Tamriel Rebuilt :: View topic

El Scumbago · TR Member 09 Apr 2005 Location: Athens, Greece

I'll begin this post with a short prologue rather than get straight to the rost.

As we all well know, the current organised Morrowind modding community is divided into the two major mod projects that exist right now. Our beloved Tamriel Rebuilt, and the ex-partners of ours, Silgrad Tower.

Many individuals have joined and abandoned the ranks of both projects through these years, but things unfortunately came to a point where ST team can no longer be regarded by TR as fellow modders, though that is mostly a product of ST's Core policy. If they're not fellow modders, what are they? one could ask.

From my point of view (I can't speak on behalf of the rest of us) they are competitors, not because their aim is different, but because of the slander they spread for TR and the general attitude of their team towards us. Again, this does not apply to all of them, but to their overall behavior.

I recently had the idea of suggesting ST to cooperate with TR in order to achieve the goal of making a whole province in the TES4 engine, and was very disappointed to learn they wouldn't even discuss it should they had been asked.

Concluding, we're on our own. The goal now is to attract the greatest number of modders possible to our project, modders who do possess the ability and -most important- the will to rise to the status of TR Modders.
Sure, people who take a look at our work are amazed, but that is not enough, I'm afraid. Glam looking stuff count for much in a visitor's eyes, ST knows and exploits this knowledge by making their site as flashy and attractive as they can, while ours maintains the same melancholic style it had for quite some time (years) now.
The point is that we have the advantage of possesing plenty of high-quality stuff to show off, yet we don't.

What I suggest is a major visitor-friendly alteration of the way things are presented in our main page. And by the word alteration I mean a general remake of pretty much everything; Colors, links, background pics, general re-organization of it in other words. The point is to make the xyz modder to fall in love at first site with what we're doing.

I do not know how much work this would require, I do not know if those who can do it have the time or means to do it, I'm only presenting what imo can be useful.
Give your feedback on this and I'll make a full presentation of my idea about this in both image and text. I'd also like all who can make a detailed presentation of something similar, to make one.

And because we're not supposed to be toying around with stuff such as our public image, I would like the admins and the older members of the project to give their opinions and explain to the rest of us their point of view and/or alternative suggestions they might have.

------------------------------------------------

Note to the admins: Guys, I know all I've said here is quite heavy and serious, so forgive me 'coz I'm going to say a little more. I was filled in about the disposition of ST towards us, but working for something this big in TES4 is quite a difficult task, at least the way I see it.
Reuniting with these guys would make for a very powerful team, able to complete a whole province.
I can only ask that you think about contacting them.
Thanks for reading all of this post. Wink

Morgoth · Last edited by Morgoth on Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:46 pm; edited 1 time in total

I always knew you were a nutter. Do you want to destroy us? Think about it. The ST people would be disagreeing with us and us with them... Chaos! Nothing would ever get done! Of course we do need a flashier site... I've offered to do something about this. I'd love to redo the front page design!

El Scumbago · TR Member 09 Apr 2005 Location: Athens, Greece

I'll take that as a compliment.

Vegor · Honorary Member 07 Mar 2004 Location: N17

The point is, our projects have pretty much different goals and the way our sites are set up reflect that. Silgrad Tower only cares about huge, impressive things that usually make no sense lorewire and, most of the time, have big as main goal.

Therefor, people that want to see flashy things and react with 'OMFG t3h r0x0rZ' and say 'Tr is teh nubZ' are not the kind of people we aim to have at the project. They fit better with Silgrad Tower and therefor we don't need to aim for getting them to join us.

The people we need are people that are genuinly interested in the game and don't just want huge impressive things and flashy stuff. Those people will take a bit of time to get to know our website and forums and they'll find out TR is the place to be for them.

El Scumbago · TR Member 09 Apr 2005 Location: Athens, Greece

You are right Vegor and I too considered these things, which is the reason I wrote: The goal now is to attract the greatest number of modders possible to our project, modders who do possess the ability and -most important- the will to rise to the status of TR Modders.

Let as many spoiled noobs as possible join. Does it matter?
No, because they will never gain the TR Modder certificate(!) so they will not be able to bother the serious members and distract them.

Being flashy is not bad. Only thinking flashy is.

Zephyr · Webmaster 18 Nov 2003

If you want to, you can make redesigns of the website and send them for checking. The site is structured as follows:

- The forum with just one template, most of the visual side being in the templates, but some bits also in php code (because some things are just too difficult to do with the template engine and others I couldn't be bothered with).

- The main website is not really a template, but every page follows the same outline. Changing all the pages to another format would mean a lot of copy-pasting, but not much more.

