Oddworld Forums > Zulag Two > Forum Suggestions & Help


 
Thread Tools
 
  #91  
01-20-2017, 12:00 PM
Varrok's Avatar
Varrok
Wolvark Grenadier
 
: Jun 2009
: Beartopia
: 7,301
Blog Entries: 52
Rep Power: 25
Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)

I just drug him with sedatives whenever he complains.
Reply With Quote
  #92  
01-20-2017, 12:21 PM
RoryF's Avatar
RoryF
aka OddMan360
 
: Jul 2009
: 42 Wallaby Way
: 1,485
Blog Entries: 17
Rep Power: 16
RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)

that's gay!
__________________
>> oddmatics.co.uk <<
there's stuff there, totally cool stuff, really!

Reply With Quote
  #93  
01-20-2017, 10:35 PM
MrsKJJ's Avatar
MrsKJJ
Bolamite
 
: Jan 2017
: DisneyLand
: 72
Rep Power: 8
MrsKJJ  (203)MrsKJJ  (203)MrsKJJ  (203)

:
he's gay, i am not, it does not cooperate
Relationships don't have to be sexual. It doesn't matter though, I think there's love there! <3
__________________
:
I just like the little scrab. He looks so happy, he doesn't know life ends as a cake.
:
By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.

Reply With Quote
  #94  
01-21-2017, 12:02 AM
Varrok's Avatar
Varrok
Wolvark Grenadier
 
: Jun 2009
: Beartopia
: 7,301
Blog Entries: 52
Rep Power: 25
Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)

Oddman sure loves me, alright
Reply With Quote
  #95  
01-21-2017, 04:32 AM
horiZon's Avatar
horiZon
Stunk
 
: Jan 2017
: Austria
: 45
Blog Entries: 1
Rep Power: 0
horiZon  (32)

Uhm, so i'm on Android now and it took some Time to handle the Forum, since it not optimized for Phones/Tablets. Taking a look via the Phone into the Net is "normal" nowadays. So it should really get upgraded to it. It's more 'comfortable' for the Ppl nowadays.

The other Question is: Why are here no Forums 'bout NnT & Soulstorm, where Ppl can discuss about it in the Sub-Threads. If u look at the Forum, the most Viewed part is the 'Discussion Forum'. The other Forums more like Subs & don't really take Place for the Games. So People coming, but can't talk about the Games. Cause they don't have Threads for it. Dunno if there was some in the past.
Reply With Quote
  #96  
01-21-2017, 06:08 AM
Manco's Avatar
Manco
Posts walls of text
 
: Aug 2007
: based damage system
: 4,751
Blog Entries: 11
Rep Power: 30
Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)

:
The other Question is: Why are here no Forums 'bout NnT & Soulstorm, where Ppl can discuss about it in the Sub-Threads. If u look at the Forum, the most Viewed part is the 'Discussion Forum'. The other Forums more like Subs & don't really take Place for the Games. So People coming, but can't talk about the Games. Cause they don't have Threads for it. Dunno if there was some in the past.
Since there are so few Oddworld games (and new ones don’t come out very often), the entire Oddworld Discussion subforum is for discussing all of the games, including NnT and Soulstorm. If there’s something in particular you want to discuss, check the other threads to see if it’s already being talked about, and if not feel free to start your own thread.

The Spoiler Forum was for NnT when it first came out, so people playing the game could talk about it without posting spoilers where others could read them, but it’s no longer in use as the game’s been out for a while now. When Soulstorm is released it will probably be reopened for that.
__________________


twitter (stream of thoughts)
steam (games i never play)

Reply With Quote
  #97  
01-21-2017, 08:36 AM
RoryF's Avatar
RoryF
aka OddMan360
 
: Jul 2009
: 42 Wallaby Way
: 1,485
Blog Entries: 17
Rep Power: 16
RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)

:
Relationships don't have to be sexual. It doesn't matter though, I think there's love there! <3
:
Oddman sure loves me, alright

NEVER i will not fall for the gay agenda


:
The other Question is: Why are here no Forums 'bout NnT & Soulstorm, where Ppl can discuss about it in the Sub-Threads. If u look at the Forum, the most Viewed part is the 'Discussion Forum'. The other Forums more like Subs & don't really take Place for the Games. So People coming, but can't talk about the Games. Cause they don't have Threads for it. Dunno if there was some in the past.
There's wouldn't be enough activity between each individual game subforum to warrant having them, so it makes more sense to just have the OD forum to house it. I don't think there has been more than 4 active threads in OD at once for a while. If you want to make a new thread in OD for any of the games, you can.
__________________
>> oddmatics.co.uk <<
there's stuff there, totally cool stuff, really!

