Possible Forum Layout?

Aldemarran wrote:

(For completeness, I'll repeat myself and expand on what I've already said.) Each "Header" is a forum in its own right, so your 9th sub-forum is the header forum. For an example, see the official class forums and note how if you scroll down from the individual class forums breakout there's another full "general class forum" lower down the page.

Okay, understood! I just couldn't find it in the first post so I just wanted to write it down again (now I got it). Also, about the classes: Like we said - it will be seen later how it's done best

Aldemarran wrote:

Grome wrote:

- Suggestion: Rename the Rigger's forums into something a little more clear?

Absolutely. Unfortunately I still haven't heard a suggestion that really "clicked" for me

Indeed. I guess we'll have to come back to it later, when we come up with something.

Aldemarran wrote:

Grome wrote:

- Suggestion: Put a "Story Discussion" sub-forum in the Discussion Forums header for the reasons we clarified in the posts before this one

- Suggestion: Add a "(SW) Lore Discussion" in the RP & Story forum (same level as "Story telling" and "RP Help,...")

Please clarify, how are these two different? Are either or both of these satisfied by the "TOR Story Discussion" forum under the General Forums header?

Gladly: TOR Story discussion is to discuss the story in the game, the one we experience. Lore discussion would be for the general SW lore that could pop topics like "Revan's legacy" or "was Darth Bane right" or things like this. Do you see what I mean?

Aldemarran wrote:

Please note, I'm working in parallel with all of you, and most of the time with myself, so please bear with me here!

No worries at all! We're doing great! Thank you for your hard work here!

azarhal wrote:

The Story discussion forum should only be about spoilery TOR stories as written by BioWare.

The RP lore & story can be about Star Wars lore and "fan made" stories. Unless somebody think that we don't need a RP Lore & story section.

2 different things.

TBH, assuming we can have sub-headings, which Selven seems to think is pretty easy to do, then there is no reason we could not break this up into as many areas as we like.

So they could all fall under a Story section, then broken up into Sub-headers?

Another thing to add:
I think the TOR general discussion (currently in general) should belong in the Game Discussion header forum?
Same for the TOR story discussion I'd say. It's all discussing the game.

As for the split of "fan made stories" and official canon "SW lore": I'd locate the former in the Story telling forum (already there) and the second creates a new "lore discussion" subforum on the same level as "story telling"

Too much discussion!

/joking

Going with Ty-Odi, if we can split header...having a Story thingy with a lore, TOR story and "my game story" forums might be the way to go,


And yes, I totally added something new in there.

Okay, to clear things up about this whole Story mess lol...

here is what I got from all of this:

- Lore Discussion (into RP header)

- TOR Story discussion (into Game discussion header)

- "my game story" is what i assume to be for character life descriptions, and if so, I'd either write that stuff into "Story telling" or indeed create a whole new subforum in the RP header for this.

Okay, before I go I'm gonna make another compilation of the suggestions we had just now... I'll try to be as clear as possible.


- To move the "TOR (General) Discussion" in the "Game Discussion Forums" header

- To move the "TOR Story Discussion" in the "Game Discussion Forums" header

- To add a "Star Wars Lore Discussion" sub-forum in the "RP" header (for discussions about star wars canon lore - NOT what happens story-wise in the game)

- To add a "Character Story" (or other name) sub-forum in the "RP" header (to write down your own RP character story)



Just to make it as clear as possible I will shortly explain the difference between the "lore" and the "tor story" discussion forums.
LORE: This forum is to talk about SW canon stuff - examples: "Darth Bane's actions after bla", "Who was the strongest Sith Lord before the rule of two", "Smuggler achievements over the course of SW history"
TOR STORY: This forum is to talk about what you experience in the game story-wise - examples: "What did you choose in that quest with the evil BH?", "Jedi Knight story resume with all choices being good up till lvl 10", "Is the Smuggler's story any good?", "World story arc: what happens next?"


It's starting to look really good

Ok, let me see if I can move us towards some clarity and focus on the subject of "Story".

There are several types of "Story":

• Star Wars Canon Story is laid down throughout all the movies, books, comics, and games.
  
