Modcraft - The community dedicated to quality WoW modding!
Community => General => Topic started by: Steff on July 25, 2015, 07:26:07 am
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As I heard some people are not happy with some parts of our community. I want to start here a collection thread to make it better. I found it realy surprising that people dont like some stuff.
And because people seam to dislike some parts of the project but dont ask me to make it better, i want to start here and ask you.
What do you want.
What do we need on Modcraft.
What could we do to bring wow modding back again to more activity.
Hope to get much feedback from your side :)
Greatings Steff
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Summery of posted and planed stuff:
- Structure of the board is bad. Stuff is hard to find. We need to rework it.
-- Moderated tutorials overview page
-- Same for resources or an own database for such stuff in the future.
- Change host to get our domain modcraft.io as fixed one and more possibilities for tech stuff.
- Portal page with blog and best new media content
- Shout box or IRC integration on main or portal page
- Get our domain modcraft.io fixed and more possibility’s for tech stuff.
- Expanding the tutorial with general needed stuff.
- Create a tutorial request board. Perahaps where every request is a poll. So tutorial writers can see what the community needs most.
- Version tags and tags more in general.
- Active moderation team controll the rules and help.
- Contests.
- DONE: Merge Showoff boards to one on top layer.
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What I don't like about Modcraft is the only one thing - its sometimes pretty hard to actually find here what you are just (not) looking for. And no, Search function doesn't solve this at all.
More important for me is also fact that sometimes you are not entirely sure what the hell you are looking for. There are plenty of cool releases around, for instance, and nearly noone knows about all of them - and so only a few of members put them into use, while if everyone knew about all releases ever released here, most of them would be used by far, far more users.
Tutorials are the same thing. When nearly ALL beginners ask the SAME questions, there just MUST be something wrong. Tutorials are either not visible enough for them or too long for them to bother reading them. Short FAQ wouldn't hurt. I also never found where the hell is that sticky with 132 error codes. I always had to use search to find that damned topic.
So, overall, Modcraft forum is very, very confusing, a place where a lot of things are actually pretty hard to find, especially when you are new to it. About community... well, I never had any big problem with that at all. I am happy to share my experience here and also happy to read or download something made by someone more experienced than me. Its a good exchange and I enjoy that its possible here.
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Hi !
I'm kind of new here, so I still remember well my complete-newb stage. I agree with Amaroth about the issues he highlighted in the design of the site. Things are hard to find.
I don't have any problem with the Modcraft community itself, people seem friendly... Maybe one could argue there is not enough people or something like that but really I don't see any issue.
To fix these problems, you might consider moving from this old phpBB version you use. That would also surely improve the aesthetic which currently looks a bit 2005ish.
What is superparanoid ? If that's a free hosting, what powers do you have over the site ?
I checked and the domain modcraft.com seems to be available =) !
Anyway don't take this as a negative criticisim against you or anyone working here. I like Modcraft a lot and I thank you for the efforts you put into it.
EDIT : Hmm, about bringing more people, I don't know, maybe put on the main page screenshots of nice looking edits ? You know that "new expansion feeling" you get when Blizzard presented new places ? That's appealing I think. But again, there is no proper main page, so it would also require to move out from phpBB.
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@Amaroth
I am with you. We need to rework the structure of modcraft heavy. Even I search stuff I KNOW I have seen it already. It took often much time to refined it again. Searched the 132 post also many times
The sub boards for tutorials are really not good. I think we should do one tut board AND a moderated index page where all tuts are listed. I only don’t get it why people often don’t see the start tutorial and use it
My plan for the future is a content database to search and find resources and tools. With a tag system and better search. It also should make it easier to share and find models and stuff.
Nice that you like the community.
@spik96
We are on 3.0…. 3.1 is current. And the problem with it is that they changed the plugin system. So old modes just don’t work anymore. Also they need 6 years to get from 3.0 to 3.1. But the changes are not so big.
I think about changing the forum system. But all possible boards out there are not really that good….
The aesthetic is taste I think :). But I will do a poll about it and if it is really such a big point a change is possible.
Superparanoid is the main domain from the root we host in the moment. Our domain is modcraft.io and we soon will erase this superpranoid thing fully. The host was offered us for free from a friend and we have full access. But the hoster made some problems in the past that’s why we will move soon to a new one. There we can do again stuff like a shout box what many people want to have. Or an IRC connection direct on main page. We will see. I dislike the fact that there is one skype, irc and if we do it a shout box for one community. Cuts all in pieces.
Beside this. What features do you think are missing?
I don’t take something fast as bad critics. I am always happy if people come and tell me what they think. But sometimes I have not the same opinion :)
We plan to have a moderated blog and a new nice image/movie thing on a portal page. This will get the start page but people will also be able to direct link to forum if they don’t like start pages.
This blog will post new posts also in different social media channels. Also a newsletter will try to re motivate older members and give them an overview every month or 2 monthly.
I think there are not to less people. The main problem is that wow modding is not the easiest thing to do in free time. Doing creative and technical stuff can motivate and give fun. But to get good or really finish a project you need a long breath. I often see people come and go again fast after they have done some stuff because they recognize it is much work.
I try to get Maruum to work now for years and it is not easy to get people to work. And the other stay in the project till they are able to do something.
Beside this technical stuff we will also expand the team to do stuff like news, interviews and so on.
I will collect the ideas in the main post. To give other readers an overview.
Thanks to both of you!!!
And others? :) POST
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My issues, which I realise you already list in your summary, are currently:
1) Domain. The domain doesn't give us any search engine presence. It's also not 'professional' (subdomain of a unrelated domain to the site). Domains are cheap as hell. Cromon purchased Modcraft.io. Let's make a switch to a proper one.
2) Hosting. The current free hosting is unstable in the fact that it is being provided out of generosity. We don't know how long it will last. We don't know if we will get notice before it goes away. It stops us having some features (shoutbox). I don't know if regular backups are being made (attachment issues in the past).
Solutions?
Well 1) is easy to fix. It's just choosing in who's name you want to purchase it and what domain to use. Again, modcraft.io is already purchased by Cromon.
How to fix 2? Community funded? Can't see another way really. Would we raise enough donations? I don't know. I'd contribute some every month if it meant the site improved. We could have moved back to OC and restructured the sections (merge ME & Emu, add/remove subforums) but Steff wants to keep Modcraft away from the hacking and exploiting side of things (fair enough).
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What do you want.
What do we need on Modcraft.
What could we do to bring wow modding back again to more activity.
1) >3.3.5 Content
2) >3.3.5 Content
3) >3.3.5 Content
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What do you want.
What do we need on Modcraft.
What could we do to bring wow modding back again to more activity.
1) >3.3.5 Content
2) >3.3.5 Content
3) >3.3.5 Content
See I disagree with this. Almost everything is known about 3.3.5a and we have an emulator better than we could ever ask for. So you can do almost anything with this patch. It's the best patch to customise.
Higher patches means more game functionality and better graphics but the emulators are a long way off and the game is a lot more complicated and thus harder to do stuff with.
People seem to not realise that right now is the best the emulation/ME scene has ever been. The content is off a higher quality than it ever has been before.
Sure, back in TBC we had far more people active within the scene. But the quality of content was shockingly bad. Servers were unstable as hell. Etc.
The fact is the barriers to entry these days are very hard - you can't just jump in and do stuff like a normal game engine. You have to learn WoW, all these systems and how everything is put together, and somehow be able to modfiy that. It takes a lot of commitment to produce content these days, and this is why we don't have tons of people.
WoW is a hobbie - not many actual programmers/modelers/etc are actually attracted to this market. It is very niche. Most of us are amateurs trying to have fun. It makes it hard.
Furthermore, you can't change the fact WoW is a dying game, and as retail becomes less popular so will the interest in private servers. There will always be a niche for private servers, but that will be small compared to previous populations.
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Wotlk is easier, more stable, and a good environnement for modding, i totally agree with you, but wrath of the lich King was the official version from 2008 to 2010.