Reply With Quote
  #98  
01-21-2017, 02:37 PM
Manco's Avatar
Manco
Posts walls of text
 
: Aug 2007
: based damage system
: 4,751
Blog Entries: 11
Rep Power: 30
Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)

So on the back of this thread, I’ve been thinking a lot this week about all the different ways we could be improving the forums. We know this place has a lot of problems, but we’ve never had a proper look at the whole thing all together in one place.

So any time I’ve had an idea for something we could do to make OWF better, I’ve added it to a list I’ve built up over the past week. I’ve also taken a look back over this thread at some of the suggestions brought up by others, and had a skim through the rest of this subforum for complaints people have had.

Warning: there is a fukken long list below.

--

General thoughts

This is the rational behind my list of suggestions, so I had an idea of what I thought would be most effective to focus on when trying to improve.
  • Focus should be on encouraging more activity
  • Get more people to join and stay
  • People need a reason to join
  • Content and activities will encourage activity
  • Discussion threads generate active posting
  • It’s an Oddworld forum, so more activity/content about Oddworld will help greatly
  • Oddworld is a game series, so most members would be gamers of some kind
  • Activity related to gaming would therefore be a good way to encourage activity

Basic plan:
  1. Create content and activities that people want to join to take part in
  2. Build a welcoming and friendly community that people aren’t scared away from and will stay to participate

So without further ado, the comprehensive list of suggestions I have compiled:


Content ideas

Since the main problem is a lack of activity, I’ve focused on coming up with ideas for different things we could be posting, discussing or doing through the forum. This is almost all stuff we could be doing right now, as Nate has pointed out, so it’s really a question of are these good ideas that people would take part in, and who would organize/maintain threads where needed.
  • Club threads
    • Movies
    • TV shows
    • Games
    • Books
    • Comics
  • Member appreciation
    • Member interviews
    • Member of the month
  • Pen and paper games (D&D etc)
  • board/card games (e.g. Cards Against Humanity)
  • Multiplayer games
  • Member game streams
  • Forum awards (more formalized and maintained, new host every year?)
  • More about forum history:
    • Highlight interesting discussions on the forum e.g. thread of the month
    • Look back at older times in the forums’ past, expand the Classics thread
  • Forum competitions e.g. for fan art
  • Member-created podcasts
  • Game tutorials/walkthroughs
  • Game Technical Help/FAQs
  • Regular Oddworld character/creature/location feature threads
  • Let’s Learn Together threads? (lots of members have shared hobbies, we should get people talking together about them)
  • more ‘evergreen’ threads (hobby threads etc)
  • more resources in Fan Corner for creators to use – vectors, anatomy/proportion refs, sound files, official resources (rips etc); this can be a group effort
  • bring back social groups and do some actual stuff with them (if we can’t build them into the forum skins we’d need to work out how else to make people aware of them)
    • Competitions between social groups
  • Stream/LP/speedrunning tech help (setup guides etc)
  • Oddworld merch threads
  • Merch highlights – someone such as Xavier could show off interesting parts of their collection in semi-regular threads
  • Oddworld trivia
  • ‘Let’s Draw Together’ regular threads – set a challenge for users to do their take on a subject; a way of encouraging people to go to Fan Corner


Organization

Here are some things we could do with admin assistance to update the forums’ structure/organization, to make some things easier to find and/or more visible, make things friendlier for new members, and encourage more posting.
  • Improve on-boarding for new members – expand forum help, FAQ threads etc.
  • Expand Non-Oddworld Art into a separate subforum:
    • It feels really strange to have Non-Oddworld Art as a subforum to Fan Corner; if someone wants to share their own original content then having to do that in a hidden corner of the fan art subforum doesn’t inspire confidence.
  • Move Welcomes & Birthdays and Non-Oddworld Gaming into main section of Zulag 2:
    • Non-Oddworld Gaming is a large enough topic to be made more visible, and as a forum dedicated to a game series we should be able to generate more activity here than anywhere else
    • making Welcomes & Birthdays more visible would help make this place feel a little more welcoming to newbies, and it’s reasonably active in its own right
  • create another Zulag to help keep things organized - all of the forum themes allow the Zulags to be collapsed from view, so adding some length to the page would not be detrimental to browsing the index

I’d suggest the new forum structure would look something like this:
  • Zulag 1 (Oddworld):
    • Oddworld Discussion
      • Mods & Hacks
      • Let’s Plays and Speedruns
    • Help
    • Spoiler Forum (seasonal; can be closed for now)
  • Zulag 2 (General):
    • Forum Suggestions & Help
    • Welcomes & Birthdays
    • Off-Topic Discussion
    • Non-Oddworld Gaming (rename for simplicity)
    • Non-Oddworld Art & Literature (rename for simplicity)
  • Zulag 3 (Fan Corner):
    • Fan Art & Literature
    • Oddworld RPG
  • Zulag 4:
    • Employee Lounge
    • Necrum Burial Grounds


