The RPG Duelling League
RPG Debate => RPGDL Discussion => Topic started by: Dark Holy Elf on August 21, 2010, 02:36:21 AM
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(Disclaimer: Super is at least 50% to blame for this. Act shocked.)
The DL has been going for about 60 seasons. Over that time, we've seen the general interest in the main tournament itself rise, and then fall. It's pretty much impossible to ignore the fact that interest has been falling for quite some time now. Just glancing over the results from last week, half the matches received 20 votes or less. Vote totals are pretty much back where they were in the first year of the DL. Season topics often have rather muted interest compared to the past, with just a few people participating in discussions when there were once many. It's been ages since I've seen someone new join for the sake of the main tournament. We still have newcomers, but they're coming for LFT, or mafia, or just general discussion about RPGs. Many weeks we have fewer total votes than there are people in chat at any given moment.
Less interest means it's harder to get people to do site work. I know I personally am more than guilty of doing this; I rarely write any more, and stopped running noms about a dozen seasons ago. It was so difficult to get work done that we had to drop the idea of requiring missing comments. And now, it's getting quite difficult to get regular writeups as well.
Is it still worth it? Maybe. I know I personally still enjoy discussing DL matches at least, even if I sometimes feel like I'm one of the few who are left. But it's becoming quite clear that this is getting increasingly difficult on the few staff members who still do real work (a number I won't claim to be part of, any more). If we decide it's worth it, there's little reason the DL can't continue for quite a while longer. It requires a certain commitment of work, but if people want to go for it, it's certainly a workable commitment.
Or, we could agree we've had a good run of it, and finally give the main tournament a (permanent) rest. We've lasted over 60 seasons, something close to 7 years. This is far longer than I think most of us would have dared hope for when we first started, far longer than the tournament we sought to emulate lasted. It might be just time to move on.
There's a third option, which would be to further reduce the sitework, most likely by getting rid of writeups altogether so that the DL resembles the last days of Not Ranked. I'm personally not a fan of this option - at that point, might as well just have a board tournament, rather than a shadow of what we once had - but it exists.
Just to be clear, whatever we decide, the RPGDL forums and chat aren't going to be closed. Both of those are still as active as they've ever been. This discussion purely concerns the voting tournament that takes place at www.rpgdl.com itself.
Thoughts?
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I pretty strongly agree with Elfboy. The interest just isn't thee for the most part, and totals/group interest match this. reducing the work with missing comments didn't stimulate interest at all, and it's painful to get writeups outside of the handful that are working.
I was willing to keep the site going as long as people care, but not at this point. So yeah, I'm good with closing things down. Don't especially mind what people want to put in it's place, as long as it's PG(13)ish for content.
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I'm of the mind we don't need the DL tourney for the community to thrive anymore. Board tourneys will always exist, and hey, it's not like there isn't other content or there isn't a chat/board we can meet up and geek out. Think we may just finish this season for completeness' sake and call it a day.
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Agreeing with the others. The DL has changed and things have moved on.
The only suggestion may be some sort of ultimate championship or final season, but I don't know if there's interest.
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I know I'm definitely one who has had his interest decrease dramatically in the DL and mostly just votes, and only really does write ups when whipped too (well...that was always the case, but part of this was because it made the editors work easier by NOT editing my write ups for a while) and honestly, I just don't feel that interested much anymore.
I haven't spoken in the season topic in like 2 years or something. From what I can tell, there's a select few who are still interested, but the amount of effort I see on Fridays just to get write ups done...its definitely telling and I think now would be a good time to finally pack up and move on.
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I'd support a DL-like setup in the forums (a "Ranked" version of CK's Futurama Tourney) but otherwise yeah, I've no issues here.
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A few points. I'm guilty for not doing write ups or claiming write ups. Part of it is actually being busy (whee University), the other part is just general apathy some times. Duellers get in that you don't know, or don't care about, so you don't write or participate in discussions and it grows when it happens over and over.
I'm in favour of shutting down the main tournament at this point because yeah, it's not worth keeping around for the few people who have to slug all the work (Tai/Super/Snow etc.) especially if the interest is waning badly. A DL-like set up in the forums works of course. Everything will be done less formally and upgrades and downgrades might not even exist, but it will keep that spirit alive without draining others and there's a lot more freedom to be had. Of course being one of the people who's pretty much apathetic to the main tourney at this point, take that as you will. Option 3 is nice in theory. But when you realize that the main tourney has gone to point of where NR was in its last days, just how much hope is there and how much is denial at work here? The records and everything we should keep around for sure though.
Running a final season might be nice, if only just so its like the icing on the cake for the closure. But same thing. If people don't feel like going for it, I say, don't bother.
Not much else to add other than that. I think if we want to attract more members, the main tourney at this point isn't doing anyone any favours - as was mentioned in chat, there's lots of various things people do on the forums and it might be better to advertise though than trying to keep a sinking ship afloat.
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I'm still good for putting in the work, in all honesty
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I guess James wasn't enough, huh!?
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My thoughts...
Why don't you just make the DL tournament happen twice a year or something?
It will build up some interest like that I would imagine? Maybe?
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Put in on ice for a while (more than the one season break we took a long time ago) or
I guess James wasn't enough, huh!?
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My thoughts...
Why don't you just make the DL tournament happen twice a year or something?
It will build up some interest like that I would imagine? Maybe?
this. I don't like the idea of completely killing the main tourney for good or stripping it down further, but after all this time, continuing to run the same thing over and over is just not working out. I still really like the main tourney, but I feel so alone in caring. Everyone just seems so burnt out. Perhaps letting it rest for long periods would help matters. We might also have more energy in us to try and dredge up new voters when it comes back, after being well rested and whatnot.
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01:22] <CmdrKing> Stretching things out wouldn't help at all, at least from a work standpoint. And would make things worse from an interest standpoint.
[01:22] <Monkeyfinger> Yeah that was Scar's idea in the forum topic, which I kind of liked. Run the seasons like we do now, but have huge gaps of downtime in between them.
[01:23] <CmdrKing> Anyway, as long as nobody picks up on the "make it like last season of NR" concept we've averted the worst possible outcome.
[01:24] <MishaArsellecLune> Better idea than just dropping it altogether if you ask me. >.>
[01:24] <MishaArsellecLune> Hmm, twice a year? Not a bad idea I guess.
[01:25] <CmdrKing> To my mind having the shambling, hollow husk that was last season NR is no different from having nothing at all, except it's painfully obvious nobody even cares then.
[01:26] <Tide|Superisaquitter> My thoughts more or less CK
[01:26] <CmdrKing> That said, truthfully if people really want to not have the DL there, something else needs to go in. I don't think having semi-annual tourneys really offsets the need for regular content, either. But... that'd involve something even MORE ambitious.
[01:27] <MishaArsellecLune> I somewhat care about the tourney. I don't care about the writeups.
[01:27] <CmdrKing> The simplest answer is, of course, turning the wiki into an actual thing. But good god that'd take some work to make presentable.
[01:28] <CmdrKing> And I'm not entirely sure who'd be qualified for it.
[01:28] <MishaArsellecLune> Presentable how?
[01:28] <CmdrKing> Organized. Coherent.
[01:29] <CmdrKing> Preferably prettied up, but that's not necessary in the initial stages.
Just my initial thought after a brief period of emo. Shared here so it need not be hidden in the dens of chat.
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I like Scar's idea too. I don't really deserve to have a say since I haven't done work in 20 seasons, but yeah. >_>;;
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This forum does not have an auto-sadness icon!
No more rankings!
No more nom nights!
No Soul Nomad!
No Mana Khemia 2!
No Tales of Vesperia! (I of course realize none of these were ever guaranteed ranking!)
No more upgrade baits!
No more trollops in need of wins and runs!
Well, I don't completely mind the work, and I'd miss it to hell. If we were going to decide on a final season, I'd definitely say more than 1 season out.
Running 2 a year (as opposed to the current turn around of 6?)...well, the RPGP always felt the most frustrating when it just randomly went away and said wait a while. Granted, I guess the planning wouldn't be as random.
Getting votes in the board tournies can make the DL proper seem practically thriving. I guess one could make it fancier on the boards.
Not really sure how the wiki ideas works! But yes, at 1 AM, I'm basically just good for semi-naysaying other ideas and semi coherent babbling. I guess because partly Super brought this up before con and I semi realized that without the DL there is the slight off chance I could actually put work into making my own RPGs with the redirected energy (But likely not! That takes real work!)
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Breaks aren't going to help. We need a major format overhaul(A different kind of duelling) to make people care or an outright focus change. I'll admit, this is just my opinion, but breaks never helped me any...
Not that we have to actually shut down the site in any true way-just stop arena comments. As of last check, no one has complained about nom night work in a while(Twil taking it over and putting it into a managable format is awesome), and I don't suppose if worst came to worst that the DL would mind doing group work for nom pools once every month and a half(and indeed I believe we've done this).
Ranking topics are generally interesting and the amount of work involved in them doesn't have to be as high if no one is worrying quite so much about *precisely* how many writers we have(as no one will be writing.). Although if that ends up too much work there's no reason not to kill rankings as an idea(as this is still superior to shutting down the site).
In short, shutting down is basically not needed, so much as shutting down writeups. The board tournament comparison is unfair, the site's handling system is clearly both *less* work than a board tournament(now that it's in place anyways, it wasn't to make) and generally more polished thanks to the ridiculous 1000~ pictures we've already got inserted. It is kinda sad compared to what was there before, sure, but the DL in general is. It has been gradually getting less and less interest and less and less interesting over the years. Not it's fault, it just happens.
I personally think it would be a very good idea to do that.
I'd really like to see a focus shift of some kind, optimally, as well. It would be interesting to try to expand stat topics to focus, not just on duelling performance, but instead to give you an idea of what characters are like throughout a game. Almost no FAQs do this worth a damn; They slam down a bunch of stats on you at *best*, without really explaining them in a coherently-written manner, and at worst give vague and often ridiculous opinions as to why Ace is the best character evar! about characters.
Expanding current stat topics isn't really too bad of a job in many cases, as often stat topics list even lesser importance skills(which matter more in-game). It's already over halfway there, in other words. Mechanics we're also good at, and obscure as hell RPGs we actually probably can construct better guides for than GFAQs in general. It'd be neat.
