[Nemphtis]

There are two reasons why this isn't a poll. Firstly the fact that it won't allow me to make one, secondly the fact that there are too many choices to put into a poll.

Okay, in this topic I don't want any off-topic bull****, we're here to discuss one subject alone and that is what game we will like to base our fansite project that I suggested in the Spice topic. The question is very simple, if we decided to create a fansite, which RPG series would you like the site based on? Please remember that if your site is chosen, it's not just us, but YOU who needs to help us with the content. Also remember that there's no point in choosing games like Final Fantasy that have been done to death. We want to make a network of fansites for games that are exceptionally good, but not not popular that there are already 60 other major fansites for it.

Please choose carefully and I'd apreciate it if you google search your choice to see if there are any fansites for it already. Don't get off-topic in here otherwise I'll request that my topic be locked and this whole idea can be scrapped, biatches.

This is NOT a topic where you can shout "I'm good at HTML!" etc. that will be dealt with LATER, right now let's get the basics out of the way. If we feel that we can pull this off after the planning, then Max is willing to make it happen, but first we need to show him that we will try to make it work.

----------------------------

I place my vote on Baten Kaitos. My reasons for voting for this game is very simple; it's visually impressive, very enjoyable, received alot of good reviews and there's a sequal on the way. Best of all, there are no dedicated Baten Kaitos fansites out there that are even close to being decent. For these reasons I think Baten Kaitos is a great choice, it's a Gamecube RPG. http://batenkaitos.namco.com/ that is the official website and you can search online for screenshots. It's the only RPG I've played that actually has a card-based battle system that is so simple to use yet pulls of many complex tactics and attacks. For this reason it's by far my best choice to make a fansite on.

[Mallick]

Some might not agree. But I think Maple Story would good if we made a good fansite. I will now make a list of Maple Story sites with good information.

• Hidden-Street.net.

Sleepywood also has a decent member-base on their forums, but that's all they have. Their site lacks content.

[Nemphtis]

There are craploads of MS sites. MapleTip, HiddenStreet and SleepyWood are just the three MAJOR ones. After those three there are also a ton of average sites, and then a swarm of lame, wannabe geocity sites and invisionfree forums. Any MMORPG based sites won't work because there will always be a ton of sites for them. There is no content that we can cover that the other three major sites have already perfected. MapleTip and HiddenStreet alone are enough to keep any Maple fan busy. So personally I think that's an awful game to choose.

[Someone Else]

We shouldn't do MMORPGs since they simply aren't that deep. They're all about lvl crunching and nothing about gameplay. Plus, I simply wouldn't want to do content for that sort of game. Well unless we were doing Lineage 2 but I haven't been on lately.

I'm going for Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS. Sure it's not a traditional RPG... but it hasn't even been released yet. There are a few (and pretty impressive) fansites for the original GameCube version that I saw on Google, but I've looked at them and they don't look to be covering Wild World anytime soon. The only one that I saw was this site... and it's a part of GameSpy so I'm not sure if it counts:

http://animalcrossin.../ds-index.shtml

Oh, and I've heard alot of good things about Baten Kaitos, but unfortunately I don't have a GameCube. :blink: So I can't say much on it.

This post has been edited by Wind Dude: 21 November 2005 - 11:33 AM

[Nemphtis]

Okay so far we've got a mixture of Baten Kaitos, Maple Story and Animal Crossing Wild World. I guess we'll leave this be for a while until we get a whole lots of other people replying and then we'll see what we can do.

[Max]

I am just going to be a spectator in this thread, but I thought I should just pipe in real quick:

For those of you that haven't read the other topic, the point of this topic is to brainstorm ideas for a new game website, which would be part of a potential RPG game site "network." I have agreed to consider doing such a venture as long as we have the support of a substantial group of people from these forums.

As has been said, I don't really think doing a site about a MMORPG is a good idea, mostly for the reasons already stated. I think that both Baten Kaitos and AC:WW are good idea, though I don't have a DS as of yet. Keep the ideas coming and we might just be getting somewhere.

[Nemphtis]

I agree with the MMORPG thing. Even if Maple Story didn't have many sites, it just doesn't have the depth for a fansite. What it DOES have is alot of content we could provide since MMORPG's have alot of things that people could write guides for, but at the end of the day there are already too many established MS sites out there to use that.

