So, this goes alongside Hal's topic, but it's a bit separate from the ideas we're putting forth to keep the main tournament going.
The focus here is what else we can do with our main site. In Hal's topic, a few people (Idun and OK, maybe someone else too?) proposed the idea that we can use the main site to host some of our individual members' projects. After all, the DL is primarily a community site these days, why not feature all the work that our community does? We may not be able to feature -everything-, but certainly we have enough room to host all of our projects that are directly related to RPGs on the main site.
One of the biggest features that we've left off of the main site for some unknown reason (procrastination?) is the DL Wiki. We already have a large number of the Stat Topics ported to the wiki, and we're slowly getting everything duplicated on it. Additionally, it is an ideal place to upload some of the member-created content that our community has created.
So, after reading Idun's and OK's suggestions, I asked chat "Do we really have enough member-created content to feature on the main site? What have we made?" For the next 3 hours, we continued to make an extensive list of DL member-created projects.
Quick list:
Stat Topics
Niu's Corner
FE7 Stats Spreadsheet
Meeple Fantasy 6 patch
Laggy Fantasy Tactics patch
Sage's FF6 Eviltype patch
Tonfa Fantasy 7 patch (in progress)
Pyro's RPGmon program
Meeple's Abridged serials
Meeple's Bahamut Lagoon and Fire Emblem 4 (screenshot) Let's Plays
Nephrite's Suikoden 2 (screenshot) Let's Play
MagicFanatic's Illusion of Gaia (video) Let's Play
Kilgamyon's 10 or so (video) Let's Plays
Tide's speedrun videos
Talaysen's Raquel solo and other assorted playthroughs
Tonfa's FF7 challenge videos
TranceHime's assorted Japanese game videos
FFT rewritten dialog
Tonfa's Soul Nomad FAQ
AndrewRogue's DL short fiction
Djinn's RPGDL Tarot deck and various DL fanarts
Team DL's The Top 10 GFAQs writeup
Nyarlathotep's Dungeon History Museum
RPG REVIEWS!
As you can see, there's quite a few items on that list, and probably a few more that haven't been brought up yet.
These things are genuinely entertaining/useful projects for the gaming community as a whole, and we do our DL community a disservice by not featuring this stuff somewhere on the main site.
During our rant, we also discussed a few intuitive methods for integrating these projects. Looking at the site now, there's a few tab headers that aren't being utilized. Specifically, Not Ranked and Fiction.
One proposed idea was to reduce Not Ranked down to a link in the Records page, especially considering that the NR records are the only thing still active and useful on that part of the site. In its place, a header for the DL Wiki (or specifically, the Stat Topics part of the wiki even) could be added.
The Fiction header could then easily become an omnibus heading for all other member-created content like Niu's corner and Let's Plays. A rename to 'Features' was a prominent suggestion here, especially considering that the only thing under the heading at the moment is Niu's corner, a non-fictitious piece of writing.
The new 'Features' section could then be divided up into smaller pages for individual projects, or even just link to other sites or directly to the DL wiki.
For example, it could just feature a list of links, each with a short description of the project and creator(s). So... for like Andy's Fiction, I'd want there to be a brief writeup saying "A series of speculative fictional works that take a look at what life might be like in the Duelling Arena. AndrewRogue is one of our members who specializes in writing fiction and works as a copy editor." ... or something like that. And then a link to his page(s) on the wiki.
If the creator(s) doesn't want/need a bio, a short description of the project alone is enough. Niu's Corner is really the only one who needs a real intro, I feel. Perhaps explaining who the hell 'Niu' is and why his stuff is worth listening to.
Obviously, articles have headers with bylines, which link to the creators' forum profiles as well. The more exposure the forums get, the better.
To make updating the Features section easier, it might be best to integrate a BtS-like updating tool into it if Hal has the time.
Specifics:
RPGDL Wiki
"Integrate and actually link to the bloody wiki" needs to happen if people are serious about not forgetting about it, incidentally. The fact that it's utterly disconnected from the rest of the DL is the main reason I always dislike people saying "put stat topics (or anything else) on the wiki!!!" This could easily get its own header.
Stat Topics
They're on the boards mostly, but we've already got a significant portion of them on the DL Wiki, and a few of us are still slowly transferring them over. There's no reason we can't directly link to the main Stat Topic page -somewhere- on the main site. We don't need to integrate it with the main Tournament to integrate it with the site. If the Wiki doesn't get its own header, the Stat Topics certainly could use one.
Niu's Corner
Currently the only thing in the Fiction header, and it hasn't been updated since the first few were made. This feature could still be a main attraction, especially if we explained where all of this information comes from. I personally feel that these are important enough to warrant directly uploading to the site instead of just linking from the wiki, but either method would work, provided we give it a proper introduction.
FE7 Stats Spreadsheet
This thing is already uploaded on the site, but practically impossible to find from the main site. Why? Especially considering that it's one of the big draws for newcomers. It should definitely feature a link directly to the Stat topics forum and Stat topics wiki page as well.
