It seems that I was wrong...

Worker Joined: Nov 09, 2012 Posts: 127

After further analysis of TheTechGame.com, I concluded that it runs on phpnuke + vBulletin. The reason as to why I believe it's vBulletin is based upon many findings.

I've always thought it was a phpBB 3.x bridge, but if you look at the similarities... The rep system is exactly the same as vB, the "Find posts" layout on the profiles are the same as vB, the page numbers are the same (where you have to click the number, not the box. This was used in older versions of vB). What I don't understand is how they rewrite the URLs using PHPNUKE's GoogleTap... Example: /Forums/t=832/topic-title.html. Many phpnuke sites have SEO URLs like that. Another similarity is the drop-down "Go to page", the permission box at the bottom of every forum or topic view page, and much more.

There isn't a "GoogleTap" mod for vBulletin to achieve URLs like how TheTechGame has them, (but of course, there are other SEO mods). So, what I'm wondering how did they bridg the phpnuke and vB profiles together... Like, all of the info on the profiles are vB-based, the rep points, post count, the "Recent Vistors" tab... All from vB, yet it shows PHPNUKE's user suspended error, etc. It's like vB and Nuke both work together and they just pulled out the features they want and like. I know they use an "Account" module, which I assumed was a renamed Your_Account module. [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ] but then I found undeniable proof that they in fact ARE using the Your_Account module by my finding of this URL:
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I have been investigating for many years, trying to figure out their system, which is a pretty amazing one. That's how I come across these URLs. Mostly by guessing and checking :3

Yes, I am quite intrigued by all they have managed to accomplish...
Their Custom Username Color mod is also available on the vBulletin website, and it is the exact one TheTechGame is using. There are very many similarities between TTG's so-called "custom-coded" engine, although it is just a heavily modified version of two scripts. I cannot even begin to grasp the concept of what they have done. What I do not understand is how they have so seamlessly bridged both phpnuke and vBulletin. How would vB data be displayed on the Your_Account userinfo page, while keeping all of the Your_Account features intact? Such as the "Account suspended" message (which I am a huge fan of, for some reason), and the "No userinfo for {user}" messages.

I would enjoy some replies and maybe your opinions of this, and maybe some input on how this was accomplished, if you guys have any idea.

How would one go about implementing the vBulletin reputation system with Nuke? And TheTechGame's Forums module is not vBulletin in its entirety, as there are still many similarities between their Forums module and the default "bbtonuke" module (such as how the "Staff List" and "Ranks List" are being used on TheTechGame, both of which are mods released on Codezwiz.com, Telli's phpnuke enthusiast community.

I'm not trying to do the same as TheTechGame did, I would just like to know, as I'm very interested in this.

Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 4:39 pm

It is a custom modded site that at one time may have been based on a nuke variant. The changes made to it are all "core" changes that would no longer be using the phpnuke cms engine. Trying to duplicate what he has done would require a complete rewrite of the nuke code to become something it is not.

Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 4:54 pm

nuken wrote:

It is a custom modded site that at one time may have been based on a nuke variant. The changes made to it are all "core" changes that would no longer be using the phpnuke cms engine. Trying to duplicate what he has done would require a complete rewrite of the nuke code to become something it is not.

I wonder if Telli did all of this for free 0_0
So, core changes could be made to phpnuke to allow it work with parts of vBulletin??

Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 5:44 pm

Core changes would make it no longer phpnuke. The changes made to that site renders output that is not anything similar to a nuke based site. If you view source, you can tell that site is not functioning as a nuke site.

Site Admin Joined: Aug 22, 2007 Posts: 1772

Raven had already told you what Telli said about this system.
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You are starting the same questions again and again. Whether you believe it or not does not change the fact that this system has been strongly modified, that is far from a PHPNuke or vBulletin. It exists no official bridge between Nuke and vBulletin. If you ask why, then read the license of vBulletin and you will find the answer.

Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 7:09 pm

nuken wrote:

Core changes would make it no longer phpnuke. The changes made to that site renders output that is not anything similar to a nuke based site. If you view source, you can tell that site is not functioning as a nuke site.