• SW:TOR Story is what goes on in the game itself.
  
• Fan Fiction can be more generally labeled single player RP and done as a "Closed IC RP" thread.
  
• Multiple Player story is a cooperative RP effort put on by a team of players into 1 or more threads,but not open to the general RP populace.
  
• Open RP Threads are initiated and/or managed by one or more players, and are open to any who wish to participate.
  
• Discussion of Single or Multi-Player Closed RP threads or Open RP Threads is something different.

Discussion:
Single and Multi-Player Closed RP and Open RP threads should probably be handled in the RP In-Character Forum currently named "Story Telling" under the header forum currently named "RP & Story Forums".
How many Story Discussion forums do we need? Would 1 for "Canon" (including in-game canon) and 1 for player stories be enough? Or do we really need to split in-game and out-of-game story discussion?

Aldemarran wrote:

Ok, let me see if I can move us towards some clarity and focus on the subject of "Story".

There are several types of "Story":

• Star Wars Canon Story is laid down throughout all the movies, books, comics, and games.
  
• SW:TOR Story is what goes on in the game itself.
  
• Fan Fiction can be more generally labeled single player RP and done as a "Closed IC RP" thread.
  
• Multiple Player story is a cooperative RP effort put on by a team of players into 1 or more threads,but not open to the general RP populace.
  
• Open RP Threads are initiated and/or managed by one or more players, and are open to any who wish to participate.
  
• Discussion of Single or Multi-Player Closed RP threads or Open RP Threads is something different.

Discussion:
Single and Multi-Player Closed RP and Open RP threads should probably be handled in the RP In-Character Forum currently named "Story Telling" under the header forum currently named "RP & Story Forums".
How many Story Discussion forums do we need? Would 1 for "Canon" (including in-game canon) and 1 for player stories be enough? Or do we really need to split in-game and out-of-game story discussion?

Okay, to that I'd add "Character story", which is your own RP characters story - could be counted as fan fiction though, but it is not quite...

I agree with what you suggest at first: Single and multi-player RP threads into "Story telling".
For the other stuff, as I said before. I think it would be best to separate ingame story from canon story. Simply because it will result into two completely different things (maybe we just misunderstand what will go in these forums). Read up my post just before yours to see what I envisaged.
As for Fan Fiction: This is almost going into the "Art" forums?

Heya guys

Sorry for not taking part in the discussion earlier. So much to be done with Christmas coming soon and all. I think this thread is very important and indeed we're gonna need more forums/subforums in the weeks to come. And I see the need for a couple more moderators, too.

I like the forum layot suggestion. Setting them up probably isn't gonna be taking too much of my time - adding some info/sticky and "what to post here" threads on the other hand - I see the perks in having someone other than me doing that. I love that so many of you are wanting theese boards to be the best that it can be. I'll be following the thread, but leaving the ideas to you all

Thanks Selven! I shall continue maximizing the amount of work you have to delegate. Or something.

Aldemarran wrote:

Thanks Selven! I shall continue maximizing the amount of work you have to delegate. Or something.

I love it when you talk dirty!

Aldemarran wrote:

Ok, let me see if I can move us towards some clarity and focus on the subject of "Story".

There are several types of "Story":

• Star Wars Canon Story is laid down throughout all the movies, books, comics, and games.
  
• SW:TOR Story is what goes on in the game itself.
  
• Fan Fiction can be more generally labeled single player RP and done as a "Closed IC RP" thread.
  
• Multiple Player story is a cooperative RP effort put on by a team of players into 1 or more threads,but not open to the general RP populace.
  
• Open RP Threads are initiated and/or managed by one or more players, and are open to any who wish to participate.
  
• Discussion of Single or Multi-Player Closed RP threads or Open RP Threads is something different.

Discussion:
Single and Multi-Player Closed RP and Open RP threads should probably be handled in the RP In-Character Forum currently named "Story Telling" under the header forum currently named "RP & Story Forums".
How many Story Discussion forums do we need? Would 1 for "Canon" (including in-game canon) and 1 for player stories be enough? Or do we really need to split in-game and out-of-game story discussion?

