Must Read Lake Valor Updates & Changes

June 10th, 2016
⊰✧ This is Part 1 of a two-part update to the Adoptables system here on LV! The second half of the update will be released in roughly a week, once the Summer Adoptables come out in the shop.

⊰✧ Starting in August (to give the economy time to settle after the economy changes coming in July), all of the Starter Pokémon will no longer be Seasonal Adoptables. Instead, all of the starter adoptables will rotate on a monthly basis, and will be known as Monthly Adoptables! Basically, at the start of each month, the starters are rotated out for the starters of the generation after the current ones. So if this month's starters were Generation 3 starters, the next month will be Generation 4, and so on- until it loops around back to Generation 1.

⊰✧ This also means that there are 3 Generations worth of new Starter Pokémon Adoptables that will be available in the shop! I have also updated the Generation 1 starters with new graphics, as well.

⊰✧ Here is a list of all of the sets of Monthly Adoptables that will be available (Spoiler Warning: Generation 7 Starters will be shown at the bottom)-

Spoiler

Set 1​

Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle​

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Set 2​

Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and Totodile​

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Set 3​

Treecko, Torchic, and Mudkip​

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Set 4​

Turtwig, Chimchar, and Piplup​

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Set 5​

Snivy, Tepig, and Oshawott​

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Set 6​

Chespin, Fennekin, and Froakie​

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Set 7​

Rowlet, Litten, and Popplio​

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(Generation 7 Shinies are placeholders until their actual shiny forms are known)​

 

June 11th, 2016

- Applications for Writers are now open again! If you feel like you'd be a good fit for the position, why not send in an application?
We're also still looking for a YouTube Social Crew member, so if anybody here has experience with video editing and is interested in the job, send in an application for that too!

 

June 12th, 2016

- Congratulations to [member=Iridescent Isabelle] on becoming our newest Writer! We'll be looking forward to your articles in the future.
Applications for Writers will be left open for a while longer, so if you're interested in the job, make sure to send in an application!

- The YouTube Video UCP page now has a Reset button that allows you to reset your settings to their original state, if you wish to do so. I've also slightly adjusted that page so that the video and settings don't overlap each other on mobile devices.

 

June 16, 2016

Hey, y'know Lake Valor's snazzy Facebook page? Well, did you know that right now you have the opportunity to help out the site by joining the Facebook social crew and keeping our social media pages updated? Amazing! If you posses a good understanding of social media and think you have what it takes to supply fresh content on a regular basis, then we'd love to have your help. Simply follow this link and fill out the application to show us what you've got. We look forward to seeing your applications!

Don't forget that our YouTube Social Crew positions are also open! Click here for more information on that job.

 

June 16th, 2016

- I'd like you all to welcome back one of our beloved Moderators, [member=Blast]! He has returned and will be moderating the following forums: Question & Answer, Pokémon General, Sun & Moon, Video Games, and Global Trade Center.
We're all glad to have you back on the team!

 

June 19th, 2016
⊰✧ It's Father's Day, so the brand-new Nidoking Adoptables are available in the shop! Make sure to pick one up today, this is your only chance to buy them this year!

 

June 20th, 2016
⊰✧ It's officially summer, so the Summer Adoptables are now out in the LV shop! This will be the last month that the starters are released alongside the Seasonal Adoptables- starting in August, they will be released monthly in sets.

⊰✧ Since the starters are no longer Seasonal Adoptables, two new adoptables have been added to each season! Each season now has one new regular adoptable and one Legendary Pokémon adoptable. The list of new Seasonal Adoptables is below-

• Spring: Beautifly, Celebi
• Summer: Ninetales, Groudon
• Autumn: Houndoom, Darkrai
• Winter: Glaceon, Kyurem

⊰✧ As of right now, only the new Summer Adoptables are completed. The rest will be added when the seasons change. Regardless, if you want to pick up any of the Summer Adoptables, head over to the shop now! They will be around until mid-September.

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June 21st, 2016
⊰✧ It's the Summer Solstice, so the brand-new Solrock Adoptables are available in the shop! Make sure to pick one up today, this is your only chance to buy them this year!

