Ways to improve the forum

[Peeky Chew]

Here I'm going to post a few ideas I've had to improve the forum.


Merge the map rating and screenshot showcase thread: This seems really obvious to me, since neither get that many posts, merge them. It'll be easier to post what you want rated and then get it rated. I contacted Avatar suggesting this a while ago, he didn't reply so it probably won't happen...

Have a game of the month: The Hack forum has it, so why don't we? Considering the games here are always way ahead of the hacks in terms of graphics, why do they get a great thread like this? Of course there'd have to be a rule against getting a mod to edit your thread title saying you won one month, that's really annoying.

Game of the year: Same reasons as above. But get someone like Wichu to do it, or it'll be a failure like last year.

Deep connections: No game these days doesn't use custom tiles. But if they don't make them, where do they get them from? The Pixel Art sub forum of the Art Gallery of course! If it wasn't for the great people on there making tiles for us, there'd be Malachite and Ametrine; the only games with completely custom (or at least people with the ability to make) tiles of there own. The rest would look like a hack... I don't know exactly how the merge would work, maybe you could have an option when creating a thread in Pixel Art for it to also be shown here?

Thread reviewers: There are plenty great games with absolutely rubbish first posts, if people could easily get good, useful, tips on making their thread appealing from the "experts", this section would look a lot better.

Popularity: Some sort of weekly metacritic on thread popularity, by the amount of posts they receive and if their rating goes up, wouldn't really have any purpose, but would be very interesting!

Error: "Got a game idea? Take it to the here"
...
You'll find that extremely obvious gramatical error in the Drawing Board's description.


So what does everyone think?

 

[Vorpalis]

I think we need be able to delete our threads, without talking to a mod or admin

 

[lx_theo]

I like the ideas, I just don't see this part of the forum as big enough to sustain almost any of them or significant participation

 

[Wichu]

Merge the map rating and screenshot showcase thread: This seems really obvious to me, since neither get that many posts, merge them. It'll be easier to post what you want rated and then get it rated. I contacted Avatar suggesting this a while ago, he didn't reply so it probably won't happen...

The issue I see with this is that we'd get confusion as to whether a screen should be rated, or whether it is just to show off. In my opinion, they should stay separate.

Have a game of the month: The Hack forum has it, so why don't we? Considering the games here are always way ahead of the hacks in terms of graphics, why do they get a great thread like this? Of course there'd have to be a rule against getting a mod to edit your thread title saying you won one month, that's really annoying.

I disagree with this. Compared to the Hacking section, there are far fewer active games. Eventually, this would mean that a large proportion of games would have won at some point; this should be avoided, as it makes it lose its meaning.

Game of the year: Same reasons as above. But get someone like Wichu to do it, or it'll be a failure like last year.

This is a better idea; however, I don't think it should be made a sticky thread as in the Hacking section. An image in the thread and something in the thread title should be enough. And sorry, I don't think I'd be able to run it; I'm pretty bad at organising things. Ideally, it would be run by a mod.

Deep connections: No game these days doesn't use custom tiles. But if they don't make them, where do they get them from? The Pixel Art sub forum of the Art Gallery of course! If it wasn't for the great people on there making tiles for us, there'd be Malachite and Ametrine; the only games with completely custom (or at least people with the ability to make) tiles of there own. The rest would look like a hack... I don't know exactly how the merge would work, maybe you could have an option when creating a thread in Pixel Art for it to also be shown here?

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Merging the forums would be a bad idea, as although a lot of the pixel art is useful for games, a lot of it is not. I'm pretty sure a 'one-way' merge is impossible, anyway; if you just merge them, you'll get loads of irrelevant threads in the Pixel Art section.

Thread reviewers: There are plenty great games with absolutely rubbish first posts, if people could easily get good, useful, tips on making their thread appealing from the "experts", this section would look a lot better.

This already happens; when people see a bad thread, among all the flaming, there's usually someone who offers advice. I don't think any one person would take on this job full-time; even then, their view on what makes a good thread may not be shared by the majority.

Popularity: Some sort of weekly metacritic on thread popularity, by the amount of posts they receive and if their rating goes up, wouldn't really have any purpose, but would be very interesting!

I'm completely against this. If you start rewarding threads with high post counts, you're encouraging spam. Also, thread ratings are practically meaningless, and do not always reflect the quality of the game itself. Just because a game is popular doesn't mean it's good.

 

[Route]

I really like the ideas. Especially the game of the month/year. I doubt that most of these ideas will even be used, but they are good.

 

[Wichu]

Also:

I think we need be able to delete our threads, without talking to a mod or admin

I'm pretty sure that this is a community-wide setting, so it can't be changed. The solution is to carefully think about a thread before posting it; there shouldn't be any need to delete a good thread.

 

[Maruno]

I agree with Wichu on all points.

Have a game of the month: The Hack forum has it, so why don't we? Considering the games here are always way ahead of the hacks in terms of graphics, why do they get a great thread like this? Of course there'd have to be a rule against getting a mod to edit your thread title saying you won one month, that's really annoying.

Game of the year: Same reasons as above. But get someone like Wichu to do it, or it'll be a failure like last year.

There have been several attempts made by people to start up a "Game of the X" competition, none of which have ended well (mainly through poor planning and no one actually wanting to organise it properly). Also, the relative lack of active games, and almost non-existence of actual competed games.

Also, the different levels of progress most showcased games have means that they are on a very uneven footing, and it's really hard to compare them. Completed games are far more likely to get votes than incomplete games, purely by the "logic" of "finished=better". Having separate tiers of "Game of the X" to account for unfinished games would just make things even worse, since no one will agree on the boundaries of each tier.

And that's all without remembering that there is a far greater scope here for far more diverse games than what you can make with ROM hacking, which makes them even more difficult to compare.

In short, bad idea unless there are a lot of contenders (there aren't) and people don't vote for stupid reasons such as "I think X game will win, but I want Y game to have some votes" (they will). Encouraging people to actually work on their games, and building up a pile of resources (the wiki would be a good place for that), would help solve the first problem. Keeping the results secret until the very end and encouraging people not to say who they're voting for (lest they sway the opinions of others) would help solve the latter.

In both cases, it requires planning and a lot of dedication, which as mentioned, people don't have. They just want a "Game of the X" competition, and don't care how it works so long as they don't have to organise it.




One idea I've suggested before to the mods is actually merging those "I need helpz!" threads the newbies make into the relevant main threads, rather than simply locking them. This also requires the general public to not spam up those threads with "you should've asked in thread X" comments. This is something the mods can easily do, yet they don't.

Related is having the mods move posts between the "General game making help" and "Essentials" threads depending on which one they should actually be in. This would be more time-consuming, but still just as technically easy.

 

[davidthefat]

The thing with the GOTY stuff, very few games actually released demos or the full games... There is nothing to rate, but screen shots, which are not accurate depiction of the real gameplay...