Greetings fellow Geex!

Here we are, the second day into 2014, and I figured this was as good a time as any to discuss some of the features I have planned for the site in the coming year. This will give me a good chance to bounce these ideas off you, the reader, and see which of them you strongly like and which might be better moved lower down on the priority totem pole. Bear in mind that this is a rough and hypothetical list - its not a set of promised features, but more a set of ideas that I am experimenting with that may or may not make it to the site some day. If you absolutely want to see a feature made, say so in the comments!

Check out the list after the jump...

• New "Infinite Scroll" Site Design - Of all the ideas I am presenting here, this is the furthest along in development. I have been toying with a new site layout that uses a more Pinterest-like design aesthetic - small, floating boxes in stacked columns, where more columns are added automatically when you give the window more screen real estate. This will allow readers with widescreen monitors to take full advantage of their extra space. My tests, so far, look a little something like this:
  
• New Micro Posts - This idea is for a system of small Twitter-like posts that can exist between our regular posts. The concept is to allow the authors a way to put down quick thoughts or links that may not entirely warrant a full post in their own right. An example might be a fast link to something cool they just saw, or a quick note like "I just beat my second play through of Final Fantasy VII. I seem to be empathizing with Sephiroth more each time through." The system would need to be simple and streamlined so that the author can use it on-the-fly, and also distinct so that it doesn't become a replacement for full posts.
• New Product Relations System - Currently, what few products we have in the database are separate entities. Sure, each is tied to a keyword, but that doesn't really help show a relationship between separate products. What if, for example, you wanted to look up all of the products in the Legend of Zelda series, or Assassin's Creed? Adding a relationship system to group those together will help with that. It's a small thing, but I think it would be Good To Have[TM].
• New Forums System - There has been some discussion between the writers about possibly having a place beyond just the comments where the community can congregate and communicate. Of course, I could simply plug in a standard forums system, but thats just not my style - I would rather build something from the ground up that does exactly what I want, possibly even challenging the preconcieved notions of how a forums system should work. Whatever I come up with would have to be slick, easy to use, and worthwhile to keep coming back to.
• Revamp of the Gallery System - I'm not going to lie, it was kind of rushed to market, so to speak. I need to show it alot of love, both on the front (Reader facing) and back (Writer facing) ends.
• "Phase 2" - I can't really talk about this project yet, because I dont want to get anyone's hopes up. All I can say is that it has nothing to do with stolen Hydra weapons or turning the Tesseract into a nuclear missle.

Well thats it for the stuff that I have directly on the planning board - there are a few other small ideas that I dont think are ready to mention yet. Let me know what you think of these in the comments below. You can also suggest any cool features you would like to see implemented around the site. Remember, the Dev is listening... (Dont sue me, Carbine!)

-Arthur "Arturis" Orneck, Developer at large