What changes (if any) would you like to see in Civ4 GOTMs?

[DizzKneeLand33]

I'm one that has played off and on for years here with the GOTM. Part of my issue was when playing on a laptop the game itself would sometimes randomly crash, creating issues (apparently) with verifying my results. The good news is that I have a new desktop computer so I'm going to try some of these and hope that is no longer an issue!

There is some interesting discussion above about HOF competition versus the GOTM. To me, both are great and yet very different. The HOF competition involves "rolling" a good map and so forth, whereas in the GOTM we all start the same, allowing for a different type of discussion. But, what truly differentiates (or can) the GOTM from the HOF is when the GOTM has unique features, such as the Sampo challenge. That was a fun one (there have been others, but that one will always be dear to my heart ).

Is it difficult to put in unique items in each game? I've never tried to edit Civ IV maps before, but when you guys do that it's a lot of fun.

Also, call me old school, but there are components of BTS that are okay but can be annoying as well. I like all of the versions, and when I'm playing a game on my own I usually choose Warlords now, but all of the games are fun. And, I think that Steam sells them all as a packaged deal anyway, so I don't think players would be limited by not having one of the versions. Just playing BTS games would bore me after a while....

Sorry for the rambling. Thank you all for your hard work in making this a great site!

 

[Folket]

I'm late to the party but I approve of the changes. But I would also second the suggestion to sticky less threads. At the moment the forum is very cluttered.

Perhaps just have spoiler/results threads stickied for 10 days and only leave game announcement stickied for a whole month.

 

[Seraiel]

The spoiler threads don't need to be sticky at all. What needs to be sticky are threads like the rules, generation information and the congratiulations-thread imo. should be sticky just to honor the winners. This leaves a handful of threads. As it is now, basically every single thread is sticky and the normal forum doesn't get used at all ^^ .

 

[Folket]

That is an excellent point. Theads that are in use will end up at the top of the normal forum anyhow.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

While it is a different approach from other forums on this site, I find the current process to be incredibly convenient. What happens is that a player may be active for a time, then gets busy, then comes back after a couple of months. That player can then rest assured that some kind Moderators have been busily ensuring that the currently-active threads have been stickied, so the player knows right where to look for the games that are in progress.

It's been this way for so long that it is ingrained into the heads of many of the players here to only look at the stickied threads and only if the player has extra time on their hands might that player scroll down to the non-stickied threads. This trend is apparent from the lack of responses in non-stickied threads, which has been a consistent situation for years.

Yes, we do have a few additional stickied threads these days, but it's important for them to be stickied, so that when players come back, they can easily find the new permanently-stickied threads, such as the schedule, how to play on Win 10, etc. If anything, though, with these additional important stickied threads, the current approach becomes even more convenient and useful, as most of us players do not even need to scroll down past the several sticky threads that many of us have already read but are either good references when we need them (expansion pack gameplay differences) or are necessary to have around for any players that come back or for new players that come aboard, since all of the threads that the regulary-active players want to read tend to stay at the very top of the list, above those useful-to-have-as-stickied-threads that don't need to be read on a regular basis, without having to scroll down past them every time when loading the page.


In other forums, my eyes glaze over the stickied threads. In this forum, my eyes only tend to look at the stickied threads and only when I have plenty of time to kill do I bother to scroll down to the non-stickied threads.

 

[lymond]

Personally, I don't find the stickies that big of a deal. yeah it is a tad cluttered, but I have no problem finding what I'm looking for. I guess I'm used to it.

One idea, or actually two, to maybe help alleviate some of the confusion is:

a) Create a sub-forum for GOTM admin/help threads..i.e., anything not related to in-process GOTM games

b) Create one GOTM intro/help thread with the "blah blah" and links to admin/help threads (edit: Actually, the "Welcome" thread could serve this purpose, although may need a new one to make changes to OP unless mods can do that)

(or...not create the sub-forum and just unsticky those threads but link them in the single GOTM intro/help thread.)

