Greatest RPG Fans Forum

"Separate Wizardry 8 forums for Gameplay/Spoilers/TechSupport"

Email this topic to a friend
Printer-friendly version of this topic
Bookmark this topic (Registered users only)
 
Previous Topic | Next Topic 
Conferences Voters Booth Board Features I want added (Public)
Original message

kiwi (234 posts) Click to EMail kiwi Click to send private message to kiwi Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-14-01, 01:50 PM (Pacific)
"Separate Wizardry 8 forums for Gameplay/Spoilers/TechSupport"
Now that Wizardry 8 is finally out, it would be very helpful to have several different forums to make it easier for people to find information and to organize the information in such a way that it makes sense. I have been amazingly happy with the way the boards for Pool of Radiance have worked out on the rpg planet web site.

www.rpgplanet.com/poolofradiance

and their message boards

http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~poolofradiance/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi

They have boards for:

General Comments and Questions
Help - Spoilers
Help - Technical Questions
Quirky Workaround


These make it very easy to know where to post a message, or where to look for an answer to a question.

  Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

  Table of Contents

 
 
Lobby | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic

Messages in this topic

Tinsicka (2 posts) Click to EMail Tinsicka Click to send private message to Tinsicka Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-14-01, 02:45 PM (Pacific)
1. "RE: Separate Wizardry 8 forums for Gameplay/Spoilers/TechSupport"
I have also frequented the board Kiwi mentions in his post and have found it to be everything he says, I second his suggestion.
  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Qwaz (3 posts) Click to EMail Qwaz Click to send private message to Qwaz Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Apr-06-03, 12:05 PM (Pacific)
19. "RE: Separate Wizardry 8 forums for Gameplay/Spoilers/TechSupport"
I third kiwi's suggestion. The forum needs seperate places.


  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Llevram (3923 posts) Click to EMail Llevram Click to send private message to Llevram Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Apr-06-03, 04:10 PM (Pacific)
20. "Works well in theory ..."
But we have a hard enough time getting people to post in the right forum, with only two choices

And with the game getting older, and interest fading, not much sense in splitting things up now.

Tools for Wizardry(r) 7

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Llevram (3923 posts) Click to EMail Llevram Click to send private message to Llevram Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-14-01, 05:59 PM (Pacific)
2. "This seems to be the general concensus"
My only concern has been what it might do to bandwith. I can only imagine it would help reduce bandwidth, as you (hopefully) don't have to wade through all Wiz 8 posts, to find a spoiler - just the spoilers forum. I wanted to get a definitive answer (or at least idea) regarding that from the board software author, but haven't.

As Sir-tech already has their own tech support forum (right?), I will not add one here (again, the less bandwidth we take on the better.

I will go ahead and split the Wiz 8 conference into two boards:
1) General Comments & Questions
2) Hints, Tips and *Spoilers*

(Wiz 8 is a much better game than PoR and doesn't need any quirky work-arounds )

Tools for your Wizardry(r) toolkit

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

kiwi (234 posts) Click to EMail kiwi Click to send private message to kiwi Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-14-01, 11:24 PM (Pacific)
3. "RE: This seems to be the general concensus"
Sounds great. It really made the POR board much more usable.

As for Wizardry vs. POR, no comparison. Not that POR wasn't fun... hell, I kept playing it even with crashes and and bugs and things just not works (I still haven't actually won the game as I can fight and easily win either of the two final battles, but one doesn't trigger the other and so I get left stranded in a cave. Oh what fun, more caves... like that game didn't have enough... but I digress)

I hope that there are no quirky work-arounds, but things like tips that people have... that keep reaccuring in one board could get posted there? One example of such a post was the suggestion that if you wanted to have more people be able to attack in short ranged combat, that you could move all your characters out of the front quadrant and into the middle, sides and back. Just a thought, if posts start to get redundant... to make it easier for people to find the answers. This might limit the bandwidth, as users would have a place to look for concise answers. And it would stop questions from being posted every few days. You could have a limited number of people who could post to it... or something like that. Anyway, just thoughts from someone who has never done any board management ... I like the boards so far...

