New Staff, New Features, GGn Internals

A lot has been happening at GGn behind closed doors, with the training and hiring of new Staff members, as well as the addition and implementation of a range of site features and improvements. GGn Internal releases have been continuing at a steady rate and are fast approaching having uploads in 1000 unique torrent groups, with the number of torrents already hitting over 1000.

New Staff
It is with great pleasure that the newest members of the GGn staff team are introduced. Some of them you may have already seen around, helping out users in need of guidance in the forums and IRC as well as checking off torrent groups, and others are a little fresher or have been lurking in the shadows of the basement like all talented developers do. The many hours of tireless and voluntary work put into the site by our Torrent Moderators and Developers is often overlooked and the amount of work they have to tackle is truly immense, so please welcome our new TMs ZeDoCaixao, LinkinsRepeater, FlaktheMighty, Roy, Hottwire, Gunslinger and Atari, as well as our new Junior Devs Pie and Index to the team! You will find them on the Staff Page, so feel free to send them a site PM or a Staff PM if you have any questions or concerns - they're here to help!

Rule Updates
The two most recent additions to the rules are fairly self explanatory. The first is in a move to prevent mundane 'special editions' being uploaded including an OST (especially in the case where the OST is much larger than the actual game), and the second is to reinforce our position on sloppy uploading behaviour of Verified Dumps which puts unnecessary strain on our Torrent Moderators.

↑_4.1.12. OSTs from GOG sold separately to their game counterparts should be uploaded under GameDOX -> Audio, they should not be bundled as goodies in the game torrent.

↑_2.4.6. The description for a verified ROM or dump must contain, at minimum: the name of the file, a link to the checksums, the compression method, and details on how to play. Please peruse the Release Description Templates for example formatting. Uploads with improper descriptions are trumpable.

Site Updates
We have seen a bunch of new additions and changes to the site over the past month or so, some of them are listed below. You may have noticed recently that you were forced to log back into the site, this is due to an encryption update to the site. We have upgraded our encryption from Mcrypt (abandonware) to OpenSSL.

-The [Download All] button is now working on torrent groups.
-Global buffs are now clickable from the site header in order to see the remaining time in the Global Buff Store.
-The equivalent gold value has been added to items that cost Upload or Download in the shop. Just open the 'more info' dialog and hover over the cost.
-A 'special items' category was added to inventories that shows items that are normally hidden from the shop and previously were thrown into random categories (like the birthday present).
-Fixed inventory search when you are viewing another users' inventory.
-The inventory no longer shows 'Use' on items that can't be used.
-The lightbox used on torrent pages (for screenshots) has been updated to be more responsive and mobile friendly.
-The BBCode now features the superscript and subscript tags, as well as the ability advanced BBCode to hide text. More information can be found in the wiki.
-The issue with seeding/snatched ratio has been resolved.
-A whole bunch of new trivia questions have been added.

Beta Features
A new JSON API has also been added to the site. It is currently under beta testing and access is limited. Currently it can output a torrent groups' data as well as data for individual torrents. Users who can edit torrent groups will now get an 'Export to json' option on each group. More information on the various API can be found in the JSON API wiki article. More will likely be added soon for other parts of the site.

GGn Internal Team
We would like to remind everyone of our quality GGn Internal releases seen spread across the site. If you are interested in joining the Internals Team, we encourage you to read up on Joining Internal Team. We look forward to seeing some fresh applications and taking on new users to help boost the GGn Internal production rate.

GGn Staff