Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Modding => Topic started by: Toady One on June 12, 2013, 10:25:50 pm
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I added a few child boards for specific people recently, and a general mod release board was suggested. I did that, moved some things, and then I wasn't really sure what to do with graphics sets and utilities. Common enough to merit their own boards? I'd like people to be able to find the things they are looking for without being too cluttered anywhere. Suggestions are welcome.
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Does this void the modding questions thread? Because now it would make question threads more... acceptable? I mean that in, they don't 'spam' the board anymore, as I would think the general DF Modding board would be suited for questions, and releases in the releases section. Nevertheless, I like the change! :D
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I want to leave it up to you all, since I don't have a feel for it, but I imagine that thread could work like the "little questions" threads found elsewhere, and something that needs more discussion can get its own threads. But yeah, generally it would let more discussion spread out.
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Thanks Toady. Having some more sub-boards will be nice.
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I like the idea of having release notices of utilities in its own child board. Utilities tend to work across most mods, but they also tend to update less frequently so it'd be easy for them to be buried in the general mod release child board.
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I like the idea as well of a few subforums for certain types of mods. How about a subforum for graphics mods?
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Thank you for the subforums, this will leave space in the main one for discussion and questions.
I think graphic sets and utilities should have their own subforum, along with prepackaged sets like the LNP. New players often seek those and this will make their research easier.
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I'd say that utilities (including tile and graphic sets) is the most important group of mods to get a dedicated forum.
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Yeah, one more for DFHack, its plugins, LNP, graphics enhancers, external programs and other crap would be pretty good. Those have become kind of institutions around here.
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I guess we do kind of already have this in the form of the "communities mods and utilities list" sticky. But yeah, a utilities/graphic pack child forum would be great.
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Thanks!
I do believe that Utilities (DFhack and similiar) and Tilesets (Ironhand, Phoebus...) both deserve their own child boards.
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Thanks!
I do believe that Utilities (DFhack and similiar) and Tilesets (Ironhand, Phoebus...) both deserve their own child boards.
I'm for what ggamer said,
DF 3rd Party Utilites
DF Tilesets and Graphic packs
child boards.
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Yes, this ^.
Please and Thank You.
It's easy enough when you've got some favorites/freinds you've been following following for a long time and/or contributing to. But this would be very handy for the early players. I wholeheartedly support any actions that make getting into the game more accessible.
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I was really hoping this was going to be a discussion about the organization of data in the raw files. It's patchwork, haphazard organization is utterly maddening.
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I was really hoping this was going to be a discussion about the organization of data in the raw files. It's patchwork, haphazard organization is utterly maddening.
Well why don't you do something about it?
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Actually, does the game not check for files in folders? I'm kind of curious to see what would happen if you put all the raws into their own folders.
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No, it does not. I just checked. The "text" folder is an anomaly, those files don't even follow the [OBJECT:xyz] header form.
Besides, I think the problem is rather with how the data itself is arranged. Old disused tags, entire files for single vermin creatures, one huge file for everything prior to a certain point, confusing file names, the whole lot. I was tempted to straighten everything out for myself, but it'd be more of a hassle to integrate other mods if everyone else still adhered to the old standard.
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I think rewriting all the raws, just to make them more orderly, is not quite that important. It might be nice for modders, but then again, modders can do it themselves, sort them into a file-system that they personally desire most. I know for example that deon has done this. I dont think it is very important for the unmodded game, since redoing all the raws is only a source of possible bugs, but gives no more accessability or features for the modders.
The child boards I do like. Mod Releases is great, Utilities would be great, Graphic Sets, and of course I will not complain about the MasterworkDF childboard.
I dont want to step on anyones toes, but seeing how putnams/deons child boards all have one post about each mod in them, I could see them merged with Mod Releases. Granted, they are very new and people did not have much chance to post, so I could be wrong about it. If there is a lot of discussion I can understand a seperate board, but if they are just mod-release posts, people looking for general mods in the mod release section would overlook them. Seriously guys, no disrespect meant.
A pinned first thread in each section, similar to Profits current list, would be very helpful as well. Akin to an index for each child board.
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I'd say Deon and Putnam should have their own boards due to the amount of mods they have and manage, I would have requested my own child board, but I only got one major mod, the rest of my minor mods are so minor they aren't even worth mentioning.
Even tho Masterwork is just one mod it's great to have it's own board as I remember alot of people making posts about "How can I do/use/make xxxx in Masterwork" not to mention the two sub mods? or is it just Orc Fortress? Not to mention the amount of discussion and reporting threads you have :P
@Toady
Also another thing I noticed, in the child boards I managed to remove a poll from my thread, which has been a first for years (to me at least) not complaining, just don't know why it wasn't possible until my thread was moved.
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I'd say Deon and Putnam should have their own boards due to the amount of mods they have and manage, I would have requested my own child board, but I only got one major mod, the rest of my minor mods are so minor they aren't even worth mentioning.
I don't see why they need own boards for their mods, because they won't need more than one thread per mod, and those aren't enough to clutter up the "Mod Releases" board.
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I don't see why they need own boards for their mods, because they won't need more than one thread per mod, and those aren't enough to clutter up the "Mod Releases" board.
Yeah, each mod released needs only one post. But as Hugo pointed out, other people wanting to discuss a major mod that generates lots of issues are going to need to make posts too. Also, if I were playing DF but only ever using Masterwork (or something), I would find it very handy indeed to have the option to follow a board that never includes posts concerning stock DF. Less clutter for me to have to weed through to get to the stuff that pertains to the game I'm playing.
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Yeah, nothing except Masterwork has produced its own gravity field like this. It's an exception.
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Yeah, I actually kinda did mean that I think a mod releases forum would work well as opposed to my own, but I'm not complaining too much about both existing :P
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These changes are most welcome! I think there have been anything from a dozen to two dozen threads that have been constantly being bumped to the top for extended periods of time (i.e. years), so I like the new child boards because they clear out the quasi-stickied threads and make way for new and fresh smaller mods. I agree that utilities should have their own board too.