Forum attitudes

Possibly the hardest thing to change on this entire list, but if we want to be a more active community we need to be a friendlier and more welcoming community.
  • Let’s improve the quality of posting here, to encourage less toxicity and shitposting. The forum has dried up over the years as it’s become more hostile. This might involve stricter moderation.
  • Let’s be more welcoming to new members. This has been discussed many a time, and has gotten somewhat better recently, but we still need to do better. Let’s not have member welcome threads become shitpost central.
  • Encourage activity in Fan Corner – I know, Fan Corner’s been the butt of many jokes over the years, but at the end of the day fan communities thrive on fan-made content. We should be more welcoming of fan content.
  • More discussions about Oddworld – it’s tough when we’re still waiting on new games from OWI, but I’m sure we can come up with some topics of discussion.


Technical

A list of what we should be doing if Alcar ever comes back, or hands over the reigns to someone more active. I didn’t want to focus too much on these ideas since they’re likely not going to happen any time soon, but they’re important nonetheless.
  • Update forum software (goes without saying)
  • New themes; update old ones to work better
  • Mobile/touch-friendly features
  • Integrate with mobile forum apps e.g. Tapatalk
  • Content-specific features (improve the blog feature, add galleries tied to fan art threads, etc)
  • Connect to social media? Add social media to user profiles in more visible way
  • Make avatars bigger – it’s 2017, guys

Relations with other sites

We’re not the only place on the internet where Oddworld is being discussed, so we should be working out how to get people from elsewhere in here, and how we can improve the forums’ reputation by being cool with other sites.
  • Set up a wiki thread/improvement team to encourage forums users to get involved with improving the wiki
  • Content from TOL could be shared (with permission) on a regular basis with highlight threads, e.g. Image of the Week
  • Set up a TOL improvement team (with permission) to get people helping out with improving TOL
  • Set up/cultivate game groups on online gaming platforms (Steam, PSN, Xbox Live etc)
  • Interact in some way with other social media platforms e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit that encourages users to visit and participate here

--

So on the back of this, I would like to hear the following from people:
  1. What do you think of the above suggestions; are there any in particular that you find interesting and would like to see happen?
  2. Are there any of the suggestions above you would like to help work on if they were to happen?
  3. Are there any suggestions you disagree with/think would be a bad idea? Why?
  4. Do you have any other suggestions not included in the list that you would like to see?
__________________


twitter (stream of thoughts)
steam (games i never play)

Reply With Quote
  #99  
01-21-2017, 02:44 PM
Varrok's Avatar
Varrok
Wolvark Grenadier
 
: Jun 2009
: Beartopia
: 7,301
Blog Entries: 52
Rep Power: 25
Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)

About the let's draws: I think we should have something like another Design Democracy. Maybe some sort of the choose-your-adventure visual novel made in real time based on the comments
Reply With Quote
  #100  
01-21-2017, 07:03 PM
Gunnr's Avatar
Gunnr
Boombat Seeker
 
: Apr 2016
: In a desert, USA
: 608
Blog Entries: 2
Rep Power: 9
Gunnr  (419)Gunnr  (419)Gunnr  (419)Gunnr  (419)Gunnr  (419)

When you guys figure out how you're going to construct this, I'm all for it. I'll think of something more useful to say here in the mean time. It seems so much has already been said
__________________
[FONT="Verdana"]I live in a desert and I drink brew, guess that means that I'm a mud too


Last edited by Gunnr; 01-22-2017 at 08:16 AM..
Reply With Quote
  #101  
01-22-2017, 02:32 AM
Slog Bait's Avatar
Slog Bait
Outlaw Sniper
 
: Dec 2008
: Middle of a desert
: 1,669
Blog Entries: 33
Rep Power: 18
Slog Bait  (2520)Slog Bait  (2520)Slog Bait  (2520)Slog Bait  (2520)Slog Bait  (2520)Slog Bait  (2520)Slog Bait  (2520)Slog Bait  (2520)Slog Bait  (2520)Slog Bait  (2520)Slog Bait  (2520)

I don't have much input on most of what Manco said, but this specifically I agree with whole heartedly

:
Expand Non-Oddworld Art into a separate subforum:

It feels really strange to have Non-Oddworld Art as a subforum to Fan Corner; if someone wants to share their own original content then having to do that in a hidden corner of the fan art subforum doesn’t inspire confidence.

