We've finally made it! Today December 1st, 2003 the new La Tana dei Goblin website is officially online (replacing the old Goblin's Lair name and website) at our usual address https://www.goblins.net or, alternativley at https://www.goblins.net, featuring a completely new layout as well as new contents.
Our old addresses https://www.goblinslair.com and https://www.goblins.it will be no longer used, at least for the moment, so please remember to use only those reported above.
We spent a long time testing and programming the new website in order to avoid any malfunctions and errors, but we could have missed something, however. We think the new website is ready to replace the old one, but still in the next days something could be fixed and adjusted as needed, depending on what happens once you start visiting the new Tana dei Goblin.
Besides of this, we think you could find useful some informations about the new website, in order to make your first approach easy and enjoyable.
NAVIGATION
At the top left side you'll find a navigation block enabling you an easy browsing of our website, listing everything you could need. Even though the interface is showing many other blocks, don't get confused, since these are only for your additional informations and links: you can fully enjoy La Tana dei Goblin only using the navigation block.
In this way you can access our new sections like Downloads, Reviews, Web Links and any other service we activated by transferring contents from the old website or writing them from scratch.We included descriptions and informations almost everywhere in our new pages, in order to make your navigation easier where needed. At least during your first visits, however, please read anything carefully, just to understand how to interact with the new website.
LANGUAGES
As usual, La Tana dei Goblin is a two-language website (italian and english), so don't be worried if you find something in italian: everything is also available in english even though the site defaults to italian the very first time you access it.
The Languages block (you can see it at the top right side if you're unregistered, otherwise it's at half height along the left side), enables you to select your favourite language. Obviously, the system will remember your choiche between visits, so you actually have to choose english only once.
USERS AND ACCOUNTS
Unlike our old website, La Tana dei Goblin now provides user registration through customized accounts and profiles. Of course, you don't need to register, but REGISTRATION IS FREE and some of our advanced features are not available to anonymous users, for obvius reasons.
So, as an example, even though everyone is able to read our reviews, links, downloads, articles, only registered user can submit those new contents for publication. Furthermore, registered users can use our WebMail service from their account pages, they can send and receive private messages, use custom forum avatar images and much more.
Registering is FREE, as we mentioned before, so you're invited to register in order to get every feature of the new La Tana dei Goblin website. In order to register and login, you can always use the Login & Info block at the top left side of our homepage, also showing online users, the last registered user and other useful informations.
Once registered, you'll be able to access the Your Account page, where you can set preferences that our system will remember every time you login. We kindly invite you to provide at least a valid e-mail address (very important if we need to contact you) and your location, and you really should subscribe the newsletter and private messages notifications.
DISCUSSION FORUMS
You'll find here new discussion forums, very different, richer and more articulated than the old ones. We divided our forums in categories and topics in order to make your choice easy when you look for something or you post messages. Obviously, you are required to use them appropriately, selecting categories and avoiding off-topics, otherwise our moderators could delete or change your posts.
Inside our forums you'll find english messages as well as italian and other languages, don't get worried. Many users are italian or from other countries, so it's obvious that they write in their language. You can always reply or post your messages in english, however, since most users are able to read this language too!
Please note that we have a forum section dedicated to announcements where you can find useful informations about new services, improvemente, maintenance and the like. You are suggested to check periodically this section in order to read important informations published by administrators.
The new forum system includes features enabling you to recognize discussions where news posts have been inserted since your last login to the site. In fact, from the forum area, you can access another page for your account, where more preferences and options can be set, like an avatar image, the time zone for forum messages and more things not available in the Your Account page.
ARTICLES, REVIEWS, LINKS, DOWNLOADS
These features have always been the core of our site, especially the Reviews and Downloads sections. You'll find many news in these sections, first of all that registered users can now submit their articles, reviews, downloads and web links to other sites.
You'll notice that our reviews include now more informations about games, like game authors, alternate names, and a useful classification for settings, mechanics and keywords. You can now search in the reviews database as well as ordering search rersults by title, reviewer, Goblin Score, etc...
We also changed the Goblin Score voting system: anonymous users can no longer vote our reviews. Only registered users can submit a single vote for game, and their comment is now mandatory in order to detail more about their opinions. We choose this way in order to provide you with a more significant Goblin Score ranking value, avoiding abuses by people interested in "pumping" up or down specific games for personal reasons...
In general, however, all these sections are now reflecting a more cooperative style, requiring your contributions more than before. We think that with your cooperation La Tana dei Goblin will improve and update faster than ever, becoming an always better website about games for everyone. Your cooperations is always welcome and crucial in order to achieve this goal!
LINKS FROM OTHER WEBSITES
Obviously, since our new website is very different from the old one, links to La Tana dei Goblin from other websites could be no more working. In most cases, we made an effort to catch such links and redirect them to the relevant sections of the new website, in order to avoid broken links.
Unfortunately, some link will be broken anyway. We ask you, where possible, to inform webmasters about such broken links giving any useful information needed, helping us to keep working links to La Tana dei Goblin wherever someone put them.
CONTACTS
For any needs, clarifications or informations that you can't find in the site or in the discussion forums, you can always write us an e-mail message using the appropriate link in the Contacts section of the navigation block.
Many thanks for the valuable support you granted us until now, and for any support you're going to give us with the new La Tana dei Goblin website.
