Mail is now revamped!
-cleaner interface,
-fully MVC (the html design has been separated from backend, and backend improved)
-feature clean up
-easy to improve
-only unread messages in the inbox are counted and will display in the banner at the top
-will add a 'empty trash' and 'clear system mails' so you can rapidly empty your inbox of system messages if you so choose.
Other fixes
-modals in general should now perform much cleaner.
-in particular the item viewer should now work appropriately
-news update message goes away again
remaining:
-forums (hopefully I can do all of the little changes in 1 day and be done with it, then back to game design and bugfix)
-after forums are done, we are very close to being able to get a web designer in and do all the overhaul and clean up the mess I made as well.

The update is the news :P

Its been updated slightly. mostly this is a backend update, to better prepare us for being able to undertake website design overhauls after the site has been fully renovated.

Dont worry, We'll get a real designer (lets face it, I'm not the most artful person out there :) )

-MUCH easier to integrate into the site, more search engine friendly!
- will be fully compatible when we eventually switch over to single page app (this will keep the chat window open, and not reload each time you change a page)
- eventually, improve the system for editing comments, etc,
- makes it much easier to update the news content on the page
- preparing so we can tag posts , etc, file them , stuff like that,
- making space for developer blog , that way the game updates can be sidelined and the page is more cheery
- etc


-- remaining big ticket items
1/ messages(shouldnt be that bad)
2/ forums - only changing the updating posts etc to make it compatible with the single page app
3/ user profiles - incremental change. aka fix as we go.
4/ custom breeds - this will change after we overhaul the internal rendering system etc

-- eta for final makover
1 & 2, less than a week
3 / initial overhaul to make it 'play nice' with the system , < 1 week
4/ unknown, this is a major overhaul. its functional, so I'll probably wrap it in some sort of way such that it doesnt interfere with future page design etc and call it good (aka, procrastinate on this until the final overhaul happening when I finalize new graphics rendering etc)

edit:

We're ready to go!

The last few days of the Easter event, We'll switch to the new system to try it out, and then following that we will cut over for the future.

Now we can :
- add interactive elements such as maps,
- create daily tasks
- different types of events.

Of note:
with games being fully setup with modern MVC rigging, Theres only a few places left to clean up:
-messages
-news
-forums
-final user profile rework

These items will take less than a month overall, and alacrity rewrite will be mostly finished , excluding custom dogs

After that, we can concentrate on new features, bug fixes , and resolving lingering backend issues (items, dogs, and rendering)