New Forum Proposition 2.0

[John Blake]

Hello everyone.

About exactly one year ago I made this proposition for brand new forums for the RPPVP community. Work was made on it and even came to finish it,
but some things came about in my life and I couldn't carry on with stuff.

However, I'm back now and financially stable too, and would again like to propose the same thing with all the following notes:

• The current forum would obviously still exist, and could link towards the new one on the menu and in a thread. Encouragement to use the new one forum though!
  
• The new forum would have multiple themes. A flashy expansion wise one, a battle.net based one and a simple general WoW one. This means flashy themes and nonflashy themes whenever you want it.
  
• Mobile/iPad/Tablet support. Some of us might want to access the forum when unable to use the computer, I believe.
  
• Promote RP on RPPVP realms. AD can't be the only realm with a fancy schmancy site!
  
• The current Moderators/Admins would obviously become Admins over on the new forum, and I would suggest applications for Moderation to be open.
  
• Rank Icons!
  
• Can't promise, but it is possible to add a feature to sync your character with your account so that people see a link into your armory. Optional.
  
• If everyone agrees, for the web savvy people, we could arrange donation deals for web space! (Donate £5 for your own YOURGUILD.DEFIASFORUMLINK.COM (edgelordsofshadow.defiasrppvp.com or something) for example) in order to help pay off the hosting bills (not really a problem or anything though, but would be helpful )... or print a thousand posters to advertise the RPPVP community IRL at your local pub or something.
  
• Hey, let's have a subdomain wiki for Roleplay. Like a Wikipedia looking WoWHead for roleplay! Help the newbies, increase RP!
  

If everyone agrees on this, all I'd need is one tiny thing. The name for the domain. Defias-rp.com? DefiasRPPVP.com? RPPVPEU.com? hALP
Lavian, Hutchins, current MODs and Admins, and obivously, players, pls read?

[Ixirar]

I'll raise the same objection that I did last time this was posted here.

Why? This forum sees what, 3 posts/week? The new one would see even less use presumably due to the fact that I doubt everyone would follow you to your new forum. I'll humor you though and go through all your bullet points.

The current forum would obviously still exist, and could link towards the new one on the menu and in a thread. Encouragement to use the new one forum though!

How would you incentivise using the new forum? It's vastly more convenient to just keep posting here since this place has the entire server history going back to mid-Wrath when it was founded.

The new forum would have multiple themes. A flashy expansion wise one, a battle.net based one and a simple general WoW one. This means flashy themes and nonflashy themes whenever you want it.

If you want flashy themes why not just go to the Battle.net forums? Defiasrp is, in my opinion, one of the best looking message boards I've ever used exactly because of how minimalistic it is, and you're not gonna compete with Blizzard on making flashy forum themes

Mobile/iPad/Tablet support. Some of us might want to access the forum when unable to use the computer, I believe.

Fair enough. This forum's mobile version is very awkward to use.

Promote RP on RPPVP realms. AD can't be the only realm with a fancy schmancy site!

Argent Dawn uses the Battle.net forums. You're thinking of ArgentArchives, which has no forum functionality, and is simply a directory for guilds, characters and events.

The current Moderators/Admins would obviously become Admins over on the new forum, and I would suggest applications for Moderation to be open.

There is simply not enough traffic on here to warrant recruiting more moderators. Furthermore, if you're just going to keep the exact same structure, why even make the switch?

Rank Icons!

Pointless feature. There's already plenty visual indication to a person's forum rank here.

Can't promise, but it is possible to add a feature to sync your character with your account so that people see a link into your armory. Optional.

Put your armory links in your signature.

If everyone agrees, for the web savvy people, we could arrange donation deals for web space! (Donate £5 for your own YOURGUILD.DEFIASFORUMLINK.COM (edgelordsofshadow.defiasrppvp.com or something) for example) in order to help pay off the hosting bills (not really a problem or anything though, but would be helpful )... or print a thousand posters to advertise the RPPVP community IRL at your local pub or something.

What would this feature do that guildox or enjin doesn't already do ten times better?

Hey, let's have a subdomain wiki for Roleplay. Like a Wikipedia looking WoWHead for roleplay! Help the newbies, increase RP!

This already exists. http://defiaseu.wikia.com/wiki/Defias_Brotherhood_EU_Wiki - it never saw much use, because having a server wiki is a lot of work for little payoff. It's much, much more convenient to use the archive/directory sections of this forum to do the same thing.

Overall, if you ever agree to replace this forum, you'd be much better served by simply switching to battle.net. You don't promote anything by making this community even more convoluted (by adding a second forum). If you want to increase the influx of RPers, go to Battle.net where you'll be the most visible to exactly that demographic (new players)

[John Blake]

Fair points you make here and thank you for reading my post.
I will answer your answers accordingly.