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June 23rd, 2016

- As mentioned in an update I made earlier in the month, the Donator Benefits page has received a revamp, and with some new goodies included!

HTML Member Title:
[badge=green]New[/badge] The entire page saves via Ajax now, meaning you can change up your settings without having to refresh the page each time!
[badge=orange]Changed[/badge] The HTML Member Title section of the page has received a new layout!
[badge=green]New[/badge] Along making your member title bold and italic, you can now also add an underline, a strike-through, and an overline!
[badge=red]Fixed[/badge] A very large security issue which allowed you to insert your own HTML into your HTML member title.
[badge=orange]Changed[/badge] Instead of having a Restore button available, you can just go to the page again and your previous settings will be there.
[badge=red]Fixed[/badge] An issue which allowed you to use images above the allowed dimensions limit.
[badge=orange]Changed[/badge] There is now a question mark icon that will toggle a popup with an explanation for the text shadow options.
[badge=orange]Changed[/badge] There is now an image icon that will toggle the background
[badge=orange]Changed[/badge] All the background images from the background image gallery are now hosted locally, so they'll be faster to load around the site.

Music Player:
[badge=orange]Changed[/badge] The add/remove song icons have been changed to buttons and position above the song list.
[badge=red]Fixed[/badge] You no longer need to use a backslash before using an apostrophe or quotation mark! Let the code do it for you.
[badge=green]New[/badge] You can now change the order in which your songs appear! [Example .gif]
[badge=red]Fixed[/badge] A very large security issue which allowed you to insert your own HTML to the music player's code.
[badge=orange]Changed[/badge] Instead of having a Restore button available, you can just go to the page again and your previous settings will be there.
[badge=green]New[/badge] There's a new Pikachu skin for your music player! Here's a small preview of what it looks like.


Userbar Animations:
[badge=green]New[/badge] There are 6 new animations for you to choose from! Curious how they look in action? Just go to the UCP page itself and choose from the dropdown menu! Alternatively, you can check out this example .gif to see what the new animations look like.
[badge=red]Fixed[/badge] When making a new post and submitting it, your userbar animation will be displayed instead of a still image.

For the time being, that is all. Along with all of those updates, the code has been optimized to run 10x better and more efficiently than before, as I rewrote the entire script from scratch.
And for those who have previously used the page, worry not - your settings are still there. I took the liberty of taking a couple extra hours to convert everyone's old data to the new format. There may be a few of you who's data wasn't perfectly restored, but I don't think that's very likely.
Also, for those of you who used the music player and used apostrophes in your song titles (forcing you to type them like this: Sanc\'s example), I'd advise you all to remove the backslash from those song titles, as it's not needed anymore (and may ironically cause confliction errors this time around).

P.S. - To anybody who bought an item from my shop in the Donators forum, that page is currently disabled but will be re-enabled soon!

 

June 29th, 2016

- Making things easier for others (and myself) is something I enjoy doing. This update is solely for the Meme Dream Team Moderators and above.
There's a new page to make handing out awards much, much easier for you all! Here's a screenshot of the brand new page, Global Awards!


Features

• Ajax functionality (submit the form without having the page refresh or redirect you anywhere)
• Lists all of the available awards in alphabetical order
• Change from alphabetical order to the original medals order
• Select and hand out multiple awards at once
• An input field to search for a member's name (with autocomplete functionality)
• Add a note to 1 or multiple awards at once
• Clear all of the awards you selected
• Search for awards based on their names
• Search for awards based on their descriptions
• On submission, get a quick review of who has been awarded which awards, along with the note attached (if any)

If you're curious as to how it works, check out this example .gif!
I decided to make this page for multiple reasons, but one of the main reasons is to cut down time when handing out awards, since with the old process, it took you through multiple pages, loading, and redirects to successfully hand out a single award, not to mention handing out multiple awards for multiple members.

You'll be able to find this page under the Community dropdown menu, directly under the Medals link.
Hope you guys find this useful!

- Unfortunately, [member=Zero Sifr] has been demoted from his Writer position due to inactivity. We thank him for his contributions and time spent on the site.