Codezwiz uses the same forums system... So you're saying he custom coded that, too? Do you think there is a modified forums module that he got his hands on or is he the author of the module? And isn't it against cooyright laws to remove the phpnuke and modules' copyrights? Even though it's "custom coded", it's still against the copyright. If I take IPB and make a core file edit, does that make it my own custom script that I can do whatever with? No. And they are still making use of a large portion of the Nuke code. What does he use to get the "1 year member", etc in his viewtopic user info?

Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 7:15 pm

neralex wrote:

Raven had already told you what Telli said about this system.
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You are starting the same questions again and again. Whether you believe it or not does not change the fact that this system has been strongly modified, that is far from a PHPNuke or vBulletin. It exists no official bridge between Nuke and vBulletin. If you ask why, then read the license of vBulletin and you will find the answer.

No, these are different questions. I'm now more educated about this, so I'm asking more complicated questions... I'm not doubting that it's heavily customized, but I still like discussing it and learning more things of it. And I don't believe Telli, his answer... They aren't utilizing any Joomla modules.

Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 7:19 pm

it will be boring ....

Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 8:27 pm

neralex wrote:

it will be boring ....

Well, maybe for you.
This doesn't interest you at all? TheTechGame's script is the best community script I've ever seen. It also has a great backend, which is also completely customized.

Do you know who designed the skin / theme for TTG?

Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:24 am

I'm not sure where this discussion originated but in the early days of TTG I personally helped Sean get a few things on the site set up, and I'm pretty positive it was originally a Future nuke installation, and I remember that it was not very secure. We always had to find other people to help us with the features he wanted implemented, and most of them are mods to the core Future nuke code, such as the recent posts that you see on the main page and forums. It was originally a shoutbox and went back and forth a few times, and he probably still has several of the shoutboxes we originally used installed on the site.

The user tables are all nuke/bbtonuke and they are VERY sloppy.

The main admin panel is certainly that of future nuke, and if he is running joomla as well he probably doesn't access that admin panel very often, as MOST of what you see is in fact nuke/bbtonuke mods.

Now I'm not saying that it isn't now, as if Telli is/was involved he may have helped in that regard as well, but I am telling you that it is a very hackish/messy/flawed system and there are probably some big holes in it still. For that reason alone most of the work done to it is pointless to reproduce, you're better off just theming something up yourself. I used to have copied of everything from sean but I lost those in a hdd crash years ago and he and I no longer speak.

BUT, if he were around I believe he may share some of his work with us, as Sean is a pretty reasonable spirit. At least he was...for all I know he may have sold the site.

Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:42 am

For further clarification, it is very probable that what you are seeing is still, INDEED, phpbb2/3. Just because it looks the same as vb doesn't mean it can't be done. It was started with nuke, and it went from there. He obviously paid someone to do a lot of work, so the best starting point for you would be to actually get a version of nuke you're comfortable starting off with, and start making modifications to it.

You may want to consider using something more secure though, for instance, RN. That would make for a much better base than Future which I think was based on platinum.(fail)

I actually had Sean leaning towards RN before he hit 5k users, which is why he's regd on this here in the first place, but he decided against it.
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Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:01 am

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if you look over this next link and then think about how the rewrites are working it sort of makes sense how they hacked that together, first look at the link and then scroll over the links on that page, this is what you see:
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but this is whats going on
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notice the similarities between the faq module on ttg and the one here on rn. The rewrites are strange in nature because originally his host was not allowing him to do all the normal things to have proper rewrites or the php version was old, I believe this was hostgator and might still be for all I know. But thats why they seem odd, they had to be done "hackish" or he couldnt have them at all.

Just a couple reasons I still assume it's running the same nuke it was, still, very modified/hacked together.
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Read carefully.

The main page seems pretty standard as does everything else except the ads block(aka Partners), which is probably an xml/flash system I helped mod which he paid for on another popular nuke support site that is no longer around.

I don't see anything that actually looks like he might be running joomla mods as well, as even the News mod on the home page are the same as they've been for years, just a modded version of an old fetch news mod. If its the one we had before it pulls news in for you if you so choose. Pretty simple stuff.

A custom theme, and many an hour of hackery, and any RN system can look the same.