Edit:
Don't especially mind what people want to put in it's place, as long as it's PG(13)ish for content.
Awwwwwwwwww but we are the CLEARLY PERFECT PEOPLE to do an all yuri all the time fanfiction site.
Tai can head the project.
Edit 2:
Also, to be clear, I'm saying remove arena writeups as a better than closing idea. Nothing else. Replace the site construction fully and make the original tourney a forum thing? Better. Overhaul the tourney? Better. Just closing the site without anything in it's place? Worse.
But I still think that the main site is going to get more votes than forum tourneys. We still get 50~ votes, and glancing Tourneys the most posts I see in one is 30~(assuming those are all votes, which they are not likely). Even if it cuts that in half it's as good as a board tournament.
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Not really sure how the wiki ideas works! But yes, at 1 AM, I'm basically just good for semi-naysaying other ideas and semi coherent babbling. I guess because partly Super brought this up before con and I semi realized that without the DL there is the slight off chance I could actually put work into making my own RPGs with the redirected energy (But likely not! That takes real work!)
For the wiki and some other ideas that have come up... and come up before in the previous topic to this effect... the DL closing wouldn't make a hell of a lot of difference, it seems to me. Like other people have said, they don't do much writing anymore. There are tons of people that could have worked on what was discussed last time, shifting the site focus, drafting/designing the new layout, etc. They didn't. Hell, nearly a full blueprint was left detailing a new site layout that pulled focus away from the arena. Nothing came of it. It wasn't the DL proper that held people back. It was apathy, it was people being busy with real lives, etc.
As for the only 2 a year thing... I'd say maybe 3 or 4 a year if we come to that (Cut the number we do in half, basically). Breaks don't really help, but it's better than nothing. Having the site break down for a couple weeks last year (or was it the year before?) really, really hurt. Then soon afterwards we took a week or two break for the tweaks to the season layout where the only explanation was on the forums. Those two events are where we lost most of our casuals, not that we weren't losing them already...
I'm still good to do the work, so I'm pretty much with Sage and Dhyer. After what happened last time, I have somewhat less confidence in seeing people step up and put the work in. But hey, maybe someone will do it just to spite me. I honestly welcome that at this point.
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Nothing came of it. It wasn't the DL proper that held people back. It was apathy, it was people being busy with real lives, etc.
Yeah, this is accurate. Just at this point, I don't think the amount of interest being put into the site justifies keeping it open. We can remove arena writeups (Which will not help interest but will help with the work side), but I don't think it'll stimulate interest in the site. Most of the core group just doersn't care at this point, and nothing I can think of will help that.
In my case, I just am not interested in putting in the amount of work in general, with interest and debate pretty much gone.
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I agree actually. I don't think anything would be raised to replace the current content of the DL because no one can be arsed to get it done. I also, however, want to establish some thoughts on potential outcomes. Like, maybe a hierarchy.
The worst possible outcome is putting out site content in which it's obvious the creators (that's us) just don't give a fuck. That's the "just cut writeups entirely" solution.
The bad outcome is cutting site content entirely. Having nothing going up onto what is ostensibly the front page is the path to atrophy and, ultimately, the death of this community.
The kinda sucky outcome is reducing the amount of updating on the site. While having semi or even quarter annual updates is better than nothing, it's slow enough that I still think it'll drive some people away.
The neutral outcome is finding different content which can be updated regularly but not at set intervals. This can be done in conjunction with a reduced update schedule or alone. It's ultimately the most work-intensive option, but at the same time the work is frontloaded (mostly getting stuff we already have into a coherent, presentable form), so if by some miracle it did happen it'd be much easier to maintain than the current system.
The best outcome would be people to stop being lazy and actually play RPGs, do writeups, shore up their voting, and generally remember we have a great website here. Sadly, anti-RPG sentiment is too pervasive to ever make THIS happen. Just sayin'.
I don't know what will or even should happen. But, those have been my thoughts, so they have been shared.
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Awwwwwwwwww but we are the CLEARLY PERFECT PEOPLE to do an all yuri all the time fanfiction site.
This gets my vote.
More seriously, I like something somewhere between Sage and Scar. Dunno exactly where I am, and it's not like I do any actual work aside from some exceedingly rare stat topic stuff, but it's not like anyone seems to want to do write-ups that much.
Of course doing the tournament only twice a year means we'd probably have a lot more motivation to do write-ups, but I'd like to have the tournaments scheduled fairly well to avoid what Dhyer said about the RPGP. I keep saying I'll contribute SOMETHING and then never living up to it due to being a lazy SOB, maybe I could work up the motivation with a looser schedule >_>
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I had a large post typed and my internet glitched.
I want to see the tournament stay, but alot of the fighters cut (yes, I said that) Rank mostly newer games and stuff like FF and Pokemon.
Also, I have ties to the people running Anime Nebraskon. I can draw up a bunch of interest for this site if you are looking for new members! There are lots of RPG players that go to the convention. I could run a panel at the con :P
I wish I was a better writer, cause I would write for you guys to give you a break.
Edit: I just came to vote, and it says voting is down. When is it going to be up?
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The worst possible outcome is putting out site content in which it's obvious the creators (that's us) just don't give a fuck. That's the "just cut writeups entirely" solution.
The bad outcome is cutting site content entirely. Having nothing going up onto what is ostensibly the front page is the path to atrophy and, ultimately, the death of this community.
The kinda sucky outcome is reducing the amount of updating on the site. While having semi or even quarter annual updates is better than nothing, it's slow enough that I still think it'll drive some people away.
The neutral outcome is finding different content which can be updated regularly but not at set intervals. This can be done in conjunction with a reduced update schedule or alone. It's ultimately the most work-intensive option, but at the same time the work is frontloaded (mostly getting stuff we already have into a coherent, presentable form), so if by some miracle it did happen it'd be much easier to maintain than the current system.
The best outcome would be people to stop being lazy and actually play RPGs, do writeups, shore up their voting, and generally remember we have a great website here. Sadly, anti-RPG sentiment is too pervasive to ever make THIS happen. Just sayin'.
Reality checking in here; People don't actually do most of these things unless you force them by and large, and haven't for thirty seasons.
There's no question that you're right on paper-optimally it would be best if magically everyone regained their interest in a concept we've been doing for over 300 weeks worth of matches(Ignoring, of course, the people that followed the RPGP). Realism steps in and backhands you across the face around this point. There are television shows that pay their writers tons of money that get sick of it in 300 weeks. They have, you know, not every week schedules.
(Edit: Though, yes, they do a lot more work. Then again most of them still don't last 300 weeks.)
Reducing updates by this stage-when people are already not interested in it-is not a good way to boost interest. It is a good way to make people forget it exists at all, far better than simply killing writeups. Writeups make a page look empty and, yes, less cared about. But the page is still there and open for voting. Something that updates with over a month in gaps makes you forget to check it. Makes you stop caring as much about it. Kills your interest dead. Anyone who follows webcomics would know! >_>
Cutting creative site content sucks but to judge by results it hasn't actually changed the amount of voters much. I'm not sure what that says. But it's true. Arena may or may not, it's hard to say. We stopped Arena for NR in part because of the massive lack of interest in it as well as the massive amount of work that wasn't getting done at all.
That isn't to say that I don't agree with you on the neutral part, though, and I do say that the new concept idea is the best way to go. Nothing wrong with running a stripped down version of the tournament at it's barebones level too, as it leads to interest in a related concept and gives people multiple reasons to come here. But this also requires the most relative creative work. Then again we kinda do it out of just being interested casually already, so.
Edit:
Alanna: Slight technical issue thanks to the week break-the site thinks that the week it's on right now already passed. So, it thinks the week that was just put into the site already ended. Oops.
Need to get an admin in and look at it, it'll be fixed soon I'm sure.
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I SAID it wasn't realistic.
Using your TV show analogy though... well, most shows get cancelled after 5 or 6 seasons when no one can write it well anymore. The NR solution would be akin to not cancelling the show, but instead firing all the writers and producing season upon season of clip show episodes. It's soulless and smacks of laziness worse than a simple dignified ending would be.
Edit: I wonder. If we were to actually shut down, would that motivate people to put real work into whatever ideas they have for a successor?
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You said the last one wasn't realistic.
I was more going for most of the rest not being realistic either, and the optimal outcome of spontaneous interest not only being non-realistic but kinda mean to beat people for not having, which is a bit how that came across. :| It's not worth blaming people for lack of interest; They probably don't like it either, and certainly can't help it.
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If you guys do decide to close down the tournament, how about making the final season not be nominations and intead take the X highest ranked of each division? Or something like "the best of the DL"
If your going to end it, End it with a BANG, not a whimper!
Sage: Thanks for checking that.
Do you guys want me to advertise at the convention and/or on other websites? If other new people get interested, maybe they can take over some stuff. Its like when they plan Nebraskon, if someone leaves, new people end up helping and volunteering. I think its the lack of new people volunteering thats the problem here, leading to burn out.
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*shrug* It sounds much less bitter than I feel. Logic has nothing to do with it dangit!
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Whereas, I'm still coming off burnout so bad that I still can't manage to care about results, despite my best attempts and three? seasons of break. Not that I don't want to, I just kinda stare blankly and can't think of anything to write.
In a sense I'm kinda at the opposite extreme here.
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More on my idea;
We could open up voting twice or four times a year, possibly (if doing the four times idea) one tournament every season. Smack the camps with crowns, have each lower division champ face the champ that reigns above them just for shits and giggles, or potential write ups, what have you. We could even keep that champ in the seat of power (ala RPGP style) and see if the next season brings someone that can de throne then.
Or something to that effect.
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I have had the itch to write, but write ups have always been something of a obstruction in my mechanics. I dunno, I just never get any more good ideas between two fighters or haven't put any effort into sitting down and thinking up of something interesting for readers. it could be many possibilities.
BUT REGARDLESS
I was thinking why don't we do a behind the scenes RP which would mean just more crazy antics of all these rpgs characters beyond fights. I think I could actually get attached to something like that. I could even write about past weeks in the books about what certain characters were doing during the eventual title runs or almost title runs or even just spectators. I think this idea has been floating around for a long time, it has just never been addressed or followed through with.