Honestly, I see Fan Fiction closer in concept to Fan Art. Additionally, being that SW has layers of canon, I suggest having one forum for Story and leave it at that. SWTOR, the prequels, the novels: they're all story in some form. At most I would suggest a stickied guideline of how to post spoilerish content and how to make headings that give the reader an idea of what the discussion thread is looking to discuss.

Alright, I think I'm ready to take a stab at this.

• to Game Discussion Forums add
  
  • SW:TOR Game Story Discussion
    
  • SW:TOR Game General Discussion
  
  
• to RP & Lore Forums add
  
  • Star Wars Lore Discussion
    
  • Character Background and Stories
    
  • Other Fan Stories

Remove the 2 TOR forums from general discussion and the Story Telling forum from RP & Lore Forums.

Does this match up?

Aldemarran wrote:

Variable wrote:

...

Honestly, I see Fan Fiction closer in concept to Fan Art. Additionally, being that SW has layers of canon, I suggest having one forum for Story and leave it at that. SWTOR, the prequels, the novels: they're all story in some form. At most I would suggest a stickied guideline of how to post spoilerish content and how to make headings that give the reader an idea of what the discussion thread is looking to discuss.

So you see no gap between "Character Background and Stories" and "Fan Fiction"? I'm not entirely comfortable with it, but if others like it I'll do it that way. What does everyone else think?

Hmmm....Personally I like Bio's and then Fan Fiction kept apart. And there are reasons for it, and most are to do with RP.

For example if I am going to do some RP with someone, I like to do a little research into their char if I have never RP'd with them before just to get a bit of a feel for their char, whats happened since the Bio I will find out during RP, but it is just to get that.....Back ground on them I guess, and having an actual area for Bio's for me, allows you to find it quickly and easily.

Fan Fiction. Now this for me is more the 'Now' side of things, where current RP stories etc are posted? and kept up to date?

As such I think they warrant seperate sections personally? One is like an Archive for character backgrounds, the other is for current stories?

Grome wrote:

...As for Fan Fiction: This is almost going into the "Art" forums?

Variable also mentioned this but went in the direction of a single story forum.

Do you not see a gap between "Character Background & Stories" and "Fan Fiction"? I would have defined Fan Fiction as Single Player Closed RP.

Aldemarran wrote:

[*]to RP & Lore Forums add

• Star Wars Lore Discussion
  
• Character Background and Stories
  
• Other Fan Stories

[/list]

I hadn't really thought of Character Bios as Fan Fiction, but you do make a good point. That's kind of a blurry line to try and organize though - is it Fan Fiction or RP? I think the way Ald has it structured above is the best way to make that distinction though.

Aldemarran wrote:

Grome wrote:

...As for Fan Fiction: This is almost going into the "Art" forums?

Variable also mentioned this but went in the direction of a single story forum.

Do you not see a gap between "Character Background & Stories" and "Fan Fiction"? I would have defined Fan Fiction as Single Player Closed RP.

Ooh, depends.

I have done some epic multi-person stories in my time And many in cohesion with in game RP as well. Were the story in the game is then taken back to the boards and dealt with in more detail, and from different perspectives, if you have some good writers, and some interesting characters, it can be amazing!

Ty-Odi wrote:

...I have done some epic multi-person stories in my time And many in cohesion with in game RP as well. Were the story in the game is then taken back to the boards and dealt with in more detail, and from different perspectives, if you have some good writers, and some interesting characters, it can be amazing!

True enough!

Ok, I think for tonight at least I'm going to toss this up as-is into the original post. I'll get some shut-eye and come back tomorrow to look at further responses. With one caveat, I'm going to agree with Ty and split background from stories.

Alright I see you came up with some ideas after I went to bed. That's a little unexpected...

