Even with all the open-source software out there, there are next to no satisfactory packages for building a whole site around. You always have to make compromises which either make the website bloated or barely functional. Making it from scratch is not an option either because you don't want to spend your whole life working on it. Especially if it's just a complement to the project.
Having said that, I'm very happy with how the site is turning out in all aspects. I think we picked a very solid system to base the site around. It's basically the combination of phpBB3 and MediaWiki.
The bulletin board is where all the action is at. If the board sucks, the whole community suffers. So the core of our site are the forums with phpBB3, around which the other things are wrapped. It looks a lot like the vD site – added navigation on the top, resulting in a few sections, coated with a dark skin. Exploring deeper reveals a few more changes though.
The skin itself is more refined, since it is improved upon the vD one and changed to the Conquest style. This though does not mean that IE6 will be supported. Anyone using IE6 will see the skin pretty messed up. Firefox 3 will be the recommended browser (at the moment one of the few with which CSS3 border-radius works, so you'll see some additionally fancyness), but all the other modern browsers will be supported too and should display the skin properly.
Among other improvements, the Conquest official site will include:
- Quick reply.
- Quick edit.
- RSS feeds.
- Friendlier URLs (e.g. /board/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=24 -> /board/news/conquest-sneak-peek-01-main-menu-t24/).
- Listing of similar topics when viewing a topic.
- Listing of similar topic titles when posting a new topic.
The front page is oriented more towards the newcomer. The about and basic info sections taking the primary role instead of a full-blown news listing.
MediaWiki. The prime source of information about Conquest. All details of the game mechanics will be explained there with all the benefits of a wiki.
As with the forum, the style is changed to fit the Conquest atmosphere. But it also plays another important role. The wiki is used as a content management system for the whole site. About, Downloads, and other sections, are fetched from the wiki and displayed as either whole sections or subsections (such as About on the front page), making them easily editable along the way.
For the website we also took the opportunity to vectorize unit and operation graphics, so you'll be able to see a big fat trooper overseeing your wiki actions. He now looks more handsome than ever before.
As the site is being finished, Conquest will be made public ... when it's ready.
