Condensing "Featured RPGs"

endboss · Post by **endboss** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 1:40 pm

Looking through the Featured RPGs forum... there is an overwhelming amount of places to go. Have you ever thought about condensing them? The Bioware games could go into a Bioware subforum, same for Bethesda, Troika, Black Isle, Obsidian, Lionhead, and Other (basically everything else). It might make it easier to search for the game you're looking for, as well as making it easier to see where new posts are.

Tricky · Post by **Tricky** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 6:57 am

I think that makes it more difficult for most people actually. We're the minority in knowning what company published which game, not the general public. And there's bound to be some confusion when sequels are made by different companies.

endboss · Post by **endboss** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 9:43 am

It could also be by series.

Baldur's Gate Series
Knights of the Old Republic Series
Fallout Series
Elder Scrolls Series
etc...

Tricky · Post by **Tricky** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 11:46 am

Aren't some forums already like that? Good point either way. Ultimately at some point Buck would end up with an amount of game subsites that would need better categorizing. If anything, I'd try to subcategorize the various subgenres. FPS-RPG. RTS-RPS. Adventure-RPG, whatever. However, considering the amount of subsites I personally I don't believe Buck is quite there yet. I don't have too much trouble browsing the forums.

Hm, I just realized something. People are always asking about how they want to play more games 'like that Oblivion game' or some other title. Just by categorizing the forum, you invite the same people to take a look at other, similar games.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 1:48 pm

I think that categories based on series would be an interesting idea.
But, I see two potential problems. One, it could become confusing if further categories were added, and two, we already have to go through several clicks to reach the forums we want to visit.

I don't mind the additional clicks, but I know it can be an issue, and I've often found that websites containing too much nesting can be difficult to navigate. While it's a good idea to be organised, it's also important to keep a layout as straightforward as possible.

My two cents anyway.

Aqua-chan · Post by **Aqua-chan** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 12:33 pm

I don't expect my suggestion will fly with too many folks here, but frankly, we have game forums that haven't been posted in for years. I'm all for condensing those down into one subforum because it's just clutter at this stage. Keep the "big names" and forums for games recently introduced.

I'm not a big fan of the new layout as it stands. I find the additional navigating around to be quite tedious, let alone adding new dividers that have to be entered and searched through.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:21 pm

Actually AC,
personally, I think that makes a lot of sense. I'm sure Buck could make it easy enough for people to find such a section, and you're right, it would free up valuable real estate.

I still love a lot of the old games featured here, but I'm also reasonably pragmatic.

Post by **BuckGB** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 3:22 pm

Alright, let's see...

Dungeon Lords: The Orb and the Oracle -> Dungeon Lords
Gothic Series -> General RPG Discussion
Jade Empire -> General RPG Discussion
King's Bounty: The Legend -> General RPG Discussion
Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 -> Mass Effect Series

How's that?

At the moment, that's about all of the consolidating I can do. There are still some unreleased games, so I don't want to merge those just yet. I only moved Orb and the Oracle because the last discussion I had with DreamCatcher left me with that vaporware feeling.

endboss · Post by **endboss** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 3:33 pm

Tricky wrote:Aren't some forums already like that? Good point either way. Ultimately at some point Buck would end up with an amount of game subsites that would need better categorizing. If anything, I'd try to subcategorize the various subgenres. FPS-RPG. RTS-RPS. Adventure-RPG, whatever. However, considering the amount of subsites I personally I don't believe Buck is quite there yet. I don't have too much trouble browsing the forums.

Hm, I just realized something. People are always asking about how they want to play more games 'like that Oblivion game' or some other title. Just by categorizing the forum, you invite the same people to take a look at other, similar games.

Okay, but who gets to decide which is which? Is Oblivion an FPS-RPG or an Adventure-RPG? You could make the argument that Oblivion is more FPS than Mass Effect because it's in first person, but Mass Effect uses guns.

Aqua-chan wrote:I don't expect my suggestion will fly with too many folks here, but frankly, we have game forums that haven't been posted in for years. I'm all for condensing those down into one subforum because it's just clutter at this stage. Keep the "big names" and forums for games recently introduced.

I'm not a big fan of the new layout as it stands. I find the additional navigating around to be quite tedious, let alone adding new dividers that have to be entered and searched through.

I agree with this entire post, but I was looking for a solution that would work within the existing framework that Buck put so much effort into.

Aqua-chan · Post by **Aqua-chan** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 3:50 pm

BuckGB wrote:Alright, let's see...

Dungeon Lords: The Orb and the Oracle -> Dungeon Lords
Gothic Series -> General RPG Discussion
Jade Empire -> General RPG Discussion
King's Bounty: The Legend -> General RPG Discussion
Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 -> Mass Effect Series

How's that?

Looks good to me, I think. Not much point to have these things all broken apart when they can function together.

Although... there go two of my subforums. It seems I have inadvertently devastated my own modship with my suggestion.

Nightmare · Post by **Nightmare** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 7:11 pm

Aqua-chan wrote: Although... there go two of my subforums. It seems I have inadvertently devastated my own modship with my suggestion.

You just want less work. We see through your deception!

On topic, I don't mind the idea of condensing some of the less used forums, but I generally agree that having each game/series have it's own subforum is necessary. Visitors to the site can more quickly find where they might find answers, and there would be less confusion about where to post a question.

Stworca · Post by **Stworca** » Mon May 31, 2010 5:56 am

I do not wish to create a new thread, so i'll post in this one.

"World of Warcraft" section should be either moved to a new sub called "MMORPG" (after all, there are more of these than just WoW) or simply kicked to General RPGs.

I remember when i was a "hardcore" MMO player, and trust me when i say that the official / biggest unofficial forums are the only ones with any traffic at all (well, these have a sick traffic

) i've never visited any forum other than wow-europe while playing Warcraft, nor any other forum than warhammeralliance when playing WH.

Well, you don't even have to read my post to see that WoW section is dead.

Regards

flix · Post by **flix** » Wed Jun 02, 2010 7:20 am

Condensing has led to confusion on here before. Sacred got merged into general RPG, and so there are a host of topics about that game that make no mention of what game they refer to (there was no need, as it would have been obvious). Same with the Divinity titles - once separate, now merged, no clue if someone was asking about alchemy in the first or second game. Sure, from here on out posters can indicate what game, but all the old stuff is just a pile of junk. And, let's face it, there's way more old stuff than new posts around here nowadays.