Concerning the future

Koholint is in for a change. The picture you see with this article is the embryonic stage of these changes. This summer, Koholint will cease to exist as you currently know it. In its place shall be BossKey, a community and blog built specifically to encourage thoughtful conversation and a friendly atmosphere. That description indeed sounds familiar; it’s essentially what Koholint has been all along. However, there are two words you should notice: built and thoughtful.

BossKey will be built to our needs as a community. In my endless search for the perfect CMS (content management system - the software that runs the site), I have discovered there is no such thing as “perfect” in any freely available package. We will instead build our own software using a coding package called Zend Framework. This project is possible thanks to my dear college friend Suzanne who has graciously offered her time. You’ll want to remember her name, since she will be an important part of the new site as well. Thanks to her dedication and expertise, BossKey will be exactly the site our community needs.

Koholint’s goal has been to bring interesting news and opinions to the community. BossKey will provide the same, but its articles will be written in a way unlike the places from which Koholint regurgitated news. Suppose I want to tell members about LA Noire. On Koholint, I would write about its amazing facial animations and how they allow you as a player to experience a game somewhere between Phoenix Wright and Grand Theft Auto. On BossKey, I would specifically detail the newly developed technology that allows for those facial animations and extrapolate on what it means for the future of games, or I might discuss the potential new genre birthed by this game and its amazing faces. Later, there might be a separate article reviewing LA Noire, informed by thorough analysis of the game and research into the development process and film noir. Without trying to sound too pretentious, I have rededicated myself to the pursuit of writing. Quality reigns over quantity.

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As you know, I haven't been updating. There's a good reason for that though. I don't want to! Yes, the greatest reason ever. To be more specific, I should say that the site in its current incarnation has run me dry. I would love to start writing articles again, but to what ends? With the site as it is, I'm not even proud to show it to people any more. If I were to write something decent that actually got some wider attention, they'd come here and see something that I just don't believe is very good. This is why we are redoing the site. That said, in the next couple of weeks, I will be posting articles on Koholint that are meant as BossKey’s first entries. E3 is coming, and we certainly can’t miss that.

We’ll be introducing several new features along the way, though at first, the site may seem less powerful than it currently is as we continue to build it up. There will be stronger categorization on the front page articles, distinguishing news from features and reviews. Reviews will become more of a priority, where we’ll try to cover most major releases whether good or not. A webcomic is being introduced with the help of the phantom-like Alistair, who plans to use the comic as a means to explore new styles as he studies for an art degree. The forum will have the features you’ve come to expect from any forum, plus thread subscriptions and a smart, simple design. The chat will no longer exist on every page (though this will likely come back as a user setting in the future). Instead, the chat page will have 3 forms - mobile, popout, full page. Many of the new features will be slightly hidden behind the scenes, such as our new karma and ranking system that uses a complex, secret algorithm to combine post rating with post count and join date to determine a user’s rank and title. Other things you won’t notice at all, but rest assured, everything will kick ass.

I’d like to mention the level of user-input on this process so far. I have taken all suggestions seriously and will continue to do so as we build the site. At this point, however, I have decided on pretty much everything that will make it into the site when it goes live. I have already shown a handful of users the full list of plans, but I’m not going to post that here, since it’s a very dense list that really you shouldn’t have to read. If you do have interest in the build process, I would be happy to share any information (apart from the secret algorithm).

Finally, if you’re reading this, you are invited to become a contributor for BossKey. Whether that involves writing, drawing, videos, or what have you, I would be happy to discuss your potential contributions via private message or AIM. Do not be intimidated by our new quality over quantity approach, because I will likely review anything that wants to go on the front page, making any appropriate changes. Or, if you fancy yourself a particularly good writer, I would be happy to have you aboard as just an editor - someone who can help ensure the quality of articles, or of course, as a writer. I will be subjectively choosing moderators as they become necessary during the growth of the site.