Official BC.org Site Additions Discussion Thread

[Cordae]

Hello BC.org!

Now that things have begun to settle down (just in time for an enormous, earth-shattering lore and game expansion…) the Admin team has had a chance to take stock. First of all, thanks to everyone that answered our call to provide feedback on the current site and its functionalities!

This thread will serve two purposes. First, it will act as a community thread wherein the Administrative team posts possible site upgrade/addition ideas. EVERYONE is encouraged to send all improvement suggestions (Move the shoutbox to the right side of the page, change the forum font to Wingdings, etc.) to anyone on the leadership team (as many have done through @Aylaa’s thread here) . If they are immediate fixes, we will coordinate and get back to you about them but if they are larger, we’ll post them here for discussion!

To ensure your suggestion is not lost in the shuffle, DO NOT POST THEM HERE. PM them to an Administrator or Arbiter (who will then give the idea to an Administrator) and we will ensure that they are responded to in kind!

Second, by inevitable extension, this thread will act as a place for respectful and civil discussion on the proposed additions. When we post new suggestions, discuss them here! The guiding questions that you should consider when we post suggestions on this thread should be:

“Would this be useful or helpful to me?”
“Do I want this?”
“Could people other than me use this?”

This thread is meant to help guide the Administration’s effort in providing quality site improvements given our diminished developing capabilities.Below is a list of improvements that people brought up during the most recent roundtable. They are:

• Un-apping the chatroom – Modifying the chatroom page to default to a normal browser page instead defaulting to a full screen app  [This has been completed! @Artisan is awesome.]
  
  
• Playergroup specific boards and improvements (PVP leaderboards, trackers, etc.) – The creation of more concentrated threads for playergroup subforums. These threads can contain leaderboards to be modified only by arbiters, damage trackers, or any other suggestion
  
  
• Admin/Arbiter Office Hours – Arbiters and Admins post throughout the week on a stickied thread with the time they can dedicate to being online and ready to help with anything. Please note – we are not extending arbiter or admin duties into a full time job, just posting an hour or two when someone might get a quick response.
  
  
• Forum Roundtables (Q&As) on alternating schedules – An alternating schedule to allow users in different timezones to come to and participate in roundtables held on the site’s Raidcall server. (Microphones are NEVER necessary to participate! Raidcall has a chat function and it is a valid way to participate!
  
  
• Creating a "LFRP" chatroom...uh, room - The creation of a new room in the BC.org chatroom where players looking for RP can meet to hash out details and coordinate RP. [This has been completed! A LFRP status tag has been created by @Artisan and @Cordae has created the [Looking for RP] sub-room.]
  
  
• More chatroom subrooms for general use - The creation of multipurpose subrooms for general use [This has been completed! The rooms "Galactic City," "Shadowlands," and "Ancient Temple" have been created.]
  
  
• Endorsement of new /cjoin channels - The addition of the following channels to BC.org's FAQ/Guides section under "Community Channels," found here.
•          // /cjoin thegathering ← Imp side
           // /cjoin senate ← Pub Side
           // /cjoin warzone ← Both sides
           // /cjoin gsf ← Both sides
           // /cjoin Krayt ← Both faction Operations channel
           // /cjoin republicooc ← Pub RP
           // /cjoin imperialooc ← Imp RP

• Dedicated profile sections - The inclusion of special text boxes / areas of the User Profile Page to denote strongholds, a character listing, more plot arcs, etc.

• Art Section Childboard - The creation of a childboard on the Outside Realms subforum for the express purpose of hosting art threads, cosplay threads, and threads of that nature.[/b][This has been completed. -Artisan]

[Sasmi]

Un-apping the chatroom - Love this option.  I like the feeling of it being a part of the site instead of a separate section of the site.


Playergroup specific boards and improvements (PVP leaderboards, trackers, etc.) - How would you track actual stats or is that still in the discussion phase?  Fairness inquiry really.


Admin/Arbiter Office Hours - Concern you guys would be forced to keep "business" hours that might cause you to burn out.  But if you can handle it, go for it.