It's very unlikely that I would be implementing any of your redesigns though, because I'll be leaving TR for several months or so in February. To actually make a full redesign of the site and implement it, you should be not only competent graphically and in HTML but also know PHP.

As for the reasons why the website is 'melancholy' or whatever is pretty simple; I really don't have time for updating its looks, even updating the content and fixing the bugs is sometimes bothersome.

I know this is not what you mean but when we talked about building a new website, there was me opposed against prometheus and Seran, who insisted on doing a 100% Flash website because it would be cooler. I think I can say that luckily for the whole of TR, I won that argument. Again, I know that this is not what you mean by flashy, but it just reminded me of one of the points I had in that discussion: people who are genuinely interested in the mod don't care if the website looks boring. They are, however, interested in the content and it should be made as easily accessible as possible, as well as numerous as possible.

That said, I'm interested in at least hearing out the ideas you have for the website even if I won't be able to implement them.

Morgoth

I just meant that it should be more... epic? Realistic maybe? I can't find the word for it. Anyhow, I am only a minor at html, and I don't know anything about pnp, I would just like to make the graphics for it. Someone else could make the links and all that.

Gez · TR Member 22 Jul 2005 Location: France

Stalker · OoT Administrator 09 Apr 2004 Location: Ukraine

Personally I'm pretty much happy with the design of our site and forums. Nothing outstanding but it's kinda neat. Oh and about ST...well, I don't think it's even worth discussing. If you still want to - visit their forums first and do a search for "Tamriel Rebuilt" or "TR". I doubt you'll be surprised.

Zephyr · Webmaster 18 Nov 2003

Morgoth: Yeah, well, as I said, you're welcome to present any such ideas. If you can make new graphics while keeping the actual layout pretty much the same, I could change the looks myself.

Xui'al · TR Member 29 Mar 2005 Location: Wastelands of Canada....

Massalinie · NPC Moderator 12 Feb 2005 Location: Canada, MB

I like our colours and designs, myself. There isn't really any need to make it more attractive because people who are only attracted to the site because it "looks cool" are likely to be the kind of people who won't really do anything terribly useful for the project because they just judge the book by it's cover.

If that made any sense at all.
It made sense in my head..

Well anyways

Dexter · Exterior Administrator 04 Jun 2004 Location: Baltimore, MD

In terms of our main page, I think that re-designing it is a bit over the top. Some things I think we could do though is to upgrade the screens in the RScreenshots section of the main page. We still have the old Darconis shots there with the massive crystal structure. Our concept art on the main page is great, and we should keep it updated as much as we can as Hammerfell concepts start to come in.
As for the flashyness of ST, it's true that they do have lots of screens on their front page, but have you really looked at the screens? I mean, take a look at the quality of the new Redoran buildings they are showcasing, and you'll see what I mean.
Either way though, I understand your concearn, and I share your desire to get as many modders here as possible. I think that when we implement the closed community changes, we will have enough flashyness on the main site and the forums to attract people.

Zephyr · Webmaster 18 Nov 2003

Dexter; The screenshot management feature has been in place for a while. Feel free to use it at http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/forum/screenshots.php or by clicking on the "Screenshot management" link next to Objects of Tamriel and Claims browser control panel links.

Morgoth

No, I was thinking about making the design more... solid? It just looks too pale, blured or something. There needs to be something with harder lines imo...

Eraser · Honorary Member 21 Aug 2003 Location: Educated Liberal Elitist Blue State

The site is fine as is I think, but it could be prettier.

Mind if I see if the houshold's master web developer knows php and would be willing to do volunteer work instead of charging about $150k for the good stuff?

El Scumbago · TR Member 09 Apr 2005 Location: Athens, Greece

Dunno people, I see your point and you see mine, so if the general opinion is for the site to remain as it is, I can only agree.
I will however make a couple of clean and coloured sketches of what I have in mind and send them over, just in case they come in handy someday.

And yeah, I've seen ST's screens, poor and shallow. Sucky, actually. But I was hoping for something better in terms of scripting and such.

Ah, nevermind, alea jacta est!

Elladan · TR Member 18 Dec 2005 Location: Gouda, The Netherlands

Hmm... was this some sort of Great House War (as in 'equals' which apparently is not the case), or just a minor rebellion (as in 'rebellious subordinates' which also doesn't seem to be the case as ST seems unrelated to TR)? Smile

My idea: never force cooperation if you've got enmity (ugh, spelling unknown, something like 'cold-war-relations'?) between the two you wish to have cooperating.
But that's been said... so I'll stick to: I second the general opinion since I'm a complete nitwit unawares of the entire situation.