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Edit: I wonder. If we were to actually shut down, would that motivate people to put real work into whatever ideas they have for a successor?
I wouldn't count on it. It sounds good in theory, except there are a couple of problems. One is that if you don't set deadlines, people can take as long as they want to work on something. Never really a good thing because things can get delayed over and over. An example? I've been meaning to work on the ACF run but still haven't gotten off my ass to produce the next segment in like 2 months >_>. The other problem is, if you DO set deadlines, people eventually run into the problem of the thing being a chore, because sometimes commitments aren't necessary easy to make. So what you have is a pretty lose-lose situation. The only caveat to this is if there is running interest amongst people who keep the project alive, such as the DL back in its glory days or the new IAQ now. Interest amongst people is what keeps things alive. The creator being interested in the idea itself isn't good enough for a project to last its way through for a long term period.
I'm not sure if I agree personally that no content is worse than a dumb downed content. A dumb downed content to me is basically a "Why bother?" question. You might well scrap it since its clear that people just don't care anymore. To be fair, I rarely read the write ups anyway, so I guess to me, a dumb down content version of the site wouldn't make much difference.
Trying to find group interest in something sounds like the next best thing to me in all honesty. I'm also not sure if putting longer delay periods are really going to help rejuvinate interest. We already tried that with the various breaks to address burn out, and as far as I know, it's not doing a very good job.
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I think it's about time to take Old Yeller back behind the shed.
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I'm not sure if I agree personally that no content is worse than a dumb downed content. A dumb downed content to me is basically a "Why bother?" question. You might well scrap it since its clear that people just don't care anymore. To be fair, I rarely read the write ups anyway, so I guess to me, a dumb down content version of the site wouldn't make much difference.
The thing is, I think that's *most* people now.
You still get people who are interested in RPGs, in the concept of the characters in statistical duels, etc.
You just have a core group now whose average RPGs played is exceeding 50 and a stat topic haul of over 200 and a season topic that actually gives people the opinions we *have* and not an attempt to be fair and unbiased(Arena writeups).
I don't think people actually read them much, and it tends to be a "Oh, forgot that." effect at best, something that season topics do better for me than something someone was forced to hash out in ten minutes.
Maybe we should just start linking to season topics and put our effort into actual debate-which people like more and do in their own time-than attempts to be colorful. And try to think of something else to fill out that part of the site with.
(It occurs to me that full body art would work but realistically that's making work to make less work. I'm sure a fair deal of it is on hand but that's a lot of damn art to fix to site standards.)
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Re: People won't do work for new content
It's hard to redesign a site when your webmaster doesn't give you access. Straight up, the DL is stagnating because it's not -possible- to change it and Hal is too busy to do it himself or even set up a new person to do it in his place.
Trust me, I tried.
Also notice that we -did- come to decisions to change the update schedule and fix rerankings into something else. We just ended up choosing the change that made the most work for Hal.
Re: zOMG No Writeups Tournament would be the worst thing EVAR!
No. You're wrong. Low-content is better than No Content. Also... STANDARDIZED WRITEUPS.
I want to hear from people who actually do writeups if they like the idea of doing one Standardized Writeup for each Duelist. We can even do it as we go. No more work than before. Same aesthetic appeal. Eventually we have a tournament that runs itself and we just get to do the fun parts like nomming things and debating.
We should link directly to the Discussion Topic each week. More Forum Integration is a GOOD idea, especially if some of the main people are ready to give up on the site entirely.
Re: Refocus the Site
Stat Topics and Wikis. Seriously, keep the Tournament with Standardized Writeups, link all profiles to their respective Stat Topics (preferably the wiki page if it exists, we've got something like 35% of the stat topics on the Wiki now), and then work on finishing porting all the Stat Topics to the Wiki. The Wiki is NOT the mess it used to be. It's still somewhat plain, but a banner and a color change is all it needs to be as good as the DL, honestly.
I'd still like to push for more User-Created Content stuff, and I have a bunch of things linked, and Tide has a lot of things uploaded to the Wiki already, so it just needs some organizing. Oh, and access to the main site whenever Hal or Super have time or whatever.
Personally not in favor of closing the site at all, obviously. And I would prefer if we could go the Standardized Writeups way over time.
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Also... STANDARDIZED WRITEUPS.
I think those are a very good answer. You still have some writing crunches for a few seasons but it kills the generally more problematic later week problems(as you get a fair deal of ahead of time warning for the first two weeks, which is all you'd effectively have to write.), and later of course you'd eventually be able to reuse them of course. I can't speak for the Arena writers(I have done one Arena writeup in the past three seasons? Two?), but it sounds good to me...
Theoretically, you'd want standard writeups and the ability to mention something obscure in a pinch if it comes up as a strong point in a writeup. The issues are that it's hard to format it, and...realistically, we phrase writeups in an attempt to be fair, and do so with such extremes that only the most ridiculously one-sided matches tend to actually show up as obviously one-sided at a glance if you don't recall the characters decently well.
Basically, even as it is, we don't write "Oh yeah this guy gets totally curbstomped because of X move." "Yeah sorry this guy really does." as writeups. In retrospect this possibly limits how informative they are, but never mind that; The point is that the very act of adding in such exceptions would infer to people that "Oh yeah this move completely screws over the other person." anyways, better than anything we do in writeups now. Which is a mixed bag.
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Holy Crap. Write-ups being informative! This is a terrible idea, I take it all back.
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Like I said, it's kinda been a weird catch 22 for me in some ways, the writeup system.
On the one hand, you need to be fair, but on the other hand you need to make sure people have the info. And people have different opinions on who wins what, and always have...but internally it tends to lean the same way. There are some people that can't buy a good writeup for them, because the views required for them to win would be so non-standard that they'd offend people.
It might actually just be better to go with something standard just because, optimally and done well, it would just be a statement of skillset abilities and cast-relative statistics, very reasonable base assumptions. High damage is objective(ish, some people have at least in the past not taken to higher in damage average=higher damage very well but it's usually close enough.), status attacks are objective, etc., but it keeps you from having any *ability* to comment on how well X person matches up against Y person, allowing people to at a glance decide the bleeding obvious, that say a character that relies mostly on healspam and that doesn't have status blocking will die to good status.
People don't have to bullshit, in other words.
Well, except for people like Jogurt. But people enjoy bullshitting for him. That's different.
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Forgot standardized writeups, let's just list stats!
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I've not got the energy right now to go into this indepth, so I'm going to keep this very brief:
If you want the tourney to stay up, if you like the tourney, do the work. I'm terribly uninclined to say that the editors and whippers should be doing 80% of the work. And no, "you're overreacting the shit got done at 10:30 that's not late" is hella not acceptable because it got done at that time due to me and Snow doing a bit under a half of the damn writeups. And frankly forcing me/whatever other editors are around to conform to your schedule in getting them up is simply bullshit.
Regardless of tourney staying up/going down/whatever the hell, I support dropping it but if we do standardized I'll help edit and probably write a few, why the hell not, I support retooling the site/setting up a Wordpress/beginning to focus on other specialties our group has talent and ability in, whateverthehell that might be that we go with. Working away from RPG duels may happen, oh noes. There are places for this to continue on the forums, and there's more stuff we can do, if we decide to and can get momentum going. About the one thing that doesn't fucking help is naysaying something before it's even tried, though, which is why I won't object to trying the standardized writeups if we do go for it. But what we're doing now really isn't working in a fair manner.
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And I loved you when our love was blessed
and I love you now there's nothing left
but sorrow and a sense of overtime
and I missed you since the place got wrecked
And I just don't care what happens next
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between, I guess
it's closing time
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Mostly with Djinn on this. And more then willing to chip in with the standardized writeups whenever I'm not doing BtS instead~
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Standarizied writeups fix part of the work problem, but it also does nothing for the general burnout and apathy most of the community has towards the DL. We had 47 votes the week before last, and I probably prodded a third of those people into voting. Even if we can keep the site going indefinitely, what is the point if we have a very large part of the voterbase that is only voting out of habit? The lack of interest in everything from noms to missing comments to season topics to general chat talk about the site is down, and nothing I've seen suggested about keeping the main DL league going is going to reverse that trend.
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I can't remember the last time I voted out of anything but habit. I was okay with the tourney closing down the last time this topic came up and still am. I hang around here to be amused by fellow misanthropes.
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Standarizied writeups fix part of the work problem, but it also does nothing for the general burnout and apathy most of the community has towards the DL. We had 47 votes the week before last, and I probably prodded a third of those people into voting. Even if we can keep the site going indefinitely, what is the point if we have a very large part of the voterbase that is only voting out of habit? The lack of interest in everything from noms to missing comments to season topics to general chat talk about the site is down, and nothing I've seen suggested about keeping the main DL league going is going to reverse that trend.
*shrugs* People who aren't interested don't need to participate anymore if it all becomes standardized. It's not ideal that people don't want to do it anymore, but the framework is already there and it seems a shame to just scrap it when there are still some people who want to use it.
I personally would agree that the Tournament as the main feature of the site is outdated, the whole site needs an overhaul into being a Community-Created Content site, since there are a lot of us who have contributed to the gaming community over the years and it's the kind of thing that this group is actually still interested in.
Only problem is getting someone who is interested in this to the point where they are able to actually access to the site/layout and make those changes, since dumping all that on Hal isn't fair.
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Brief comment: I'm personally in favor of the "one final season" idea to finish on a high note. Finish this season, then throw out all normal rules about who's eligible (aka "characters just in last season can maybe return"). Furthermore, this season should be selected by hand - no "top X ranked characters" thing, but rather pick characters designed to be from
A) High-drawing, loved games
B) A broad selection - no swarms of suikoscrubs
C) Who are interesting duelists without being headaches.
D) Won't be assuredly blown out by everyone else (okay except for Jogurt)
E) And perhaps a few with well-known DL quirks, like a weird history or BtS hype.
