Author Topic: Announcement standard?  (Read 24679 times)

Game Hunter

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Announcement standard?
« on: February 17, 2012, 07:14:48 PM »
It's great to see new version as they're released, but the organization of them is a little haphazard. In and of themselves this isn't a problem (just check the topics of games you're invested/interested in) but if, for instance, we wanted to improve the frequency of the Roguelike Roundup newspost, having a standard for content in each thread would simplify and expediate collecting all of this information together. Using the roundup as an example, the following information could be included in each announcement:

Game title
Game version / Note that it is a new game
Date of release
Most relevant address (newspost for latest release, main website, etc)

The above example isn't necessarily how to do it: there's almost certainly other significant information to track. That's the main reason for the thread, so that we can actually build a good standard (if one is necessary at all). Right now getter77's the dominant source of these announcements in the first place, so in this context I'm basically asking him if this is reasonable to include. But hey, one day the forum need other people to keep things going, and at that point it would be good to have something to point to so that the announcements can be tracked easily.

But to reiterate, this is only even worth doing if it's decided that things like the roundup are important to keep maintained. There might even be a method for automatically collecting information from forum posts, simplifying the process further.
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getter77

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2012, 08:59:27 PM »
Well, moreso I'd imagine this is something for other folks to weigh in on, but for my part:  Makes sense in general.

Though, I've never bothered to include a release date per se, either for ones that are "new to me" which still happen with a disturbing regularity, or just in lieu of the threads themselves sorting by date in general and within the little "Posted on: blah blah" in the upper right of a given message.  I think I generally mostly remember to include all that other info, though not necessarily rigidly organized within whatever given post.

I try to be organized in general, but yeah.  IIRC, the Roguelike Roundup's frequency woes stem from the principle gentleman in question just being duly wrapped up otherwise for the last little while.  Beyond that, well, there's still kinks to work out in terms of general record keeping/announcing as it is----Roguebasin pages don't necessarily exist/get updated by folks/devs, Elderlore is kinda not there this past little while, the Actively Developed Roguelike List only updates every so often, the Roguelike Announce Google Group thing is random about what shows up there exclusively or otherwise, bah.

Sometimes I don't make new posts but add to existing topics on a given thing, but it really depends on the individual circumstances, whether commercial or not, etc.   Given the sheer, and increasing, level in terms of volume of releases even outside of things like ARRP and 7 or whatever DRL competitions---it just doesn't seem like there'd be enough screen real estate to keep things topped off to always be in view otherwise leaving others languishing pages on back.
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Psiweapon

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2012, 11:10:22 PM »
I myself think it's a good idea - Although I probably will only ever make announcements of games I'm involved in, if at all.

It's almost trivial to include a more or less standardized "header" on release posts, and then rant to your heart's content on the virtues of the game, bugs addressed, development history and whatever.

If it's helpful, chances are people will pick it up.


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Z

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #3 on: February 18, 2012, 09:38:04 AM »
We might want to decide how substantial a change must be to create a new thread instead of posting in the old one. It seems that most people who announce updates create new threads, which I find quite annoying, especially if there are two versions one right after other. Also this makes it harder to find all discussion related to the particular game.

TheCreator

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #4 on: February 18, 2012, 03:34:22 PM »
We might want to decide how substantial a change must be to create a new thread instead of posting in the old one. It seems that most people who announce updates create new threads, which I find quite annoying, especially if there are two versions one right after other. Also this makes it harder to find all discussion related to the particular game.

Agree. Every game should only have one thread. It's extremely irritating to search for a particular post about particular game when there are dozens of threads about it. I hate the 'Announcements' forum for being such a mess and rarely visit it.

As of standards... I think that only one piece of information is really essential: a direct download link. People tend to forget about it and there's no force on Earth that could make me go through all kind of weird webpages and look for the damn link :).
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corremn

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #5 on: February 19, 2012, 12:44:24 AM »
Using the roundup as an example, the following information could be included in each announcement:

Game title
Game version / Note that it is a new game
Date of release
Most relevant address (newspost for latest release, main website, etc)


A lot of people forget to add a summary of their game. I find that helps a lot.

Title: PigRogue
Summary: Rogue clone with bacon.
Version: 001 (First release)
Released: 1/1/13
Site: http: www.pigrogue.com

I wonder if a button could be added to the post section to add this information. Or better yet when you click new post in the Announcement section a template is put in automatically. - no idea if this is possible with this forum engine....
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TheCreator

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #6 on: February 19, 2012, 06:34:41 PM »
A lot of people forget to add a summary of their game. I find that helps a lot.

Good point. In case of new games it would be nice to know whether: it is a coffeebreak roguelike (I don't play these), contains manga-like tiles (I don't play these either), is written in Java or requires me to install anything (why would I even bother playing these?) ;).

Version: 001 (First release)

This gave me the idea that each release announcement, not only the first one, should contain the release number. Version numbers we all use are not standardized in any way, one developer may use 9.99.999 for the first release and another may use 0.00.1beta for an almost complete game. Version numbers mean nothing. However, a release number would be quite a good indicator of game's maturity level. What do you think?
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Psiweapon

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #7 on: February 19, 2012, 09:58:03 PM »
A lot of people forget to add a summary of their game. I find that helps a lot.

Good point. In case of new games it would be nice to know whether: it is a coffeebreak roguelike (I don't play these), contains manga-like tiles (I don't play these either), is written in Java or requires me to install anything (why would I even bother playing these?) ;).
[/quote]

Very well thought-out, we could also make mandatory to state during which phase of the moon the latest release was coded, in case it isn't up to your standards  ::)

Version: 001 (First release)

This gave me the idea that each release announcement, not only the first one, should contain the release number. Version numbers we all use are not standardized in any way, one developer may use 9.99.999 for the first release and another may use 0.00.1beta for an almost complete game. Version numbers mean nothing. However, a release number would be quite a good indicator of game's maturity level. What do you think?


