2018-10-02 17:28:03
Join the Celebration
On the 3rd of October, 2010 - Surreal was born, and 8 years later, I still proudly stand here as your clan founder, ready to unleash what is probably our biggest update since the day we launched. A short while ago, I noted in our last announcement that Surreal is 'back'. I hope today reinforces that message and that we are here to push the boundaries and redefine what a clan can be.
A metric ton of work has gone into this update, and I cannot wait to show these changes off!
Alt Account Support
Thanks to @Meg for doing some testing for us (you've always been the test dummy) - we're rolling out alt account support effective today. As you'll remember, there was a form put out to allow you to update your alt account you have on file with us - this is now going to mean something!
If your alt account is in the clan chat as a member, we will allow you to attend events, compete in skill week rounds and receive the same activity points as per usual. The only caveat is that you can only receive your resource cap reward once per week, rather than getting 80 points per week on both accounts. You will be able to select whether your alt or your main is "Active", and this will determine which name is used for SWC rounds.
For events, all we need is your alt account on file, and we will process the rest.
How do I set my alt as 'Active'?
In your forum user control panel, click "Edit Profile" and locate the option for "Competing Account", to select either your Main or Alt. Please note, you have to have an alt account on file with us before we can actually track it.
If you change this during a competition, nothing will happen. So please make sure you make the selection you want before a competition starts.
All-new HUB
You may notice the subtle change in the top menu and the HUB logo, but we assure you, the changes are not purely skin deep. This is going to be a long update to go through, but we'll keep it as brief as possible.
Once you enter the new HUB, you'll be greeted by a screen that has been designed from the ground up with your time here in mind. As little clutter as possible, with rich cards that display important data when you need it most (while looking pretty great, too!)
In order to pull this off, we had to completely rewrite our events system and start from scratch. It was no easy feat, but now we have some awesome features to showcase.
You're even able to view full event details by clicking on the function button below each event, like below:
High-level Changes
- There are now two main sections in the HUB: Summary and What's On - for clearer navigation
- Rank progress is now clearer than ever, with better visual queues on what's coming up
- Activity information and leadership tables are now neatly hidden away and can be toggled for visibility if needed
- Rich cards with contextual information make for a much more enjoyable experience
- New modal system with animations
- We are now fully mobile friendly, you can bookmark HUB and interact with the clan just as you would on your desktop or laptop
- Forum Post Bonus progress is now much clearer and easier to understand
- A monthly activity leaderboard has been added, showcasing our most active members over the course of a month
- New tracker card which now changes based on the state of our new competitions system
- See what place you are in a current competition, and what place you finished in once it is completed
- See information about scheduled competitions ahead of time, without the need for a forum thread
- Well, we've never had an events "system", but now we do!
- Written from scratch, enables rich cards with information about each event in the HUB
- Fully integrated with forum threads
- Live time zone conversion happens in your browser, you will never have to check a time again - it shows relative to your own time, for example, Friday 9pm
- The old flash countdown from event threads of old is now dead (this was a feature of our event threads since 2010!) in favour of a custom countdown that is cleaner and doesn't require flash player
- API ready for interfacing with our Discord Bot (watch this space for new things!)
- Events are now trivial for staff and advisors to set up compared to how hard it used to be
- The SWC Leaderboard page has been updated with our new site design (bye bye purple!)
- Forum icons have been cleaned up a little, minor template corrections
- There are pretty new rank images and colors - see below!
Introducing Surreal Bot!
As our Discord server has grown in popularity, so has the use of bots such as RuneInfo. I figured we were long overdue for some presence in this space - and we have some cool new features for Surreal Bot that I'd like to share with you now.
You will now be able to see upcoming skill week competitions, skill week leaderboard and daily overall tracking information all directly from our own servers. More features are on their way, but this is just a taste!
