As promised here is Mod DB v3.1. What has changed? Well there are tons of little fixes / enhancements applied all over the place. The most notable is however the new *mellow* color theme. We will also be making a dark theme available in the next few weeks, for those that like to live life on the edge!
The most exciting enhancement is however the *beta* mod forums which are been trialed on hammy-bob mod. Yup, you heard right - the Mod DB will soon be offering Mod Forums to ALL mod teams. In the mean time head over here to check out the beta - Moddb.com
I was just starting to like the white :(
I'm Against The HYPE around here ; Only the Truth deserve Hype ;)
Cool
awesomeness, moddb is (has been for a long time) even more the #1 model of what any website should be (for me). intence, you rock!
It's a brilliant idea, and I like it!
I just hope it doesn't stop people from posting on the moddb forums.
it should foster further community growth and help grow the Mod DB forums
We just have to devise a way to distinguish all the forums :D
Word Intense, just word.
Represent!
Yay new themes. Don't particularily like the idea of subforums for individual mods though, to be fair. I think it'll detract from the real forums a little, and we'll be flooded with the blasted things...
so where can i change the theme?
Thx moddb crew! :D
Deathz0rz, please read again :P
"We will also be making a dark theme available in the next few weeks, for those that like to live life on the edge!"
That's great, man! Just changing from white to dark grey is an awesome idea, but you go ahead and give mods their own forums? Why have a site when you have the whole shebang right here? That's the shiznit, holmes! :D
erm... where's the theme changer? i tried looking for it but can't locate it.
I can't help but feel that this Mod Forums fad is unneccessary and fairly pointless to say the least.
At the moment to apply for listing on the ModDB you have to have your own website, which naturally host forums in almost all cases. The reason mods like to have forums (a.k.a. discussion boards) on their websites is to help nurture a community which will give feedback, encouragement and suggestions to the development of a particular mod. Forums can also be partitioned into 'public' and team' sections. So while one advantage to having your forums based on the ModDB is that you can use the rest of your webspace and its limitations for storing and displaying images, you will still need a private set of forums for the team to access, which will still need to be housed on the mod's official site.
So what does a set of ModDB-housed forums actually offer the mod and its team?
A decentralised community, which is registered to the ModDB and not to local forums. Users can flip from mod community to mod community without ever having to worry about an 'investment' that they would usually make to a mod they would follow. They don't feel any need to return to a mod forums housed on the ModDB because they haven't registered to the mod, they've registered to the ModDB. This means less traffic for mods that require ads to subsidise their website costs and more traffic for the ModDB which uses ads to subsidise its website costs. Interesting.
So my response to this new feature is the following preference:
- Make it optional and not mandatory for all mods registered. If a mod team wants to keep its community all in one manageable place, they should have that right. If the ModDB claims to offer services to the mod team it should be recognised that not all mod teams will want to have to monitor two sets of forums. By all means have it as a feasible option for smaller mod teams who would benefit from initiating a community with which to gain feedback on initial ideas from users who can give opinion without having to register. But I don't see this as a valuable asset for any mods that are serious about building a community that they can interact with efficiently from their base of operations.
Errm.. So like there was this new 'Delete' button in the only HammyBob topic i could see, and i clicked it... and it worked. You may want to change some things so normal members can't delete, pin and lock topics.
That's another good point. What control do mod leaders/team members have over the content placed in these ModDB mod forums?
To be honest the only positive feature I can see it giving the mod leader is use as a backup for essential information and documentation as part of a contingency procedure in the event of a site outage.
@Crispy -
If you dont want, like or need the feature, you wont have to use it.
You should get rid of the black instead of the white.
mod forums = neat
Yea the mod fourms are sweet
Awsome new features, but I have to say I do agree with Crispy.
Crispy,
I completely agree with the suggestions you put forward and think they should definitely be supported. But on the flip side, I think your argument about the forums leading to less support and personal investment from fans is a bad generalization.
Since when does registering on a forum constitute as much of an investment? Prior to discovering this website, I registered on dozens of mod forums to find the information I wanted about a given mod, never to return half of the time after doing so. This wasn't because the modification didn't interest me, but because it was much more of a burden to find information on it than to just forget it. Here, however, it is much different. Mod Database users don't have to repeatedly return to individual sites to find the information they want, they can come to one central place. I mean, isn't that the entire reason behind even having this website? By hosting different forums here, Mod Database users can quickly learn about a given mod, ask questions about it, then add it to their "WATCH THIS MOD!" list in a few easy clicks.
Bang! Instant fan support and interest with a minimal of effort.
I like the new mod forum idea but I'm not to sure about the colour change.
@JoeX111:
- My point was that users would not have to visit a mod's site to get information, they could do it all from the ModDB. This is great for lazy people, great for the ModDB but not too great for mods who don't want to have to run back and forth adding news posts here, there and everywhere to keep everyone updated. Now personally I don't like signing up to forums left right and centre, I like to know who has details of my IP address, my email account(s) and any other personal information that I share and who doesn't. To do this I usually play on the same game servers and I usually only sign up to forums I know I'm going to use. As someone who takes care of his own PR I know that if I start a website and have a 'register to read the secrets we talked about in the media release' message I'll get less interest than if I make it public (and I'll also get a lot of dead accounts). People generally don't take the time to register to a forums unless it's worth filling out the form, waiting for the activation message, activating the account and completing the registration process. We, the Internet generation are a lazy people, and we only take time out from that if we think it's going to be worth our while.
But, as Stuffie points out, you can just link to your official forums, which is definitely helpful and something I welcome wholeheartedly. However, going back to the idea of a contingency plan, just how much customisation and control of these forums does the mod team have? Can I choose how many forums to have and what to name them? If someone comes on to my mod forums on the ModDB and starts flaming or hatespreading can I, or a member of my mod team remove them? Or do I have to wait for a member of the ModDB to do this? If the latter is the case, has the ModDB got the staff in place to deal with this exponential demand?
I think this is a great resource to have, and I'm glad it will be optional to all mods registered on the ModDB. All I want to know now is if I can customise the ModDB forums to work for my mod community how I'd hope, or would there be a third party to go through to achieve this?
Mod forums shall be fully customizable to the Mod team (ie adding your own sections etc). There will probaly be measures in place to add private team only sections. As far as personal mod forum bannage (removing people from posting on only your forum) I dont know , but it will easily be considered. Atm this is only a beta which is meant to bring up these issues so we at Mod DB can then discuss and improve the mod forums before a site wide release. :)
Talkings is good so this is great
Whoa niggaz! The ModDB is growing up INTENSE!! :D Exciting I love this!!
nice