Forum configuration

[fer]

As you might have noticed, I've implemented a new style for the forum. Not perfect - ideally, I'd like to make the header bar smaller and lose the diagnoal lines, but better than the completely vanilla one we had originally. The other thing I've done is enable avatars, so you can upload your pictures (or anime characters, in the case of Lor). All optional, of course.

Edit: the diagonal stripes are gone. Sorry, Lor.

[fer]

Added some SA emoticons (these will be familiar to guests form Shack Tactical).

[Tigershark]

Where did the logo come from?

[fer]

Where did the logo come from?

I made it. It's a combination of a messy typeface and manually removing every other line of pixels, to replicate the visual style of early ZX Spectrum and Commodore64 loading screens.

[Tigershark]

Doesn't really speak to me....what is it trying to invoke. Not to get into a whole "we need a logo discussion" a la corporate projects (you know what I mean Fer) but just curious.

[fer]

Safe in the knowledge that this won't make it to Pseuds corner, I'll explain:

I guess we'd call it a trope these days, but in many westerns there's a recurring story about people who moved out to the frontier following the civil war. Whilst many such characters are painted as defeated Southerners, it's not universally so (John Wayne played a retired yankee colonel driving cattle in The Undefeated). The common link is a rejection of the overly-structured, rigid society taking shape 'back East', and a sense that genuine opportunity and freedom can only be found in the wilder territories. When Joss Whedon made Firefly (and then Serenity), which are unapologetic space westerns, this was pretty much the show's central theme: a group of individuals who for their own reasons headed out to the periphery in search of liberty (of a kind). They're not the best films ever made, but the theme always resonated with me. The name Folk comes from a bit of dialogue in Serenity:

Trade Agent: You all are Browncoats, eh? Fought for independence? Petty thieving ain't exactly soldiers' work.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: War's long done. We're all just folk now.

After 3 years of being involved with ShackTactical at a high level, I left because for various personal reasons, but wanted to continue playing ArmA. The difference was that whilst I wanted to create a looser, less structured environment, I've no time for the chaos that is the typical pubbie server.

One night in Budapest it struck me that having the mythical west as the thematic driver might be interesting. Not in a particularly overt way, mind; it's not like I plan on handing out cowboy hats! But it is a driver in the sense that it helped shaped the idea of a session in which personal choice and liberty is valued, and where the guests come from a variety of different groups.

In making the logo I wanted to combine the western idea with the computer game imagery of my youth, when gaming was just pure fun and devoid of politics. So I made something that (hopefully) looks like a loading screen from a game about the west, the kind of title which might have existed for the ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64. Do listen to Dayvan Cowboy by Boards of Canada, because it really is the musical equivalent of what I was going for: a modern, digital interpretation of the mythical west.

There you go. I'll understand if you're all by now! Ultimately, all of this most likely doesn't matter, so long as the end result is a session which everyone enjoys.

[Xiathorn]

I may have had a tl;dr moment, but :

I quite like the logo. It's very 1899, which is clearly Fer. Also, it does the job and the style really doesn't bother me so much - the word is the important bit for me.