In my mind, modders have to follow the players, not the reverse.
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In my mind, modders have to follow the players, not the reverse.
Exactly, I see all this cool amazing content that never gets used because everyone is off playing higher expansion servers.
But anyway, I do think we should get a better website. Who even owns superparanoid.de?
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In my mind, modders have to follow the players, not the reverse.
Exactly, I see all this cool amazing content that never gets used because everyone is off playing higher expansion servers.
But anyway, I do think we should get a better website. Who even owns superparanoid.de?
Again, I disagree. Make a good server and the players will come. All these projects are shit quality or never finished.
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But 3.3.5 graphics look like vomit for me, after playing WoD a lot.
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Here are my opinions:
- 1. A better website, not just a forum.
- 2. A easier way for newcomers to understand what's around.
- 3. More detailed tutorials.
- 4. Easier way to find tools.
- 5. A better search function.
1. I think the most important thing is the website and the atmosphere. One of the greatest thing around is that we can see other people progress, which is motivational. I think a homepage would come in handle, where people would actually have quick access to the Tools, Tutorials and others.
2. I think the most problematic thing for a newcomer is to understand what's going on. They heard from a friend that it is possible to get a new HD character model into 3.3.5. They will come around, and of course they will make a new thread asking how instead of searching. They won't even know we call it Retro-porting and others. A detailed tutorial about almost everything would be amazing.
3. I've seen a lot of tutorials which are not really newcomers-friendly. I know sometimes it's a pain the ass to explain something step-by-step, but we shall do it no matter what.
4. Oh, the tools. I think we shall have easier access to them. Going on the 6th page of Resources and Tools thread for a tool is a lot of time wasted.
5. Am I the only one around having problems with searching things around? I always have to go to the 3-4th pages to find exactly what I'm looking for.
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(https://33.media.tumblr.com/7d4f135e5d9ceaed3b931fbd813845ba/tumblr_nabibgSdm41sidx5ko2_500.gif)
As one of our favorite orcs said..
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"Make a good server and the players will come. All these projects are shit quality or never finished."
I agree with this one, people here should stop doing their solo projects and start working more on a greater projects like Maarum was, that's a big problem in here I think
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"Make a good server and the players will come. All these projects are shit quality or never finished."
I agree with this one, people here should stop doing their solo projects and start working more on a greater projects like Maarum was, that's a big problem in here I think
The problem is that not everyone have the same interests. People might have some ideas on how to run the game that might be drastically different then how others might run theirs. Not everyone meets eye to eye.
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I can understand that, but then there should be made a compromise, so people will have no problems with that concept
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the most new posts hit on already spotted probems.
host will change the nexts weeks. modcraft.io is then the only main domain.
the version is a tast thing and depends on what you do. rp servers or projects like maruum that dont care about blizzlike working scripts are good on wod. wotlk seams to be more stable then wod if you do a blizzlike server.
for me wod is the way to go. and modcraft should also cover this 2 versions.
about tutorials . yes it would be nice to have more good tutorials. at this point the community is in charge.
i can not handle it alone to do all ;)
creating a workgroup to rework or create new parts for the beginners guide in his given style would be a nice thing.
as written is an static content page planed to give informations to get better into the scene and easyer find informations.
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You can consider me a forum lurker here on Modcraft -- I also frequent Ownedcore and Ac-Web and have lurked and seldom contributed on those for several years, although I do experiment and make content in my freetiime myself, I rarely develop anything that's noteworthy due to my novice skill.
I posted this in another section originally, but here goes:
The problem with Modcraft is, I feel there are no serious compiled guides or tutorials for the brand new modder. in one case when starting out -- I even had to pay for a private session on skype to learn some basics. So, let me explain why Modding is so caged and hard to get into right now:
A lot of the developers on Modcraft, Ownedcore and Ac-web that are actually REALLY good at what they develop by themselves rarely write any guides, tutorials or documentation for their work. I'm not saying that's true of "Every single" developer, but it happens a lot.
What I'm saying is; the vast majority of content posted here on Modcraft, Ownedcore or Ac-Web has very little context attached with it. I'd go as far as to say, A 'Release' is like a Code-dump on StackOverflow, it's a piece of content that people can use (steal) with no context attached.
And, How can you possibly effectively use and learn from content, nevermind, understand the context of content if none is given? You may say 'General programming/etc/etc knowledge' and that's fine, but for the majority of noob modders they don't have this same experience as some of the veterans on here.
The prime reason why Veteran Developers don't want to share content is because developers don't want noobs stealing their content and refactoring it. and that definitely happens, So let's analyse that problem logcially, we have a bunch of morons in the model swapping section of Ownedcore asking for free swaps. And you know what? I'm certain MOST of those people would simply VANISH or someone would APPEAR to post solutions for them if there actually were just 'a few' decent guides available that were kept up to date and kept up to current practice.
How can anyone seriously expect people to learn new things and try things out for themselves (even simple, basic things in an experts eyes) when there are no good entry point tutorials or guides? We are progressive, but nowhere near enough. Modcraft has plenty of worldbuilding guides, but not so much on cinematic creation, quest designing, mob pathing, custom models, DBC editing, porting or other important content creation.
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The crux of my point here, is that, not every noob modder has the time to strip back WoW by themselves and figure it out by themselves, and logically, it doesn't even make sense for people to really do this in 2015, when the wheel has already been established for almost a decade. I'm not saying there should be an 'engine' but some serious wealth of textual walkthrough would seriously help our community as a whole, we'd get waves of new curious modders trying their own hand.
If I've learnt anything from the Modcraft community, it's that very skilled individuals will take and have took the time to learn to craft unique things, and these people are the pillars of our community, we have awesome stuff like Fallout models ported into WoW, water shaders in 3.3.5, backporting of everything from weapons to entire zones, custom world objects. but are there any guides, for any of this? Not really.
Tl;dr
To Conclude, There is no shared 'library' on Modding Sites there is no requirement nor incentive to document or post helpful guides, no common goal, no discouraging theft. Modcraft is composed of solo developers in their own corners doing their own thing and showing their albeit awesome custom content when they have the time, but they give zero context, and alas, people can't learn.
In short, we need LESS 'release' MORE 'guide & tutorial'
LESS 'hand out' and 'MORE 'learn it from me"
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The problem with Modcraft is, I feel there are no serious compiled guides or tutorials for the brand new modder. in one case when starting out -- I even had to pay for a private session on skype to learn some basics. So, let me explain why Modding is so caged and hard to get into right now:
And what did you learn ? What were the things you did not understand at first ? The type of files there is in the WoW client ? How to edit them ? How to make an MPQ to put them ingame ? That's really the most important information. It's kind of hard to put yourself at a lower level of knowledge because you tend to forget what were the things you did not know.
I think a lot of basic tutorials do exist. But when people come and see something cool, they look for a tutorial, and when they find it, if they can't understand it they are lost. I think a solution would be, on the top of every tutorial, indicate the list of required tutorials to know before starting this one.
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And what did you learn ? .
I was focusing on learning 1.12.1 content creation technique, mainly revolved around the addition of updated models, quests/cinematics and zones.
most of the posters I found that posted 1.12.1 content frequently didn't really give helpful posts, despite a plethora of posters asking for their methodologies, and 3.3.5 posters seemed pretty established with guides and tutorials almost everywhere.
In short, I invested a lot of time into learning, and tools people were using were removed, guides were linear and only focused on the very basic creation technique. After months of effort I eventually made some edits which were buggy (since I was backporting Blood Elf's to 1.12.1), and nobody really had helpful solutions.
What were the things you did not understand at first ?.
When I started I was unfamiliar with WoW's file system, but that became incredibly simple within a few months, DBC edits I found challenging, but there were guides there for this and it got simplier. Things I still do not understand go beyond the basics, and nobody really has these in-depth guides I've been requesting. Like I've said before, everything from worldbuilding to level design, quest creation and 3d modeling, everything is vague and there's no serious guides out there.