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I'd say Deon and Putnam should have their own boards due to the amount of mods they have and manage, I would have requested my own child board, but I only got one major mod, the rest of my minor mods are so minor they aren't even worth mentioning.
Even tho Masterwork is just one mod it's great to have it's own board as I remember alot of people making posts about "How can I do/use/make xxxx in Masterwork" not to mention the two sub mods? or is it just Orc Fortress? Not to mention the amount of discussion and reporting threads you have :P
@Toady
Also another thing I noticed, in the child boards I managed to remove a poll from my thread, which has been a first for years (to me at least) not complaining, just don't know why it wasn't possible until my thread was moved.
If I had less class, I'd say that I felt overlooked and under-acknowledged.
... Eh, who am I kidding, I feel overlooked and under-acknowledged. Whatever. I just feel like giving every other major mod its own sub-board isn't exactly winning me any new players, and to be honest, with the kind of time and effort I've poured in, I'm kind of pissed about that. When new players come in and look for mods, they're going to go right to the sub-boards and never even see mine, even though it's been on the front page since 2011. I love Dwarf Fortress and love our benevolent overlord, and I'm sorry for "stirring up drama," but on behalf of my several hundred loyal supporters who download every single version I put out and are trying to put together a real succession fort community, I'm not okay with this new system.
Either establish a set of parameters for qualifying for a sub-forum or get rid of them entirely. Sort them by genre, sort them by by OS, fine, whatever, but all this is right now is favoritism. And it's been made abundantly clear who is and is not favored. I know that's probably not intended, but it's definitely how it comes off.
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This reorganization is still in the experimentation stage. I think it would work best with Masterwork, Mod Releases, Utilities, and Graphics/Tilesets for sub-boards, none for individuals, Masterwork only getting its own because of its very community-driven nature and unusually large userbase.
I don't think you're really stirring up drama so much as bringing up a good point. Deon's mods may be huge, but mine... aren't. I got a good look at my views and replies and immediately realized "well, hell, maybe I shouldn't have my own board". Actually, considering the way that nobody else but Deon has posted in Deon's board, I'd say he probably shouldn't have his own either, but I would rather hear from him on that.
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I don't think any of us should have our own boards. All it does is create an artificial hierarchy in a community that works best without a hierarchy. It tells new modders "it doesn't matter what I do, I'll never be as good as xxx," or "it doesn't matter how much effort I put in, my mod will never get noticed because everyone skips over that board entirely" and it puts a stranglehold on everything.
If we have to have sub-boards, do it by genre. Something like...
GFX/Tileset Releases
Total Conversion Releases
Major Mod Releases
Minor Mod Releases
Child Mod Releases (i.e. Masterwork-dependent mods)
Plug-In and 3PS Releases
GFX/Tileset Development
Mod Development
Plug-in and 3PS Development
Thoughts?
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I'd say Deon and Putnam should have their own boards due to the amount of mods they have and manage, I would have requested my own child board, but I only got one major mod, the rest of my minor mods are so minor they aren't even worth mentioning.
Even tho Masterwork is just one mod it's great to have it's own board as I remember alot of people making posts about "How can I do/use/make xxxx in Masterwork" not to mention the two sub mods? or is it just Orc Fortress? Not to mention the amount of discussion and reporting threads you have :P
@Toady
Also another thing I noticed, in the child boards I managed to remove a poll from my thread, which has been a first for years (to me at least) not complaining, just don't know why it wasn't possible until my thread was moved.
If I had less class, I'd say that I felt overlooked and under-acknowledged.
... Eh, who am I kidding, I feel overlooked and under-acknowledged. Whatever. I just feel like giving every other major mod its own sub-board isn't exactly winning me any new players, and to be honest, with the kind of time and effort I've poured in, I'm kind of pissed about that. When new players come in and look for mods, they're going to go right to the sub-boards and never even see mine, even though it's been on the front page since 2011. I'm sorry for "stirring up drama," but on behalf of my several hundred loyal supporters who download every single version I put out and are trying to put together a real succession fort community, I'm not okay with this new system.
Either establish a set of parameters for qualifying for a sub-forum or get rid of them entirely. Sort them by genre, sort them by by OS, fine, whatever, but all this is right now is favoritism. And it's been made abundantly clear who is and is not favored.
I'd say that your concern is a valid one and not stirring up "drama" As I've put a lot of time into Regeneration as you have with LFR (altho you have far more put into then my Mod ever will) but I'm not one to say "That's unfair" even if it is, and I feel it is. As Masterwork seems to have the majority of the player base, but what can I do if someone else has a better mod/product then me? Nothing really lol, but all in all this is all new and Toady will take all suggestions into consideration.
PS sorry if I've accidentally offended anyone, seeing as narhiril quoted me directly made me feel ashamed for my comment.
I don't think any of us should have our own boards. All it does is create an artificial hierarchy in a community that works best without a hierarchy. It tells new modders "it doesn't matter what I do, I'll never be as good as xxx," or "it doesn't matter how much effort I put in, my mod will never get noticed because everyone skips over that board entirely" and it puts a stranglehold on everything.
If we have to have sub-boards, do it by genre. Something like...
Total Conversion Releases
Major Mod Releases
Minor Mod Releases
Child Mod Releases (i.e. Masterwork-dependent mods)
Plug-In and 3PS Releases
Mod Development
Plug-in and 3PS Development
Thoughts?
Actually that makes quite a bit of sense considering how DFFD is laid out.
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My point wasn't to attack anyone - least of all you, Hugo. My point was simply that arbitrarily drawing a line between who deserves a sub-forum and who doesn't is inevitably going to create a rift, and I'd be making the same point even if you and I were included in the sub-forum group. I'm simply trying to say that we're drawing a line that would be better off not drawn at all.
