12-12-04
Introducing my second animated gif image: Santa's sleigh being pulled by a dragon! As only the second image I've ever made, it was definitely an ambitious step up from the blinking christmas lights. Both Santa, his sleigh, and Shenlong were drawn be me from scratch, which took a long time to do. The gif has a number of animated features: Shenlong's nose blinks, his body undulates as he flies from left to right, the reigns also adapt to the undulation, and Santa waves. I'm really impressed with myself and happy with my work. It's definitely the highlight of this Christmas Layout!
Perhaps some of you are wondering where the stockings went? I moved those to the members page to give that a little Christmasy feel too.
In RPG News, the semifinals of Tournament 2004, featuring Gage vs. Omen and Musashi vs. Indigo, are almost coming to an end. The matches have been awesome!
12-08-04
I created phase 1 of the Forced Heroes Layout 2005 Limited Christmas Edition today! Check out those awesome stockings! There's one for each Administrator and Officer. I made all of the stockings from scratch in Photoshop, so it was my first foray into using it to create some type of clip art, and only the third time I've used it to draw a picture from scratch (as opposed to editted images, and varius banners, titles, and bars). I think it turned out really well and I'm impressed with myself. Coming soon to the Limited Edition version will be the first two animated gifs I've ever made. I can't wait to put 'em up!
12-01-04
No no, don't worry! You've come to the right place, this is still Forced Heroes! I'm just working on uploading Layout 2005 right now. If some of your favorite links don't work, it's because I haven't gotten to that part of the site yet. The message board link should still be working though, so this update shouldn't interrupt any roleplaying. Everything will be up and working by the end of tonight! I promise!
Update: Hey everyone! Layout 2005 is now fully operational. All of the links are connected and the site mechanics are working perfectly. Now that it's online, I do see a few changes and touch ups that need to be done (the scroll bar colors for example), but otherwise it's looking good. Animerpgnet.com seems to be down right now, so it's unfortunate that I have to see the dreaded red X there in place of their Topsites button. Layout 2005 LImited Christmas Edition coming soon!
11-16-04
Ceres here! Things are looking pretty good here at Forced Heroes! I've gotten some profiles up and running, updated, and even a new country added to the world map. Plus, the Tournament 2004 Quarterfinals have started! Check it all out; awesome stuff!
11-10-04
Today is the last day of Round 2 of the Tournament, and I'm really anxious to see who the judges will pick as the victors. The Brackets are finally up for all to see, here on the main site, and you can check them out by clicking on the "Tournament 2004" link on the navigation bar to your left. I also updated the Saga page, because it still said Vengeance! Haha! On the OOC board I'm going to post a message for someone to start up a Co-Saga, so we'll have that adventure running, too, it'll be great. All is well here at the start of the holiday season. Happy belated Holloween, Happy early Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, Birthday, Kwanzaa-- Happy Everything!
10-15-04
Let the games begin!! Despite a few minor delays, Tournament 2004 started with a bang yesterday! I can't wait for the bigger action to start as these matches get underway! YeeeeAAAAHHHH!!!!
10-03-04
I realized last night that I forgot to thank Seriyu at our affiliate RPG, Legends of Dragonia, for the inspiration to improve our World Map section. Alot of the formatting for the Country Descriptions was taken from his site. Thanks, Seriyu! He has a great RPG with a similar format to ours at Forced Heroes and if you're looking for a second RPG to join, I'd recommend his. Even I have a character there!
10-02-04
The day you've all been waiting for-- or maybe just me-- has arrived! The new World Map section is complete and ready to open! Check it out! The map is now interactive, just click on a continent and it will go to a section describing countries in that region. Members can now also name countries that their adventures take place in. The map itself is a spliced image put into a table that took me awhile to make. The big accomplishment for me was making the South and North Poles. I had to take the linear drawings of them as shown on the World Map, split them into sections, and circumscribe them around a circle. I'm impressed even for me! I'm wondering if an even more advanced map could be made utilizing Flash. I reckon so. I'm thinking about talking my cousin (who's good with Flash) into helping out, but we'll see. A Flash map would be even more awesome! But until that day, enjoy my HTML masterpiece!
09-27-04
Work on the World Map resumes! This morning I did the descriptions for Trent and Mangels, and I also added Bryce's island. No no, the updated map isn't publicly accessible yet, but I'm shooting for the end of this week (once my midterms are finished-- ahh... the joys of college life). Vengeance is just about over and we'll have a short rest break while the tournament gets organized. That reminds me, we're still really behind on archiving; neither the Mangellan War, Tournament 2003, or the Celestial Sphere saga are archived! Spoo! >_<
09-22-04
The links page has been updated. Old links were removed, new ones were put up, and it looks a little nicer. Check it out and click on some of those links while you're at it. Some good stuff there ^_^
09-04-04
I've been hard at work fixing up this RPG so that it will be all set to go by the time I leave, so that Alykoth and Hiei will have as little to worry about when it comes to the site with their busy schedules. Some of the RPG rules have been improved, so check them out on the rules page. The "Don't Kill Someone" rule, the "Auto-hit" rule, and New Technique Costs have all been modified. Have a happy Labor Day weekend everyone! Bring out the BBQ!