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Llevram (3923 posts) Click to EMail Llevram Click to send private message to Llevram Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-15-01, 06:45 AM (Pacific)
5. "Sounds more like a FAQ or Hot topics board"
Maybe commonly asked questions .... maybe.

Tools for your Wizardry(r) toolkit

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Tinsicka (2 posts) Click to EMail Tinsicka Click to send private message to Tinsicka Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-15-01, 06:14 AM (Pacific)
4. "RE: This seems to be the general concensus"
Thanks for granting our request I don't think you will be disappointed.
Sir-Tech has a support forum and I hope it will prove better than the one Ubi Soft has for Pool of Radiance should the need arises. The reason why the technical section was so great on the Pool of Radiance board was you could get help a lot more efficiently from fellow gamers there than on the official support forum. But let's be positive we won't need a technical support section with this game.
I'm looking forward to playing the game and exchanging on this forum.
  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Frazzle (143 posts) Click to EMail Frazzle Click to send private message to Frazzle Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-15-01, 04:23 PM (Pacific)
6. "That dang devil in the details"
I also like the idea of splitting it up, but I'm not sure how. I think your two-forum idea is a little too simplistic to do much good... "General Comments & Questions" I don't think is distinct enough from "Hints, Tips & Spoilers".

Personally I'd like to make sure that "Hacks, HEX editing, trainers, etc" is sectioned off into its own forum. (I'm sure rbrown will love it; maybe he'll even administer it for you.) If you ignore the rest of this post please seriously consider this suggestion... nothing is more annoying to me than someone interrupting perfectly good strategy discussions about where to find a key item, how to get a certain skill, how to beat a key enemy, etc, by posting about a hack you can use to "solve" that problem. And that way people that are looking to play with the game that way can jump right to that forum and find links and discussions about all the editors, which HEX codes to edit to dual-wield Excalibers, etc.

"Hints, Tips, & Spoilers" sounds good but I prefer the name "Strategy" That's where I'll be spending most of my time. Personally I prefer to distinguish character/race/class/skill info, item/treasure info, monster info, map/puzzle/quest info, and ingame "cheat" info, but I don't think it's worth trying to split any of that stuff up. For me personally, when playing a RPG I prefer to have as much advance info about character building and available items as possible, but want the monsters, quests, maps and puzzles to be what I play to discover.

To keep the tech support type questions off your site, it might be a good idea to actually have in your Wiz8 forum listing itself a link to the Wizardry8.com tech support forum. You'll always get people posting that stuff anyway and I'm sure don't want to waste time policing it, but putting the link there (and anyplace else prominent you can think of) will help make it easier for people to take those posts where they should go. (Low priority: you might want to consider keeping a "best of" set of links to specific tech support articles that deal with questions that everyone keeps asking.)

Beyond that it will probably be best to see how the board evolves and go from there.

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Llevram (3923 posts) Click to EMail Llevram Click to send private message to Llevram Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-15-01, 08:52 PM (Pacific)
7. "Nice to have you back Frazzle"
Well, your sugesstions are good for you, but for us mere mortals (like me), the more choices I have to pick from the less likely I am to spend time selecting the right choice and I'll just post. Some nice person will then answer and let me know I should really have asked somewhere else.

And actually, I am boolean impaired - give me a 50/50 choice and I always get it wrong

Seriously, how about:

Wiz 8 Conference
-- The Righteous (no hints, tips or spoilers)
-- The Rougues (hints, tips and spoilers)
-- The Unholy (hex editing, cheats and such)

Tools for your Wizardry(r) toolkit

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

kiwi (234 posts) Click to EMail kiwi Click to send private message to kiwi Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-15-01, 09:54 PM (Pacific)
8. "RE: Nice to have you back Frazzle"
Guess I'm curious how things break apart... spoilers are really easy... in room X you fight Y&Z and get item W. But Hints are much more general, suggestions about party makeup and such? Or strategies for ordering your party? Guess it can easily go into the board with spoilers... but it's information that a newbe might be very interested in, and it would be a shame if they were led from the start into looking at spoilers. However, it is much better then just one board.

I liked the idea of putting a link over to Sir-Tech's tech forum.