- The economy will be reset this weekend, so make sure to read and post in this thread if you already haven't!

 

July 2nd, 2016

- As promised, the economy has been reset! In case you missed it, check out this thread to see the whole reason behind everything.
The changes made were the following:

• Making a topic in any area will now earn you 1.35 PokePoints
• Making a post in any area will now earn you 0.65 PokePoints
• We'll be using decimals in the currency from now on
• Grab bags have been removed
• The lottery has been removed
• Networth has been temporarily disabled, will possibly return later on
• Selling back adoptables has been disabled
• The Lake Trio events will now only change once per month
• Forums where your post count does not increase, such as the Spambox and Game Corner, won't reward you any PokéPoints anymore
• Adoptable prices have been adjusted. The prices for regular/shinies are: 100/200, 150/300, 200/400.

Those who chose to keep their points have been given back their original amount divided by 10, and those who chose to willingly give up their points have been given out the Economist medal. We didn't expect so many people to willingly give up their points, so thank you all very much for cooperating with us and helping make our economy better, we really appreciate it!

- To those of you who are joining from Smash Camp, welcome to the site! We're very happy to have you all and hope you guys feel at home! If any of you have any questions or need help, feel free to contact a staff member and we'll be sure to assist you to the best of our ability.
And if you liked Smash Camp, be sure to participate in our Summer Spectacular events which run for the entire month. You can check out a list of our current events here (this gets updated as new events get put up, so make sure to check regularly).

 

July 3rd, 2016
⊰✧ There is a Custom Adoptable in the LV Shop- Quilava! It was commissioned by @[member="Apawn"]. Go check it out in the LV shop if you want to add it to your adoptables collection!

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July 11th, 2016

- A new useful tool has been implemented for you guys. There are times where you're either short on time, energy, or just don't have the attention span to finish typing that post you started typing a few minutes ago. It's a shame to lose your progress and have to start over again, and it can get rather annoying if it happens multiple different times.
With that being said, that problem has been solved with this new feature. You're now able to save your posts as a draft!

I'd like to credit [member=Eclipse] for suggesting this a while back. It was suggested about 9 months ago, actually. But at the time, I had no idea how to do something like that. Of course, that's clearly no longer the case.

Here's 2 preview images of the Saved Drafts UCP page:

Spoiler

Spoiler

And here's a quick example .gif of it in action.

Features

• Ajax functionality - Save, restore, and select drafts without reloading the page. [Example .gif]
• Save your post as a draft. [Example .gif]
• Save as many drafts as you need.
• Restore previously saved drafts into the quick editor inside a thread. [Example .gif]
• Dedicated UserCP page where you can see your previously saved drafts.
  View which thread you saved it in and all of that thread's info (title, thread author, date of creation, and original post).
• View your draft's save date.
• View your draft as if it were an actual post (meaning that all the BBCode will display as it's supposed to).
• The ability to edit your drafts via the editor.
• The ability to update your draft with the contents you typed inside the UCP editor.
• The ability to delete your drafts.

And I believe that's about it. No more losing your progress and having to start over!
Hope you guys enjoy!

Note: For the time being, you're only able to save your posts as a draft via the quick reply editor (seen at the bottom of each thread).
If you want to start a new thread and save it as a draft, copy your post you were typing up, go to a random thread, paste your post in the quick reply editor, and save it as a draft from there.

 

July 19th, 2016

- The Jackpot and Goldmine medals have been changed. You will now have to buy them (instead of simply raising money) in order to obtain these medals. Their new prices are 1,000 PP and 2,000 PP, respectively.

- Forum banners have gotten an update! You can see a screenshot of the new layout by clicking here.
[badge=orange]Changed[/badge] The background color for forum banners will now fit the color scheme you're currently using on each them, or black if you use Lake Valor/Lake Valor (Modern), with an opacity of 75%.
[badge=green]New[/badge] Each forum banner will have an icon next to the forum name. We'll be using different icons for each forum when appropriate, but if one is not available, it will default to the chat bubble icon (as seen in the screenshot).
Icons have not been applied yet, but they will be tomorrow.