But he probably paid a LOT in troubleshooting support and I'm sure the theme cost a bit...

Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 3:16 pm

horrorcode wrote:

"and I'm sure the theme cost a bit..."

I know who designed the theme and I'm getting a custom one from the designer of XboxMB and TTG to make me one. It is $450.

And he definitely did not sell the site. He is still the owner of it. Did you help him for free? It would be nice if you could help me out with a few things that I find a little too complicated for me to accomplish. And "Future Nuke"? What is unique about this fork and is there a place to download it? I can't find a place for it. I would like to test it out and just have a look at it. I've always leaned toward, and preferred, RavenNuke. Thanks.

Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 3:30 pm

I know this may sound like a big task, but this is what I want to do:

Have everywhere link to the Your_Account profile for that specific user. I have made the Forums username and avatar clickable, and it links to /{username} (the Your_Account profile for the user}, but I'd like all of the links that link to the Forums profile, to be replaced and link to the Your_Account profile, like what TTG has done. I would also like to implement a "tabbed" system to the Your_Account profile. I know how to display the post count, but I want the recent topics and recent posts to be placed under a set of different tabs, as used on TTG's profiles. Also, I would like to find out how I can use vB's reputation system with my site, like what TTG has done... Because the vB reputation system is the best rep system, in my opinion. I know it would take months and months of doing this, but how in the world did they do it!? I know how TTG gets it's "IPB page numbers", so it seems that it's not vBulletin. Here is the link to the tutorial: [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ]

And what Google Tap mod did TTG use? I want URLs like /Forums/t=8482/thread-name.html OR, as I've seen used before on TTG: /Forums/file=viewtopic/p=73719.html.

Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 3:50 pm

Its far away from a big task but you should find your own way! Rebuildings are boring. Create a new one with a new look, this is what make it really cool and unique! To pay $450 for a nuke theme that looks like a existing theme sounds also strange. Today you get massive free stuff on the net!

Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 6:49 pm

neralex wrote:

Its far away from a big task but you should find your own way! Rebuildings are boring. Create a new one with a new look, this is what make it really cool and unique! To pay $450 for a nuke theme that looks like a existing theme sounds also strange. Today you get massive free stuff on the net!

It's not going to be a copy of any theme. It's going to be my own, highly unique custom theme. I told them to "include the epicness of XboxMB.com's header, along with the sleekness of TTGv4". My main colors is are to be green and black. It is going to be completely different and unique. They reccomended that I go with vBulletin or IP.Board, but they said they could work with anything and make it look amazing, so I chose to stay with Nuke. I hope this was a good decision and that I could maybe get a lot of help from you guys :3 I'll definitely need it. I could pay anyone that wants to help with some things (like organizing the profile data into profile tabs, or Google Tap URLs I want, unless there is already a Google Tap mod that has the type of links I want).

I want my own unique look; and that I'll get, but I need help with lots of things. I'm not trying to copy any site, I just like some of the features of TTG. I rarely go on that site, except to analyze it's theme and just "oogle" at how perfect their "system" seems.

And I can't find my own way! I'm not that skilled. I require help from educated coders like you.

New Member Joined: Apr 29, 2013 Posts: 23

ricktido: The first step of getting support would be to set up a new RN site, since that is what alot of us are most comfortable with here

Or if you really want something different go with one of the other suggested CMS's from above.

But you need to start somewhere, we all had to. It may not be easy but you have 3 choices:

1) Pay someone and keep paying so you don't deal with the frustrations.

2) Start off from scratch and go through some headache which will eventually result in you wanting to fix things yourself, this will lead to a better understanding of how things work and help you envision what you really want your site to be, and how to get better responses from devs

3) Give in and walk away from it altogether. Sometimes things can be very stressful and cause us to just give up. I'm not saying you should, but if it gets to the point that you feel lost you have to rethink what you're in this for.

