thread-organization frustration

[The Man]

First of all, I don't really understand lumping all the FFs 1-4 into a huge forum. It makes more sense, in my opinion, to give each game its own forum, although this would now mean splitting up the existing threads and would probably take a lot of work.

Secondly, I'm thinking Seiken Densetsu 2, 3 and 4 need their own forums, rather than just having all their threads dumped into the "General SquareSoft Forums". Anyone else with me?

Peace
The Man

[Collector]

The reason they're together is because they don't get many posts on their own. If anything I'd think FF5 (and maybe 6) should be thrown in there too (or maybe together).

There aren't really enough posts to have a forum for all the Seiken Densetsu games, let alone one for each.

[The Man]

Erm, I wasn't actually suggesting one poll per each SD game, but it's still kinda annoying to have to thumb through 12 pages of General SquareSoft listings for three pages' worth of Mana material (rough estimates).

Whatever. I don't run the site or anything. I just think it would be convenient to have all the threads from one game be members of their own forum, so we wouldn't have to go skimming through a 50% FF1 threads view when looking for FF4 information or vice versa. I understand, however, that it would be a lot of work to separate all these threads, and I'm sure it isn't something you'd look forward to even if it did become necessary. Still, I like being able to see, "No new FF5 posts have arrived today" if I'm in a particularly FF5 kinda mood one day. On the other hand, I'm not sure how many people would read the threads for FF2j and FF3j (I don't mean that as an insult to those games, especially not FF3j, but I'm reasonably sure that few people in the U.S. have played either of them twice) if they weren't mixed in with FF1 and FF4.

Oh well.

Peace
The Man

[Loony BoB]

Note: These are my thoughts, not the thoughts of the Staff.

This is a Final Fantasy forum - Chrono and Xenogears are the only two games that have seperate forums. I haven't played one much, and the other I haven't played at all. But I doubt that even those forums get enough posts to be active by my standards. I'd hate to see ANOTHER game get a forum. I mean, there are dozens of RPG's and Squaresoft games out there... I'd pretty convinced that if we get enough members, twenty will want one for Chocobo Racing, too. *shrugs* We can't please EVERYONE.

As for the seperation of the FF's1-4... well, as you stated, it's a lot of work. And as Collector said - those games just wouldn't get enough activity.

[/my thoughts]

[Collector]

Erm, I wasn't actually suggesting one poll per each SD game...

Oopsie, my mistake.

Anyway, I agree with all of what BoB said (even the thing about not having played one much and not the other at all, odd).

[RaNdOm]

I'm thinking Seiken Densetsu 2, 3 and 4 need their own forums

I completly disagree, as I have never heard of these games. And looking in the general squaresoft gaming forum, I can't say that many people are tlaking about it enough to give it its own forum.

Speaking from experience I know that it is big turn off for members and newbs, when they visit a main page to see louds and louds of forums, and having to scroll down for hours to check all different things they have posted about in various forums.

In my opinion, I think this forum has too many forums as it is, and should stick to a forum for FF 1,2,3,4,5 and 6, and one foum for 7,8,9,10,11, then one for anthing else final fantasy, including general, music and the film.

There, my opinion.

[Endless]

The fact you never heard of them (and thus, lack a lot of videogame culture) doesn't mean they're not great games.

Or, you may know them as Secret Of Mana, Secret Of Mana 2, and Legend Of Mana, and again lack some knowledge.

and about eh newbie thing...
<img src="http://kahdeksan.keenspace.com/images/smiles2/wrong.gif">

When I joined, I did it only for the FF IX forum, and stuck there. It took me a while to start checking the other fora, and not all at the same time, first Gen Chat then EoEO, after, all the others.

[Minerva]

This place has already got loads of forums :greenie:

[Rampala]

Originally posted by RaNdOm

In my opinion, I think this forum has too many forums as it is, and should stick to a forum for FF 1,2,3,4,5 and 6, and one foum for 7,8,9,10,11, then one for anthing else final fantasy, including general, music and the film.


