Expansion committee's findings.

[Kanaric]

Here is our initial discussion.

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.

Our conclusion.

There are many other possibilities out there aside from Paradox games. Everything, such as gold status issues, forums, site construction, was found previously when we were looking into the best example of paradox. Something needs to be done to determine what games are already popular on this site as a base for anything further to expand into. There needs to be a preexisting community already on this site and interest within the community so that any site could be established. Then that site would grow from there, this is the case for any game that contains a decent online community.

Right now, since we own the content for oblivion down, that is a very real possibility. Oblivion has a modding community and decent enough following to warrant a site. Also if we have their user database to form a mailing list we could email the former members of that site that its back but under new management.

Any sites need to have its layout discussed that includes the people who are interested in running that community and the people who know the game well. This needs to be done with Paradox and any other game that we try. Every game is different in what a fansite needs to be successful.



On the paradox site we suggest that the creation of this begins soon. There are a few new ideas regarding this community.

The paradox site should have its own domain obviously and its forums link should point to a subsection of the TW forums such as this like would portray:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=3
You could optionally do this with any game, including total war products. That way the first thing people see is discussion for that particular game and the forums are seen as dedicated to that game.

The separate main pages and sections of the forum will ensure that gold status is not affected.

All it would require is a purchasing a domain such as Paraodoxcenter.net and setting it as a redirect to a TWC subdomain and then rearranging the forums organization as to separate the separate parts of the site as much as possible - this would save allot of time for the tech staff whilst making it as separate as possible, meaning that gold affiliate status shouldn't be affected. I'm sure the people who control the hardware of the site know how to do this or something similar.

We believe the next step is to simply find the people needed to begin the creation of a paradox site and begin the construction. If there is any comments or questions please send and I will answer them based on our findings.

Thank you for allowing this discussion. We would like to know the opinions on our findings and what you plan to do as a result.

We have concluded our discussion. Please feel free to ask questions if you like.

[imb39]

Thank you for your conclusions. They shall be looked at and studied in great depth...

I really mean it. You have all worked very hard, but do not disband. I might have some questions for you lot to ponder...

[Professor420]

I'm just glad we could get over our egos and work together for the greater glory of TWC.

I wish I could say the same for some people outside of the committee.

BTW imb why do you keep adding daggers to your name? You got pushed back up to two today!

[imb39]

I shall try to put somethings down this weekend. For various reasons, I have not been able to focus to o much on this for sometime. I can only offer apologies.

[Professor420]

DON'T make me switch my avatar to mock you... that guy already has a mustache.

I will have to make up another award for you.

[imb39]

Very generous. Doubt I'll accept it. I have rejected all others.

[imb39]

*sigh*

Better late than never. I had drafted this a while ago looked at it, forgot about it and then got too embarrassed to post. However, I am used to swallowing pride....

Onto my reply...

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.

There is a lot of agreement, Paradox is an excellent way to explore this avenue. Their games lend themselves very well to the strategy element of the TW Series.

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.

What about the issue that Paradox's games are possibly too niche market, even more so than the TW series... This not to disaparage what they do - heck I own many of their games and regularly play them (HOI2: Arm is a favourite of mine at the moment, but I digress). We are getting SVN installed (it might even be done but some tweeks need to be sorted out). Also Sim has been clearing space to give to mods to use internally. The nice thing about Paradoc game mods is that they often aren't as demanding in terms of memory space as TW games.

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.

From your points of view do you regard Gold Status as sacrosanct? Having said that, there are only two Gold Affiliate Status sites. I hardly think CA would alienate the largest TW site on the net. Our expansion has to be good for them, no?

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.

Yes, like the TW side of things, modding will have to be the heart of this venture. we have a relatively vibrant discussion forum, just getting one or two mods over will be the key...

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.

Kanaric has had far more success from Paradox. I would be interested to know if we could get any recognition...

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.

Yes, we need to work on our strengths. I think the fact that we have established and successful protocols on mod development (ie each hosted mod forum is a little fiefdom...)

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.

I have some issues, as outlined below.

