Status of TLS community projects

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
First off, allow me to extend a big, warm "hello" to everyone as your new community manager :monster:

"Well, I didn't vote for you!"

I know! That's is why I have to work extra hard to make sure I do a good job for all of you. Otherwise, what's the point of having me?

What exactly is my job? Well, uh, hmm. We - Lex, myself and the rest of the team - haven't exactly pinned down everyone's roles yet, but I can tell you what I think I should be doing, and you can tell me if I'm barking up the wrong tree.
You said anyone could push "new TLS" forward, so I decided to do my part without waiting for you - I hope that's alright!

I see my role as twofold. First and foremost, I want to make sure that TLS is an enjoyable community to be part of. That means planning, organising and running lots of events, which, as well as being fun, will help us get to know each other better. I'm not going to do everything on my own - sometimes organising events can be half the fun, and I don't want to take that away from you - but I will make sure there is always something either happening or in the works. Second, I will work to get new members to join our community by publicising our events on the front page and beyond. How does that sound?

Before I can really get started, I want to have a look back at the projects and events we've had on TLS in the past. We've had a lot of them, so I'll put them into a separate post immediately after this one. I've split them up into a few categories: active, for events that are happening right now or are currently being planned; ongoing but inactive, for projects which are likely to continue soon or are waiting for participants; finished and can be restarted, for things like community playthroughs which are always worth doing again with a different focus, or simply after enough time has passed; finished and not worth restarting, for projects that took a long time to complete and are still available to view; unknown/unfinished, for projects with unclear status and projects which haven't been finished but could still be continued; abandoned, for things which weren't finished but are probably never going to be; and new ideas, which is self-explanatory.

After each event, I've listed the person who appears/appeared to be running it. I may have made some mistakes, as I've gone for the person who made the event thread in most cases. I'm also pretty sure I've missed some events, as they're scattered all over the forum, and some of them happened before I joined. Feel free to tell me what I've missed and correct me if necessary.

If your name appears on the list, firstly, thank you for contributing to TLS! Secondly, could you tell me which category your project or event should be in? I had to make some assumptions when compiling the list, so don't hold it against me if I put your project in the wrong category. Also, I want to make the "unknown/unfinished" list as small as possible by moving events to other categories, so let me know which ones you still want to work on, and, if necessary, which ones you think should pass under someone else's control. Don't feel under any obligation to say that you will continue something if you don't want to do so, or if you think you won't have time for it. We don't have to finish everything; I already put a couple of my own projects into the "abandoned" category. The point of this exercise is to work out exactly what we are going to do in the future, not to make anyone feel bad about things that were forgotten in the past :) Once a project has been declared abandoned we can decide what to do with it.

Whether or not your name appears on the list: what types of event would you like to see or take part in? I'll be delighted if you want to organise something, but you can also put forward ideas for things you don't feel able to run. We now have someone to fall back on when there is demand for an event but nobody to run it - me!

I want TLS to go into 2015 with a clean slate of events and lots of fun things to look forward to. I hope I can work with all of you to achieve that ^_^

- Your friendly neighbourhood Flintlock

Just answer the two questions in bold!
 
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Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
This list will be updated. Last update: 2015-05-31.

Note: I am not including translations, scans or other front page projects. This list is for anything that could be described as a community event.

Active

Inactive, can be continued

Finished, can be restarted

Finished, not worth restarting

Unknown
(Currently empty)

Abandoned

New ideas
  • Final Fantasy-themed contests - art, music, writing, gaming etc.
  • Thread/post of the month (used to be part of the Weekly Roundups)
  • Fan fiction writing competition - Cabaret (explanation)
  • Crisis Core stream - Shademp (explanation)
 
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Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
As people post about their past/present/future events, I will update that list to link to their explanations. I should start off by explaining the placement of my own projects:

