Hey guys. With the number of modding discussions and release threads, it's gotten somewhat cluttered here, so I've had a couple suggestions sent to me to fix this. Please vote what you find would be better, and if you have suggestions that other people support, I'll add them to the poll!
This would make it easier to browse the forums for ongoing discussions rather than having to find how deeply they've been buried by concepts, beta releases, and complete releases. I'd like all mod threads to be in a subforum (as per option 3). Complete mods don't suffer from being buried, because they're all listed in the completed mods index. Concepts, betas, and other WIPs will naturally have to maintain ongoing discussion and updates to keep from getting buried, which is as it should be. Help requests, tutorials, and discussion can stay in a somewhat slower-moving forum so they don't get buried by the flood of concepts we have now.
Personally I'd love to see the forum split like that. Just like Rarefied Horse Meat said, it would make browsing much easier. The one thing that really needs discussing here is, what to do with concept threads. And to be frank, I think that they belong to the discussion sub-forum most of the time. Because that way they won't junk the release section, and most of the time concept threads are posted by people who don't know how to make such a mod themselves, so such threads are unlikely to ever have any released content. Or course it's possible for someone to post a concept thread that he simply wants to have discussed as he works on it before he releases it himself, and those would be better-suited for the release sub-forum, but threads like that could be marked as "WIP" threads, and voilà. The best thing would be to also make a sticky in the discussion sub-forum, in which all "useful" threads would be listed (that, or make three sub-forums instead of two, with the third one being "guides", or something like that [it's not really that necessary right now, but who knows, maybe it'll be in the future]). so that it'll be easy to access them even if they do get buried.
I agree, to be honest those should probably be taken in a case-by-case basis (such as say... Wilde Magicks when it was in Beta, clearly belonged into releases since it was playable and all). Maybe when there's a playable file it ends up in releases, etc? Edit: Yeah, stickies, we can probably arrange that already, if we split. Like the mod index would be a sticky in the releases section, modding guides in discussion etc.
It's still a pretty close vote, and doesn't indicate the multiple accounts I made to rig the whole thing. Ever wonder why there were so many pony avatars?
Where would WIP mods go, especially ones that are just for testing, as they aren't actually released?
That's basically the main discussion. I guess option two would be keeping them in discussions until the author feels it's ready to move. Option 3 would be moving them to releases.
WIP threads, for as long as they aren't abandoned (aka. are still WIP), are something that would fit in the releases section, and adding a simple "[WIP]" to the beginning of the thread title would be enough to be able to distinguish them from threads with releases. But then again, it depends on what most of us will want.
Personally, I'd like to see a section for literally game-ready stuff, and then a section for everything else, from theory to questions to beta versions.
...man, I don't know how but I somehow forgot this existed. My apologies everyone. I'll see if we can actually do this now. It's staying in my tabs until it's done, no way am I allowing forgetting it again. Choice #4: Daynab is an idiot
I actually thought about this a couple times and intended to remind you, but you either weren't online or I wasn't at the computer, so I forgot before I got the chance.
I say we *Must* split the mods forum. Why? I can illustrate: http://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/idea-drug-addict.2602/#post-24853 Also, I am an exceptionally lazy person with some good ideas. I prefer to spew them out for others to take and use as they see fit. (Someone here has a quote of Nicholas from that same thread."I think I'll do drugs") I have learned enough to get my feet wet, but I am not sure it would be worth the effort until 1.0.10 is finalized. (Since many things will change there and make a mess with any mods I make.) So I wait for it before I will actually try something. My goal is not actually to make mods myself. But rather to give ideas to others to use as they want. (Like my way-too-long signature says.)
I'll be going to college after I get out of Job Corps in a year, and I'll be trying to take some programming courses. That still leaves a year of me being a nobody and certainly not a modder. So, I'm with ya on that boat.
Well, it's done. We didn't split the thing two even parts because it's annoying to have to dropdown when you want to access each (and apparently it's stuck that way for Xenforo). I've moved the bulk of the releases into the section, and the redirects are set up for 3 days so people have time to get used to it. Thankfully, Xenforo is awesome so the links will stay correct even if the threads are elsewhere.
Only downside (and it's minor at that) is when selecting the redirect links, it doesn't take you directly to the first new post. Not an issue if you choose to instead go to the section the post is actually in and considering most forums don't even have such a feature. XD
