That's right boys and girls, the long discussed new home for Vortex has finally arrived!
http://www.forum.dragonballvortex.com/

At our new home, we are self-hosted and powered by Simple Machines, one of the best, if not the best, forum software available.


See you all on the other side!

Alright, at first I didn't know what to tell you people. We're all lazy, inactive, unproductive. As it is right now and if we keep going this direction. It's going to be a fail, this site is going to die. Do you guys really want that? We ALL need to step up our game. Not individually, but as one. How are we going to fix this? If you guys want shit done, you're going to have to contribute to it yourselves.
I'm tired of getting PM's : When's the vault coming up? When are you doing this? Can you do this? Can you do that? Change my name color? Make me this? Honestly, do not PM us...

Alright so, YB has offered to re-make the vault and so far is doing an amazing job at it. I'm helping him arrange it all but still he needs more help.
Give him suggestions, constructive criticism, helps for the design of it all etc. Shit even go help us host it all.

www.lswvault.tk

Check it out and help/thank him.

So far it's only the customs and the design is slightly changed but he hasn't updated it all on the actual site.

Oh & one thing.

I don't even know who the hell you people are anymore

So what will be done is every month on the 21st
If you need to change your name you can apply for it & on the 21st I'll change it.

~M_J

I hope you guys like our new Emoticons.



I will update them with more later. For now, there are more important things that have to be done for Vortex but stick with me here.



-MJ-

Just a question.

Do you guys think we need a new look for the forum?
If so, can any of you guys suggest a new look?

As far Banners, colors, icons etc.

Give me your best shot. =D

Well, as I'm going on holidays shortly I'm going to need someone to take care of this place with me and help me in my admin duties. I can't run this place on my own and there's so much I want to do with this place so I think it's time to give this guy his rightful place in the Captain's room.

Round of applause everybody for Mistah_Jayden!

Now that MJ has been promoted I'm going to need two new Moderators. So place two member's names down who you think are deserving of the job. You cannot put your own name down.

So the Annual Vortex Tournament for will not be hosted this year. Instead it will be in 2012. If you're asking why it's because:
- this place was not even close to being active enough during the year to spark up a tournament.
- the christmas period is coming up and a lot of people go on holidays including myself so I won't actually be around to collect your sprites

A quick run down:
The Vortex Tournament is coming up very soon. We've trialed this many ways in the past all of them not coming to an end because people become slack and do not hand...

The Official Dragonball Hunt will be commencing very soon.

How it works:
7 little Dragonballs will be scattered around the site in topics. They could be in General Chat, Custom Sprites, The RPG...anywhere! They'll be hidden in members posts edited and chosen by me, so only I'll know where they are hidden. So don't bother trying to persuade the Staff with blowjobs.
Make sure you don't go posting in the topic that you found one or else everyone will know where it is.
Once you've found all 7, PM me the links of the topic from where you found the Dragonballs.

What...

Howdy my fellow Vortexians. How are we this fine afternoon? That's unfortunate, but I'm sure it'll clear up soon if you keep applying the ointment daily :cheers:

I come bearing news, the Smileys we have atm seem a little outdated and I think it'd be cool if we added some of our very own. Try keep them at the size we have the current ones but maybe add some new emotions or jazz up some of the classics.

Show me what you got Vortex, if they're considered good enough by the staff your smiley could be featured on Vortex forever! What have you got to lose?

-Your friendly...

Simply put, we've really done all we can with a DBZ themed RPG in its current state. However, this could be fixed with some tweaks. We've also been looking at an original story, universe, etc., to set up as a game. Tell me what you want and why, if you'd be so kind.

Vortex is not the bustling place it used to be. For various reasons, no one really does anything here anymore, with the exception of a few. The Staff and I are at a loss on how to fix this, so everyone, give it to me straight. Why don't you post more? Why is there a lack of sprites and no one ever makes a sheet? What happened to comics and animations and all that? I'm open to any and all suggestions and will probably do whatever is necessary to make this place lively again.

Alright guys, as brought up by rip recently and a few others in the past, I think it's due time we pay homage to to the classics that brought us into the style we sprite in now.

So go dig up your DBZ: LSW sheet folder with the original rips, and get editing. I'd stick to the original game or the Son Goharotto edits.

Head to this thread and start showing off your mad skills Vortex :cheers:

Big respect goes...

Ok, at the behest of the majority of you through chatbox convos, PMs, MSN, and whatnot, the main concern about the RPG was that it wasn't accessible/too complex/blah blah blah. It officially can't get any easier unless I just tell you that you're an immortal Super Saiyan and you just didn't know it.

The overall system harkens back to the original Shadow of the Dragon, yet with the whole mess streamlined and without some of the exploitable problems. There is now no excuse not to play based on gameplay

The Vortex RPG is going well, but we do not have a large playerbase to really get things going as they're intended. I am personally asking each and every one of you to register and devote a little of your time to a fun experience with your community members. If you choose to register and play, please put a note in your character template saying "BL Personal Request" and you will receive double experience up until you reach Class C.