Game patches: Meeple Fantasy 6 patch, Laggy Fantasy Tactics patch, ,Sage's FF6 Eviltype patch, Tonfa Fantasy 7 patch (in progress), Pyro's RPGmon program
We have 3 viable game patches created by our members. We really should be advertising these, if not outright uploading them to the main site. There is the possibility that some company may tell us to stop hosting them. In that case, we could stop hosting them. It doesn't stop us from advertising their existance. We can very easily provide screenshots and gameplay videos of each of the patches, and certainly Pyro's program is his to distribute, and the site could have some instructions on how to use the program for RPGmon (or even for rolling your own DL matches).
LFT and Eviltype would probably work best with comparison screenshots to show how stats/skills/monsters/maps have been changed. MF6 probably doesn't need comparisons due to the extremely different graphical nature of the patch. Personally, I'd like to writeup a quick plot summary and character bios (with pictures!) to use as an intro to this game patch.
Meeple's Abridged serials
Meeple is quite the prolific creator it seems. Abridged series have their own site already, but there's no reason we can't host Meeple's (or anyone else's if they exist) on our site or Wiki. At the very least, the SO4 one cracks me up every time and that's definitely thematically connected to what we do here.
Let's Plays!
Meeple's Bahamut Lagoon and Fire Emblem 4 (screenshot) Let's Plays
Nephrite's Suikoden 2 (screenshot) Let's Play
MagicFanatic's Illusion of Gaia (video) Let's Play
Kilgamyon's 10 or so (video) Let's Plays (
http://www.youtube.com/user/RabiEnRoll#p/p )
Tide's speedrun videos
Tonfa's, Trance's, Tal's assorted videos
Gamers doing what they do best - playing games! Let's Plays are a pretty big net phenomenon these days, and I discovered the DL had 4 of them and I didn't even realize it. Meeple and Neph have screenshot Let's Plays that may or may not be easy to upload to the main site, but if it's possible, having our own member-created LPs would certainly be another reason for people to come to the site. Magic, Kilga, Tide and the others' videos could be imbedded on the site directly from YouTube/GoogleVideo without much work at all. We could possibly upload these videos directly to the DL's servers, but I don't know what kind of space limitations we have there. Alternately, any of these things could be uploaded/linked from the wiki, as long as they get a proper introduction from the Features page.
Miscellaneous:
FFT rewritten dialog
AndrewRogue's DL short fiction (
http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=3086.0http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=3163.0 )
Djinn's RPGDL Tarot deck and various DL fanarts
Team DL's The Top 10 GFAQs writeup
RPGDL IAQ project (?)
Tonfa's Soul Nomad FAQ
A few other quality projects floating around the Forums that could really use a spot on the main site. (Yes, I'm praising myself. Oh well, self-promotion is good!) The rewritten FFT dialog was just some random chat jokes that ended up being pretty funny. There's no reason that this can't be uploaded to the wiki at least. Andrew's fiction is a bit more serious, so I'd like to see it get uploaded to the main site, but the advantage of uploading it to the wiki is that Andy can add more any time he likes. Check out the links to them on the forums if you haven't seen them before.
My RPGDL Tarot and various artworks could add some more color to the site's features too. Super mentioned that one of the first things he looks for on a site is fanart, and I can at least contribute that much. Additionally, the Tarot deck is already uploaded to the wiki and just requires a link/intro.
Similarly, the Top 10 project that roughly seven DL writers worked on for GameFAQs (which was rejected) is already complete and ready to be published.
As for the IAQ, there's some talk about it now, it might be something else we can post in the future.
Tonfa's actual FAQ is already hosted on GameFAQs, but there's no reason we can't dedicate some space to it to feature more of our members' works.
Nyarlathotep's Dungeon History Museum
Something that was discussed briefly. Nyarlie's Dungeon is one of the DL's favored past times, but there's no easy way to integrate it to the main site. Instead of trying to recreate the experience on the site, why not just record it?
Specifically, why not host previous Dungeon Floor designs on-site? Each of the floors is practically a work of art in and of themselves as a challenging balancing act between 'too easy' or 'impossible'. It's one of our better examples of showing off our knowledge of good game design.
Readers might even find some fun/use for them on their own. If we also include a roster of Dungeon participants and explain the rules, readers can have fun trying to put together teams that they think would pass the Dungeon. Even without the voting aspect, this can be a fun mental exercise.
Luckily, I'm a big Nyarlie's nerd and I logged all of the old Nyarlie's topics from the old forums, so we can host the all the series and evolutions of the Dungeon.
RPG REVIEWS! (Known completed reviews by OK, Idun, Monkeyfinger. Possibly Meeple ranting applies?)
These are things that I always forget we have. A quick glance tells me that while we aren't rolling in reviews, we do have some completed ones, and there's no reason not to host completed work on the site as a side feature. This statement applies to pretty much everything here. It's done, it's ours, why aren't we using it?
Again, these ideas aren't meant to supplant the focus on what to do about the main Tournament. Even if nothing changes there, we really should add our own creative works to a site that claims to be about our community.
