Idea Suggestion V. 001: THIS. IS. EPICS!!! >:U

[Drakel]

Now that I finished this click-bait title... This suggestion is for Epic Roleplays and probably table top RPs and how popular they might be becoming.


Point of the Poll: To easily see what the other member's thoughts are in a statistical data viewpoint. It will be closed in 30 days after this post.

After choosing whichever option you prefer, please explain in detail why you chose that option.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Point: We already have 5 Epic RPs and this number is likely to continue growing... This in my opinion is beginning to overwhelm the Forums and honestly would make STC look quite cluttered due to there being too many forum sections on the main forum. These two suggestions are to conserve space in order to appear more clean and neat.

The first suggestion is to turn the areas 'Epic Roleplay Forums' and 'Tabletop Roleplays' into actual forums under the 'General Roleplay Forums' sections, in which each Epic Roleplay would be their own sub-forum. They would still appear as they do know in a sense, here each Epic roleplay would still have their own sub-forum and the like with the main difference being that everything is no under an 'Epic Roleplay' forums or a 'Tabletop Roleplays' forum. No real difference would truly be made here besides creating an extra layer of forum/subforums in order to make the site appear more clean and less cluttered or overwhelming.

Using this method the forums would appear similar to this setup

General Roleplay Forums Area

• .....
• ....
• ...
• Epic Roleplays
  • Chronicles of the Omniverse
    • Omniverse out-of-Character Forums
    • Omniverse in-character Forums
  • Equinox
    • Equinox out-of-Character Forums
    • Equinox in-character Forums
  • ect...
• Tabletop Roleplays
  • Tapestry of Ages

And so on...


The second suggestion might be the easier solution for both the admins and members, and a commonly seen one, would be the groups method. A site section dedicated to groups, which in my honest opinion is just forums within the forum created by members and moderated by mainly members as the "Mods" of those groups and the Site's Moderators and Admins. Less restriction would be needed for the creation of these and less labor would be required on the part of the admins after the initial creation of these.


Both of these are both useful for making the forums appear much more clean, less cluttered and more easily manageable by newer members of the site. Both of these also keep both the original concept idea for Epic Roleplays and Tabletop RPs and both of these allow those types of Roleplays to be created, made and RPed with ease.

 

[Axl]

The first suggestion seems to be that it would keep the clutter to a minimum, yet not be too difficult to locate an Epic Roleplay (Ha, ERP) if one wishes to find one. Of course, that would mean advertisement for the Epics would have to increase by a bit, since they wouldn't be displayed on their own in the open as they are now.

 

[Tiko]

The main problem with more sub-forums is that it involves more clicking to navigate, and things become hidden. We ran into this problem already with some of the deeper Epic roleplay trees. Blanketing them all under a sub-forum in another sub-forum will move our front page roleplays, to obscurity, and make it so people in them have to click numerous times and numerous page loads to get to their sub-forums.

Our front page roleplays definitely shouldn't be the most difficult to find, and the most irritating to navigate for their players on a day to day basis.

Edit: including an example. To get to a specific omniverse forum it wouldn't be general roleplaying > epic roleplays > omniverse > omniverse ic. It would be... General roleplaying > epic roleplays > omniverse > omniverse ic > onyx galaxy > Valore > Terra > Westeria City. It adds another whole two page loads to an already long list.

 

[Drakel]

That is true, the first most problem with the first suggestion would be the fact that it'd be slightly harder to navigate and the Roleplays within the Epic RP universe would be hidden within sub-sub forums, thus requiring more advertising and work for one to be properly set up. I'll make the adjustment for the consequences the suggestions (as both would come to face this problem.)

 

[Tiko]

I added an edit to my earlier post also to outline the extent of the inconvenience.

 

[SedentaryCobra]

Easy(ish) solution. Just add a constant pinned thread that lists all of the active epic RP's, with links for easy navigation. A glossary of them, if you will, for solution #1.

Edit: Essentially the navigation would be [Home Page] -> Epic RP Glossary -> Omniverse -> Omniverse etc.

 

[Drakel]

I added an edit to my earlier post also to outline the extent of the inconvenience.

Thanks to the example you gave I have better clarity on what you mean. The numerous layers of locations and worlds in the Omniverse, and the fact that it has 6+ layers of web pages as is, is honestly the problem of the creators for making it complex. Adding one more layer would yes, add another layer though at the same time it would potentially make the home page far more cleaner than leaving it as it currently stands. The Epic Roleplays section will soon be larger than the Community section, which is the largest in the site as it stands.

I would say my suggestions would make little difference in harming Roleplays in "Westeria City" because they're already lost within an abyss of sub forums. And as I said this is a problem that the creators of that Epic RP kinda already has. Granted, There will be a greater effect on the Epic Roleplays that have only 2 layers (The main Epic RP forums and it's sub forum) but this is because it's size is simplistic enough for it to be effected. (I will not deny this)

So unlike Omniverse, which'd go from 6(+) layers to 7(+) layers of pages... something with originally 2 layers becoming something with 3 layers of pages would have a lot larger impact.

As for a solution to the Omniverses problem, while off topic I do have a solution. Creating a glossary on the first layer with all the links for easy travel through the Omniverse's layers would be considerably helpful and would make things a lot easier to navigate. I think this needs to happen regardless of if this suggestion goes through or not as it is extremely difficult to navigate as it currently stands.

 

[Tiko]

I'm not sure I personally find the Epic Roleplays unclean. I find them eye-catching, and colorful. They're grouped together at the bottom of the forums, so they don't clutter up or require people to scroll through them to access the community areas, or the play-by-post, and they make the forum look active. People aren't faced with a wall of forums they have to navigate through to find the roleplays, there's a bunch right there.

I've personally encountered a handful of people who have expressed difficulty with navigating the various sub-forums we already have in the play-by-post area and OOC areas (I'm working on a guide to help with that). I think condensing things down further, into more trees will just make that even more difficult for people.

Most people when they are determining to stay on a site, are skimming for content, active roleplays, and engaging stories and community. We have the community down solid, but roleplays we're still low on. If the epic role plays are hidden from view, the first place they'll go is the play-by-post sections, see two, maybe three roleplays in each section, and be less likely to remain than if they see a row of large, active roleplays right at the bottom of the main page.

Now if they DID grow in size to be unwieldy (like if we had twenty or thirty of the things and had to scroll through them all to find anything) then it may make sense to setup a separate page altogether from the main forums with all of the Epic roleplays (possibly sorted by genre/type if we accumulated enough of them), which could be accessed from the main forums list. But right now it would look barren to do something like that and have people go there and find five roleplays. Better to keep the main forums looking full and active with the current size of things. Over-segregating things when we don't have enough content to fully fill each area of the site will cause a visual illusion of emptiness.

That all said, there very well may come a time when it's necessary to move the Epic Roleplays (I don't personally believe that time is now), but there's one crucial requirement when considering and adding/changing features that the administrators must always account for. Any solutions put into effect should always maintain the same level of functionability as what is being altered. For example if we moved the Epic Roleplays, it would need to be done in a way that it doesn't detract from what the Epic Roleplay GMs have already been given. Otherwise you tend to upset all the impacted players by moving them backwards, in the effort to move everyone else forward.

Just some things to keep in mind I need to get going though. 13 hour bus trip coming up! I'll probably pop in and out from my phone through the day.