Move Welcomes & Birthdays and Non-Oddworld Gaming into main section of Zulag 2:

Non-Oddworld Gaming is a large enough topic to be made more visible, and as a forum dedicated to a game series we should be able to generate more activity here than anywhere else
making Welcomes & Birthdays more visible would help make this place feel a little more welcoming to newbies, and it’s reasonably active in its own right

create another Zulag to help keep things organized - all of the forum themes allow the Zulags to be collapsed from view, so adding some length to the page would not be detrimental to browsing the index
Though I feel like NOA&L should also be under the fan corner Zulag, since FC is basically the 'creative' section of the forum.

Reply With Quote
  #102  
01-22-2017, 03:10 AM
horiZon's Avatar
horiZon
Stunk
 
: Jan 2017
: Austria
: 45
Blog Entries: 1
Rep Power: 0
horiZon  (32)

Thank you, Manco !
Awesome work! Therefore, nothing else to say. I agree with everything. Since SS is coming out soon, it's the right time to do this.

:
Technical

A list of what we should be doing if Alcar ever comes back, or hands over the reigns to someone more active. I didn’t want to focus too much on these ideas since they’re likely not going to happen any time soon, but they’re important nonetheless.
  • Update forum software (goes without saying)
  • New themes; update old ones to work better
  • Mobile/touch-friendly features
  • Integrate with mobile forum apps e.g. Tapatalk
  • Content-specific features (improve the blog feature, add galleries tied to fan art threads, etc)
  • Connect to social media? Add social media to user profiles in more visible way
  • Make avatars bigger – it’s 2017, guys
This is going to be the greatest Problem, huh? I don't get it. Why does he leave, but don't give the Lead to an Admin who's not giving up the hope on the Forum? We need this Technical upgrade! Without it, every other works are useless. As u said, we're at 2017. Can't we get him back for doing this?

Sure, making up a new Forum would be easier.
But it will never be the same Place, right?
That's the biggest problem we need to solve, i think..

Last edited by horiZon; 01-22-2017 at 03:12 AM.. : Messing up the Quote. Edit it.
Reply With Quote
  #103  
01-22-2017, 03:19 AM
kjjcarpenter's Avatar
kjjcarpenter
Boombat Seeker
 
: Apr 2005
: Sydney, Australia
: 642
Rep Power: 20
kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)

:
This is going to be the greatest Problem, huh? I don't get it. Why does he leave, but don't give the Lead to an Admin who's not giving up the hope on the Forum? We need this Technical upgrade! Without it, every other works are useless. As u said, we're at 2017. Can't we get him back for doing this?
Alcar can't let go of the past, so he maintains ownership of the forums, yet he's too busy/lazy to implement any of the changes himself. He's become a meme unto himself by now.
Reply With Quote
  #104  
01-22-2017, 03:38 AM
Manco's Avatar
Manco
Posts walls of text
 
: Aug 2007
: based damage system
: 4,751
Blog Entries: 11
Rep Power: 30
Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)

:
About the let's draws: I think we should have something like another Design Democracy. Maybe some sort of the choose-your-adventure visual novel made in real time based on the comments
Yeah, that’s definitely a good idea too. A lot of people seem to like that thread.


:
When you guys figure out how you're going to construct this, I'm all for it. I'll think of something more useful to say here in the mean time. It seems so much has steady been said
By all means, any and all comments will be helpful – even if it’s just talking about ideas already suggested, you can show if you like/dislike something.


:
Though I feel like NOA&L should also be under the fan corner Zulag, since FC is basically the 'creative' section of the forum.
That’s an option too, I wasn’t 100% sure where that would best fit!


:
This is going to be the greatest Problem, huh? I don't get it. Why does he leave, but don't give the Lead to an Admin who's not giving up the hope on the Forum? We need this Technical upgrade! Without it, every other works are useless. As u said, we're at 2017. Can't we get him back for doing this?

Sure, making up a new Forum would be easier.
But it will never be the same Place, right?
That's the biggest problem we need to solve, i think..
It’s a big problem, but I think our lack of activity is the bigger issue. I don’t want to shoot down talk about fixing the technical aspects of the forums, but I also think there are other, more achievable things we can fix first which would have a greater impact – that’s why I focused so much on suggesting content ideas.
__________________


twitter (stream of thoughts)
steam (games i never play)

Reply With Quote
  #105  
01-22-2017, 08:54 AM
horiZon's Avatar
horiZon
Stunk
 
: Jan 2017
: Austria
: 45
Blog Entries: 1
Rep Power: 0
horiZon  (32)

:
It’s a big problem, but I think our lack of activity is the bigger issue. I don’t want to shoot down talk about fixing the technical aspects of the forums, but I also think there are other, more achievable things we can fix first which would have a greater impact – that’s why I focused so much on suggesting content ideas.
Yes, yes! But in my opinion an Upgrade would get more People to the Forum. Cause going on the Forum with a Phone is ... not that good. And in my opinion, many People using them today for taking a look into the I-net.
__________________
:
Maybe I'm reading between the lines too much, but I think it's time to promote horiZon to a moderator position.

