The Future
Hello TRF. I like you, we had good times back in the day. You helped me grow so much, so I'd like to give back.What does the membership of TRF want TRF to do and be? Are we happy with our forums, or do we want to become a network of blogs? Are we satisfied with play by post, or do we want to formalize the style to e-books? Aside from the broken functionality (profiles, wiki, check, check) what other features would be nice? Maybe we need less features, I don't know.
The short of this is, I haven't been around for a while. I don't want to make dramatic changes without the input of those that have actually been using the site. We need changes, so weigh in with your thoughts.
Comments
#16 4:44am 04/01/11
Sweet, I look forward to seeing it. :]
#15 8:08pm 03/01/11
So long as you have direct access to the DB and some basic programming chops, you could do it. I don't know of anything off the shelf that would do this, so I'll be rolling my own functionality.
#14 12:36am 03/01/11
And the next door neighbor might start looking on with a curious eye...
<.<
Is the ebook idea compatible with vbulletin? I'd love to be able to publish some of our finished stories without copying and pasting manually. We'll be keeping vbulletin though. We bought the upgrade, just haven't upgraded it. It's got a ton of new toys to play with.
#13 9:59pm 30/12/10
It will make the children happier, too; they know the truth, parents...
#12 9:15pm 30/12/10
But if you want to save the marriage and not have Zark up and leave, perhaps new paint and laminate flooring is not a bad idea.
#11 6:31pm 30/12/10
Going along with your analogy, if this is your house then am I the wife you never talk to anymore, but neither of us are willing to admit the marriage is broken quite yet?
#10 6:25pm 30/12/10
My only point of order regarding updating/upgrading the site/forum is as follows - I cannot fathom the point of changing things, at all, if only for continued use by our static and longstanding community. It seems to me utterly pointless to go to these lengths when, given the current and ongoing level of activity, things are working just fine. The only reason I can imagine for spending the time and energy (admittedly, most of that spending will be done by Titus...) is if we're going to go ahead and A.) Start Advertising; bringing in new blood and/or B.) Bring 'Em Back; working to contact old members and, by way of our new face lift, try and lure 'em back...
I mean, I'm sure it would be nice to repaint my house, replace the laminate with hard-wood and so on... but honestly, it's more expense then it's worth since we live here comfortably and just fine... Now, if I was going to sell the place...
... get my point? It only seems valid if we're selling the new product.
Also, with the climate being what it is, I don't see any need what-so-ever for the profusion of forums we have here. Seems to me, as discussed elsewhere, a minimalist approach would suit our needs just fine.. considering.
#9 3:41am 30/12/10
In a basic form.
Most players are plodding about, chatting in OOC forums, with a few still plugging away at IC threads.
Me, for instance, I post every few weeks in my Vance thread. Just working him toward the events of Cataclysm. After that's done I'll take him into some post-Cataclysm writing.
But I'm in no rush; which I think is about the general consensus (bar a select few).
#8 3:08am 28/12/10
[QUOTE=Omnae]With ebooks, would we lose all the old rp's? I am all for extra functionality if the basic format (posts/chapters) allowing different users to enter their data in a single thread remains. It would wonders for us in terms of archiving old stories and rp's.[/QUOTE]
Unless we're entertaining the option of archiving TRF and starting a new website, it is my opinion that migrating our RP's and the OOC forum is a critical requirement no matter what we do (new platform or stay with vBulletin).
[quote=Gro]eBook / PDF? More hassle than it's worth. More people do their writing and browsing from a computer. [/quote]
eBook/PDF would be just an alternative way to distribute the work, not the primary method. I would classify this is an optional feature. Nice to have but it won't make or break the site.
[quote=Omnae]RSS - This old boy only has a inkling of an idea about this (meaning I am not sure how RSS would be different than twitter)?[/quote]
RSS is a list you subscribe to (most email applications have that functionality built in). Every time changes are published, the RSS feed is updated and everyone who is subscribed is notified.