We have also added the Saiyan race and I'm in the progress as I write this of adding more quests as well as the racial quests for each playable race. The...

Some of you are probably thinking "who the hell is Jay? is he a new Admin?", this post is intended for the older class of Members that actually remember/know me and have put up with me for so long!

I’m the first to admit I haven’t been around as much as an Administrator and Creator of Dragon Ball Z Vortex should be. This isn’t a post full of excuses, justifications and second hand promises of redemption though.

This notice serves us my (official) announcement of my retirement...

As some of you have probably already noticed, some of the features of DBZ Vortex were lost in a recent webhost crash. The staff and I have actually been pretty hard at work fixing a good number of the issues from this, including restoring the beloved Vault. As a result, a good many of the profile options such as ranks, special avatars, etc., are being removed and restored in a much more efficient manner (believe me, they're a mess right now). Please bare with us as we fix this.

Also, you'll see staff restructuring as well. This may mean openings for new moderators as well as new groups...

So, you think you have what it takes to be a moderator at DBZ Vortex? You have all these reasons why you should be on staff rather than everyone else, but it's not polite to talk about it? Well fill this out only if you wish to be seriously considered, and PM it to me and only me, and I'll post up the most outstanding applications in the Mod Shack. PMing me an application does not guarantee you a spot.


Name: Obviously
Year(s) on Vortex:
Outstanding Accomplishments on Vortex:
Contributions to the Community:
References: At least 2
Short...

Hello, Vortex. Its nice to see that you're all still here, well and spriting and being a happy community as usual. So to disavow any rumors: no I am not dead, and still am currently active at my personal site.

So if you've been active since Sunday, you'll have noticed a progression of faeces hitting the proverbial pan. That started because the webhost that Vortex has had for the last 3 years, 000webhost, suddenly decided to say that a term of service had been breached, and locked/deleted the account. All of the Vortex related sprites and articles* we've had there for the last 3 years...

What do you boys and girls want in it?

What manner of RPG? Since this is a DBZ Spriting forum, it would, at least in part, be DBZ-themed, but we've all seen how loosely that theme is applied.

What kind of system? Completely free-form focusing on storytelling? Some sort of leveling system to make it more of a game? Something different?

Any well thought-out ideas are completely welcome.








Starting a flame war or bashing the idea of an RPG simply to get people all pissed off won't be tolerated

Ok guys, you've asked about it.
Imma tell you about it.


VSI, the Vortex Spriting Initiative, is mean to create the largest coherent library of LSW sheets in a single, uniform style ever made. How many times has someone wanted to make a comic, only to have to sheet several characters on their own, or request someone else to do it for them? Well, we're here to fix this issue.

VSI spriting is open to every member of the DBZ Vortex community. With that said, there is a small group of quality-control staff, the VSI Submission Team, who will go over each submitted sheet...

Alright Vortexians, this is it. We've always seen great sprites and sprite battles on Vortex, but now it's time to be rewarded for your hard work.

As you may have noticed in your scouters, everybody has 0 zenny. The good news is, it's time to earn your zenny. Zenny will be awarded in a couple of ways. The main way to earn zenny will be in monthly competitions held by yours truly.

First place = 100 Zenny
Second place = 50 Zenny
Third Place = 25 Zenny

People who did not place but entered a sprite will receive 10 Zenny.

You can then either...

...

Watch the Podcast

This week I rant about (well, more like casually discuss) the main issues surrounding the Dragonball gaming franchise. Essentially: don't have much hope for Raging Blast 2.

Also for those wondering about where the next LSWi sprite is - it was supposed to be a Namek Saga Vegeta, but every time I look back at it, something on it looks either off or incredibly ugly. I only want to begin sheeting it for a final run once it looks...

Watch the Podcast

Part 2 to the overview is here! Tiny pinch of the advanced stuff by touching 3-tone shading, and possibilities to other tutorial-based episodes are unlocked! Look forward to rants, discussions and reviews in the immediate future and enjoy this instalment of SoaW, folks.

Tutorial Frames

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY9hIkE7jRE

Initially it was going to be a boring look at just the fundamentals, but with some good condensing I managed to make less than half of the video that, and the rest is Part 1 of the proper tutorial!

Legendary Super Warriors (or LSW for short) is a spriting style, and like other styles there are things making it unique; its pros and
cons. These characteristics define what LSW is and what differentiates it from other sprites....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2aZChZbwhg

The actual transcript for this episode had been written last year, because I had planned to do an article series title the "Angryboy PlayStation 2 Retrospect". Instead of letting a good idea go to waste, I decided to incorporate it into this series. Plus it was a decent piece of content to start recording with once I re-worded a few segments to be more readable.

One thing I do want to point out is that the first few episodes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpKjmVUPRSw

I am starting a series of 'podcasts' surrounding a number of topics from the following categories:

- Reviewing (eg: films and games)
- Tutorials (primarily LSW spriting)
- Rants (on pretty much any topic)
- Miscellaneous (on any subject not belonging to the above).

