Hello, I have not read any suggestions and others because I speak French and translating everything correctly is complicated.
I therefore propose my ideas and you have to dissect with what has been said before.
So, for me the aesthetics of the forum in general lack of color, it looks a bit dead ... It should give it a really specific style and pertaining to final fantasy, kind of small moogle in notification for messages unread.
Maybe also separate the mods from different games, I remember that to modder FF8 not speaking very well the language I look for more than 3 days to have everything and I still do not have what I really want.
Embed an IRC Chat directly on the main page, and maybe an audio player to make you bored a little less by reading.
I do not know at all what is possible, but for me all this remains of the basic functionalities of a forum.
I hope to help a bit in the ideas
EDIT: And banners