note: This is The Column, a part of Apolyton where anyone can write about whatever he/she wants :) If you feel like writing, submit your article via the article submission page

PREVIOUS ARTICLES

#78 MILLENIUM GAMING FRONTIERS DanQ passes his predictions for gaming in the years to come. #79 HOW CIV NEARLY TOOK OVER MY LIFE AND DESTROYED MY MORALS Alexander's Horse does not want anyone to lose sight of what is important. #80 HAVE THE FORUMS TAKEN OVER APOLYTON? Iain discusses the significance of the apolyton forums to the admins but also to the site itself #81 THE FORUMS HAVEN'T TAKEN OVER APOLYTON, BUT... In response to Iain's article, Markos wants a chance at a rebuttal. #82 PLUNGE INTO THE ToT FANTASY WORLD Toby Robison wants the Fantasy-realm of Civ to get the attention it deserves. COLUMN ARCHIVE

If you can read this column, it means that civilization has survived Y2K and Apolyton along with it :) Well, happy millenium! Today's topic is a bit associated with it actually. We couldn't go into a new millenium leaving Apolyton in the same "suit" of August '98. Over the last moth, you've been(hopefuly ;)) noticing several changes on the site. Changes beyond the regular daily updating and improving. Changes that are only the first of more to come.

ALD
We started with the creation of ALD, the Apolyton Links Directory. With over 65 links in the first month, it will soon be The place to search for civ related information, if you haven't found it on Apolyton first that is :) It has started also to work as a place where civ sites are reviewed rated and judged by civers, hopefully acting as a tool for improvement.

NEWS SCRIPT, FRONT PAGE, FULL NEWS PAGE
Then came the installment of our news cgi script. This brought a redesign of our front page, due to the new automated system with which the headlines are incorporated into the it. After several tries and lots of feedback(from you, who else :)), we've ended up with two versions, one with and one without news headlines. We've also added some "cookie magic" so that your browser remembers your choice. Finally, we've crated a "full news" page, where one can see all the news of all the sections in one page.

DINOSAURS COVERAGE, NEW LAYOUT
Finally, the other big change, came with our extention in our coverage with Sid's new dinosaurs game. Since we knew it will be part of the Sweep of Time trilogy(also including civ3 and smac), we had decided to cover it, and just waited for... the name! :) The name almost came(it hasn't been officially announced), but it was good enough for us. The new section came in only a few hours, mainly cause the layout and the graphics where already finished. You see, Dan and I had already concluded to the looks and layout of what we call "Apolyton Version 2". Bottom line, if you want to see the how the various sections of Apolyton will look like soon, see the Dino section!

WE'VE JUST STARTED!
Yeap, that's omly the beggining!(and we've got a long road ahead of us).

ALD will soon be expanding to another area, that of reviewing, rating and... shopping of civ related products. We hope to create a center, where if a civer wants to buy a civ game or civ related book, he will will be able to see opinions of actual players, look for the prices on the market, and even buy it online. Our big hope for this part of ALD, is that it is going to be used by the community to to fairly judge the games that the companies are offering to us.

The next changes are under /news, where beyond the Full News page we will have an archive of the news, from all sections! The news archive will be searchable, along with all sections(eventually that is). In the About section we are planning to show a bit better the people behind Apoylton and our hosted sites

Next will come a new section, most probably called Miscellaneous. Misc will have all the content that isn't or shouldn't belong to just one section. The more obvious example is the Column, but there will also be our interviews, contests, etc. The Misc section will also be the place for interesting news from the strategy and generally gaming world.

And when we're done with all that, we'll simply have to apply the new looks to the rest of the sections: civ3, ctp, civ2, smac.... :) And in a couple of... months :) we will end up with a fresh, better looking, easier to navigate, fully updated Apolyton. Sounds like a good plan?? :)

PS. Forums: The forums are not forgotten from this plan. We will be upgrading to the latest version of UBB in the next 10 days or so, but we're also looking forward to an under-development version of it, specialised for high traffic forums, like ours. We're not 100% sure we'll move to this version, but you can be sure we be adding new features either from the official version or from the various "hacks"

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Apoylton Co-owner/administrator

The opinions expressed on this page do not necessarily reflect those of Apolyton CS or GameStats. They are just the personal opinions of the writer.