As a developer, every time I load this website...

I am amazed at the caliber of the website. Development as a "day job" can really suck the love and enjoyment out of it, yet every time I see this website... it's so refreshing...

I'm sure it's largely in-part to my nostalgia for the game and phpbb. I thought phpbb wasn't even developed anymore until I ran across this site, which turns out is not the case, and look at what people are doing with it!

I can't put my finger on, like is it because it's just an absolutely beautiful wrapper for a database, is it because the UI / UX is structured so well? My breathing gets a little heavy when I think about what your DB schemas look like... because I am a nerd.

I don't know guys, but it's beautiful, it has the charm of old with the performance of new... and I nerd out about it all the time.

That's all, just really wanted to say thanks and acknowledge the work of all the individuals who brought this to life.

Thanks for the message ! As for the Dev part, it's almost a one man army with Teebling being THE builder of all this, and he should get the biggest credit for this.

Many others worked though in the community for the contents (filling/data preparing/fixing/modding) part - thanks to them too !

Teebling made this site because he wanted to, not because he was paid to.

And it shows.

@SiCo thank you for this post <3 I'm really happy you get those kind of vibes from the site.

SiCo wrote: 1 month ago

I'm sure it's largely in-part to my nostalgia for the game and phpbb.

I agree - phpBB is really nostalgic. I think forums in general are really evocative of the whole D2/WC3 era. Part of the magic for me was always exploring the forums - it felt like an extension of Blizzard's games. So many cool things like the animated avatars for Blizz staff, blue posts, actual devs communicating directly with the players, farming post count for new ranks and avatars etc. When I designed this site I wanted it to try to transport people back to that if I could. I wanted it to feel a bit like

Arreat Summit 2.0.

SiCo wrote: 1 month ago

I thought phpbb wasn't even developed anymore until I ran across this site, which turns out is not the case, and look at what people are doing with it!

phpBB is over 20 years old now, and still gets some minor updates, even runs on PHP8 etc. but it is of course a shadow of what it once was as a dev community. Most extensions are abandoned, you're troubleshooting something and the last post in the topic was 2010 (crikey), there is a lot of templating code, but despite all that I still love developing for it, and I still think there is a place on the internet for bulletin boards in 2024.

SiCo wrote: 1 month ago

My breathing gets a little heavy when I think about what your DB schemas look like... because I am a nerd.

Still not performant enough Just layers upon layers of cacheing hahaha All jokes aside though the server died many times, because my code was so bad. I had to do a lot of refactoring, complete rewrites etc. to try and keep it running, especially around game launch and ladder season 1 launch/dclone heydays (most online concurrent was 4500 or something like that, it's on the home page if you care to look).

SiCo wrote: 1 month ago

That's all, just really wanted to say thanks and acknowledge the work of all the individuals who brought this to life.

Necrarch wrote: 1 month ago

Many others worked though in the community for the contents (filling/data preparing/fixing/modding) part - thanks to them too !

Spot on - there were so many people who contributed to make d2io what it is today, it's good that you guys recognise their efforts too.

Lanceor wrote: 1 month ago

Teebling made this site because he wanted to, not because he was paid to.

And it shows.

100% agree and it's true, you can tell. When a developer is left to their devices to create something they love... this is where magic happens.

Necrarch wrote: 1 month ago

Thanks for the message ! As for the Dev part, it's almost a one man army with Teebling being THE builder of all this, and he should get the biggest credit for this.

Many others worked though in the community for the contents (filling/data preparing/fixing/modding) part - thanks to them too !

That is impressive for sure. You all have my utmost thanks!

Teebling wrote: 1 month ago

...When I designed this site I wanted it to try to transport people back to that if I could.

Hello Teebling! Thank you for the site and for your response.

I'm going to say you nailed it. Everywhere I look... icons, buttons and doodads, but clean and with purpose, functional and efficient. Can I ask you about your front-end design approach when working on this one? For example, sometimes I'll create a design in photoshop or something similar to Figma, while other times I'll just do it along the way.

Teebling wrote:

I still think there is a place on the internet for bulletin boards in 2024

100% agree. The boards add another layer of depth for the community and I would love to see them more. I'll forever attribute my humble beginnings in computer science and programming in general to the exchange of ideas and knowledge on one such site of the past, that some of us here likely frequented.

teebling wrote:

Still not performant enough .... I had to do a lot of refactoring, complete rewrites etc...

This! I can't help but find the humor in how, for me, this is often either one of the most enjoyable parts or one of the most miserable parts depending upon various factors. I still do tend to over-engineer things sometimes, but I'm working on it, lol. (not saying that you are, but I'm sure you know what I mean.)