Keep the suggestions coming, Baten Kaitos and Animal Crossing can be considered, but there are still alot of other games out there we could do, which series should we work on first? Just because we choose a certain game to be used for our first site it doesn't mean we won't use the other games that were submitted in one of the later fansites we will make for this 'network'.

[Sea of Time]

Definitely no MMORPG's. I think Baten Kaitos is good, but what about Tales of Symphonia and any other Tales games to come out in the future?

Would Fire Emblem go under the category of games done to death?

[Zxor]

I think Maple Story is a great game, but it shouldnt have the fan site. There would be way to many people posting about hacking..>.< I have never played Baiten Kaitos, but I know it is a great game. Tales of symphonia is also a great game. And I think Star Ocean: Till the end of time, is a god one. Though many people have not plaed it, it is a great game that one should play if theu haven't.

[Nemphtis]

I agree Star Ocean is also a good choice but I assumed more people would have played Baten Kaitos here. Here are the major reasons why I thought Baten Kaitos is a great choice for the first fansite:

• No other fansites for the game out there, even though it's a great game with high review scores.
  
• The series isn't that old or long, Baten Kaitos and a sequal is on the way and that's it at the moment. Unlike Fire Emblem games where there is just too many titles to cover on the fansite for our first project.
  
• There's alot to write about and a decent amount of extra quests and replay value in the game, and god knows what the sequal will offer.
  
• It's on the Gamecube so for our first fansite we're not alienating half of the forum community by choosing a PS2 or Xbox title.
  
• Alot of people have played it or have been interested in playing it due to it's surprisingly succesful card battle system.
  
• It rocks.

[Sea of Time]

I would agree with that but I'm not a fan of the game. If I were to make a fansite on FE, would you guys say no to hosting it?

[Mallick]

Zxor, on Nov 21 2005, 10:51 PM, said:

I think Maple Story is a great game, but it shouldnt have the fan site. There would be way to many people posting about hacking..>.< I have never played Baiten Kaitos, but I know it is a great game. Tales of symphonia is also a great game. And I think Star Ocean: Till the end of time, is a god one. Though many people have not plaed it, it is a great game that one should play if theu haven't.

Kind of reminds me of a certain brother of Gsninja begging me to teach him how to hack.

I guess Animal Crossing would be an alright game to cover, though I hate BK.

[Golden Djinn13]

I couldn't resist just coming back to post here, so...

I think that we should cover all diffrent types of Rpgs, instead of just one, that way the site
would be diverse, and it wouldn't just appeal to people that play a certain game.

Well thats my suggestion...

[Sea of Time]

Golden Djinn13, on Nov 22 2005, 04:47 PM, said:

I couldn't resist just coming back to post here, so...

I think that we should cover all diffrent types of Rpgs, instead of just one, that way the site
would be diverse, and it wouldn't just appeal to people that play a certain game.

Well thats my suggestion...

I think we should have agreed already that that should be the deal. We can't just do Baten Kaitos. We should also broaden our look towards all of Namco's RPG's (the good ones)

[Zaffa Dot Xom]

What about Shadow Hearts?

It's got a rather interesting battle system--with the judgment ring--even though I don't play it. My friend introduced it to me, and I thought it looked good.

[Nemphtis]

I have Shadow Hearts Covenant, and yes the battle system is slightly interesting. Personally it totally felt like a FFX ripoff to me, haha. Also Shadow Hearts 1 was pretty crappy.

As for the previous comments, READ MY FRICKIN INTRO POST. Like I have said, we're not just making 1 fansite, we're making a network based on the games we feel would make good fansites. But we need to take this 1 fansite at a time, otherwise shlt will be all over the place, are you getting it? That's why the first game we choose doesn't have to be loved or worshipped by every member on this forum, because after a few weeks of making the content we move onto ANOTHER project when it's done. Am I clear on this after explaining it for the third frickin time? Good.

