Larian Studios Forums General About this website New forum software: Did you know that...

Oh, the mystery!

Hey Mac, man!

You´re a true&born `chatterbox´, did yoou know that?


Ragon

The Gamestar article I think it was speaks now of "ghost eyes".

I've posted this in April - sadly, no Larian member has responded, and nothing was added or changed in the meantime. Well, you don't have to add it if you don't like it or have too many other things to do, but some comment would have been nice ...

Since my old avatar image somehow went missing, I wanted to look for it, but unfortunately the new forum doesn't display the avatar link anymore (could this please be enabled again?), and I didn't remember from which page I had taken it. So I went looking for new avatar images and found beautiful ones on this page. Alas, they are too big for this forum, and if you choose one, the forum software apparently just shrinks it to 80 x 80 pixels, which makes it look unnatural and ugly.

Aren't those limitations a little out of date, with people using DSL and widescreen monitors?

And why does the new forum automatically assign a forum class and an alignment? In the old forum, I could simply be a "veteran" as long as none of the available forum classes appealed to me ...

In your profile, where the forum software allows you to remove or change your avatar, it also displays the current avatar. You can right click on this image (or in any of your posts) and select Properties in order to see/copy the link to the image (though just listing it directly in your profile would be a little easier).

There is a link to the Larian avatars in the sticky topic Choose your avatar and Forum Classes, along with links to other sources.

Thanks, Raze - I know that one can find out the link as long as the image is displayed. Unfortunately, my image wasn't displayed any longer. It has happened time and again that my avatar image vanished, e.g. because the avatar page where I had taken it from was restructured. In the old forum, the link was displayed even when the image was gone, so I at least knew where I could start looking for the image. In the new forum, this currently isn't possible.

The Larian stock avatars aren't bad (and one can't lose them, I know), but they look quite old-fashioned compared to the ones on the page I have linked above. Most of them have been taken from , I guess ... I wouldn't mind having some nice rogue avatar from , though

Unfortunately, half of the links in "Choose your avatar and Forum Classes" don't lead to avatar pages anymore: The first one links to a forum now, the second one's server isn't available anymore.

Switching to the new forum would have been a good opportunity for allowing larger avatars than 80 x 80 pixels. When I went looking for a new avatar image, I noticed that most pages don't even offer avatars that are so small ...

I do understand that there was a 80 x 80 pixels limit some years ago when people still used 56k modems and the loading times for larger avatars were annoying. But on a 22' monitor with 1680 x 1050 pixels resolution (which isn't that extravagant), those small avatars look rather, uhm, unimpressive

And to be honest, I can't understand the logic in limiting avatars to 80 x 80 pixels when at the same time, people are allowed to use signature images that are much, much larger.

It's a good thing to have a time filter in the forum search, but why is it set to "Newer than 1 week" by default? I guess the search function is most often used by people looking for advice in the help forums, and using a broader time range would drastically increase the chance of getting helpful results there. You can of course manually set it to "Newer than 3 years", but that requires a few clicks which wouldn't be necessary with a broader default range, and some people (especially those new to the forum) will probably not notice the time filter at all ...

If you want to check whether a question has already been asked in the forum, you need to do 2 searches, one with "Newer than 3 years" and one with "Older than 3 years". Why isn't there an option to search all posts in one go? Do searches with broad search criteria significantly slow down the forum for other members?

Oh, and if you're reading this: No Larian member has yet commented on the suggestions of a Rogue forum class and of allowing larger avatars in the posts above

Hi Lurker,

rat is very busy with coding, luckily but sooner or later he'll look into adding a class here and there. Please have some patience, I myself don't dare asking him at the moment

Concerning your question for a time filter when searching the boards: Large ranges can lock the forums until the search is complete. We can't change this, it's part of the forum software. I'd rather keep it like this.

Since I didn't bring you any positive news so far: I'll look into allowing bigger avatars

Just one more question: What do you suggest for the maximum size of an avatar?

E.g. If the maximum width and height are 100x100 and someone uses an avatar of say 50x60 I hope it won't distort it to 100x100 because that looks bad.

But maybe that's not the case at all... Just give me an estimate of the size you'd prefer and I'll check it out.

100X100 pixels seems standard. I know in some forums the user can manually set the display size of the avatar to avoid distorting the picture.

Thanks for your replies, lynn

I wouldn't want the forum to be locked just because people do broad range searches too often, so maybe it's better to keep it the way it is. I just thought that people who come here to find some specific piece of advice on a Larian game could more easily find it with a larger default time filter. Well, as long as Raze is here, it's of course easy enough to get advice by simply posting questions in the forum

I agree with flixerflax that 100 x 100 pixels seem standard. Some forums do allow 120 x 120 pixels, though, which enables members to use an even broader range of avatars - I've often seen 115 x 100 pixels avatars, and even those wouldn't be distorted. I've just checked with a 80 x 60 pixels avatar (similar to the one flixerflax is using), and this one is not resized to 80 x 80 pixels with the current limitations, so I wouldn't expect anything like that to happen with a 100 x 100 pixels limit either

The avatars have now a max size of 120*120 and I have to admit that this looks pretty nice!

Lurker: you apparently need to upload your avatar again, because it still says that the image is scaled down to 80*80.

Larger avatars - yay!

Thanks, lynn

Hope more people will go for a larger avatar, it surely looks better!