Civ5 Stories and Let's Plays?

[Sparthage]

Recently it seems that you guys changed the traditional "Stories & Tales" title for the Civ5 S&T to a Civ5 Stories and Let's Plays.

I personally am not too thrilled about this new set-up, and was wondering why you decided to make the change. I would think that setting up a subforum would do the same thing as the new tag system, only without the somewhat ugly look of seeing the word "Story" in front of half the threads.

 

[The_J]

The discussion has been here, and a link to it had been in the S&T section as well.
@subform: There are just not enough threads.

 

[Sparthage]

Huh, well I almost never go in the Strategy forums for Civ5 so i wouldn't have seen that. As to there not being enough threads, wouldn't that only be temporary? Since LPs are added fairly regularly the subforum would grow to a normal size eventually. After all, there are other tiny subforums in existance, like the CivRev S&T, Civ5 Succession Games, and some of the subforums in the Other Games section.

 

[The_J]

Huh, well I almost never go in the Strategy forums for Civ5 so i wouldn't have seen that.

and a link to it had been in the S&T section as well.

As to there not being enough threads, wouldn't that only be temporary? Since LPs are added fairly regularly the subforum would grow to a normal size eventually.

Define temporary. Civ5 has been out for more than a year. I don't think the amount of threads will now surprisingly rise.

After all, there are other tiny subforums in existance, like the CivRev S&T, Civ5 Succession Games, and some of the subforums in the Other Games section.

These other subforums had been created prior to the threads and the popularity could not be estimated before. Some would probably not have been created if it was known that not many threads would be created.
In case of the LPs we know the amount, and we can say beforehand that a new subforum would be pretty dead. That's why we didn't really think about it.

 

[Sparthage]

Define temporary. Civ5 has been out for more than a year. I don't think the amount of threads will now surprisingly rise.

Temporary would mean that over time it would increase in size, but I see your point.

In case of the LPs we know the amount, and we can say beforehand that a new subforum would be pretty dead. That's why we didn't really think about it.

Okay, so maybe a subforum wouldn't be the best idea, but I'd still rather see an index than dozens of new tags appear. Mainly it's the whole "Story" tag that annoys me. It seems useless to have the tag in a forum designed specifically to have stories posted in it.

So if that confused you, here's what I think:
1) The "Story" tag is redundant as it is in a stories forum.
2) The "Story" tag should be removed.
3) Keep the "LP" and "VidLP" tags, but put them in brackets like "[LP]" or "[VidLP]"
4) Maybe add an index of LPs to that new sticky you have there.

 

[The_J]

1/2) we want to have this tag to clearly separate these threads from the rest.
You'll now say if they are the only ones without prefix, then they'll be separated. I understand that, you'd think so, but try it and set the filter to "no prefix", and you'll see that there's a big amount of threads around which don't fall into any category. So having no prefix is not enough for a distinction.

3) is that normal for the other tags?

4) we went for prefixes to avoid having a list. Because maintaining a list is a damn big annoyance.

 

[Maniacal]

Stories & Tales is much easier to pronounce than Stories & Let's Plays, actually I have never liked the word "let's" for that reason, it totally breaks the flow of the beautiful English language. Let's Plays are a story/tale too, so I don't see why LP's can't just be in there. I highly doubt the name change is really going to encourage them as that seems rather a lot like some other idealistic expectations that have never truly happened around here.

 

[The_J]

The name change was just made for clarity.
LPs have before mainly been in the strategy forum, some in GD, and some in S&T.
With the name change we wanted to make it clear to where they belong to.

 

[Camikaze]

One of the concerns was that people would not know where to go to find LPs; a popular attraction of the forums. Without a forum name change, it would be very unclear. Now it isn't. Prefixes were deliberately implemented in preference to an index or tags for the reasons The_J described.

 

[Sparthage]

1/2) we want to have this tag to clearly separate these threads from the rest.
You'll now say if they are the only ones without prefix, then they'll be separated. I understand that, you'd think so, but try it and set the filter to "no prefix", and you'll see that there's a big amount of threads around which don't fall into any category. So having no prefix is not enough for a distinction.

Not that many threads are untagged now, just around 100 or so, and a lot of those were moved to other forums. I actually wasn't going to say what you thought I would. If you removed the Stories tags, those tagged as a story would still be at the top.

3) is that normal for the other tags?