I agree that there are enough forums at the moment, but I don't think FF's 1-6 and 7-11 should be grouped together. Please no! I've been to other forums where they have it like that and it's just frustrating. Probably the same frustration for the FF 1-4 here. However, if there's not enough activity in those, you have to. Our other forums (6,7,8,9, etc.) get enough posts on there own that it wouldn't make much sense to group them together.
Besides, consider the people who are playing for have yet to play these other FF's? The games will manage to give out spoilers just by being in the same forums. (Huh?) Okay, so I like FF8 but have yet to play 7. If they're in the same forum things are bound to get spoiled even if we put spoiler tags up b/c some newbies are unaware.
Like the new member in the FF8 forum who made a thread entitled: "Squall is Laguna's Son?" Umm, Spoiler- duh.

*doesn't know if she's making sense, but tried*


Originally posted by Master Vivi

and about eh newbie thing...
<img src="http://kahdeksan.keenspace.com/images/smiles2/wrong.gif">

When I joined, I did it only for the FF IX forum, and stuck there. It took me a while to start checking the other fora, and not all at the same time, first Gen Chat then EoEO, after, all the others.

Same here, I joined for the FF8 forum, then went to General Chat, then EoEO, and started branching out. It's not super-newbie-scary, by any means.

[Burtsplurt]

I've never understood why FF4 (a SNES game) was lumped with FF1-3, and yet FF5 (also a SNES game, but not released in America/Europe initially) and FF6 got there own forums. I don't see the point in reorganising, I just never understood the reasoning beind it.

[The Man]

Rampala Quistis:

I've started reading the Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross forums, and have only played Chrono Trigger. Since then, I've gotten spoiled for Chrono Cross so many times without warning that I've, on multiple occasions, considered not reading that forum at all anymore. If the games are put together in the same forum, then spoilers abound. People say, "Oh, it's the Chrono Trigger AND CROSS forum, so I don't have to mention which of my spoilers are Cross spoilers." Well, guess what? Some people only read that forum for the one game that they've played. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't realize that, or they simply don't care. As a result, people like me get spoiled without wanting to. So you see what happens when games are combined.

Unfortunately, a lot of people also don't realize that a spoiler tag exists, either. I really think word for that needs to get out more. That it's the subject of an announcement right now is at least good, but that's not likely to last for long, and a lot of people, sadly, ignore the annoucements or don't even notice them.

I personally like being able to see which games have updates. Also, I posted a SD3 thread in General Squaresoft and it got buried within a day. I doubt anyone's going to respond to it now. I know there are people who've played Holy Sword Legend 3 (or Seiken Densetsu 3, Secret of Mana 2... woteva), but I, for one, don't like digging through fifteen pages of threads to get to the Holy Sword Legend threads, and I know that I have more patience and more time on my hands than most EoFFers do, so I still think something needs to be done. As Master Vivi said, they are great games. And I've reason to believe that more people have probably played at least one of them than the Xeno games, though I could be completely wrong about that.

RaNdOm:

I have no idea what you mean by "FF1-6 should have only one forum and FF7-11 should have another." Do you have any idea how immense that would be? That, if anything, would be way more off-putting to newbies than the current structure of organization. They'd be undergoing sensory overload every time they checked into these fora. Hell, even I, who have been a member for more than a month and have already contributed well over 750 posts, would find it overloading, and I'd have no clue which games were being talked about at the moment in any forum.

We might need more fora, but we certainly don't need less of them. That's the only combination I can justify right now is if the Writer's Corner and Artist's Gallery get merged; that might boost the traffic to both.