That's really the most important information. It's kind of hard to put yourself at a lower level of knowledge because you tend to forget what were the things you did not know.
I think a lot of basic tutorials do exist. But when people come and see something cool, they look for a tutorial, and when they find it, if they can't understand it they are lost. I think a solution would be, on the top of every tutorial, indicate the list of required tutorials to know before starting this one
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You're right.
And that's what I'm requesting. A "Tutorial Book" that EVERYONE contributes too, everyone helps design, and then we can all use it as a standard practice, and new modders can go directly to the book as a point of reference. Not scattered all over every WoW forum in existence.
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A Tutorial Book is a good idea, but in most cases that I can think of, it would turn out horribly. If I've learned anything from my experiences, it's that most of the people who seem to be writing tutorials (at-least the ones I've read) have done a piss-poor job at explaining things. Although this is mainly because most of them aren't native English speakers/typers, I assume.
If something like that was going to be done, then get people who can type it up in a solid and easy to understand way which covers most bases. It'd be pointless to type up anything when half of the tutorial is going to be a jumbled, confusing, mess that's hardly readable causing the reader to go through hours or experimentation to essentially re-discover what the tutorial was actually trying to teach.
Even I'm pretty bad at typing up my tutorials, but I can at-least write them in a way that most people, from what I've heard, can understand them and learn what the tutorial teaches.
/rant
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A tutorial will always be tied to the one single goal of the tutorial and will rarely give insight into what is actually happening. They rarely focus on important stuff but rather list completely absurd things, emphasize on wrong parts, and that is far from a modcraft issue. What you seek is not tutorials but documentation. The good part: the documentation on file formats is pretty extensive, even though I still feel pretty alone with doing it and a lot of people don't document their findings. The bad part: while we need documentation, we need semantic documentation. That part exists next to not at all. There is implicit knowledge all around, also in tutorials. I guess that is what people would need most. The other issue is that people always think there are good tools, while there aren't. On the model swap example: that task can be 100% automated, and back in 2009 I did. Most tutorials can be automated. The weird backporting havkery? Automate-able, with less bugs even. As soon as someone sits down to write a tutorial, that time is better spent in just automating the task. This does not work for creative tasks of course, but those aren't really tutorials to begin with. There is no real reason to upload multiple gigabytes of models "ported" to some version instead of just the tool used for it. Even more, the tool used is probably bugged and the whole bunch of data is just worthless due to some shitty bug.
I'm not entirely sure what I'm typing up here, and I'm even sober, but I guess the gist is: less tutorials, more documentation, more semantic documentation, more tools/technical write ups instead of releases and tutorials. Also, technical documentation often trumps blabbering people in shitty YouTube videos. Please, stop with the god damn videos, unless you're painting or whatever. Don't, just please don't. Write your 5 minute video in a clearly structured paragraph of text.
Tldr: be precise, write up stuff, don't write tutorials, prefer automating and sharing tools to zipping up gigabytes of releases.
Uploading blizzards files is not a release btw.
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As soon as someone sits down to write a tutorial, that time is better spent in just automating the task.
The truth has been spoked. I slightly disagree about the releases of Blizzard files that spawn around because they allow me to get files without downloading every WoW client, but I get your point and I fully agree with everything else.
But there is a problem : who can automate tasks today ?
010 editor scripts can automate file editing routines, that's nice but not enough because as you said we could automate entire repetitive procedures, but it requires programming. Now, who ? How many developers are here ? How many people know C or C++ or whatever useful language ?
It seems to me that the tasks that could be automated are not because no dev is interested in it.
And Modcraft is of course not the place to learn programming.
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[paragraph:k961ck9q]You guys say automation is better than tutorial. And in many ways I completely agree with that logic. Simplifying the task and automating it for the masses would solve the immediate problem, and it would allow people to successfully do what they set out to do. But then, we have other issues:[/paragraph:k961ck9q]
1) We have a tool, but no documentation.
Without documentation:
This leads to issues if/when that tool breaks, or if the tool isn't that great to begin with we don't really have an immediate fix, since we don't have access to the problem.
With documentation:
We have more possibility as a community of having the ability to maintain that tool and to update and improve that tool as a community when a dev gives up or can't be bothered, we have their knowledge documented.
2) We don't have a tool at all.
Without documentation:
We're assuming that the person that understands how the process works also has the knowledge to:
- automate the process
- automate it efficently
- automate it correctly
- automate it in it's entirety.
Some if not all of these aren't always true, and certainly haven't been in the past.
With documentation:
short-term:
we have the individual able to post their tutorial, have a solution that everyone can read and perform themselves.
long-term:
Tens of modders may read the documentation and attempt to automate it, increasing potential by x%
3) We don't have people actually learning anything
Without documentation:
This means we have less people interested in modding as a whole, or experimenting, or doing things better. We might get three seperate fragmented tools instead of one tool that handles everything for instance, and then one of those tools stops working, then what.
With documentation:
We may have the knowledge as a community to integrate, update and repair programs, which may even lead to frameworks.
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Even I'm pretty bad at typing up my tutorials, but I can at-least write them in a way that most people, from what I've heard, can understand them and learn what the tutorial teaches.
/rant
As someone who's used your site before, yep, you are decent at writing up tutorails.
And if your collection of tutorials was more extensive, simplified, and way more populated with small tutorials adding to the ones you already have then we might see way more developers come out of the woodwork and try to develop 'something'
Like I've said, we can't expect you or anyone else to write up every single tutorial, for every single section, we need a public tutorial section, which are curated by native english speakers, tutorials that all follow a standard pre-defined format, then we might get somewhere.
For those who want to actually learn, and not steal, I'm sure some WILL check it out.
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What i dont understand is. There IS a beginner tutorial here on Modcraft.
So waht do you miss :) ?
The prime reason why Veteran Developers don't want to share content is because developers don't want noobs stealing their content
Nope. The reason is that a good tutorial eats much time. And you have a life, frinds, other hobbys and work. So time is something youd dont have much if you grow up. During school time it is somethign other but later...
Also the problem is not that the pros dont write. The noobs freshly understand stuff often dont.
If every noob asking for stuff.. gett an answer.. would write something about it. We had no prlbems.
In documentation part. We have a noggit documentation wiki. 95% of ths stuff where done by me. Every noob worked some houres with noggit could read this and update. But ....
So my question now is. What beginner stuff is missing in the tutorial series?
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What i dont understand is. There IS a beginner tutorial here on Modcraft.
So waht do you miss :) ?
The prime reason why Veteran Developers don't want to share content is because developers don't want noobs stealing their content
Nope. The reason is that a good tutorial eats much time. And you have a life, frinds, other hobbys and work. So time is something youd dont have much if you grow up. During school time it is somethign other but later...
Also the problem is not that the pros dont write. The noobs freshly understand stuff often dont.
If every noob asking for stuff.. gett an answer.. would write something about it. We had no prlbems.
In documentation part. We have a noggit documentation wiki. 95% of ths stuff where done by me. Every noob worked some houres with noggit could read this and update. But ....
So my question now is. What beginner stuff is missing in the tutorial series?
I've seen your tutorial series, and used a few parts of it, but I found it pretty difficult to understand some amount of your writing even when I knew what the overall tutorial was talking about. It's definitely there, but I don't consider it noob friendly if even I have trouble using it.
I'd suggest getting someone to go-over your tutorials and rewriting them a bit. :P
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viewtopic.php?f=78&t=3983 (http://modcraft.io/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=3983" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
Thats what this thread is for. But if no one post what the probles are. I can´t clarify them :)
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What i dont understand is. There IS a beginner tutorial here on Modcraft.
So waht do you miss :) ?
You're right, we have your guide on Noggit creation, and it's good. It's a good guide, but Noggit is a small part of WoW modding. It only really equates to a percentage of the total modding done on Modcraft.
So my question now is. What beginner stuff is missing in the tutorial series?