Also, I know I said Maple Story would make a bad idea for a fansite since everyone has already made one, but I was taking dump last night and this idea just slapped me in the face. www.gamertag.com look at that site. You know what that is? It's a database for Xbox Live users, it's a place where everyone makes a free profile with their character info, name, hobbies, etc. and basically people looking for friends just search the database based on the age, gender etc. they are looking for on MAPLE STORY. Nobody else has done this yet and it's an awesome idea in my opinion. We're doing something that not only alot of players would want, a place to find friends who look like they can agree with, but also a place that no other Maple Site is like! I'm just full of ideas lately, eh?

What'ya guys think, I personally think this idea is a great oppurtunity to get our first wave of members flooding in, as Maple has alot of players at the moment and we can see how well our network project can fare based on this. Also alot of people at GSSF play it so it's a good choice. Just call it MapleDatabase as an example for now, I think it would be great. I want to make friends, but I don't want to register at a Maple forum and post there for weeks to find a couple of people that seem 'cool'. So what do I do? I check out that new database website I heard about on Maple, I first make my own account, after that I start searching for a friend who is around my age, 17 and has a hobby for "Anime" and "Sports" plus I'm looking for a friend from the England to stay in my timezone when I'm playing, so I click England for country and after filling out a few other things I start my search and *poof* there are my results. I write down their In-Game Names or send them an email through their profile and hope to see them soon, awesome or what? I personally love the idea.

[Someone Else]

:agitated: And to stay loyal to Nintendo we could also use it to find people's Friend Codes for Mario Kart DS.

But in the end of the day, it sounds sorta like eHarmony.

But I'm not really opposed to the idea. X3

[Zaffa Dot Xom]

I'd like to present my opinion on at least a couple game series that I felt should have been part of a network or something; even if they are old and have tons of fansites already.

•Golden Sun
•Fire Emblem
•Advance Wars
•MegaMan Battle Network

Keep in mind that these are not suggestions. I felt like throwing that in since I sensed a sort of game cycle that made the GBA what it is today.

Oh yeah, but what about something called Yggdra Union? It's being made by the same people who delivered Riviera to us (which aptly calls themselves Team Riviera), and was presented at LacrimaCastle.net's forums. It takes a spin on combining mechanics between Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, and, of course, Riviera.

I believe IGN has it pretty much covered for that.

[Nemphtis]

Well yeah WD it's like a matchmaking site but for making friends on Maple. alot of people have a problem in finding decent party members that they can rely on through their long experience on Maple. Even if we don't do this for the network, I'm deeply considering making it myself with some friends since this is an oppurtunity I personally don't wanna miss. If I don't make it, someone else will sooner or later. :agitated:

[Nick Presta]

I really don't care what we do it on. I don't even know if it has to be about games.

We could do a general community forum, just talk about whatever, hold contests, etc?
We could get another game series and focus on it like we have on GS?

[Someone Else]

General community forums usually don't do that well from my observations.

[Nemphtis]

nick1presta, on Nov 24 2005, 01:31 AM, said:

I really don't care what we do it on. I don't even know if it has to be about games.

We could do a general community forum, just talk about whatever, hold contests, etc?
We could get another game series and focus on it like we have on GS?

That's lame, you have lost your right to submit suggestions. Punk. :agitated:

[Zaffa Dot Xom]

Wind Dude, on Nov 23 2005, 09:24 PM, said:

General community forums usually don't do that well from my observations.

http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/

'Nuff said.

[Max]

While it is an interesting idea, I'm not sure how well a MapleDatabase type site would work. For it to be effective, you have to have alot of people signed up so that new people will come and look around. So unless you know a couple hundred people who would be willing to buffer it initially, I don't know how well that would play out.

Just a general comment about content creation: Making sites for the GBA or older consoles (N64, PS1, and back) is easy because there are emulators for the PC which allow you to take screenshots, share save files, capture sprites or maps, etc. If we are to do a game on the Gamecube or any other recent or future console, we need somebody with a TV Tuner card in their computer. I have one, but I can't dedicate enough time or money to buy and play through the game a few times to capture everything. Just something to keep in mind.

[Sea of Time]

Legacy Systems forum, eh? I could do that too if you guys be hating on my Fire Emblem.

[Someone Else]

Zaffa Dot Xom, on Nov 24 2005, 06:13 AM, said:

http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/

'Nuff said.

Well, I wouldn't call that a general community forum. It still has a focus (games).

