I can help out as needed as well with regards to the technical aspects of forums. I have a pretty extensive background with HTML, JavaScript, graphic design, and in particular PHP. I know Crystalline's forums were always pretty much boilerplate due to busy schedule and wanting to spend what free time I did have playing the game, but I'm finding I have a lot more free time these days, and time available while I'm at work between incidents for such endeavors (admittedly a large part of funding the relic was done from crafting/farming between incidents at work XD ) Technical expertise aside, I'll make a donation for the removal of the ads and domain and such when my check is deposited next Friday.
These are just my thoughts. Please take them for what they're worth or expand upon them as you will.
Castiel Wrote:1. OOC profiles: This was brought up by Tsumi and would basically be similar to the Library section, except the profiles would be based on the player. It would basically state all the things they were willing to do and not willing to do in the RP realm, such as whether or not a particular RPer was willing to RP a fight in game and to what extent. I have no idea of what to name the section so ideas are needed!It wouldn't really keep with your 'room name' scheme, but an appropriate name for a forum such as this could be: 'RPer Preferences', or just 'Player Preferences' and it would probably be a good idea to use the example that Tsumi had posted, or otherwise draft up a template of items this could contain.
Castiel Wrote:2. Guild rules: This was also brought up in the same discussion thread as the OOC profiles. This section would be a centralized location for guilds to post their individual rules, or at least I think that was the proposal. Further clarification would be appreciated along with a name for the section.'Charter Room'? I don't know. What I was proposing was that each guild would have a thread in this forum and would post its rules there. While each guild would probably have its own website with the rules publicly displayed for all, this would give us all a centralized location to refer to if some RP with another group or a member of another group began. This, in conjunction with the Player Preferences threads would curb the need for a lot of communication to figure things out. (i.e. "We're having a tavern night and everyone's invited. Just take a moment to refer to GuildX's policies on the RPC before attending please.") The only drawback to this is that any changes made to a guild's rules/policies/guidelines would need to be posted in duplicate. I don't think that's too bad though.
Castiel Wrote:3. Lore section: This is something I've contemplated adding and haven't mentioned yet. It would basically be a place to post official info from SE such as city info, historical info, and other lore related to Hydaelyn (excluding "spoilers"). I was thinking of calling it the "Resource Room."This one might be a little tricky to implement, but what you might think of doing instead is 'stickying' a thread somewhere that contains links to this information - because there is sure to be a ton of other resources out there for this (FFXI comparison being the "history of Vana'diel" sites).
Castiel Wrote:4. Storyline discussion: This would be a place to discuss characters, stories, and profiles in an OOC manner. Basically just a place to make comments about certain characters or stories. Name also pending.A good idea, but might result in some conflict, particularly if peoples' guilds have opposing viewpoints on how they RP and stuff. I can foresee too easily a potential for a lot of cross-guild mudslinging and flame wars with these. Maybe with some very specific rules about how guild policies are different and to keep opinions and discussion respectful. Are you planning on keeping an area of these forums for story posts themselves, like for people to copy/paste from their own guild forums if they choose to share with the larger community? Or do you think it will be assumed that their forum systems will allow for public viewing of said story posts. I realize not all RP happens through posts, but a lot of times the background stuff does, and may be useful for everyone to know (so long as nobody metas or anything).
Castiel Wrote:5. Journals: This would be as it sounds -- IC journals for characters to keep. There's probably no point in adding it at this point in time but I just wanted to let everyone know it was being considered for the future.I like player journals, but 99.9% of these are going to be a character's own private thoughts. As above, if rules are in place about metagaming than I'm okay with this. I will use an example for this one. I would be upset if I had Kes write a journal entry describing, say, an argument she'd had with her father, and then the following day someone approached her and asked if everything had been smoothed over from the fight yesterday. I would however be okay with this if I had actually RPed a reaction over the pearl, or even if I had described in the journal entry very specifically how she'd stormed out of her father's house cursing a storm. "I happened to be in TownX yesterday and saw you storming through the streets muttering to yourself. Is everything ok?" But only if somewhere in the journal she had indicated that she was seething as she walked back home. Sorry for the longwindedness of this one. I'm sure most people know about metagaming, but just wanted to be absolutely clear. Also keeping everyone's private journals in one room seems a little odd, so you might want to forego the naming method on this and just leave it at 'Character Journals'.
These are just my thoughts. Please take them for what they're worth or expand upon them as you will.
"One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others." Â ~ Lewis Carol
Eva's Journals  |  Eva's Wiki Page (coming soon)  |  RP Handbook
Eva's Journals  |  Eva's Wiki Page (coming soon)  |  RP Handbook