The times, they are a changin'...

[Vanish]

... and so is this site!

We wanted to let you know about some changes that are coming down the pipe and how they affect this site and these forums. Xero has officially joined DreamScape Visionery (Soon to be an LLC) and we are pooling our resources along with newcomer Develish. We will be developing applications primarily for Mac OS X and iPhone OS X. We are dropping our web development service offerings and focusing on real application development and providing community support.

As part of this endeavor we are officially pulling the Lost Soldiers web site into the DSV network. The focus will still be community gaming, no worries, but instead of a few dozen forums with barely any posts as this site has succumbed to, we are going to tighten up the focus. As part of this tightening, you can expect the following:

• Most of the forums here were put in place while LS was a game server hosting operation and active gaming clan. The sections dedicated to supporting those now defunct ventures will be archived offline and removed.
• The general discussion areas will be tightened to those areas that receive consistent interest.
• The gaming forums will be completely overhauled to fit with our new vision of gaming community discussion.
• Topics which have not had activity in the past 365 days will be trimmed from the database.

Basically, you're going to see a lot disappear and even more integrate together in more broad-based forums. This should remove a lot of the confusion of where to post and drilling down to get to the right place to make a post, or follow one.

A couple other changes that will be coming: All sites in the DSV network will standardize on the following tools:

• Forums = MyBB (you are in SMF forums now. Kiss them goodbye soon)
• Blog = WordPress (yep, LS is getting a blog)
• Wiki = DokuWiki (yep, LS is getting a Wiki too!)

If you are interested in volunteering to help run (and by run that includes being an active, and I mean ACTIVE content provider within DSV guidelines) either the new and improved Lost Soldiers gaming community site or the coming soon AppleGeeks community site, please drop a message to volunteer@dreamscapevisionery.com with "I Want To Help Out!" in the subject line. Volunteering is simply that, donating your time and effort. There is a chance that sometime in the future we will need site managers which will be paid positions. To qualify for one of these positions you must have established interest and dedication to the site in question for a minimum period of time to be disclosed when the positions are posted. Be sure to include the following information when volunteering:

• Your Full Real Name (First & Last Name i.e. Chris Van Cleve)
• Desired alias (i.e. Vanish)
• Site you wish to volunteer for
• The capacity in which you wish to volunteer

Exciting times are just around the corner and we hope you'll stay along for the ride!

[Blimigerite]

Good to see you around again Vanish.  Can you help me picture the upcoming changes?   Is the front page lsclan.com going to be the active collective gathering for the new forum, blog, and wiki links?  It'll be interesting to see how those get tied in.  I've never really seen any other sites that have a combination like that.  Most are either wiki's for a specific interest with a supporting forum, or any other combination of 2 of the 3 features.  I can't think off of the top of my head a place that actively uses all three types.  How will the blogs and wiki be used?  What other sites are included in the DSV network?

[Vanish]

The home page will actually be the blog with links to the Wiki and Forums plus one-off pages like we used to have. The trio is actually much more common than you think. Take a look around for Web 2.0-centric sites. This will be DSV's Gaming community, so the blog and Wiki will be focused tightly in that area. Each of the three core pieces will serve different purposes for the site and will not be allowed to overlap. (For example, an editorial is a blog item, not a wiki entry. Back and forth discussion is a forum feature not a wiki or blog comments item)

As of right now there will be three sites comprising the DSV Network.

http://www.dreamscapevisionery.com/ <- This will be the site where we offer our products and services for sale and provide support for them.

http://www.applegeeks.org/ <- This will be our site to discuss all things Mac OS X, iPhone/iPod related from usage to development to power user tips.

http://www.lsclan.com/ <- This will be our gaming portal. At first we want to provide gaming news, the infamous LS quality discussions in the forums, and a wiki of game server administration tutorials, articles, etc. along with tactics manuals, play tips, official cheats, etc. (Notice I said official, like built-in cheats. This does NOT include hacks or 3rd party cheats that are designed to ruin the fun for everyone)

Oh, and to answer a question I received via email (more fun to post it here) Yes, Xero is now a Mac owner and learning to be an Obj-C developer. His MacMini is being driven to his house straight from the factory as you read this.

To answer two other questions I got via email: Yes, I resigned my position at Apple to free up time to be with the wife and work on this endeavor. No, I did not delete my blog forever. It's being re-implemented as part of the DSV Network as well, just not as an official site.

[Optical]

I am looking forward to the changes.  Blogs and Wikis sound like they will be pretty cool.  Keep up the good work guys!