Definately make it something that welcomes all interested in MMORPG roleplaying. That way we might actually grow in numbers instead of dwindling with time. As a bonus, if we make it more general (and good), we might be able to get some publicity too. The Finnish roleplaying magazine "Roolipelaaja", for instance, might well have us as the link of the month if we manage to make this site more than a chat center for ex-seedlings.

So let's keep Seed there at the graphics and forum themes etc, but continue the current trend of including all possible games and players. As for the content, I'd like to see something anyone can contribute to, but in a controlled way. Meaning someone would have to play the editor, but he or she would accept text from anyone if they're good and relevant to the topic.

Maybe one day we'd even organize to make our own dream game...:)

As most of you know, I've been fiddling with the specifics of a website for a while now. Obviously I have ideas about layout and design. Most of those can be found in the thread I started for the matter. Generally I think we should have a nice-looking site with some graphics (though not to excess) and with a theme that recalls the glories of Seed, but doesn't aim to copy it as such.

As for content, I would say anything that the community creates is welcome, to reasonable degrees. A declaration of purpose and aims would be pretty central. A short history of where the community came from would also be kind of given, as well as some manner of recounting the games we are active in, with details of groups, locations, level of IC and such. Further resources would of course be added as they get written. Perhaps, in the extension, we may actually have dedicated sections for the more popular games.

I think the focus of the site should be the community, realising that our numbers may grow, but focussing on what we are rather than what we could be. That way, we are actually interesting to the newcomer while not losing touch with what drives us, which is to say the intercommunication and expression of the role-playing community. (Man, that sounded way too political.)

I'm really glad to see this thread posted. I've been reluctant to do it, myself, because I don't want to be the sole driving force in a project as large as this one. Cheers for giving me inspiration.

I agree with people. Yes, I do. And mostly I agree with Kryigerof.

So, guidelines for how we RP. Yes. A description of who we are and what we do. Articles about RP. A section with info about the games we play (and in those, info about how we RP in them. I.e. more info about how we view the world, dying, communication, etc. THings that are specific to that game)).

Layout wise, I'm happy to leave that to other people. It should probably be pretty modular and clean though, which I know Ahnion can and will do (hah, there, pressure's on you).

As for the community. Yes, let us keep what we have, and keep that spirit. But as Kryigerof says, let us look forward, so that we will not just dwindle, but actually grow, and attract more people of a like mind and bent. Not in any crazy, expansionistic way, leaving behind what we have, no. But let's build it so that we are ready to slowly, steadily expand as we draw RP'ers from the games we participate in. And let us have a structure so that our website can handle the needs of giving info about these games and running guilds in them (I.e. when we make our own SoR guild, it should have a subforum and a section on the homepage, for example). All should fit in with the overall design and idea of course, and there should be room for expansion. Especially on the forum perhaps, and the graphical themes.

It is my fond wish to have a graphical theme for each game we play, so that RP'ers can select the one most relevant to them. That however, needs volunteers. That might or might not come to pass. But we should have the fundament in place for that. I also think we have, Ahnion?

Anyway, I want us to grow. But at a slow pace, so we can keep up and integrate people we meet. We need to preserve the feeling of being friends. An influx of 50 people at a time would be a little too much.

Oh, and then I think info (and/or a direct link to some webIRC thingie) about our IRC channels is very important. Because if we get people to join #seed, we get their souls! (insert evil, maniacal laughter going on for some time).

Yep.

Last edited by Darkhawk (2006-11-14 18:44:24)

I wonder if you misunderstood me ahnion... so just to make sure you didnt : I like simple sites as well but i dont like sites with only a simple one colored-frame outside all the content...
Its just like gameplay vs gfx... the gameplay can be much more enjoyable if the gfxs are good and helps create the setting

Nothing like someone who's been absent to come along and shake up posts!

I like the idea of it being for the roleplaying community as a whole, as this is what binds us, not just the fact we all loved Seed. We came from Seed though, so we can easily tie in our memories, feelings etc. of Seed with a where we came from thread.

Seeing as how many of us searched the internet day and night looking for a game we could RP in, it suggests there is a bit of a missing niche out there. Why shouldn't we lead the way?

As for examples of RP and stuff - that's a great idea. But a far better way in my opinion is to use RP logs, if we can get them. I don't know if SoR or URU give us that opportunity. I have found a couple of logs back from my old days in PernMUSH on the web, and they always bring a smile. Examples are good, but nothing can replace the originality of improvised RP for me
I'd also be happy to write some articles too. I'm sure between us all we can cover all different aspects of RP. And maybe we can start creating a FAQ? Then maybe I'll finally be able to get my husband to understand what it is I spend my time on the pc doing outside work

I would also go with a fairly simple looking site, but definately with eye-catching graphics.

Last edited by Esme (2006-12-06 22:55:53)

I agree with you Esme. Which I think I've expressed here and there. We came from Seed. But we should grow to be more centered around us being RP'ers online, wanting to provide a place for a lot of grat people to meet and launch RP from.

And as for logs, yes that would of course be much better. You can do those in SoR, but of course I didn't, and instead have hundreds of megabytes of screenshots now But they'd go very well with an article, to show concretely what you're writing about. Well, we can see about all that when we get closer to having the programming and layout finished

Yes Norah, exactly Nothing better to show how a good piece of RP goes. Graphics are an added bonus.

Of couse I am interrested in helping out as well. I have some experinces with CMS as well, having run a few sites(and "guilds") for an other online game

Well, I have some articles about MMOGs I'll eventually translate into English. I'm a pretty quick learner, so I think I'll get the hang of an editor's work fast enough if it's needed.

All right... it's been long in the making, but it's getting to the point where it's time to toss the site design up on the server as an alpha and start fiddling with it live. I've tested it in Firefox (2.0), IE6 and the latest version of Opera. I still have some minor rendering glitches to work out in the latter two. I have yet to test it in IE7 because... well... if I install IE7, I can't test it in bloody IE6, can I? It's not as if MS would ever dream of letting you have both installed for development purposes. I'm going to have to try to find a way to test it, but that, I can do live. I'll be back on IRC some time in the coming days, so that I can bash heads with skanx over the site setup.

Cheers to those of you who've prodded me on without stressing me. You're great people.

No real point in taking screenshots when you will most likely be able to see it live shortly.

I'm still a bit doubtful about the present forum implementation. With the changes I've made (to be uploaded) to the forum layout, it does fit, but it's in an auto-height iframe, and I'm not sure it will resize properly. I can only test that live, so we'll see. It will probably work in Firefox, but I'm suspecting issues with IE and possibly Opera.