Since things like "broad selection of games" are holistic, this really needs to be coordinated. Perhaps have one person select a sample list, and then others comment / suggest if they missed anything? Try to be fair, though. I'd be fine with rando-selecting the matchups afterward, though we can rig a few matches up if there are any DL-grudges that need to be settled.
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As I mentioned earlier, I'd rather go out with say...3 final seasons that than 1. But my logic there is that there are still a horde of people I'd like to see in and 1 season feels like too few (Well...I'm also not bored of the DL). I do think that picking a portion based off number of nominations would go the way to go if we set a final season date.
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Ninja'd by Dhyer: Sure, three final seasons would also work, if there's interest. Certainly there'd be a much more solid guarantee of everyone of any plot / DL relevance getting in for one last shot.
On a philosophical note, what killed the RPGDL tourney wasn't the RPGDL at all, I think. It was that console RPGs that translate well came too slow to the next-gen systems and were too spread out. If any one system had clearly "won" the RPG market, then games from it could have been ranked like back in the PS1 / PS2 days... but that didn't happen.
On the one final season idea, I'd nominate superaielman to be that one person who has the final say and all. That said because it's the kind of thing I'd enjoy doing, here's my idea for a final season, should we decide to go down that route. (And also, to be clear, after the "final season" there can still be board tournies, natch.)
Godlike:
Xorn
Sephiroth (? Just in this season but FF7 rep for Heavy.)
Ghaleon (? Strong for the field, but a long history and wasn't in recently)
Kefka
Melfice
Yuri
Souji
Indalecio
Mewtwo
Empyrea (or Jessica, some DQ8 rep)
Ryu (BoF4)
Orlandu
Rika (or Profound Darkness? On the other hand PCs are fun)
Terra (FF6 can support two reps in Godlike.)
Tir
S61 Heavy Upgrade / Champ? (If Emelious champs, though, just ignore him in favor of Xorn.)
Heavy
Hugo (or Geddoe, but Hugo's more interesting in the DL)
Jack van Burace
Billy Lee Black (Fei is a more obvious choice, but Billy's more interesting in the DL?)
Artea
Ike (or Lyn, or Ephraim, but more Ike is the most interesting / is also in Smash?)
Sync
Rose (? Or Lloyd?)
Sofia (DQ4)
Crono
Odin (BtS excuse)
Alex (Lunar)
Cecil (FF4)
Auron
Momo (BoF3) (In just this season. Uh, something else then, and maybe stick a BoF3 representative somewhere else. Red for super hype?)
Cloud
Room for more champs?
(Heavy is as usual way too crowded. Plenty of other solid picks here - Red, Lyn, Margulis, Scias, Vayne... hell, even Lezard for the lulz)
Middle
Laharl
Lyon (FE8)
Brad (WA2)
Jr. (or SHION??)
Karsh
Mia (FE9) (? Entirely on "include some swordmaster in the DL hype but Ike is the best pick in Heavy where most of them are and Vantage is cool" logic)
Nina (BoF2)
Ryudo
Alice (SH1)
Yulie Ahtredie
Ramza
SEIFER (? Headache in the DL but it's Seifer so maybe he gets in anyway?)
Natalia (or Jade, or Guy, or someone from TotA)
Aika
Rena (Bad for the division, but less so than Claude in Godlike, and one of the two SO2 PCs with plot)
Some potential upgrade, maybe, if they're cool enough
WA3 PCs get left out, but it translates kinda meh to the DL. I'd have stuck Virginia in but she was just in *this* season so maybe not. (Though there's also Jet for Middle I guess. Though he'll lose horribly.) Could make an argument for MK Jessica as well, unsure of MK's popularity but seems like it should have at least one representative. Chisato would easily qualify for Light based on BtS hype but I think she'd just outright lose to everyone in Highish Middle which is meh.
Light
Mullen (or Evil Gaia for FRUE G1 boss hype? Mullen's still way worse than his ranking would indicate)
Black Wizard
Miranda
Nanami (S2)
Kain
Yukari
Bernadette
Collete Brunel
Jin Uzuki
Snowe (or Katarina ?)
Quistis
Emma Hetfield
Labyrinthia
Algus (will lose, and there will be much rejoicing. Or Mustadio.)
Rufus Shinra (will lose, but style, and Light is short on bosses)
Jogurt (will lose, but it's Jogurt.)
Tried to have a wide spread of games on this. Weirdly enough WA4 lost out
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Your shameful lack of Justin vs Rune hype has been noted, Snowfire.
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Looking through Snowfire's list and thinking "Man, there's so many other interesting duelists he could have picked" was really nice. There's clearly more than a single season's worth of interesting duelists, which makes me not want to give up on the tournament completely.
If people want to have a 'final' handpicked season, that's not a bad idea, but I would still like to keep the voting system open. Personally, I wish I could make a site like the main DL tournament page that recorded votes and matches so efficiently.
If the rest of you give up on making the tournament work, then I would like to request the use of the voting/records system to start a followup tournament of a similar format.
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Last week will be kinda a weird outlier thanks to DLCon, probably not best to base much on it.
Having said that, yeah, votes are 50-60 range right now, I think? I never quite mathed it out(Well no I did once and it was 55 or so. >_>) but yeah.
That's still well over double any forum tournaments though. The issue is, right now, it also takes a disproportionate effort compared to those. We're talking something that takes more writing than Nyarly's Dungeon(which is the most text heavy one). Toss in BtS and it also takes more creative writing than that too.
I don't think the issue is so much that *no one* cares-a decent chunk of internal cares, just, not enough to squeal fangirlishly over the concept anymore(Dhyer is an exception. >_> <_<). It's hard to care enough to write for it after you've wrote for it so many times and fundamentally just wrote the same things over and over.
Also, to be clear, the only real reason I've heard to stop the main tournament completely is A: It looks like we don't care much anymore if we don't put up arena writeups, and B: It will get less votes.
The problem with A is that we're, in fact, questioning if we care much anymore and have issues getting outside votes, and with B it will still get more than a forum tournament. Now, if B stops being true then tossing it makes sense, but it's kinda ridiculous to punt something that is essentially the best forum tournament setup and one with an enjoyable rolling night and everything. I have no real problem with ending the site as such with a nice final season or whatever, and just kinda making a DL Lite or whatever and making sure people know it's not the same, but stopping it completely is a waste of good code and good ideas.
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No. I chose the week before DLC for that reason. 40-50 is more the norm, now. Not trying to go wholesale with the quote and respond bit, but doing it to clarify my thoughts a little.
A: It looks like we don't care much anymore if we don't put up arena writeups
The less effort you put into something, the less people who wander in/are regular voters are going to care. One of the big reasons that we lost casuals is general results page burnout, lack of cool bonuses, etc. Lack of arena writeups made that final season of NR pretty pitiful; and I don't think the DL would fare any better.
I don't think the issue is so much that *no one* cares-a decent chunk of internal cares, just, not enough to squeal fangirlishly over the concept anymore(Dhyer is an exception. >_> <_<).
It's a definitely a minority for people who actually vote and give a damn about the DL. Look at how many people are actively talking in this topic versus how many are in chat or even went to DLC. The general apathy I get from the community is staggering, and that is far worse than low totals. The Cids and VSMs and Grefters of the DL (The people who hang around but aren't super into the entire thing) have long since stopped caring. Elfboy had a quote way back from when we split with RC that's still true: those people are the ones who really shape the DL, both in what we rank and where we go as a community.
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Just gonna say that Snowfire's list looks pretty good if we do go the "one final season" route.
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Doing "One Final Season" will make me sad, as I always thought the greatest pleasure of any week was watching people debate on who could actually come out on top in any given match-up, and trying to figure out my own opinions on each matter as they came about.
Granted, if this many people think it's enough, then... Well, the point? Nothing, I suppose.
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I pretty much agree with Sage here. I like the standardized writeups idea. Once it gets done, we have to do very little work and the people who still want to vote can do it.
For the record, I am still interested in the tournament. Sure, I prefer the board tournaments because they have more variety in games/characters used (which I think is the main problem with the DL proper), but it's the same format anyway. I usually forget to vote because... well, I'm a very forgetful person. I forgot to update my own board tourney (the music tourney) on multiple occasions. Forgetting is what I do.
SnowFire's got a point, I think. Part of the lack of interest in the DL is probably due to the videogame market right now. People are refusing to buy the current gen systems at the moment, so they can't play the newer RPGs, so newer RPGs can't get ranked, so the DL just repeats itself. If we had more people playing newer games, it's probable that we could get new voters to join as well.
I'm not saying that's the only issue at hand, but it seems to be a notable one at least.
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I look at Snowfire's list and go "But there are so many more cool duellists than that!". I seriously think the last season should be less a random assortment of games and more an assortment of people who have shaped the DL. Older DL shapers (like Nina 2!) and newer ones (like Lady, Arnaud, etc.). I do like the concept though. Go out with a bang, not a whimper.
With that aside said, I don't think it's vote totals that is the problem. I think living with 30 votes is fine; I think having a writing staff that doesn't give a damn and is hella burned out is the issue. I don't care if there's 100 votes a week if there are three people doing all the work and they hate doing it every week and feel like it is a tiresome chore and not something they love. The DL isn't a job. It doesn't pay money. A volunteer fundamentally has to be passionate about what they do in order to drive their work to be good. The vote totals don't HELP the drive certainly, but yeah.
If there are people who think they can take over and do the work needed and make a productive site, then I think you should be welcome to do so! I also think you need to make sure that you are prepared for that workload. Tai and Snow and Super have done a lot of work for the site over the past... (I dunno, year, two years, it all blurs.) while and I don't think you should expect them to continue that if you want to continue the site. I think you need to pinpoint the people who will bear the workload before you undertake such an endeavor. As long as there are people who both care and are willing to put the time in, though... well. I actually don't have much of an opinion one way or another. Less seasons in a year, one final closing, or a facelift for who is doing work. I think whatever the appropriate parties hash out (i.e. not me) is an acceptable answer.
But if you want to take over the torch, make sure you're ready. That's all I have to say!
Also holy crap I completely disagree with Tal! I think the DL is way better than board tournaments because I can actually vote on the games in them!
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We should have everyone who has champed be in the final season.
A winner from winners.
