The forum is changing, and it's changing in 140 characters or less! (April 1st Shenanigans!)

Apologies, this announcement was meant to be posted a little earlier, but your friendly neighbourhood Jay is rocking a bit of an illness and we Admins were still finalising these exciting new changes with Forumotion top brass. Balla may try to tell you that as a former Admin, there was no direct line to the Forumotion executives, but I would ask you to not believe his lies. I'm fairly sure his posts in 2017 have been part of an elaborate NaNiWriMo project and consequently are all fiction anyway.

You see, both myself and Zero have been looking around the Internet to see what works and what doesn't work when engaging in discourse about games. Long-form chat is a dying breed, as is the traditional message board. What we discovered was that the most intelligent chat came from short-form, snappy conversations - I'm referring, of course, to Twitter.

So, that's why we've decided that as of today, GNamer Forum will be changing its ways. There'll be some new rules implemented over the coming days, and we're having a trial run of sorts today to iron out any final kinks in our grand plan. We ask you to co-operate with these changes until Forumotion manage to implement the changes into the architecture of the forum. Any attempts at circumventing the rules will be dealt with accordingly. You have been warned.

Therefore, welcome to the rules of the brand new @GNamerForum!

1) All posts following this announcement must be posted with 140 characters or less. We suggest using this tool today until Forumotion get our character count checker properly implemented. http://www.lettercount.com/

2) We encourage the use of appropriate hashtags. Once everything's working, you'll be able to see everything posted about #BreathoftheWild, or #RadMobile, or #herons. It's going to be easy to continue the conversation!

3) All new users must sign up with an "@" symbol proceeding their name. Don't worry, old guard, your changes will be implemented for you tomorrow, but if you'd like a test-run today then let us know (in 140 characters or less!) and we'll get it sorted.

4) Remember, smilies don't count as only one character, but rather it depends on the code required to input them eg.  : castle : = 8 characters.

5) Signatures may be used, but they will also contribute to your character limit. Please either delete your signature or choose not to attach it under your posting options.

6) You may "quote" posts to continue a conversation, and for today only we'll allow old, boring long-form posts to be quoted. From tomorrow, this will be breach of the rules.

New rules may be added as we go, so check back to ensure you're not breaking any!

Thanks folks, and welcome to the dawn of @GNamerForum.

I like the new Gnamer logo. #GNamer #Logo #Yass

Our copy-write lawyers worked very hard to ensure we wouldn't be sued by the menacing Blue Bird. #seeyouincourt

The stress of sorting this, work, and the wedding has been incredible.

Excellent, now I don't need to join #twitter for that essential twitter experience! #Gnamer4lyfe

We're hoping to couple the snappiness of Twitter with the good nature of GNamer. #ourlittlecorneroftheinternet

#BuggerThisForAGameOfSoldiers

You know, we thought of you when we decided to change the forum like this, @Balladeer. #BallaLovesAHashtag

Right, that's enough of that - this was, of course, our April Fools joke for this year. It's a shame it's fallen on a pretty quiet day for the forum overall, but thanks to those who played along.

I did consider banning Athers for 7 seconds after his FLAGRANT breach of the rules in the Zelda thread, so count yourself lucky boyo.

We now return to your regularly scheduled long-form #content.

I put the '@' on my username and forgot how to log in about four times.

Aha, I should have said I'd changed your username back for you!

I think I've used the wrong logo too when rejigging everything - thoughts on this bigger chunkier logo over the logo that has "forum" underneath the GNamer text?

No, I meant during the time it was there. "Can't log me in? But that was definitely my username and passwor... ohhhh..."

Is it just me, or has the logo eaten a Super Mushroom?

Not just you, although I kinda like it, it lends a certain badass element to our picturesque corner of the net- "don't mess with us or we'll lock you in the pokedix thread"

JayMoyles wrote:

It's a shame it's fallen on a pretty quiet day for the forum overall, but thanks to those who played along.

There was little chance of me forumming the last couple of days. I worked an 11 hour shift on friday, finishing at 10, then went out for birthday cake and gin until 2am. I was then back in work for 6 on Saturday morning, worked through til 1 without a break and immediately got in my parents' car to drive to cornwall. Went to a 50th wedding anniversary party and danced all night, then we came home Sunday afternoon and I had just enough time to get in a quick nap before it was time for Wrestlemania.

I am a very hungover Drunka.

JayMoyles wrote:

I think I've used the wrong logo too when rejigging everything - thoughts on this bigger chunkier logo over the logo that has "forum" underneath the GNamer text?

I think Stu created the "FORUM" version when Gintendo Namer first became a thing, to differentiate the two, but we tend to just call that Gintendo and this GNamer so it isn't such an issue any more.

I'm pretty set on keeping the logo as is, to be honest! I like the chunkier logo and the Grackler is much clearer than with the smaller logo.

Yeah I'm fine with it also.

I've never had such a good look at the grackler's furrowed brow. Poor bloke.

Why'd you think he eats all manner of things? (Mostly it's people with a side of electric soup.)