- [member=BiohazardSr] has now joined the Staff team! He's been a very active, helpful, and kind member, so we're sure glad to have him around. He'll be moderating the following forums: Game Corner, Literature Library, Television & Movies, Music, and Members' Lobby. Congratulations Bio, looking forward to working with you!

 

July 20th, 2016

- A new page has been created! Nearly a full year ago (can you guys believe it's been that long?), we made this thread that allowed you to view all of our banned members and their reasons for being banned.
Simply for better organization and ease of update, I've created a page with a simple layout that lists all our currently banned members and the reasons why they were banned.
Here's a preview image:

Spoiler

Note: "N/A" does NOT mean they were banned for no reason, it simply means that either their account is a spambot account or the real reason they were banned hasn't been added yet.

You can view this page for yourself by clicking this link, or by going to our home page and clicking on the Banned link on the forum group legend.


As for Super Mods and Admins, there's another separate page (which you can access by clicking the link at the top of the first page) that allows you to add and update a ban reason to already banned members.

- Font icons have been added to the appropriate forum banners (where available), as promised.

 

July 21st, 2016

- We're currently experiencing some problems with LV for unknown reasons. We're trying our best to keep things stable, so please bear with us while we try to stabilize everything once again!
At the moment, a few things have been disabled/removed, but will hopefully return in the very near future. A few of these things would be the recently added Banned Members page, userbar animations, the Moderating Team page, and a few other small things.
If you come across any bugs, please report them via the Bug Report Thread. Sorry about the inconvenience! We'll keep you guys updated via our Discord server with what we plan on doing.

 

August 1st, 2016
⊰✧ It's August, so the Monthly Adoptables are being rotated in the shop! For the month of August, the Sinnoh Starters will be available for purchase in the LV Shop. Make sure to check them out if you would like to purchase one!

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August 2nd, 2016

- A brand new feature has been implemented! This feature is relatively small and is related to threads. If you've ever used the Bug Report Thread before, you've probably noticed this message the displays above the editor, right?
Members are now allowed to make requests to add a message to their own threads! Moderators and Admins can also easily add messages to any thread. Allow me to explain further.

How to make a note request

Spoiler

1. Go to any thread you've created.
2. Scroll all the way down until the quick reply editor area.
3. A little bit above it, to the right side, you'll see this.
4. Click on the "Add a Note to This Topic" button.
5. Fill out the form, like so.
6. (Optional) Click on the Preview button to see what your note will look like beforehand.
7. Click on the Submit button and you're done!
   Your request will be sent to our Pending Requests center and will stay as pending until a Moderator or Admin approves it. Once it's approved, it will show up in your thread.

How to add a note to a thread (Moderators+)

Spoiler

1. Go to the ModeratorCP.
2. Click on the "Topic Notes" tab, which will take you to a list of all the current topic notes.
3. Click on the "Add Note" tab.
4. Fill out the form, like so.
5. (Optional) Click on the Preview button to see what your note will look like beforehand.
6. Click on the Submit button and you're done!
   You can then view the note by going to the Current Notes tab.

How to approve notes (Moderators+)

Spoiler

1. Go to the ModeratorCP.
2. Click on the "Topic Notes" tab, which will take you to a list of all the current topic notes.
3. Click on the "Pending Requests" tab.
4. You will then see a list of pending note requests. Make sure to click the View Message button to review the contents of the note request to make sure it is appropriate and necessary.
5. After reviewing a requests or all requests, you can either approve/decline them one-by-one, or click the big Accept/Decline All buttons above the list of requests.
   After that, you're done!

How to edit and delete notes (Admins only)

Spoiler

1. Go to the ACP.
2. Hover over the Other Apps tab, then the Topic Notes tab, and finally click on the Overview tab.
3. You'll then see a list of the current notes. On the far right are where you'll see the control buttons.
   In order, they are Edit, Duplicate, and Delete.
4. Click on the button you wish to use and go on from there, the rest is self-explanatory.

I believe that covers everything. But of course, if you guys have any questions about this, please feel fee to ask me and I'll be happy to answer.