At the moment the purpose served by groups on ModDB is twofold. The first being there use as fan / hobby groups whereby say you wish to create a musicians group, 3d artists group or game fan / bashing club you can do so, and you can invite members to join and share their work. The second being there use as game / mod development groups whereby if you have a team of individuals developing or publishing a game or mod, you invite them to join the group linked with the game or mod project. This way the groups members control the linked content, and they are listed as developers.
As of today these groups are officially split into two separate listings. All of the groups developing and publishing games and mods have been moved to the company page, and all of the fan groups and general groups remain on the groups page. We hope this move helps ease a lot of confusion people have had in the past with the groups system. Having said this we know the majority of mod development teams are not "companies" however we felt this was still the best name for development and publishing groups as you will be listed alongside folks like Valve, Epic, Blizzard etc.
In addition to this, groups will now show a blog, while development / publishing companies will list the game and mods they are working on, which we feel is a much better way of presenting the relevant information. We hope you enjoy this rather large enhancement, and if you have any questions / concerns please do not hesitate to post a comment.
Finally, we have attempted to move all development and publishing groups to the company page, if your group has (or hasn't) been moved and we made a mistake, please let us know and we will move it to the correct section. We also encourage you to update your links to point to the new correct urls and to link to ModDB as we appreciate the support! Enjoy.
Interesting. Though I do ask why you got rid of the fan/hobby groups summary page, and replaced it with the blog? I don't know about anyone else but I liked being able to see the latest media on the one page, summarised up as it were, and the comments section at the bottom was a great spot for quick comments and questions that might otherwise be redundant for a forum post. Heck some groups don't even have forums.
Anyway just a thought. The company pages look better.
I'll second the comments, er, comment. I guess we can always open forums, but comments are so much simpler!
Seconded too.
A nice idea of the blog at the main page, but comments and a quick overview of media are badly needed.
At least they can be placed at the right side of the webpage, b/c it's always underused, e.g. mods' webpages use the left side too much with all these media, news, the mod description, comments and images, and the right side is too short and overlooked.
PS Polls on webpages would be useful, too! To have a quick opinion about an idea for the mod/group, etc.
Give it a couple of days to get used too, i'll await all the feedback here and will take action from there. I do want to make profiles better and am open to all suggestions
That's fair enough. I think the main thing for me was the comments section. I did think it was a great spot for, well, comments. And for example a group like the book group relied upon that section, without it it will wither and die pretty quickly. Well more so than it already is.
Agreed, now we have to summarize the purpose of the group every single time in the blog article since the summary is no longer there, and there is no way to get feedback from the group members without the comments
:( Mommy, I want my comments back :(
I'll have to agree with kinesis. In my opinion, the previous layout worked fine for both developers and interests groups.
I'd as soon not waste an extra click having to go to the separate media pages. You're fouling up my ergonomics! I do like that you've divided mod groups from interest groups, that could allow for a lot of more focused features down the line.
The Edit Group page is broken: Moddb.com
Yes, it is, and not only for this group...
I have fixed this bug now, apologies for that!
Well I can easily bring back images / comments - I jsut felt that a blog is more suitable for fan groups and you can post comments in the blog?
Hmm, maybe comments as a tab? Blog/Members/Comments, etc. In such place where it is completely suitable.
I have to agree that comments are more convenient to use than the forum. The comment system on Moddb is one of my favorite features here.
Good Idea Intense
Nice job but i want the summary and comments back. I would rather let my people use the forums but the comments we had were kinda important. And put the forums after the blog tab, since we will not have comments anymore.
kinesis916, Varsity, [SCΛRECROW], korge, ferkhat, and myself, supporting the idea of bringing comments back. 6 people... Mr_Cyberpunk supposedly supporting the idea of taking out the comments. 6:1. Somebody else?
So you want profiles to show the latest post then comments?
Hmmm, couldn't it be made like the shoutbox on certain forums/portal systems? Comments on the right of the website, i.e. under "Profile" and "News Statistics". ;-)
But well, then replies to comments would be a bit screwed up.
I agree with you. Comments take alot of space, best idea is a shoutbox. It will be awesome!
I think that would be great. Pic and vids back would be great, but it really isn't so difficult to click the tabs.
Also, if your adding new stuff, can you make it so we can select members and edit them all at once. I hate to go to each one of the members and edit their right. I have about 320 people in my group, thats alot of clicking.
Yup, and editing rights of 850 people, even having an admin team of 5, would be a suicide.
Maybe, as on some forums, rights depending on ranks? I.e. pre-defined (by the group leader) ranks, which have certain rights already set, so one can assign a member only the customised rank, instead of writing the title, choosing the appropriate rights and so forth.
I have to say that the comments section is a very convenient feature I would rather keep.Forums are more suited to specific discussion types.I do think that separating developer and general groups simply by categorizing them will work well.I don't believe videos and pics are a necessity.Links are fine for that content.
I am interested to see what modifications to member rites editing you arrive at.
Well, once more it proves the natural fact... new ideas deleting the old best or favourite features suck. :-D (I.e. the best ideas are these which keep the best old features, and introduce better ideas replacing old cr*ppy ones.)
Comments, and trackers statistics. Group leaders should be shown at the main page too. The people must know who are the group leaders, unless you want to do all the spam/offtopic dirty work in group sections, or lead people to confusion or a bit of inconvenience looking at members' section.
PS selman_akinci and jjawinte joined, so the ratio is now 8:1. ;-)
SHOUTBOX PLEASE!
Ok I have made groups more visual and haven't used the blog format. Was just a trial and I agree with the feedback, it worked better in summary mode. A shoutbox and other enhancements are on the cards, but given how much i'm working on at the moment it will be a while.
Note that development profiles will remain as-is, as I feel they are best suited promoting the games / mods they are linked with, and not as profiles which simply duplicate the content found in game / mod profiles.
Thanks. Now it feels and looks a way cooler. ;-) Besides, it's more useful.
Thankyou. Aside from being back to normal I think the latest articles box is a nice addition and change.
I think sometimes you have to just make these changes to know what is and isn't good.
Thank you for making the latest news box. Most of the news are so big that it takes ages for me to goto the bottom for the comments.
I would more like for my members to post in the forums and there was some activity when comments were gone, well, now its dead again :(
I like it! Thanks.
Good decisions.As "kinesis916" stated,trial and error will generate the feedback from members and lead to a quick compromise that works for us all.I's good to see you on top of things INtense! Your doing a fine job,especially in regard to involving the members and taking their opinions into genuine consideration.Thank you.
Well, the method of trial and error isn't that good, you know, unless you have a lot of back-ups. ;-)
Better to have a side-project for tests, i.e. another portal being a 'beta'.
Quite true as well.