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My point wasn't to attack anyone - least of all you, Hugo. My point was simply that arbitrarily drawing a line between who deserves a sub-forum and who doesn't is going to create a rift, and I'd be making the same point even if you and I were included in the sub-forum group. I'm simply trying to say that we're drawing a line that would be better off not drawn at all.
You have a point. I do feel that MW would need some kind of separation between mods like your own and itself, not because it has more players, but because there are so many treads for it. It's like trying to contain an ant colony in a ziplock bag, while still trying to display the contents of the bag. There's just so much of it (minor threads, 'cause all the newbs to modding go right to the, "biggest and most popular," mod), that it drowns everything else out.
However, I do agree with both your point, and your idea of organization, as well as a Graphics & Tilesets board.
Edit: Actually, I think the MW players need to learn to ask questions in the thread for the mod. It could just go in the 'Major Mods' section, with the other mods.
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My point wasn't to attack anyone - least of all you, Hugo. My point was simply that arbitrarily drawing a line between who deserves a sub-forum and who doesn't is going to create a rift, and I'd be making the same point even if you and I were included in the sub-forum group. I'm simply trying to say that we're drawing a line that would be better off not drawn at all.
You have a point. I do feel that MW would need some kind of separation between mods like your own and itself, not because it has more players, but because there are so many treads for it. It's like trying to contain an ant colony in a ziplock bag, while still trying to display the contents of the bag. There's just so much of it (minor threads, 'cause all the newbs to modding go right to the, "biggest and most popular," mod), that it drowns everything else out.
However, I do agree with both your point, and your idea of organization, as well as a Graphics & Tilesets board.
Edit: Actually, I think the MW players need to learn to ask questions in the thread for the mod. It could just go in the 'Major Mods' section, with the other mods.
Edited post to include gfx/tileset.
Again, I'm not trying to be an ass. Deon, Meph, and Putnam put in countless hours of work into their mods and I have nothing but respect for that, and the fact that more people play and develop things for Masterwork doesn't bother me. I just want everyone, including new modders or modders who maybe don't have that kind of time or commitment to get a fair shake, and I feel like it's better for me to start a brush fire now and show how personal sub-forums can ignite controversy rather than watch it get pushed through and wait for some terrible inferno of jealousy down the road. Not to mention that Toady will inevitably have to deal with the torrent of requests for personal sub-forums. It sets a bad precedent and creates a lot of problems that don't need to be created.
If we organized it by genre, the mods that are getting the most updates and feedback are naturally going to stay near the top without the need for any of that. Plus, it does a better job of directing people towards what they're looking for - the people here for a tileset can choose to see only the tilesets, the people looking for little tweak mods get a list of nothing but minor mods, and the people here for a truly game-altering experience can just as easily find Masterwork or Genesis or Regeneration or whatever they like.
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My reasoning for asking about a childboard was this:
Masterwork is always floating on the first page. Within the last year I have never seen it on the second page. Smakemupagus started Orc Fortress, and suddenly its two threads. Then I added Kobold Camp, three threads. Then there was the "Suggestions for Masterwork" thread that appeared and disappeared on occasion. Then Putnam asked about a possible Drow mod, Fire1666/Gamerlord/Guthbug worked/are working on undead race plugins, and Smake asked about Elf plugin. Thats another 3 threads. In the end it would clog up big portions of the modding board, at least the first 2 pages probably, with ~5-8 threads about just one mod.
I felt like that is not a good thing.
The second reason is that people still couldnt find the relevant information they were looking for. MDF3 had 15.000 downloads, of a single version in a month. DF has roughly 100.000 (from what I read online), so it occured to me that a splitting of information would be nice. A sort of mini-forum, with release, gameplay questions, bugreports, suggestions... just like for DF.
I approached Toady and he did not disagree, but brought up the point that people will start asking for child-boards of their own. Favourism, and he as judge to decide who gets a board and who does not. I agreed on that point, but both of us thought it might be worth a try, otherwise the Masterwork Childboard wouldnt exist. It has 89 Topics atm. I think that kind of proves the point. When I search for Masterwork on reddit I get 460 topics. Genesis 40. LfR 0.
I dont want to favour or disfavour anyone, and I did not expect to see a Deon&Putnam board. I expected a "Genesis" board... there is a reason I did ask about "Masterwork Mod", not "Mephs Stuff", hey, look at me, I am Meph, use my stuff. I wanted to give players of my mod an easier way of finding information, offer other modders that mod for my mod-pack space for their own threads, and to clean up the modding forum to help other modders. Narhiril, I have nothing of respect for the other modders, most of whom are here longer then me. I dont know if you know it, but I even link to all the other major mods, including LfR, from my launcher/Gui.
The problem modders have is that the publicity is missing. Yes, I do use caps-lock, and fancy photoshopped logos, and post many, many pictures, and use massive font-sizes and lists for my releases, because its flashy. People notice it. I made a template for what is advertisement for other people to copy into their signature... this stuff:
Signature:
- If you want to help to spread the word, paste this into your signature:
[center][url=http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=125633.0]¤MASTERWORK¤ Dwarf Fortress - V.3 - [/url]
- A comprehensive mod pack with 25% higher FPS -
Thats why Masterwork got so many players. I often wrote posts in profits list about adding this or that, or wrote new modders that they should post there. A poll of mine showed that 90% of the people found Masterwork through that list, because no one sifts through the very full and convoluted modding forum. That was pre-child board.
I stand with the idea that Mod-Releases (Maybe Minor/Major, Maybe Minor/Major/TotalConversion), Graphic-Packs/Tilesets, Utilities and MasterworkDf should have their own board.
