Patched Gaming Forums to Latest Version

[Cole]

Updated these forums to the latest version ala PADnD's official forums

[JadedDM]

I've also made a few updates to the forums myself; for the most part, nothing big, just cosmetic changes.

I merged the "DMs Seeking Players" and "Players Seeking Games" into one forum--"Game Recruitment." I didn't see the need for two separate forums for a single purpose. I then put "Game Recruitment" and the Tavern into the same category--"General Chat."

I've also made the inactive games visible again, but so they don't take up space, I've put them into forums of their own (I heard you like forums, so I put forums inside your forums...). I've also separated them into two categories--games that have ended one way or another ("Completed Games"), and games that were simply abandoned ("Abandoned Games"). I also moved Everdark and Blood of the Hero to the "Completed Games" section, as according to Ismaels-Legacy assures me they aren't being reactivated any time soon. And I moved Daggerdale to "Abandoned Games," because it's been over six months, and I don't think NoTrammeling is coming back. (Although if he, betaraybill or Korgen ever do return, it's easy enough to move the games back.)

"Modules and Misc" has become "Homebrewed Adventures," which I have found to be more fitting.

I also cleaned up a ton of typos in various forum descriptions, renamed "Fighter's Challenge," and made it visible, because honestly, I have no idea why it was ever made invisible in the first place.

And with that all done, I can hopefully begin work in actually bringing in more people. More people means more games, which means even more people...and so on and so forth. (Right now, the only DMs we have are also staff members, and I'm worried about the perception that only staff members are allowed to DM here, which isn't the case.)

I basically have a full understanding of all my admin powers now, so if anyone needs anything (like the creation of a new forum, group, or whatever), just let me know.

Any feedback is welcome, of course. As well as any suggestions on how to bring in more people (and more importantly, keep them).

[BishGada]

Hi, well, first of all you are doing a great work. I really appreciate it. I'm sure it is very time consuming all this administrative work.
I think it is good that the completed games are back visible. In the past I could get to some of the threads via messed up links here and I thought to myself 'Wow, there are much more games here... pity I can't see all of them...'
So, even that I don't have any constructive comments or requests regarding the forum, I wanted to express my gratitude.

[JadedDM]

Thanks, BishGada.

I've always believed in having lots of transparency (as indicated in my own games, where my dice rolls are made public). It's my hope that this is just the first step toward making Planet a more welcoming, open place.

[mgbevan]

Cheers Jaded!

[JadedDM]

First, thanks to those who have offered their support. I'm always glad to hear any feedback as both an admin and a DM.

Also, more updates! I thought maybe this could be a weekly thing.

I've pruned over 100 of the old accounts. They were all from 2011 (and earlier!) and had a post count of 0 and either never activated their accounts or never came back after doing so. Why would you sign up at a place and then never return again? Actually, based on some of the names and the links in their profiles, I suspect a large group of them were bots.

Anyway, I mentioned last week I was worried that because our three currently active DMs are all staff members, newcomers may make the mistake of thinking that only staff members can be DMs. It also later occurred to me that all seven of our currently active games are 2E AD&D, and this may give newcomers the erroneous impression that we only allow 2E games, as well.

So I was thinking on how to make it clear that anyone can run their own game, and they can use any game system they want (including no system at all, i.e., freeform). Then I realized we have no set instructions anywhere in the forum on how to start your own game. So I typed one up and made it a sticky over in the Game Recruitment forum. You can read it over there. Let me know what you think. Hopefully I didn't leave out any vital information. But I can always edit it if I did.

[Breila]

We had a large problem with spam accounts a few years back. They came in by the hndreds each day! I spent hours pruning them and did so with some margin of error on the "plus" side, only deleting those that clearly were spam. After someone took care of them no longer pouring in, I frankly didn't look again, since new accounts were coming in only every month or so.

Writing down the essentials was a great job!

[JadedDM]

Thanks! Hopefully this will lead to bringing in more GMs, and therefore, more people in general.

[JadedDM]

Unlikely Heroes, the forum with the highest post count in Planet history (over 7,800!), has been moved to the Completed Games section.

I'll be starting a new game to replace it, eventually. But, I haven't even started on it yet, so it will probably be awhile. So it might be a few months.

(Actually, I haven't 100% decided yet what kind of game it will be yet, to be honest.)

[BishGada]

Nice work. But why finish it and not continue to higher Arcs?

[JadedDM]

Unlikely Heroes didn't have arcs. It was the first play-by-post game I ever ran here at Planet, starting four years ago. It was a simple one-shot module that I threw together without any thought of its future. I rubber stamped all PCs that were turned in, even if they had no backstories, they were the wrong level, or their stats were inconsistent. When the module ended, I just tacked a second module to it, then another, and so on. There was no real structure to it, although I did my best to try and tie them all together. But in the end, after four years it was no longer sustainable.

If I could have done it again, I would have built a better foundation for it. I would have been more consistent in running it and in what I allowed in terms of PC applications. Building a game is like building a house, you know? Give it a weak foundation and you won't be able to build it very tall without it falling over. Unlikely Heroes had a weak foundation. The plot had no real structure, the PCs had no real motivation or reason to stick together (for the most part, anyway), we just randomly were bumped from module to module.

But I don't regret it. I learned a ton from it, and the success of Lost Souls and War of the Lance, I think, is largely due to the mistakes I made (and learned from) in Unlikely Heroes (and probably Dragonlance Chronicles and Three Relics, for that matter).

[BishGada]

I see.
Anyway, well done. Since the game lasted 4 years, I'm sure everyone had a lot of fun, otherwise they would have dropped. And mistakes or no mistakes, it is after all a game, with fun it's most important attribute.
So, I'm sure it was very good with the mistakes included and I'm glad I'm enjoying the benefit of your corrected mistakes

[JadedDM]

While creating xelphyn's new game forum, I went ahead and did some redecorating. I figured it was weird to have a special category for Dragonlance when there was only 1 game for it, same with FR. So I condensed them, along with the Greyhawk games and Ravenloft game, under "Published Adventures." Everything else went under "Homebrewed Adventures."

I couldn't decide what order to put the games...so ultimately I just put them in order of post count for now.

[Haahque]

Works for me, now I can see the two forums I care about (War of the Lance + Quest of the missing quill), on the same screen at my default resolution. Believe it or not this actually sorta matters to me.

[JadedDM]

I can basically see all of the games at once like this with my own resolution.