  • I will definitely run trivia nights in IRC in the future. I wrote a lot of code and questions for Sephibot and barely got to use it before I took my hiatus from TLS earlier this year, so it will be fresh for almost everyone :)
  • The Seven will continue with a new topic every few months. I still have to write up the previous one, but I wanted to get this out of the way first.
  • I'd like to have another race someday but I don't know if there's an appetite for it or if it's feasible. It's a big time commitment for the participants.
  • I had fun running the character battle and I think it's something we could definitely repeat (different user base, changing opinions), but probably not for a year or two.
  • The staff meetings might be worth reviving, and as community manager, I could put questions forward from members who can't make it themselves, but I'll leave the decision to the more senior staff members and say it's abandoned for now.
  • I'm never going to have enough time to make a perfect set of FFVII saves. I mean, yes, there is a tiny chance I'll do it at some point (and upload it to TLS - that's partly why I think of it as a community event), but the probably is so small that I have no problem saying it's abandoned. I want us all to be realistic here.

I should add that you don't need to explain ongoing events unless you feel the need to :)
 
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Lex

Administrator
Excellent, all kinds of woohoo.

I've said this already but another community playthrough at some point soon would be excellent. I don't have anything more to add. Fire away :monster:
 

Airling

Ninja-Fairy-Jedi-Princess
I've had a hankering for us to try and top the "Most users ever online". It stands at 312 and has since October last year. And if we all pool here to break that we could get on #tls too. Would this fall in your dominion?
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
I've had a hankering for us to try and top the "Most users ever online". It stands at 312 and has since October last year. And if we all pool here to break that we could get on #tls too. Would this fall in your dominion?
Seeing as TLS has 130 active members (by vBulletin's own metric), we'd need an awful lot of cooperation from spambots and search engine spiders to break 312. Unfortunately those do not fall in my "dominion" :p

I want TLS to be active organically, not because we're trying to beat a record. It's only a number :)
 

Ghost X

Moderator
IIRC, the final fantasy inn thing is on the scrap heap of history. Granted, I don't think I declared it. My memory tells me I didn't think it was popular enough to continue with, or something.
 

Cabaret

Donator
This is probably a silly idea that's been done, but I'd love a compilation of brief character bios & pics written for the purposes of fanfiction writers. I probably am one of the few who has to trawl through scripts to get this info, but it could be cool to do competitions/challenges with. (EG write a crossover fic with 2 characters with a similar screw up & how they fix it / write an agony aunt letter to one character & reply from another, other posters pick a character & reply from their pov and continue the thread like that - silly stuff like that)

A bio could include the following:
Name
Side/alliance
Character highlights
Biggest achievement
Biggest screw up
Generally responsible for
Friends
Enemies
Any other points of interest


Yeah or something.

I'm happy for that to get thrown out the window & might just put up some writing challenges in the creativity thread instead :monster:
 

trash panda

---m(O.O)gle---
AKA
Howl
Sort of similar to what Cab mentioned, I recently had a vision of doing "mock interviews" with the cast of FFVII either immediately after the game was released or as a reunion special. The cast will reveal who was dating each other off set, set mishaps, etc.

Some ideas I had about these pretend interviews:

+Tifa and Sephiroth reveal that they were a thing for a few weeks away from the cameras despite their on screen rivalry.

+Sephiroth commentates on how his wig flew off in the whirlwind maze and they had to postpone filming that scene for several weeks until a replacement wig was produced for the cost of around five kajillion gil. He also mentioned that despite the poor graphic quality, the producers were very elaborate when it came to props and costumery and that he really could have worn a mop on his head - gamers wouldn't have known the difference. Off screen, Sephiroth is also bald.

+Tifa, in a cast reunion interview states her feelings on being replaced by another actress in Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus. It was not the right time in her life to return to the big screen. Her breasts by the way were completely real and she did undergo breast reduction surgery about 10 years after FFVII's release.

Hey, I'm having fun with this again. :D
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
I'd love a compilation of brief character bios & pics written for the purposes of fanfiction writers.
We do have some profiles on our front page, but it is something we should expand on. I don't see it is a community project, though, so you're better off aiming your request at the Final Fantasy VII or General Final Fantasy editors. Maybe they'll make their own projects thread :) I should rename this one to make it clear that it's for community stuff.

