Is there any way to upload an avatar? Am I just not seeing it? All I seem to be able to find is the gallery of pregenerated ones.

Thanks!

Sillara

No, only the pre-generated ones can be used, or the portraits (to get a portrait, you need to submit something, here are details).

hmm, why not? its quite simply to get avatars working on just about any forum. It must be for a diffrent reason then... (no space *cough*)

It is as Baronius said in his link, the Dragonshoard download center is big and the community assets page is big, the comming up of WoRm's animations will be big. and there is even more space than that. No the avarars are for people that help out blackwyrm. It is just how it is done here.

ah, I see..

nevermind then my point is moot.

Although, if you help out BWL, you are not forced to choose an avatar.
:-)

I think the scheme is a good idea, it (hopefully) encourages people to do something helpful

I like the portiait policy here at BWL, but why do they have to be so darn small?

As was pointed out, it can't be for want of space.

I like the smaller avatars. Larger avatars are often distracting, and take up far too much room. The size here is nice, you can tell what they are, recognise people, and yet they are still nice and small :-)


NB. 100 posts!

I still think they could be a *little* larger.

I have a 20" monitor at 1600×1200 resolution so the avatar is actually smaller than my actual thumbnail.

But on a smaller screen at a lower resolution, a big-ass avatar could be a distraction.

By the way igi, help me out by turning this thread into a massive debate. I only need 470 more posts before I get *my* avatar!

Woohoo!

Yes... massive indeed

Yes, I hear that a lot...

Hmmm, what were we talking about, again?

*cough* *cough*

Do you want to be in the place of the smilie hmm?

I liked that as well.

I fail to understand why you assumed such a thing at all. Why would anyone be *forced* to choose an avatar?... It's logical that those who help can get one, but be forced to choose one... that would be ridiculous.

Exactly. Because if we would force helpers to take on an avatar, nobody could distinguish them from those avatar people who got theirs by spamming their post count to over 500. Right?!

I would love to help you guys out but I'm afraid my expertise dosen't extend very far into Baldur's Gate. But I love BG and am more than willing to learn. I could probably make spells or items, I read the tutorial and ive been there done that, though it is a tad diffrent. Just the wording...

According to the BWL rules, you can also write a Walkthrough for an IE game, which needs no modding skills.

I don't think, that this "portrait policy" is wise. Modders, admins have their ranks (and that's OK). But portrait is just for a good feeling.
There is a question, what's your "target group". If this forum is just for discussion between modders, than it's all right.
I like BWL, but your forum is the worst (compare to other modding communities).
Graphic is really nice but also chaotic. Maybe you should work on nicer atmosphere, which will attract new users. Not everybody has a time (and interest) for "competitors fight" because of one forum (and portrait ).

P.S. We had a discussion on this topic with Vlasák yesterday. Maybe he "stored" more of my arguments.

Do not envy me

I have to agree that the logic of the "portrait policy" evades me. If it serves the purpose to destiguish forum members from BWL council, modders and other contributors, it may well be acomplished using the stars system. Council members have red stars, modders blue(or purple depending on the monitor) and so forth...
If it is done for saving space, I really don't think it can be an issue, since portrait of that size, especially if they are jpegs can be obout 4-6 kb. Even if we had 1000 forum members, that makes in the worst scenario 6kb*1000=6000kb which is very small space. Portrait size can also be limited to let's say 10 kb top preserve server space.


But about the atmosphere - I think BWL is the cleanest and warmest server on RPGing that I've seen. Just look at the colour scheme - the colours make you feel comfortable and at home. Take the g3 fro example - all white, as if you are in a snowstorm. PPG - white, gray and a little blue. Other forums - varying from brown to complete black. Shall i go on? Chaotic graphics? Where exactly did you see them? Perhaps the BWL logo? Which is one of the few graphical elements on the forum, except for the avatars and the smilies.

Comfortable feeling (because of graphic etc.) is subjective matter.

