59 réponses à ce sujet

[Astorax]

Adaram wrote...

• Let's say I wanted to see all the mods that relate to "Ability Changes", or,
• the mods that relate to "Gameplay Changes", or,
• most importantly, a list of all the different category's of mods since I want to know if there are any cool mods that I didn't even know existed?

How would I do that?

Right now?  Click on Projects in the top toolbar (under the SocialNetwork banner).  Change the category to DA Addons, then search for your favorite google keyword (I used Ability and Abilities).

The "Category" is too broad right now as it simply encompasses everything DA related.

I'd love to see a "subsection" set of categories for projects which are a bit more comprehensive as "buckets" and/or the ability to create your own subsection which then appears in that list (although that could get REALLY messy and long).

[Adaram]

Thanks Astorax. That, indeed, looks like a viable way to achieve some sort of "finding based on category".



I am still concerned, however, that many people are use to the ability to see things "old style", ie. click once and get a list of all the categories, then link of the category to the list of mods, etc. Like www.damods.com.



I know that we should all challenge ourselves to think in new ways. In fact, moving from straight forums to this social site was a challenge, but now that I am use to it, I like it a lot. Having said that, however, I am concerned that there will be a portion of the population that will not be "sticky" to this site due to the fact that things are not easily found in ways that they are use to finding them. To me, that is a travesty, since this site has the potential to give folks everything they need, even if they don't know it.



Why not offer both ways? Old style and the way it now works (which I agree needs more definition in the categories, but not too many, either).

[Jesse van Herk]

Adaram: we're definitely open to adding more project categories - we had already added a bunch for builders, and if someone provides a reasonable list for end-user modules that would also be doable.



That said, we do have some support for tagging projects with arbitrary keywords, but it never got finished. If it would useful enough, we could bump up the priority on that...

[Astorax]

I think it would be useful...that combined perhaps with a vieweable list of the common keywords...basically, a dbase lookup on the most used keywords that can then be added dynamically to the category dropdown to easily view the mods with common keywords attached to them?

[Adaram]

Jesse van Herk wrote...

Adaram: we're definitely open to adding more project categories - we had already added a bunch for builders, and if someone provides a reasonable list for end-user modules that would also be doable.

That said, we do have some support for tagging projects with arbitrary keywords, but it never got finished. If it would useful enough, we could bump up the priority on that...

Tagging is good, provided people take the time to Tag, and, those same people use the tags in a way that is not too haphazard.  Having a good category list would probably be a better place to focus effort, IMO.

The current list is:

Dragon Age Addons
NWN Modules
Builder DA Models
...
Builder DA VO Files

Those seem to correspond to the category that the Project Creator chose in the first place, no? Hmmm...

Wow ... I am having a hard time coming up with a good list that is general enough, but not too long. It's almost like it might be better to have a Category and a Sub Category. Is that possible? Here is what I think works, but I am not a design guy, so take the grain of salt.

Category: Playable Mods/Add ins
-------------------------------
Lore Based Mods
User Created Worlds
Games based on other IP (LOTRO Mods, Star Wars, etc.)

Category: Resource Mods
-----------------------
Texture Mods
Ability Mods
Weapon Mods
Face Morphs
Levels/Areas to use
etc

Category: Other
---------------
Utility Mods
Nude Mods
etc.

If we had a page that provided links to the categories and sub categories, that would be good. Perhaps we can find an industrious team of dedicated fans that are willing to put the effort into properly categorizing things, so that there is some consistency, etc.

I don't know ... I am just shooting from the hip.

I'll again point you at www.damods.com and Nexus for some other ways that people are organizing these things.

Hope this helps.

[FalloutBoy]

Astorax wrote...

*nod* lemme ask you fallout, do you think we could combine Tools/Utilities and Project Announcements given that they'll both likely (hopefully) be Projects where a lot of the dev discussion will occur, and not in the forum itself? Or do you feel strongly that they ought to have their own sections?

Tools could probably go away. If there was a popular tool like YATT, then you're right, the discussion belongs in that tools project page. But then it would still make sense to announce it in the Announcement forum.

You could try going without an Announcement forum too and only create it if it starts cluttering the General.

Also, if you could rename Custom Content (since it's been brought up that it's a bit...vague) what might be a better name for it (just brainstorming here)?

Good question. In NWN it meant any new content you create outside of the toolset, which would require a hakpack to use. It was for people who were making new creature models and new tilesets mostly. "What's the file format for this?" and "How do I export that from Blender?" Maybe call it "Custom Models" or "Modeling and Animation". Those names seem restrictive but at least they are not vague.

EDIT: Also, thanks for adding the project categories. Huge step in the right direction.

Modifié par FalloutBoy, 20 novembre 2009 - 07:39 .

[Jesse van Herk]

That's a good starting point - one easy change just made was to rename "DA End-user modules" to "DA Playable Modules", since that's much better language to use. Adding subcategories/etc will take more development time and is therefore not going to happen for a little while.

[Adaram]

Jesse van Herk wrote...

That's a good starting point - one easy change just made was to rename "DA End-user modules" to "DA Playable Modules", since that's much better language to use. Adding subcategories/etc will take more development time and is therefore not going to happen for a little while.

Understand re: subcategories and development ... I would submit that the longer we go without resolving this in a meaningful way, the larger the chance that people will just go to other sites for DA stuff and we'll have a hard time getting them back. It would be a shame to end up with an external site being the main hub for DA stuff (like the Vault is for NwN1 and NwN2)

Again, this could all be just my "old guy" way of thinking, but it seems that there have been several comments made about it, so I thought it should be raised here

[Jesse van Herk]

We've just added additional "Mods" categories to help organise things. I totally agree that the more useful/friendly we can make this site for mods, the better.

[AND04]

Could we please have the ability to change a Mods Category as well? Would be much appreaciated.

Modifié par AND04, 21 novembre 2009 - 07:21 .