This, however:
It could be cool to do competitions/challenges with. (EG write a crossover fic with 2 characters with a similar screw up & how they fix it / write an agony aunt letter to one character & reply from another, other posters pick a character & reply from their pov and continue the thread like that - silly stuff like that)
Is definitely going on the list :) I can't say I know much about writing fan fiction, but luckily I know someone on the TLS staff team who does. If there's demand for it, I'm sure we can work together on making it happen.

Sort of similar to what Cab mentioned, I recently had a vision of doing "mock interviews" with the cast of FFVII either immediately after the game was released or as a reunion special. The cast will reveal who was dating each other off set, set mishaps, etc.
Those sound great! There's nothing to stop you from writing them and submitting them for publication - we accept contributions from everyone :) Again, though, I'm not sure this thread is the right place to discuss it further, unless you were planning on making it a collaborative effort somehow?
 

Lex

Administrator
I recently had a vision of doing "mock interviews" with the cast of FFVII either immediately after the game was released or as a reunion special. The cast will reveal who was dating each other off set, set mishaps, etc.

I love this idea.
 

trash panda

---m(O.O)gle---
AKA
Howl
We can divy up the characters...if I felt like I was doing it by myself I'd inevitably procrastinate until forgetting I ever had the idea. :monster:

I'll get in touch with Tifa and Sephiroth and interview those two. We could either save other character interviews for future projects (to keep the idea rolling over a period of time) OR some other members can interview other characters.
 

Unlucky

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN
Off screen, Sephiroth is also bald.

My new headcanon.

OT: A while back this idea of a FFVII Cookbook came up in the SE Merchandise thread. I dunno if folks are still up for it, but there were already some cool contributions.

There are actually a lot of great ideas from said thrad made out of frustration from SE products :desu:
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
I refuse to let this thread become inactive. People with projects in the "unknown/unfinished" section, you have a couple of days to post here before I start badgering you about it :P
 
The goal was to stream Dirge of Cerberus for our site anniversary. In this sense, the project is finished. While only the second half of the stream was recorded, I think it's safe to say that I will never re-stream for the sake of completing the video playlist. If I re-stream Dirge of Cerberus, that's going to be its own playlist/separate-occasion/nothing-to-do-with-the-project-above.

So you can dub the project as "Finished" and 50% successful or some such.
 
It's just a shame we don't have the whole thing on Youtube.
I agree. I might be open to a full re-stream in time for the site's 7th birthday, but the commentary and atmosphere will be different from the previous birthday stream, meaning that it'd be better to record and upload a full stream rather than play through half the game and "patch" it together with the recorded 2014 stream. Those are my thoughts, anyway. The 6th birthday stream will remain incomplete, sadly.

In preparation for the 7th birthday there should be a Crisis Core stream. We have already done FFVII (the original game) streams and now Dirge of Cerberus. Maybe I should create a CC Stream project thread already, to figure out how such a stream would even work :P Dirge of Cerberus is easy to stream thanks to how short that game is.
 

Pixel

The Pixie King
You should do more streaming/youtube playthroughs. You have an interesting, informative way of LPing
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
After checking with Fangu, I'm moving Drunk Friday into the abandoned category. There will be future events in the IRC channel, including some that involve Sephibot, but we won't be encouraging people to drink :) Not that we'll stop anyone from doing so at their own discretion, of course.
 

Lex

Administrator
Drunk Friday used to be a lot of fun. Ah the good old days. But yeah a name change is probably in order if something like that is to continue. Like 50% of the people didn't actually drink anyway.
 

Fangu

Great Old One
Well, I suggested somebody else run it, or we simply rename it, not abandon it altogether, but I guess those are semantics; if we rename it, is the event still the same? Etc :monster:

idk I think "Drunk Friday" was a pretty good name, but people did think they'd have to be drunk (which they didn't) so I'm all for renaming it to 'Quiz night' or something.
 

Cthulhu

Administrator
AKA
Yop
I'm all in favor of calling it "Performing the Ritual to Awaken the Great Old Ones from Their Eternal Slumber that They may Return and Their Kingdom Cover the Earth Once Again-Friday". :monster:
 
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