New Structure For Forums

[Wombat]

We may be changing our forums soon and wanted any thoughts and concerns addressed, plus any ideas which might help. Note that we came up with this list after some consideration on reducing the number of topic containers we had, condensing a great deal into a smaller number of topic containers. The largest changes are merging Community topic containers into General, moving Feedback into Development, moving the Support forums above the Development forums and slashing the number of development forums.

Explanation of the Changes

We've made the listing for Off Topic more friendly to third party servers and games in its listing. Read about updates from friendly games like Evol Online and Whispers of Avalon. Find out about servers outside the official. Those interested in inviting our community to check out their games are invited to use our forum, though no spam, please. Of course, our community, as always, can talk about whatever they want here.

The moving of feedback to development reflects its usual role, which is feedback about the game, which the development team usually handles. Feedback about the community falls primarily in player talk. The new support forum for tablets and mobile devices and moving support above development is to help players get to the forum they need for most any issue they have.

It is our hope that by vastly reducing our development forums to TMW in the development forum container, we can more easily keep up with development and discuss entire projects in the full scope more often. We can link graphics and sound development through the use of trello per project and wiki. Graphics and sound release candidates [RC] will be posted on the wiki under the project they correspond to or on a page for media that has not been reserved for project use. Graphics and sound by new people and or by independent contributors may still use TMW development forum, but are encouraged to learn how to also use the wiki and post their works there, especially there final, [RC] version.

General

• News - Where game and project announcements are made.
• Player Talk - A place for players to do role playing, discuss their guilds, etc.
• Marketplace - Have anything for sale or want to buy something? Put your ads here!
• Court House - This forum is used to deal with abuse in game - abuse reports, bans etc.
• GM Community Suggestions - A forum for the community to suggest new Game Masters. PLEASE READ THE RULES.
• Off Topic - Talk about anything, including games and servers not affiliated with The Mana World.

Support

• General - Content and other OS independent support.
• Linux/Unix - Linux and Unix support.
• Mac OS X - Max OSX support.
• Tablets and Mobile Devices - Android, iOS, etc, support.
• Windows - Microsoft Windows support.

Development

• Feedback - Got something on your mind about the project? This is the correct place to discuss it.
• TMW - Content and general development discussion, including maps, quests, and server code.
• Web - Web discussions, including project website, wiki, and others.
• Manasource - Mana discussions, including client and server development, Source of Tails, and other Mana-specific stuff.

[WildX]

I would move the support section under Development, as it's something you go to when needed, rather than something you may just casually check from time to time like General and Development.
Maybe also a link (like the "how to help?" that we have now) that leads people directly to the right place to follow current development, since moving development away from the forums makes it less convenient for non-devs to follow its progress.

[Nard]

I don't why see the "Manasource - Mana discussions, including client and server development, Source of Tails, and other Mana-specific stuff." point; they are different projects.
Client development is at http://manaplus.evolonline.org and is other one. Server development is already in "TMW - Content and general development discussion, including maps, quests, and server code."

[Reid]

I don't why see the "Manasource - Mana discussions, including client and server development, Source of Tails, and other Mana-specific stuff." point; they are different projects.
Client development is at http://manaplus.evolonline.org and is other one. Server development is already in "TMW - Content and general development discussion, including maps, quests, and server code."

If forks are accepted, can I... Hm. Ok ok, I stay quiet.

I still prefer how the general and community section are right now, the actual setup of tmw forum is pretty good and it has been reused in some other projects and forks.
Why do you want to change it now?

[Wombat]

Well, that is a good point, that we could host forums for any variety of associations we hold. If Manaplus or Evol Online requested a forum here, I wouldn't be opposed to it. It might be beneficial to share with us, but I assume most projects have their own game going so would be able to also host their own forums. Manasource is part of TMW though.

[Ablu]

Manasource and Source of Tales are basically two different projects. True, Manasource developers contribute to Source of Tales, but generally Tales is a different project.

Regards,
Ablu

... Source of Tails ...

That would be a different game than Source of Tales I guess

[o11c]

... Source of Tails ...

That would be a different game than Source of Tales I guess

Hm ... can I have an artist make a bunch of graphics for all the mobs we currently have in TMW? Not high priority ...

[Nard]

... Source of Tails ...

That would be a different game than Source of Tales I guess

Just for correct author attribution:

Development

• [...]
• Manasource - Mana discussions, including client and server development, Source of Tails, and other Mana-specific stuff.

[EJlol]

Lets make a big mess by putting everything on 1 big pile

Thats how I feel about the current direction of TMW honestly .

In my opinion the forum structure we have right now is working well. I agree that the CR1 stuff should be merged with the other forums. But I like split between graphics, sounds, etc.

Merging the graphics, quests, etc. will just lower the quality cause there will be less focus on art, map, etc. and more focus on the "project". And in the end it will just be a big pile of Chocolate Cupcake.

Also after you have merged the forums it cannot be undone easy!

[Big Crunch]

Well, a large contributing factor to the re-org is that we want to show activity and progress. The more activity and progress shown, the more likely others will want to contribute. Activity begets activity.

BC

[EJlol]

the re-org will not show more activity and progress. In fact the progress will be more hidden cause a lot of things are going to be moved to the wiki. By putting everything on a big pile there won't be more activity, or progress. lets take an example:

The example:
I finished some npc sprites, and I created a rough outline for a quest. The sprites are oke, but could be better. and the quest just simply sucks.

Old situation:
I make 2 topics, 1 for the npc sprites, and for the quest. Everything is neatly ordered, and there will be some comments on the graphics and there will be comments on the quest.

New sucky situation:
I make 1 topic, for the quest idea. I also post the npc sprites there, cause I use them in my quest outline, so to me it makes sense to post them in the same topic. I will only receive comments like "your quest sucks, you can make it better ... <insert better idea>". My npc sprites won't receive comments cause they will be burried between the quest comments. And the result will be that the npc sprites are oke but could be better. Also cause its only 1 topic, there will be less replies, so less activity.

Other sucky situation:
I post it on the wiki, 2 people care, no one else is able to find it, maybe if I'm lucky I will receive 1 reply.


If you want to show more progress you will need topics like this one:
http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... =1&t=12669

alternatives where you can post progress are mailinglists, ingame news posts etc. You could post the progress every week on the ingame news for example. Tell the people that you are working on something, and let them see you are working on it. It will help more than reorganizing things and putting everything on a big pile.

[Wombat]

The current sucky situation is that art is all over the place, often lost until someone does some serious hunting for it (if it can be found at all). The comments about "how's your art?" can be posted on separate topics, if it is important to get a critique of it. The entire quest would be posted on the wiki on its project name, so all there is, is discussion on the forums. We will use the wiki to gather all complete work for a project, but if a developer wants to be examined and checked by anyone, they can post on the forums for any reason with requests to check x, y and z.

The other problem with having several topics for the same project on different forums has been the confusion on posting and keeping track of what is being done and what has been done. There also isn't that much traffic to justify separate forums. All the work for graphics is getting done on trello or on the wiki now, with only a few exceptions. It isn't that the graphics forum is dead, but the pixel artists for the team aren't using for there WIP. As we train people to use trello or the wiki, those new people that use the forums will use something else.

As for writing up statements on what we are doing, that isn't a bad idea, it has been suggested many times. The problem with writing these things up is it is another thing to get done and most people just don't do it. I'd like to see more of them written up, but again, who is going to put the time into it? We can't require a summary be written.