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A Glimpse Into the Future

69K views 908 replies 243 participants last post by  161029 
#1 ·
Hello Overclockers!
I have been a little more silent than usual over the past few months - hopefully for a good reason.

I am sure many of you are aware of just how much we want to take this site to a place that better represents our vision. A vision we have alluded to since the early days of the site. Clean design, innovative tools, no-nonsense performance discussion.

While we have excelled in some areas - we have simply had to ignore others for the time being for numerous reasons - the largest being access to top-tier dedicated resources to make it happen.

I am very excited today to offer up a means to accomplishing much of what we originally set out to do. Your structured, productive questions and feedback are most definitely welcomed. Our goal here is to gauge your overall impressions of this change before taking the next steps. Please don't simply comment something to the sort of "I don't like it". Explain why!


What is being proposed?
A developmental partnership that will take Overclock.net from where we are now to something, that in time, will offer more robust functionality and more professionally designed experience.

What types of new additions will we have as a result?
Integrated Wiki / Articles, New Design, Centralized Product Database, Better Member Reviews, Integrated Rig Builder etc.

Have some mockups?
Sure do! Please see the attached images for some very highly conceptualized mockups. These are meant to illustrate a general direction. Don't take anything too literally at this point. A core team of staff and members will be part of a private sandbox to refine it fully.

What are the tradeoffs?
Change is never easy. We all know that. Think of this as changing your operating system. Things may work differently than you are used to, may be placed in different places etc. What we are proposing here is a roadmap that will eventually take us well beyond the offerings of most other "forums" and a development team to get us there. Our goal is not to replicate the current experience - but rather improve it where possible. It will be an iterative process.

Here are three examples of changes that could fall under the category of "tradeoff" for you.
  • No standard bb-code editor. It will be WYSIWYG only
  • No sort threads ability in thread view to help reduce clutter and # of links
  • No post icons to help reduce clutter
Once again, see "What types of new additions will we have as a result?" For examples of things that will be added to the site.

How long will this take?
It will take months before you see the new Overclock.net but work by a dedicated team would start immediately upon the decision to move forward with this roadmap. We will only launch the forum once the testers (selected staff and members) are happy with where we are at in the sandbox stage. This could be 2-4 months as a rough estimate. Other features like the completion of the RigBuilder integration (which allows members to correlate benchmarking and folding performance with components!) could take up to two years to be fully realized. I am sure you will see parts of it much earlier than that though.

Summary
This proposed roadmap will, in time, provide us a with a refreshed look, cool new tools and a dedicated development team that will continue to evolve the platform as a whole.

Next Steps
Please provide your questions/feedback in this thread.

Thanks so much!
admin

EDIT: It looks like the homepage mockup was corrupt so I added an older mockup of it. It's been refined a little more since then. We will replace it asap.
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#3 ·
Great...can't wait to see it implemented.
 
#4 ·
Great ideas.

I love the new design and the new features which will hopefully be implemented soon.

I'm split-sided on the post icons, it makes things more eye-catching if it's urgent but makes it look more cluttered, as you said.

Overall, I'm all for it


Great ideas!
 
#7 ·
I like! DO IT NOW! um.... please?
 
#14 ·
Admin, does this mean we'll have it sooner rather than in three years? No offense but i think we're all tired of being teased with new designs that haven't come when expected.
 
#15 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by wierdo124 View Post
Admin, does this mean we'll have it sooner rather than in three years? No offense but i think we're all tired of being teased with new designs that haven't come when expected.
Your frustration is mine on this issue. Please trust me on that.
It's a perfectly valid question.

The timelines are listed in the OP. Once we sign on the dotted line, development will begin


This would put all of the pieces together it seems. Like I said - it will be "different" than where we are now - and may feel a little strange - but it's most definitely a roadmap that will lead to progress.

As a little perspective, the dev team we would be working with has been putting out updates twice a month for more than a year on the platform.
 
#18 ·
This is excellent , this will really breathe new life into OCN.
 
#24 ·
Yes, Yes, yes. This design is much better than the other one posted months ago. Very similar to current, all the info is up front, the only thing, and i cant stress this enough so its going to be bold on its own line, is...

The forum must NOT lose the ability to fill a widescreen monitor. The so-called Wide View.

Having a widescreen monitor, I find it very frustrating that i have to put up with a tiny slither of a thread down the center of my screen on some forums. So lets keep that feature
 
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