We have plenty of information on Noggit thanks to your guide. Noggit is fine, it's fleshed out enough that a beginner can get a good starting point.
but we have so many other aspects to WoW modding, like everything I've already mentioned. Model swapping, npc pathing, cinematic creation, even basic addon creation, we have nothing near an adequate amount of information. In some areas we have NO or LITTLE information.
We just need MORE guides written by people that have the time and skill, obviously time is an issue, but a paid tutorial section is also a solution. We just need a way to organise files and gather information. Our forum shuld be structured more like StackOverflow.
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Back in 2009 I tried taking "tutorial requests". It sadly didn't take off. I'd be happy with a place where people request information on a topic, as neutral and short as possible. As stated above, I don't exactly like tutorials. I'm not quite sure about what format is the right one though. Possibly something wiki-ish with commenting inline.
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Back in 2009 I tried taking "tutorial requests". It sadly didn't take off. I'd be happy with a place where people request information on a topic, as neutral and short as possible. As stated above, I don't exactly like tutorials. I'm not quite sure about what format is the right one though. Possibly something wiki-ish with commenting inline.
I liked the format of the Noggit guide already here on Modcraft, segmented, book-like, episodic tutorials. They are clear to follow and clearly visible.
We should have sections for:
1) [Tutorial Requests] where people make requests for tutorials.
2) [Tutorials] where tutorials are delivered.
3) maybe we could have [Paid Tutorials] where posters release the tutorial for a small fee, to make writing the tutorial worth their while.
Whether this should be a combined tutorial board or seperated between boards I don't really know. Retro-porting might have their own retro tutorials, whereas Serverside has their serverside tutorials, so in that respect, a unified tutorial board doesn't make sense, unless that unified tutorial board is also sectioned.
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Back in 2009 I tried taking "tutorial requests". It sadly didn't take off. I'd be happy with a place where people request information on a topic, as neutral and short as possible. As stated above, I don't exactly like tutorials. I'm not quite sure about what format is the right one though. Possibly something wiki-ish with commenting inline.
I liked the format of the Noggit guide already here on Modcraft, segmented, book-like, episodic tutorials. They are clear to follow and clearly visible.
We should have sections for:
1) [Tutorial Requests] where people make requests for tutorials.
2) [Tutorials] where tutorials are delivered.
3) maybe we could have [Paid Tutorials] where posters release the tutorial for a small fee, to make writing the tutorial worth their while.
Whether this should be a combined tutorial board or seperated between boards I don't really know. Retro-porting might have their own retro tutorials, whereas Serverside has their serverside tutorials, so in that respect, a unified tutorial board doesn't make sense, unless that unified tutorial board is also sectioned.
Writing a book like tutorial is hard, overkill, a huge effort, … Not what I'd suggest if we want more tutorials. Also, huge long tutorials are huge and long. If I just wanted to know how to add a skybox, I'm lost in this huge thing. Tbh, I don't even know if it covers that.
There is a tutorials subforum for each forum.
I more and more think that a forum is a horrible thing.
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but we have so many other aspects to WoW modding, like everything I've already mentioned. Model swapping, npc pathing, cinematic creation, even basic addon creation, we have nothing near an adequate amount of information. In some areas we have NO or LITTLE information.
What? Why do you need information on this stuff?
Model swapping = common sense. You learn how the MPQ structure works and then it's a piece of piss.
NPC Pathing = a complicated issue that changes a lot. Emulators currently use variations of A*. You cannot give a guide on this - this is something you need to study in your own time, which Google can help you with.
Basic addon creation = A million guides for this already exist on the Internet. That's how I learnt.
So everything you listed there I completely disagree with. We don't need tutorials for tutorials sake and there's no need to copy stuff over here if there are dedicated sites for these specific areas.
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but we have so many other aspects to WoW modding, like everything I've already mentioned. Model swapping, npc pathing, cinematic creation, even basic addon creation, we have nothing near an adequate amount of information. In some areas we have NO or LITTLE information.
What? Why do you need information on this stuff?
Model swapping = common sense. You learn how the MPQ structure works and then it's a piece of piss.
NPC Pathing = a complicated issue that changes a lot. Emulators currently use variations of A*. You cannot give a guide on this - this is something you need to study in your own time, which Google can help you with.
Basic addon creation = A million guides for this already exist on the Internet. That's how I learnt.
So everything you listed there I completely disagree with. We don't need tutorials for tutorials sake and there's no need to copy stuff over here if there are dedicated sites for these specific areas.
I'd love to have many short tutorials on one site instead of searching on google and may fight very outdated tutorials in really bad english. I also like to learn stuff in a short, fast way instead of experementing with everything i want to do. It's like programming, the solution might be very easy, but sometimes you just can't find it alone and may give up sooner or later.
I like schlumpf's idea of a own site with a tutorial system or something instead of a forum. Maybe there won't be a big difference, but it feels completely different. At least for me. :)
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Tutorial requests is a good Point. THis way others could pic one and start. I will have this in mind during rework of the site structure. In the moment we work on the move to teh new root. If this is done I will start a discussion and work the new structure of the site aout with you.
To the tutorial thing. I think it is not possible to explain every single pice of modding in Detail. But what we Need is a set of tutorial explain the Basic ways of doing Things with an real working exaple.
Like how to use 010 and templates or a DBC editong guide with some examples. As there is the documentation on wowDev Wiki everyone can then do stuff.
I also got in the meanwhile 2 requests from People willing to do some tutorial work in the future.
I also search for some realy motivated People for Moderation. A Team of 3 till 4 People. So if you have some funded wow skills and think a moderator post is yours. Ask me on skype. > Project.modcraft
Updated the main post with:
- Expanding the tutorial with general needed stuff.
- Create a tutorial request board. Perahaps where every request is a poll. So tutorial writers can see what the community needs most.
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but we have so many other aspects to WoW modding, like everything I've already mentioned. Model swapping, npc pathing, cinematic creation, even basic addon creation, we have nothing near an adequate amount of information. In some areas we have NO or LITTLE information.
What? Why do you need information on this stuff?
Model swapping = common sense. You learn how the MPQ structure works and then it's a piece of piss.
NPC Pathing = a complicated issue that changes a lot. Emulators currently use variations of A*. You cannot give a guide on this - this is something you need to study in your own time, which Google can help you with.
Basic addon creation = A million guides for this already exist on the Internet. That's how I learnt.
So everything you listed there I completely disagree with. We don't need tutorials for tutorials sake and there's no need to copy stuff over here if there are dedicated sites for these specific areas.
I'd love to have many short tutorials on one site instead of searching on google and may fight very outdated tutorials in really bad english. I also like to learn stuff in a short, fast way instead of experementing with everything i want to do. It's like programming, the solution might be very easy, but sometimes you just can't find it alone and may give up sooner or later.
I like schlumpf's idea of a own site with a tutorial system or something instead of a forum. Maybe there won't be a big difference, but it feels completely different. At least for me. :)
I really hope this doesn't become a community where we attempt to give tutorials on how to program. This is the direction you want to take. We really DO NOT need tutorials on addon development. There are dedicated sites that will always be way more up to date than any place like here.
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I really hope this doesn't become a community where we attempt to give tutorials on how to program. This is the direction you want to take. We really DO NOT need tutorials on addon development. There are dedicated sites that will always be way more up to date than any place like here.
I agree with you Harry, we already have sites for learning programming, we shouldn't be one.
Everything on Modcraft should be WoW-specific.
We shouldn't need to teach basic lua to people.
Addon development isn't too high on the list though, the biggest thing I'd like to see is some effort to introduce basic "Get started" structured guides, that's the main thing that'll get more people interested and willing to explore WoW modding more.
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I never said that i want programming tutorials here.
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noone said this ;)
but a baskc lua xml is not wrong becaus it is needed for interface development. and so very wow modding related. perhaps an introduction that people understand that the wow interface is a big addon and then some links to resources and external tutorials.
and yes a site listing and grouping tutorials will definitely come.