My one big worry is from my experience of ON. They had a series of games, each with thier own websites which developed their own communities. Admittedly the biggest pain in the backside (from this perspective) was an acquired site - TWC. By the end of it all, ON's control was definitely resented by many here and there was no 'ON' Community. The attempts to deal with this problem (which seemed to raise hackles here) was to merge the various off topic areas. I doubt it would work.

Now we start from a radically different point but the pitfalls remain the same. I just see a time where the Paradox site simply decides it has little in common with the rest and then have mayhem. It's a toughie - is TWC somewhat special in having this rebellious streak? Again, judging from ON's experience, we might have been the Paris commune that caused them major grief, but it is clear that other sites also had problems with the way ON was structured.

Then we get onto the problems of running it. As it is maintaining TWC stretches us to our limits in many ways. We are incredibly fortunate to have both Sim and Mim here. A lot of progress has been made in the past 5 months or so but to throw anything more at those two is simply not viable, imo. Staffing issues (as in moderation) would not concern me, only the technical aspect does...

There are many other possibilities out there aside from Paradox games. Everything, such as gold status issues, forums, site construction, was found previously when we were looking into the best example of paradox. Something needs to be done to determine what games are already popular on this site as a base for anything further to expand into. There needs to be a preexisting community already on this site and interest within the community so that any site could be established. Then that site would grow from there, this is the case for any game that contains a decent online community.

What about taking a plunge and going for something that has not been developed - I have Spore in mind, in this case (thanks to Fab for explaining to me the premise of this game). I have already indicated that Paradox's games have a small(ish) following - though it is fiercely loyal. Other more mainstream games might be the Civilisation series of games, an expansion (a very good one too, I might add) has only just been added. Is there a game that we can get involved with that is due to start/underdeveloped (in terms of modding)? Modding will be the heart of anything we have to offer. Breaking into established communities is necessarily harder...

Right now, since we own the content for oblivion down, that is a very real possibility. Oblivion has a modding community and decent enough following to warrant a site. Also if we have their user database to form a mailing list we could email the former members of that site that its back but under new management.

Do we?

Any sites need to have its layout discussed that includes the people who are interested in running that community and the people who know the game well. This needs to be done with Paradox and any other game that we try. Every game is different in what a fansite needs to be successful.

I still see nothing but pain and suffering by going down this route. there again I am a highly pessimistic person!

On the paradox site we suggest that the creation of this begins soon. There are a few new ideas regarding this community.

The paradox site should have its own domain obviously and its forums link should point to a subsection of the TW forums such as this like would portray:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=3
You could optionally do this with any game, including total war products. That way the first thing people see is discussion for that particular game and the forums are seen as dedicated to that game.

The separate main pages and sections of the forum will ensure that gold status is not affected.

All it would require is a purchasing a domain such as Paraodoxcenter.net and setting it as a redirect to a TWC subdomain and then rearranging the forums organization as to separate the separate parts of the site as much as possible - this would save allot of time for the tech staff whilst making it as separate as possible, meaning that gold affiliate status shouldn't be affected. I'm sure the people who control the hardware of the site know how to do this or something similar.

Now that I like... Is that what you've been saying all this time? It won't have its own identity, however. The skin will be the same etc. Though, again borrowing from Paradox, each aspect of it's forum has its own skin, in essence.

We believe the next step is to simply find the people needed to begin the creation of a paradox site and begin the construction. If there is any comments or questions please send and I will answer them based on our findings.

Some of the staff will be easy to find (moderating, for example). content, here should be able to get certain things going too.

Thank you for allowing this discussion. We would like to know the opinions on our findings and what you plan to do as a result.
We have concluded our discussion. Please feel free to ask questions if you like.

Actually, thank you. You have worked very well together and I do value the contribution made - it might not appear that way at times, but it is true.

[Elrond]

There is a lot of agreement, Paradox is an excellent way to explore this avenue. Their games lend themselves very well to the strategy element of the TW Series.

I agree.

