TTLG Revamp June 2012

[Al_B]

We have started to make some changes that were long overdue to the forum structure. It has been discussed at length - Zylonbane started the discussion on it, so thank you for that. Some forums will go, some will stay, shifting around, merging, archiving. You get the idea. It will be good for all.

So far -
- Archived Cassandra Project
- Moved Citadel Conversation Project to Editing Group
- Merged Shock 2 Multiplayer and Shock 2 Hints and Spoilers into System Shock General
- Archived Shock 2 Editing. Didn't merge it into Editor's Guild to prevent confusion.
- Archived T2X forum.
- Removed Thievery redirect.
- Merged Thief 4 Anticipation and Thief Hints and Spoilers into Thief General.
- Renamed LGS Classics to The Classics.
- Moved Arx Fatalis into The Classics.
- Archived Dark Messiah Discussion.
- Removed Arkane category and the Dishonored redirect.
- Merged Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim forum into an Elder Scrolls forum and moved to Gaming.
- Moved Fallout to Gaming. Removed Bethesda category.

These changes were a result of community discussions held here: http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131245

Thanks to all who contributed to the discussions on the following points - this is what has now been done:

• Should Thief 3 editing be merged into the Editor's Guild? (No!)
• Shock Citadel Conversation Project be archived? (Yes - you can still reach the forum here)
• Do you want a Dishonored forum? (No - but we may look at this after the game has been released)
• Do you want a Bioshock Infinite forum? (No - we'll discuss this in Gen Gaming for now, but depending on the game we may create one)
• Should System Shock forum be moved to The Classics category alongside (not merged with) Underworld, Terra Nova etc? (No - Keep in place)
• Do you want to keep the Deus Ex Spoilers forum? (No - most threads there are very old. It's been merged with the main Deus Ex forum and moved to the Gaming section)
• Shall we archive the STALKER forum? (No - at least not for now)

[Tannar]

This...

Should Thief 3 editing be merged into the Editor's Guild? (Yes)

... is worrisome to me. I don't think they should be merged. I spend a lot of time in that forum and it is a bit difficult and definitely time-consuming to find specific info there. And there are times when a lot of threads are started in a relatively short amount of time which makes for more work to keep up with developments. But that's OK, that's just the nature of the beast and we're all used to it. But I am concerned that merging T3 Editing will be overwhelming and cause a great deal of confusion or, at the least, make it even more time-consuming to wade/search through the forum threads looking for what you need.

This is just my take on things but I honestly think that this one merger would be a mistake. So yes, I strongly disagree.

[Subjective Effect]

Should System Shock be moved to The Classics or stay in its own category? (Yes)

Makes no sense. Black or white? (Yes)

See?

FWIW I think that it should have it's own forum.

[Melan]

Do you want to keep the Deus Ex Spoilers forum? (Yes)

At this point, can it be spoiled any further? The mechanic guy is an MJ12 plant! IMO it should be merged.

[Al_B]

Makes no sense. Black or white? (Yes)
FWIW I think that it should have it's own forum.

Agreed that was ambiguous (post changed). The idea is to move the System Shock forum which is by itself at the moment in it's own category into the same category as the other classic games. It won't be merged with any other forums.

[jay pettitt]

Coo \o/

Jay thinks maybe you could archive Stalker, Elder Scrolls and Fallout and let discussions happen in gen gaming. 'Cos that's what it is.

Jay thinks it'd be nice if you ceremoniously hoisted the FM kiddies and editing peoples near the top of the forum because, frankly, they deserve to be put on a pedestal and are oodles more interesting and creative than many of the other gamey stuff that gets covered.

Jay doesn't really care whether T3 editing and T2 editing go together or nay - but is sure that if it did, folk would sort themselves out just fine and even though there are technical differences, a lot of the arty farty creative stuff is probably relevant to both.

Anyway, nice work ubermoderators.

[Al_B]

it'd be nice if you ceremoniously hoisted the FM kiddies and editing peoples near the top of the forum it'd be nice because, frankly, they deserve to be put on a pedestal and are oodles more interesting and creative than many of the other gamey stuff that gets covered.

This is one thing that we're a bit cautious about and would like to hear other people's opinions on. People who use those forums may be used to finding the editing forums near the bottom of the forum list. In some respects it would make more sense to move them closer to the Thief forums (possibly even within the Thief category) but we don't want to do this if it will make it harder for people to find those forums.

[jay pettitt]

By the time you're done, there's only going to be 2 fora - FMs and Comm Chat. So it shouldn't be hard not to get lost.