!topgain
This command outputs a table with the top 10 XP gainers of the day. Please note that this tracker resets 00:00 UTC daily, and is updated every 15 minutes. A helpful countdown will show on every command execution to remind you of these times. Example output:
Code:
.------------------------------------.
| Surreal Daily Gainz |
|------------------------------------|
| Place | RuneScape Name | XP Gained |
|-------|----------------|-----------|
| 1st | thwoorp | 1,674,633 |
| 2nd | iWader | 1,622,766 |
| 3rd | Kurtinss | 1,357,791 |
| 4th | Squeegee_Man | 1,291,505 |
| 5th | Hulohot | 1,173,549 |
| 6th | DarkElf_mage | 1,012,442 |
| 7th | Debs_Terrwyn | 915,904 |
| 8th | Blurry_Moon | 776,273 |
| 9th | sorchaflaith | 751,542 |
| 10th | Hailfiredude | 587,135 |
'------------------------------------'
Reset in 12 hours | Update in 3 minutes
!topswc
This will output the current top XP gain records for this year during a SWC competition. Example output:
Code:
.--------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Top 10 SWC Gains of 2018 |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
| | Name | Skill | Round | Season | Gain |
|----|--------------|---------------|-------|--------|---------------|
| 1 | Aurorae_Auri | Smithing | 2 | 3 | 25,238,775 XP |
| 2 | Teh_Corey | Firemaking | 6 | 3 | 25,183,565 XP |
| 3 | Rex_Advenes | Strength | 4 | 2 | 25,000,000 XP |
| 4 | Beccah | Firemaking | 6 | 3 | 24,552,355 XP |
| 5 | Rex_Advenes | Dungeoneering | 1 | 3 | 20,000,000 XP |
| 6 | Aurorae_Auri | Slayer | 3 | 3 | 18,565,311 XP |
| 7 | Rex_Advenes | Fletching | 3 | 2 | 15,879,262 XP |
| 8 | Beccah | Agility | 6 | 2 | 14,217,584 XP |
| 9 | Rex_Advenes | Smithing | 2 | 3 | 13,423,322 XP |
| 10 | Aurorae_Auri | Dungeoneering | 1 | 3 | 11,384,203 XP |
'--------------------------------------------------------------------'
!mostactive
This command outputs the top 10 most active members of the month. Example output:
Code:
.---------------------------------.
| September Activity Leaders |
|---------------------------------|
| Place | RuneScape Name | Points |
|-------|----------------|--------|
| 1st | Beccah | 810 |
| 2nd | Flink | 700 |
| 3rd | iWader | 690 |
| 4th | Meghann | 600 |
| 5th | Lady_Spyra | 560 |
| 6th | Kermen | 560 |
| 7th | October_Rust | 540 |
| 8th | Squeegee_Man | 520 |
| 9th | dunder_miffl | 500 |
| 10th | J_A_R_R_E_T | 460 |
'---------------------------------'
!99s
Ever wanted to see who got the most recent level 99s in the clan? Well now you have a single source of truth!
Code:
.-------------------------------------------------.
| The Great 99 Register |
|-------------------------------------------------|
| RuneScape Name | Details | Date |
|----------------|-----------------|--------------|
| Kurtinss | Firemaking > 99 | 12 hours ago |
| Hulohot | Slayer > 99 | a day ago |
| SanneBean | Fishing > 99 | 2 days ago |
| Squeegee_Man | Mining > 99 | 4 days ago |
| Loric | Slayer > 99 | 9 days ago |
| Loric | Strength > 99 | 10 days ago |
| Loric | Attack > 99 | 10 days ago |
| J_A_R_R_E_T | Ranged > 99 | 10 days ago |
| shurvivor | Magic > 99 | 10 days ago |
| Debs_Terrwyn | Invention > 99 | 12 days ago |
'-------------------------------------------------'
!event
This command will output the next event we have scheduled in our new events system (this was one of the cool features we can now have because of it!)
As stated above, this is simply a taste of what we can do with this bot - and now that we have the barebones set up, I am very open to feedback and suggestions on what we can add next. If you think you have an idea for Surreal Bot that will make the experience better, don't hesitate to let us know!
Wildcard - An Update
Now, I know Wildcard was announced quite some time ago now, and I thought I'd just keep you posted with some updates on what's going on. The database schema is all done for Wildcard, it's just a matter of getting the frontend interfaces working now - which would not take much longer. I am going to be upfront and say I am targeting a late Q4 release for this, and we'll probably have our first Wildcard competition by January 2019.
I know you guys are excited to see it, and I promise it'll be worth the wait
Whew.
That just about covers everything. I hope all of you enjoy the changes we've made - this was probably our most ambitious project yet. A lot of testing went into this, along with contributions from the entire staff team and some of our members. If there are any issues, please let us know in Discord so we can clear them up for you. We'll have some more updates coming in November, so stay tuned. Have a great week, and good luck with the Fishing!
You are no better than anyone else, and no one is better than you.
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