The problem with RSS on a forum is that people don't need to visit the site to see what is new, so you lose out on any impulse posts. It's a handy feature, we would just have to be careful of how it is implemented.
[QUOTE=Park Kraken][QUOTE=Seth Vinda]Do we really need a forum for each group? or do people just think we do?.[/QUOTE]
Depends on who all is active and who isn't anymore, really. But one suggestion would be to create just three forums (Lightside Factions, Neutral Factions, and Darksidre Factions) and place the groups within Sub-Forums inside the appropriate location. It would help with the decluttering, IMO.[/QUOTE]
Since I've been gone for a while, let me pose this question. Is the 'rival governments' and 'competitive role-playing' aspect still kicking at TRF? Is the concept of active, independent groups still alive?
#7 10:03pm 27/12/10
With ebooks, would we lose all the old rp's? I am all for extra functionality if the basic format (posts/chapters) allowing different users to enter their data in a single thread remains. It would wonders for us in terms of archiving old stories and rp's.
Twitter - I am with Gro on this.
RSS - This old boy only has a inkling of an idea about this (meaning I am not sure how RSS would be different than twitter)?
Blog format for our OOC activity (Cafe/Arts & Entertainment/Etc..) might work. I don't really read any blogs so... Will each RP have a reader/lurker comment section?..lol..
#6 9:17pm 27/12/10
Problem with that is (if, y'know, we become active again) some factions within those categories are against each other. I'm sure the Palestar Crusade would love to know all the Empire's strategies that are being discussed.
The only way I can effectively see the clutter getting axed is to just reduce all factions to one forum apiece that is only accessible to members of that factions User Group. That way each faction can discuss in secret. Perhaps even hiding the boards of factions you're not a member of to reduce said clutter.
Okay, now on to the other points.
eBook / PDF? More hassle than it's worth. More people do their writing and browsing from a computer. Simply put, how much of our user base would use such a thing? What are we looking at in terms of potential user base? Practically speaking, how many people have eBooks vs how many people have computers. And we need to spread the URL around a little bit. :P
I don't know of anything better than vBulletin.
The wiki is basically unused. Might be something to revive once we get a regular influx of new regular members again, but otherwise it is something that is firmly in the realm of disuse.
Editable profiles for factions? How do you mean? A sticky that just has a list of the factions and what they're about?
Twitter I think would be a poor choice. RSS feed on the other hand....
#5 8:50pm 27/12/10
[quote]Do we really need a forum for each group? or do people just think we do?[/quote]
Depends on who all is active and who isn't anymore, really. But one suggestion would be to create just three forums (Lightside Factions, Neutral Factions, and Darksidre Factions) and place the groups within Sub-Forums inside the appropriate location. It would help with the decluttering, IMO.
#4 7:57pm 26/12/10
I think that sounds awesome.
Something really different.
Right come on people, time for your help and input.
TRF could do with a bit of a lift, bring it up to date.
Do we still want the 'Forum format'
Or something else? if so what other options are there?
If we stick with VBulletin , how about streamlining the boards down a bit.
Do we really need a forum for each group? or do people just think we do?
Do we really need a Wiki? (perhaps its more hassle than its worth?)
Maybe just an editable profile for each faction instead?
Having TRF connected to twitter might be interesting?
[quote]I think it should be possible to set up a twitter account for TRF, and have TRF publish to twitter every time a new chapter or post is pushed up.[/quote]
Just some thoughts...
#3 7:57pm 26/12/10
Not to mention PDFs can be pushed to your Kindle, smartphone, etc for easy reading later, or sharing with your friends without spreading that nerdy site URL around.
#2 7:56pm 26/12/10
Yep. We could set the 'role playing' forums up so that you create a 'book' rather than a thread, and you post 'chapters' instead of posts, and when it's all said and done, you could export the whole thing to PDF.
That opens up some other interesting concepts, like a directory of characters that appear in the universe, books that belong in a series, individual book rankings and reviews, etc.... lots of stuff we could do with that.
12>>>