Author Topic: Let's talk, HLP!  (Read 82141 times)

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Offline Admiral Nelson

  • Resurrecter of Campaigns
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Well, logically the project heads are the most committed people....

One thing I'd like to add is to make the General Discussion board visible only to logged in users.  I don't think HLP looks like a great place to talk about modding when all one sees in the recent threads list is political stuff.  There was some step I took to suppress General Discussion from showing up in my recent posts list -- perhaps this can be inverted such that one needs to "opt in" to this board instead.
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Offline karajorma

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No plans have been made. Nothing is set in concrete. No one says nothing can be changed later only that you can't complain that we should have done it the way you wanted when you didn't bother to tell us you wanted it that way.

Lorric, you're being given an opportunity here to make valid suggestions about HLP's future but you seem to want to waste it on forum drama that I doubt anyone else cares about.

One thing I'd like to add is to make the General Discussion board visible only to logged in users.

Can we instead hook it up to a peripheral that allows you to punch people in the face over the internet? :p
« Last Edit: February 08, 2017, 10:25:35 am by karajorma »
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Offline Lorric

  • 212
Like the "opportunity" you personally extended to me and several others in the first of the links on the other page? The one where you in the end actually gave us what we wanted then later stealthily took it away and locked the thread?

About forum drama, Flipside cared enough to return from his exile to speak, and was immediately locked down. I spoke with him afterwards and that basically pounded the final nail in the coffin of him returning here.

You already showed how much you care about our opinions on the running of this place with that :p in your earlier post.

 
Lorric, you have been a registered user for not even five years. Yes, you're on some projects, and that's great. But unless you've been around longer than that and this is not your first account, as is the case with me, you don't know half what goes on and you damn sure don't know what's what about the people who run this place. I think you should step back, take a deep breath, and think before you post again. I suspect they're getting tired of your attitude and attempts at bullying and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if you end up in the monkey cage for a while if you continue on your currently chosen path. Also, vague jabs about giving what was wanted and then quietly taking it away and locking the thread? Whatever dude. Quotes and links, or it didn't happen.
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Offline Lorric

  • 212
Lorric, you have been a registered user for not even five years. Yes, you're on some projects, and that's great. But unless you've been around longer than that and this is not your first account, as is the case with me, you don't know half what goes on and you damn sure don't know what's what about the people who run this place. I think you should step back, take a deep breath, and think before you post again. I suspect they're getting tired of your attitude and attempts at bullying and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if you end up in the monkey cage for a while if you continue on your currently chosen path. Also, vague jabs about giving what was wanted and then quietly taking it away and locking the thread? Whatever dude. Quotes and links, or it didn't happen.
Bullying? ME? :lol:

THIS that I quoted earlier:

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=90699.0

 
So the global moderators talk about HLP's future and we get 59 replies on the topic and some good ideas. We ask the project heads and get 62 replies on that thread and even more positive ideas.

We ask the whole board - 13 replies. Seriously? No one has any other ideas how we can make this place better or attract more people?

I don't think I can add anything to the conversation that project heads or global moderators haven't already brought up. I would actually consider this a good thing!


 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Like the "opportunity" you personally extended to me and several others in the first of the links on the other page? The one where you in the end actually gave us what we wanted then later stealthily took it away and locked the thread?

About forum drama, Flipside cared enough to return from his exile to speak, and was immediately locked down. I spoke with him afterwards and that basically pounded the final nail in the coffin of him returning here.

You already showed how much you care about our opinions on the running of this place with that :p in your earlier post.

Ugh. Dammit Lorric. Not here. If you don't have anything useful to add, go away. I'm genuinely interested to see what people have to say about making HLP more accessible to new players/modders and your drama **** is actively deterring people. If you want to make a statement, go make a complaint thread in Site Feedback or quit some other projects like last time. This thread is not the place.

Surely a better forum search is not the only idea people have! What do people think about new ways to highlight content that Axem wrote in his document? Thoughts, opinions on ways that might work well? What about the HLP aid teams?
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Offline Lorric

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...Fine.

Unless others talk about it. But if no one does, I won't pursue this any further here.

 

Offline karajorma

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What do people think about new ways to highlight content that Axem wrote in his document? Thoughts, opinions on ways that might work well? What about the HLP aid teams?

Or how to do better promotion of the stuff we have here on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram etc.

Personally I know next to nothing about any of those. Certainly not what kind of things we'd have to do in order to get noticed. Does anyone here know?