Reply With Quote
  #106  
01-22-2017, 11:11 AM
RoryF's Avatar
RoryF
aka OddMan360
 
: Jul 2009
: 42 Wallaby Way
: 1,485
Blog Entries: 17
Rep Power: 16
RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)RoryF  (860)

the activity is fine again now you know
__________________
>> oddmatics.co.uk <<
there's stuff there, totally cool stuff, really!

Reply With Quote
  #107  
01-22-2017, 08:45 PM
Vexen's Avatar
Vexen
Thudslug
 
: Jul 2015
: California
: 155
Blog Entries: 13
Rep Power: 10
Vexen  (373)Vexen  (373)Vexen  (373)Vexen  (373)

:
Pen and paper games (D&D etc)
board/card games (e.g. Cards Against Humanity)
Multiplayer games
What if one of us set up a pitboss game for Civilization V? It's slow paced, people can disconnect and reconnect at will without an AI taking over, and the turns can take hours or days allowing players to take a turn when it's convenient.

Some simple, free online games:
https://www.boardgame-online.com - An absurd boardgame filled with all kinds of random events and wacky shit. Almost each game is different. To give you an idea of the madness, one of the classes is "succubus" which grants an immunity to sexually transmitted diseases.

http://spyfall.crabhat.com/mhmtcc/ - People are randomly assigned to an environment, they have a role, and they must play the part of their roles without directly saying what the environment is. One person is not given a job and they are the spy. The spy has to guess the environment they are in within the alotted time or else they lose. The spy may also lose the game if he guesses the environment incorrectly, or someone correctly accuses him/her of being the spy.

https://pyx-1.pretendyoure.xyz/zy/game.jsp# - One of the best CAH clones.

Last edited by Vexen; 01-22-2017 at 08:53 PM..
Reply With Quote
  #108  
01-23-2017, 01:25 AM
Sybil Ant
Fuzzle
 
: Oct 2016
: England
: 123
Blog Entries: 2
Rep Power: 0
Sybil Ant  (271)Sybil Ant  (271)Sybil Ant  (271)

:
So on the back of this thread, I’ve been thinking a lot this week about all the different ways we could be improving the forums. We know this place has a lot of problems, but we’ve never had a proper look at the whole thing all together in one place.

So any time I’ve had an idea for something we could do to make OWF better, I’ve added it to a list I’ve built up over the past week. I’ve also taken a look back over this thread at some of the suggestions brought up by others, and had a skim through the rest of this subforum for complaints people have had.

Warning: there is a fukken long list below.

--

General thoughts

This is the rational behind my list of suggestions, so I had an idea of what I thought would be most effective to focus on when trying to improve.
  • Focus should be on encouraging more activity
  • Get more people to join and stay
  • People need a reason to join
  • Content and activities will encourage activity
  • Discussion threads generate active posting
  • It’s an Oddworld forum, so more activity/content about Oddworld will help greatly
  • Oddworld is a game series, so most members would be gamers of some kind
  • Activity related to gaming would therefore be a good way to encourage activity

Basic plan:
  1. Create content and activities that people want to join to take part in
  2. Build a welcoming and friendly community that people aren’t scared away from and will stay to participate

So without further ado, the comprehensive list of suggestions I have compiled:


Content ideas

Since the main problem is a lack of activity, I’ve focused on coming up with ideas for different things we could be posting, discussing or doing through the forum. This is almost all stuff we could be doing right now, as Nate has pointed out, so it’s really a question of are these good ideas that people would take part in, and who would organize/maintain threads where needed.
  • Club threads
    • Movies
    • TV shows
    • Games
    • Books
    • Comics
  • Member appreciation
    • Member interviews
    • Member of the month
  • Pen and paper games (D&D etc)
  • board/card games (e.g. Cards Against Humanity)
  • Multiplayer games
  • Member game streams
  • Forum awards (more formalized and maintained, new host every year?)
  • More about forum history:
    • Highlight interesting discussions on the forum e.g. thread of the month
    • Look back at older times in the forums’ past, expand the Classics thread
  • Forum competitions e.g. for fan art
  • Member-created podcasts
  • Game tutorials/walkthroughs
  • Game Technical Help/FAQs
  • Regular Oddworld character/creature/location feature threads
  • Let’s Learn Together threads? (lots of members have shared hobbies, we should get people talking together about them)
  • more ‘evergreen’ threads (hobby threads etc)
  • more resources in Fan Corner for creators to use – vectors, anatomy/proportion refs, sound files, official resources (rips etc); this can be a group effort
  • bring back social groups and do some actual stuff with them (if we can’t build them into the forum skins we’d need to work out how else to make people aware of them)
    • Competitions between social groups
  • Stream/LP/speedrunning tech help (setup guides etc)
  • Oddworld merch threads
  • Merch highlights – someone such as Xavier could show off interesting parts of their collection in semi-regular threads
  • Oddworld trivia
  • ‘Let’s Draw Together’ regular threads – set a challenge for users to do their take on a subject; a way of encouraging people to go to Fan Corner