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noone said this ;)
but a baskc lua xml is not wrong becaus it is needed for interface development. and so very wow modding related. perhaps an introduction that people understand that the wow interface is a big addon and then some links to resources and external tutorials.
and yes a site listing and grouping tutorials will definitely come.
All that needs to be said is:
"The GlueXML and FrameXML handles the entire interface for the game and behaves in the same manner as traditional WoW AddOns. Here are some links on AddOn development:
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/World_of_Warcraft_API (http://wowwiki.wikia.com/World_of_Warcraft_API" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
http://wowprogramming.com/docs (http://wowprogramming.com/docs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)"
I mean - we don't need a tutorial on Lua. XML. What an addon is. Etc. This is all basic stuff that should just be easy to go away and do yourself. If you can't then a quick 5 second Google will answer any questions on the subject. We should not be trying to give tutorials for such simple stuff. We will not do it as well and it just adds bulk where it is not needed.
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The issue is not the (lack of) tutorials, it's the lack of (motivated) people. We haven't seen a lot of interesting newcomers (no offense). It's not the lack of tools, it's the availability of (free) tools for a lot of other games/engines. WoW is simply not interesting enough to mod.
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@stoneharry: That´s why I said a short entry tutorial would be good. Also some words are needed. Locals as destination patch for Interface stuff. You Need patched wow.exe for Interface changes. The strings file. And a good list of resources.
@TheBug: For me it is still the most interesting platform. As there is (as fare I know) no working, free and good looking mmo framework out there. The biggest Problem we have is that it is a mmo. Modding it in a big way is much work. Most People just don´t have the power to stay on such a Job. Or even begin it :) As we all that are a bit motivated have learned during the last years.
Many People make promises but you don´t get something finished most time.
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Even if an open MMO framework were available, getting bits like combat flow, character animation, etc to the point of being as smooth as they are in any WoW client (even when paired with a reverse-engineered server) is something that would take years. In fact, it may never be as smooth.
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I think that the forum just got pretty complicated and is really confusing. Im with you for the new design, but I'm still pretty used to the style of this forum and it's not really bad, though we should make it better organized.
- Maybe few proper moderators that could help maintain some order and structure in the whole forum. (I'm willng to help with this one)
Every sub-forum (Level design/texturing etc.) should have a Sticky with Up to Date tools, so people don't have to go through pages and pages of request and questions before finding the needed tool (mostly out of date..). Sometimes I don't even know what I'm looking for and if it even exists or has been addressed.
I'm talking about you, "Resources and Tools" :evil: it's one big mess for me.
- Perhaps if a tool is tested and working properly, move it to sticky.
- Make a general storage where a moderator would store all the up to date and tested (approved) tools. Really some download links to tools like FuTa are dead for months.
I know I may sound very naive, but a little cooperation between all the developers would be great. Like when someone comes up with a useful thing, it ends up being in a thread that is lost somewhere in the forum or is broken into more threads with dead-links. I think that developers should be more team-like, trying to make less tools but more complex.
- The thing is: I come up with an idea for a great but small tool. Instead of releasing this, I would try to communicate with someone that has already made a tool in this area of modding and try to merge it together into a single and more powerful tool.
To World Building, which is my favorite part of the whole WoW modding and an essential process in many of the projects here. I miss a tool or process where I could create a simple heightmap layout of my island or whatever I'm creating. I know this has been on the table for a long time, but I think that the whole process of preparing a custom zone with all the dbc editing and starting fuck-ups is really discouraging people from starting a project.
I agree with schlumpf on automation. We should make simple tasks automated to save time, we are all doing this in our spare time and the more we waste, the more demotivation comes.
Maybe, when a proper tool base with tutorials is established, we can start doing some monthly challenges to keep people encouraged and motivated. This would also lead to more simple and frequent additions with something actually completed (many people tend to start big project and failing after realizing it is too much for them)
Example of a challenge: Make night elf ruins on 4 ADTs. Make use of specific tilesets.
A winner could be given a forum badge and a place within ONE COMBINED PROJECT, where leaders would use these creations to form a single World. I know people have different tastes but if they had a chance to contribute to a single goal in their own way without doing the whole project alone, it would really lead into something epic.
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the resources will get an moxerated sticky with list of tools. the most stuff you need is also in the modding pack.
i wil move this to a git repo in jte future. so people can hild tools up to date.
one for wotlk and one for wod tools.
also neo is exactly what you asked for.
it should lead to one tool for all wow related files. also contains assistends to automat jobs. like add a map.
i hope that i get neo the way that no tutorials are needed.
the problem we as moderators have is that we are only 3 people. some help from the community would be realy nice.
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Ok, so a few things from my perspective on what has been mentioned so far (read a lot, skimmed some):
The problem I have with both tutorials and especially auto-mated process is that they do not promote lateral thinking, which is more important than having the skill sets required in WoW modding. Yes, if you want to write some code to do something you should learn some programming, that is obvious, but as mentioned there are countless places on the internet to learn that. Same with 3D modelling, texturing and even tool development. However it isn't easy to learn to think laterally without practicing it.
When I started to get into WoW modding back in 2012 there was some documentation and tutorials, but not too much, let alone a time before that when some members of this community came started. The main thing that veterans all have in common is an interest in exploration and learning. About 10% of everything I learned was from tutorials (and that was still a fair bit), the other 90% was from experimentation, exploration and memorizing my own form of documentation in my head based upon what I found. Furthermore, it's motivational to know you figured something out on your own.
That said, I do believe tutorials are a good thing, but to rely on them is a fault. That goes double for automation for people who should be learning (as opposed to people who already know but want to speed up the process).
The second thing I wanted to touch on was Modcraft itself as an identity. I joined this site in 2012. At that time both AC-Web and MMOWNED/OwnedCore were flourishing and highly populated, unfortunately, that was exactly why I came to Modcraft. I never liked AC-Web personally, as to me it was what OwnedCore became; a dumping ground for tutorials. I remember thinking to myself, holy crap if I see another crappy tutorial on how to compile a core I'm going to shoot myself.
Then there was Modcraft. When I joined Modcraft, to me it was where the skill level per member significantly exceeded that of other sites. But more importantly it was almost like a filtered society where people were generally interested in growing the modding community, not just themselves. Well, for the most part at least... I don't mind information for new modders, but I believe we should teach them how to teach themselves, not teach them exactly what to do.
The last thing is more personally towards myself, but I know others are the same. I'm over WoW... I am sick of it, plain and simple. I have played that fucking game since beta. All it has done in my eyes has gone downhill. The modding community was the only good thing it had left. But there is only so much one can enjoy working with a severely limited client. Given the lack of people interested in quality custom content for WoW, it makes me question "why don't I just make my own content in Unity Engine instead?"
A big part of that thinking is that my learning curve has plummeted, I used to be learning so much everyday and so quickly, now I look at the WoW cores and it's all rinse and repeat, or stuff I am simply not interested in. In terms of WoW I am completely without goals or targets to achieve that I am interested in. This wasn't as bad back in the day because I was self-motivated through learning, I would be halfway through completing a goal and would find a new one to do after I was done. Long story short, WoW as a game and evolution of a game is stagnant in my eyes. Feel free to disagree, hell I'd like to be convinced otherwise, I could of course be completely wrong as I am severely out of touch with WoW modding.
ANYWAY! On to the productive side of this post:
I like the idea of a formal tutorial system that would require approval and proper structure before it is accepted and published. If you think about how .wikia pages are structured by default (ignore custom templates), they are simple, clean and force you to structure your content. Something along those principles would be great.
Personally I have gotten used to video tutorials, perhaps video implementation would be nice.
Though it shouldn't be the goal of the tutorials an incentive would be nice. I wouldn't go as drastic as paid Tutorials like Method suggested, but perhaps a competition per month for the best tutorial of the month with a small prize. Promoting quality over quantity.