~
If we do indeed go the final season path, which I'd rather not, but then again I don't have much pull here anyways!
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So just how hard is it to gather new blood to a website like this? RPGs aren't a dying breed, tons of people still love them. There are thousands of people out there that don't even know this site exists that if they did know would flock here by the interesting concept of it all. Some might even come with a writing knack and relieve the burn outs of their job, should they accept that route. Happenstance I guess. I suppose we just need to find a way to gather those peopel that would be interested in this site more effectively? That has always been the problem though. How do we go about accomplishing that is the real question.
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For the record (since I was the first one to complain about 'looking lazy and uncared for'), I'm fine with standardized writeups. I'm just completely against removing them entirely. I'm just not sure how well we get real payoff out of it... but if people are willing to carry on as we have for five or six more seasons until we start getting week 1/2 results...
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The work I've done has gone down over the years for the most part, I just have more things going on in my life now. That, and it is hard to be creative nonstop.
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I honestly don't care one way or another - we have something that's rather close to standardized writeups as it stands and they're called character bios. Tell me how much work has been done on them for the last twenty or so seasons, then you tell me how successful doing the 1200 or so standardized writeups within any sort of sensible timeframe be. That'd take at least two more seasons to pull assuming we had multiple people working on them non-stop as far as season work goes, and I don't think we have the drive to do that kind of thing anymore. It's a good idea in the long run assuming a rising interest, but I don't think it's even -healthy- to keep the tournament going on much longer due to how little interest it drives (and it honestly can only go down from here) and how much burnout it involves - and I'll bring up that the very idea came up in the very first time too late to begin with. I even understand the sentiment on not wanting to close the tournament down, but, as one of the people involved in the burnout drive, I'll have to echo the toro's sentiments at the very least. And, as a realistic person, I want to say that it's just better do let it rest and figure out the rest from that - if there's even anything to figure out, really. We're not obligated to cater to a possible interest drive either if that's the case.
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It's still a big drop in work. It's a third less writeups every season and can be done ahead of time. Once you hit week 3, you're done for the season for writeups. That part is very nice. This does need more help than Soppy/Dhyer/myself have been getting of late. Alanna: If you really want to help, *claim* writeups. Seriously.
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Yeah, it is. Just... we're struggling to get people to work even on finals writeups and Week 1-2 are historically the most annoying to work with -anyway-. Although honestly, if we're doing standardized writeups, I already noticed we have a huge database of bios, which are decently close to standardized writeups to begin with. At most, do some adaptation, toss them up and call it a day if that's the way you take, and I think it's a sensible enough approach.
I still just support putting the tournament to rest instead at this point, though, because just keeping it up because it's something we do doesn't cut it for me. But then, the continuation of the community we -already- have is the one thing I care about at this point, and it certainly doesn't need the tournament to keep going - in fact, the continuation of the tournament could even cause a few small rifts at this point due to how frustrating putting the content up regularly has gotten with the years. If the tournament isn't keeping us any tighter-knit than we already are at this point nor bringing new people to the DL, I can't say I care terribly much about keeping it going, and it's been shown time and again that the DL tournament itself won't get any fresher to bring new blood. So, whichever floats your boat.
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Modifying the bios or just flat out using them probably works well enough.
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I think the bios would have to be modified, no way around it. At the very least it has to be read once by someone who is knowledgable about that character. As it stands, the last time I checked bios, there are some that much longer, some that are much shorter, and some that don't really talk about the dueller, but rather their DL career. We'll have to find a standard, especially if you want to keep some sense of objectivity.
But even then, I lean towards with Snow on this. Going over 1200 characters is a lot, even if each bio is a brief description. That is of course, not even getting to additional characters who may be ranked in future seasons and somebody has to get through that. Then there are empty bios, which hinode has attempted to usher people into doing, but not a lot of good that has done either. And of course, the editting to boot, which likely falls back onto Tai/Snow/Shale and isn't that partially what we want to avoid?
While I am not against a standardized write up at all(again, I rarely read write ups, period), I would like to remind people that its still work, and perhaps a lot of it at that. We've addressed bios and updating tshem in the past, and that takes whipping just to get a season done and sometimes, it doesn't EVEN get done. It won't be a simple task since we have to rife through 1200 characters, altI'hough the end result might be more streamlined. It pretty much requires everyone to be onboard with the idea. Or at least those that want to keep the main tournament running. I'm more concerned though this is likely only a short term solution. It doesn't really address the apathy or the huge burnout.
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It's something we can just do as we go... there's no reason to write 1200 standardized writeups all in one sitting.
And since they don't have to tailored to a particular match, it's a simple task of looking at the character's stat topic entry and writing the salient points. If a character happens to have a decent amount of story/background, then there can be some brief introductory mention of flavour text before going into their duelling worth.
We can modify bits of a character's bio where applicable, but it's just as easy to go to the stat topic for the most important information.
Also, can we start linking profiles to the stat topics now? Those are seriously the best part of the site and keeping them separate for this long seems silly.
And addressing the apathy problem: And can we please link to the wiki from the main page?
For those who haven't seen it recently... While it's not perfect, there's a bunch of content already up, and all it needs is a little expansion here and there on descriptions, but it's mostly workable as-is. Particularly the Misc. Section, which I'm looking at cleaning up right now.
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
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Also, can we start linking profiles to the stat topics now? Those are seriously the best part of the site and keeping them separate for this long seems silly.
The reason stat topics aren't linked is because stat topics assume some standard of voting. If people don't vote the same way, the stat topic is useless and linking it may imply they are "doin' it wrong". Examples: Averages, 2.5x killpoints, only unique/storebought/inital equips, etc. These standards are not meant to be forced upon voters, but is something that we have just agreed to use.
Not that I'm against the idea, but that is why the stat topics are not linked.
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Alternately, why not just make those standardized guidelines?
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Just using the bios for writeups wouldn't work quite right; discounting that they're all meant to be nearly twice as long as a standard writeup, if we're using a standardized writeup format, every writeup (or every writeup within a division) would really need to be around the same length. This of course makes some characters more challenging than others.
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Other reasons are that some stat topics just don't agree (And I don't mean they use different views/levels of some sort). I do mean flat out disagree.
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So the real question becomes "Who is willing to legitimately put in work in order to standardize a writeup system?", if this is what you want, Djinn. It's apparent from this topic that the traditional people who have done a lot of work (Super, Snow, and Tai) have no interest in it. I think this only becomes a legit idea if you have willing volunteers who will actually do work. Personally, if other people were into it? I'd be willing to help but I am too busy to do a lot of writing. I have done a loooot of bios and I think talking about a character individually appeals to me more than the week in, week out writing about a specific match.
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Well, I'd really like to make the Wiki a more prominent part of the site, but keeping the tournament going with Standardized Writeups seems like a good idea as a secondary drawing feature.
I would of course be up for doing some Standardized Writeups myself. And I heard Sage volunteer to do some in chat.
Perhaps Tal, Dhyer, Alanna, Sopko, Magic, SnowFire would be interested in helping with the Standardized Writeups. I personally would just ask for them to be done as we're doing them now - whenever a duelist gets in, we write a Standardized Writeup for them. It's the same amount of work we've -been- doing, so it's definitely doable, but I'd like to know who else is willing to work with me on this.
Somewhat unrelated: How stable are the portrait images we have hosted on-site? I'd like to use some of them on the Wiki, but I'm leery of uploading all of them to the Wiki space when it would be more efficient to just link to them. Especially considering that the DL and the Wiki are on the same serverspace.... >.>;;
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Hey look, the Wiki is now awesome.
Ta-da!
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Props to Tai for doing 90% of the work, I just organized it.
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(Drifting a bit far from the purpose of this topic, so if "let's spruce up the wiki" talk continues it should probably go elsewhere. Anyway!)
Hm. I think what the wiki could use is reorganizing the data within it a bit. Like... games should have a hub page, from which you could access the stat topic, boss notes, challenge data, FAQ links, and so on, rather than those things being sequestered off by themselves. At least, that's been my feeling.
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The flaw of the Wiki is that it's (for me at least) a complete pain in the asses to post stat topics on in comparison to the board.
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(Drifting a bit far from the purpose of this topic, so if "let's spruce up the wiki" talk continues it should probably go elsewhere. Anyway!)
Hm. I think what the wiki could use is reorganizing the data within it a bit. Like... games should have a hub page, from which you could access the stat topic, boss notes, challenge data, FAQ links, and so on, rather than those things being sequestered off by themselves. At least, that's been my feeling.
Agreed, for the ones that have all of those things anyway.
You can imitate a folder-like system by adding a slash to the page name. For example:
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Wild_ARMs_4/Stats
"Stats" page for "Wild ARMs 4". That gives us a more standardized structure rather than trying to do "Wild_ARMs_4_Stats", which can be unwieldy at times (e.g. Wild_ARMs_4_Stats_Raquel).
The flaw of the Wiki is that it's (for me at least) a complete pain in the asses to post stat topics on in comparison to the board.
Honestly, it's actually easier once you get used to it. Templates make things so much easier. The Suikoden Tierkreis stat topic would've been basically impossible on the forums.
If we ever get the thing upgraded and add on some extensions, we can even get easier tables and have the wiki calculate stuff.
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Just to say, I support the idea of standardised writeups and will happily help once I have consistent internet access again for characters I know. The only reason I didn't do more writeups before was because I could vote on next-to-no matches. :(
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Agreed, for the ones that have all of those things anyway.
Welllll, I also think we should endeavor to add all those things to games too!
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(Drifting a bit far from the purpose of this topic, so if "let's spruce up the wiki" talk continues it should probably go elsewhere. Anyway!)
Hm. I think what the wiki could use is reorganizing the data within it a bit. Like... games should have a hub page, from which you could access the stat topic, boss notes, challenge data, FAQ links, and so on, rather than those things being sequestered off by themselves. At least, that's been my feeling.
I tried to move talk to the User Content topic, but since it's still going on here...
The original Wiki formatting is like that. See the 'Game Guide Links' section. However, it's a bit cumbersome to organize things this way since you end up with a lot of dead space.
Instead, I'm organizing by Content-type, which more closely resembles Forum formatting, so it's far easier to update as new Content is produced.