Forum Roundtables (Q&As) on alternating schedules - Would be a very nice option.


Creating a "LFRP" chatroom...uh, room - Sounds good, I like the idea.

[recoveringgeek]

Creating a "LFRP" chatroom...uh, room

Looking for Rugged Privateer?

[Cordae]

Creating a "LFRP" chatroom...uh, room

Looking for Rugged Privateer?

That's what that means, right?

And, just to weigh in myself...

Admin/Arbiter Office Hours – Arbiters and Admins post throughout the week on a stickied thread with the time they can dedicate to being online and ready to help with anything.

I view this as more of a formality in actual practice. What I mean by that is this - Say for any given Tuesday, I know I plan to be online like I usually am (which for me lately means "lol not at all" but I'm working on that :D ). In a thread, I'd just put "Office hours: MM/DD - 6:00-9:00PDT" or whatever. Definitely, definitely sensitive to the issue of burnout, though. This one might actually be more of a discussion for the admins and arbiters that would want to do it, but it would of course be voluntary. Sort of "Hey, I have time, I will be here if you need!" I imagine (not sure if true) that people would like to just be able to see the thread and look for an admin in chat, rather than construct a big PM to one of us and feel stressed about it, which I know can be stressful. :)

Forum Roundtables (Q&As) on alternating schedules – An alternating schedule to allow users in different timezones to come to and participate in roundtables held on the site’s Raidcall server.

The biggest thing for me is actually picking dates and times. Invariably, we will manage to find a host of times that straight up do not work for (n+1) people - having planned many events in digital- and meat-space, I know this to be true. In truth, this thread should act as a method to make that eventuality less of a stumbling block for community participation. Someone with a site addition suggestion can just shoot it to the arbs or the admins for posting here and other bigger things can be handled as they come up.

[Lurilla]

Playergroup specific boards and improvements (PVP leaderboards, trackers, etc.) - How would you track actual stats or is that still in the discussion phase?  Fairness inquiry really.

Leaderboards are definitely tricky and require quite a bit of maintenance.  However, it is something I thoroughly enjoy.  I feel they create some friendly competition among players and give some players something to strive for, or discuss ways to improve, etc.

In regards to tracking stats, I'm thinking of DPS leaderboards, Operations Leaderboards, etc.  For PvP, I'm not exactly sure, as SWTOR.com kind of tracks much of that for us, but, I'm sure some of our intelligent minds could find something.

DPS Leaderboards = 1 Million Health Reduction Module + Armor Reduction Module (Operations Dummy), while using StarParse.  Screenshot results (with Abilities Used listed).  This is how we maintain our DPS leaderboard in my guild.  It works very well and leaves very little room for cheating. EXAMPLE

Operations Leaderboards = Being that we are so far into the SoR expansion, most of us have already completed SM Rav/ToS and some of  HM.  The way it was done previously was screenshots were taken of the whole group at the time of the kill, difficulty setting was shown on screen, as well as achievements for the timestamps. EXAMPLE

Being that we have already been through this expansion, I'm thinking for the new one, it would be fair to accept screenshots such as the one I linked, as well as newly completed ones.  It gives everyone an idea of how much the server is progressing at any given time and if you feel competition with another guild/group, it kind of gives you a kick in the bum to get going.

But, really, it's for those adrenaline junkies like myself who love to smash content and compare stats/numbers/completion.  Gauge your enemies, etc.

Does that answer your question?

[Karmic]

All of the ideas sound great!!

I would only add, since you brought up the "LFRP" chatroom it reminded me; I was going to suggest we create a couple of additional "General" Chatrooms (like Event 1, Event 2 - or Wookie and Hansolo..or whatever you want to call them...) so that way on the rare times people need more than what's available we have options without having to worry about finding a mod/admin to make a new one.

I know this happened recently and one of the Admins was able to just make an additional room.  Which of course, made me think - "Hey maybe we better keep a few spare lined up anyway."

Thanks for all the work everyone does!


