“There’s something out there, something big…” Quickies Posted by Jonathan Capps on 30th August 2012, 20:55 Hello! You know that Red Dwarf X thing that’s happening? Yeah, forget about all that for a moment, we’re going to talk about ourselves for a bit. Now, pay attention because this concerns YOU. Put simply, at some point next Friday / Saturday (barring any large, unforeseen problems) Ganymede & Titan will be doing a great big re-launch all over your astonished faces. When it does, the biggest change you’ll notice is a brand new design. It will still feel like G&T, but we’re very happy with the improvements made and I’m pretty damn sure everyone will like it aplenty. The Content Management System the site runs on will also be migrated from an old, dusty version of Drupal to the nice, new version WordPress. That part is more for our benefit, though the widespread use of WordPress should mean most of you will be familiar with your new user account screens and the like. As a result of the content migration, you can expect the whole site to go read-only (no updates, no comments, no nothing) at some point next Friday (7th) and then eventually disappear for a while before magically reappearing sometime later on, in all its relaunched glory. The Forum migration is proving be the biggest challenge and as a result it’s quite likely that it will be closing it for an extended period of time (possibly from this Sunday until the launch). I’m going to do everything I can to avoid this, but consider this fair warning that you might be without your fix of talking shite on there for a little while. It’s not all doom and gloom, though, as comments will be remaining open until as late as humanly possible. We’ll give you a more detailed rundown of the new system after we’ve relaunched, but we’re intending the transition to be as smooth as possible for everyone. If you have any specific questions / comments, then fire away. We now return to our regularly scheduled programme.
Okay…on the one hand: Yay! Go Team G&T! On the other hand: no talking shite? Bugger. Better make sure we all know who’s who on Twitter. Looking forward to this, gang. Hope it goes all good, and stuff. ;)
Ah, fuck sticks. This update is going to make Gazpacho Soup look even more shambolic than it already does, isn’t it?
Good luck! And thank you for it, and all the series X weeks on air prep. >(possibly from this Sunday until the launch.) What is it that are you sending into space??
Don’t sweat it, the new wordpress version of my site was due in April, and at the rate I’m going you’ll probably beat me to it.
> As a result of the content migration, you can expect the whole site to go read-only (no updates…) at some point next Friday (7th) And no-one noticed. :p [Remind me why you didn’t just use WP to start with. I’m not being facetious, there WAS a reason given, but I don’t recall what]
> And no-one noticed. :p Actually, the ‘No Updates’ thing isn’t really an issue as we shouldn’t be offline for long! Also, everyone should have all day Friday to talk about whatever’s been released that day. > [Remind me why you didn’t just use WP to start with. I’m not being facetious, there WAS a reason given, but I don’t recall what] John decided on Drupal (and we all concurred) back when we were planning the big merge / relaunch in 2006. At the time it seemed to suit us better due to be so customisable (specifically custom content types, which WordPress didn’t properly support at the time). To be honest, we considered sticking with Drupal for this relaunch (which, to put how long we’ve been putting off into perspective, was about two years ago) but I now have the experience of developing with WordPress and it seemed like the sensible option.
New model screens are out and judging by the position of one of the camera’s the old flyby credit sequence could back from Series 1-4. Good times. http://uktv.co.uk/dave/blogpost/aid/653659
I don’t really know if this is the right place to post this, but being as the model shots have appeared in this comments thread, here we are. I’ve not seen this on the Dave site yet, but it appeared on the SFX site an hour or so ago… http://www.sfx.co.uk/2012/08/31/red-dwarf-x-official-poster/ Lovely stuff.
If the scoop was half its size…and the classic boosters were back…and I had a larger bag of peanut M&Ms in front of me, all would be right with the world… No, the Dwarf model truly is sublime, and more than we could ever have expected when the series was first announced. Just…the scoop!!!
The scoop does look a bit big for the ship. But at least we have a physical model. I wonder how much we’d debating about the ship had THIS model (the 12 foot version not the Hybrid version we have now) as a proper model instead of CG. I don’t hate the long ship. i think it was the fact that the new ship was CG AND longer. Had it just got longer, maybe we wouldn’t have hated it as much. Just a thought. Because I remember when we saw the 12 foot model shot flyover at a DJ once. I just thought it was the most gorgeous model shot they’d done.
The scoop looked a bit out of place at first, but you know what? It’s growing on me. Hell, I’m just pleased to have models back…
I like the new model, including the scoop. I’ve heard people saying they don’t like the new model because it’s too front heavy. Anyone who says it’s front heavy is stupid – it’s in space, it’s weightless, it can’t be front heavy.
I hope there’s some kind of storyline reason, even just a throwaway line, to explain the change of shape (again) and then it won’t bother me in the slightest. We all know it can’t be helped – I’m sure if the original model still existed they would be using that – so we may as well just accept it and shut up about it.
Capps should feel ashamed for not titling this update “Something’s Going to Happen – Something Wonderful”.
Red Dwarf X will be available on demand: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/media/news/a404221/dave-yesterday-and-watch-to-get-on-demand-players.html
Just to keep you all updated, I’m going to be closing the forum and comments tonight, probably around 9pm BST (although it could easily be earlier or later than this, depending on how things go). After that, things get a little murky. If everything goes very smoothly, we’ll be relaunched in the wee hours of Saturday, if it takes a little longer then it’ll probably be early Saturday afternoon.
Relaunching in the wee hours of Saturday? What hours do you normally do a wee during on a Saturday then? Thats a big piss if it takes hours. Good luck with the new code thing, Hope it restores the site IQ, to that of 12000 digitalspys. Before you go offline can I Just sing a happy reminder song. Do do do do less than four weeks do do do new dwarf on tv.