I know that this sounds... maybe a bit hypocritical, but I dont know how to manage Masterwork otherwise. Info about it would be then found in the modding forum (developement/suggestions), the release thread would be found in major mods, the plugins/races would be found in minor mods, the masterwork tileset which I want to release within this month would be in graphic packs, and talk about the added GUI that I base of the LNP would logically go to utilities. Same with the custom dfhack scripts I added. It makes no sense for anyone who is looking for information about MasterworkDF.
On a personal note, I never understoof why LfR does not have more players. It seems to float on a stable number of always the same people.
So thats my 2 cents.
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Look Meph, I get that Masterwork is the most popular mod right now, and I get what you're saying about management. I wouldn't be opposed to having a Masterwork child-board simply for those logistical reasons. In fact, I think it's the most logical solution. DFHack plugins could probably afford to have their own board as well.
I'm not here to attack Masterwork, or any other mod, for that matter. If I didn't want Masterwork to succeed, I wouldn't have collaborated with you on parts of it. This isn't some personal vendetta, I just think it could be handled better. Right now it comes off as "Masterwork, Deon's stuff, Putnam's stuff, and then all of that other crap." If we have to have a sub-board for a mod, it should be for a mod and not for a person. It can be interpreted as a slap in the face to everyone else who has contributed to any of those projects.
From my perspective, I've got over 100k views and 3k replies on my mod's thread. It may not be the level of success that Masterwork has reached, but when you start seeing other modders given sub-boards when, by the numbers, you've contributed just as much, it's very hard not to take it personally.
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It is not the amount of users, mods, views or downloads, but simply the fact that deon and me asked Toady about a board. I can only assume that Putnam did the same, and I can only assume that there would be a Narhiril/LfR board is well, if you would have asked at the same time.
I agree that the current setup is not well thought of, but that is what this thread is for. Currently the feedback in this thread is:
- It is a good idea to have sub-forums.
- Seperating different topics for the ease of the user is a good idea.
Feedback in the Masterwork sub-forum was also good, the change was well recieved by the players of the mod. But that should not surprise anyone.
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Yeah, we all asked.
I think that, considering the amount of topics, Masterwork should keep its own; organizing other sub-boards based on DFFD would work well.
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organizing other sub-boards based on DFFD would work well.
That sounds very reasonable.
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This would be perhaps, the most interesting soap opera in existence. Not that I watch soap operas, but if the modding community for Bay12 had a show...
On-topic: DFFD organization would be really good.
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It is not the amount of users, mods, views or downloads, but simply the fact that deon and me asked Toady about a board. I can only assume that Putnam did the same, and I can only assume that there would be a Narhiril/LfR board is well, if you would have asked at the same time.
Yeah, we all asked.
Well thanks for including me, guys. I really appreciate it. *sigh*
Honestly, is it hard to see something wrong with this system? Shouldn't we let Toady worry about more important things rather than all pestering him for our own boards? Is it worth pissing off some of your most prominent community members to give a grand total of two people their own personal boards?
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No.
It was a very ad-hoc thing and not thought through very well.
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No.
It was a very ad-hoc thing and not thought through very well.
Ok, that's fair. I apologize for the sarcasm bullet. I really don't feel like you guys went out of your way to exclude me. I don't even really feel like anyone needs to apologize for it. I'm just... really not okay with the way it's laid out right now, and I'm going to leave it at that before I let any emotions get the better of me.
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On-topic: DFFD organization would be really good.
On this note, who runs DFFD? I don't know anybody on the forums who does, and I don't think Toady runs it.
Again, I stand by my earlier statement. It seems like people are getting butthurt because all the total conversion mods aren't getting their own child boards, but the reason that these mods are getting their own boards is because of clutter. Putnam and Deon are both incredibly prolific, so it makes sense to have their own boards.
Once more, a Mod utilities board and a Graphic Packs board would be the only really necessary additions. The reason we don't have the mod releases board split up is because we already have a mod directory stickied on the mod releases board.
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On this note, who runs DFFD? I don't know anybody on the forums who does, and I don't think Toady runs it.
DFFD's About page says Janus (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1204), but he hasn't been on Bay12 for the last half year.
Again, I stand by my earlier statement. It seems like people are getting butthurt because all the total conversion mods aren't getting their own child boards, but the reason that these mods are getting their own boards is because of clutter. Putnam and Deon are both incredibly prolific, so it makes sense to have their own boards.
I'm kinda surprised about Putnam's and Deon's boards: To avoid having topics spread over multiple pages, we... spread topics over multiple pages? These topics don't even have anything that sets them apart from the other mod release topics, except that they were made by either Putnam or Deon, and if I was looking for some mods, I sure wouldn't appreciate having to browse three forums (even if two of them are tiny) instead of just one.
I know that popular mods tend to pile up in the front page, but the only efficient way to stop that from happening would be to split the boards into something essentially similar to "Popular Mods" and "Unpopular Mods", which is not a thing I would want happening.
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On-topic: DFFD organization would be really good.
Putnam and Deon are both incredibly prolific, so it makes sense to have their own boards.
(i personally think a board with less than ten topics made by at least 5 people total shouldn't exist at all, which is the current state of these boards, so...
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I am still in favour of a seperation of "modding forum" and "mod releases", because it shows a clear difference between work in progress and a finished product. Most people will only be interested in mods they can play, not in modding, mod developement or modding questions...
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sorry to chime in if I didn't read ALL the posts, but what this all sounds like is what type of subdir structure needs to exist for the modding forum. I'm sure I'm not the 1st one to say it, but maybe there should be a formal request for subdir creation? Possibly some sort of vetted proof (i.e. multiple threads covering a category) that a subdir should exist.
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sorry to chime in if I didn't read ALL the posts, but what this all sounds like is what type of subdir structure needs to exist for the modding forum. I'm sure I'm not the 1st one to say it, but maybe there should be a formal request for subdir creation? Possibly some sort of vetted proof (i.e. multiple threads covering a category) that a subdir should exist.