On the idea of competition, something I would considering coming back into the WoW community for is a challenge competition. For example similar to art forums: Once per month a challenging task is set that everyone can try and see who does the best job at. Perhaps one month it's a best custom boss script (or custom boss), another it is who can find the full limits of the custom factions (there are a few bugs I could never resolve), who can squash a well know bug that many have tried before. Even a who can write the best tutorial on a set topic commonly requested. Basically just some form of challenge and friendly competition that again promotes quality and learning.
Small time collaboration - people collaborating for small projects. So instead of an entire server with custom classes that would take 4 people 6 months to make, why not have 4 people spend 2 weeks developing 1 custom class for release (with documentation for people to learn with).
This is a huge stretch but a suggestion none the less... Why not make a brand new game with an engine like unity? There is so much talent on this site, why not do something more with it. What if Maruum was it's own game? Free from the limitations of the WoW client. That would be incredible.
Honestly, I just don't want this site to ever turn into quantity over quality. Quality should always be Modcraft's highest prerogative, be it for releases, learning, tutorials or even collaboration.
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Personally I have gotten used to video tutorials, perhaps video implementation would be nice.
Ugh, please, no, no, no and no. Videos are horrible. I will never understand why everyone thinks that doing anything in video helps at all. It always results in 30 seconds of worthless intro, 30 seconds of worthless outro and hugely blown up content, which most of the time is two paragraphs max.
Please, don't do video tutorials. Ever. For anything but pottery.
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Ugh, please, no, no, no and no. Videos are horrible. I will never understand why everyone thinks that doing anything in video helps at all. It always results in 30 seconds of worthless intro, 30 seconds of worthless outro and hugely blown up content, which most of the time is two paragraphs max.
Please, don't do video tutorials. Ever. For anything but pottery.
Bahaha, the funny thing is, your pottery example fits well. I could not see myself learning Autodesk Maya from a wall of text if I was to make 3D model of some pottery. However I feel a video tutorial for a visual medium would make a lot more sense. xD
Although, yeah it's not for everything and some things can be explained in a great deal less time with written text.
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Ugh, please, no, no, no and no. Videos are horrible. I will never understand why everyone thinks that doing anything in video helps at all. It always results in 30 seconds of worthless intro, 30 seconds of worthless outro and hugely blown up content, which most of the time is two paragraphs max.
Please, don't do video tutorials. Ever. For anything but pottery.
Everyone learns differently. I have a really hard time reading long text...
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Yes, pottery is the right example. Still, most of modding is not pottery but just plain tech. Learning maya is pottery, but it isn't really part of modcraft, at all. The modcraft part is somehow getting through a shitliads of options and menus to export stuff using write scripts with the right options. That's far from pottery.
I do agree on not having an easy time with learning by reading long text. That's exactly the same issue with these videos though. The hard part is one little checkbox clicked right in a five minute video, or two page text. Both suck. That's why both should be way shorter. With videos, clicking a single checkbox is just laughably stupid though, thus a video is pure overkill, a one paragraph text would be fine.
Keep stuff simple, free of worthless surroundings. Keep stuff technical where it should, explain things instead of saying which checkbox to check (ie what does it do? Why do we need that?)
Tutorials not being on point is one of the worst issues, and videos are often worse at it. I will never understand why you would watch a one minute video of someone entering a cave to find a rare instead of just getting coordinates.
Bonus against videos: language barrier, learning/acting speed differences.
I know that video tutorials, letsplays, quest guides, do it yourself guides, and every little shitty thing gets days of YouTube presence. I have been hoping for that to die since it began.
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And because I know that an example may help, let's compare:
google: "captain ironbeard tanaan"
result wowhead, comment two: http://www.wowhead.com/npc=93076/captai ... id=2197287 (http://www.wowhead.com/npc=93076/captain-ironbeard#comments:id=2197287" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
Captain Ironbeard Cave: 37.5,76.0 Rare: 35.6,79.9
result youtube
[media:2ehnqyuo]https://youtu.be/umvhFO9IA-I[/media:2ehnqyuo]
Please, someone tell me which one is easier to follow and faster.
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Finding a rare and an in-depth tutorial for modding are two different things I.E you say text is better for you which is fine everyone is different but most people prefer videos to visually guide them through the process and they can rewind to see what they missed instead of looking at a wall of text most of the time not even well spaced out I.E how I just typed this.
So you say text but most of the world says visual guide also google translate isn't really the best thing to count on for trying to translate walls upon walls of text.
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Sometimes people who write tutorials do not care about the level of their language starting from simple logic and finishing with basic spelling, if you know what I mean. So, sometimes there is only one way to understand it by watching the process. As an example, I would take Alastor's model conversion video tutorials. His language is not perfect and at some point I would guess it would be hard to understand him for people natively speaking English, but they can watch the process, that's why it is good. Though, I personally like the kind of tutorials schlumpf is talking about but it is a waste of time to expect other people to like it, not everyone is the same.
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It always results in 30 seconds of worthless intro, 30 seconds of worthless outro and hugely blown up content, which most of the time is two paragraphs max.
Ill just leave this here:
[media:14jw5xa4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzZjl5yB1cw[/media:14jw5xa4]
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That was beautiful, Chase. If only every tutorial were so comprehensive.
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Ugh, please, no, no, no and no. Videos are horrible. I will never understand why everyone thinks that doing anything in video helps at all. It always results in 30 seconds of worthless intro, 30 seconds of worthless outro and hugely blown up content, which most of the time is two paragraphs max.
Please, don't do video tutorials. Ever. For anything but pottery.
Bahaha, the funny thing is, your pottery example fits well. I could not see myself learning Autodesk Maya from a wall of text if I was to make 3D model of some pottery. However I feel a video tutorial for a visual medium would make a lot more sense. xD
Although, yeah it's not for everything and some things can be explained in a great deal less time with written text.
Well, look who got resurrected from the dead.
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EDIT: Sorry for the long read but it's worth it :)
Tutorials are essential. Written or Video. Take this from someone that -not even a year ago, roughly- had no clue what he was doing at all and is now scripting... Learning (thanks Steff, Valk, Google <3)
What has been helpful? Lateral thinking (as Genesis said), motivation and of course... Tutorials.
Here's how it's gonna go down, in order:
For starters...
From now on, no one has the ability to demand/complain about something from someone unless you yourself are willing to help, assist or contribute, in some way or another (no, opinions are not enough sadly) and even then it's still not cool. Is this not you? Good, we're on the right track. You see someone doing this though and that should raise some alerts.
Take Steff's Noggit-Introduction-Tutorial. It's good, it's great... It's English is poor due to language barriers perhaps.
Solution? I personally will proof-read it again and again, rewrite it in perfectly good English and ship'er away. (I have translated for Valkryst's -to my knowledge- Bugtracker Tool for reference, feel free to request on that as well) (yup tools* as well if you'd like)
Why? Simple. I used it at some point (as well as will use other ones at some point no doubt), I even still go back to it when I forget a thing or two (yea people still and will use it, e.g. newcomers)... and because I care. I care about being on the Effort-Team.
On that same note, feel free to send me ANY type of written tutorial, guide, walkthrough and I will 'check it' for you. Want me to translate it as well? Of course I can, please, anytime.
Moving on...
How do you keep new people interested? How do you get more people into the scene? Should you care?
Short answer is, no. No you should not care, because THEY should care. Not your job so no worries... Heck I got lucky when I found this home lol
BUT... this does not mean you can't or that you don't 'need' to help. You can if you want to. Although, this is not to be confused with literally solving people's problems for them. Instead, you help them learn or in other words "help them teach themselves". That is how people stay for a longer run. At least the one's that matter or earn it, right? and it should mean -at the very least- that it's something they really want.
It's quite simple really; You point the people in the right direction. They will ask you "how to do this... and that" and you will show them the way straight to school. Because tools equals school, tutorials equals school and everyone has to go to school, if they wish to learn that is. If not then what a sad story but oh well!
