Fan Site

[Gamingstaff]

Hello all! I have posted several topics in this forum before so a few of you should know me. I create websites for many many games, for some their main websites, for other just fun fansites for people to hang out, but I wanted to open a new opportunity for you and me.

A planeshift fansite -- Yea or Nay

Things this fansite would contain --
• Behind the scenes interviews (I have them for all sites I make)
• Fan made stories, imaging, etc.
• Updated news
• I have a coder that in my opinion is the most amazing coder of all website codes (PHP, XHTML, HTML -- the basics, and also Perl and some of the more advanced junk). And he can come up with some amazing things that you the members can request (examples: A server status, when they are up and when they are down, a list of top players, a list of the top roleplaying "people", an automated character creater, etc. etc. etc.
• Forums where people are free to write, hang out, play games and the likes
• An online staff of planeshift helpers (not official, people I hire myself) who will be online 24/7 (this is a little iffy because this kind of work is hard to produce)
• A page specifically for roleplaying (recent stories created by members)
• Hopefully a place where people are able to create their own blog of stories on the site.
• Also hopefully much much more.

A list of replies is no longer needed.

[zanzibar]

This forum already has a section for fan fiction and player-written stories.

Edit:  Why the heck are you keeping track of the number of replies?

[neko kyouran]

After writing a reply twice and erasing what I wrote before sending it, I'm simply going say that basing off of your posting history and what we "know of you", I'm quite skeptical.

Not saying that you shouldn't go ahead and make one.  But there have been quite a few other fan sites created in the past and I'm not really seeing anything new from your vague post that would set yours out from them.

Perhaps you should provide examples of your previous work.

[Narure]

Yeah previous work PLEASE, thats what ticks me off most when people say they have done websites and are doing one i might be interested in.

[Socius Rockus]

We already have the PS Supersite <-- I made that one 
and the PS wiki
A main page
and some sort of second main page?
some german site (A shame for me I'm not that good in german)
a Forum
and a lot of guild sites contributing to PS
[correct me if I forgot some site  ]

  Do we really need a new one?

[Gamingstaff]

Mods please don't delete the links, these are for showing purposes only:

http://www.shadow-grove.com -- My site made for the game Shadowbane
http://www.gaming-vortex.com -- Me and my brother did this one for fun

I don't really want to give out more links for the sake of privacy, but that should show you plenty of my work.

[Caarrie]

Personally given the nature of this game and how our devs like things done i think a site like this is not needed and would only give us more problems. We have very strict rules about what can be public and if we have a major site that we cant control [like the one you are suggesting] it might have content that our devs would not like public. We also have a lot of people that like these forums and use them every day it might be more of a deterrent to have another ps fan site to go to where they might find info about a problem they are having. There is also no way for you as you are not part of the ps team [dev/gm/ or forum mod] to know if what is posted is fact or not so you could be spreading rumors about things that are could hurt the game.

just my $.02

I do think we have enough ps fan sites and this forum does a great job that anything else is a lot more then what we need and could spread the community out even further then it is already.

[Xanacru]

Hi,

If you really have the resources and amazing coders, I would instead prefer that you update/contribute to the following websites to match the main PlaneShift site theme and layout:

http://laanx.fragnetics.com/
http://laanx.fragnetics.com/register/newaccount.php
http://laanx.fragnetics.com/nexus/newapplicant.php
http://www.planeshift.it/guide/en/index.html

Currently, they are outdated and really clash in style with the main web site.

If you could pour your skills and resources into that, it'd be a far greater contribution, in my opinion.

Thanks.

[Proglin]

Although I agree with most people here and think the current amount of PS websites are plentyful as well as good, I must say your work is great Gamestaff mister. Looks good.

I have a second note though...

a few people here seem to disagree with you making a website. I suggest you find  Karyuu on these forums and ask about what you can or can not publish, and then have a go at it anyways if you so desire. It seems you got the potential. And allbeit the demand is low, I would still like to see what you had in mind.

hurray for creativity and initiative.