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Frazzle (143 posts) Click to EMail Frazzle Click to send private message to Frazzle Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-16-01, 08:58 AM (Pacific)
9. "Whatever makes it easiest for you to keep the board up"
and running smoothly is of course the primary priority.

That sounds simple enough. I'm curious what the relative bandwith will turn out to be.

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

kiwi (234 posts) Click to EMail kiwi Click to send private message to kiwi Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-26-01, 06:22 AM (Pacific)
10. "RE: Nice to have you back Frazzle"
How're the split up board effecting bandwidth/board use?

It seems that traffic has at least split between the two boards and there are few spoilers/questions prompting spoilers posted to the regular board (unless you've just been deleting/moving them to the correct place).

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Llevram (3923 posts) Click to EMail Llevram Click to send private message to Llevram Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-26-01, 06:28 AM (Pacific)
11. "Hard to say"
I have made so many changes, it is hard to say which ones have affected what , but I think it has helped (and you are right, most posts are going in the right slots )

The biggest factor is visits ... the more we get the more traffic. Right now we are at just over 8 1/4 Gig. The last couple days have been about 250 MB ( about 1/2 the recent daily average - figure it is a holiday weekend and people are too busy playing to post )

www.softwarespecialties.com Tools for Wizardry(r) 7

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

kiwi (234 posts) Click to EMail kiwi Click to send private message to kiwi Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-26-01, 07:14 AM (Pacific)
12. "RE: Hard to say"
Have you looked into seeing whether RPGPlanet would host the site?
  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Llevram (3923 posts) Click to EMail Llevram Click to send private message to Llevram Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-26-01, 09:43 PM (Pacific)
13. "Yep"
Sent an email a couple weeks ago ..... still awaiting an answer (not still holding my breath though )

www.softwarespecialties.com Tools for Wizardry(r) 7

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

kiwi (234 posts) Click to EMail kiwi Click to send private message to kiwi Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-27-01, 07:48 AM (Pacific)
14. "RE: Yep"
I sent some emails a while back and they seemed to want to have a full site setup to go along with the hosted board. I would be up for designing a Wizardry 8 site. Or at least starting one... if someone else doesn't already have one.
  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Llevram (3923 posts) Click to EMail Llevram Click to send private message to Llevram Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-27-01, 09:22 PM (Pacific)
15. "So, what is a full site?"
I mean come on, what is my main site ... chopped liver :? And we are only getting thousands of hits a week ... is that not worthy? Or maybe too much ?

www.softwarespecialties.com Tools for Wizardry(r) 7

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

kiwi (234 posts) Click to EMail kiwi Click to send private message to kiwi Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-28-01, 07:03 AM (Pacific)
16. "RE: So, what is a full site?"
LAST EDITED ON Nov-28-01 AT 07:10 AM (Pacific)

The softwarespecialties site? I've looked through most of their sites and I think that they want sites that are more game information sites. But that's purely speculation. The guy who responded to my email said, "Put together a site, put it up where we can see it, and fill out the application."

Sorry if there is a different site that I missed...

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Llevram (3923 posts) Click to EMail Llevram Click to send private message to Llevram Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-28-01, 06:25 PM (Pacific)
17. "Nope, that is it ..."
Funny you asked about this yesterday. After replying, I read my email and there was their response ... not really interested in "just a message board" as full sites generate more visits.

Cripes, We've had 50,000 visits this month ... how many do they need :?

www.softwarespecialties.com Tools for Wizardry(r) 7

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

kiwi (234 posts) Click to EMail kiwi Click to send private message to kiwi Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Nov-28-01, 11:23 PM (Pacific)
18. "RE: Nope, that is it ..."
LAST EDITED ON Nov-28-01 AT 11:24 PM (Pacific)

Maybe they've found that full sites generate more ad traffic. And that once people get to message boards, they don't want to deal with the ads.

But yes, 50,000 hits is a fair bit...

  Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top


Lock | Archive | Remove

Lobby | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic
Rate this topic (1=skip it, 10=must read)? [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 ]
Powered by DCF2000 ©1997-2000 by DCScripts. All rights reserved.