Learning, is up to them, not you... But you already did what you could and that's a good job done. Give them 'The Links' (choir:Ahh's)
*Leechers rekt
Moving on again...
Bottom line, content is 3.3.5 and WoD. Period. If you want support for these, you will guaranteed find it. No need for further detail on this one.
Is it a problem that even everyones' grand'ma have done the same type of server and sadly that just keeps dividing the community? Mmm yeah. A solution? :
- noobert poopert asks: "Hey I want to do this and that and it's gonna be so awesome... Gimme gimme candy!"
- cool guy says: "Sure thing bro. Go here, here and here. Goodluck and if you want to practice what you learn and actually start getting good and get some progress, you might want to join this, this or this project which could be a good learning experience for you and at the same time, you'd be helping them out as well. Happy modding bro! :) "
*coolguy walks away with a smile, he takes a glimpse back and can see a now motivated newcomer... get's motivated as well why not
I have offered to become a moderator. I'll try my best to give my time to the new community in return for nothing but lot's of happy modders. That's my endgame.
I too, am busy with lifes' priorities but the effort can be made.
You should join the effort team if you can as well ;)
Lion out
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Bottom line, content is 3.3.5 and WoD. Period. If you want support for these, you will guaranteed find it. No need for further detail on this one.
Yes, yes, there is.
I get most used versions should be 3.3.5 and WoD, perfect. But do you have in mind to forbid every question about other versions ? What's the problem with non "guaranteed" answers ?
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Bottom line, content is 3.3.5 and WoD. Period. If you want support for these, you will guaranteed find it. No need for further detail on this one.
Yes, yes, there is.
I get most used versions should be 3.3.5 and WoD, perfect. But do you have in mind to forbid every question about other versions ? What's the problem with non "guaranteed" answers ?
I wouldn't mind them if I knew before I was clicking on the thread. If it was titled "[4.xx] Insert keyword summary here" , then I would know not to click on it as I would most likely have no idea.
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version tags are a good idea. also stickys. but people sadly don´t use and don´t care about most rules.
So we need to force them ;) What means more active moderation.
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version tags are a good idea. also stickys. but people sadly don´t use and don´t care about most rules.
So we need to force them ;) What means more active moderation.
i guess we just got our newest moderator lol
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Who? I just added one new moderator.
MountainLion will also care for tutorial section in the future.
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version tags are a good idea. also stickys. but people sadly don´t use and don´t care about most rules.
So we need to force them ;) What means more active moderation.
Depending on the software/plugin you could also force to you a tag. If you don't pick one, then you can't create a new thread. That's what i saw on other forums.
Also congrats to MountainLion. :)
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version tags are a good idea. also stickys. but people sadly don´t use and don´t care about most rules.
So we need to force them ;) What means more active moderation.
Depending on the software/plugin you could also force to you a tag. If you don't pick one, then you can't create a new thread. That's what i saw on other forums.
Uh, no, that's not how stuff works. Just look around what tags people actually use. It is quite random already, thus forcing stuff will turn out even worse. Also, forums are not exactly the best for tags. I frequently think to go more for a stackexchange/reddit style of site. reddit is way better for showoff, and stackexchange for questions and answers.
It is 2015 but the internet has still not realized that forums are just horribly inefficient pieces of shit for pretty much any communication.
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thats why we just create an own software for modcraft and communitys in general. but first we will use what we have ;)
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Just look around what tags people actually use. It is quite random already, thus forcing stuff will turn out even worse. Also, forums are not exactly the best for tags.
I didn't ment that they have to choose a own tag - They would have to pick one from a available list, e.g. all WoW versions, choosable from a simple combobox or some checkboxes. At least when they post in specific sections, e.g. "Tutorials" or "Releases".
And a big dislike who choosed the new username color. I prefer strong colors! :P
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These colors remind me of communism please lets just return to capitalist colors instead of everyone just having the same stuff without actually doing something.
Thanks.
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i only set a color becaus white just don't work good. thjs way you can identify user names.
also color of all users are now the same. whatever he/she did. only moderators are green.
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First off thank you Kaev, I'll try my best :)
As for the colored names I'll remain neutral or rather back-up Steff's decision until otherwise.
I understand that Axel makes a good point but I see no point in reflecting what you have done or not by simply changing your names' color. Frankly it's a bit 'childish' but that is just the way I see it, please no offense :)
To make my point clearer, you have tags; Contributor tag, Advanced Artist tag, Scripting Master... etc.
These tags speak for themselves, ten times more effectively than the color of your name, in my opinion. A profile picture, a signature, etc. Everyone knows everyone is unique!
Nevertheless, we are all (hopefully) grown-ups and can come to agree that complaining without offering a solution leads to nowhere, as well as sarcasm (although the lols). So let's suggest solutions instead or at least kindly request things ;)
What about 3 colors? and what color do you think names should have? or What color do you think you deserve your name to have?
:)
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it was mentioned by 8 people. it was written in the discuss topic. and now as i start doing the points, it is done. the point is that new people dont know why there are colors. other boards use them for rights like moderator and normal user. so we do now also. and btw I give personal nothing about a colored name. it is only green becaus the moderation. also people still have the ranks that show what they are. and with the contests we will expand this.
I am a bit surprised that people really care about a colored name..
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Colored names are especially a bad idea, seeing just Milly and axel0099. Giving someone a color means he is somewhat special. I don't want new people to think that idiots making jokes about the holocaust or getting sent to the gulag being seen as something special.
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Groups were full of leechers and had no real point, glad you removed them. I don't like the new color for everyone. #0099FF looks way better in my opinion.
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Note that the special groups still exist, but are only giving the tags, not a color. I'm personally all in for removing those as well.
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I would like to say that removing name colors is not a very good idea ! To make it clear I'll analyse more precisely the effects they had on the community, then you'll understand why so many people care about them.
First of all, the name color is a symbolical distinction for a lot people, it's like saying "you're part of the community, we recognize your effort". As we are social individuals, we tend to want these medals of merit ! The color becomes a carrot on a stick that insentivies participation in the forum. While I agree it would be better to have people participating for the sole purpose of general progression, you can't realisticaly expect everybody to be that mature.
You might fear the arrogance that could come from these colors, and feel they would make newer players more reluctant to join; or even confused about what the color means. But I would tend to think it's the contrary : The color helps them identify and organize people identity. You'll trust more easily someone who is marked as a developer or an advanced artist. If an advanced artist doesn't like a map, you'll know his opinion is more relevant, and is more likely to teach you things. Obviously, the content of a message is far more important, but still, the color gives the little touch that says "This guy knows what he's talking about". And that is not a bad thing, because it DOESN'T make other people reactions worthless either. It'll just help the member to understand there are several kinds of point of view.
Imagine a young guy who wants to create his own maps on Noggit, he'll tend to look more at the orange-colored name topics if he wants a reference. But, then, he'll also look at other people level designs. He'll then make his own opinion about what is better, and analyze what makes their maps better. The color simply makes him more aware of differences, and trust me, these are NOT as obvious as you could think they are. There are people who ask me level design advices because of the name color, prooving that it has a psychological impact that is good for the community.
So I understand your point of view that each indivual should be distinguished by his words and individual replies. But they should also be considered by their previous actions, and that is what the color was useful for.
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Le big text.
You are totally right, but both groups were full of people who never contributed to the community or are toxic/aggressive. On the other hand there were people who contributed a lot but never were invited to those groups.
Colored names were nice and made a difference at first, I admit, but we need system that is more fair and effective.
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See new post :)
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I like the idea of creating contests. They're great to show of the user's skills and hopefully will raise the activity of the community. :)
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I like the idea of creating contests. They're great to show of the user's skills and hopefully will raise the activity of the community. :)
Exactly! It would be really great if there were contests in categories like Quests, Level Design, Model Edit etc.
The winner could be featured in a community project like Maruum was.