On the other thread I suggested pushing harder on sites like 9Gag. Just opening up the gaming section I saw these two posts in the first five and I frequently see similar posts about Star Citizen or E:D. I can't see any good reason why we couldn't do the same with our games as long as we had a few people standing by to upvote.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2017, 11:21:06 am by karajorma »
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 

Offline Nyctaeus

  • The Slavic Engineer
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  • My "FS Ships" folder is 582gb.
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Well, logically the project heads are the most committed people....

One thing I'd like to add is to make the General Discussion board visible only to logged in users.  I don't think HLP looks like a great place to talk about modding when all one sees in the recent threads list is political stuff.  There was some step I took to suppress General Discussion from showing up in my recent posts list -- perhaps this can be inverted such that one needs to "opt in" to this board instead.
Maybe a new feature, configurable in profile settings and during registration? A big "What are you interested in?" section where members can mark what about they do want to be informed in "recent posts" section.

I don't use whole "recent post" thing at all currently. If there are any options to configure this, I would like to know where. I would also make it smaller and move the it under highlights. Maybe change title to "What's new?" or something like that.
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Rock Paper Shotgun has written about FS2 before.  Getting more mods as free standalones and getting them plugged on the big websites (And making sure that your servers can handle the potential hits) would be a priority.  Websites don't usually mind writing things about free stuff. With that comes a caveat: Kotaku writing about fan made projects has gotten those projects C&Ds before, so you have to be carefull that your mod isn't suspectible to that. Social media is great for keeping in touch with people, but it won't mean anything if people don't know where to look to begin with. That's what the big websites are for. Also, try to see if you can't get yourself plugged on the Elite: Dangerous social media channels! You're not direct competitors, yet your biggest audience is there.

This is out-of-scope for this thread, but:

The second thing that springs to mind is accessibility. House of the Dying Sun did an excellent job with making a fairly complex game work with an XBOX pad. having a slick HotDS style pad control for FS2 is a feature that could ensure a lot of player intention. That or absolutely making sure that yes you can play with keyboard and mouse. Also, try to see if you can't get yourself plugged on *their* social media channels!

---

Look, if a significant portion of the website dislikes GenDisc (or rather, the political discussion on GenDisc), just shut down that thing outright. Gendisc is not neccesary for the operation of this website. If it actively hampers the goal of ensuring that HLP is a friendly and inclusive community (which it invariably is considering that it is a website that celebrates people that contribute to the creation of art), shut it down.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2017, 12:01:21 pm by -Joshua- »

 

Offline Lorric

  • 212
I've been perusing the 2017 HLP Proposals Page.

I don't agree with everything on there, but if it all got implemented I'd see it as a strong overall package that I think would be a real shot in the arm for this place.

Quote
Automatic generation of randomly taken topics taken from releases forums to make a (or several) 'campaign/ship/mod of the week' mini-highlight (Unsure of actual feasibility at the moment)

This made me think of something. Anyone who has installed a GOG game will know what happens in that process. As the installation takes place, it flashes up images of games with a punchy sentence or two summing up what the game is. I always thought that was really effective advertisement. They're not random either, like if you get a strategy title, there'll be many strategy titles pop up.

So if something similar could be implemented on HLP, with cycling images from various campaigns with punchy one or two line sum ups of what they are with clicking those images taking you to the release page... :pimp:

 

Offline Axem

  • 211
Yeah, one of the biggest problems HLP has is its so hard to find content. I think some form of intra-site advertising would help in that regard.

And which ideas do you not agree with? Do you think they are stinker ideas that need to be dropped or is there something that could be tweaked to be "good enough"?

The only idea I got any pushback on so far is consolidating some of the forums. I'm not too strongly tied to the idea, but its an idea that I was interested in hearing what people have to say.

 
More potholes. Things like userpages having links to all releases that user is associated with. Some people put releases in their sigs but some don't. Every time I want to link BirdofPrey's radaricons beacuse they're a high-quality set of icons it's a massive PITA to find them. The wiki needs more potholes too, make wiki-walks much easier to do by just clicking on things. The ship and weapon pages are mostly fine but walk-through pages could use more potholes.

Also when fighters have stat sheets or tech descriptions from user-made campaigns that should be a link that takes you to that campaign's wiki page. They should also have links to release threads for those assets.


