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  • TSS UPDATE: Newly Launched Community Blog and Gallery Features!

    A new way for fans to post their artwork, photos, and written works!
    Dreadknux  · 
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    Happy Friday! Ever since our Anniversary post (and the introduction of the Rings system and the Members' Shop) I've been hard at work building out some new features for the site. I'm happy to announce the launch of not one, but two of these features, that you can get involved in right now! Please take a look below, explore, and post away!

    Gallery

    That's right, the Sonic Stadium Gallery is BACK! This is a place where you can post your fan creations and photos to share with the rest of the Sonic community. I want to make this a primary destination for art-inspired works and community fun, so please feel free to use this space to upload your fan art, fan comics, merchandise photos and more!

    To kick things off, you can check out my (not complete) anthology of fan art over the years here:

    You can create and customise your own Albums, with a whole range of settings including:

    • allow other members to rate/review your artwork
    • allow comments
    • privacy settings to choose who can see your images
    • ownership settings that allow you to share albums with a group and choose who can submit to it

    Any images you upload to Gallery will be added to your Media Uploads too, which means you can easily find and insert it into any other piece of content you create on the Sonic Stadium. When making a post, look for the media drawer underneath the post editor, click 'Other Media' > 'Insert existing attachment' and select 'Gallery Images' from the sidebar. You can search your images and insert them into forum posts, blog entries and more!

    media-window.jpg

    There are currently three major categories in the Gallery right now: Fan Art & Comics (which should be self-explanatory), Community Photos (where you can share images taken at fan events or post pictures of your incredible merch pile) and Sonic Stadium (which is an archive of all our old images and designs - we're updating this all the time!).

    Soon, we will also open a new category dedicated to Official Sonic Media, where the community can collaborate in building a permanent archive of Sonic media. You'll be able to add things like Official Artwork, TV Commercials, Screenshots of games and more. There will be special rewards for fans who contribute to this area when it opens, and I'm soon going to be looking for volunteers in the community who can help moderate and maintain the quality of both this and the existing Sonic Wiki. If you're interested, let me know via DM!

    Rings Bonuses

    Not only do you get to share your artwork with the world in a whole new way, but you also get Rings for contributing to the Gallery too! Here are the bonuses you can expect to get for helping build our community's image gallery:

    • Uploading a new image to Gallery: 25 Rings
    • Leaving a Gallery Review/Rating: 10 Rings
    • Leaving a Gallery Comment: 10 Rings

    Blogs

    I'm also happy to announce the launch of a feature that aims to scratch that itch of any budding writers in the community: Blogs! Many of you have let me know that you would love to have an outlet to express your written talents, either by way of posting fan reviews for games or just being able to casually write about a cool Sonic-related thing they experienced - this new section is made for just that purpose!

    All Sonic Stadium members are able to create one dedicated User Blog, which they can structure and organise however they like. Members can also add posts to existing Group Blogs that we've created for specific purposes, such as a Community Fan Reviews Blog and a Community Sonic Opinions/Fan Articles Blog.

    There's a LOT to talk about related to Blogs, so if you want to get involved give this new Blog post from myself a read, you'll find it under a Blog we created specifically for Sonic Stadium Staff updates and musings:

    I want to also open the floor for Sonic community Content Creators (established names) and Fan Project managers (fan game developers, events organisers, etc) to get involved and build out Blogs relating to their activities too, so that they can keep the Sonic community informed of their updates too. More details on this is outlined in the Blog post linked above.

    We hope you have a lot of fun exploring this new feature!

    A Sweet Community Suite!

    The new Gallery and Blogs section are just the latest in a whole HEAP of community features that we have added or enhanced on the Sonic Stadium over the last couple of months. Going back to our 23rd Anniversary post, I really want to create a space that encourages fan collaboration and contributions - as I said back in October, the Sonic Stadium is really YOUR website. And I want you to have all the tools you need to truly make it yours.

    Just to give an overview, this is the current state of our amazing Community Suite - if you're not familiar with one or more of these sections, I highly encourage you to explore them! Check the content out, add or edit your own content, and put your own stamp on this little corner of the internet!

    The Suite is only going to get bigger and more enhanced over time, so stick around as there's a lot more to come in the future! For now, I hope you've been enjoying the feature updates I've been working on over the last year or so, and hope you'll join me in looking forward to even more!

    P.S. Rings & Member Shop Updates

    By the way, we have made some tweaks to the number of Rings offered to members based on usage and price-banding of items in the Members' Shop. Broadly, all Ring rewards have been increased by at least 2X for all content posted across the site. This means:

    • Posting a new Topic will earn you 20 Rings (instead of 10)
    • Posting a Topic Reply will earn you 10 Rings (instead of 5)
    • Getting a Reply in a Topic you created will earn you 10 Rings (instead of 5)
    • Joining a Club will earn you 40 Rings, and Leaving a Club will subtract 40 Rings (instead of 20)
    • Creating a new Calendar Event will earn you 30 Rings (instead of 10)
    • Posting a Comment in a Calendar Event will earn you 10 Rings (instead of 5)

    Daily/Weekly/Monthly Bonus Rings have been rebalanced. Now, if you have posted at least one piece of content across the Sonic Stadium community within the below time frames, you will earn the following Bonus Rings:

    • Daily Bonus: 30 Rings
    • Weekly Bonus: 100 Rings
    • Monthly Bonus: 500 Rings

    Bank Interest Rates (20%) and Deposit Rates (10%), and pricing/payouts of Members' Shop Games (Guess the Number, Mystery Rings Box, Rock/Paper/Scissors/Lizard/Spock) have been unchanged.

    user-rings.jpg

    We have also added your ring count to the post bit within the Forums section, so you can easily see how much you have underneath your profile picture. I can see some of you still have over 2,000 Rings - go and spend them on cool Profile Cards, already!