Is it really worth all the trouble down the line? Would you rather pay someone to do all the work or eventually learn to do it on your own. One idea is to just start with option 2 and start playing with something simple. For example when I was starting off I decided to make a simple block based on this code: [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ]

Using this as a starting point will help you to gain a little insight into how blocks work. You will need to use something simple like this converter to get the block started:http://www.lenon.com/modules.php?name=PHP-Nuke_Tools&file=index&func=Block

Now you will need to figure out how to convert some things to get it to work with RN. This can be done by examining the contents of your newly converted block, and comparing it with the html/blocks/block-Sample_Block.php

Notice in the top of the file you may need to rename BLOCK_FILE or block-Sample_Block.php to that of your block, something like block-Chmod.php and save your block with the same name. Finnaly upload it to your public_html/blocks/ folder and enable it in Administration>Blocks.

If you run into problems, you could open a topic asking how to properly convert blocks to work with RN, along with posting the block file you are trying to create. There will be some other work to be done to get it to work, as the block converter is old and the html/js has to be parsed differently. This is where asking for help comes in!

Hint: If your site fails to load all the way and enabling the block, which it will as it needs other updates to work in RN, you can just delete the block-Chmod.php file and your site will work again. Also be sure to make a backup, especially if you plan to make core changes.

You should make notes of all the changes you make, no matter what they are. This will help you debug down the line.

If you have a site set up and running now, you should try asking individual questions for each problem you have. You have to take things one step at a time, otherwise things just become a cluttered confusion for those trying to help you.

Posted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 2:53 pm

horror-code, a hiphop-artist would say: WORD, bro! Smile

The most of all here have started from scratch to build their own page with the own preferences.

Posted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 3:27 pm

Nice post, HorrorCode... I have given up multiple times and moved to scripts-foru-dummies, such as IP.Board, vBulletin, and MyBB, all that require basically a simple file upload, and then you have your mod working. They are a lot easier to work with, but for some reason, I've always came back to Nuke. I just love it so much, except I'm not all that good with it. Honestly, I wouldn't be able to dedicate enough time to be able to focus so much on Nuke, as I'm constantly focusing on school and work. The good thing is, I'm in my second year of web design at my High School, and I plan on focusing on a career with computers and web design. I know I'm not that good at it, but I'm getting there :3

Considering my age, I wouldn't be able to obtain enough money to be able to pay for what I would like. I have no credit card or bank account, either. So my only options would be 'Option 1' and 'Option 3'...

I know I sound like a whiny kid to you guys, because all of you are so advanced in Nuke, and I ask for so much help, but I have spent countless hours studying and reading about Nuke. Unfortunately, many of the links to interesting mods that I would like to use are all down, because they are from >2006 and they can't keep their sites up and running! Obviously they have given up!

There's many people that could get me all of what I want within a month or less, but those people obviously require a large payment, in which I cannot provide. Sad

Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 11:33 am

Wow...

i've been reading the whole thread and the only thing i found relevant is the following.

Maybe you need to learn by yourself to code...

1) Most of us here are passionate people
2) Most of us don't learn how to code in nuke at school
3) RN is the best
4) What is the point of this thread?

Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 1:24 pm

I love point 3! RN ftw!!

Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 1:44 pm

I am getting a little bit irritation by the fact everytime I come to here to look for something about RavenNuke and then I found the same thing, repeating the same thing, writing the same thing about and I don't get the point. I think it is better to keep calm otherwise I will go too far.grrrr

Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 3:59 pm

I said I could pay.

I can't become "as good as you guys", that's why I want to pay to have done what I'd like done.

Each time I ask the "same question", I always learn A LOT more. From this thread alone, I have learned more than I ever had from previous threads. Am I really causing any problems by asking questions and for help? So much for a support site...

Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 4:32 pm

ricktido, you can not pay this experience you must start to learn it. All what do you need, was here described. But please let us make a point to close this discussion.

Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 6:49 pm

Horror-Code said that Sean is a good spirit, and might share his work...
So, I private messaged Sean on his site last night saying this:

"Hey, Sean Smile

I have spoken with someone named "HorrorCode", who says he helped you with setting up TTG. I was wondering if you could maybe give me a few tips with Nuke.

Thanks a lot."

This morning, I logged in and it said my IP was banned. I went to my account URL, and it said my account was suspended. I've never done anything else on that site. Never made a post or PM. That was my first action, and then I get banned in every way. It seems that Sean is not such a "good spirit" afterall... He is more of an ass.