If you want to organize things by Game, then by all means you're welcome to update the Game Guide Links section with all of the new Content as it comes out. There's nothing that says the DL Wiki can't do it both ways, right?
The flaw of the Wiki is that it's (for me at least) a complete pain in the asses to post stat topics on in comparison to the board.
Also, there's always the Wiki Converter, which is now solidly linked from the Stat Topics Database page. http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Stat_Topics
And right here: http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/BBwiki.php
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First of all, the wiki is now 200% worse due to Persona.
(That's humour, before someone jumps down my throat.)
More seriously, if people do want the DL to go on using the standardised writeups, I'd be quite happy to help out with those. The work being finite does help.
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I guess I'm cool with doing standardized writeups. If the option is there, I still wouldn't mind doing customized writeups for duellers I like (and want to hype that week!)
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I can't swear to remembering without someone poking me/feeling good at the time but I'm up to writing again, now. Arena stuff, at least.
Out of the last three weeks, I've wanted to write when people were poking for it and one of those I was asleep. Another, I was going to sleep in 30 minutes by the time people were poking. The third I did some.
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Seconding Dhyer on being able to do writeups if wanted. Maybe have it like the optional comments - write standardised writeups for all the ranked characters (eventually - probably only when they're actually in for a season) and use them if no other writeups are offered.
Also, I'd strongly encourage a serious look at the roster. Cut some of the crap out, maybe throw in some interesting or popular characters who've been left out (thinking the 'Pokemon package' mentioned in the last ranking session might be an idea?) just to bring some originality back to the league. One of the major problems seems to be having seen almost every fight (in some divisions, at least) a thousand times already.
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Ciato basically said everything I wanted to say so yeah *cookies for Sage/Tai/Snow/Super*
*hands torch to Djinn* Yaay wiki~
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Sure I'll help with standarized write ups when I dont have to work. (somehow I got this entire weekend off and today. ) I'm not the best writer, but I have old notebooks from when I was in college full of half notes and half character analysis.
And I support trimming the roster if we do the standarditzed write ups. Even with 30 votes people are still getting robbed. (points to Norn, who I dont know but apparently got robbed by Nara) Trim CC, Suikoden and cut games like Ogre Battle
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I am diametrically opposed to removing OB. I think it's chalk full of fun~ Okay, you can take out Norn if you want, but keep Destin and the Dragoons!
And even if you aren't the best writer, there are people who can check the writing for basic grammar and stuff. Elfboy is a grammar whore and I can be if I want to~
In other words, I think we should trim a lot of games and but keep awesome people from all of them that are currently ranked.
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Yeah, I'll agree with that. In all honesty, I'd be more inclined to suggest adding characters over removing them - removing a load of characters is still gonna leave us with a load we've already seen, whereas some ranked games and some newer games have a huge cast of originality to bring with them. If nothing else, it might be worth bringing in some generics (depending on writeup style - if the standardised writeups focus on their strengths/weaknesses in-battle, then it'd be easy enough to do) that have gone ignored. (As a point, the main thing I'd support adding stuff from is Pokemon, since they tend to have quite a bit of variety in skillsets and a range of resistances/weaknesses, making for more interesting matches.)
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I won't speak too much here, most know that I've been in favor of shutting down the tourney for quite a long time.
For my part, I have no problem with doing some updates to the site software to allow for more user-created content. However, aside from bug fixes, I'm calling the tournament code closed, and I won't be updating it any further (so no format changes this time). Given the headaches from the shift to the 7-week format (not all of which are gone yet) I'm not eager to rework the system yet again for a tournament that seems to be bleeding interest outside of a devoted core.
I'm personally of the opinion that regardless of whether the tournament ends or gets stripped down or made more infrequent, it needs to come off the main page of the site. I have no issue with putting up new software to turn the site to other purposes, just need to know what's needed and when it's needed by.
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I think there are a few things that truly do need to be removed (CC characters with literally no fans, Suikoden characters with no fans, VH characters with no fans, etc). I am 100% for more Pokemon too.
So I've been thinking. I'm going to blather for a few minutes.
I feel like, first and foremost, that the main website does not accurately reflect the creativity and variety of the population of this forum.
Let me just c/p a convo.
DarkKnightDestin (10:49:48 AM): The biggest thing I'm noticing is that I think the links at the top should be different.
DarkKnightDestin (10:51:10 AM): Why the fuck is the Wiki not there?
darkholyelf (10:51:29 AM): Yeah, definitely.
darkholyelf (10:51:37 AM): That thought has occured to me in the past and I've never acted on it.
DarkKnightDestin (10:51:53 AM): I think you can condense results and arena pretty easily and remove NR.
DarkKnightDestin (10:53:11 AM): If we are going to try to change the direction of things to try to get more people interested in the community (which should really be our goal) we need to promote a variety of things on our front page.
DarkKnightDestin (10:53:37 AM): Hell, I think we should promote LFT/MF6/ET here too (with the permission of their respective creators).
DarkKnightDestin (10:54:14 AM): And try to make the stat topics into Wikis and link them at game boards for those games and see if there are people that can add information, join the community. (If people are willing to put in the work, at any rate.)
darkholyelf (10:54:21 AM): Definitely.
DarkKnightDestin (10:54:29 AM): Advertise that there is an IRC chat more prominently as well (I think this is a big deal. It being hidden away in a stickied topic in General Chat is kind of weird to me.)
DarkKnightDestin (10:56:18 AM): I think our overarching goal should not be "let's try to spice up the duelling league so we'll get lots of people" but "let's change our direction so we'll get some awesome people in a variety of ways" (Which really has been what we've done for years!)
DarkKnightDestin (10:57:49 AM): See if we can get a few people to write reviews of NEW games. (I may even try my hands at this!)
DarkKnightDestin (10:58:02 AM): At least ones made in the last couple years. (And post some of the old ones as well?)
DarkKnightDestin (10:59:38 AM): I think the big thing we need it someone with some computer experience who is actually around so we can make some minor revisions to the site.
darkholyelf (11:00:30 AM): Tal has experience, but I'm not sure how much of it is html/phb-based. Main isn't at all, for instance.
DarkKnightDestin (11:00:43 AM): We have people who can write. We have people who can draw and churn out ideas and whatever
DarkKnightDestin (11:00:45 AM): Tal!
DarkKnightDestin (11:04:46 AM): Unfortunately, I have no access to tal right now! (What's your AIM name, buddy?)
DarkKnightDestin (11:05:40 AM): Overall I think we need to tap in on the main site into the creativity of many of our users.
DarkKnightDestin (11:06:23 AM): Hell, try to get some of Djinny's art up too.
(Things in parentheses added by me as I post this.)
Hal: Was there a format change proposed? Writeups can be posted every week in the same way they've always been, they are just the same every week under this proposed system.
tdlr; I think we should keep the tournament but not make it the focus of the site. I think our main goals should be:
a) emphasizing our already existing variety in talents
b) making the duelling itself less of a focus but still exist (since if people want to put in the work, they can)
c) get more people into chat!
In fact, this is the first like two days I've been actually excited about the DL in literally years. I'm not even sure why. I think I just want new people because I'm tired of all you lovable morons. :p OR MORE PEOPLE AT DLCON! I THINK WE NEED 30 NEXT YEAR!!!
(Also, I am reminded that I haven't chipped in to help pay for the site in years... is that stuff still being handled by Hal? I should totally send a check when I'm not in the middle of the Pacific Ocean!)
One last thing... I think if we want to try to focus the site in a couple of different ways that maybe we could change the banner to reflect that? I could theoretically try to make a banner but I suspect it would not be very pretty and all it would have is bishies.
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Definitly agree with adding more links to user created stuff on the front page.
More Pokemon is good.
I had more to post but I just got called into work to unload truck!
and Ciato, I forgot about the dragoons, they made the finals a few times, they can stay. Just get rid of Norn, losing to Celine and Nara? And yeah, I meant getting rid of the boring dullers. Unless its from an extremely popular game like FF6 or 7.
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I'd say to keep the League on the main site, but add other content as well. As Ciato said, Arena/Results can very easily be pushed together, and that would be the main tournament in and of itself. Otherwise, definitely agreeing on adding links for the Wiki, User-Created Content, Reviews, etc.
Advertising chat more is the main thing, though, that I agree on. I'd probably say IRC's the best part of the community, so why keep it hidden away?
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I won't speak too much here, most know that I've been in favor of shutting down the tourney for quite a long time.
For my part, I have no problem with doing some updates to the site software to allow for more user-created content. However, aside from bug fixes, I'm calling the tournament code closed, and I won't be updating it any further (so no format changes this time). Given the headaches from the shift to the 7-week format (not all of which are gone yet) I'm not eager to rework the system yet again for a tournament that seems to be bleeding interest outside of a devoted core.
I'm personally of the opinion that regardless of whether the tournament ends or gets stripped down or made more infrequent, it needs to come off the main page of the site. I have no issue with putting up new software to turn the site to other purposes, just need to know what's needed and when it's needed by.
Well, if we do standardized writeups, how possible is it to get the site to automatically load the writeups from somewhere if no writeup is put in? I'd rather not have to c/p all of the writeups every week if it can just be done automatically.
If you don't want to put in the work, I'll offer to do it. Though if it's going to be tougher than just c/p'ing things in every week never mind.
DarkKnightDestin (11:00:45 AM): Tal!
DarkKnightDestin (11:04:46 AM): Unfortunately, I have no access to tal right now! (What's your AIM name, buddy?)
TalaysenFBW (It's in my profile, you know!)
Agree with most of that convo. Moving the arena to a more side thing and expanding the site for other stuff is a good idea. This was actually mentioned in chat recently as well. Stat topics are a great resource, and even better if we expand them with mechanics info and whatever else we want to jot down. FAQs, community reviews, both good ideas as well. Hmm, I might be able to get back into review writing. I probably would suck less at it now.
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You'd be a good candidate because you actually play new stuff, unlike me ;_;
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I have a friend who thought the NR was a lot of fun... I, myself, think NR has some interesting duellers as well, but ah well.
I have to remind myself the RPGDL has an arena thing on-going. I am honestly more interested in the tourneys from the Tournaments boards, for all that I still hardly ever vote.
