Post What's on Your Mind

[Ellie]

Didn't want to do this but the forum fecks up after that many pages.

New thread.

 

[coyotecraft]

:toot: Starting early on the New Year. Putting things to rest - and new beginnings.

 

[Perihelion]

To continue our earlier discussion, I think maybe we should reconsider the structure of the forum from a high level. For example, instead of being a huge forum thread, does it make more sense for pwoym to be replaced by status updates or something and featured in a feed on the side of the forum? And does it make sense to replace the art forums with some kind of queue or gallery that showcases the latest art posted on the board? I mean, since that forum is so inactive, I don't know that it makes a lot of sense to have it organized into threads when only the top couple have been posted in any time remotely recently.

I also want to pose my more fundamental question again: what is this forum about? What does it revolve around? Is it still about games? Should we be trying to provide support, or only showcasing projects? We have a ton of boards that get very little traffic, and I wonder whether it wouldn't be a good idea to prune away most of that and focus on core elements of the site instead.

 

[Perihelion]

The way the board is set up right now, there is almost no point in posting anything outside of pwoym because no one reads other threads. However, we may be able to leverage the principle of pretty pictures interesting people and replacing the forum with some kind of content feed of recent posts (which can be viewed by category if desired, e.g. projects/art/whatever) and then having a pwoym feed on the side or something. That almost makes it more like a social network feed than a forum, except you don't follow specific people, but is that a bad thing?

I dunno. Just an idea. I don't think the forum format is the best format for showcasing content, though.

 

[Perihelion]

On a tangentially related note, I find it interesting that I get way more comments on my 2D art than my 3D art even though I think a lot of my 3D art is significantly more impressive. I guess part of that is because I know just how difficult it is to make, but still. Are people just not interested in 3D here since this is a site for 2D games?

Spoiler: look I'm cool I can make cool clothes now

 

[Xilef]

I don't know about you guys, but the first thing I click on is "New Posts", so maybe a homepage that exclusively shows threads that have been recently updated?

Here's a homepage design I GIMP'd up;

Spoiler: mackup

On the right side of each section it would preview X number of characters of the latest post and at the lower right corner it would show who posted that text.

Left side shows the first image in the first post if there is one, otherwise it shows a default blank image (So people who are making graphical content will get their content previewed on the homepage!) and it shows how long ago the latest post was under the title and how many replies the thread has.

The forum the post was made it is displayed in brackets after the title.

At the top is the MOTD displayed as "Latest News" and under that is links that are popular with the website, like the RPG Maker section and the user control panel (Which isn't on the homepage at all right now).

Totally ripped off reddit in designing this.



Also Peri, I think this is a mostly 2D community, giving feedback on modelling is probably more difficult for people to do here

 

[Ellie]

Sounds good to me.

Doesn't take up much space though so could just replace the news portion of the homepage.

 

[coyotecraft]

I used to roll my eyes at old people who complained about churches emptying. But I totally get it now. They were used to worshiping together and now they do it alone in empty pews. The number of believers hasn't changed they just aren't congregating anymore. It's kinda the same here.
Maybe all we need is a kick-ass choir lead by Whoopi Goldberg. (Who hasn't seen Sister Act?)

The equivalent being, someone start a jaw-dropping project that people will flock here to see and then inspire them to bring or start their own projects here.
I can't do it though. I can make resources, but long-term commitments don't work out. I set impossible high standards for myself and lowering them makes me feel dirty.

 

[Perihelion]

Well, I'll make a thread for my game when it's further in development, but I expect that no one will post in it. People just don't go into the projects board anymore period. I think that maybe more people making cool things would help, but only if there's an easy way to make sure everyone sees it.

 

[coyotecraft]

Banners would be nice. Something like a custom topic icon only bigger. If we could replace the project forum list with something like the Arcade hub. That'd be a little more inciting.
I feel bad leaving it all up to Amy. Who else has permissions to make changes to the forum?

 

[Ellie]

Well, I'll make a thread for my game when it's further in development, but I expect that no one will post in it. People just don't go into the projects board anymore period. I think that maybe more people making cool things would help, but only if there's an easy way to make sure everyone sees it.

Would a likes/rating feature help... in as much as, while not providing content or useful criticism, they at least allow you to see that people are interested and watching? Sometimes it can be disheartening not getting replies but then you find out people actually played and liked your game, just didn't feel like posting. Idk.

 

[Ellie]

Banners would be nice. Something like a custom topic icon only bigger. If we could replace the project forum list with something like the Arcade hub. That'd be a little more inciting.
I feel bad leaving it all up to Amy. Who else has permissions to make changes to the forum?

Oh that's totally doable, not much work either.

 

[Injury]

Can you copy Steam and give us pages like the store front for the games we make?

5 picture slide show or something with all those happy things?

Drunk. Having fun with some Chrono Cross

 

[Perihelion]

Well, I'll make a thread for my game when it's further in development, but I expect that no one will post in it. People just don't go into the projects board anymore period. I think that maybe more people making cool things would help, but only if there's an easy way to make sure everyone sees it.

Would a likes/rating feature help... in as much as, while not providing content or useful criticism, they at least allow you to see that people are interested and watching? Sometimes it can be disheartening not getting replies but then you find out people actually played and liked your game, just didn't feel like posting. Idk.

Yeah, I think that would help a little. But again, I really feel like the basic format of the forum is just not conducive to exposing content. I think that totally revamping it to focus on posts instead of a topic list would work better. Like if instead of having a forum, we had a content submission system with gamepages for projects and galleries for art, and any time someone made an update on one of those, it got displayed on the landing page or whatever (replace the current forum index with it maybe). And then have pwoym as a sidebar or something. So you have to look at the actual content as well if you're pwoyming. This kind of makes it more like a social media platform than a forum, but maybe that's okay, idk.

My position right now is that if we want to seriously increase activity, we need to completely rethink the design and direction of the site. I applaud you for the effort you've put into things and your willingness to continue to do so, but I think we need to make some big fundamental changes (including maybe changing site software) if we want to make things better.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

I don't know about you guys, but the first thing I click on is "New Posts", so maybe a homepage that exclusively shows threads that have been recently updated?

I do the same thing! So it would be a good idea!

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Should we still figure out the MAIN focus? o.o

 

[Perihelion]

I think some kind of project/art showcase is probably the closest to what we're currently doing and doesn't involve massive changes to the kind of content we're trying to promote here. I still kind of think that being a general game dev site is too vague, but I don't think anyone liked the various alternatives I proposed in the past. Just changing the presentation might help, though.

 

[Ellie]

The good thing about hbg is its so easy to just try things out. I have a few ideas about galleries that might try and implement. I've also coded a new layout for the games section as suggested but just need to code in images for the board page.

Basic first idea is, like the arcade section, turning a new subforum into a place where individual images are posted with comment sections, with two viewpoints: a gallery like the arcade, and a list of contributors; clicking a name shows you their personal gallery.

Er, a few other ideas, but best to finish these first.

Weird how I always code something for hbg on Christmas day...

 

[Ellie]

If that's brief and unthought through its because am typing on kindle with aforementioned finger.

 

[bluehazed]

DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU DESU