Of course, there may be an occasional special announcement or discussion topic, but it be unstickied promptly once it served its purpose

I count at least 6 or 7 threads that would drop off if this was implemented.

Plus, the Results and Congrats thread should probably drop off after at least a week or two.

 

[Pangaea]

The threads I think should be sticked are the ones it sounds like you want to remove: the ones with rules, schedule and the like. I don't see why the various spoiler and announcement threads should be sticked. There are absolute heaps of them, and it makes the whole forum cluttered. Dhoomstriker makes a good point, but I don't see how that would be any different if the forum had a handful of actually important sticky threads, and the rest was just below them. They're active threads anyway, so are bound to be near the top.

One could always sticky the announcement of new games for a week or two if needed, so it gets more exposure, but I don't think all the spoiler threads should be stickied.

Ultimately it's not a very big deal, but it does make this sub forum much more cluttered than the others.

 

[Seraiel]

I agree with Pangaea and Dhoomstriker's explanation imo. shows how illogical the GOTM-forum is, because the standard is that those threads are sticky that are needed again and again and again and again for years and years and 'til the end of time, and because those would get burried but because they're so important that users not used to searching a forum effectively will still find them easily they're sticky.

All of the spoiler threads, the announcement threads, all of those are threads that are only important for a very limited amount of time and users are used to exactly not read the stickies unless they seek general information like rules or help and the result of all the spoiler-threads being sticky is, that some exceptional (and also high quality) threads don't even get recognized anymore, because the 1st page of the forum is nothing but stickies.

The argument that this behaviour would be helpful is imho illogical for me, because the important threads, the ones that are currently active will always be on top, so it doesn't matter if they're sticky or if they're the top normal threads, but the non-spoiler and non-announcement threads that are also currently active get lost in the process because they get burried below tons of sticky threads and people don't even recognize them because they already expect that everything that is even of minor importance will get made sticky .

Seriously:

Everlasting thread = sticky
Currently active thread = will be at the top anyhow
Old thread = gets burried automatically

I know this is redundant but this is what is now:

Everlasting thread = doesn't get noticed because it's only 1/20 stickies
Spoiler / Announcement thread = hard to find for any normal user because he wouldn't search them below the stickies, also illogical and superflous to make threads sticky that would be on top anyhow
Currently active thread = doesn't get recognized because burried under tons of stickies and the experienced users don't even look for them anymore
Old thread = Not even findable via the search function or even manuallay

What would help with the last would be an "archive" sorts of forum where all announcement and spoiler threads that are old get moved to (or a decent search function) .

 

[Pangaea]

(or a decent search function) .

Now there's a thought... Don't want to think about how many times I've tried to search for something, and the search function tells me the word(s) used are too short or too common, so it can't be arsed to even try. Try something more complex so the search function will at least search, and you get 2 hits from 1998 or something. Or seemingly every thread ever created.

 

[leif erikson]

What would help with the last would be an "archive" sorts of forum where all announcement and spoiler threads that are old get moved to (or a decent search function) .

Want to find things, just go here.

 

[Seraiel]

Want to find things, just go here.

That doesn't help me, if I want to find something that a player wrote in BOTM xx several years ago, and if I don't know which BOTM that was but only roughly still remember what the topic about which he wrote was, neither manual search nor the forum search function will help me.

What would help would be updating this vBulletin to the newest version, because vBulletin created amazingly good search-functions in the years after the version of this board (as far as I can see version 2.xx) .

 

[DynamicSpirit]

After some consideration of the discussion in this thread, the GOTM staff have decided experimentally to unstick the spoiler threads - so only game announcement, results, and essential admin threads will be stickied.

We'll see how that goes before deciding whether or not to make that change permanent.

May also be worth reminding people that you can get to all threads for current games from the GOTM Server Home Page - just look for the main link for the game you're interested in in the list of current games, and you'll find links to the forums threads for that game there.

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks for that change; here's hoping it's a success and it becomes permanent. Think the forum already looks better now, and people should still easily find the spoiler threads, as they'll be on top among the 'normal' threads.

 

[Seraiel]

Thx .