The way it looks now seems very good to me. Just one or two remarks (questions):

"Character Stories":
Is this the forum that will be used to run RP stories on top of ingame RP as Ty described it? I like it (although maybe the name could be changed since the threads will not be about single characters... e.g. "Player Stories" or similarly), but I have one thought here: Will people have the need to do some forum RP separate from the game? Such as in another time period for instance. I don't know, so I have to ask, as it might be wanted. If so, I suggest to put these in the very same forum and call it differently then... e.g. "RP Stories" or similarly.
If this is not a forum for what I just described but more like a "what happened to your character after the background/recently" then I suggest this would belong in the "Character Background" forum and this "Character Stories" forum be renamed and adapted to the purpose I wrote down a few lines up.

"Other Fan Stories":
Is this for short-stories and the likes in the setting of the SW universe? If so, I think it fits in well in this "RP & Lore" header. Will we have as much of it though for us to require this forum on top of the "Art Display" Forum? (because it's basically just a specified area of that "Art") No problem with it, just asking if there will be enough of these short-stories floating around?
If what I just wrote is not what this is about, then what is it about?

We will need to write description for each forums now. So we don't get lost on what they are supposed to do.

azarhal wrote:

We will need to write description for each forums now. So we don't get lost on what they are supposed to do.

As I said earlier, this is going to be an important part of what we do here. However...

If WE can't even look at the forum organization and understand what goes where, how hard is it going to be for all those who come later and haven't read or taken part in this discussion? Therefore my mantra is "Make it Obvious!". Obviously this architecture isn't obvious yet. With any real user volume there are going to be mistakes even in a respectful, reasonably intelligent environment such as this. We should try to avoid adding confusion to that mix.

This is why I've toyed with names slightly to make them very specific. By all means jump all over me if I twist something away from your intent, but I do believe that being specific is going to be highly valuable here.

P.S. # of class forums now cut from 17 to 9. Also, now suggesting:

• Rigger's Open Discussion
  
• Rigger's Moderator Discussion (Restriced)

I'd hesitated before but the whole Moderator name was kinda under discussion in the Senate thread. But it might be generic enough as stands, and any senate (using this name only because it references the title of the other thread) formed will probably need a separate thread from a Moderation thread anyway.

From what I see it all* makes sense Ald!

I also agree: We'll now have to come up with the (useful) descriptions of each forum.

* However, before I get to that - there is still this matter I posted about earlier... Can you help me out with that Ald? (3 posts back)
That is the only matter that does not seem clear to me at this point.


I'll post some description suggestions later on.

First, please help me clear up the matter I mentioned in the post above. (Ald)

*** One more suggestion for a forum: "UI & Add-Ons" (It has not yet been confirmed but I would be surprised if they wouldn't allow it) ... to go into Game Discussion Forums I'd say.


Now, suggestions for forum descriptions...

- First Header: "Welcome, Read Here First!";
-> Draft description: "The R.I.G. charter and an opportunity to introduce oneself!"

- Second Header: "Game Discussion Forums";
-> Draft description: "All there is to discuss about Star Wars: The Old Republic."

-- Second Header, First Sub: "General Game Discussion" (I'd remove the SW:TOR in front tbh)
--> Draft: "All discussion about SW:TOR that doesn't fit in any of the other forums."

-- Second Header, Second Sub: "Game Story Discussion" (same here)
--> Draft: "All discussion about the story parts of the game. Spoiler alert!"


I'll leave it at that for now so you can give feedback about the drafts. We should take it step by step.

One thing that always helps to have in mind is the KISS principle. KISS- keep it simple stupid

Having a too deep forum too early might be more of hindrance than a help for this forming community!

So I would suggest a more simple forum tree that can expand in time when/if the need arises!

One thing this forum needs is a split on timezones. You cannot have ppl that play on different timezones plan for something that is very unlikely.

So have a common area with:

1. RIG Announcements: here goes the most important announcements to the community - everyone can reply but only specific few can start a thread.
2. General Discussions - whatever subjects comes to mind - SWTOR/Community related
3. RIG Organisation: Discussions about RIG - - everyone can reply but only specific few can start a thread.
4. Class Discussion - no sub forums as of yet
5. PvE
6. PvP
7. Crafting

And Specific areas based on server timezones - US/Europe/Australia/ etc:

1. Guild recruitment - present your guild
2. Guild chatter - alliance/server talks

/salute