How would you incentivise using the new forum? It's vastly more convenient to just keep posting here since this place has the entire server history going back to mid-Wrath when it was founded.

There's multiple ways to incentive, such as a menu link, popup (forumotion can do that), thread, or even a domain redirection for a couple of days even.

If you want flashy themes why not just go to the Battle.net forums? Defiasrp is, in my opinion, one of the best looking message boards I've ever used exactly because of how minimalistic it is, and you're not gonna compete with Blizzard on making flashy forum themes

Forumotion is indeed minimalistic. But there isn't a board software that doesn't aim for minimalistic and isn't nowadays. The new one would use a more flexible form of phpBB. Also the BNet forums are rather 'desorganized' IMO. It's one forum for everything ever... things get lost and mixed up in the process. And I'm banned over there. >.<

Fair enough. This forum's mobile version is very awkward to use.

Hehe

Argent Dawn uses the Battle.net forums. You're thinking of ArgentArchives, which has no forum functionality, and is simply a directory for guilds, characters and events.

ArgentArchives is rather a portal which has the directory characteristics, yes, and we can have such features on the new forum -- imagine surfing into a website of which you can read the latest news in general A/H RP and browse guilds and characters and stories and post on the very same site!

There is simply not enough traffic on here to warrant recruiting more moderators. Furthermore, if you're just going to keep the exact same structure, why even make the switch?

Not the same structure per say. With more features and looks!

Pointless feature. There's already plenty visual indication to a person's forum rank here.

Eh, just a tiny graphical thing. Also, since this theme is based off the old forums, the staff can have the "BLIZZARD" logo behind their avatar. Or maybe something else?

Put your armory links in your signature.

Heh, automatic avatar and Armory link though! Though this can only function after the site is live because I need Blizzard's API key and when I was making the test forum a year ago, they didn't even bother to reply after 2 weeks because the site was still on my localhost :/

What would this feature do that guildox or enjin doesn't already do ten times better?

I AM GLAD YOU ASKED! These sites permit you to in maximum make a pre-built site on a premade theme. Not a lot right? While web space (and a subdomain or your own domain) would allow you to build *ANYTHING* you want. Want a site of any kind? Got softaculous, install your script and go! Like I said, for the most web savvy or the ones who just want to differ, I guess, was just an idea, nothing solid really.

This already exists. http://defiaseu.wikia.com/wiki/Defias_Brotherhood_EU_Wiki - it never saw much use, because having a server wiki is a lot of work for little payoff. It's much, much more convenient to use the archive/directory sections of this forum to do the same thing.

I actually didn't know about that wikpage... welp, there's space at the top to add links for this page. I was thinking about a link to RPgear too and some more that are relevant towards RP.

IMO I don't think a second forum would make the community more complex to understand or anything.
Also, I'm banned on the BNet forums ,-, permanently... Though... I personally think what we need to increase the influx of RPers is leaders. A topic for another occasion.

Anyhow, the whole reason behind the proposition is to upgrade into new and better. Sure, there's a goldmine of topics for years in here, and I never said that it should be deleted or even forgotten.

In fact, this could even get just a trial at first, wouldn't take long to put everything together since I already have the resources for the project. All that is missing is the domain name obviously, which I'd need from someone of high ranking or vote, I don't know.

[Webbles]

Gonna have to pretty much 100% agree with everything Ixirar said.

Making a new forum was pointless last year, but now it is, by far, even more pointless as our discord server has replaced the forums for all casual chatting and event advertising.

And we should, indeed, use the battle.net forums more. Ain't nobody gonna wanna come here for RP when all they see on our realm forums is WPvPers having tantrums. And seemingly no RP presence whatsoever.

As dumb as half of the RP related posts on the AD forums are, they're still an excellent way to showcase the existence of an RP community on the server.

[Lavian]

I do not really understand the point in this. DefiasRP doesn't see too much use these days unlike the older days when it was far more commonplace to post here. It sounds like quite a bit of work for little pay off.

Ixirar already echo'd my opinion on this but you are by all means free to pursue this by yourself if you're really committed. I just think your resources are better used elsewhere.

[Perturbo]

This forum does the job anyway. The only thing I don't like about this forum is you can't like posts but that's a small thing. But this forum looks really good anyway, easy on the eyes and no stupid flashy shit.

And I agree with all of Ixirar's points, especially the one on the minimalist look working so well. cba with random illidan pics on the sides with a overly dark theme, that's just distracting not something you wanna look at daily.

And not to be a hater but you do realise how Barren a new forum would look for a good few months right? Posts are very infrequent here, the thing will look dead af for at least a year. At least this place has all the old posts and shit.

Honestly this seems competely pointless.

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