They should be anywhere between 3 minutes and 6 minutes long depending on how much interest I have in the subject...

The Moderators and Admins have been discussing for a while now about having a proper section for Video Games. Instead of rummaging through General Chat, looking to see if a certain game has been discussed about, or not knowing where to place the topic for it; we now have a proper section that should cut the confusion and make it a lot easier for everyone. You will also find the XBL/PSN thread is in the new Video Games section. So if you feel like playing against Vortex members, post up your ID's in the pinned topic.

Feel free to post anything related to Video Games in there and we look...

After weeks of secret discussions we can finally reveal Seto Stevce as the 3rd admin, some of you guessed and speculated, but now its official.

Seto will be an awesome administrator and I feel with his passion, drive and commitment he can bring a lot to Dragon Ball Z Vortex.

This is something I promised Seto a very long time ago, and I'm pleased I was finally able to live up to my promise.

As you'll probably notice, the forum is looking more like the site, and the layout is almost complete. Some pieces of it obviously aren't - namely the scouter - so please stick with me whilst I put these into effect. I've already poured many hours into getting this much done today, so bear with it please.

Minor feedback is fine, but no large fundamental changes unless they are absolutely critical, because the fundamentals have been laid down.

UPDATE 3: Down for further maintenance (give me a break PM system!)
---

Myself and Seto have been trying (attempting and mostly failing) to get the PM system back up and running. The full record of our tests can be found HERE but there's no need to read that unless you want to.

We think we've found a solution but whilst the theory and initial testing seems solid we need more feedback.

Myself and Angryboy's inactive period has now pretty much come to an end, as such the temporary administrator powers of Frostt and MasterChefX have come to an end and their Moderator status as been reinstated.

I would like to publicly thank them both for their contributions and input, and most of all for keeping the Vortex ship sailing while myself and Angryboy were away.

Just a quick update.

I recently identified an issue where new member registrations were able to pre-set their own 'Alignments', so naturally new members were actively attempting to set themselves as Administrators and Moderators etc.

This is the reason for the occasional random new member appearing as an administrator or a moderator on the profile scouter.



I have now fixed this issue, all new registrations from this point will default to the 'Member' alignment alone, as...

Please excuse the unanounced exit, people. As you should know, the co.uk domain name has left us as a result of us changing service providers (namely internet), which in itself came as a result of my family moving house. Doing so has been quite busy and whatnot, so I haven't had much computer access, let alone been able to check up on you Vortexians. I've heard from Jay that things have been running rather smoothly which makes me smile, although there are a few hitches which I hope to resolve within the next week.

First of all, with these new changes I've brought in a different logo....

I have added PSN, XBL, and Steam ID fields into the Contact Panel of the Member Profile, this should allow you guys to easily discover and link up with your fellow gaming friends.

Rather than make dedicated topics asking for ID's now you can simply fill in your profile and anyone who wants to add you can easily discover your information via your profile.

Only a minor addition but long overdue I feel, especially in the social networking world we live in.

Any ideas for profile additions, please suggest them here.

Thanks for reading,

Hi guys,

Angryboy is currently out of action (exams) so this officially makes me the
only active administrator . I'm off on some holidays tomorrow and again in the next few weeks (yay).

As such this means that while I am away there would be NO active administrators and the forum could (but probably wouldn't) collapse and the minions (you) would be depressed without a higher administrator power to watch over you.

To avoid any potential disasters I have decided to induct two temporary...

Hi Guys,

I am posting this short update just to inform you all that we are aware the sprite vaults are currently down, meaning links are broken and most sprite sheets do not work.

Angryboy was/is working on a special project. Unfortunately, but understandably, Angryboy is currently away from Vortex because he is in the middle of a very important exam period, naturally this has caused a delay in his project release but also created unforeseen problems (vaults not working).

As you are probably aware, this has been the case for quite sometime now, all I can do is...

Okay, the Vortex Crystals have finished charging and the new moderators have been inducted, I will now take the time to welcome them.

Myself and fellow moderators have chosen Nexus and RSF, we believe both are very valuable assets to our team and believe their abilities and judgement will make Vortex a fairer place for all.

Please take the time and leave a comment to congratulate them if you would be so kind.

Other applicants are still being considered and will be announced if we feel we need additional moderators. I would like to thank every one who applied, all...

As you can see the new board takes a different layout to the rest of the forum.

Topics are now sorted Date/Time order rather then by latest post, this allows members to easily identify the newest update(s) from the older ones, it also means that on this board grave digging will not 'bump' topics back into activity.

I am only trialling the Blog layout, if you guys don't like it then I won't adopt it, if you do like it then we'll likely use this board as the normal Updates & Announcements board.

Thank you for reading this, please vote and leave your comments below.

Hi Guys,

I know there was an issue where new members didn't read the rules and would often unknowingly step over the mark because of it, as such I finally got around to revising the welcome message PM that all new members receive when they sign up.

Old Welcome Message wrote:

Welcome to the newest, best and hopefully the last DBZ Vortex forum. Enjoy your stay!

New Welcome Message wrote:

Welcome...