Try:
-snip-
If we have to have sub-boards, do it by genre. Something like...
GFX/Tileset Releases
Total Conversion Releases
Major Mod Releases
Minor Mod Releases
Child Mod Releases (i.e. Masterwork-dependent mods)
Plug-In and 3PS Releases
GFX/Tileset Development
Mod Development
Plug-in and 3PS Development
Thoughts?
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-snip-
If we have to have sub-boards, do it by genre. Something like...
GFX/Tileset Releases
Total Conversion Releases
Major Mod Releases
Minor Mod Releases
Child Mod Releases (i.e. Masterwork-dependent mods)
Plug-In and 3PS Releases
GFX/Tileset Development
Mod Development
Plug-in and 3PS Development
Thoughts?
Those are just too many boards for mod releases. Could you imagine anyone going to Bay12 with the intent of getting "One Major Mod, please"? The visitors of the minor mods forum will consist only of the people who made those minor mods, think about it. We shouldn't compartmentalize this any further than is convenient, four boards for mod releases are just three too many to browse.
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Those are just too many boards for mod releases. Could you imagine anyone going to Bay12 with the intent of getting "One Major Mod, please"? The visitors of the minor mods forum will consist only of the people who made those minor mods, think about it. We shouldn't compartmentalize this any further than is convenient, four boards for mod releases are just three too many to browse.
Agreed.
I think these are enough
GFX/Tileset releases
Mod releases
3rd party/utilities releases
maybe give dfhack its own subforum
But all the development and question threads would do just fine in the base forum, I believe.
For further categorization (minor mods, major mods, TC's) I believe the community mods & utilities sticky (or an analogous sticky on the mod release subforum) is sufficient.
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-snip-
If we have to have sub-boards, do it by genre. Something like...
GFX/Tileset Releases
Total Conversion Releases
Major Mod Releases
Minor Mod Releases
Child Mod Releases (i.e. Masterwork-dependent mods)
Plug-In and 3PS Releases
GFX/Tileset Development
Mod Development
Plug-in and 3PS Development
Thoughts?
Those are just too many boards for mod releases. Could you imagine anyone going to Bay12 with the intent of getting "One Major Mod, please"? The visitors of the minor mods forum will consist only of the people who made those minor mods, think about it. We shouldn't compartmentalize this any further than is convenient, four boards for mod releases are just three too many to browse.
Yes, and the current setup has a similar issue. Anyone new to modding is going to come to this board, "with the intent of getting one major mod," assume that because of DF's complexity, modding will also be complex (They want something user-friendly), see that Masterwork has it's own subboard, think "Ooh, what's this?", see that's it's a very expansive mod, try it and never touch/try any other mod. Yeah, I guess grats to Meph for putting together a modpack that has a lot of things, but it bothers me when people only play one mod.
-snip-
-snip-
I think these are enough
GFX/Tileset releases
Mod releases
3rd party/utilities releases
maybe give dfhack its own subforum
-snip-
I do agree that just having those three/four(DF Hack) would be enough, would the other setup not help stimulate the growth of the modding community? With the current setup, an ambitious modder could easily get discouraged because of the current mods that are popular, and their popularity, assuming that they won't be given a chance; with the suggested setup, there would be an initial lack of threads, which would give new modders an opportunity.
Personally I favor Narhiril's suggestion, however I do support CLA's if Narhiril's suggestion is too many subboards.
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I certainly don't want anyone to feel un-included, but it has been really nice to have a Masterwork forum. It gets a lot of posts, and the old way of having simultaneous conversations about updates, gameplay, bugs, Linux, tilesets, Orc fortress, future development plans, and etc. all going on in one thread was a bit confusing and unpleasant.
edit.
Not that I think there is anything particularly unique about Masterwork .. I would support any mod that wants it's own subforum. I don't think it fractures the modding community. It is a nice place for players, who might not be modders yet, to ask questions that would be out of place in the upper modding forum.
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The particulars have been covered above. People are welcome to take offense, but I don't think I've been unreasonable or biased. Anybody that asked for anything has been given it so far, and as I have no feel for which child boards would alleviate clutter/confusion and which ones wouldn't, I've honored each request. Of course, now that we've seen how things are playing out, the situation can be evaluated. It seems the Masterwork subsection was necessary, unless some moral obligation requires me to send them off to their own site. I'm not convinced at this point that having that subsection is more harmful than helpful. The other individual boards haven't seen as much activity. I don't recall if Deon had some plan or other that would cause a disruption if left in the regular area -- depending on how often that sort of thing comes up, a better solution would be called for to avoid the proliferation of child boards. If that means evicting the popular mods from the forum -- well, that seems extreme but I have no idea how to approach the problem.
I've created boards for graphics and utilities.
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I was just thinking. Is there a chance to have child child boards? Maybe have Masterwork a Child Board in Mod Releases, and authors can use a Category ID on mods to tell what one is a major and minor or total
[MA] - major
[MI] - minor
[TO] - total
example would be:
[MA] Regeneration:FE
[TO] Fallout
[MI] Quarry Mod
and the descripton text for the mod releases board can have this legend or a revamped one
other then that, I really have no problem with the setup right now.
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I was just thinking. Is there a chance to have child child boards? Maybe have Masterwork a Child Board in Mod Releases, and authors can use a Category ID on mods to tell what one is a major and minor or total
[MA] - major
[MI] - minor
[TO] - total
example would be:
[MA] Regeneration:FE
[TO] Fallout
[MI] Quarry Mod
and the descripton text for the mod releases board can have this legend or a revamped one
other then that, I really have no problem with the setup right now.
If the mods want to add those tokens to their topic subject, they can do so themselves, but that would raise the known problem of people not looking at minor mods. Let's just leave it like it is now for a while, we can still change it later (if we see the need).
