Most game hacking projects already have sites dedicated to them, or at the very least a devblog, because otherwise it's very hard to actually get anything done. As far as I can see, there's still plenty of room for CS hacking work/discoveries at the moment anyway. This might not have been a serious suggestion, but it's another example of my overarching point, which is that simply expanding and generalising things isn't going to expand the appeal of the site.
Personally, I think that a better way of getting more people involved would be to have more site events/creative outlets, but most of those don't end up getting a great deal of participation at the moment anyway.
- All forums would count towards postcount except for the SPOT and Forum games sections.
- Idiotic threads would be moved to the SPOT as to not count towards postcount (this brings validity to General Discourse).
- The "Rate the x Above You" and the "You're so addicted to x" threads would be moved to the forum-based games section.
This is the main difficulty I would have with doing this - you can bet I'm going to hunt the forums like a fucking bear for anything that should be in Forum Games or the SPOT if posts start counting in the Satellite Lounge, which raises the problem of what to do with a ton of old threads (e.g. from 2007 when nobody used the Lounge and the rampant shitposting that occurred in mid-2009).
Lace said:
- We don't need a link to the main website I don't think.
Why not? It's completely possible to run into the forums without finding the tribute site, I know that's what I did
MetaSeraphim said:
This is a really bad really opinion fueled change. Changes should be things that improve the forum overall for everyone, not changes because a word implies a bad stigma, or a certain part of it is annoying or superfluous.
In fact, you could say that such a change is superfluous in itself. It does nothing to improve the forum or improve Cave Story hacking in anyway.
Oh jesus christ every time I get to a new page there's another one and now there are like 10 different forum layout suggestions fuck me
So umm outline I guess:
Forum Forums
> Forum Announcements and Rules
> Forum Suggestions
General Forums
> Satellite Lounge
>> Forum-Based Games
>> The S.P.O.T.
> Superior Discussion for the Cultured Palate
>> Creative Media (outlet for non-video-game thingies)
Gaming Forums
> Gamer's Lounge (general gaming)
>> Gaming Media (music + vids)
> Indie Games
> Homebrew Games
>> Ideas and Development
>> Programming Workbench (includes hacking for other games)
Cave Story
> Cave Story Discussion Forum
>> Music
>> Theories
>> Technical Issues
> Other Games by Pixel
> Mod/Hack Showcase
>> Hacking/Modding
>> Hack/Mod Ideas and Development
-We don't need a separate section for modding; homebrew and modding fall under the same heading, and there's no reason to move the CS mods out of the CS section
-There's no video game media subforum
-Game Development and Showcase could be combined into Homebrew General
-Pixel's other games are unlikely to generate a lot of conversation on their own, so it might just be more efficient to keep the other forums as subforums in CS Discussion, but I guess it could work either way
We don't need a separate section for modding; homebrew and modding fall under the same heading, and there's no reason to move the CS mods out of the CS section
If they fall under the same heading, why not combine them into a supercategory rather than having them in two completely separate places? I also think that dividing up hacking into "Cave Story" and "Other" is sort of arbitrary. I have created a section to consolidate them here, but I would really like Hacking to have its own section.
Would mod development and showcase be combined as well then? consistency is important. (ignorable if you accept the conglomeration under #1)
DoubleThink said:
Pixel's other games are unlikely to generate a lot of conversation on their own, so it might just be more efficient to keep the other forums as subforums in CS Discussion, but I guess it could work either way
If that would work either way, I would prefer that they would be separated.
(Quite) A few changes, based on personal opinion and some of the things DT wanted. Comments in Parens/Italics.
Code:
[b]General[/b]
> Forum Announcements and Rules
> Forum Suggestions and Discussion
> Lounge [I](How did satellite sneak back in? Lounge is good)[/I]
> S.P.O.T [I](Separated for "three prong" reason mentioned in my last suggestion (I think?))[/I]
> > Forum-Based Games [I](Falls under "silly/dumb" category that the SPOT occupies.)[/I]
> Superior Discussion for the Cultured Palate [I](Somehow got lost :[ I think this would be a nice addition)[/i]
> > Creative Media [I](Could also be a sub of the lounge)[/i]
[b]Cave Story[/b] [I](Same as andwhy had. It seems more logical for me to have the section be about pixel, but if people are so against it whatever.)[/i]
> General Discussion
> Other Games by Pixel
> Music
> Theories
> Technical Issues
[b]Game Modification and Development[/b] [I](read my response to dt. I think this makes sense.)[/i]
> Hacking Discussion
> Programming Discussion
> Ideas and Development
> Showcase
[b]Other Games[/b]
> Gamer's Lounge
> > Game Media
> Indie Games
A combination of Ideas/Development and Showcase would be okay too. It might be nice to know what has a demo and what doesn't though.
