squareamp

Hello to the SquareAMP faithful.

Tonight something has happened that has not occurred in quite some time… that is, effort has gone in to the site to make it something that can build into a larger community again.  Over the last few years, SquareAMP has essentially turned into a vBulletin community of 15-20 people with just a front page for the casual postings of news related to the Square Enix video game company.

While the history embedded within our vBulletin database stretches back nearly 8 years, all efforts I have made in the past to move this site back into a larger website have failed because of this software.  I have gone through multiple revisions of CMS software to try to keep vBulletin im tact, but in the end these would all be reduced in functionality because of this.

So tonight we do something new - something different - the SquareAMP backend has been completely gutted and deleted.  In its place, I have installed the blogging software WordPress along with a plugin pack of social networking features called BuddyPress.  Coupled with a cool looking theme I have, and what you have here on the front page probably looks the same as what the SquareAMP page has looked in the past but it isn’t.  We’re able to move forward now and start to build the site SquareAMP was, and what SquareAMP will become yet again.

And if you care to join me - which I hope you will - the first step is to click “Sign Up” there at the top.  Once you have an account, you are free to start in on the fun.

Among the new features:

• Completely cross posted site, with user IDs and all, that allow you to do anything within the squareamp domain.
• Expanded user profile that allows you to define who you are as a Square gamer and an RPG gamer.  The profile will be greatly expanded as I put more effort into it.
• The ability to BLOG.  Yes, blog!  You can blog in a million places on the web right now, but will make this unique is that your write-ups here on this site have the ability to be part of SquareAMP.  No longer is “reporting” on video game news limited to 2-3 people with forum access.  Any of you can now write for this site, and quality work will get promoted to the front page.

So dig in, get used to the site, and have your friends check it out too.  Please enjoy!