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Loading standardized writeups would have to be a code change anyway (new database field) but that wouldn't be that hard to add, so that I don't mind. I'm mostly saying this as a way of stating that format changes are not on the table this time around.
Yoshi: by taking the league off the main page, I mean that the landing page for people pulling up just "www.rpgdl.com" will be a Wordpress or some other content delivery system and will no longer lead directly into the tournament pages. The standalone tourney CMS system won't go away, but it would require an additional clickthrough to get to it.
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::Looks over the last halfdozen posts or so::
The site reorganization/refocusing idea is honestly nothing new and these were things that were actually supposed to happen last time. What they require is someone to actually do them. I and others did a rough sketch of a new site layout in the previous topic, where the subject came up at length (which roughly mirrors what Ciato came up with, just a tad more organizational detail), but I didn't really have the skillset to take it further myself.
Since no one else has said it... Djinn, no one is going to just hand the access over to you so you can play around with the site coding. Yes, it makes your job harder, but the kind of access you're asking for is not given lightly. I know you have a lot on your plate, not all of it at your asking, but we've yet to even see a rough outline of what you want to do past what we did in the last topic. Come up with a plan, and maybe you'll get the access you need. Granted, I'm not Hal or anyone else that can grant that, but I imagine it would at least expedite it.
Sorry for the frank words all, I'm just tired of watching this discussion tread old ground again and again.
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*shrugs*
The only things I would change are the things I said would change last time - the front page would include more descriptions and I would change the links so that the Game Patches, Wiki, and CCC would be prominent. Probably replacing NR, Fiction, and FAQ.
So... look at the wiki. I've pretty much already uploaded 80% of the Community-Created Content there already... it IS the outline of what I would do. I've done it already.
I'm not a master of webdesign, but I am willing to put in the work.
Addressing some of the stuff already mentioned here:
http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=RPG_Reviews
All of the Reviews from the Reviews board, with plenty of space for people to copy over even their WGAYP rants.
http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=RPGDL_Tarot_Cards
Best example of my art stuff, uploaded on the Features page.
http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Niu%27s_RPG_Corner
http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=AndrewRogue_Fiction
http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=DQ3_Journal
Bunch of Articles/Fiction, already uploaded and linked.
http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Game_Patches
Section for MF6, LFT, etc. ...I wrote the MF6 writeup myself, so it might get changed when Meeple decides to write his own.
This is the kind of stuff I would focus on with the Main Page, but if you want to just make the Wiki more prominent, that'll work too.
Someone who is better at webdesign than me should probably make some new banners or whatnot. Mine are terrible.
Examples:
(http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u137/DjinntoTonic/RPGDLgold.jpg)
(http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u137/DjinntoTonic/RPGDL_PinkDesignMock.jpg)
(http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u137/DjinntoTonic/RPGDL_BlueDesignEinherjar.jpg)
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Backgrounds on text are a dicey idea at best (I've only done them in a couple of places and I keep it pretty minimal when I do). Changing the curtains on the main site isn't going to resolve the issues with the tourney, either.
For user-generated content, this is pretty much going to mean we use a Wordpress or other blogging engine (WP is just the most popular/well-known). If this is the route we want to go, we need to work out who's writing/contributing, what skin(s) we want to use, how we want them customized, page links, etc etc etc. My advice here is to check out www.gensokyo.org (or another blog-based site of your preference), get a feel for the options and layout, and figure out how to translate that into what you want to see on the DL.
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Part of the reason that those updates weren't made, Soppy, is probably because no one pushed them in the final agreement or decision last time. I sure as hell didn't know they were supposed to go up, and I'm decently sure that a fair amount of people also didn't. So, uh, sorry? But frankly you're going to have to bear with it since uh I don't recall the post you made or any of that, nor do I recall a consensus being made that any of that was what we were going to do. All I recall us doing is deciding that the arena format should change.
Regarding standardized writeups, a query: will we be replacing bios with these, using bios as these, or simply having these be the arena writeups and leaving bios to more game-based history and plot info? (Presuming it goes through, natch.)
Also, yeah, boot the Arena off main page regardless. And I still maintain neutrality as to if we do that or simply close it.
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Bios probably should be delinked if we go that route, since they are redundant with standard writeups.
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I don't really see the reason to change the format. Some redundancy is fine, especially if it's not even going to be the main attraction anymore.
Also, I was hoping that the bios and standardized writeups wouldn't be -exactly- the same in most cases. ...Just in the cases for characters where no one cares.
...Like Yam Koo.
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I'm losing Internet so I will reply to anything directed to me in like... five days or something? The Internet seems to work once every ten minutes or so now~
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Part of the reason that those updates weren't made, Soppy, is probably because no one pushed them in the final agreement or decision last time. I sure as hell didn't know they were supposed to go up, and I'm decently sure that a fair amount of people also didn't. So, uh, sorry? But frankly you're going to have to bear with it since uh I don't recall the post you made or any of that, nor do I recall a consensus being made that any of that was what we were going to do. All I recall us doing is deciding that the arena format should change.
100% agreed. I don't recall anywhere where we decided to do any of this last time. Maybe some links and evidence would be nice here.
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Hal: Excellent. I didn't think it would be that hard but I don't know how exactly the site is implemented so figured I'd ask.
Might as well keep bios even with the standardized writeups. I don't think the writeups are going to be visible except on the duelling page anyway. They're two separate places and two separate things.
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Bios should be kept, I think, and certainly not used for standardised writeups. As it stands, they'd be unacceptable for them - many are too long, many don't concern themselves with mechanics at all, and they all have wildly different lengths.
That said, getting rid of them would mean tossing out a lot of creative work, much of which I personally find quite funny. Go read Augst's for an example of what I mean.
The obvious solution is just to make standardised writeups separate. Most of the bios already exist so this isn't really making any new work (and if we wanted to discontinue making new bios for anyone who might be ranked in the future (excepting cases where someone cares enough to make one), I wouldn't be bothered). So, what Tal said.
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Yeah, that was the conclusion I eventually came to. Are there any terrible objections to this?
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Not here!
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I'd be fine with that, yeah. As it is, new bios are generally written now only as the character actually gets into the league, and not even all of those have been done, so it's not like we'd be changing much outside the standardised writeups this way.
Also, I don't remember this conversation about changing the site layout or anything, so yeah, fine with that.
And just as an aside, Djinn, the Tarot Cards list Noa being from Pokemon. ;p
Edit: And Arche from ToS. ;)
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Sup.
I'm not sure what the point of installing WordPress would be if all of your user-created content is going to be on the Wiki. Why not just turn the front page into a little portal?
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Largely because a wiki is a rather poor idea for any kind of "officially endorsed" content, as there's no real editorial control on one. Stat pages being there is one thing, but I'd say anything else (reviews, patches, etc) would be better served up from a place where the content can be more closely controlled.
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Also generally easier to centralize than a wiki - wikis are not exactly easy to focus, and that's what the main page should be doing, I think.
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I would be fine with using WordPress for Game Patches and Reviews and such, I'm just a bit worried that people will get lazy and then never update their own pages. With the Wiki, I can do it for them. Especially for people that aren't HTML-savvy, or whatever system WordPress uses. (I guess that includes me if WordPress uses something weird, since I've never played with a WordPress system before.)
Honestly, I'd be fine with making WordPress pages for a Front Page, where we put updates, a site description, and major portal links (such as to the current Tournament pages and the Wiki); and for the Game Patches; and possibly for Reviews. More than that seems like more work than its worth? All the things I have linked to the current Features page on the Wiki ( http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Features ) could work as WordPress pages, but using the Wiki seems more user-friendly to me.
Also, if we put everything on the WordPress pages, then the only thing we're using the Wiki for is StatTopics, and then the Wiki will get ignored again, which seems incredibly counter-productive at this stage.
But these are just my initial impressions, perhaps with some more info on WordPress pages... or perhaps just getting a chance to play around the system if Hal can set something up... these impressions could change.
Hal, do you think you could set up a sample WordPress page for us to test some things and see how it would actually work in practice?
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Hal, do you think you could set up a sample WordPress page for us to test some things and see how it would actually work in practice?
They require setting aside a database (which is limited on this server); I'd rather not unless we absolutely have to.
WordPress uses a rich text editing system (very similar to the posting system with SMF, although with additional options for uploading images and other content), with direct HTML code editing capabilities for those that are comfortable enough with HTML to work in it directly. Best analogy I can make is that it's like writing in a web-based version of Word or other word processor of your choice.
I would recommend checking out some of the WordPress authoring tutorials (http://codex.wordpress.org/Working_with_WordPress) for more details on exactly how the system works and what you can do with it - it is definitely very extensively documented.
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Alright. I read the introductory tutorials and the system seems simple enough, but I'm not sure on some of the more technical details, such as "how does one access the WordPress CMS once Hal has implemented it on the rpgdl server?"
Apart from that, actually working within the program is well-documented and easy-to-follow, though we still don't have a good web designer. My banners and backgrounds are pretty terrible, even if I do all the rest of the setup work.
As for how I would set up the site if we were to use this?
Front Page: Intro text and updates. Portal to the rest of the main content pages.
Main Content Pages
-RPGDL Wiki - Just a link/graphic to what we have now.
-Game Patches - A WordPress page that would probably look really similar to this: http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Game_Patches
-RPGDL Main Tournament - just a link rpgdl.com as it is now.
-RPGDL Articles - A WordPress page that would house Reviews, Niu's Corner, probably really similar to this: http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=RPG_Reviews ...and this: http://rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Niu%27s_RPG_Corner
Does this seem acceptable? If so, then let's set it up ASAP!
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So to be clear, is the proposal to transition into standardized writeups right next season? Honestly, I suspect that standardized writeups pretty well signals the official into-the-sunset period of the DL tourney. I have no problem with keeping the tourney machinery around to do this, though I'm somewhat surprised by suggestions to also de-emphasize / hide the links to the tourney if we're going to keep it going (albeit in low-maintenance mode).
