92 replies to this topic

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

Okay, then.

[Caspa]

So come up with a plan then.

I came up with a plan back when I was Staff, and when I was a Division Leader. Tried to find out what the community was interested in, find a central interest and get Revora built up from that. My efforts were met with an overwhelming "meh". Don't get me wrong, I do actually like this place. I want to see it rebuilt to its' former glory. The singular rantings of a bearded bastard aren't exactly something to build a community on though. It needs to be a focused, top-down effort.

By the way, someone suggested a creative writing section: we tried that, nobody gave a damn. It's a lot easier to look at pretty pictures then read someone's short story

Exactly. Building a creative community on story writing is a very bad idea. Especially for growth. Potential new members need something to quickly glance at, that'll get them interested. Even I needed that to get me here. I didn't give a fuck about what pretty stories you write. Still don't. It was MigEaters D-Day that lured me here.

We need to work together to create a direction and some form of flagship if we're going to rebuild.

[Mathijs]

How is this for a possible subforum reorganisation?

Revora Creative Network

Revora News
- Jobs
Support
- Hosting Support
- Feedback + Suggestions
Open Topic
- Showcase
- Media Discussion
- Political Discussion/Deep Thought
- Tech Talk

Network

SAME AS BEFORE

Because right now the forum main page is just needlessly long, designed for some huge community that we don't have. This would reduce it to a minimum.

Edited by Mathijs, 28 July 2012 - 09:33 PM.

[{IP}Solstice]

It looks pretty good and clean to me, so I'd go with it.

[Pasidon]

Hmm... this should really be in the command center. But yea, we've suggested getting rid of the stuff we don't use anymore. It was awhile ago, and I think everyone agreed on what to cut due to inactivity... well it just never got done. We often have come up with great ideas here, like the Indi Machine... its just they never get done.

[Mathijs]

What is this Indie Machine thing? Note that I'm not staff.

[duke_Qa]

Though I'd agree, I'd also like to add that, without more popularity it's pointless, so moreover we need to decide what we're going to do.

Exactly. Having a discussion about something that is a lose/lose situation, is the last thing you need when you are already bleeding relevance.

Lastly, I'd personally love more emphasis on Unity3D. Or maybe the Unreal Engine. That'd be a major attraction, I think, though apart from Qa and Digi_Byte, I've not seen much interest (though I myself am fascinated, and attempting to learn it, it's not really my area of expertise, so it's going slowly)

Well I've taught myself how to program c# this summer for unity3d, and its quite simple if you got some former experience with java/AS3/OOP(also helps to have plenty of spare time and a burning desire for understanding it I guess). Digi_Byte and me got some projects we are messing about with that has potential, so we'll see if that evolves into something that helps Revora around. I'm sure both of us would use Revora as a community site for whatever we produce, which should be helpful for ad revenue and maintenance.

What is this Indie Machine thing? Note that I'm not staff.

Dunno how public it is, but I guess its a thought for the future direction of Revora/network/whatever you define this as. Dunno how much is public and what's private, I suspect Pasi might have been a bit loose on the info, so blame him for leaks

[Pasidon]

Frag leaks... it's our one good idea in years of existence and it's not sane to keep it secret.

Edited by {IP}Pasidon, 29 July 2012 - 12:16 AM.

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

Maybe we should bring that up in RCC as well.
Bart has been busy with other stuff lately hasn't he?

[Pasidon]

Probably... him and Phil both. At least that's why I hope they're rarely around. More reason why we need someone who's very active and knows what they're doing at their same rank. But I bet my left boot that's not going to happen. Why? I dunno... trust issues? Delusions? Fill out a scan-tron sheet with your guess.

[Beowulf]

Revora has been dying for years. This shit isn't news.

[Mathijs]

We're not presenting it as such.

[Elric]

I haven't been on for a day or to so err imma try and answer parts of this with what i think.

I agree that Revora needs a reconstruction of some level. Delete some things and add some things to try out. For example. A small Graphics Division would be cool because its visual and a lot of people appreciate artwork. May not be active at first but with the right mindset and motivation it could become active. A writing division would be a huge risk because as said above it could be a shit story and thus making the person read it not come to Revora ever again.

The leadership thing I think has to do with Revora becoming less active. Sure they are around. But some of them are slowly fading away. For example some Staff members and such that used to be active not even 3 Months ago have not been on in over a month when they used to be on at least once a week. New active staff members should be picked or well offered to lead. Sure it may make some people angry that they werent chosen or what ever but that just proves that they wouldnt of been a good leader. Active insightful leadership is a must. Not inactive leaders. Sorry if that sounds harsh or anything like that but its just my opinion eh?

I like your idea Mathijs for the front page. It would clean up quite a bit i think.

Now i think to perfect a plan to rejuvenate Revora everybody should look around and see whats SUCCESSFUL. I just noticed today that BFME has had the most activity. More replies and more topics etc.. But what was so successful about it? Its still kind of popular. Just look at the downloads and hits on ModDB. So, is it the fact that the games we mod are out of date? Is it the fact that everybody is edgy about adding new moddable games to Revora's Forums? How hard it is to actually MOD those games? I mean there are a lot of games that are moddable but people tend to think its going to be TO hard to mod. Just think about this: when any of us started modding most of us knew nothing depending on what you do. Graphics guys became BETTER at what they did? Coders: Most learned from scratch unless they are in school learning actual Programming. I came to Revora knowing absolutely nothing about modding. I wasnt one of the people saying: "I want this kind of mod that has this much stuff" I was the kind that wanted to learn but was unsure and wanted a specific thing done. Now a days i can do what i wanted to originally do because everybody helped teach me.