About the chaotic graphic... Logo is nice. But I don't like these little dragons next to the name of threads. And I think, that the description of these threads should be sometimes shorter. But this is not so important. It's just my subjective feeling.
This topic is about avatars. That's important for me now.

The dragons make perfect sense. It is called The Black Wyrm lair, afterall.

O course they make perfect sense, but they could be disturbing sometimes. Maybe smaller (small )dragons might help...

jab are you a modder or a player?

All you have to do is help out bw in some way to get a portrait.
think of the portraits as a reward, like having good credit you get better loan rates with good credit, should someone with good credit have to have higher loan rate just to make it same for everyone?

could you clearify what you meant by worst modding site. is it because we keep to generaly keep to modding topics and not focus on non modding topics?

I didn't use "worst modding site".

I'm a player. And member of sigil team (with Vlasák, drake127, Razfallow etc.)

The sentence about loans is nice, but you are not a bank.

Forum is about community. You need admins, modders and "normal" members. So yes, you should focus also on non-modding topics (IE Games questions etc.).

I just had an idea, which will satisfy most people. Though it may require that the forum goes down for update again:

If any of you remembers PlanetBaldursGate, they use this system: Foum member can choose from a inforum gallery of portraits. After you reach the requirements you can upload your own image.

sorry I was confused by this I said 'site' when I meant 'forum'.



well this is a place for IE modding, however there is places where we can discuss off topic things if we want.

no we are not a bank that has money but we have banked up other things and our rates are great
it was just an analogy after all

BTW you can change the dragons in you control panel

Hey, BWL is not alone in not allowing avatars. PPG does not allow to store avatars, too: you may upload your avatar from some site, but I, for example, will not do so, since it will steal another site's bandwidth.

Admittedly, BWL rules are stricter, however.

The problem with allowing people to upload their own avatars is that you end up with cats, dogs, game advertisements, drawings etc etc that we feel would detract from the atmosphere we are trying to create here.

Personally I have no problem with members having there own portrait so long as the portrait is similar in style and feel to the current portrait selection. If anyone can think of a system that would allow members to select their own portrait but yet have it within these criteria please feel free to let me know. At the moment the only system I can think of is whereby members ask Admins to review and activate their portrait on an individual basis and to me that does not seem like a good system. I should note that the aim is also for everyones portrait to be unique.

Rabain: Well, I'm using this one: http://www.sigil.cz/webwork/4all/bwl3.gif
And Vlasák already told me, that he will upload it.

But you are right, that this system is not good enough. Well, but for the beginning, you could give access to members to IE portraits.

If someone cares about my opinion (I am really naive). I think that space requirements of storing avatars are negligible. Size of avatar is at most 10 KB (and I would not recommend to anybody breach this limit). If your board has about 500 users your folder with avatars does not exceed 5 MB. I can't stand remote linking from two reasons. First, remote loading really slows all page loading because you have to find (DNS lookup), contact and download proper image - locally linked avatars you can download directly so you will have page loaded (~second * AvatarCount) sooner.
Secondly you cannot guarantee availability of avatar - yes this task is on user himself but image will be unavailable at your forum!

One solution is in having a huge gallery where (almost) everyone is able to choose "his" avatar. Advantages are clear - you are in charge which pictures you want to see on your board and which not or take gallery as a complement for lazy users (novices).

Resolution of avatar is game without winner. Always someone appears who will think it should be otherwise. But my (subjective) opinion is that you should prefer content instead of form, discouraging example can be found at SpellHold Studios where resolution of avatars is enormous. Otherwise when you choose resolution too small people with higher resolution of screen loose details and avatars begin to melt. On my forum I try to maintain reasonable height of post (and it can be problem with custom of IE community to have really giant signatures) but for my forum appears to be best 100×100 pixels. I have another reason for smaller avatars - it does not distract from reading so even if here would be free space for larger ones, I would not fill whole space with avatar.

