Committee findings on paradox, key points.

[Professor420]

There is no timeline but I think given an infinite amount of time, no one is going to do it regardless until there's not another option... If you plan on taking it on and giving yourself a deadline I'd happily support a postponement of any decision, but we cannot impose or assign this, no one has stepped up, it is unlikely anyone will step up, and I cannot see even someone who steps up actually delivering a comprehensive report. Alas, these are the shortcuts we must make until we develop a TWC economy...

[Elrond]

GB: You cannot expect us to come up with precise numbers - we have reached the opinion that it is a viable option and we cant really do much more - its not feasible.

The rest of the commitee is of the opinion that a paradox sister site is the best option - we were not asked to give much more than our (educated) opinions - if you want to put in the time to treat it as a business proposal then do so - but most of us want to start discussing what else will be in the site and how it should be organised etc.

[Kanaric]

We, the committee on forum expansion, find that idea of expansion is a viable option.

The first game that we looked at looks to be a great opportunity. Paradox Interactive makes products that have a similar kind of fanbase and require a similar site to what twcenter offers now. They have everything that total war games have as far as a community is concerned so it was looked at as the easiest expansion. Any site made for this has to be made in a similar fashion to twcenter.

Here are our key findings on paradox:
Paradox has no large fansite for their game aside from their own companies site, we could attract people using mods and similar ways used to attract people from CA's site before twcenter was popular. Getting hosted modifications will be important in this as they will attract people to the site.

CA may be upset with hosting a similar game so they have to be kept separate. We have to have two separate indexes for the forums and a separate front page. The indexes can have the same user database because the CC is important for the health of any separate fansite and twcenter as a whole. http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=98233 is an important link on this. These indexes should not show total war or paradox and visa versa. They should have all games related to that group, ONLY. However they should have the CC and probably the other twcenter forums as well. This is important for keeping gold status.

To expand further on this further Professor420 gave some additional important points:

Attracting new members and increasing the site's appeal
Importance of Modifications: Its no secret that mods are important. However, looking a bit closer, the Paradox mod community appears to be much smaller than TWC, and the community appears to be somewhat mod-centric as TW community is. However, I would think that the modders are also the core of the Paradox community, meaning getting them here is almost equally important as it would be for a Total War site.

How to Attract Members: It is difficult to lure people over to a new site from an established community; in addition to the obvious promotional tools such as sigs, search engines, seeking out some recognition from paradox, as well as getting a mod community going, my feeling is we should not hide the fact that the new site is linked to a hugely successful fansite... this likely would not matter to the average joe member who sticks with whatever site he stumbles onto, but this is important I think especially for attracting mods and veteran members.

How to Attract Mods: In addition to declaring the new site hails from TWC, we should remember our unique advantages we give a fansite. There must be a promotion of the Wiki as a universal modding resource, the University as a non-TW specific modding place with obvious exceptions, SVN for mods, grassroots control (this committee for example is a good example), and professionalism, which I think is an part of all of the above aspects.

Style, appearance, function: Obviously we need a new skin and frontpage design. The sharing of databases has already been discussed. How will the rank, badge, and medal system be handled with the joint database? A technical consideration.

Content: When this committee is finished I think Hex should seek out TWC members who are part of the Paradox community or at least outside members who play Paradox games. Form a sort of focus group: what do they want to see at a new site? What keeps them as part of the community? Etc. Also, are we going to have Paradox equivalents of the ES? How is this going to get started?

Possible Staffing: Related to the issue of the ES, sort of. As far as moderators, I don't think it'd be an issue to get the first few from TWC, but perhaps we can seek out some prominent community members to moderate and administrate here. I'm least worried about moderators, actually; where do the Paradox people come in for the other aspects (content, administration, etc.)

Administration: Not the remit of this council directly I don't think but it can't hurt to give my opinions. Obviously there are security considerations. But at least initially I'd suggest Hex is very involved and open-eared with the Paradox site until it can choose suitable Paradox representatives to sit on the Council (same access as Speaker?). Or, make a Paradox council without administrative rights until Hex wants to give out the rights. But as I said, these are just suggestions, I'm sure this will be discussed in Hex extensively if it isn't already but I'm just giving my two cents, no need to respond to them one way or another.

The Curial Committee has a role in assessing the various options: the viability of the expansion as an absolute; the viability of expanding into the different game franchises; the viability of different methods of increasing participation in such discussions of them; and so on - effectively it is a policy talking shop.

We have decided that this game is viable and gave additional information as well that may assist in the creation of a site.

We have yet to decide on other games but the findings on this is certain and its a viable opportunity.



______________________________________
this is another draft.

The Curial Committee has a role in assessing the various options: the viability of the expansion as an absolute; the viability of expanding into the different game franchises; the viability of different methods of increasing participation in such discussions of them; and so on - effectively it is a policy talking shop.

this is the goal that was given us and I think we have covered the viability. Its not up to twcenter for the "how" in how it will be accomplished.

If there is any changes or additions that we need please say so.

[Kanaric]

btw just got a response from Paradox about using paradoxcenter.net saying:

Hello Kanaric, I'm not the guy to decide this alone. I personally don't see a major problem, but I'm not a marketing guy nor a lawyer

Please email susana@paradoxplaza.com and cc me at johan@paradoxplaza.com and we'll see.

I'm going to send them an email i'll post the response when get it.

[John I Tzimisces]

I am as well in favor at this point of a separate yet conjoined paradox expansion. Gold Affiliate status must not be compromised, yet we must capitalize on this avenue of expansion. Our experiences with paradox will doubtlessly influence our handling of the upcoming starcraft release.

[Kanaric]

I sent this to ozy, we have found all we could about as far as paradox is concerned now we must talk about something else.

[Elrond]

I agree - although the nature of the paradox site needs to be discussed allot more, the actual choice of a Paradox site and discussion about domain names etc has largely been completed - this thread should be closed or left.