It's probably too late now, but I'm still in favor of trying to have one last high note in a specially selected "final" season, or, if the tourney continues in standardized writeup form, an "event" season at least. Storylines could be made and normal writeups would be done for that season (and yes this means that I'm volunteering for writeup work if we do this). Close out with a bang, and then for those who want to keep at it, the tourney can go into standardized writeup mode after that. Just... if it goes into standardized writeup mode right away, then it really does feel like the DL will be going out with a whimper. Hold one last party, first.
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I personally want to start standardized writeups immediately. Since that would mean the DL isn't closing, then I don't see a reason for a 'wrap-up' Season.
I wouldn't mind an event season like a 2-on-2 duels season, or even just a hand-picked Season! But I'd just as soon use standardized writeups even for those things.
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The way I understood it, if we did WordPress, we would essentially make a post for /every/ patch, review, whatever, and just tag them with the proper tag. Reviews would have the "review" tag, etc. Then someone looking for reviews can just look for posts with the "review" tag. This is better than having a page because a page would not be auto-updated, so someone would have to manually add in every review when it's posted.
Patches we may need a page for since they're going to be uploaded somewhere? I'm not sure how that works. We probably won't be adding many patches anyway, so a separate page would work fine there regardless.
I would suggest archiving this stuff on the wiki anyway. The wiki has "Categories" which will also let you view all pages in a category (similar to WP tags).
I haven't actually used WP, so just going by what I've seen, but I think this is the common way to do stuff like this?
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If we're keeping the tournament, no reason to do a special season. I never really thought it was a great idea anyway. Seems like a lot of effort for little gain.
We should probably start standardized writeups next season though, yes.
Djinn: 2v2 season would require recoding the site for one season. Not happening.
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Largely because a wiki is a rather poor idea for any kind of "officially endorsed" content, as there's no real editorial control on one. Stat pages being there is one thing, but I'd say anything else (reviews, patches, etc) would be better served up from a place where the content can be more closely controlled.
┐( ¯∀¯ )┌
The reason why I asked why you're gonna install wordpress is cause you seem to have everything you'd use the wordpress for covered by the forums and wiki. IE: Reviews are on the forums.
Though the wordpress format is more "comment friendly"?
If you're gonna move everything, I guess it's a bit different!
Wordpress stuff:
- I suggest you register a free one on wordpress.com to screw around with. The free ones are limited in function/plugins/theme editing compared to your own install.
- Each person can have their own account. The master/first admin (presumably Hal) can promote you to have editor/admin/etc status. There's an admin panel you login to.
- There is both category and tagging. Apparently category is supposed to be broad, and tagging is supposed to be more specific. Each "post" requires a category. So maybe like, "Review" would be a category, and the game the review is about would be a tag?
- "Posts" = ...uh, like a news article.
- "Pages" = I seriously have no clue how to explain the different between posts and pages to people who haven't used wordpress. A page is a static page and it doesn't get posted to the main page like a post would.
- You can pick a theme to use, so you don't need to worry about having someone to do web design. Wordpress' theme page (http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/). The most recent versions of wordpress have this theme (http://2010dev.wordpress.com/) as the default.
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Okay, I tried playing around with WordPress features.
I think we can do this easily enough.
The Menu items I went with were:
About, Game Patches, Wiki, Forums, Tournament, Reviews
About would be an FAQ, I suppose.
Game Patches would lead to a static Page, which would link to more static Pages for each patch. Patch creators would get access to their own patch Pages to edit freely. Presumably they could upload new versions of their Patch at any point, too?
Wiki would link to the DL Wiki mainpage as is.
Forums would link to the mainpage of the DL Forums as is.
Tournament would link to the front page of the main tournament and people can navigate it from there.
Reviews would pull up a list of all the Posts that are filed with the "Reviews" category.
Pretty much all "Posts" would be Reviews or Updates.
Bare-bones results of me playing around with Word-Press for 20 minutes so you can get an idea of how I would organize this:
http://djinntotonic.wordpress.com/
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┐( ¯∀¯ )┌
The reason why I asked why you're gonna install wordpress is cause you seem to have everything you'd use the wordpress for covered by the forums and wiki. IE: Reviews are on the forums.
Though the wordpress format is more "comment friendly"?
If you're gonna move everything, I guess it's a bit different!
Mainly because the two existing systems cover things differently. The wiki can centralize and document information well, but it's very poorly organized for casual browsing - unless you know exactly what you're looking for and search, you end up on an aimless wiki walk through a twisty maze of links, all alike. And if the information isn't centralized very well (i.e., data spread out across a dozen pages for a single topic) people will get bored with that rather quickly and move on. It's also hard to discuss things on the wiki - while it has discussion pages for each article, they require an additional click to reach and generally don't contain a lot of valuable information unless you enjoy following wikipedian squabbles. >_>
The forum, on the other hand, organizes things very easily - it's quick and easy to find the category you're looking for, and of course discussion is awesome on forums. The downside is that the information isn't centralized - if you're looking at a topic, all of the valuable information is not necessarily going to be contained in the first post. It -can- be with rigorous first-post standards (like any topic in Reviews requiring the first post to consist of the review in its entirety), but aside from active moderation there's nothing that's actually going to force that into place - and from a visual standpoint, most people are going to give most of the posts in a topic equal weight, since there's nothing to distinguish the initial post other than the fact that it's first.
A blog system resolves both of these issues. While discussion still appears on the main post, it's given a lesser weight visually, and by design all of the important information is going to be contained in the body of the post itself. It also doesn't overwhelm the reader initially (since you're usually going to post just a synopsis on the main page of the side with the body of the article as a clickthrough).
Short version: Yes, we could do everything we want between forums and wiki, but it would be messy and ugly at best. >_>
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What Hal said, yeah. And neither quite centralizes as well as a blog does, at least IMO.
Djinn: I know Hal told you to cut long posts via More, so outside of that it looks pretty decent!
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Reviews? Definitely should be a minor category (I say this because...unless you do something different, reviews are something that essentially every website ever has. It doesn't have a place on a main toolbar!)
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Eh. We're better writers than those other places, and are going to be more focused on what makes a good RPG, not what RPGs fail to do compared to Halo. Besides, it's relatively quick content to generate, meaning we can actually get SOMETHING new up at a decent pace. That is, basically appetizers for more substantive content (which we might get one a month of if we're lucky)
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What makes a good RPG varies a lot person to person! I don't read many RPG reviews granted, but does Gamefaqs/magazines/videogames.com/rpgfan/rpgamer...etc really spend a lot of time comparing RPGs to Halo. Niu's info posts should definitely have their own header more than reviews should!
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Professional reviewers take it as fact that turn based RPGs are an artifact of limited technology that have no place in the modern age. So yes, they're comparing RPGs to straight up action games. The RPG sites I honestly haven't read in years, because I found all of their writers singularly worthless. The thing about reviews is that you aren't trying to find some objective truth, you're looking for someone whose opinions jive with yours, whose comments and opinions make sense to you as a player. And given the popular perception of the genre these days, I feel confident saying DL members can provide that better than a lot of other review sources for the RPG fans still out there.
But honestly the fact that reviews are common isn't the important thing. The important point is the frequency of content. Niu hasn't made a new fact center in over a year, and ultimately is just one person; he can't realistically do more than one every couple months. We could put up a review every week without breaking a sweat. We don't want it to become the main focus of the site, no, but we do need to update more often than once a month, so having a mix of simple, ready made content to go with more advanced stuff like LPs or Niu's work is a must.
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If RPG reviews were trying to find an objective truth, I would imagine straight up reviews might draw in more people! Reviews just strike me as frequency of content for frequency of content's sake (Which...is more what we are trying to avoid. I admit that I really rather highlight the many, many things the DL has that you can't find somewhere else. Not saying no reviews, but I just don't think they are something that should be a major header. Maybe under...writing endeavors. Something of that name that can escapulate other things).
I believe Niu's fact center was somewhat limited by the fact that we never actually had a way to put them up.
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I'm pretty sure the issue people are having with keeping the DL going three fold. a) we've been doing it and nothing else for 6 years b) less and less people care and c) two or three dedicated people can't do all the writing a DL week takes every week. While we do want to mix up our content, it still needs to be steadier than just a couple times a month, and unlike the DL two or three people CAN put out a review every week, in addition to people working on more ambitious projects.
Put another way, I feel fairly confident saying that the most common content going up on the site would be reviews (simply because it takes less work to write a review than to build a stat topic, write boss notes, do a Niu's corner, make an LP, write an Abridged Game, or create a game patch), so burying them away in a subheading of a subheading is silly and a bit insulting.
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So give them both equal exposure.
Articles button for Niu's Corner (and other related non-review writing pieces, as few as they are)
and Reviews button for RPG reviews.
They're probably the only things besides the Game Patches that are even going to be on the new site.
Everything else is best done on the Wiki.
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I think they should be called Written Content or whatever, something other than just Reviews (the Top 11 RPGs to Play is...more under that, and I think we need to do writing other than reviews to keep it interesting - I have ideas, and hopefully I'm not the only one) - just some writing or editorial commentary is good.
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"Articles" is probably a better header.
Don't really see a problem with "Reviews" being a subheader of this, as is "Niu's Fact Center". Just make them fairly easy to get to. Having them tagged properly would probably be enough.
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Okay, so tomorrow is Sept 1st.
I don't suppose Hal is ready to fire the WP pages yet?
Once the setup is in place, I can create all the pages and links we'd need, I'm guessing?
Or is there a different method for how we're actually organizing this stuff?
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Uh. Not just no, but hell no. From talking to Tai I've got a deadline of the first weekend in October; I might have it done before then but don't count on it. I'm going to try to get the wiki upgrades done this weekend, but I wouldn't expect to see the WP installation up for at least another couple of weeks.
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If you're doing the upgrades this weekend, can you do it on Saturday? I won't be around Sunday and probably most of Monday.
I'll go look for the extension some time this week and link it here or something. Or maybe in another topic.
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I know I'm really late to this, but is it a viable solution to uh...get the site out there a little more? This site doesn't seem to have as much activity as it should (like, 3,000 hits a month, something like that?); the concept here is great. Why not expand the site to more people and get it more known to the rest of the planet? I'd surmise that any idea or workload would be easier to pass down or self propagate if the simple issue of numbers were addressed.