• Date Published: [07/07/09]
• Status: [Complete]
• Description: Part of the overhaul of PBC was to visually make a big change, nonetheless. It would be a sign of the fact that change was certain to come to Vortex. The main reason behind it was to fully use PHP for the structuring of the pages, which gave them more power - this links directly into the next topic about the Vault using a Database. The banner became 100% of the width of the page and the page content itself then became a fixed width. Below the banner space was made for the Quotes Machine and the Copyright now takes up 100% of the bottom like the banner.

As a result of all of the changes, everything is much easier to manage, maintain and even to view, so this was a successful sub-project. If this had failed then many of the other ones would have been certain to, so it has helped immensely.

• Date Published: [16/08/09]
• Status: [Complete]
• Description: Linking into the first project, it was clear that the content of the Vaults were too large to simply have on purely static pages. If the pagse were somehow deleted, we'd need to rebuilt them again with all of the links - we're hosting over 500 sheets in the Enhanced Vault alone! The logical way of storing all of the data efficiently was to opt for building a MySQL database - this database now stores all of the information necessary for the sheets, and therefore makes them easier to store and manage. In addition to this, the Database can now provide information such as who created the sheet, and be organised in multiple ways with queries instead of being done manually.

Also, the Enhanced Vault because of its size has been broken into multiple, less load-heavy pages - Saiyan, Human, Android, Namek, Henchmen, Aliens, Misc and Spriters (that page contains all of the sheets from the previous pages, except ordered by the sheeter).

• Date Published: [--/--/--]
• Status: [Cancelled]
• Description: In an attempt to increase activity with the members and recieve feedback for improvements, an early idea was to have weekly polls placed on the site. These would allow us to see what changes people liked/disliked and act upon them, and to also provide a constant reason for people to visit the site. This idea was later dropped for a larger sub-project: Editors.

• Date Published: [--/--/--]
• Status: [Pending]
• Description: Seeking to put a concept in that is incredibly popular with the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, an idea in Jay's mind was a DBZ Vortex Awards System - when a member has fulfilled a certain criteria set by the staff, they report this in a special 'Awards Claim' topic and are given the award as part of their profile. This then gives members incentive to add to their collection of achievements and hopefully increase sheet productivity over one-shot creations. The main gripes with the idea was the organisation of the awards and how they'd be categorised/grouped, in addition to the use of an Awards Claim topic. The Scouter 'Alignment Claim' topic has served as a test-run for this concept, and because it has been successful thus far, there is a high chance that this will be added to the forum in the near future.

• Date Published: [25/07/09]
• Status: [Complete]
• Description: This was probably one of the most enjoyable additions to make. The mini-profile for members on the forum is usually a fairly blank and bland space on the board, not serving much purpose other than to give brief information about the member (as it should - it is a mini-profile after all). Some time into moving from Excoboard to phpBB2, I changed the mini-profile from a grey rectangular box to a rendition of the iconic Dragonball Z Scouter, albeit fairly scrappy. It didn't allow for any customisation at all and lacked a few 'scouter-ish' touches that were necessary.

Also, the ranking system was in need of a change - initially we had a power-level/form oriented system (eg: Kaioken, Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan 2, Majin, etc...), and to get rid of members posting purely to increase their rank, we reduced that to only 'Newbie' and 'Member'. While it did fulfill its purpose, it meant that the diversity of member's mini-profiles was lost.

So the scouter was redone to look cleaner, larger and closer to the anime's look. The animated scouter letters were placed in the header and alignments (which could be seen as a more condensed version of the Awards System) were added. Largest of all (and most importantly of all) was the addition of the Scouter Avatar, which then took the role of the ranking system. In the scouter, a choice of certain character sprites was made to be put in to represent the member, done in the look of the show (with the arrows and name of the character). This brought back the diversity missing from the overhaul of the ranking system, and the sprites themselves are done in VRP 2.0 style (which ties in perfectly to the next point!).

• Date Published: [31/08/09]
• Status: [Underway]
• Description: VRP was another aspect that we wanted to undergo changing with PBC. The way we'd organised completing the sheets was completely misorganised, so at a certain stage, nothing was getting done. Also, the sprites themselves could've done with an updating. This is where 2.0 came in with some modifications to it's structure.

Firstly, we stopped going with the 'Seasons' idea that was initially used (mimicing the Remastered DVDs released by FUNimation) to order sheet production, and instead we just went with priority and what is available - we decided to complete at least all of the Son Goharotto sheets first before moving onto other characters (this is still in progress). Next, signature moves became less important for completing the sheet - that was a major thing that hindered progress. Certain sheets before were hindering on a custom move/pose being made before it was released, and that took needlessly long. Instead, the whole Goharotto bases would be sufficient to warrant a sheet being complete - extra moves would be compiled for a separate sheet labeled 'Signature Moves', which would also be grouped according to special moves/moments from a particular saga.

Finally is the idea of freelancing - anybody can sheet for VRP so long as the shading is done accordingly in VRP style. If the sheet itself isn't completely up to scratch, it goes in the Enhanced Vault, but if it is, then it gets counted as an official VRP sheet and moves into the VRP Vault with the rest. If a member completes a specific number of sheets, they will be given the alignment 'VRP Member'.

• Date Published: [14/07/09]
• Status: [Underway]
• Description: Of all of the ways concievable to give continual content, the most productive way is to have other people working together with you on it. With this idea in mind, some creative minds within the community were then given the opportunity to help run the site by fueling extra content (non-sprite) in the PBC Editors Sub-Project.

Members were recruited through a topic wherein they needed to deliver a pitch of their idea and a rough time-frame for each article. Once they were given admission into the group, using the Cutenews Content Management System, a personal profile for each of them was set up, as well as a category to submit their work to. With this, they now give in articles on a regular basis to provide a continual reason for both guests and members alike to return to the site.

The chance to be a Vortex Editor has not dwindled yet though! If you have an interest in being one, send a pitch including the Name of your Column, an Overview of its Content, the Time-Frame for it to be Published and Other Members who may or may not be working on it to Angryboy via forum (Private Message) or Email.

• Date Published: [15/08/09]
• Status: [Underway]
• Description: This is one for the shitz and giggles. Something to make you smile when seeing the site (or perhaps be completely freaked out...whichever one suffices). Quotes from throughout the age of Vortex (from the site, forum and even MSN conversations) are logged into the Quote Javascript Code which provides one from the large arsenal of them on every page reload of the site. So go ahead - hit F5 like a madman!

• Date Published: [03/09/09]
• Status: [Underway]
• Description: A little segment to bring the people up to speed was the motive of this gem. Statistical enables the staff to present the facts of the forum (statistically speaking that is, hence the title), and through this it also provides a bit of play-by-play: who is in the lead of post-counts? Who's the most active topic creator? What month had the most registerations? All this is answered by Statistical, and it is scheduled to be released once a week.

Info coming soon...

Info coming soon...

Info coming soon...

Info coming soon...