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I was just thinking. Is there a chance to have child child boards? Maybe have Masterwork a Child Board in Mod Releases, and authors can use a Category ID on mods to tell what one is a major and minor or total
Yo dawg, I heard you like Child Boards, so I put Child Board in your Child Boards so you can...
Yeah, I don't know where I was going with that.
But I think that the idea would be cool. The new subsection are nice, at least in my opinion.
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It is good to have a masterwork board, this one mod has a lot of activity and this will take away a lot of confusion.
Thank you for the GFX and utilities boards too, if they tend to have low activity it may be best to merge those two but let's test it for now.
I think we reached an optimal number of sections now, it is now up to us to organize around this.
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So, will threads be moved automatically, or should we request this somewhere?
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I've created boards for graphics and utilities.
Thanks, Toady!
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The author of a thread has to move it. The button for it is at the lower left, when you scroll all the way down. Maybe writing a PM to the more prominent authors (phoebus, ironhand, mayday, japa, zwei, lucas, splinterz, peterix) will be sufficient.
What about the open question posted by narhiril, about favourism, masterwork/deon/putnam boards, instead of "mod releases" ? I can understand the problem, that new players come here and only go to masterworkdf, instead of looking for any mod, because they have the preconcieved notion that it is somehow more official then the others. I dont think its a problem with TotalConversions (people that want Zombie mods, or Warhammer, or LotR, they know what they want), but people looking for general fantasy mods, like Masterwork, Genesis, Regen or LfR.
One thing that comes to mind is that the bundle of GUI and utilities make my mod more popular. A simple solution would be to add the GUI and utilities to other mods too. I think many people that play MasterworkDF are so used to workflow and quickfort and fancy custom dfhack scripts, that they dont try other mods, because these are missing. The GUI as well, it can be easily fitted to any mod, because the source code is always the same, only keywords are replaced. Deon can confirm this. :)
I am not saying that I would like to force a VB-GUI on every major mod, but it seems like the one feature that sets MasterworkDF apart from other mods. The simple fact that modding-noobs can alter it without modding-knowledge.
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I've moved the threads for the two utilities that I own the threads for. Thanks toady for the sub-forums.
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The author of a thread has to move it. The button for it is at the lower left
Ah, thanks, didn't look all the way down, and the smf wiki said you need admin rights.
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this may not be the correct place for this (since it's in modding), but I don't see a suggestion thread for creating sub categories for other boards.
For example:
DF Discussion, a trap sub thread. I've seen enough nice traps that almost deserve their own thread, and it would be nice to see them in their own category.
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this may not be the correct place for this (since it's in modding), but I don't see a suggestion thread for creating sub categories for other boards.
For example:
DF Discussion, a trap sub thread. I've seen enough nice traps that almost deserve their own thread, and it would be nice to see them in their own category.
I guess those would fit better in the wiki, in the how-to section.
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Can @fricy and I request a child board for LNP-style starter packs? There's a lot of them, and currently most get buried in the general discussion forum - because they don't really fit anywhere else. A board dedicated to them would allow newbies a decent choice, and prevent clutter.
Thoughts?
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wouldn't the LNPs be counted as Utilities as all they are is just programs that manage the game and third party programs.
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The LNP GUI would - and should be moved there, if the thread posters ever come back - but the bundle I maintain is more of an aggregate.
It includes many utilities, tilesets, graphics packs, dfhack, scripts and plugins, the core game, a folder structure, batch files to copy content from an older version, command-line tools to process legends exports, cheat sheets of material values, links to tutorials, and more. It just seems sufficiently different to the stuff described as mods or utilities that a child board seems warranted, and since starting mine I've become aware of the large number of similar, but obscure or discontinued packs hidden away somewhere in the general discussion forum or DFFD - there's nowhere for those to be collected, and I think there should be.
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I think it would fit fine with the other utilities, I have to agree with hugo there. After all all questions about it will be related to the third-party-programs, as the game itself is still vanilla. People can find the LNP, which collects all utilities in one place, right next to the threads for the utilities they need for more info about them.
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@Hugo, Meph
The launcher should be in the utilities section, agreed. But not the starter packs:
IMHO these 3rd party distribution packs need more visibility, their primary aim is that the beginners have a better first experience, so it should be a priority to make it easy for them to find these first, so the player base can expand. And they won't be looking in the utilities section, at least not in the beginning. They'll get the vanilla version from bay12games, try it out an either spend the time learning the game, or just delete it after a few tries. If they like vanilla, they'll start browsing the wiki or the forums and the tutorials and stumble upon LNP/modest mod, whatever. At least that's how I remember my first steps.
If they found LNP first then more of them -might- stick with the game. At least that's why I updated the macnewbie-pack: better beginner experience -» more new players -» more donations for the continued development of the game. I think that's the combined interest of both Toady and the community.
So, to put more emphasis on my point: these packs should be where the new prospective players will look for them first. And that would be a link from the bay12games download section pointing to their child board.
It's another story where this child board should be located: there's a thin line between a starter pack and a minor mod, for example the above mentioned modest mod is so close to the vanilla experience, that it could be argued that it's place is among the starter packs, as "DF light". Maybe these packs are considered to be a mod, and should be in the modding section. I don't know. Another issue to consider is forum clutter and abandoned projects. The previous LNP v15 has not been updated for a long time, and even though PeridexisErrant's version is gaining popularity, the old one still gets a lot of traffic. That could be improved by moving all them together into a dedicated section, where it's obvious which one is maintained.
Another factor to consider is how links live on the net: if you link to a child board where a new player can find all the up-to-date packs, that link will contain useful information in 2 years time. But if you link to a thread of a pack that get's abandoned in the meantime, that info will be obsolete.
So, what do you think?
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You have a good point, with new players not visiting the modding section. Beginners might also not even visit the forum, just download the game and read the wiki to learn.