[Karyuu]

The thing with our community is that it's pretty small, and centralized around the official board and website for the most part :) We don't have thousands of active players who would need their own "space" with a big fan website, so my concern is nearly the same as yours - based on what I've seen, chances are it's not going to be used much. A lot of what your fansite proposes to offer can already be found here, so offering it elsewhere as well really has no purpose...

Instead of trying to make such a large and general fansite, perhaps you may want to do something with a more specific goal. Many people here for example would really appreciate having a website dedicated to PS art. There have been some attempts, but none have stood out. Aside... I was thinking yesterday that josePhoenix needs to take a firmer hold of http://ps-mc.com/ and really push it to an active status, so perhaps you can work with him to turn it into something polished and cool-looking :) Expand the sections, keep it updated, etc. I'm going to bug jose about this either way.

I'm definitely not a fan of squashing artistic desires, but I believe your goal is to give to the community and see your toys being played with. I just doubt that you will see the audience and most importantly the number that would make all your efforts worthwhile. I think we can put off a big fan website like that until this game has a larger playerbase. Thus, I'm with Xanacru - if you help improve some current sites and projects, you'll still get to put your skills to use and help make or maintain something useful.

[Nurahk]

All this does is remind me of the bbb.

Make Kada come back!

[josephoenix]

Don't bring up PS-MC! It's currently an embarassment >.<

I have great plans for it (incorporating much of what the original poster suggested), but I won't have time to start work on them until the summer.  Currently there are only two bits of PS-MC both operational and worth seeing: http://qdb.ps-mc.com/ and http://devcast.ps-mc.com

So... I'm with Karyuu and Xanacru. The current sites should have a single consistent design (even if it isn't mine :[ ).

josePhoenix

[Idoru]

Maybe if you dont have time Jose you could enlist the help of the 'original poster' (euphemism for 'im sorry, I already forgot your name')  and make it something that really stands out and has consistent, periodic updates. I honestly dont think your site is know very well around the community tbh.

[Raleigh]

After writing a reply twice and erasing what I wrote before sending it, I'm simply going say that basing off of your posting history and what we "know of you", I'm quite skeptical.

Judging people by their post counts is a big mistake

-----

Now about whether a new fansite should go or not...

Personally given the nature of this game and how our devs like things done i think a site like this is not needed and would only give us more problems. We have very strict rules about what can be public and if we have a major site that we cant control

There is no way to keep a community at the palm of someone's hand, this "closed-source" and "centralize everything" approach really is something that although achievable while the game has a small group of people, will become too heavy and impossible once it grows, for now it might work, but it will start to show its flaws soon^tm(although a keen eye may see them even now). I don't agree with this position, not at all(in fact, it actually bothers me a bit), and would like to see more fan-sites and such. You do not develop a game to put everything about the people who play and write about it over some people's control, unless you wish to make its development close and open it for the public only once it reaches 1.0 .

The thing with our community is that it's pretty small, and centralized around the official board and website for the most part

@Gamingstaff: Just do not be impressed if almost nobody visit your site right now, this game has yet to attract more people, and that will take some good time, and some good actions to happen, so if you can just keep the site there until it happens, there is nothing wrong on having the thing built before people visit it intensively.

I say yes for this idea. 

[zanzibar]

Personally given the nature of this game and how our devs like things done i think a site like this is not needed and would only give us more problems. We have very strict rules about what can be public and if we have a major site that we cant control [like the one you are suggesting] it might have content that our devs would not like public.

For example, the Planeshift library.

All the spoilers are available on most guild websites including lists of all the trainers, primers on all the different spells, complete deconstructions of the character generator, and all quest solutions.

As planeshift becomes bigger, fan-made websites will be unavoidable.

After writing a reply twice and erasing what I wrote before sending it, I'm simply going say that basing off of your posting history and what we "know of you", I'm quite skeptical.

Judging people by their post counts is a big mistake

He said posting history, not post count.