Peace
The Man

[Shlup]

Oh, sure, that's a great idea. Let's make more forums. Hell, why don't we just eliminate the General Gaming forum all together and every time a new game comes out, we can just make a forum for it, then we can spend all the time we'd usually spend browsing through for the right thread, browsing through for the right forum. Hell, why don't we give every topic that gets more then 2 threads it's own forum. We could have a newbie forums, and an age forum, and a hair color discussion forum, 'cause ya know I really get tired of having to look through a few pages of threads to find someone's hair color. Then by splitting everything into-- *gets shot*

[The Man]

Originally posted by ShlupQuack
Oh, sure, that's a great idea. Let's make more forums. Hell, why don't we just eliminate the General Gaming forum all together and every time a new game comes out, we can just make a forum for it, then we can spend all the time we'd usually spend browsing through for the right thread, browsing through for the right forum. Hell, why don't we give every topic that gets more then 2 threads it's own forum. We could have a newbie forums, and an age forum, and a hair color discussion forum, 'cause ya know I really get tired of having to look through a few pages of threads to find someone's hair color. Then by splitting everything into-- *gets shot* Wow, I sure haven't had my words so blown out of proportion since...

Right. This is a Final Fantasy site, but I was merely proposing more Square threads, since Final Fantasy is made by Square. So is the Holy Sword Legend/Seiken Densetsu/Mana series, and I was merely proposing that those games get a forum of their own. One thread. I certainly don't think non-Square games should have fora here.

Please don't misinterpret me, and tone down the sarcasm. Discussion of one game can cover a wide range of topics, such as story, character development, how to defeat a certain boss, general strategy employed throughout the game, and overall impression of the game. The examples you gave (e.g. hair color) do not. There's a difference; kindly keep that in mind.

Thanks.

Furthermore, there are very few Holy Sword Legend sites out there, so having a forum for discussion of said series on EoFF would probably be quite helpful indeed. If people want to discuss a game not made by Square, they can easily go to a non-Square site, but there are not a particularly large amount of HSL sites out there.

I am honestly quite offended by your post, ShlupQuack.

Peace
The Man

[Britt]

I *heart* you, Mandee.


Originally posted by The Man
So is the Holy Sword Legend/Seiken Densetsu/Mana series, and I was merely proposing that those games get a thread of their own. One thread. I certainly don't think non-Square games should have threads here.

You mean fora? Threads are the things that members post.

Like we've said before, those games wouldn't get that much attention, and would be a waste of bandwidth. I'm willing to bet that STUDY HALL would be busier than a Seiken Densetsu forum, because very, very few people have played those games. Far less than even FFV and Xenogears. It'd, in the end, be another waste of boundlessly valuable bandwidth.

[The Man]

Originally posted by Britt
You mean fora? Threads are the things that members post.Whoopsies. I wasn't thinking. *edits*


Like we've said before, those games wouldn't get that much attention, and would be a waste of bandwidth. I'm willing to bet that STUDY HALL would be busier than a Seiken Densetsu forum, because very, very few people have played those games. Far less than even FFV and Xenogears. It'd, in the end, be another waste of boundlessly valuable bandwidth. I dunno. There are four Holy Sword Legend games, and there are two Xeno games. I think a Holy Sword Legend forum could be quite helpful, because I don't actually know of any Holy Sword Legend fora. Correct me if you know of one.

I also think that one rather large reason no one posts about the Holy Sword Legend series here is because they can't find the threads. The existing Holy Sword Legend threads all get quickly buried in the fifteen-something pages of far more active General Squaresoft threads.

I think it could be a helpful addition to fans of those games, as I don't see many viable fora for discussing them out there. And I don't think Eyes on Final Fantasy's bandwidth would be particuarly harmed by it, either -- correct me if I'm wrong, but I think creating said forum would merely involve moving all the existing Holy Sword Legend threads into their own forum and allowing users to create new threads in said forum. After that, it shouldn't eat up an appreciable amount of bandwidth to leave said forum open, since there would only be a minimally larger amount of content on the site. Am I correct?

Just thinkin'.

Edit: Another idea just came to me, which might be a lot more practical: we could add the Holy Sword Legend games to the Xenogears forum, which then might receive enough traffic that people wouldn't constantly call it a waste of bandwidth. To me, this sounds like it would help everybody, with the possible exception of those unfortunate administrators and/or moderators who had to dig out the Holy Sword Legend threads from General Squaresoft. [/EDIT]

Peace
The Man