Organization

Here are some things we could do with admin assistance to update the forums’ structure/organization, to make some things easier to find and/or more visible, make things friendlier for new members, and encourage more posting.
  • Improve on-boarding for new members – expand forum help, FAQ threads etc.
  • Expand Non-Oddworld Art into a separate subforum:
    • It feels really strange to have Non-Oddworld Art as a subforum to Fan Corner; if someone wants to share their own original content then having to do that in a hidden corner of the fan art subforum doesn’t inspire confidence.
  • Move Welcomes & Birthdays and Non-Oddworld Gaming into main section of Zulag 2:
    • Non-Oddworld Gaming is a large enough topic to be made more visible, and as a forum dedicated to a game series we should be able to generate more activity here than anywhere else
    • making Welcomes & Birthdays more visible would help make this place feel a little more welcoming to newbies, and it’s reasonably active in its own right
  • create another Zulag to help keep things organized - all of the forum themes allow the Zulags to be collapsed from view, so adding some length to the page would not be detrimental to browsing the index

I’d suggest the new forum structure would look something like this:
  • Zulag 1 (Oddworld):
    • Oddworld Discussion
      • Mods & Hacks
      • Let’s Plays and Speedruns
    • Help
    • Spoiler Forum (seasonal; can be closed for now)
  • Zulag 2 (General):
    • Forum Suggestions & Help
    • Welcomes & Birthdays
    • Off-Topic Discussion
    • Non-Oddworld Gaming (rename for simplicity)
    • Non-Oddworld Art & Literature (rename for simplicity)
  • Zulag 3 (Fan Corner):
    • Fan Art & Literature
    • Oddworld RPG
  • Zulag 4:
    • Employee Lounge
    • Necrum Burial Grounds


Forum attitudes

Possibly the hardest thing to change on this entire list, but if we want to be a more active community we need to be a friendlier and more welcoming community.
  • Let’s improve the quality of posting here, to encourage less toxicity and shitposting. The forum has dried up over the years as it’s become more hostile. This might involve stricter moderation.
  • Let’s be more welcoming to new members. This has been discussed many a time, and has gotten somewhat better recently, but we still need to do better. Let’s not have member welcome threads become shitpost central.
  • Encourage activity in Fan Corner – I know, Fan Corner’s been the butt of many jokes over the years, but at the end of the day fan communities thrive on fan-made content. We should be more welcoming of fan content.
  • More discussions about Oddworld – it’s tough when we’re still waiting on new games from OWI, but I’m sure we can come up with some topics of discussion.


Technical

A list of what we should be doing if Alcar ever comes back, or hands over the reigns to someone more active. I didn’t want to focus too much on these ideas since they’re likely not going to happen any time soon, but they’re important nonetheless.
  • Update forum software (goes without saying)
  • New themes; update old ones to work better
  • Mobile/touch-friendly features
  • Integrate with mobile forum apps e.g. Tapatalk
  • Content-specific features (improve the blog feature, add galleries tied to fan art threads, etc)
  • Connect to social media? Add social media to user profiles in more visible way
  • Make avatars bigger – it’s 2017, guys

Relations with other sites

We’re not the only place on the internet where Oddworld is being discussed, so we should be working out how to get people from elsewhere in here, and how we can improve the forums’ reputation by being cool with other sites.
  • Set up a wiki thread/improvement team to encourage forums users to get involved with improving the wiki
  • Content from TOL could be shared (with permission) on a regular basis with highlight threads, e.g. Image of the Week
  • Set up a TOL improvement team (with permission) to get people helping out with improving TOL
  • Set up/cultivate game groups on online gaming platforms (Steam, PSN, Xbox Live etc)
  • Interact in some way with other social media platforms e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit that encourages users to visit and participate here

--

So on the back of this, I would like to hear the following from people:
  1. What do you think of the above suggestions; are there any in particular that you find interesting and would like to see happen?
  2. Are there any of the suggestions above you would like to help work on if they were to happen?
  3. Are there any suggestions you disagree with/think would be a bad idea? Why?
  4. Do you have any other suggestions not included in the list that you would like to see?
All problems could easily be solved by making me Glorious Badmin. Look at the success of my beneficent reign elsewhere...
Reply With Quote
  #109  
01-23-2017, 02:33 AM
Nepsotic's Avatar
Nepsotic
8===========D~
 
: Aug 2011
: 5,425
Blog Entries: 91
Rep Power: 19
Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)