What about the issue that Paradox's games are possibly too niche market, even more so than the TW series... This not to disaparage what they do - heck I own many of their games and regularly play them (HOI2: Arm is a favourite of mine at the moment, but I digress). We are getting SVN installed (it might even be done but some tweeks need to be sorted out). Also Sim has been clearing space to give to mods to use internally. The nice thing about Paradoc game mods is that they often aren't as demanding in terms of memory space as TW games.

The TW market is admitedly bigger than the Paradox market but there is enough interest to support a major forum - I doubt many people believed that TWC would ever become this big due to the size of the TW market but it has. There is also a balence that needs to be made - a game which is too popular will already have major forums dedicated to it, meaning a attempt to setup a site for that particular game would probably be unsuccesful. An example of this is the civ series - many people supported the idea of a civ based site - this however is unfeasable due to the size and popularity of the main civ forum - it is better to tap into a smaller market which remains relelitvly untouched than try to compete in a bigger market were we will remain small fish.

From your points of view do you regard Gold Status as sacrosanct? Having said that, there are only two Gold Affiliate Status sites. I hardly think CA would alienate the largest TW site on the net. Our expansion has to be good for them, no?

Yes I do beleive that the gold status should be protected what ever the cost - and yes if the site does lose its reliance on TW series, it is likely that CA will downgrade our status. The other issue with having non TW gaming forums here is that they are unlikely to recive traffic from outside TWC - people will want to post in dedicated sites for the particular game - the EU subforum has been around for 5 months but still only has 1 or 2 people viewing it at a time - this is because its traffic is from TW members who have the game rahter than from outside traffic and this is unlikly to change.

Yes, like the TW side of things, modding will have to be the heart of this venture. we have a relatively vibrant discussion forum, just getting one or two mods over will be the key...

The comparison with the TW series is what makes a Paradox forum tempting - modding will have to be the centre piece of any new venture. Most mods are only going to be attracted to a new site rather than a subforum.

Kanaric has had far more success from Paradox. I would be interested to know if we could get any recognition...

I would be very, very suprised if Paradox refused to recognise a major new dedicated fan forum, especially one owned by a succesful TW forum.

Yes, we need to work on our strengths. I think the fact that we have established and successful protocols on mod development (ie each hosted mod forum is a little fiefdom...)

I agree, (although I wouldnt publicaly call hosted mod forums 'fiefdoms'.)

I have some issues, as outlined below.

My one big worry is from my experience of ON. They had a series of games, each with thier own websites which developed their own communities. Admittedly the biggest pain in the backside (from this perspective) was an acquired site - TWC. By the end of it all, ON's control was definitely resented by many here and there was no 'ON' Community. The attempts to deal with this problem (which seemed to raise hackles here) was to merge the various off topic areas. I doubt it would work.

The big difference between ON and any new site is that the new site would have a technical link to TWC - either a joint user database or some kind of shared forum index. A site without such links would result in it growing apart from TWC but a technical link would enshrine the connection. Lets not not forget that you would own both sites so and (hopefully) be active in both. There would also be numerous other conections between the two sites that ON never had - e.g. moderation staff. I doubt that such strong conections could be broken in months or even a few years.

Now we start from a radically different point but the pitfalls remain the same. I just see a time where the Paradox site simply decides it has little in common with the rest and then have mayhem. It's a toughie - is TWC somewhat special in having this rebellious streak? Again, judging from ON's experience, we might have been the Paris commune that caused them major grief, but it is clear that other sites also had problems with the way ON was structured.

The curia and Hex were the center of rebellion against ON - these two bodies would control the new site and pressumably have members from the new site participating on them - ie a Artifex style badge for people who gain citizenship because of contribtions to the Paradox site.

Any type of expansion will result in major problems - there will be issues caused by TWCs growth at some point - the question is whether problems caused by expansion can be dealt with or will they strain the system too much? The main problems caused by a new site would be rebellion and efforts to gain independance - if as many links as is realisticly possible are created from day 1 this issue will be largely dealt with for the medium - long term.

Then we get onto the problems of running it. As it is maintaining TWC stretches us to our limits in many ways. We are incredibly fortunate to have both Sim and Mim here. A lot of progress has been made in the past 5 months or so but to throw anything more at those two is simply not viable, imo. Staffing issues (as in moderation) would not concern me, only the technical aspect does...

