The Lifestream & 2015

[Claymore]

Oops, wording. Yeah I meant in terms of tidying up the VII sections and getting information up on the original game.

We're definitely doing well with original content at the moment.

 

[Lex]

Obs has worked on tidying up a lot of the pages but there's still work to do. We have a summary page for each game.

It might be cool to write a guide for VII and have it on the site somewhere.

 

[Claymore]

People will be searching VII like crazy, but we don't actually have much information on the game itself up. And what stuff like interviews and scans we do have is confusing since it's split between the franchise guide and the individual game pages - something I've mentioned before. Those really do need to be integrated.

But basic stuff like character bios? World Locations? Gameplay mechanics / videos? Materia? Shouldn't we have all this up somewhere?

 

[Jason Tandro]

^ And would we homebrew our own or use outside sources? Personally I rather like the idea of us having out own home-grown encyclopedia on the OG and Compilation.

 

[Starling]

May I suggest a glossary of terms that explains the difference between mako, lifestream and spirit energy, as well as the situations when the terms are used interchangeably? Depending on how we'd go about character analysis pages, those might be applicable too. We might as well improve the timeline while we're at it.

 

[Claymore]

^ And would we homebrew our own or use outside sources? Personally I rather like the idea of us having out own home-grown encyclopedia on the OG and Compilation.

Definitely our own home-grown encyclopaedia! Between us all, we've got the knowledge to piece something like that together, as well as presenting it in a fresh way.

A glossary of terms would work well within or alongside that too.

 

[Starling]

With all the discussions on the forums that speculated on various aspects of canon, there's bound to be a lot of stuff we've already put together scattered all over the place. I recently took a bunch of screenshots of various things in CC and DoC that might come in handy.

 

[Jason Tandro]

I can dig up my old ridiculously insanely in-depth Fort Condor Walkthrough. Seriously for all the talk I do about Gold Saucer, I think THAT is actually my most favorite mini-game.

As far as character and story content I know many people here, the lady Starling not least amongst them, have been clamoring for a proper character analysis. I think it might be cool if a different person did each character analysis that way they don't sound samey and we can get some interesting perspective as well.

 

[Starling]

Well, maybe some can be collaborative efforts to cover various aspects of the character. That would probably keep them from getting samey even if a particular person is in charge of putting it together for the site.

Different people have different interpretations of things so they won't necessarily look at things from the same angle, which can add perspective you may not have thought of on your own. It's one of the great things about listening to other people speculate about something you're both interested in.

I think materia and magic would be interesting things to elaborate on as well. For stuff with contradictory or vague information, we could present the various sources and explanations and leave it open to interpretation.

 

[Lex]

But basic stuff like character bios? World Locations? Gameplay mechanics / videos? Materia? Shouldn't we have all this up somewhere?

^ And would we homebrew our own or use outside sources? Personally I rather like the idea of us having out own home-grown encyclopedia on the OG and Compilation.

May I suggest a glossary of terms that explains the difference between mako, lifestream and spirit energy, as well as the situations when the terms are used interchangeably? Depending on how we'd go about character analysis pages, those might be applicable too. We might as well improve the timeline while we're at it.

^ And would we homebrew our own or use outside sources? Personally I rather like the idea of us having out own home-grown encyclopedia on the OG and Compilation.

Definitely our own home-grown encyclopaedia! Between us all, we've got the knowledge to piece something like that together, as well as presenting it in a fresh way.

A glossary of terms would work well within or alongside that too.

Years ago, Shademp and I discussed this. Because of the format of the site and the-then redesign, we discussed moving to a wiki format to accommodate all of this stuff, but for various reasons it was decided that moving to such software was a bad idea. As such we ended up not going down the encyclopedia/ glossary route, although I do still like the idea. The problem is that as the site is currently - there's no intuitive way to format it.

Understand that if we decide to do that, we essentially become a wiki. And we can't become a wiki. What we need to do is find a way to present this information that's intuitive and doesn't send a person's eyes searching for the usual wiki tools, because we can't be a wiki. (That was another reason we didn't do this, because FFWiki already exists). Although it's an idea I'd like to revisit.

 

[Lex]

Here, I made something. Go wild

 

[Claymore]

Yeah I wasn't picturing a wiki format, because all the reasons you listed. Was thinking something a lot simpler - custom sidebars (to allow for different sub menus) and entries, so that it's fully a part of the site but could also be presented in an interesting way.

 

[Lex]

We used to have sidebars. We got rid of them because it's terrible web design

Here's 2009

Here's 2011

I spoke to Yop and he said it'd be easy enough to install Wiki software alongside WP and have a separate site-centric Wiki rather than that Wiki I just made. We could format it how we like and people would be able to add and edit as they please. It's a thought at least.

 

[Claymore]

We used to have sidebars. We got rid of them because it's terrible web design

Terrible web design or not, ease of access is extremely important, and I find it a heck of a lot better to have menus / sub menus than devoting entire pages as stubs for menus - like how the site is currently presented. But I guess it's a personal thing, to each their own.

And that 2011 version is sexy.

I spoke to Yop and he said it'd be easy enough to install Wiki software alongside WP and have a separate site-centric Wiki rather than that Wiki I just made. We could format it how we like and people would be able to add and edit as they please. It's a thought at least.

That could be interesting, especially if we could present it so that's it's less wiki-ish?

 

[RedFFWolf]

We used to have sidebars. We got rid of them because it's terrible web design

Here's 2011.

Wow, I remember this one! (I was a long-time/sporadic lurker back in the day)

Understand that if we decide to do that, we essentially become a wiki. And we can't become a wiki. What we need to do is find a way to present this information that's intuitive and doesn't send a person's eyes searching for the usual wiki tools, because we can't be a wiki. (That was another reason we didn't do this, because FFWiki already exists). Although it's an idea I'd like to revisit.

