ZFGC
ZFGC.com => Feedback => Topic started by: 2awesome4apossum on September 15, 2006, 09:37:27 pm
-
...so we won't have another z3 until next year, right?
Well, so I have another idea, one that could change ZFGC forever. I even made a video that has words, inspirational music, and a picture of the Zelda logo in it ^_^ (credit to Delko, I believe).
http://www.upload2.net/page/download/YV5uhp2whyzZhQN/zfgc_0001.wmv.html
So you can probably guess what the idea is. Basically, I'd like ZFGC to become the site that we've always dreamed it would be, and within the site we'd have this community project full of histories, information, and all the multimedia we can come up with.
So we'd have a yearly z3 event, correct? So we make ZFGC an actual site, with a forum and a portal to the z3 site (probably a subdomain assuming it wouldn't cost more).
So we have the resource/tutorial idea we've always dreamed of, we fix up the ZFGC boards, and organization (am I the only one who thinks that it's poorly layed out as of now?), and then have this community project that I've always wanted to make.
Anyway, so some of you are probably fuzzy on what the actual idea is exactly. What it would be is a comprehensive compilation of information, screenshots, demos, videos and all sorts of fun stuff from important, "landmark" fan games, with a look at the noteable future and current ones. Perhaps the information will be compiled into an html file with screenshots side to side with the text, and we get all the multimedia we can possibly find for -x- project.
-
I agree. This idea is perfect and it should be executed right away. Also, nice video, lol. =)
-
Wanna help? ;D
-
What can I possible do?
(I'll do as much as I can to make this a reality. )
-
Oh noooes, another Project-X.... Well actually I like the idea, I'm just worried about if it will succeed or not. Most members at zfgc have a short attention span (myself included ^^), and tend not to finish projects (no offence to anyone). But if you can figure out a practical way of doing this then you have my support 100%.
-
Well, I'd be heading it... and unlike z3, I wouldn't bail out. So basically only those who would like to work on it, will end up doing it.
And I'll get to "what you can do" later (after we have an admin post, lol).
-
Remember that old sprite archive we used to have?
is this kind of like that?
I'd pay a bit to help out with this. I'd offerto do some work to help out...but I don't think I'd have time, what with school and varoius projects I've picked up in the past little while.
-
Well, that would be one aspect of it, but yes "kind of like that". So there's two parts (1) reforming the site, (2) putting together the story of Zelda fan games.
-
ur vid wuz seckzy.
And I'm so in.
-
Another good idea would be to have a webpage design contest to see who could make the greatest and most functional webpage for ZFGC. That way, implementing your ideas would be easier because they would have something to "sit on".
If you need my help on something, feel free to ask.
-
That's actually a ridiculously good idea. Although it'd have to be set up by the admins, because I seem to recall a big contraversy over member contests back at GA (that and it's just not as effective otherwise).
-
The only thing that might be a problem is that not everybody knows HTML or whatever language it was going to be in. The contest would probably have to be a two step one that involved a winning design and then a winning, working HTML code version of the site itself.
Either that, or the design part would just be the contest and then a bunch of people who knew how to code a website would work to do that. I remember how the current ZFGC forum default was established, and I think by that as a measure, that the idea of a site design contest would work.
-
Damn dude, you're lucky. I give an idea, everyone ignores it. You give an idea, and it's automaticly gold.
-
So what you're proposing is to turn ZFGC into an actual website with an index of Fan Games, sections of sprites, tutorials, examples, demos, screenshots, e.t.c? Of course keeping the forums, but better organize them, and starting a new community fan game?
Hmm... It's definitally no small project, but I like the idea. I would love to help, but I can't honestly say I believe we'll succeed. Something like this, if failed, could cause a crippling blow to ZFGC... We survived after the whole GamerzAdvanced thing though we're not as well off as we were before... Hmm... I say it's worth a shot, and I'd like to help, but I am a pretty busy guy.
-
Making a huge resource place for Zelda sprites has always been a dream. But it needs to be set up properly with easy to search archives. And im talking about EVERYTHING....like all the rips you can find for ALTTP(example)...even animations rips, custom sprites etc.
I'd be happy to help make an archive like that. I think it will inspire many for fangaming when they have all the material right here.
But your general idea is much like z3...I think we should work with resources instead of games right now. As you can do resources anytime when you like...won't take that long and it adds to something. Whereas working on games active will usually wear off. And sometimes completely abandon a game...
-
Damn dude, you're lucky. I give an idea, everyone ignores it. You give an idea, and it's automaticly gold.
But you'll note that 80% of my ideas are vetoed after member approval by admins.
Which is what I'm afraid of here.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, ideas and encouragement! Keep 'em coming! :D
-
For a searchable databse, you could just implement a tag system like they use on sites like last fm, where you just put strings describing the data in the struct, then you could just search for tags. Plus you can easily sort into 'categories' and etc.