The technical staff would have to be reorganised if a new site is setup - Sim or Mim would to have recruit new members to join the technical staff in order to be able to setup and maintain a new site. All the suggestions from the commitee are technicaly possible - it is a matter of how much the technical staff would have to change inorder for the suggestions to be inacted. A key thing to remember is that although the technical staff have a infulence on what happens at TWC, they shouldnt effect technicaly feasible suggestions - it is the tech staff responsiblility to implement the wishs of Hex and the curia rather than chose whether they want to implement a suggestion.

What about taking a plunge and going for something that has not been developed - I have Spore in mind, in this case (thanks to Fab for explaining to me the premise of this game). I have already indicated that Paradox's games have a small(ish) following - though it is fiercely loyal. Other more mainstream games might be the Civilisation series of games, an expansion (a very good one too, I might add) has only just been added. Is there a game that we can get involved with that is due to start/underdeveloped (in terms of modding)? Modding will be the heart of anything we have to offer. Breaking into established communities is necessarily harder...

There are numerous reasons why the commitee believes that Paradox is the best option and why we beleive that other options arent feasable - for details see the commitees recomendations and other threads in this subforum.

Now that I like... Is that what you've been saying all this time? It won't have its own identity, however. The skin will be the same etc. Though, again borrowing from Paradox, each aspect of it's forum has its own skin, in essence.

It was one of the possibilities we discussed - a balence needs to be struck between just creating a new section here and setting up a completly independant site. Possibilites such as seperate forums with a automatic joint user data base and a section at TWC but with a homepage and seperate downloads center all have varous pros and cons - essentialy the more seperate the sites become the harder it is to implement but the closer the sites are the less identity the new site has. In reference to the a homepage linking to a section at TWC - I have suggested a forum heirarchy which would seperate the the new site from TWC whilst keeping it part of then forum:

Two different front pages

the paraodx site uses a domain such as paradoxcenter.net which redirects you to a subdomain of TWC - e.g. paradox.twcenter.net - when clicking on the forums button it would automaticly load to the paraodx section of the 2nd part of the forum heirarchy.

the current home page would redirect people to a subdomain for TWC e.g tw.twcenter.net - when clicking on the forums button it would automaticly load to the TW section of the 2nd part of the forum heirarchy.

btw this forum is: Total War Center Forums > The Capitol > CVRIA > Curial Committees > Curial Committee on the expansion of TWC > Initial Objective: Which path should we take?

so imagine that the Paraodx homepage forums button loaded to - Total War Center Forums > Paradox

whilst the totalwar homepage forums button loaded to - Total War Center Forums > Total War

The current forum indexes (Total War Center Forums > ) would just be a choice between entering either halves of the site and would only be seen if someone clicked on 'Total War Center Forums >' whilst they were on the other part the site, because the Paraodox front page would direct users to Total War Center Forums > Paradox and the current front page would direct people to Total War Center Forums > Total War.

All it would require is a purchasing a domain such as Paraodoxcenter.net and setting it as a redirect to a TWC subdomain (e.g. paradox.twcenter.net) and then re arraging the forums organisation as to sperate the seperate parts of the site as much as possible - this would save allot of time for the tech staff whilst making it as seperate as possible, meaning that gold affilate status shouldnt be affected.

Does this make sense?

It would divide the site equaly and keep them seperate unless someone clicked on the first part of the forum directory they wouldnt enter the other halves of the site - thus meaning that the sites would largely be seperate in design etc whilst having none of the problems of two seperate sites with a joint user database.

and back to imb's post:

Some of the staff will be easy to find (moderating, for example). content, here should be able to get certain things going too.

I agree - content and moderation staffing is unlikely to cause trouble.

The ownly serous issue blocking the commitees recomendations is the fact that the current tech team simply isnt big enough to implement it - if the commitees plans are accepted by Hex they must go hand in hand with a major expansion and reform of the techinical staff - this may be difficult to do but it is essential if any major expansion is going to take place.