Ambrosia Software, Inc. has created the Avara web board in response to people from the Avara community asking for a method of interaction -- so for all of you who play Avara, here's your forum, post away!
Ambrosia is currently working on a web site redesign that involves folding "product" web sites (ie, (url="http://"http://www.Avara.com")www.Avara.com(/url) ) back into the main Ambrosia web site (with some significant changes, of course). In the past, we've tried to have third parties maintain the Avara web site, but we've run into difficulties.
The first problem is that in order for someone to be able to maintain a product web site, we have to give them an account on our server. This is problematic because we expose our server to a security risk by giving out accounts on it (both unintentional and, more rarely, not), and we value the security of our customers information. Additionally quite a bit of hand-holding is needed to get people up to speed on where things are on our machines, how to edit things, etc.
Additionally, despite their good intentions, most people lose interest in maintaining the product web site when it becomes like work. After we've spent quite a bit of time to make sure that a person is trustworthy, taught them how to use our web server, helped them along the way with scripts (we can't just give people access to writing scripts themselves, we need to approve them for safety's sake) -- well, it's quite a bit of work to turn around and have to do it all over again, once they've run out of steam.
Finally, there's quite a bit of duplicated information on our product web sites and on the main Ambrosia site. With a bit of a redesign, we believe we can provide something that's better for fans of Avara than the current scheme. By using our own system for the web board and web pages, we can ensure that everything continues to work well into the future. The plan is fourfold:
1. Roll the product web site back into the main Ambrosia web site, with an up-to-date FAQ, etc. Soon (url="http://"http://www.Avara.com")www.Avara.com(/url) will point to a very different place than it does currently.
2. Create a web board for Avara for people to interact on, and appoint someone (or perhaps a few people) from the Avara community to moderate it.
3. Create a comprehensive Add-Ons section for Avara, with web-based admin-ing capabilities, allowing someone (or perhaps a few people) from the Avara community to review and release Add-Ons (new level files, etc.) for Avara.
4. Create a way for a list of web-based resources for Avara to be maintained by someone (or perhaps a few people) from the Avara community.
The net result is that we'll be providing a web-based method for people from the Avara community to admin a modern web board, web-based resources page, and file downloading system, without having to give out accounts on our machine to do so. We'll also be trimming down duplicated information on the product web site, and providing streamled and up-to-date information on Avara there.
Certainly some people will complain about the changes, but change is not easy, even if it is for the better. We'll be deploying this plan in various phases over the next few weeks -- stay tuned, I think you'll like what we have in store. Some of these changes are rather ambitious, so please bear with us as we work to roll it all out.
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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.