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Quests
Now that you mention quest contests.. That's actually something where i would join. Nice idea! :)
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Contents need rules, topics and rewards, and obviously multiple of those. As always, be happy to suggest stuff, the more elaborate the better. Just like with the ranks. We still don't have any input on how to actually distribute special ranks.
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(http://icanhasinternets.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/commprop.jpg)
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Quests
Now that you mention quest contests.. That's actually something where i would join. Nice idea! :)
Me too, I love writing quests and story telling in general. Would be great :)
Contents need rules, topics and rewards, and obviously multiple of those. As always, be happy to suggest stuff, the more elaborate the better. Just like with the ranks. We still don't have any input on how to actually distribute special ranks.
Ofcourse, we can't go too far with the rewards, no one is investing money into this. Like I said, the contests could be used to create stuff for a community project and I think that being featured and credited in something like that would be enough of a reward for the winner. There could be some small rewards too, like forum badges or whatever (I've always liked colored names :D ). Thought I can't come up with something relevant right now.
The rules I think would be the easiest part.
I'm really inspired by Concept Art Sessions website, where you choose 2 or 3 tags and you just draw based on them. Something like that could be utilized here, tags and some simple rules would be given at the start of the contest and the competitors would create stuff based on them.
Sure some general rules should be there too, but that will come with time.
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Quests
Now that you mention quest contests.. That's actually something where i would join. Nice idea! :)
Me too, I love writing quests and story telling in general. Would be great :)
Contents need rules, topics and rewards, and obviously multiple of those. As always, be happy to suggest stuff, the more elaborate the better. Just like with the ranks. We still don't have any input on how to actually distribute special ranks.
Ofcourse, we can't go too far with the rewards, no one is investing money into this. Like I said, the contests could be used to create stuff for a community project and I think that being featured and credited in something like that would be enough of a reward for the winner. There could be some small rewards too, like forum badges or whatever (I've always liked colored names :D ). Thought I can't come up with something relevant right now.
The rules I think would be the easiest part.
I'm really inspired by Concept Art Sessions website, where you choose 2 or 3 tags and you just draw based on them. Something like that could be utilized here, tags and some simple rules would be given at the start of the contest and the competitors would create stuff based on them.
Sure some general rules should be there too, but that will come with time.
Yes, I know, I understood. The point is: The moderators here do not have the great ideas you guys have. Thus, best just suggest a full pack of how exactly to do stuff. Then we can see if that format is possible (e.g. having that tag stuff, or ranks or features, or anything, mostly technical details), and we can hit it off. But please, not ideas but actual plans. At least for me. I don't know how others feel about this.
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<another this is communism now post>
This site is nothing near communism and the change of removing your fancy colors has changed nothing in that only to show that most of the colored people were just wanking along based on their color, and now without color they only complain and instantly are less active.
Do stuff for the community, help people, give us a reason to have a fancy title or rank or color, or just fuck off, if you can't live with being a normal member of society. Thanks.
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Me too, I love writing quests and story telling in general. Would be great :)
Not only that, also a nice reason to create a fancy c++ script again. :D
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schlumpf assassinating verbally, without remorse. I gotta love how you destroy people with comments :D
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schlumpf rewards are rewards and they should never be taken away, you can use whatever argument you want but that doesn't change the fact that these people earned whatever rank they got.
you guys may think it's better but at least confront those people with it, I don't care about those who do not have these ranks, and apparently only those people have commented on this very topic and approved it.
By rank I mean the colors obviously.
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The fact that even though you have two huge banners of being special, but still you're complaining about the name's color, is just fucked up and shows how you don't give a fuck about the community and should probably have never got that rank to begin with. The rank is still there, just less easily confused with being a moderator. Nobody took away anything of you but a colored name. People still see you as being special. If you want to be more special than being special, then god, I can't help you. If you always did things only because of a color, not to help newcomers or something, imho you never deserved the rank to begin with.
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Schlumpfs name is blue as well :)
I have the GM Isle Explorer title, my signature sucks and I don't even have a profile picture :|
Come on guys like I said in the previous post this is becoming childish, let's just mod and be happy :)
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<another this is communism now post>
This site is nothing near communism and the change of removing your fancy colors has changed nothing in that only to show that most of the colored people were just wanking along based on their color, and now without color they only complain and instantly are less active.
Do stuff for the community, help people, give us a reason to have a fancy title or rank or color, or just fuck off, if you can't live with being a normal member of society. Thanks.
It sounds like you're accusing me of doing nothing to the community. It is wrong. I've always cared about the community. But if the community is trying to equalize me with others who for now did less or nothing, it is pointless to expect any activity from me in return. I am just an example. I bet other ex-colorednamed people feel the same.
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<another this is communism now post>
This site is nothing near communism and the change of removing your fancy colors has changed nothing in that only to show that most of the colored people were just wanking along based on their color, and now without color they only complain and instantly are less active.
Do stuff for the community, help people, give us a reason to have a fancy title or rank or color, or just fuck off, if you can't live with being a normal member of society. Thanks.
It sounds like you're accusing me of doing nothing to the community. It is wrong. I've always cared about the community. But if the community is trying to equalize me with others who for now did less or nothing, it is pointless to expect any activity from me in return. I am just an example. I bet other ex-colorednamed people feel the same.
I was really happy when i got a colored name, it was like i achieved something. But in the end i don't give a damn about having a colored name that other peoples don't have. People still see the rank graphic when they see my posts.
And i'm helping people, because i want to see nice projects and in the end playable WoW server where i can have fun, not to show off that i have more knowledge than "normal" guys.
On other boards people are also proud to have specific ranks, which often don't come with a colored name.
I'm also a moderator in a development board, where every user can pick their own color for their username.
People care about ranks there, not about colors, so why is the color so important here on Modcraft?
You're still special and we still appreciate all of your work for the community. And that counts for everyone, with and without a colored name.
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I know about quite the opposite things. Some people actually don't care about what is written underneath your profile picture. No one sees it unless they enter a thread. Colored name makes you more remarkable and visible for others. So, people see that someone experienced replied to their thread right from the index page. No one is gonna pay much attention to those pictures which are displayed only in the thread.
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I think the experience (title bars?) that list Contributor, Expert Scripter, and whatever else will do just fine. The only reason I never looked at them was because of the colored names to differentiate people that had those title bars and those that didn't.
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New host is running. Just some tests with shoutbox and other extentions.
Then we can move permanently to modcraft.io host.
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Ups. Stupid me locked topic :)
Open again. And Showoff boards merged to on on top.
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Change and add Topic prefixes.
Suggestions are welcome.
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Guys, with the red names we looked much more communist before! :P
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Ups. Stupid me locked topic :)
Open again. And Showoff boards merged to on on top.
Where do we post things we release though? It might get lost in the Showoff topic and it might not be actual resources/tools.
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We will also rework resources. Planed is to devide tools and resources
And have subboards in resources for different stuff like maps or models.
Will hopefuilly happen the next days :)
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Guys, with the red names we looked much more communist before! :P
We haven't seen you around for a vey, very long time for sure. Welcome back.
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*Why did you move every showoff to the "what are you working on" forum? It was fairly better organized before (3d models showoff, textures showoff, etc). Now everything is mixed.
Also...
*Why don't you make a "releases" subforum in the 3d modeling forum? Most people don't know where to post their releases.
*The new color for contributors is so dark i'm having trouble to read the names (bring back #0099FF!).
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*Why did you move every showoff to the "what are you working on" forum? It was fairly better organized before (3d models showoff, textures showoff, etc). Now everything is mixed.
Also...
*Why don't you make a "releases" subforum in the 3d modeling forum? Most people don't know where to post their releases.
*The new color for contributors is so dark i'm having trouble to read the names (bring back #0099FF!).
We are currently working on improving & fixing things. Don't worry, everything will be back to normal soon.
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One showoff section is better because so much is interchangeable and there is relatively few posts.
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Also there are Tags now.
And you don´t haveto revist such much boards as moderator :)
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Hi,
Thanks for building this community, very cool!