Bravo Fleet
Hello, Bravo Fleet!
Over the past two years, our members and our staff have spoken a lot about our dream website for the fleet. We needed something that housed our community’s core functions, while also delivering an experience that’s on par with or even surpassing what we’re already accustomed to. We’ve gone through several iterations of BFMS, first with a redesign back in 2019 and then with a launch of new features during the summer of 2020, all striving towards a more automated and capable machine. I’m happy to announce that today we finished and launched a brand new update aimed at solving a lot of the issues we’ve had in the past, and packed with features that will hopefully improve your experience!
Integrated Fiction Writing
The most important parts of this update, and the features that most of us will use on a daily basis, are a suite of functions that integrate fiction writing with our current system. BFMS now supports missions and stories attributed to your characters! As a bonus, whenever you write a new story on BFMS, you’ll now automatically be nominated for a Service Ribbon – no more having to record your activity in your dossier and then wait for your task force staff to nominate you!
As a member below the rank of Lieutenant Commander, you’ll have the ability to create your own missions under your Task Force Headquarters. You’ll be able to write your characters and contribute to your task force’s story, just like you would on the forums or on one of our role playing games! Once you reach Lieutenant Commander, however, you’ll have the ability to request command of your own ship and have a portion of our website dedicated to your stories! Check out this page to see a preview of what your command can look like!
Writing on BFMS may take some time to adjust, especially since we’ve all been writing on the forums for the past year, but we think you’ll really enjoy what our new features offer! For the next week, we’re disabling the auto award feature so you can begin migrating your current stories to BFMS (so if you do write a new story this week, be sure to record it in your dossier!). Don’t worry, the forums will remain online as an archive of all our previous stories and writing events!
If you already have a fiction ship, you can begin editing it here! If you’re at or above the rank of Lieutenant Commander and you don’t have your own ship yet, now is the perfect time to request one from the Lore Office! Those of who can’t have your own ship yet can create a mission associated with your Task Force HQ and start writing today! Once you create a mission, you can begin writing your story!
Graphics Requests
The way you request custom graphics is also changing with the new BFMS! We now have an integrated graphics request form that you can fill out and send to our graphics team. When they finish your request, they’ll upload the image onto BFMS and the system will notify you that the image has been fulfilled! This will not only help declutter your Discord notifications, but it will also provide you with the chance to explain your request in greater detail.
Emails
In the new BFMS, emails will alert you when you receive an award, are given a promotion, and much more! Any action you take, or any actions other users take that impact you, will now notify you using our new email template.
User Identification & Login
All of our members will now be primarily associated by their user ID or their primary character’s name. By default, WordPress allowed everyone to pick their own usernames and nicknames, which resulted in dozens of people named Chris having the same username (apparently Chris is the most common name in Bravo Fleet!). You can still set a nickname for yourself through your user account settings, but you’ll now use your email or user ID to login to BFMS.
Design Refresh
As with all of our major updates to BFMS, this iteration comes with a brand new user interface design! Here are a few screenshots to give you an idea of what to expect when you start browsing our website!
Member ship (Command) page
Screenshot of a story post
Our competitions page
If you have any questions, or if you need help navigating through our new features, feel free to reach out to me or a member of your task force staff! We hope you enjoy the new update!