About BWL's policy to assign avatar for deserts I have mixed feelings. I do not execrate it but it is some form of user-hostility. If you going to change it so be it; if not so be it. I'd like idea about gallery which would includes IE games potraits - BG(2), IWD(2) is classic; PST avatars are beautiful and some of NWN as well (bronze dragon is mine).
About custom avatars I do not think it should be entirely forbidden but they should be related to RPG and assigned with care as you are trying to keep your own style (without any exceptions because the one makes the other).

Space isn't a concern, we do have DHDC here afterall.

It is the other issues that are problematic.

http://www.blackwyrmlair.net/portraits.php contains the portraits, and it can expanded by a new portrait if we agree that it suits the BG/IWD style even if it is not from those games. I think (and I doubt that anyone would disagree) that the portrait you linked to suits the RPG style of BWL forum.

So Vlasak will add your portrait there and activate it if you contribute in anything or do something that meets our requirements of getting a portrait from the official gallery (linked above). Otherwise it's not possible.

As Sir-Kill said, you can choose a different skin. We have several forum skins available, which can be accessed via your profile.

As for not allowing custom uploads, Rabain perfectly summarized my viewpoint as well:

I would also like to react to balduran's words.

I don't see why this system is so unacceptable. Many members seem to accept the in-built gallery of graphical elements from IE games, and are using these images. Some of these items are so nice that once I even considered choosing one of them instead of a portrait. And Galactygon could use a portrait, but he prefers a Dagger +1!

As far as the stars are concerned, in case someone would feel anything negative in it, I'd like to clarify it: it is not for giving 'ranks' to people.
The stars help new users to see which people have forum editing permissions (so red stars show that the member is a BWL administrator and thus can help in many cases, and blue stripes indicate that this member has a mod forum here so you can easily recognise him as the moderator of the forum etc.). So they're not for showing "hey, I have a rank here, you little user!" to new visitors. (Stars are not a rarely used system. Many forums use it, in the IE modding community e.g. TeamBG used it, and AddonCZ uses it.


We tested these when BWL was founded, and agreed that PST portraits didn't suit the forum's style good enough (we tested this visually), and that we would use NWN graphics only if really needed (e.g. if the BG/IWD-styled portraits are all used up).



I admit that this portrait policy can reject many users, but I think that once the (intelligent) user has understood our principles, he will not find it hostile.

The number of BG/IWD styled portraits is limited. Other portraits don't go well with our forum, we tested it. Since the portrait number is limited, they shouldn't be given to every user. Windwalker worked lots of hours to make the BG-IWD graphics in-built database (which is available to anyone!), and I think the forum looks very nice if both portraits and these items are used.
Additionally, I don't see why it's wrong to give portraits to those only who contributed. Someone said that many people "have no time for the competition" or something similar... no one forces anyone to join the 'competition'. Because it's not a competition. It is good to reward those who help directly. I think that intelligent users doesn't find this hostile at all. It is acceptable. A real modder/player doesn't care so much about portraits anyway. And if someone wants to "chat a bit", he is welcome in BWL's General Discussion.

So giving portraits only to a specific group of members is not hostility. I think that real user-hostility (if it existed on this forum) could appear in the attitude and posts of BWL administrators. You can see many forums where administrators, in their posts, are making their position ("power") felt by other users etc. Have I (or any Council Member) ever done this?
Additionally, I don't think too many forums exist where the administrators work so much on the site and forum, and are so helpful as at BWL.

Never mind. It's not so important. And of course, I will not break your rules through Vlasák.
As I said, I'm a member of Sigil Team. So if I do something on internet, than I prefer our site (www.sigil.cz).
Ehm, just one note. Weapons (Items..) as avatars are not so good. I'm a human not a dagger. Maybe some people like it, but I don't think, it's majority.

I was sure you didn't want to violate our guidelines. By the way, I'm also sure Vlasak didn't want to do anything that is against our own concept.