It's a general unwritten rule that anybody who asks to be an admin will never be made admin
__________________
:
all Meechmunchie did by trying to troll me was distract from the fact you all have no regard for Hetro or their rights at all, none.
- EVP_Glukkon/Oxide

Reply With Quote
  #110  
01-23-2017, 03:05 AM
Varrok's Avatar
Varrok
Wolvark Grenadier
 
: Jun 2009
: Beartopia
: 7,301
Blog Entries: 52
Rep Power: 25
Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)

We've already got a Badmin (as in: a bad Admin). Someday he'll visit again
Reply With Quote
  #111  
01-23-2017, 06:45 AM
Nepsotic's Avatar
Nepsotic
8===========D~
 
: Aug 2011
: 5,425
Blog Entries: 91
Rep Power: 19
Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)Nepsotic  (3941)

Don't know what you're on about, he likes to give me infractions frequently
__________________
:
all Meechmunchie did by trying to troll me was distract from the fact you all have no regard for Hetro or their rights at all, none.
- EVP_Glukkon/Oxide

Reply With Quote
  #112  
01-23-2017, 06:49 AM
Varrok's Avatar
Varrok
Wolvark Grenadier
 
: Jun 2009
: Beartopia
: 7,301
Blog Entries: 52
Rep Power: 25
Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)Varrok  (7896)

I'm not sure if we're talking about the same person. The person I'm talking about has a nickname starting with A.
Reply With Quote
  #113  
01-23-2017, 10:09 AM
kjjcarpenter's Avatar
kjjcarpenter
Boombat Seeker
 
: Apr 2005
: Sydney, Australia
: 642
Rep Power: 20
kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)

Reminder:

:
I'd like to please request only serious responses in this thread, so please keep all quips to a minimum.
Reply With Quote
  #114  
01-24-2017, 03:26 AM
Xavier's Avatar
Xavier
Oddworld Administrator
The Oddworld Archivist
 
: Jul 2001
: Belgium
: 17,592
Blog Entries: 8
Rep Power: 37
Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)

:
Forum attitudes

Possibly the hardest thing to change on this entire list, but if we want to be a more active community we need to be a friendlier and more welcoming community.
  • Let’s improve the quality of posting here, to encourage less toxicity and shitposting. The forum has dried up over the years as it’s become more hostile. This might involve stricter moderation.
  • Let’s be more welcoming to new members. This has been discussed many a time, and has gotten somewhat better recently, but we still need to do better. Let’s not have member welcome threads become shitpost central.
  • Encourage activity in Fan Corner – I know, Fan Corner’s been the butt of many jokes over the years, but at the end of the day fan communities thrive on fan-made content. We should be more welcoming of fan content.
  • More discussions about Oddworld – it’s tough when we’re still waiting on new games from OWI, but I’m sure we can come up with some topics of discussion.
As some of you might have noticed Nate and I have already started to be more strict with the rules. I indeed think that with all the publicity we are getting from OWI and their ARG it's the right time to try to steer this forum in the right direction.

I'm thus encouraging everyone to be as pleasant and welcoming as possible. Any initiative in that way is very much welcome, like for instance Mr. Molluck's WELCOME NEW MEMBERS! thread.

:
I’d suggest the new forum structure would look something like this:
  • Zulag 1 (Oddworld):
    • Oddworld Discussion
      • Mods & Hacks
      • Let’s Plays and Speedruns
    • Help
    • Spoiler Forum (seasonal; can be closed for now)
  • Zulag 2 (General):
    • Forum Suggestions & Help
    • Welcomes & Birthdays
    • Off-Topic Discussion
    • Non-Oddworld Gaming (rename for simplicity)
    • Non-Oddworld Art & Literature (rename for simplicity)
  • Zulag 3 (Fan Corner):
    • Fan Art & Literature
    • Oddworld RPG
  • Zulag 4:
    • Employee Lounge
    • Necrum Burial Grounds
I don't think it's a bad idea to give more exposure to some parts of our community and I quite like the strucutre you are suggesting. Nate, just for info, is this something we can change ourselves or would we need Alcar?


:
  • Regular Oddworld character/creature/location feature threads
  • Oddworld merch threads
  • Merch highlights – someone such as Xavier could show off interesting parts of their collection in semi-regular threads
  • Oddworld trivia
I'm a very big fan of those ideas, and indeed it could go hand in hand with improving the existing sites we have in place. For instance we could have a thread dedicated to, let's say Scrabs. If we find out there's something missing in the Wikia about the subject it would be the perfect opportunity to update the page.

But to be fair we need more actual actions! So I actually created the first thread specifically about Scrabs.

