, you'd attach the Age of Sigmar tag. Likewise, if you have a Kings of War battle to report, or a Kings of War army list you'd like advice on, you'd tag those topics with the Kings of War tag. Tagging allows members to filter topics within those sections to show topics for the game they're interested in. There will be several tags to choose from, and topics relevant for multiple games can be tagged with multiple tags

Thanks for reading, I'll have more updates for you all soon!

Another update: a chat room is up and running on the new website, plus a new Wiki (one that is fully integrated with the community) has been created. There are no additional logins required to use it and any member can edit any Wiki page, with each page edit being archived just in case a page needs rolled back to a previous version.

I've also set up the ability to sign up or log in to the Stronghold with a Twitter account, and on the new website you have 'Status Updates' which you can choose to link with your Twitter account, so that your tweets can appear on the Stronghold for other members to see within your profile on your Status Updates page.

I'm setting up Facebook, Google and Microsoft account logins at the moment too, so it's going to be super easy for newcomers to join in with future activities at the Stronghold

Additionally, the new calendar can be added to by members of the community, so for instance you can advertise upcoming events in your area by placing the details on the calendar.

Got some new social media buttons on the new website too (they're a bit smaller than this on the website):



Lastly, here's a look at the Tribes section of the new website:





Just one tribe on there at the moment, but it'll have more soon