You have a point there. It's a question of personal taste. I think that since this is a virtual place, and a place which is about tales and fantasy, there is nothing wrong when users select BG equipment. (However, while Lilarcor is a funny and powerful, I wouldn't prefer to be in his place. )

Of course.
But maybe I convinced him, that you should change something in your concept. But after all, you are in charge here. So if you said, that nothing will change, so be it.

I am sure he will contact me (and the Council) if he has a new suggestion which we can discuss.

By the way, suggestions are always good, because they help BWL to improve its forums. So I don't say that these discussions shouldn't be here. It's always good when something is discussed (with tact towards each other, of course).

Mine as well but I would not forbid them at all cost.

So you created form avatars something like rank, didn't you? But for most forums it's just feature how to faster recognize users. You are different and that's cause of that "hostility", people are used to have avatar and you denied it to them, didn't you?

And this avatar can say "you little user" itself and it is user independant and it does not depend on his behaviour.
On our forum we do not make any differencies between admins and mods except "Who is online" where admins are shown bold a mods italic. That's all and for us that's enough.

Edit: I cannot delete this post. I wanted to merge it with previous but I can't.

No. This is a modding forum, and that's where the "focus" lies. I don't understand your problem, though: Feel free to discuss every topic you want in the appropriate subforums. There is one for every topic, including general, non-modding things.

For avatars: I go with what Rabain said. We want to preserve an IE game atmosphere here, and restrict avatars to IE game portraits helps this as well as to aquire uniformity that is unique in the IE modding sites and is very appealing imho. I see other sites with animated avatars which is one reason for me not to go there. For BWL I wouldn't mind every member having his/ her own portrait in BG style but as Rabain said the only solution I could imagine is every avatar has to be accepted and uploaded by an admin and I definitely do not have time for things like that.

Well, actually, the fact that people cannot use avatars featuring babies and the like (groan) on this forum helps me greatly and creates a rather businesslike, welcome atmosphere - and admittedly, detracts on other forums. (Heh, I bet my own beholder avatar on G3 wouldn't win a popularity contest, either.)

The only little snag I see is "why can't I have my favourite NPC as an avatar, and he/she can!" - an unfortunate circumstance, admittedly.

On the other hand, if jastey, Baronius or Idobek changed avatars, I would have a serious headache: I am soooo used to imagining them like this....

I would say, BWL's forum service doesn't offer them. Yes it can be felt as hostility because they are not used to it, but as I said intelligent people understand this concept. Using BWL forum is a possibility and no one forces anyone to use it.

Only administrators can delete posts, this is because in this way people have to take more responsibility for their posts. However, if you ask any administrator, they will delete your post you select. Merging is not a problem, you just have to edit the previous post, and then ask me to delete the redundant one.

Yes, yes, I am used to phpBB where user can delete post without any answers (last post in topic).
(In fact I am used to be admin so I do not concern about permissions because I have them naturally ).

It reminds me Microsoft - you are not forced to use our software.

When youre not you are not. Talking abot Microsoft you can always have Linux with a Win emulation. But I don't think the comparison is right. Microsoft, with Windows, has a market monopoly and using a PC nowasays is the same as haing Win as your OS - basicly you cannot use your PC without having it. While BWL is no market leader - just a forum for exchanging ideas and opinions, a place where you can lay out your thoughts and promote your work. People are no condition "obliged" to browse the BWL if they don't like it, just as thay cannot be forced to watch a football game when they aren't keen of it and don't want to.

Balduran: Maybe it was just a joke. ; )

Oh, silly me!

Hmm. 500 posts eh?

*Checks post count.

At that rate, I should be able to choose my own avatar in, oh, another 100 years or so.

You still going to be around then?

I remember broaching the subject before with Baronius, and my suggestion was at that time, and still is now, is to add the portrait gallery for the members that feature portraits rather than weapons, but those portraits (BG/IWD/NWN) are mono-chromatic, shaded with a tone that fits well with the board color scheme. This way the board both will preserve the style, will allow people to chose their favorite portrait, and one could see a distinction between a modder etc and a user.