A general community forum looks more like this: http://www.discussanything.com/forums

But who's counting.

[Nemphtis]

Max, on Nov 24 2005, 12:54 PM, said:

While it is an interesting idea, I'm not sure how well a MapleDatabase type site would work. For it to be effective, you have to have alot of people signed up so that new people will come and look around. So unless you know a couple hundred people who would be willing to buffer it initially, I don't know how well that would play out.

Just a general comment about content creation: Making sites for the GBA or older consoles (N64, PS1, and back) is easy because there are emulators for the PC which allow you to take screenshots, share save files, capture sprites or maps, etc. If we are to do a game on the Gamecube or any other recent or future console, we need somebody with a TV Tuner card in their computer. I have one, but I can't dedicate enough time or money to buy and play through the game a few times to capture everything. Just something to keep in mind.

Well I don't have a TV Tuner card, and plus even if someone else other than Max did I personally wouldn't want to depend on that person to do the screen capturing related stuff for the site because I don't know how reliable they are. Max has made that whole fansite (with some help I'm sure) and so if he could do it my mind would be at rest but if there's one thing I hate it's people who say they will do something and ditch it halfway through like a pussy. So if anyone DOES have a TV Tuner which I doubt and WANT to help out then you better be sure what you're getting yourself into.

Why exactly do we need one anyway? We don't need sprites for one. Let's say for example we need screenshots for Baten Kaitos, there are tons of sites out there that have it, if we need walkthroughs we can just contact people from GameFAQ's and ask if we can put their Walkthrough up on our little site, as for Item guides and such, you don't really need images for that you can just provide descriptions. Personally I think the TV Tuner thing is more of an 'extra' of a requirement to make a good site.

[Max]

Anubis, I guess you are right to an extent, but successful sites have to have unique content. GSS wouldn't have survived the GS website boom if we didn't try hard to add content that the other sites didn't have. If you browse through GSS you will see just how many actual game graphics are incorporated in the site (there will be even more in the new version of GSS).

A HDTV Tuner card would allow high-resolution screen captures, which allows you to get crisp images, and is something most other websites wouldn't have. Sure, you can be a run-of-the-mill site using screenshots from other sites and FAQs from other sites, but where is the fun in that? Just something to think about.

[Lemontime]

It was said earlier, and it's not that small.
Advance wars.
Google got this; Results 1 - 10 of about 17,800,000 for Advance Wars..
Yeah.. Not amazingly small. The game itself (or atleast Dual Strike) is awesome. Fantastic. Suhweet.
So.. A suggestion of mine.. Is the Advance Wars Series.

[Nemphtis]

Max, on Nov 25 2005, 12:52 PM, said:

Anubis, I guess you are right to an extent, but successful sites have to have unique content. GSS wouldn't have survived the GS website boom if we didn't try hard to add content that the other sites didn't have. If you browse through GSS you will see just how many actual game graphics are incorporated in the site (there will be even more in the new version of GSS).

A HDTV Tuner card would allow high-resolution screen captures, which allows you to get crisp images, and is something most other websites wouldn't have. Sure, you can be a run-of-the-mill site using screenshots from other sites and FAQs from other sites, but where is the fun in that? Just something to think about.

Where can I find one of those HDTV Tuners anyhow, and how much do they normally cost? I want one for my personal use since some people don't believe my certain stats on some offline games.

Oh and Max, about the Maple Database idea, getting the first wave of users is very easy. Let's see, half of this forums active members regularly or sometimes play Maple Story, they can always do some in-game advertisement. Another thing is affilliation, I'm sure MapleTip.com, Sleepywood.net and hidden-street.net would glady affilliate with us and they get ALOT of hits so we'd have no problems attracting our first wave of members. I think it's a great idea to consider, I'd do it myself but I lack the coding skills or experience to make a website by myself. But I think if we can't come up with an agreement on which game to choose this Maple idea could be a great way to start off the 'network'.