08-22-04
Inspired by the map section on one of our affliate RPGs (Legends of Dragonia), I've decided to update/upgrade our own world map section. Nothing is online yet, but I've spent the weekend making country maps, blown-up (as in made larger-- not exploded) island maps, and working on a new World Map page. Expect the new page to be uploaded in the coming days (I promise). It'll be more informative, interactive, and cooler looking than ever!
08-10-04
Hey, it's Ceres! I'm back! A few profiles have been put up (Yamtao, Yojimbo, Seriyu) and updated (Sanity). YaY!! ^_^
07-30-04
I made a minor change to the front page colors by changing the light grey back to standard white. My apologies to those new members whose profiles aren't up yet, I'm waiting for Ceres to come home so I can train her. If I did them all for her, she'd have nothing to learn!
07-22-04
Neo, here. The message board is being made over! I'm experimenting with different gradients, scroll bars, and Hiei has agreed to make a background. By the time we're through with it, it'll look awesome B-)
07-17-04
Hey there! This is Ceres! I'll be helping out with Forced Heroes for a while in the main page department, "webmistressing" and whatnot. Fun times coming up!
07-11-04
Ahhh... summer vacation. Forced Heroes seems to be in that summer mode-- everything is rolling along nicely and the number of updates are few. Even this paragraph is just a "filler" because I thought it would be nice to write something here, despite the fact that nothing new has been added. The board is a little quiter than usual, either because people are travelling or they're having computer problems (I'll actually be reformatting my computer again this Tuesday and upgrading from Win 2000 to Win XP). It always happens around this time, so I'm not too concerned. And put into perspective, even this "quiet" phase has more active members posting now than it had this same time last year.
07-04-04
Happy 4th of July everyone! Light the fireworks and let 'em rip! Bring out the grill and put on the meat! Have a Happy Independence Day even if you're not American; there's nothing wrong with another excuse to throw a party. Unfortunately for me, I still can't access Proboards from my computer. I'm going to try another computer later to see if that will work temporarily, but hopefully this computer will be back in business in no time.
06-16-04
We added a new affliate today, Shuno's RPG: Legends of Dragonia. Click on the button on the entrance page and check it out! A new "New Member Tip" was added after Bolt crashed into the middle of the Juin capital. Don't land in Juin!
05-30-04
Tomorrow is Memorial Day in the United States, so let's all salute our war veterans. I watched the dedication of the World War II monument today; it's really great that they finally erected one. In board news, the Dragon Orbs are active again, so you all can go out hunting. Only I know where all of them are though, and it's going to take some work if you want to find them ;).
05-25-04
I had my last final from 7:15am-9:30am this morning, which means I'm now officially on summer vacation! Let the updates begin! I'll be putting up a number of new member profiles today and doing a little bit of work with Administrator training. The techniques Telepathic Messenging and Read Mind were added to the Class I list. Also, I put a new restriction on the Class I abilities that are exclusive to certain races. One of the topsites listed has gone bad, so that will be deleted. My thanks to Kenu, though, for the work he is doing getting word of our site out there. I'm definitely noticing the increase of new profiles in the FH inbox, and the board is bustling with activity. If this keeps up, we might need to occupy a second planet! Not to mention a new host (Animerpgnet.com never got back to me, I guess that means "no" grr...)! Haha! The war saga is rolling along fine and the site in general is running smoothly. Happy summer vacation, everyone, and good luck with those finals!
05-12-04
I archived a little bit more of the Juin saga today! Haha, yeah, I know it's going slow, but I'm getting there!
05-04-04
Happy Quatro de Mayo, everyone! I don't plan on making any updates tomorrow, so I figured I might as well say something tonight. BUT, this Thursday, I'll be adding a few new profiles and editting existing ones for God-Moding techniques. It'll be a big day for many of us here at FH!
04-26-04
The Celestial Sphere saga is over and we're looking forward to a break from the drama with SkizZ's straightforward 'War' saga. Hiei made a wish with the Dragon Orbs (It's about time someone did!) and now they're free again. However, they will be inactive for one month and won't reactivate and be available for collecting until May 25th.
