With the upcoming release of RDR, this is going to be a test of having wider categories, rather than individual game categories. It may work, it may not.
Please don't keep it all in one thread, try to spread it out more. Refer to this professional design document for an example;
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/99/a9fa20cd-95a6-456c-a914-91b8d078adee/hezzysucks.png
So rather than having a giant "RED DEAD REDEMPTION MEGATHREAD" that goes from topic to topic to topic
You might have a "Weapons" thread in which you show off your customised weapons, how to find cool weapons, share videos of you popping bandits?
You might have a "Horses" thread in which you discuss how best to bond with your horses, show pictures of your horse, etc
Break it down into separate threads so it's easier to participate in discussions that you enjoy.
Sounds like a really cool idea. If it ends up working in the Games forum, could we expect to see it expand into the rest of the forum?
If it works, I'd be happy to implement it throughout the forum.
That being said I think one of the major hurdles will be confusion between the two games, or one game strangling the content of another.
One counter to this would be putting the game name in the title of the thread; but if we're doing that why not just have individual subforums?
Let's see how it pans out
I'm gonna be constructive here, so I don't think a "weapons" or "horse" thread is the right mindset. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this system can work with the following thread examples:
A "customization" thread (for lack of a better world) where you can show off your character, your loadout, your guns or horse-sized pets.
A RDR news and update thread
A RDR story/lore/universe discussion thread
A RDR PC modding thread... oh wait
And just with those three, it's that much less that would fuel a megathread. But we can't possibly hope to cover every discussion or question ever in a dedicated thread, so will there still be a general RDR thread?
Oh, okay. I think I misunderstood. Are we going to have multiple threads (ie Game X Discussion, Game X Screenshots, Game X Waifu Contest) all under the Games subforum, or will it be more along the lines of Game X Discussion -> with a subthread link for Screenshots as well as a link for Waifu Contest?
I'd rather have the discussion spread out wide across multiple threads, rather than it being tall in a single thread. Let's see how it goes.
I'm looking at grouping games together under certain categories, so for example GTA5 and RDR2 under the Rockstar Games category.
Hmm, I guess my only concern is what happens during the holiday or the beginning of 2019 when a lot more games are released? Won't there be a ton of clutter then if we have 3-4 threads per release?
I think thats exactly the idea what Hezzy and Garry are trying to foster.
Not every thread needs to be made with keeping in mind that it should have hundreds of replies, or that it should be relevant months later.
We're experimenting with a few things at the moment, we want the forums to be customisable for individual users.
For example, you'll go to the "Games" forum and you'll have a selection of games that you can filter for. So let's say you're really into Overwatch and RDR2, you select those two filters and you only see threads pertaining to those two games.
I'm trying it out to categorise things by developer, or publisher (whichever is more prominent) rather than individual games.
The downside of a singular massive sprawling thread is that topics are often lost in it, with the active topic changing over the space of one or two pages, whereas if they're spread over different threads it's easy to locate something you want to discuss and dive in!
Honestly I believe that this schematic change to the forum's makeup that's constantly being pushed through is an attempt at making it more livelier and active than it looks (i'm not saying Facepunch is
dying or dead). It's been tried earlier this year and the process was slowed down or reverted completely but I can see you're trying it again. Although I do understand that these changes make it more
similar to reddit I don't think a lot of FP'ers, me included, will enjoy the new format and layout.
FP'ers and other forum goers mainly arrive at a megathread that they wish and have discussions within it which is mostly insular, although some topics are repeated a majority of the time it just spurs
conversation and keeps the thread alive. Although this may seem cyclical, and the behaviour can absolutely seem so, it's more important that everything is compacted and can easily be scrolled through and at-leisure which minimizes the problem of trying to find something or keeping up with multiple threads. More importantly if every topic is quarantined to it's own specific place and off-topics - Even
though they fall under the general games vibe (Talking about horses in a gun thread, for instance) will negatively impact the conversation and thread length. Instead of repeating a topic or conversation
already had the thread will likely die due to other topic within RDR2 for instance to talk about or the negligent poster might even be lightly banned. Which could lead to a lot of either spamming threads or banned posters who just wish to chat about their favourite 'X' thing!
A more important note also is that reddit is catch-all, meaning that it's typing in the address old.reddit.com/r/reddeadredemption -> Specific Topic
for instance while FP will have Main Forum -> Games Forum -> Child Forum -> Specific topic.
A big thing that i'll point you to is that the way Facepunch's forum and reddit are designed is that currently FP (and others) forum's work out and have a strong bias towards megathreads solely because it's the most efficient and enjoyable thing to do. Reddit on the other hand is largely decentralized although altogether under one umbrella which means that most of the fluff you tend to see - at least from the games perspective - is still interconnected, and all designed to be easily accessible. Filters for FP on the other hand make it harder to use since what'll happen is a majority of threads under 'Child
Forums' showing up in the general feed and overall blocking megathreads, or even worse - other threads if this happens to all megathreads - of other games that people would like to keep tabs on.
Also a good point i'd like to make as well is that the majority of reddit's subreddits actually operate similar to a megathread/other active forums. There's usually a catch-all topic for a few days before it
peters out and dies. The majority of content is fluff one shots which are just memes, pictures, or simple 1 paragraph (at most) questions about banal things. Discussions are usually the way to go in my
book, and it's also why i'm advocating for FP to remain as is.
Thank you for reading this.
One of the things I'm designing at the moment is the ability for "topic links" in megathreads
I agree with you in that megathreads are the preferred style, mainly because they're familiar and this is a forum and not reddit.
Topic links would bridge the gap between the two. The main downside of megathreads is the loss of topics, the cyclic nature that you describe. This can easily be remedied by signposting topics. This could happen in a number of different ways; maybe by tagging your posts, maybe by creating an "offshoot" strand of discussion (like the tiered system on reddit).
It could be imagined in the following flow, where you want to discuss the topic of horses in RDR2.
You go to the Games forum, select "RDR2", you're taken to the megathread which mechanically works as it does now, except you're given the option to filter by topic, so you pick horses. All the posts disappear barring the ones that are tagged as talking about horses. The OP of the thread would be responsible for setting the topics of conversation / tags.
I think the pubg subforum would better be repurposed as a general battle royale forum.
yeah, there is a lot of battle royals, and pubg is starting to loose a player count. Fortnite might still need its own, but im not 100% sure.
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