There's a Market website that resembles Ebay dedicated to Maple Story buying/selling in-game items. the guys site started off little, but in a matter of week/months more and more people started to register and try and sell items and now the place is common place for many Maplers. I personallyt hink this idea cannot fail unless we don't put the effort in to make it work in the first place.

sibsag, on Nov 25 2005, 10:04 PM, said:

It was said earlier, and it's not that small.
Advance wars.
Google got this; Results 1 - 10 of about 17,800,000 for Advance Wars..
Yeah.. Not amazingly small. The game itself (or atleast Dual Strike) is awesome. Fantastic. Suhweet.
So.. A suggestion of mine.. Is the Advance Wars Series.

You know funny enough, that's not a bad idea at all. Why? The game is a huge hit, yet there are barely any websites out there that do a decent job of supporting it. There are two popular sites for the series I have found on Google, they are Wars World which is a crappy looking Gamespy-based fansite, and then there is http://www.awbunker.com/ which isn't half bad but I bet we could do better. We could cover Advance Wars ,Advance Wars 2, and Advance Wars DS and if we do it good enough, we can even try and cover the GameCube version but I forgot the name of it, they changed the name for the GC version for some reason.

So basically, Advance Wars is another good idea for a fansite we should add to our consideration list.

[Lemontime]

TV Tuner Cards;
I've done some research.. Or more so, looked at stuff on the UK ebay, for you. And on there they sell for about 10 pounds. I think.

Advance wars fansite;
I'd be happy to help with some content on an advance wars site.

[Max]

Advance Wars is a very good idea, sibsag. I used to play the first GBA version alot, and it is very addictive. I'm surprised there aren't more fansites for that, which is a good thing for us I guess.

About TV Tuner cards: regular (non-High Definition) TV "capture" cards are made by various companies. A google search turned up this very nice list of available cards with reviews of each: http://www.tv-cards.com/reviews.php. If you are going to spend the money, you might as well get an HD-compatible card so that you can get HD screen caps from the new consoles (360, PS3). I would personally buy the ATI HDTV Wonder, which runs about from $100-200 (link).

[Nemphtis]

Also, Sword of Mana could be another title to consider. There's news of a sequal too, and it's not a bad GBA RPG, another to add to the list of maybe's or is this a no-no?

[Sea of Time]

Sword of Mana was okay, there is an added bonus to choosing that one, rumour has it a sequel is on the way?!?

[Eugine]

What about Tales of Symphonia? I love that game and there's 2 games coming out. One for PS2 and PSP.

I have yet to beat the game since I took a break from GC games, so I would deffinetly not be a good staff so I guess I'm just suggesting.

[Nemphtis]

Sea_of_Time, on Nov 26 2005, 07:10 PM, said:

Sword of Mana was okay, there is an added bonus to choosing that one, rumour has it a sequel is on the way?!?

That's what I just ****ing said. B)

[Sea of Time]

Eugine, on Nov 26 2005, 03:43 PM, said:

What about Tales of Symphonia? I love that game and there's 2 games coming out. One for PS2 and PSP.

I have yet to beat the game since I took a break from GC games, so I would deffinetly not be a good staff so I guess I'm just suggesting.

Wasn't Tales of Phantasia supposed to come out on the GBA? NP has been putting that in their Game Watch for months. Did they pull back on that or something?

Anyways, I loved ToS, the story was great, and I think that would make a great fansite.

[Lemontime]

Who cares what a Magazine says? There are SO MANY magazines out there that are full to bursting with bull****. Please, nobody cares what NP says.

[Someone Else]

Don't they have DS emulators? Do they actually work? Could we use them for screenshots if we do any DS-game content?

I'd try some myself, but I'm currently using my grandmother's computer. It's not the greatest computer in the world, and I don't want to, you know, mess with it.

[Nemphtis]

My computer can just about manage a GBA Emulator so don't get me involved in that department.

So here's what I'm going to do, Max isn't making this site until he finished his latest and final version for the GSS site. This doesn't mean we sit here like dopes all day, I want everything planning-wise to be done by then so we can get on with the actual site.

To do this I'm going to put up the games that are most likely to turn out succesful. I won't put up my Maple idea since it doesn't seem others are as enthusiastic about it as me so fair enough. But Advance Wars, Baten Kaitos, Tales of... series, Sword of Mana, Shadow Hearts and Animal Crossing. Feel free to add any last minute sugestions, I won't make the Poll until tonight so you all still have time suggest anything extra. But any of the ideas listed already are good enough and even though we'll only be using one of them for now, I'm pretty sure another one of those listed will be used for our second fansite.