If you really want to have this somewhere obvious, ask Toady if he can make a child-board for it (like you just did), but also include this on http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/ (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/). Thats bay12games, not bay12forum. I can guess that he wont particularily like the idea, but asking does not hurt.
If there will be a child-board, non-modding, for LNP, MacNewbie and similar things, I think the modest mod and accelerated DF might have a place there as well. While technically being mods, they dont add modded content, but simply alter existing one to either fix bugs or fasten FPS.
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How about a subforum in either DF General Discussion or DF Gameplay Questions? A newbie pack would be pretty noticible in either of those spots since it's where they usually comes to seek help or ideas.
I don't know if there'll be enough activity or content to actually susiant one, but it'd be nice for newcomers or infrequent players.
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Seriously guys, I think that the LNP is popular enough as it is, it's mentioned on the wiki as well as in most DF tutorial videos, anyone with some decent google-fu can find it when he needs it. Also, last I remembered, Toady wasn't exactly supportive of the LNP. And seriously, we don't need subforums for everything; a sticky thread should do the trick.
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@Meph
I think the modest mod and accelerated DF might have a place there as well.
I'd agree with this.
The thing about a sticky thread is that there are separate packs for each platform, plus all the various semi-inactive or outright discontinued packs lying around - its not just one anymore.
General discussion might be a better place than modding, thoughts on that would be great to hear. The discussion has been really useful too in terms of not just organisation but also the wider place of the LNP generally. If the consensus is that leaving them as part of the general discussion forum is best I'm fine with that too, I just brought it up because I feel it doesn't really fit there.
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Well, I have to say that I really dont know. Everyone has some solid points. For me its a utility and should go to the utility section. On the other hand newbs (maybe) wont look there. Maybe Toady doesnt like it, maybe he does, I dont know. But he mentioned that giving me the Masterwork Board would open a "can of worms", because other people will follow the lead and ask for their own boards for all kinds of things.
I am glad how it turned out however. The Utility, Mod-Release and Tileset boards are awesome to have, and of course I wont say anything negative about the MasterworkDF board. It has almost 150 topics now (50 or so just single question threats that should have been done differently, but still a high number)
Putnams/Deons boards... well, it has been ~3 months and they only have Putnams/Deons release threats, one per mod/project. They could very well be merged into the Mod-Releases without taking away much from the users. But I do realize that it is nice to have your name on a board, as a sort of appreciation for the work done over the years. Still, I wouldnt call the boards very active, and I assume something similar would happen to a LNP child-board.
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But I do realize that it is nice to have your name on a board, as a sort of appreciation for the work done over the years.
meh
There haven't been any threads by anyone but me in there, so I'm not really attached. It's kind of cool as, like, I don't know, bragging rights or something, I guess, but it's not too practical.
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But I do realize that it is nice to have your name on a board, as a sort of appreciation for the work done over the years.
meh
There haven't been any threads by anyone but me in there, so I'm not really attached. It's kind of cool as, like, I don't know, bragging rights or something, I guess, but it's not too practical.
For me there's more than bragging. It makes it much easier to check existing mod status, also there's space for future questions, polls and such. You can see it looking at Meph's subforum. I mean come on Meph, yours and mine subforums have more posts than the whole "Mod releases" subforum :).
Also initially I planned to release more mods at once, but me moving away from my mom's apartment and some troubles with son's first year in school got in the way (as usual). It does not mean the mods are not coming though!
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Redacting this post, as most of it was not constructive. I apologize.
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(i think the stickying was an unintentional consequence of the topic being stickied on his own board and keeping its status when moved, an irreversible one at that)
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(i think the stickying was an unintentional consequence of the topic being stickied on his own board and keeping its status when moved, an irreversible one at that)
It doesn't change the fact that he can do it. Who cares what his motives are? No one on these forums except for you, Meph, and Deon can move their own threads around. Why should you have that power and not anyone else? Why should you have that power AT ALL?
This is what happens when you give power to the last people who should ever have it - the people who ask for it.
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Everyone can move their own threads around. It's under modify post, under "attachments and other options".
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Everyone can move their own threads around. It's under modify post, under "attachments and other options".
No, actually, we can't.
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Everyone can move their own threads around. It's under modify post, under "attachments and other options".
No, actually, we can't.
Yeah, we can, we just can't sticky or delete them.
We can move them and lock them, though.
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Everyone can move their own threads around. It's under modify post, under "attachments and other options".
No, actually, we can't.
Yeah, we can, we just can't sticky or delete them.
We can move them and lock them, though.
(http://i.imgur.com/oaPju8e.png)
Nowhere do I see anything remotely resembling "move."
And even if I did, it doesn't change the fact that you've both completely sidestepped addressing the point.
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It's not under attachments, you scroll down to the very bottom of the page, on the left.
You don't do it while posting, you just do it while looking at the page.
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It's not under attachments, you scroll down to the very bottom of the page, on the left.
You don't do it while posting, you just do it while looking at the page.
So I can move my posts. Fine, I stand corrected. I still can't sticky my own posts. Deon can. Meph can. Putnam can. Why should they be able to?
How is giving someone power and trusting them not to use it better than just not giving them that power in the first place? This entire debate would have never happened if the "requests" for personal boards had just been denied - as I maintain they should have been.
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How is giving someone power and trusting them not to use it better than just not giving them that power in the first place?
Because it gives Toady One less things to deal with when he already has a huge amount of stuff he has to do on a daily basis just to keep the place sane and safe.
He trusts them to use their powers over their own domains responsibly, and in my opinion, with good precedent.
How was he to know that his thread would still remain stickied?
He couldn't, the forum should remove that when it's moved, but that's a fault of the forum features itself, and not something that Toady can control.
I can guarantee you that once it's fixed, it won't happen again.
And if you really wanted to fly in the face of Toady, you could make a thread and move it over to Announcements, even though you can't make threads there normally.