>_>
write it in php or something. Or you could even write an actual database and use SQL. Unfortunately, I don't think most people here KNOW that stuff. I don't know SQLbut I know a little php. Doubt I'd be capable of writing ZFGC with it though. I'm no good with making sites look good, except in flash. :P
-
aslomng as u dont go out of ur depth in the swimmin oceam that is the site then it will be pok just fdont do aporject X on us OK./..Zefla dan game only stuff will make good sie lol yueHA do i!!!!t
Write in normal English or don't write at all.
-
So basically... Project-X? Like I've said before... I'm up for it.
-
Great idea, it's just what we need! Hope the admins are supporting this though. If you need help with anything, just PM me or whatever ;)
-
The idea about all the multimedia, is good, but if you change the site to become another DSR im outta here :o.
-
I havn't read the topic, but just to reply to pedlya's message.. i think the goal of any changes for ZFGC will be expanding the area of content, and making the 'community' have a purpose. Which would be the addition of resources.. and development tools. (again i havn't read the topic, i'll read it tomorrow when i hurt less).
-
Well this is funny, because just like z3, I've been talking about the exact same idea with Vash on chat, and I have maaaaaaaany ideas of how the website would co-operate with the forums in terms of updating fan games etc. I'd like to contribute to this as I did in z3, if it's possible, since I always felt a website for ZFGC was what we needed more.
-
That is an awesome Idea ^_^
-
I don't have the time to read all the responses and stuff at the moment, but this sounds like a great idea. It's always kind of been in the back of our heads. I think we should finally take action and do something. Right now we are at a stand still.
If this gets taken seriously and has promise I will most certanly be active again here. Sometime this year I am going ot be working with my dad and brother and then if this actually does take off and suceed I would gladly contribute financially.
-
There we have it! I think we have more than enough support for this. Now let's just hope we don't have an admin-veto on this 2 part community project!
-
i didnt read all of this,but are you saying we should make a website with lists of resources,fangames,etc?id like to see that
be done.infact im in(even if the idea isnt a website)
-
Alright now i have slightly more time to make a better response. First of all, when I read you're idea I think it is great, to get a website up and what not. But on top of that. We need to change more then just that. I started thinking once I saw another one of those topics "zfgc is not zfgc anymore"
I started thinking of reasons why. Many people made comments like "Change comes and goes, get used to it", "It will never be the same". Ive even made comments like those myself many times in the past.
But is it the truth? Can we really never be anything like we used to be? I think we can, and it isn't so out of reach either. One of the main points that came to me is the fact that ever since we first began to divorce ourselves from the concept of a common goal (OoT2d) or a purpose, we've been trying hard to make ourselves "well rounded" We've tried so hard to make ourselves look and sound professional and "proper" that it becomes to tight around here. Anybody who was around in even the early days of InvisionFree, or better yet, EzBord knows how loose we used to be.
Was it ever a problem? Of course not! We still had mature staff, and they screwed around lots, and made stupid funny posts. But they could be serious when they needed to. Community speak used to be a cool well rounded hangout. But now we've made it so you can only post important personal issues there, forcing us to make other bord slike off topic, and then we just got trigger happy, and made a whole bunch of other forums that we never needed back in the day. Ask yourself, if making these new bords were supposed to benefit us, why are we still nothing compared to how we used to be in the older days?
We need to stop making ourselves think that in order to have a good time here we need to be serious. Some of the best forums ever have a comical tone to them, rather then professionalism. Who are we trying to appeal to? The president? The Royal family? We don't even need to accommodate general gaming crowds. As much as I love bords such as "debates, entertainment, general gaming, literature, techie talk, etc. What are they for? Sure it makes us more well-rounded. But the fact is, we are Zelda Fan Game Central, and all we need to accommodate is Zelda fans, and people interested in Zelda talk, and creating Zelda fan games, graphics, music, etc.
Don't tell me that removing a forum such as spam is going to hurt us. Because the fact is. it was never needed until we tried to mature the forum and take it too seriously. The forums used to be so much more relaxed int he old days, and you could joke around, with stupid comments all the time like Wallnut, Mammy, DJ, and others always did. Were we like a circus back then? Out of controll? No! We were a tighter unit then we have ever been since. Somehow we got it in our heads that we were being so childish, and we needed to act like Congress men at all times, and needed to mature. So what did we do? The staff suddenly got over-serious, and we slowly took the spirit out of zfgc. I think partially because of the move to gamers advanced, and dsr. We needed to sound professional, to the point where it wasn't even fun anymore. The whole time I was a mod, every time Ive been a mod, I Always felt pressured to put on this "face" as if I was about to have a meeting with the president. If i ever sent you a mod related PM for missbehaving you will know, I sounded like some kind of robot, programmed to say things a certain way, with certain punctuation and words. It was never like that in the old days of zfgc.