(And yes, I do read and follow instructions too - this was a suggestion and so I DID PM IT! I just kept it in the post for discussions sake...)

[Cordae]

Hello again!


Please see the original post, as it will be modified periodically as new things are added. As such, we added new things! The chatroom's subroom menu is now a little more crowded.

New addition:

• Endorsement of new /cjoin channels - The addition of the following channels to BC.org's FAQ/Guides section under "Community Channels," found here.

         // /cjoin thegathering ← Imp side
         // /cjoin senate ← Pub Side
         // /cjoin warzone ← Both sides
         // /cjoin gsf ← Both sides
         // /cjoin Krayt ← Both faction Operations channel
         // /cjoin republicooc ← Pub RP
         // /cjoin imperialooc ← Imp RP

[Cordae]

Hello again!


Please see the original post, as it will be modified periodically as new things are added. As such, we added new things! The chatroom's subroom menu is now a little more crowded.

New addition:

• Endorsement of new /cjoin channels - The addition of the following channels to BC.org's FAQ/Guides section under "Community Channels," found here.

         // /cjoin thegathering ← Imp side
         // /cjoin senate ← Pub Side
         // /cjoin warzone ← Both sides
         // /cjoin gsf ← Both sides
         // /cjoin Krayt ← Both faction Operations channel
         // /cjoin republicooc ← Pub RP
         // /cjoin imperialooc ← Imp RP

I'm wary of adding so many channels to the page at once, as this may serve only to confuse and intimidate newbie community members. That said, it could be prudent to split the channels into lists ("PVE - channels xyz" "PVP - channels abc," etc.)


I have been using the following channels:


/cjoin RepublicOOC - Republic OOC chat
/cjoin ImperialOOC - Imperial OOC chat
/cjoin rp - Dual-faction IC chat (same entry code for both factions)
/cjoin leftovers - pickup Ops channel

[Imazi]

[moving post to appropriate place]

[Orell]

Derp, sorry, fail at readingness!

[Artisan]

Hello BC.org!
To ensure your suggestion is not lost in the shuffle, DO NOT POST THEM HERE. PM them to an Administrator or Arbiter (who will then give the idea to an Administrator) and we will ensure that they are responded to in kind!

Second, by inevitable extension, this thread will act as a place for respectful and civil discussion on the proposed additions. When we post new suggestions, discuss them here! The guiding questions that you should consider when we post suggestions on this thread should be:

Reminder: This thread is to mainly discuss additions listed in the OP. If you have new suggestions not currently listed, please PM the Admins to ensure they are not lost in the shuffle, thank you.

[Karmic]

New addition:

• Endorsement of new /cjoin channels - The addition of the following channels to BC.org's FAQ/Guides section under "Community Channels," found here.

         // /cjoin thegathering ← Imp side
         // /cjoin senate [/size]← Pub Side
         // /cjoin warzone [/size]← Both sides
         // /cjoin gsf [/size]← Both sides
         // /cjoin Krayt ← Both faction Operations channel
         // /cjoin republicooc ← Pub RP
         // /cjoin imperialooc ← Imp RP

I know I am confused by the whole "size" thing - perhaps on the FAQ you could give an example of how to type that out.

I'm guessing its something like /cjoin warzone10?? (if its a 10 man war zone?)

Also in the opening post might want to put what purpose "Thegathering" and "Senate" are for each side.  Its certainly not immediately obvious.

Or does that count as a suggestion? LOL.  Just confused by all the chatrooms and I've been here since closed beta... =D

[Artisan]

I know I am confused by the whole "size" thing - perhaps on the FAQ you could give an example of how to type that out.

The size thing was a typo in the post. Not something you actually have to type in-game. It's been corrected. ;)

[Karmic]

I know I am confused by the whole "size" thing - perhaps on the FAQ you could give an example of how to type that out.

The size thing was a typo in the post. Not something you actually have to type in-game. It's been corrected. ;)

HA! Awesome :).

[Esk]

Re: the various leaderboards... What I wonder is who in our current community will look at them if they were available?

If they will be available regardless, where would people want them to be placed?