Plenty of trolls and spambots have done it and been banned for it. So you do have some power over what you think you don't.
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Toady wouldn't have to "deal with" anything if we just had regular sub-boards and none of this "moderator of your own personal board" crap.
From what it sounds like, the whole reason Deon moved it to the mod releases forum at all was because no one was giving him feedback in his own sub-board. Isn't that in and of itself a testament to the failure of personal sub-boards?
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It's not under attachments, you scroll down to the very bottom of the page, on the left.
You don't do it while posting, you just do it while looking at the page.
So I can move my posts. Fine, I stand corrected. I still can't sticky my own posts. Deon can. Meph can. Putnam can. Why should they be able to?
How is giving someone power and trusting them not to use it better than just not giving them that power in the first place? This entire debate would have never happened if the "requests" for personal boards had just been denied - as I maintain they should have been.
Actually, I can't, as far as I can tell. Not sure why Deon's are.
Isn't that in and of itself a testament to the failure of personal sub-boards?
yeah it kind of is
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Only Toady can sticky posts. Deon simply askes for it to be stickied in his board, as did I. The sticky carried over after he moved it, but deon didnt even notice it, until I posted about this behaviour in his thread. I dont know if you have seen the post or not.
I too found it odd that ha moved it to releases giving the reason that it was not getting much attention. I think it wasnt because of his board, but because of two reasons: its a total conversion, which is something not everyone likes; and because MDF has become something akin to a black hole when it comes to the attention of the causal mod-user.
It appaers as if many people say: I want to try mods, start MDF, try it, either like it and stay; or dislike it and move back to vanilla DF. This was never my attention and I have no idea how to change that behaviour. All I can say is that I wouldnt blame the board structure. I agree that the deon/putnam boards are ... not that useful (?) Putnam, you yourself said it about your board and moved thongs into the utility sectiob, because it seemed more fitting; and deon did something alike now with the LotR mod. I feel really bad about this, but if you look at the amount of topics in the boards, its still only your release threads.
I would like to propose a new mod list, one thread that gives a lot of info about them, with screenshots and everything. People wont get interested in Lfr or EA, if they dont know about it. MDF itself is only so popular because of reddit and fb and because players and stories raise the interest in non-players. Putnam started with a good idea and did mod-introfuctions on reddit, and I think a Lfr succession fort would show that it exists outside of the modding forum.
If this ends with theclosure of the sub-boards (and I really like the system of releases and utilities etc), all I can do is outsource and make my own website/forum, because there is no way I can compress all things MDF into one thread.
I'm sorry that this touches you so much, I remember your issues with the changes when it started.
PS: all funny typing is because of the ebookreader I type on.
PPS: maybe a minor/major mods board, with one sticky thread each, which lists all of them with more info than Prophets list. (?)
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Yeah, my board became obsolete with the Mod Releases subforum. Which was instituted at the same time. At my suggestion.
I guess I didn't make it clear enough that I considered that a better alternative...
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Personally I think the personal boards are bad for the very modders they where created for, for example I would have never hear about Deon's Essential DF mod if he hadn't moved it to to main mods board (as I never take the time to look in the personal boards, 5 threads total, really worth my time)
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Yes, I requested a personal board way back when there was no mod subforums, so Masterwork, LFR, Putnam's mods, many other cool mods and my mods too were buried under heaps of questions and requests. Now I see why Masterwork needs its own sub-board because it's basically a huge compilation of everything possible with tons of playable races, however I think I would get more feedback in the main subforum. I will ask Toady if he has time to solve it.
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-snip
It appaers as if many people say: I want to try mods, start MDF, try it, either like it and stay; or dislike it and move back to vanilla DF. This was never my attention and I have no idea how to change that behaviour. All I can say is that I wouldnt blame the board structure. I agree that the deon/putnam boards are ... not that useful (?) Putnam, you yourself said it about your board and moved thongs into the utility sectiob, because it seemed more fitting; and deon did something alike now with the LotR mod. I feel really bad about this, but if you look at the amount of topics in the boards, its still only your release threads.
-snip
One thing that comes to mind is that the bundle of GUI and utilities make my mod more popular. A simple solution would be to add the GUI and utilities to other mods too. I think many people that play MasterworkDF are so used to workflow and quickfort and fancy custom dfhack scripts, that they dont try other mods, because these are missing. The GUI as well, it can be easily fitted to any mod, because the source code is always the same, only keywords are replaced. Deon can confirm this. :)
It was the GUI interface that drove me away from Masterwork, and later Accelerated mod- I didn't want to bother with any of the other conversion mods in case they had the GUI, or were planning to use it. I understand that it was needed for masterwork, but putting it on accelerated was redundant as the GUI ate as much of my computers resources as though I had vanilla running.
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You could always exit out of the GUI after launching DF...
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You could always exit out of the GUI after launching DF...
True. It works exactly like the LNP. You use it to set up your version with the settings and tileset you like, and after that you do not need the launcher anymore. It just seems easier to offer a launcher with multiple options for tilesets and colors, than offering 10 different downloads and have the player do it manually.
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A subforum for DFHack would be immensely practical, it would help with the organization and tracking of plugins, scripts, binpatches and general improvements to the game.
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A subforum for DFHack would be immensely practical, it would help with the organization and tracking of plugins, scripts, binpatches and general improvements to the game.
+1!
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A subforum for DFHack would be immensely practical, it would help with the organization and tracking of plugins, scripts, binpatches and general improvements to the game.
+1!
+1!
BTW--Are there any strictly DFhack-related forums anywhere? Using simple searches, I was unable to find any.
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+1 from me as well.
Just counted, first three pages in the utility section: 45 threads, 21 of them about dfhack.
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A subforum for DFHack would be immensely practical, it would help with the organization and tracking of plugins, scripts, binpatches and general improvements to the game.
+1!
+1!
+1 from me as well.