Really, we only needed retarded pointless forums like "spam" because we needed to balance out our forum, because without it we would be way too uptight. So what is the cure? Everyone needs to sit back in their chairs. Listen to something melodic. (I recomend one of the following:"Steve Vai - For the love of god" (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ey5eYm3Ixcs), "John Petricci - Wishfull Thinking" (http://youtube.com/watch?v=RHdkAZZdDWM&mode=related&search=), "Steve Vai - Tender Surender" (http://youtube.com/watch?v=RHdkAZZdDWM&mode=related&search=), Or the song in my sig. Lean back. Unbuckle your belt. Put your hands on you're head. And take some nice relaxing deep breaths. Let your mouth and lips and facial muscles go limp, and then shake your head back and forth a few times, and then take a deep breath in, then decompress. Let out a long, loud deep sigh of relief, projected into some kind of weird noise. Then take two fingers on each hand, put them to you're temples and rub in a clockwise motion a few times. Rub your eyes. Open your mouth and stick you tongue as far out as you can. Rub your hands vertically down across your face, and then shake it out like you do when you get those chills now and then. Now you are done.
Now that we have that out of the way. Everyone is feeling relaxed. Lets think about this idea possum proposed very seriously. First of all:
The Website: Think about how this could benefit us? Just picture it right now, with a nice green Zelda themed layout, and resources for pretty much anything you would ever need. Graphics, Engins, Music, etc. We could have sections on the forum, where the members could submit resources, and it would say "Submitted by:" on the site. Eventually as we grow, and fan gaming becomes more popular, we could have reviews of the games, and "top rated", "top downloaded", sections, and News sections, about up and comming games, and events like z3, big graphics competitions, or release dates. You could find user submitted tutorials on graphics, music, mapping, coding, etc. And if we ever got a big community project underway, it would be a huge benefit for the community, we would hold competitions for all t he graphics and music, and so forth.
The Forum: The forum should be re planned out. And we should get rid of all those bords we don't seriously need like off topic, spam, debates, entertainment, general gaming, etc. And replace them with bords we've never had that would benefit the whole thing, such as "community project sections, user submitted tutorials, sections, etc. That would basically be a frame for the website, and accommodate all t he stuff on it.
Eventually the site would be a big thing, and have tons of members, and recognition, and when we hold big events like z3, it got lots of attention from people all over the net.
We need to start putting time into making this place comfortable for zfgc members, not making it a general area for any random hanging out. We gotta give it a purpose again, a goal, and bring it back to its roots. We gotta stop being so uptight and have fun with it again. I think possums proposal is exactly the type of things we need to be considering right now because at the moment we are not going anywhere with this site, and we are just "floating along", and not going anywhere. Where will we be a year from now? Nowhere. If we are extremely lucky we would be exactly where we are currently. Which is a stand still.
-
First of all, when I read you're idea I think it is great, to get a website up and what not. But on top of that. We need to change more then just that.
Absolutely. That's why it's a 2-part project. The first part is making ZFGC the ultimate web site we've always wanted it to be. The second part is a "legacy of fan games" project.
But is it the truth? Can we really never be anything like we used to be? I think we can, and it isn't so out of reach either. One of the main points that came to me is the fact that ever since we first began to divorce ourselves from the concept of a common goal (OoT2d) or a purpose, we've been trying hard to make ourselves "well rounded" We've tried so hard to make ourselves look and sound professional and "proper" that it becomes to tight around here. Anybody who was around in even the early days of InvisionFree, or better yet, EzBord knows how loose we used to be.
Was it ever a problem? Of course not! We still had mature staff, and they screwed around lots, and made stupid funny posts. But they could be serious when they needed to.
Community speak used to be a cool well rounded hangout. But now we've made it so you can only post important personal issues there, forcing us to make other bord slike off topic, and then we just got trigger happy, and made a whole bunch of other forums that we never needed back in the day.
A-freaking-men. They are absolutely unneccessary. And this is a very valid point in arguing against that stupid 'rom discussion' board idea.
Ask yourself, if making these new bords were supposed to benefit us, why are we still nothing compared to how we used to be in the older days?
you. win. :)
We need to stop making ourselves think that in order to have a good time here we need to be serious. Some of the best forums ever have a comical tone to them, rather then professionalism.
Yep. Albeit, absurd and 'comical tone' are different things. While DSR-X was comical, it was borderline absurd, and didn't last long (although it was freaking fun while it lasted).
As much as I love bords such as "debates, entertainment, general gaming, literature, techie talk, etc. What are they for? Sure it makes us more well-rounded. But the fact is, we are Zelda Fan Game Central, and all we need to accommodate is Zelda fans, and people interested in Zelda talk, and creating Zelda fan games, graphics, music, etc.