As for social media, maybe push on PCMR a bit? Old games modded to do things they were never supposed to often get on the frontpage there.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2017, 12:49:22 pm by FrikgFeek »
[19:31] <MatthTheGeek> you all high up on your mointain looking down at everyone who doesn't beam everything on insane blindfolded

 
I am absolutely in favour of consolidating the forums, to the point that I question the notion of giving the hosted mods their own subboards for public discussions. Why seperate all the activity and smear it out over dozens of boards? Have BP discussion threads sit alongside BTA discussion threads in the Freespace discussion forum, rather then giving them seperate fora that only have a few threads running active. Stuff like that makes this place look less active then it actually is, and it doesn't give new users the view of "What is hot these days?"

 

Offline Lorric

  • 212
Yeah, one of the biggest problems HLP has is its so hard to find content. I think some form of intra-site advertising would help in that regard.

And which ideas do you not agree with? Do you think they are stinker ideas that need to be dropped or is there something that could be tweaked to be "good enough"?

The only idea I got any pushback on so far is consolidating some of the forums. I'm not too strongly tied to the idea, but its an idea that I was interested in hearing what people have to say.
Nothing major. The consolidate part I have mixed feelings, but nothing there I think NO. I would have to see how it went, but overall I feel positive about it.

I don't like the name Arts and Talents. I think something less formal and more descriptive would be better for the name. But I do like the spirit of what the board is supposed to be going to be, if I understand it right. It seems like it would be somewhere for people to express themselves freely (with writing and other talents), but I worry that wouldn't be the case with the culture around here. If I think of something I'll post.

I think it would be good if anyone could do interviews and anyone could be interviewed.

Let's Play forum, hell yes.

It's funny, I bring up the avatars, but I almost certainly won't use one myself. I never have anywhere else. How "for everyone" will they be? It's amazing how often I see an avatar and think I bet that wouldn't be allowed on HLP.

Why lose the post count? It's not a big deal, but what was the reasoning for that?

 

Offline mjn.mixael

  • Cutscene Master
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I am absolutely in favour of consolidating the forums, to the point that I question the notion of giving the hosted mods their own subboards for public discussions. Why seperate all the activity and smear it out over dozens of boards? Have BP discussion threads sit alongside BTA discussion threads in the Freespace discussion forum, rather then giving them seperate fora that only have a few threads running active. Stuff like that makes this place look less active then it actually is, and it doesn't give new users the view of "What is hot these days?"

This is a pretty radical idea... and I can see a lot of positives to this. Although private dev and testing forums should remain for those mods regardless.

This biggest downside here is release posts... all the major campaigns have a stickied release post (perhaps that's something that would be solved in tandem with the other ideas posted about making releases more visible). The big release thread in Missions & Campaigns doesn't give much info in the way of release year, mod size, and overall reception and/or quality... I don't find it terribly useful because it's too big and unwieldy. I suspect new users aren't going to jump in here and be looking for mods made in 2004. So some differentiation between New Releases, Highly Reviewed, and Past Gems would be helpful. There's also the sticking point of various levels of continuity in mods. Some players often make posts about which mods to play in which order for continuity/story and we have a few threads they could follow.. which isn't always clear unless you stumble upon the right page on the Wiki.

I will say a major positive is that, as a dev, if public discussions of my mod were expected to be in the general FS forum, I would be way more active on those boards. It would pull me out of my own BtA bubble more easily. Dunno if other devs have this problem, though. I also know that the hosted general boards have, for some, become a point of pride.. so I imagine that would also be a sticking point.

I'm not saying this idea is perfect, but it does have merit worth thinking about. Do new players look at the board list to figure out what mods are available anyway?
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Offline Lorric

  • 212
Quote
Automatic generation of randomly taken topics taken from releases forums to make a (or several) 'campaign/ship/mod of the week' mini-highlight (Unsure of actual feasibility at the moment)

This made me think of something. Anyone who has installed a GOG game will know what happens in that process. As the installation takes place, it flashes up images of games with a punchy sentence or two summing up what the game is. I always thought that was really effective advertisement. They're not random either, like if you get a strategy title, there'll be many strategy titles pop up.

So if something similar could be implemented on HLP, with cycling images from various campaigns with punchy one or two line sum ups of what they are with clicking those images taking you to the release page... :pimp:
For anyone unfamiliar with the GOG installer, this is what it looks like:

https://youtu.be/jCbR8NVYq64?t=28

You wouldn't necessarilly need to put a hosted project up there when they have their own boards. This feature would be to bring those other campaigns into the light. Digging them out of obscurity and putting them onto the dedicated releases board may well be the single greatest thing on the list, but this would help even more, while the people already here would gravitate into the releases board when they desire to play Freespace, that will catch outside eyes as well as the eyes of people already here. So there could be some merit to putting the big fish up there as well, but it wasn't what I originally had in mind. Maybe everything should just go on there, have like 50+ campaigns on there if possible.