It is in the Civ3 forums. Ours are [C3C], [PTW], and [Vanilla].

4) we went for prefixes to avoid having a list. Because maintaining a list is a damn big annoyance.

But there wouldn't be that many new threads, as you said earlier, so maintaining it wouldn't really be a problem. The problem would be putting it together in the first place. I could probably make it if you didn't want to do it (We need a new index anyways).

 

[The_J]

Not that many threads are untagged now, just around 100 or so, and a lot of those were moved to other forums. I actually wasn't going to say what you thought I would. If you removed the Stories tags, those tagged as a story would still be at the top.

There are currently 130 non tagged threads (partially redirects) in the S&LP section, which is nearly 50% of the whole forum. So i have to disagree here. You just see more of the "Story" threads on the first page, so the impression might be wrong here.

It is in the Civ3 forums. Ours are [C3C], [PTW], and [Vanilla].

mmhh...okay, see it. Will ask the admins if they can add the brackets.

But there wouldn't be that many new threads, as you said earlier, so maintaining it wouldn't really be a problem. The problem would be putting it together in the first place. I could probably make it if you didn't want to do it (We need a new index anyways).

If you can maintain the list, then you're totally welcome .

But please believe me: Maintaining is a pain.
I made a list for some of the subforums in Civ4 C&C, and I always forget to update them. And it's not so that we get dozens of new modpacks every day.
It's certainly a subjective thing (it's at the end sure not less work), and maybe it's only me, but since it's subjective for the people who'll have to deal with it, it was the main point here.

 

[Sparthage]

There are currently 130 non tagged threads (partially redirects) in the S&LP section, which is nearly 50% of the whole forum. So i have to disagree here. You just see more of the "Story" threads on the first page, so the impression might be wrong here.

I guess your definition of "around" is different from mine. I was just eyeballing it and guessing on the number. But still, just 275 or so threads is easier to go through than say the 1,500+ we have in the Civ3 S&T.

mmhh...okay, see it. Will ask the admins if they can add the brackets.

Yeah, I think that the brackets would improve the look of the tags. It just seems weird right now.

If you can maintain the list, then you're totally welcome .

But please believe me: Maintaining is a pain.
I made a list for some of the subforums in Civ4 C&C, and I always forget to update them. And it's not so that we get dozens of new modpacks every day.
It's certainly a subjective thing (it's at the end sure not less work), and maybe it's only me, but since it's subjective for the people who'll have to deal with it, it was the main point here.

Yeah, I know that maintaining can be a pain (I've GM'd a couple of games). So I'll try to make the list with the basic division (Stories, LPs, VidLPs), and then divide it even further into stuff like Forum Games (like Realpolitik), Anarchy Games, Always War, etc.

Or maybe I could just make one for stories, and one for LP-like threads? Do you have a preference? The reason they would be seperate would be to make it easier to find the specific types than scrolling through the first page or so.

And one of those random ideas that I come up with every now and then would be to create a War Academy article with a generic list of threads that could be viewed as examples.

 

[Sparthage]

And an update on my progress:

Stories & Tales: Done
Realpolitiks, Anarchy Games, Interactive AARs, and other Forum Games: Done
Video Lets Plays: Currently Working On
Lets Plays: Next Up.

 

[MadDjinn]

To be clear though:

There was a link in the Stories section for over a week. We had plenty of feedback on it, and it was considered a good plan.

 

[The_J]

hey, we still consider it a good plan!

Or maybe I could just make one for stories, and one for LP-like threads? Do you have a preference? The reason they would be seperate would be to make it easier to find the specific types than scrolling through the first page or so.

I think one thread might be enough (don't want to have tons of stickies, considering that we'll get at least one other).
But having a clickable index at the beginning (like e.g. for the war academy threads) would be a good idea .

And one of those random ideas that I come up with every now and then would be to create a War Academy article with a generic list of threads that could be viewed as examples.

?
As examples for what?

 

[Sparthage]

As examples for what?

Examples probably wasn't the best word choice, but as links to other advice providers.

 

[The_J]

mmhh...do you mean a list of other threads, which might be worth to read?

 

[Sparthage]

Basically, yeah.

 

[The_J]

Will be considered if we see enough worthwile threads .

 

[Sparthage]

That's okay. Like I said, just a random idea.

And my progress on the Index:
I'm done compiling the thread links, and am now working on little summaries for each one.