[Max]

Just to clarify what Anubis said: The new site won't be made until GSS v2 is completed (or almost completed). However, that doesn't mean that we have to wait for GSSv2 to be done. Before then we (you) can write content, create site designs, recruit staff, all those types of planning stages.

In about two weeks time I anticipate that I will be able to begin setting up the backend coding for this new site so that you all can start entering the content before we even finalize a design. Anubis has stepped up to a leadership role in all of this, so I will live him in charge of the planning for now. I will continue to monitor this and offer suggestions, but this will be your site, so you get to do all the fun work involved in making a website.

[Someone Else]

With that said, not that I have much authority in this, but I just want to remind you guys that if the game you suggested is chosen you need to help with the content for the site, as per Anubis' words. So remember not to chicken out if your site is chosen.

[Eugine]

Although I reccomended Tales of series, I specifically said I cannot help with content at the point in time. After all, it would be very weird to hire someone who haven't even beaten the game and don't intend to do for a while.

But, I'm sure alot of people have beaten it here, so no biggie.

[Nick Presta]

I second Advanced Wars. I only know of three AW communities and they suck.

One being, awrev.com. I hate the members there.

Also, I have a DS + AWDS and AW1+2.

[Golden Djinn13]

I third having an advance wars community B)

I love advance wars, especially the first one, and I haven't even seen an advance war
community, so like nick said ...they must suck.

[Nemphtis]

Here's a link to the vote. I'd apreciate it if a Mod moved it to this feedback forum. I only just figured out how to make polls on the latest version of IPB and it was a bit too late to change it by then. http://www.goldensun-syndicate.net/forum/i...?showtopic=7448

[Nemphtis]

I just got another idea for a fansite if anyone's interested. It's a PS2 series, Devil May Cry. DMC1 & DMC3 are excellent, and there's DMC4 on it's way for the PS3. The series is very popular and great fun yet there is only one fansite for it that's in English and it absalutely SUCKS (there is no content, just one of those spam competitions where you enter your Zip code for a free ______ and get spam mail) so this is another game we could consider.

[Golden Djinn13]

Devil May Cry is pretty cool, and it is popular. I still have to go with AW, though I really think thats the best idea for a fan site.

[Nemphtis]

AW is already gonna be done. I'm just presenting an option for after we are done with AW.

[Sea of Time]

sibsag, on Nov 26 2005, 06:19 PM, said:

Who cares what a Magazine says? There are SO MANY magazines out there that are full to bursting with bull****. Please, nobody cares what NP says.

Uhhh, yeah. I was talking about fact not opinion. Why would you bash a magazine on their fact?

[Lemontime]

Sea_of_Time, on Dec 3 2005, 05:14 PM, said:

Uhhh, yeah. I was talking about fact not opinion. Why would you bash a magazine on their fact?

My appologies for what I said. I don't know what I was on about. Sorry.

[Nemphtis]

Sea_of_Time, on Dec 3 2005, 10:14 PM, said:

Uhhh, yeah. I was talking about fact not opinion. Why would you bash a magazine on their fact?

If you claim Nintendo Power magazine has been putting the game on their 'Gamewatch' then yes, that could be a fact, I think Sibsaq assumed you were saying something that resembles "Nintendo Power gave it great reviews, so it's gonna be awesome since you can always trust the review from an official magazine, right?" that kind of thing.

[Sea of Time]

Anubis, on Dec 4 2005, 05:11 PM, said:

If you claim Nintendo Power magazine has been putting the game on their 'Gamewatch' then yes, that could be a fact, I think Sibsaq assumed you were saying something that resembles "Nintendo Power gave it great reviews, so it's gonna be awesome since you can always trust the review from an official magazine, right?" that kind of thing.

I could never trust scores given by that magazine. They've given every Nintendo published game 8.0 or higher out of 10 in the last two years. (Except for Geist, but that shouldn't count)

[Nemphtis]

That's why I was saying Sibsaq could have been pissed about that. The only good thing about official magazines is that they can sometimes provide you with something before other mags. For example, official xbox magazine gives a free playable demo disc every issue and other xbox mags don't have this, but review/content wise it kind of sucks. The only gaming mag I respect in this competetive world of gaming journalism is Edge. UK's best gaming mag ever, period.