Also you should paint the FM fora gold and give everybody a cake to make the point of how awesome they are.

[Al_B]

That's coming in stage 3 - where we reveal the TTLG paid-for DLC packages.

[Kolya]

\/


I agree to move the System Shock forum into the classics anyway. And editing forums belong to the games they relate to instead of a general editing category in my opinion. But others should decide that as I never been there much.
As for Dishonored I'd wait if the game generates more than a few threads.

[Melan]

The editing forums represent a huge knowledge base that's neither all wikified or incorporated into tutorials - so they ought to be separate to avoid confusion, while FMs themselves should go into one forum.

[Briareos H]

Should System Shock be moved to The Classics category alongside Underworld, Terra Nova etc? (Yes)

I don't see why it should. Someone just started working again on an abandoned SS2 FM as an example that at least one of the games isn't "dead". And System Shock 1 simply is LGS' best game and the best game on earth (objective fact), so it should at least be honored by keeping its own forums.

Unless you redirect all traffic about System Shock to systemshock.org, which I'm fine with but completely contradicts what you should be doing with TTLG.

[Kolya]

It would still be an individual forum, just in the Classics category. So would the 3 remaining editing forums that all relate to Thief, if moved to the Thief category.

[Dia]

So far the revamp makes sense, imo. But what about the 'front page' of TTLG? I know Digi's been very, very busy, but there hasn't been anything new there in almost a year. Are we going to revamp that, too (again?)? Don't misunderstand please, I really liked the update when it finally happened, but it looks as though it's fallen by the wayside again.

Just sayin'.

[Briareos H]

It would still be an individual forum, just in the Classics category. So would the 3 remaining editing forums that all relate to Thief, if moved to the Thief category.

I see. Still feels like a knife in the gut to me.

[ZylonBane]

So cool to see this actually happening.

My personal suggestions, based on the board's current configuration--

• For consistency, rename "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." to "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series".
• I'd recommend keeping System Shock as a first-class citizen, so to speak. SS2 and Thief are contemporaries (and Dark Engine brethren), so it wouldn't make sense to banish one to the "Classics" category but not the other.
• In the description for "Thief Fan Missions", this text: "Discussion Forum for Thief FMs." should probably be "Discussion forum for Thief and Dark Mod FMs."
• Since all the other hints/spoilers forums have been done away with, merge "Deus Ex: Hints and Spoilers" into "Deus Ex General Discussion", which would then be renamed to just "Deus Ex Series".
• With Deus Ex consolidated to a single forum, it could be moved up into the "Gaming" category.
• Also kick "Arx Fatalis" up into "Gaming", which would allow...
• Rename "The Classics" to "Looking Glass Classics". As is, it's not apparent to visitors not familiar with LGS why there are essentially two classic gaming categories.
• Since there were three of them, rename "Flight Unlimited" to "Flight Unlimited Series".
• That being said, I still think it'd be a good idea to merge all the "classics" forums into a single "Looking Glass Classics" forum, since the individual ones are so vanishingly low-traffic. Then there could be an overarching "Looking Glass" category containing the Thief, Shock, and Classics forums. Dunno how the taffers would feel about that though.
• Strictly speaking, "Thief III Editors' Guild" should be "Deadly Shadows Editor's Guild". But... eh. In any case, absolutely should not be merged with the T1/T2 Editor's Guild. That would be a bloody mess.

Just as a point of comparison, it's interesting to take a look at the Quarter to Three forums. They're one of the more high-traffic gaming forums around, have a very similar visual aesthetic to TTLG, and manage quite nicely with only six forums-- four of which would be lumped into CommChat here.

[Ostriig]

Do you want a Dishonored forum? (No)

Yes. You could wait until launch, though. If the game has modding support that's a definite yes. There is one caveat, however, I don't know how that idea sits with Dan and Arkane. I was a little surprised that Dishonored didn't get its own TTLG forum from the get-go instead of a link to Arkane's official pages, but I imagine it was more than case of the dice just rolling that way.

Do you want to keep the Deus Ex Spoilers forum? (Yes)

No. I don't see much of a point, it got very little use for DX3 and I don't see that changing in the future. If I recall correctly, we all ended up just using a thread in DXGen marked with "Spoilers" in the title, and I think that's probably the way we'll all end up moving forward anyway.