Would perhaps a new forum under the "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" section achieve something to this extent? It would be one dedicated solely to asking questions regarding the player's/asker's uncertainty around terms, why X happened and how come Y made sense in relation to Z.

Because it will be in this format of a forum, it engages members to help one another; perhaps it will even encourage the new members (who signed up to ask a question) to stay on and get involved.

Of course, it could end up inundated with complex questions that do not have a definitive answer (the kind of ones that appear in the "Final Fantasy VII" section every so often), but it would certainly help highlight why their question is such a troubling matter in the first place.
If anything, its sheer dedication to basic explanation, clarification and elucidation makes it that bit more open and inviting as a stopping ground for those who want to quickly check for something they aren't sure about it (or even end up asking themselves).

Indeed, it would be, to a degree, unrivalled (especially if there is a harmony of responses that build the foundations of well-grounded information)


Naturally, it could all end up as a messy mass of no coherent information, as well as a lot of work involved keeping it organised - a "Sticky" thread could be created with a link to resolved questions (i.e., ones with insightful information) that successfully explained certain terms, events and correlations etc., but even then...


This is just a "ball-rolling" idea if trying to avoid a typical Wiki/Encyclopaedia route (it's almost like a "forum-engaged encyclopaedia", where discussion brings about knowledge - a bit airy-fairy, but sure we're an open bunch) - so, please forgive me if this is an asinine suggestion

 

[Jason Tandro]

Wiki is intuitive, but it's not the only way to do these things. I understand you said that the side-bars weren't quite appealing either (which is a shame because side-bars are my best friend. It's how we developed the site on TerraEarth). A dedicated wiki site with a hotlink might actually work, if it is a bit clunky, but I'll leave that in the experienced hands.

I wish I could offer more, but I'm not terribly experienced in these matters, my experience on TE being the only time I've ever been part of a site content staff.

 

[Elessar]

The fucking topic of a forum upgrade has been brought up a million times but nothing ever happens. Like someone mentioned in another thread a long time ago, we always go back to square one: Doing nothing about it.

No matter what anyone says here, the forums won't be getting updated. #uglytruthbomb

 

[Flintlock]

The fucking topic of a forum upgrade has been brought up a million times but nothing ever happens. Like someone mentioned in another thread a long time ago, we always go back to square one: Doing nothing about it.

That was probably me. It sounds like the kind of thing I'd say.

No matter what anyone says here, the forums won't be getting updated. #uglytruthbomb

It certainly looks that way. Like most projects on TLS, though, it only takes one person to push it through, so it could still happen.

 

[Starling]

What about a FAQ format? I mean, do we want to explain the terms in-depth or just a short summary that does it job of clarifying what the term is? In that case, we could probably fit it on one page, with a table of contents to get to the part you're looking for. We could also have something to debunk some misconceptions. If there's a relevant article, we can also include a link to it there.

 

[Cthulhu]

The fucking topic of a forum upgrade has been brought up a million times but nothing ever happens. Like someone mentioned in another thread a long time ago, we always go back to square one: Doing nothing about it.

No matter what anyone says here, the forums won't be getting updated. #uglytruthbomb

TBF it's mostly because there's pretty much nobody going "I would really like us to move to X". This unlike back when we went from SMF to vB, when there was even a donation fundraiser organized just so that we could buy a license for it.

I think that moving to different forum software is effectively resetting the forum back to square one - or even less so, because vB was already mature and had a load of plugins and whatnot available when we got it. We (and by we I mean I) would either have to disappoint everyone and go "Sorry, this forum software doesn't support it", or invest a lot of time in learning about and developing for the thing.

TBF I'm not really motivated to work on the site much. There's also other stuff that needs to be done first (like restoring FTP access and whatnot).

 

[Starling]

I haven't been on a particularly large number of forums but I've found that vB is generally the most pleasant to navigate among them. From what I've seen of the update discussions, there doesn't seem to be anything suitable to carry over what we have without losing some important feature or other.

 

[Shademp]

On the idea of articles about characters, locations, minigames etc. I think that anybody who actually feels like writing these sort of things should do a trial run via the forum. That'd be a good start because it shows the person wants to write such an article even though a corresponding one exists on the FFWiki.

So say that somebody wants to write about Limit Breaks and how they've been depicted and explained in all the Compilation entries. The first post represents the article, which will be updated as the thread goes along with input from members and new posts by the thread author.

If the passion is there, I'd like to see it proven on the forum first before any new site format (be it one attached to our current frontpage or a complete reshaping of our current frontpage) is tested.

 

[Starling]

Sounds like a plan. So, where would you want that posted? The projects section?

 

[Shademp]

Sounds like a plan. So, where would you want that posted? The projects section?

Personally I can see such threads being either in a projects section or in an appropriate FFVII section. Unless we are flooded with project threads I don't think we'll need to manage where each thread should be.

My Crisis Core Research and Dirge of Cerberus Research threads were made in preparation for (potential) articles and they fit nicely in their respective FFVII forum sections.

 

[Channy]

I think with the amount of aspiring writers you have on the forum, you will find no shortage of people who I'll want to dabble their creatively with the love for the canon. In depth character analysis something comparable to the wiki pages and limit break analysis is a good place to start. As well as locations and the history/character back story for locations. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a first come first serve or assigned to certain people. If you have someone particularly interested in certain places or people why not let them have it? It would also bring about more interaction with members and take less stress/workload off of regular forum/site content staff.

And just imo if you get individual articles per person, place, thing, etc... Might be better in a projects subsection.

(Btw shotgun Aerith, Yuffie and Wutai )