Bored? Next time you come to the site (or even now if you want to press the Back button), click on some of those Top Sites links and vote for us! Let's bring in those new members! In related news, Tyreth and Zechariah's profiles were added today.
04-13-04
I updated Scloud's profile. Check out his picture! Hiei's saga was added to the 'Upcoming Sagas' list.
04-08-04
Happy April! As they say, "April showers bring May flowers," for me, this means the more projects I have crammed into April, the easier school will be in May. Just like everyone else, I've been a busy bee, so the Archives, the World Map, and Admin School all took a backseat to life. I'm getting things done one by one though, and I think I'm doing pretty good considering my workload. In May, I'll be making my big 'To Do' list and knocking things off left and right. Hopefully once summer vacation starts for the resident Archivist he'll get on that ball too. But otherwise, things are running as smooth as ever.
(Later that same day) Look! I got something done! One or two (or three?) months ago, Kenu put DBZ:FH on five top sites lists. I added their banners on the entrance page today. The bad part is that of those five, two sites no longer exist, and the third closed their top site section. We'll just have to sign up for more.
03-28-04
Scratch that 'viewable with no problems' statement I made in the last update. Hiei's a whiner with a bad attitude that needs an adjustment, but he is good at identifying problems, even if he does act like the world is coming to an end! The problem is that when resized to 800x600, the scrollbar in the frame doesn't perfectly resize, so you can't see portions of a page. It'll be fixed in the coming days. I might have to make some code magic to make this fully dynamic.
03-26-04
The page is now viewable at 800x600 resolution with no problems! YaY for me! I'm still deciding my strategy when it comes to larger resolutions, whether I want to make huge screen filling images, or just center the image and keep it 1024x768, with some type of border. And for you proud few who still use 640x480, you're just going to have to deal with the viewing problems I'm afraid.
03-24-04
Work on the new layout continues. So far, the main problem I'm running into is the scrollbar. The main page isn't meant to scroll, but the 'unscrollable' scrollbar still appears. I wish it would go away. The other problem is how undynamic the site is. It was designed at 1024x768 and it only views correctly at that resolution. Even at larger resolutions there are viewing problems. I'll be working to correct the problem in the coming days.
03-22-04
SkizZ's island was labelled on the World Map last night. I'm almost done with the new layout, and I expect to have it up by tonight or tomorrow night.
Breaking News: The new layout is now up and running! If pages look funny to you, it's because I'm still in the process of updating links and colors on the other pages of the site-- things might not match for a little while, but soon it'll all be looking smooth.
03-17-04
Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Activity on the board has been going down as of late, most likely because school is in full swing; I know I've been really busy lately. I'm trying to find time to update the layout but things just keep coming up, and my connection is still bad, so image hunting isn't going so well. I think I'll have a break from the mayhem this weekend and I plan on updating.
03-04-04
Sorry for the lack of updates lately, things have just been going haywire! I really wanted to make a post on February 29, because it was leap day and it only happens once every four years! But oh well. My PC at home is broken and not fixed yet. So the new layout I promised won't be coming for at least another week or two. I was also working on a layout for Hiei that's now delayed. But my problems at home don't stop things from happening. The other day I made a very important post on the Announcements board regarding the future of Forced Heroes. Today, I updated Omen and Alykoth's profiles. And the Celestial Sphere saga continues. Keep it rolling Karius!
02-18-04
Thanks to Kenu for adding Forced Heroes to five top sites. The links and banners for those sites will be added this weekend. Along with this, I'm going to reformat the site this weekend so it all fits nicely. In other news, Musashi's profile was added to the Members section.
02-15-04
Samyik was inducted into the Hall of Fame today! Congratulations to him! I also fixed some organizational problems with links and menus, so both Deandes and Ace have links to their new profiles in the Hall of Fame. I think I'm going to revamp the look of that page to make it more Hall-of-Fame-ish, if that makes sense.
02-14-04
No updates, I'm just wishing everyone a Happy Valentines Day! This especially goes out to my girlfriend: Love you! ^_^
02-13-04
Today will be a memorable day in the history of Forced Heroes. First, the Eden board was officially deleted, and the Role-Playing section of forum is split fully into continents, which is a monument to how much this RPG has grown since its humble beginnings. I hope it will continue to grow even more. The sad news of the day is that Samyik, our most valuable RPer and most frequent poster, has quit Forced Heroes. He was a masterful writer and a great second-in-command, who did a lot to improve this site and make it an awesome place to play. This morning, reading his post that he was leaving dulled me inside more than at any other time a player has left. Today was a really cloudy day for me, not to mention it's the day of bad luck.