Truth be told I agree with all of this.
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corremn

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #8 on: February 19, 2012, 11:07:10 PM »
Version: 001 (First release)

This gave me the idea that each release announcement, not only the first one, should contain the release number. Version numbers we all use are not standardized in any way, one developer may use 9.99.999 for the first release and another may use 0.00.1beta for an almost complete game. Version numbers mean nothing. However, a release number would be quite a good indicator of game's maturity level. What do you think?

Truth be told I agree with all of this.

Yep, I am slowly changing all my release numbers to this.

P.s That standard way of spelling standardised is definitely with an 's' not a 'z'  ;D
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TheCreator

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #9 on: February 20, 2012, 08:08:31 AM »
P.s That standard way of spelling standardised is definitely with an 's' not a 'z'  ;D

It's one of the standards that nobody respects, I guess. Americans invented the internet so they have the right to set standards here :D, although it's probably painful for language purists. I am a fanatic purist, but luckily English is not my primary language, so I happily ignore all the US/UK differences. Don't even look at texts in my game ;).
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Game Hunter

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #10 on: February 20, 2012, 05:47:54 PM »
So based on comments I think this would be a good starting point:

Game title
Game description (KISS)
Release # (when possible), version #
Release date
Website or download link
Changelog/patchlog (when possible, optional)

Release numbers are unfortunately harder to track after a game's already been updated many times before tracking has begun, but I agree that it's a little more useful to a beginner in terms of determining game maturity.

If we want to go the "all release of a single game in a single thread" route, things should probably be moved around: OP can contain title, desc, and main website, while each release post would give a release/version # and date (and a download link if it's changed since the OP). I would also suggest that the thread's title be updated with a marker (e.g., "(Jan 01 2013)") so that people know when the last release was. (Not really sure how possible that is unless everyone is given editing access to Announcements, not that I see a problem with that besides potential trollspam.) Alternatively we could set up a stickied list of all announcement threads: since each game would only occupy a single thread, all that would be necessary is the game's name and its thread link. (It would only have to be updated when a new game is announced, too, since it's not a lot of trouble to search the list and go to a particular game's thread for updates.)

And, if single-thread is desired, there's the matter of merging the existing separate threads...mostly just a ton of work for the mods I guess. It might not be entirely necessary but it would be a lot cleaner in that forum (currently I see about 30 pages of announcement threads: merging could reduce it to five or so).
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Psiweapon

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #11 on: February 20, 2012, 08:31:23 PM »
So based on comments I think this would be a good starting point:

Game title
Game description (KISS)
Release # (when possible), version #
Release date
Website or download link
Changelog/patchlog (when possible, optional)

Release numbers are unfortunately harder to track after a game's already been updated many times before tracking has begun, but I agree that it's a little more useful to a beginner in terms of determining game maturity.

If we want to go the "all release of a single game in a single thread" route, things should probably be moved around: OP can contain title, desc, and main website, while each release post would give a release/version # and date (and a download link if it's changed since the OP). I would also suggest that the thread's title be updated with a marker (e.g., "(Jan 01 2013)") so that people know when the last release was. (Not really sure how possible that is unless everyone is given editing access to Announcements, not that I see a problem with that besides potential trollspam.) Alternatively we could set up a stickied list of all announcement threads: since each game would only occupy a single thread, all that would be necessary is the game's name and its thread link. (It would only have to be updated when a new game is announced, too, since it's not a lot of trouble to search the list and go to a particular game's thread for updates.)

And, if single-thread is desired, there's the matter of merging the existing separate threads...mostly just a ton of work for the mods I guess. It might not be entirely necessary but it would be a lot cleaner in that forum (currently I see about 30 pages of announcement threads: merging could reduce it to five or so).

I agree with most of the above, except:

Everyone having edit rights on the announcements boards would probably be just madness. Think of the disorganization. Any bot or troll could enter any thread and go all LOLOLOLOLOL.

Merging the threads is probably impractical... just leaving previous threads to rot (or locking them) would probably be better.
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getter77

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #12 on: February 20, 2012, 08:41:23 PM »
Well, for my end at least, it looks like the consensus is to do things differently going forward as per the roughly outlined above.

The notion in my head for now is shift to 1 Thread a Game in the Announcement forum come March 1, clean'ish start if you will, and try to generally keep to the rubric----then see how things shake out from there.   Probably tempted to eventually coalesce all the 7DRL comp stuff when it happens into a megathread though, with any that go beyond splitting from the pack into their own.

Sound good folks?
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corremn

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #13 on: February 20, 2012, 10:59:35 PM »
Probably tempted to eventually coalesce all the 7DRL comp stuff when it happens into a megathread though, with any that go beyond splitting from the pack into their own.

Just create a new forum Category for 7DRL Announcements, or better yet, Competitions (7drl per year, out of challenge 7drl, Ndrl, music comps, best random map comps etc. You need different threads for each game, or it would be a mess.

Sometimes a fantastic release that just happens to be released around the 7drl challenge/ARRP get lost in the noise.

Thoughts??
« Last Edit: February 20, 2012, 11:02:10 PM by corremn »
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Darren Grey

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Re: Announcement standard?
« Reply #14 on: February 20, 2012, 11:08:37 PM »
I think one thread for the 7DRLs is fine.  If a game warrants more discussion a new thread can be started in a different forum.  ARRP shouldn't be moved to a separate forum - it is often major and important news, and isn't any special challenge.