Shall we archive the STALKER forum? Too soon? (Yes, No)

The stalker fan in me wants to say it's too soon. I mean, the body's not even cold yet, man. At the same time I can recognize that it's probably not coming back and there's little chance that this "Survarium" title would garner a massive TTLG following if it did end up seeing the light of day. Nor is there enough of a gameplay similarity with Metro to justify a mixed forum, the links boil down to theme and human resources but otherwise the latter is a pretty far cry from LGS archetypes.

But maybe move it to Classics instead? I think it has more than enough of a following among members and that it makes an excellent showing of some of the design principles that we hold dear to the point it would justify its position, not to mention that modding will probably continue and I'd expect TTLG members would still pop in occasionally with various questions or discussion about fan-made content or even just the original games.



Regarding Jay's suggestion about moving the FM stuff further up, above the titles forums, I don't believe that would be the best thing to do from a "marketing to fresh meat" sort of perspective. People who are into modding are generally not averse to scrolling down the page whereas putting the FM forums above the current games forums might give new passers-by the impression that this community is pointedly more about modding old games than other things, and I don't think that's the direction TTLG should be going for.

• Rename "The Classics" to "Looking Glass Classics". As is, it's not apparent to visitors not familiar with LGS why there are essentially two classic gaming categories.
• That being said, I still think it'd be a good idea to merge all the "classics" forums into a single "Looking Glass Classics" forum, since the individual ones are so vanishingly low-traffic. Then there could be an overarching "Looking Glass" category containing the Thief, Shock, and Classics forums. Dunno how the taffers would feel about that though.

I'd rather suggest having a single non-LGS denominated Classics section and have the selection criteria be TTLG-relevant games and series that are no longer being actively developed, thus including stuff like STALKER and Arx Fatalis. I don't think it has to be age-related or necessarily restricted to LGS-made games.

[jtr7]

If it's deemed time for the Blue Sky/Looking Glass roots of this site to officially give way to a different modernized focus, with Thief editing as the major exception to the new course, then the Classics/Legacy boards should really become the repository for the bulk of the TTLG of the past, but made clear and accessible for continued use of the boards that aren't really dead.

[Al_B]

I see. Still feels like a knife in the gut to me.

I'd recommend keeping System Shock as a first-class citizen, so to speak. SS2 and Thief are contemporaries (and Dark Engine brethren), so it wouldn't make sense to banish one to the "Classics" category but not the other.

This appears to be the most controversial of the changes. I hate to think that "The Classics" is viewed as a place where forums go to die - one hope would that moving System Shock there would help bring some more interest to the classics.

How about this as a more radical option. "Thief Series" category becomes "Thief and System Shock Series" and the "System Shock Series" general discussion forum is moved there. The Thief fan missions forum would then be Thief and System shock fan missions.

• For consistency, rename "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." to "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series".
• Since there were three of them, rename "Flight Unlimited" to "Flight Unlimited Series".

I agree and I can't see there being any objections to these being done immediately.

[ZylonBane]

I hate to think that "The Classics" is viewed as a place where forums go to die

It pretty much is though. In each of the "Classics" forums you can almost count the number of posts per year on one hand.

Another advantage of a consolidated LGS Classics forum is that it would provide a home for discussion of all the older Looking Glass games.

[ffox]

Should Thief 3 editing be merged into the Editor's Guild?

No.

[LarryG]

Questions we want to hear from you about, (And what the answer will be if you don't tell us otherwise.)
Should Thief 3 editing be merged into the Editor's Guild? (No)

I don't think merging the two makes any sense.

[jay pettitt]

If it's deemed time for the Blue Sky/Looking Glass roots of this site to officially give way to a different modernized focus, with Thief editing as the major exception to the new course...

I'm not sure that's what's going on here. Rather the ubermoderators haven't quite got around to moving the gaming forum below the actual proper Looking Glass stuff yet.

But I'm sure they will very soon.

The things that ZB said sound sensible. Except he forgot to suggest making the FM fora gold.

[Tomi]

Completely agree with Tannar and LarryG that merging "Thief 3 Editing" with "the Editor's Guild" would be a huge mistake. They might both be about editing Thief games, but the editors themselves have got nothing in common. You wouldn't throw in some Russian words in an English language dictionary, so why would you merge forums for two very different editors? It's already difficult enough to find solutions for your Dromed related problems in the Editor's Guild.

However, the most significant thing about this thread is to see ZylonBane use a happy smiley and not grumble about something for once. At least we now know how to make him happy.

So cool to see this actually happening.

[ZylonBane]

Don't jinx it.