[Neon]

I want you all to know AW is the best idea ever! :( I was going to go an Advance Wars site for a while, but I don't have AW2 and it's the sort of site that requires a group of people working on it, not just one.
I'l definately help out with this site. Keep in mind though that I just bought WoW (ie. I'm playing that 90% of my day :P) and I'm trying to make a fansite of my own...

This post has been edited by Neon: 05 December 2005 - 11:10 PM

[Nemphtis]

There's nothing to "keep in mind". If you say you will do something for the project, then do it. As long as you don't give false promises it's all good.

[Sea of Time]

If he does do the fansite, would we be able to add it to our "RPG Kingdom" thing we're working on here?

[Nemphtis]

This is all about that "RPG Kingdom" thing. EVERY Fansite we do will be added to the so called "RPG Kingdom" network. I will leave the real name of this network to Max though because seriously, RPG Kingdom is not only taken but is also extremely cheesy and lame and sound medieval'ish which I don't like personally. So Max, go get a name for this project.

Every fansite we make from this day on will be added to the network. Who knows, in a year if we're GOOD we can make about 10-12 fansites. That's if we're REAL good though. If we take it slowly but nicely we can finish a fansite for a non-RPG game in about 2 months, considering the genre and lifespan. Making for example a Halo fansite would mean the guides don'tneed much detail and there's not much to cover, but we'd still get alot of fans, but covering a fansite for say for example FF7 would require alot more guides and alot more detailed info since it's an RPG. I just personally hope all of our fansites aren't Nintendo games, I want to attract gamers of various tastes to this network, I don't want this to just be one huge meeting point for every Nintendo wh0re on the planet. I want some PS2 fanboys and some Xbox fanboys and even maybe some PC fanboys to hopefully someday all hang out on this forum.

[Julian]

Hm, pretty interesting stuff here =)
Unfortunately, it seems like i'm no longer part of the inner circle anymore *taps hat* so... yeah i got a question... will the fansites be managed by different individuals (multiple webmasters) or just by GSS (Max) itself and have the members create quality content? I've seen the topics and stuff and understand that the members will be contributing to this project but i just wasn't sure if there would be a group of staff for each site or just a huge one doing it all o_0

[Nemphtis]

Well, it's a mixture of both really. In some ways, it's all about ranks, and in other ways, there's no heirarchy. To try and explain the basic concept, Max will be the main admin, and he will manage the content we make and add it, but even so Max is making a program called Zephyr which basically lets our 'staff' add their content themselves without editing anything template or site related, they jsut submit the content and the content automatically suits itself to the template of the site, this saves time and effort for Max who is too busy making robotic dildo's at his cyborg creation club or something and it also saves time for our 'staff' who are stupid and thus this Zephyr will save them alot of confusion.

We will only be working on 1 website at a time, so once a website is completed there is no staff or webmaster for it. It's just a completed site. A completed site no longer requires any work from staff other than making sure the links are still working etc. so basically this is the basic concept of who rules the roost:

Max.
Content Providers.
That's it.

Anubis hopes this wasn't too confusing, as it was for him just to type this out while keeping a straight face and playing Pro Evo 5.

[Max]

Hey Julian, feel free to talk to me on MSN sometime, you are always welcomed to get the inside scoop of things after all the help you've given me over GSS's life span.

Anywho, let me just clarify/add on to what Anubis said:

Basically, I manage the server and write all the scripts that allow other people to add content to the site. Like Anubis said, I'm working on a content management system called Zephyr (not final name) that will allow people to add just raw content to the database which then gets processed and displayed as defined in templates.

That allows me to do the hard HTML work up front, and then people can add content without worrying about formatting it and keeping it consistent with the site look and feel. So once I invest the initial setup time, other people can add content to the site without having to go through me, which frees me to do other sites or projects. We will probably leave one or two people "in charge" of each individual site to post news, approve new content, etc.

P.S. If anyone has a cool name/alias for this script (called Zephyr for now), I'd love to hear suggestions via PM (do not post them in this thread).