Agreed. We all know that I love debates... but this is ZELDA fan game central, and we ought to focus on that. It's not like we need to abolish everything else, let's just throw it all into one board.
Don't tell me that removing a forum such as spam is going to hurt us. Because the fact is. it was never needed until we tried to mature the forum and take it too seriously. The forums used to be so much more relaxed int he old days, and you could joke around, with stupid comments all the time like Wallnut, Mammy, DJ, and others always did.
Well, I don't want spam removed, because I'll get in trouble (lose warning points) for posting 'relaxed' comments outside of spam.
I think partially because of the move to gamers advanced, and dsr. We needed to sound professional, to the point where it wasn't even fun anymore.
Aye. Justin and I had countless discussions about that very topic. I never understood the need for sounding professional. No matter what we did, we'd always be a heck of a lot better than the IGN message boards. And having fun was what it should have been all about.
Then GA died. ;)
The Forum: The forum should be re planned out. And we should get rid of all those bords we don't seriously need like off topic, spam, debates, entertainment, general gaming, etc. And replace them with bords we've never had that would benefit the whole thing, such as "community project sections, user submitted tutorials, sections, etc. That would basically be a frame for the website, and accommodate all t he stuff on it.
I want to give you a big hug. Unfortunately with all this chit-chatter that's going on from people who are serious about this: we still have to deal with admins that don't think as we do.
I am 100% convinced, that unless someone who thinks like you and I becomes an admin, that we will never have the ZFGC we all want.
And we all know I'm never gonna be an admin. We all know that you're not in the position to be an admin.
My influence can only go so far, and it stops when the admins say so.
We need to start putting time into making this place comfortable for zfgc members, not making it a general area for any random hanging out. We gotta give it a purpose again, a goal, and bring it back to its roots. We gotta stop being so uptight and have fun with it again. I think possums proposal is exactly the type of things we need to be considering right now because at the moment we are not going anywhere with this site, and we are just "floating along", and not going anywhere. Where will we be a year from now? Nowhere. If we are extremely lucky we would be exactly where we are currently. Which is a stand still.
And I hearby declare this your thesis statement.
Skully's officially my hero of the month. You'll be getting your high-five award, buddy ;)
-
I'd love to help, I can program very well in HTML and CSS so if you need someone to program the site I could do that. I can also do all the boring work like uploading the sprites and telling people about updates and things. XD Anyways I can help.
-
I like the idea possum.
.....But it needs to be set up properly with easy to search archives.....
I suggest using Joomla! Joomla would work really well for this type of project and would make it a hell of a lot easier to maintain. Joomla can be bridged with SMF for a site/forum log in with one user name/password. You can also set it up to allow users to submit content to the site. So imho I think if you want this project to become a reality Joomla would be the way to go(I have a lot of experience with it btw).
good luck.
-
I find that it works best if you create your own content management system, rather than using a prebuilt one (unfortunately, unless you have people willing to build something that will work it will take forever).
SMF actually has one now, i've yet to use it yet...
Anyway, this sounds basicly what 'project-x' stated out to be. If my outline didn't have such bad spelling and grammer in it i'd upload it. The original outline is.. on some disc somewhere, i'd have to find it anyway.
Hopefuly, if I ever see hal kicking around, we can create some sort of an outline for what we want, and see what becomes of it.
-
That's what brings the enthusiasm to the forums back... Very good. But you know, I think we should have an own website (other than a forum. A WEBSITE) featuring news and fan-games. Judging from how promising it is, it will be featured on the front and then in the navi-bar.
That would probably help a lot.
-
Although I agree that a resource archive would be awesome, we need to be careful that we don't turn it into a gigantic general gaming news site. What would be the point of reopening ZFGC and "rebelling" against DSR if we're going to turn around and do the exact same thing they do?
But yes, a resource archive would be the best thing this site coud ever do. I personally have sprites collected from the very beginnings of ZFGC, and I know others do as well. We need to archive them somewhere so that they aren't lost. ZeldaResources was awesome while it existed, although it's successor never really took off.
We've discussed the idea of an archive before, although we never did anything with it. If we can actually get something going here, then I'm all for it. Keep in mind though that it would need to be very well managed. There would need to be a tag system in place so that each resource could go under a number of categories. There would also be a way to sort by title, creator, date added, date created, etc.
Crap, class is almost over, gotta log out. Will finish later.
-
I'm all for it, as long as it doesn't destory what we already have.
I suggest a main site as part of zfgc, with all the pages as topics, almost. Something like what they did with http://www.thedesignworld.com/ (http://www.thedesignworld.com/). Notice how the forum is very smoothly fitted into the main site.
I really would love to help but I simply haven't got the time... :'(
-
I'm all for a fresh start here. Sure, back up some posts such as some of the larger WIP games, but in terms of the forum, we could use a lot less spam and a lot stricter rules against idiocy <_<