BG:TSCC Forum Reorganization

[Maecius]

Greetings everyone!

After a little bit of discussion, the DM team has decided that it would probably be a good idea to reorganize and streamline the forums.

There will be a few minor layout changes over the next couple of months, and a lot of housecleaning (with regards to old stickies, outdated announcements, and so on and so forth).

For official posts, related to rules and regulations, the DM team has decided that we should post these under the "Administrator" title, so that all rulings and regulations stand out as "official" -- even after our more prolific DMs and staff depart our ranks and lose their colored names.

We will maintain an author's credit inside each post we author-swap, and date all posts as well, so that we can maintain the administrative history. The intention here is simply to make it more obvious to players which posts are "super important" and which are DM team opinion pieces or guidance.

Below is the skeleton renaming and streamlining proposal I'll be working from, after the feedback I've received from the DM team:

Baldur's Gate: The Sword Coast Chronicles

• Getting Started [for all the things you'd want to know as a new player]
• Server Rules (Must Read) [for all of our rules and regulations]
• Custom Content [for all of our custom content information]
• Supporting BG:TSCC [for paypal, for DM and dev applications, staff page, etc]

---

Community General

• General Discussion
• Tips & Tricks
• Gallery
• Lore of the Lands
• Community

---

Community Roleplaying

• Dungeon Master Corner [convert into more of a one-stop Dungeon Master shop]
  --> Questions for DMs [proposal to move this forum into a subforum here]
• Auction House
• Guilds and Factions
• The Elfsong Tavern (Surface RP) [parenthetical clarification]
• The Gloura's Wings (Underdark RP) [parenthetical clarification]
• Character Biographies and Journals

---

Community Technical

• NWN II Toolset Development
• Collective Issues, Suggestions, Bug Reports

---

Administration

• Private, but important!

I just wanted you all to be aware that these changes were coming, so that they wouldn't take you too much by surprise. As I'm ridicu-busy, I will be doing this mostly on weekends, and mostly over the next few months, so it won't be an overnight facelift.

If anyone has any really good suggestions for the reorganization project we can consider them of course, but don't make me do too much work. Because that's mean.

[thids]

Here's a suggestion for the community thread:

Make a general "happy birthday" thread where people say their happy birthdays and sticky it. It will lessen the number of threads in the community section by at least 30%

[mireigi]

It's been a long time coming. Looking forward to seeing the results

One thing to note, however, which is more of a wish for the future, is to run the Community General > General Discussion forum with a firmer hand. It is supposed to be primarily related to non-categorizable topics about the game and server, but too often it is flooded with unrelated links and images, which should be placed in the Community General > Community forum.

[Ivan38Rus]

As far as server support threads go, I think I would be a better idea to make PayPal donations thread and staff needed annoucments as global stickies. So that they would appear in every forum (maybe with the exception to RP, administration and guild-only forums)

[DM_Xzar]

I am fine with the "Atlas of the Sword Coast" falling under the administrator tag if I am credited. But don't forget to allow me access, else I won't be able to update it.

[Rask]

I think these two can be condensed into one, in my opinion:

Getting Started [for all the things you'd want to know as a new player]
Server Rules (Must Read) [for all of our rules and regulations

Also in the "Getting started" there should be a very clear post or even attached to the rules, the changes made to things like spells, nerf's to classes ect. I know i've run into people in the past that were unable to easily find these things because they were all in different forum sections when they should kinda all be visually in the same place. That's always been my biggest gripe with the layout personally.

[Hawke]

If I could give out 2 cents...

Merge these two....
Getting Started [for all the things you'd want to know as a new player]
Custom Content [for all of our custom content information]


Make these both Global as they are super important...
Server Rules (Must Read) [for all of our rules and regulations]
Supporting BG:TSCC [for paypal, for DM and dev applications, staff page, etc]


One thing I have a hard time with is finding the one spot where everything is. What are the classes here, what gods are there, new feats, factions... all kinds of useful information but it is scattered. Bringing them all into the Getting Started directory would be extremely helpful and drop the levels of tension.

[Maecius]

Bump.

If anyone's wondering where "Questions for DMs" went, it was moved into the DM Corner. I'm going to finally be working this project a little bit over the holidays. So if you see things changing around on the forums you know why.

And if anything breaks, you also know who's to blame.

[matelener]

IMO Elfsong tavern is a little bit overloaded with sticked stuff. Could it be perhaps splitted into rumours, campaign threads and the rest?

[Maecius]

IMO Elfsong tavern is a little bit overloaded with sticked stuff. Could it be perhaps splitted into rumours, campaign threads and the rest?

We could probably give the DMs their own subforums in the surface and underworld RP forums for DM campaign-based threads and DM-sponsored rumors. I'll run it by the DMs to see if that'd be something they'd find useful. It might make it easier for players to get the pulse of certain DM campaigns, depending on how it's handled and utilized. Thanks for the food for thought, matelener!