    The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way. All proceeds will go to supporting our community and continued coverage of Sonic the Hedgehog. Thank you in advance for your kind support!
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    Dreadknux

    Dreadknux 5,426

    Posted

    33 minutes ago, DaBigJ said:

    Blogs you say?

    What are the limits of a blog?

    All the details are in this intro blog, but if there's anything unanswered do feel free to ask!

     

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    Ryannumber1gamer

    Ryannumber1gamer 46,665

    Posted

    Really do appreciate the boosts to ring count additions. It's been fun trying to collect them for goodies in the member shop, but having the payouts doubled will make it a lot more fun. Plus, it means trying your hand at the bonus games like Guess the Number isn't as punishing if you end up losing.

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    castell-neath

    castell-neath 695

    Posted (edited)

    Wow, thats a hell of a lot of work! Fair play, these features all sound awsome!

    4 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

    Really do appreciate the boosts to ring count additions. It's been fun trying to collect them for goodies in the member shop, but having the payouts doubled will make it a lot more fun. Plus, it means trying your hand at the bonus games like Guess the Number isn't as punishing if you end up losing.

    I tried guess the number. I lost. I was gutted. 

    Edited by castell-neath
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    Danj86

    Danj86 9,167

    Posted (edited)

    I just realized I can use the gallery function to showcase the banners used in the past Sonic Musical Spectaculars.

    *Edit*

    Oh wait. The banners aren't fan art, comics or photos. They're more connected to The Sonic Stadium, but I gather not just anyone can use that category. Never mind.

    Edited by Danj86
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    Dreadknux

    Dreadknux 5,426

    Posted

    19 hours ago, Danj86 said:

    I just realized I can use the gallery function to showcase the banners used in the past Sonic Musical Spectaculars.

    *Edit*

    Oh wait. The banners aren't fan art, comics or photos. They're more connected to The Sonic Stadium, but I gather not just anyone can use that category. Never mind.

    The Sonic Stadium gallery is a protected category just so we don't have just anyone posting things in there, but you're welcome to make an album in Community Photos for the Musical Spectacular banners, for sure! They would fit in there just fine :) (or I could move the album into the Sonic Stadium category if you wanted me to)

    EDIT: Actually, I just decided it was better to make a sub-category just for this purpose, where community members can freely add SSMB branded stuff for their own community run projects. Feel free to make an album here:

    https://www.sonicstadium.org/gallery/category/112-ssmb-community-official-images/

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    sonicclaasic

    sonicclaasic 368

    Posted

    Thank you for theses amazing features I always wanted to shared my Sonic collection with everyone and you made this possible I just liked to say thanks ever so much once 😊🙏

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    Danj86
    18 hours ago, Dreadknux said:

    EDIT: Actually, I just decided it was better to make a sub-category just for this purpose, where community members can freely add SSMB branded stuff for their own community run projects. Feel free to make an album here:

    https://www.sonicstadium.org/gallery/category/112-ssmb-community-official-images/

    Thank you. I've uploaded everything I still have access too which I made for past SMS events. I still want to give each image a proper name and description as that process was taking longer than expected.

    Just to clarify, (Because I do sometimes misunderstand things.) can anyone add assets to this sub-category? Because I'm not the only person to make art assets for the Sonic Musical Spectacular events specifically. While they haven't expressed interest in doing so yet, I want to make sure that @Spin Attaxx, @Emperor Robrainiac & @Polkadi~☆have the option to include their assets too, if they wish to do so.

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    Dreadknux

    Dreadknux 5,426

    Posted

    27 minutes ago, Danj86 said:

    Thank you. I've uploaded everything I still have access too which I made for past SMS events. I still want to give each image a proper name and description as that process was taking longer than expected.

    Just to clarify, (Because I do sometimes misunderstand things.) can anyone add assets to this sub-category? Because I'm not the only person to make art assets for the Sonic Musical Spectacular events specifically. While they haven't expressed interest in doing so yet, I want to make sure that @Spin Attaxx, @Emperor Robrainiac & @Polkadi~☆have the option to include their assets too, if they wish to do so.

    I've set it so anyone can add albums to that particular sub-category, but you can allow multiple other users to upload stuff to the same album so you don't have three different albums all about the same thing. You can manage that by going to the Album, clicking 'Manage Album' and fiddling with these options:

    gallery-faqw.jpg

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