I'm really disappointed in my staff right now, as hard as I know they try. My greatest officer quits mid-saga, I'm mad at my other officer for his constant bad attitude and conflicts with other members, my archivists are being sluggish in archiving, and the advertiser isn't advertising. I know you're all busy, but it wasn't too long ago people were jumping in left and right offering to help-- where did those proactive attitudes go?
But one generation replaces another. As true veteran players retire-- Deandes, Samyik, Ace, Gatsu, and others-- another generation rises to keep the game going-- Gabriel, Sardis, Sanity, and our newest member, Musashi. Sure, we hit lulls once in awhile: people get busy with school, work, or just don't want to write anymore, but I've seen this site bounce back a few times from near closure. I hope everyone recognizes that we've got something great here, something that is far from its peak and climbing ever-faster. Give what you can! I appreciate every little something. And at the very least, POST!
So to all of you members who are reading this: we've just lost our most active member (must I mention he was also running a saga?), and I'm scared of the lull that might happen with him gone. Please, for the sake of the other players, and for the game itself, don't abandon us now! I do this site because I love it, and I hope you feel the same. To me, there's nothing like checking out the board and seeing all the new writing to be read. Any little post everyday is perfect. We don't need long essays, so don't feel obligated to write pages and pages if you don't have the time--but let's keep this train rolling strong!
02-12-04
Check out the links page for a new link to Unified Designs, a site run by Hiei and Drakkar. Also, the Button Exchange Program was created today. If you'd like to exchange a button with our site, then let's get in touch.
02-10-04
According to Proboards, our message board host, the server was taken down for upgrades at 9:54pm PST. It says it will be back up in a few hours, so hopefully it won't take too long. I wonder what kind of upgrades they're doing. Warp drive? Energy Cannons? A new body kit? Eh, I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow when it's back up.
02-07-04
Valentine's Day is in a week and I still don't know what to get her! Ah! I hope all you boys out there are having better inspiration than I am. That's the big news for me-- the big news for the RPG is that two days ago I split up the Eden Message Board into continental message boards! I'm expecting more spread out storylines, more concurrent sagas, more organization, and more exciting Dragon Orb quests. I finally finished the picture of Indigo, too. Go to the Members' Section and check it out. In related news, there's a new, improved picture of the Juin Infiltrator. It was drawn in marker this time instead of color pencil, for much smoother, sharper color.I also used photo shop to tinker around with the light lance too. See the Juin Infiltrator picture in the Juin Section.
01-30-04
I haven't done any updating in a while. It's not that there's nothing to update, it's just that I've been lazy with things lately. Archiving, map making, character drawing-- haven't done much of it in the past two weeks or so. And it seems my staff is reflective of the Administrator who rules over them. We still haven't been listed on any topsites, and the archivists haven't been archiving. At least the Celestial Sphere saga is running along nicely. And there's no time to start working like the present!
01-09-04
I finished archiving the Eastern Front chapter of the Mangellan War. Tomorrow I'll do the Western Front. The World Map has had some updating done. Pellonia, Mangels, Trent, and Guiness were added to the map. Bryce's Island is labelled now, too. And whoa! Check out the desolation of the Western Continent at the hands of Qua-Jin and his evil army!
01-07-04
On the fifth, slight tweaks were done to the new rules for upgrading moves and adding additional characters, and they're now in their final form. Today I fixed the Juin Technology page so it's finally at full working order. My weakness so far with this website has been pictures-- whether its putting them up on people's profiles, or finishing that World Map-- maybe that should've been my New Year's Resolution. Oh well, I'll get around to it! And there's no time like the present!
01-05-04
An addendum for upgrading techniques has been added to the 'Additional Techniques' rule. There's also a new rule for additional characters, which I believe was originally suggested by Seriyu. New characters now cost 15 credits.
01-04-04
A new rule has been added! Well, at least I think it's a new rule. I remember having a rule like it before, but I think I deleted it when making revisions to the site. But it's here now. The rule is about the number of times your character can die.
Edit: I found where the rule was. It was a clause having to do with the use of the Dragon Orbs.
01-01-04
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!! Here's to another great year of Dragon Ball Z: Forced Heroes! Heck, how long have I run this place now? At least 4 years, and I think it was around at least a year before then. Hey, five years old is pretty good for a DBZ RPG, from what I've seen, most of them last months at the most if not weeks. I'm trying to take care of lots of updates today, so I can spend the remainder of my vacation doing other stuff off the computer. Credits were handed out for the Nightmare Saga. The Archives are now open. I hope to complete more Juin Saga archiving today, too. The page for the Juin Pocket Dragon is up. Omen's profile is updated, and I finally put up the profiles for SkizZ's Androids (click on his profile to see them). In the days to come, I'm going to do some slight tweeking of this front page as well.