[I'm Always BROKE]

So it's gonna be Advance Wars huh? Yea the game kinda intrests me so Im downloading it right now. It aint a bad choice I think. AW seems very populair and promising.

[Julian]

Heh, that sounds awesome.
I like the idea so far, but then it certainly takes away that proud feeling you get after building a site from absolute scratch. Yep, the good old days =p. If this idea can be carried out with close care, it'd to a LOT more than just keep this community alive. I'll check back more often to see if i can help in any way. It is winter vacation after all ^o^.

This post has been edited by Julian: 18 December 2005 - 08:45 PM

[Nemphtis]

Yeah, so we've established the game and we're establishing the staff. What should be move onto next? Let's get the planning sorted so when Max is ready we can get straight to work without more jiberish.

[Max]

Anubis, I would suggest starting by assigning people content to write/generate and have them put it into a Word (or just plain text) file and then you collect all the various documents. That way when my script is ready to go we can just do some copy-past work to input the content and not have to wait any longer than needed.

[Julian]

We'll probably need to round up everyone whos helping in some kind of chatroom so we can sort out our jobs and begin to start on the project.

This post has been edited by Julian: 21 December 2005 - 06:24 PM

[Nemphtis]

Chatroom would be near impossible to get everyone to attend. We either need a private forum for the 'staff' to do their planning or something else. But personally the best and most organised way is a private forum though.

[Elliott]

Doesn't need to be private. Everyone should get a look/say in the planning process regardless of whether they are on the staff.

[Julian]

Not 'everyone' needs to come to the discussion. Just set a time and date and the people who can make it can come, the rest, you can appoint them their jobs whever their available after we finish discussing how everything is going to be executed.
A thread/forum isn't a bad idea, except i find that a chatroom would make things run a lot quicker, the people are actually there and are waiting to reply rather than having to wait for them to actually log on and post a responce.

[Nemphtis]

There will be too many pointless posts if we make it public. It's better if only staff has access and this way we can surprise the people who don't have access to the section when the site is up.

[Eugine]

Um. Are you guys taking everyone who applied to become staff?

[Julian]

Eugine, on Dec 21 2005, 07:25 PM, said:

Um. Are you guys taking everyone who applied to become staff?

yeah, anyone who is willing to contribute to the project.
We are trying to figure out how we're going to assign people their jobs (what guides they'd like to do etc etc)

[Nemphtis]

If you check the other topic, half the people already pointed out what exactly they were willing to do. We'll need to get the major things done first, this being the informative content such as character, unit, and terrain information and basically all the small bits of info that a new player will want to know. This shouldn't take that long to do since the info is already there, we just need to write it in our own words. Then we can move onto guides, unit guides, mission guides, war room guides, and so on. Finally we can get some extra content done, which we can decide on later.

But anyhow, I think it's best if we had a private forum to discuss all site related things for the AW site and for every other future site.

[Someone Else]

Make the set time/date some time after the 25th, since some people (me XD) won't get Advance Wars UNTIL Christmas. So give them (me) a little more time so that they (I) can decide wether or not that they (I) would want to spend hours doing content or whatnot for a game that they may not even like.

[Mars Djinni]

Yeah, maybe give it a few days after Christmas. Who knows, maybe someone might misst heir chance because their on Vacation. I need time to work with Advance Wars, too come to think of it.

[Someone Else]

posting from my PSP right now, (since my dad is hogging the comp) so I'll make it quick.

I've got AWDS, and I think I'll help with some content stuff. I'd like to do a technique/strategy page, to help newbs place units strategically, attack effectively, etc. It's not a walkthrough, just a guide page.

[Lemontime]

I'd like to do a unit guide.. Yay!
If anyone needs me add me to MSN.
[email protected]

HOIGHT!
Also; From tomorrow to next friday I'll be on a holiday with some mates. To the beach :P

Sooo.. Contact me before then. It is now 11 AM and I'll probably get off at about.. 9-11 tonight.. ;D So you got untill then. Cya!

[Toasty64]

If I can I'll help with stuff like strategy and other stuff. I'd like to become a staff member. I have the 2nd And DS versions, Beat the second, almost beat the DS. I have good tips. If I'm going to be included, PM me.

This post has been edited by Toasty64: 24 February 2006 - 05:58 PM