If we decide to mod a new game chances are that we will know NOTHING about modding that game and we will have to build on what we do know.


This is just my 2 Cents. Sorry if it doesnt help or if it is confusing to understand..

EDIT:

I am not saying that active staff members suck or ANYTHING of the sort most of you i like just the way you guys are but the inactive ones i just think should be replaced after a certain amount of time. If they come back then they can maybe get a special position as EX STAFF or something. I love Revora and am on it almost everyday but something needs to be done to increase popularity, etc.

Edited by {IP}Apollo, 29 July 2012 - 04:04 PM.

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

Yeah, a graphics section would be good, but don't be hasty. Whilst BFME might be one of the more popularly modded games, RA and Phoenix Rising modding has quite some interest still, unless I'm mistaken, but also the fact that a game's more often modded doesn't mean that game's popular, just possibly that those who enjoy BFME modding do a lot, or are nuts. Which perfectly describes a number of us.
Also, about the staff, I love you guys, however active you are, and your status alone shows how much you've done for this community, but mostly I've seen the work of Bart and Phil, and I personally would say, if they haven't moved on, to stay, cause they provided us with a home (in a way), and I don't think it's really right that we should say such things about people who gave so much time into helping others.

That's just my morality though. Not very much useful stuff there, sorry.

[Mathijs]

There is no good reason to mess around with the different hosted divisions. It would only upset those that still post there. Also, can we stop getting sentimental about current leaders, please? There is no need to be. All we need is to come up with a definite reordering and rethinking of the structure, then get someone to do it, or ask for someone to be promoted so they can do it. Let's not get stuck in silly semantics.

I don't think we should try to be some sort of tutorial centre. There's no point, there are plenty of websites dedicated to tons and tons of 3d tutorials, coding tutorials, everything. Our niche is the providing of space for people to host their stuff. Give them that, support them, that will create a modding community which will also, eventually, be home to some tutorials. T3A is a succesful division, but we shouldn't try to emulate it too much because we simply don't have the knowledge or manpower to create a database of tutorials for every game we wish to provide hosting for.

[Elric]

Like i said i was just giving my suggestions But i understand that tutorials are dumb and such but without the basic ones people get annoyed or confused if you know what i mean. Im not saying have LOADS and tons of tutorials or anything but some would be good to keep people interested.

[duke_Qa]

I guess one fact of the internet is that you have specialized forums for nearly anything game-development/mod-related. You go to cgtalk/polycount for 3d-modelling and 3d-art, conceptart.org/deviantart.net for artistry, community sites for UDK/Unity/Ogre for game engines, other sites for programming like stackoverflow/gamedev.net and so forth.

Revora has been a place where you got a subforum to discuss and learn how a game works, not perhaps very prestigious but neither very intimidating or filled with trolls/haters.

Our niche is the providing of space for people to host their stuff. Give them that, support them, that will create a modding community which will also, eventually, be home to some tutorials. T3A is a succesful division, but we shouldn't try to emulate it too much because we simply don't have the knowledge or manpower to create a database of tutorials for every game we wish to provide hosting for.

Sounds like what Revora's core is all about. Anything else we do should be dipping the toe into different waters. If we hit something good, we might go more in that direction. If not, we still have the community with ad revenue to fall back on.

I am not saying that active staff members suck or ANYTHING of the sort most of you i like just the way you guys are but the inactive ones i just think should be replaced after a certain amount of time. If they come back then they can maybe get a special position as EX STAFF or something. I love Revora and am on it almost everyday but something needs to be done to increase popularity, etc.

I do believe they clean out quite often, 2-3 times a year. No special titles beyond other relevant titles.
Nothing wrong with bringing up inactive ones, but I would generally be careful about blaming the top guys without full knowledge of how things work. Besides, if they are the guys spending most time on Revora, what does that say about the rest of us

[Hostile]

I have an idea...

Maybe we should stop with the game modding focus and start to go for the device. Many people create games for their mobile phones and it all uses the same methods. Why not create a place where we can learn the basics of writing simple apps and games here?

I know there are tons of places for that stuff but why not here as well? I'd suggest Android because it's open source and 70% of the market (at least in the US) we can start to poke around and learn how to make mobile web versions of a website and who knows what else.

I know I've always wanted to know more about that stuff.

[Elric]

I created a Revora App a while back. I forget what i used but it had links to C&C and BFME and had the news stream on there and stuff. Its no on the App store but you can email yourself the link and get it via email for free.

EDIT: Here it is :http://forums.revora...817-revora-app/:

Edited by {IP}Apollo, 30 July 2012 - 01:46 AM.

[Phil]

I'm currently on holiday in Japan and China so I don't have time for a long, elaborate answer, but I don't want to leave everyone with the impression that Revora's leadership doesn't know or doesn't care. I've had a rather tough time this spring with university, the death of two grandparents, exams and finally organising my holidays. That's the problem you face when you run something as a hobby in your spare time.

I agree that Revora is getting quieter there are some plans already how to change that, although progress has stalled a big. It's just not so easy to make huge leaps with a team of volunteers that all have plenty of real-life commitments already. That said, I'm grateful for every idea you guys come up with. Knowing people care and want to improve things always is a big morale booster. I'll have more time again when I'm settled down at university in Shanghai, starting next week. I'll review all ideas you've posted here and comment on them them then. Until then, I'm just leaving this discussion open and unmoderated.