 

Offline Lorric

  • 212
I am absolutely in favour of consolidating the forums, to the point that I question the notion of giving the hosted mods their own subboards for public discussions. Why seperate all the activity and smear it out over dozens of boards? Have BP discussion threads sit alongside BTA discussion threads in the Freespace discussion forum, rather then giving them seperate fora that only have a few threads running active. Stuff like that makes this place look less active then it actually is, and it doesn't give new users the view of "What is hot these days?"

This is a pretty radical idea... and I can see a lot of positives to this. Although private dev and testing forums should remain for those mods regardless.

This biggest downside here is release posts... all the major campaigns have a stickied release post (perhaps that's something that would be solved in tandem with the other ideas posted about making releases more visible). The big release thread in Missions & Campaigns doesn't give much info in the way of release year, mod size, and overall reception and/or quality... I don't find it terribly useful because it's too big and unwieldy. I suspect new users aren't going to jump in here and be looking for mods made in 2004. So some differentiation between New Releases, Highly Reviewed, and Past Gems would be helpful. There's also the sticking point of various levels of continuity in mods. Some players often make posts about which mods to play in which order for continuity/story and we have a few threads they could follow.. which isn't always clear unless you stumble upon the right page on the Wiki.

I will say a major positive is that, as a dev, if public discussions of my mod were expected to be in the general FS forum, I would be way more active on those boards. It would pull me out of my own BtA bubble more easily. Dunno if other devs have this problem, though. I also know that the hosted general boards have, for some, become a point of pride.. so I imagine that would also be a sticking point.

I'm not saying this idea is perfect, but it does have merit worth thinking about. Do new players look at the board list to figure out what mods are available anyway?
Yes, it is interesting. I'm thinking a middle ground option would be best though. Have lots of subforums. So they're all there in one place under the Freespace Discussion banner, but not all mashed in together in one board. Because then lots of mods could get pushed out and be in a worse position than on their own boards. And we certainly don't want mods jockeying with each other for real estate in there.

 
I am absolutely in favour of consolidating the forums, to the point that I question the notion of giving the hosted mods their own subboards for public discussions. Why seperate all the activity and smear it out over dozens of boards? Have BP discussion threads sit alongside BTA discussion threads in the Freespace discussion forum, rather then giving them seperate fora that only have a few threads running active. Stuff like that makes this place look less active then it actually is, and it doesn't give new users the view of "What is hot these days?"

This is a pretty radical idea... and I can see a lot of positives to this. Although private dev and testing forums should remain for those mods regardless.

This biggest downside here is release posts... all the major campaigns have a stickied release post (perhaps that's something that would be solved in tandem with the other ideas posted about making releases more visible). The big release thread in Missions & Campaigns doesn't give much info in the way of release year, mod size, and overall reception and/or quality... I don't find it terribly useful because it's too big and unwieldy. I suspect new users aren't going to jump in here and be looking for mods made in 2004. So some differentiation between New Releases, Highly Reviewed, and Past Gems would be helpful. There's also the sticking point of various levels of continuity in mods. Some players often make posts about which mods to play in which order for continuity/story and we have a few threads they could follow.. which isn't always clear unless you stumble upon the right page on the Wiki.

I will say a major positive is that, as a dev, if public discussions of my mod were expected to be in the general FS forum, I would be way more active on those boards. It would pull me out of my own BtA bubble more easily. Dunno if other devs have this problem, though. I also know that the hosted general boards have, for some, become a point of pride.. so I imagine that would also be a sticking point.

I'm not saying this idea is perfect, but it does have merit worth thinking about. Do new players look at the board list to figure out what mods are available anyway?

Hosted general boards are a point of pride but there's so many of them now that their value feels diminshed. I don't doubt that badges in some form should stay (because they are a nice way of linking to other mods!) and still can be a point of pride, but if you want a standalone board you should have a standalone install, like Diaspora has.

Yes, it is interesting. I'm thinking a middle ground option would be best though. Have lots of subforums. So they're all there in one place under the Freespace Discussion banner, but not all mashed in together in one board. Because then lots of mods could get pushed out and be in a worse position than on their own boards. And we certainly don't want mods jockeying with each other for real estate in there.

No, I don't think having lots of subforums does anything except move the problem. If you click on "Freespace discussion" and then are met with lots of subboards, you'll still have a segregrated community, but only one that looks slightly less segregrated from a distance.