Reply With Quote
  #115  
01-24-2017, 03:35 AM
kjjcarpenter's Avatar
kjjcarpenter
Boombat Seeker
 
: Apr 2005
: Sydney, Australia
: 642
Rep Power: 20
kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)

Xavier, I was meant to PM concerning a series of weekly threads me and Manco were going to implement, but I forgot. Seems that you beat us to the punch though! :P

(I was going to call it "Odd Piece of the Week", but Oddworld Highlights works too. Haha.)

We were thinking of digging up obscure articles/images from TOGG and highlighting them for discussion once a week. We'd rotate who hosts the thread each week to keep the material fresh and exciting.

Scarbs are as good of a place to start as any!
Reply With Quote
  #116  
01-24-2017, 03:44 AM
Xavier's Avatar
Xavier
Oddworld Administrator
The Oddworld Archivist
 
: Jul 2001
: Belgium
: 17,592
Blog Entries: 8
Rep Power: 37
Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)

I renamed it "Odd Piece of the Week".

It's a bit rough, but I rather throw something out there than to spend days working on someting and potentially never go around releasing it.

My main message was realy about "just do stuff, don't overthink it".

Reply With Quote
  #117  
01-24-2017, 03:54 AM
Manco's Avatar
Manco
Posts walls of text
 
: Aug 2007
: based damage system
: 4,751
Blog Entries: 11
Rep Power: 30
Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)

Glad to hear such a positive response!

:
I'm thus encouraging everyone to be as pleasant and welcoming as possible. Any initiative in that way is very much welcome, like for instance Mr. Molluck's WELCOME NEW MEMBERS! thread.
Absolutely. Is there something we can do to encourage new people to check out places outside of the ARG threads, like an announcement pointing them to a few helpful places, the welcome threads, stuff like that?


:
I don't think it's a bad idea to give more exposure to some parts of our community and I quite like the strucutre you are suggesting.
One alteration to that structure that I would suggest on the back of a conversation with slog bait would be to move Non-Oddworld Art into the Fan Corner Zulag as well, it would probably fit better there.


:
I'm a very big fan of those ideas, and indeed it could go hand in hand with improving the existing sites we have in place. For instance we could have a thread dedicated to, let's say Scrabs. If we find out there's something missing in the Wikia about the subject it would be the perfect opportunity to update the page.


But to be fair we need more actual actions! So I actually created the first thread specifically about Scrabs.
:
Xavier, I was meant to PM concerning a series of weekly threads me and Manco were going to implement, but I forgot. Seems that you beat us to the punch though! :P

(I was going to call it "Odd Piece of the Week", but Oddworld Highlights works too. Haha.)

We were thinking of digging up obscure articles/images from TOGG and highlighting them for discussion once a week. We'd rotate who hosts the thread each week to keep the material fresh and exciting.

Scarbs are as good of a place to start as any!
Just wondering, could there be separate threads for highlighting creatures/characters and another for highlighting old interviews, trailers, images etc? Or would that be spreading too thin?
__________________


twitter (stream of thoughts)
steam (games i never play)

Reply With Quote
  #118  
01-24-2017, 03:57 AM
kjjcarpenter's Avatar
kjjcarpenter
Boombat Seeker
 
: Apr 2005
: Sydney, Australia
: 642
Rep Power: 20
kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)kjjcarpenter  (748)

:
Just wondering, could there be separate threads for highlighting creatures/characters and another for highlighting old interviews, trailers, images etc? Or would that be spreading too thin?
Either way, though I think for the time being just keep it as one piece, and we can gauge the response as we go along. If there's a more positive reception of the interviews et al, we could host two separate threads, but I think consolidating them will be ample for now.
Reply With Quote
  #119  
01-24-2017, 04:04 AM
Xavier's Avatar
Xavier
Oddworld Administrator
The Oddworld Archivist
 
: Jul 2001
: Belgium
: 17,592
Blog Entries: 8
Rep Power: 37
Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)Xavier  (3581)

:
Just wondering, could there be separate threads for highlighting creatures/characters and another for highlighting old interviews, trailers, images etc? Or would that be spreading too thin?
Just try, don't overthink it.

We will learn as we go, if one item is too "light" we will quickly find out.

Reply With Quote
  #120  
01-24-2017, 04:14 AM
Manco's Avatar
Manco
Posts walls of text
 
: Aug 2007
: based damage system
: 4,751
Blog Entries: 11
Rep Power: 30
Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)Manco  (14074)

:
Just try, don't overthink it.

We will learn as we go, if one item is too "light" we will quickly find out.
In that case, I have a pretty good idea of what the first thread could feature. I’ll get to work on writing up an OP and post it up in the next day or two.
__________________


twitter (stream of thoughts)
steam (games i never play)

Reply With Quote


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 4 (0 members and 4 guests)
 








 
 
- Oddworld Forums - -