Also, I'm going away for the next few days, so this may be my last input into this discussion, and you can take it as your chance to ignore my opinion. However, if you are feeling accommodating, here's a list of things that are important to me, written from most to least important.
- Game Modification/Development, or at least Game Modification, should have its own supersection. Pleeeeease.
- There should be a "Superior Discussion" forum. I don't care about this near as much as the former, but I think it would be nice to have.
- Again, this point isn't near as important as the previous, but I think that FBG should be a sub of SPOT.
- About same level of importance, I think it would be more logical to have it be the "Studio Pixel" section rather than the "Cave Story" Section. It's not like that would diminish CS's importance at all - it would just make sense.
Those are my four things. The only one that is super important to me is the first, and I'd bend on the rest. (Although I can't really see the logic against a thoughtful forum)
A thing to keep in mind. You don't want to make the title of a section or forum too long because otherwise it will look clustering to other sections/forums.
Main
> Forum Announcements and Rules
> Forum Suggestions and Discussion
> Ye Ol' Tavern (Different name. Implies a casual relaxed theme within limits.)
> > Entertainment Media (Creative seems to imply that it is for media related things the members of the forum have created.)
> > Artist's Palate (General art forum)
> General Discourse
> The S.P.O.T
> > Forum-Based Games
Gaming Lounge
> General Gamery
> > Game Media
> Indie Games
> Game Development
> > Showcase
> > Programming Help
> > Ideas and Development
Studio Pixel
> Cave Story General
> > Music
> > Theories
> > Technical Issues
> Other Games by Pixel
> > Music
> > Theories
> > Technical Issues
> Game Modification and Development
> > Showcase
> > Hacking and Programming Discussion
> > Ideas and Development
There is no reason to give modification to Cave Story or other Pixel games its own section outside of Cave Story. Since we also are adding a general game development section it implies we have two sections for the development of games, while one of them is mostly aimed towards Cave Story and possibly other Pixel games.
So, there is zero reason to give it a section all by itself outside of Cave Story unless you're going to ditch the general game development section and just make one whole game development with a Cave Story subforum. But, once again this is completely unneeded.
Even if someone happened to design and created an entirely new game without using Cave Story as a based but was about Cave Story then it would still go under Cave Story modification, and since it is all about Cave Story it should say under Cave Story.
Sorry but I personally think that modding and game development shouldn't be merged. Not sure what "Superior Discussion for the Cultured Palate" is meant to be but we can always add it in later. For now is the above fine?
The combo was only meant to appease dt.
I prefer meta's layout of "General". Superior Discussion/General discourse is a forum for more thoughtful and serious topics eg abortion.
Could we dub it "Game Modification" rather than modding?
Again I had a small question as to the logical layout of "Cave Story"
Other than that looks good.
Gotta go catch my plane.
As Captain said The S.P.O.T gets a good bit of attention so it deserves to be a forum instead of a subforum. Entertainment Media gets attention to the point where it should be a subforum of Satellite Lounge and Forum-Based Games should be placed under The S.P.O.T as a subforum.
Also, personally, I see no reason at all behind Cave Story related modification getting its own section. And, I just noticed that you list has hardly changed at all besides making Entertainment Media a fourm instead of a subforum and making a Game Media subforum.
I'm agreeing with MS that Cave Story stays in Cave Story and other stuff stays out. The only part of andwhyisit's layout I have a problem with is the Forum Games, which should really be part of the SPOT. Most of the posts in that forum don't have a lot of thought put into them.
But before we reach a conclusion and change everything, we should probably wait for more input from other users.
I agree about the modding and game development forums, so here's my fix.
Notes:
1. I want to try to make all Cave Story forums subforum-free. This way all the Cave Story forums have an even chance of getting activity instead of a new post in the Cave Story subforums every half a day.
2. The S.P.O.T. can stay as a subforum. Promoting a spam forum is a bad idea. Plus seeing the nature of the Satellite Lounge is "everything that doesn't belong elsewhere" the S.P.O.T as a subforum of the Satellite Lounge makes absolute sense.
3. While "Forum-Based Games" aren't exactly the most intellegent of threads, they are still bound by the rules regarding spam and offtopic posts. If they were under the S.P.O.T then these rules would no longer take effect.
I don't see how we would've organized a focus shift at all. We'd have to find something we'd all be willing to talk about that isn't Cave Story, and that's kind of hard to do on a Cave Story Forum.
I think Andy's layout is good for now, we can't just shift the entire forums without other people's input (despite the fact that most users seem dead set against contributing their opinion...); I believe this shift that Andy suggested will provide a little boost without changing drastically.
This has so much truth in it. I don't know why some people of this forum are obsessed with trying to bring more life into it or what have you. There are thousands, millions of forums out there that have more sections to discuss more subjects and are less active than this one.
You can paint a elephant black and white and it will still be an elephant, you aren't going to draw more people in by making them think it is a zebra.
