General site requests (for improvements, modifications, etc)

[EOJ]

Please post any requests you have for improving the forums, or changing aspects of them. I will consider them, especially if multiple people chime in in support.

One thing I would like to know is whether you guys want separate forums for every Cave game, instead of separated chat, high score, strategy forums that lump all the games together? This is how shoryuken separates the popular fighting game forums on their site.
So for example, I'd have a Cave games section that had separate forums for:

Dodonpachi series
Deathsmiles series
Mushihimesama series

etc.

ALL talk about the deathsmiles games would be in the Deathsmiles series section, the high score threads would probably be stickied to the top for easy reference. Or should I keep all the high score threads where they are right now?

And then a trading section, and the rest.

Question 2: Should I merge "Arcade is God" and "Steep Slope Sliders" into one forum?

[njiska]

Question 1: Bad Idea

I can't speak for the forum at large but i personally like the sections we have now because they're sorted by what people want. For example, right now I'm playing DFK and needed advice on the bee locations in the hidden route. Currently I just go to strategy and due to the small number of cave games it's right there. Under the New system first i'd have to go to the DDP series forum, then I'd have to see if it's stickied. If it's not, or it's missing from the stickies guide then I'd have to go looking for it.

Plus most of our active discussions are only in one or two threads in General anyways. Splitting them up into different forums would lead to a lot more jumping around.

Question 2: That's not a bad idea. Neither forum sees many posts on it's own. Combining them into one general non-Cave thread would reduce the number of extra forums.

[EOJ]

Thanks. You view on Question 1 makes a lot of sense.

[Medal]

Njiska makes a good point, but I personally wouldn't mind seeing a format like the one outlined in the original post. I think it would be pretty cool. It would make even more in-depth and detailed discussion on a single game seem less like clutter.

[EOJ]

The plot thickens!

[njiska]

Njiska makes a good point, but I personally wouldn't mind seeing a format like the one outlined in the original post. I think it would be pretty cool. It would make even more in-depth and detailed discussion on a single game seem less like clutter.

True but right now our in-depth discussions of individual games are pretty much restricted to a single thread for each and I doubt that would change with a new layout. Really the only current thread divisors are general discussion, strategy and scores. Just like the forums are currently broken up.

I mean what would you have in a DDP forum aside from one thread on each game, one thread on each score list, one on each strategy and a bunch of little splinter threads that were probably already talked about in the main thread.

Keep in mind the number of actual cave releases that see regular discussion is also pretty small. Would a Progear or Uo Poko forum see more than a handful of posts a year?

[emphatic]

I know that there's an XBLA account thread, but it would be really neat if we could perhaps replace one of the instant messenger options in the user profile (MSN, ICQ, etc) with XBLA account or add it?

[HVL]

I know that there's an XBLA account thread, but it would be really neat if we could perhaps replace one of the instant messenger options in the user profile (MSN, ICQ, etc) with XBLA account or add it?

That is a nice idea, but is it very useful in the end and would people really use it?

[njiska]

Actually I think people would. It'd be nice to find someone just by cgoing to their profile rather than looking through the gamertag thread. Though on the plus side, at least it's a short list.

[Medal]

Keep in mind the number of actual cave releases that see regular discussion is also pretty small. Would a Progear or Uo Poko forum see more than a handful of posts a year?

No, they wouldn't, although I'd feel more inclined to ask about them. It would give incentive to add content to the site (funny you mention Uo Poko, as I was playing it at school a few weeks ago and was considering learning how to play all the stages).
Finding information about specific parts of specific games would become far less of a hassle, though. Instead of searching through a 10+ page thread to see if anyone has addressed what you're looking at (the way I've spent too much time doing on shumps forum), you can check all the threads that have been made and make a new one if nothing helps.

It's not as though you couldn't just post asking about something specific in a game's thread, but then you eventually run into the problem of having an enormous thread of nearly unorganized information.

[njiska]

How about this as a compromise (Forgive my title generalization):

General:
- Cave Games (General Discussion)
- Reviews
- PCBs

High Scores
- Cave Games
- Other Games

Strategy
- General
- DoDonPachi
- Mushihime-sama
- Ibara/PinkSweets
- Deathsmiles

Cave Market
- Cave SHop
- Auctions

Other
- Non Cave Games (Combined Arcade is God and Steel Slope Sliders)
- Off Topic
- Ura Loop

[Medal]

I would mostly be asking questions about Dangun Feveron, Guwange, Progear, (maybe) Uo Poko (although it's a pretty simple matter just to watch a replay of it), Ketsui, Daifukkatsu, and Futari 1.01, personally. That's only 2/7. I don't think every board that is created has to be listed in the main index (they can be under Strategy, but not listed with everything else, as far as my experience with forum software goes).

Dangun and Guwange are getting XBLA releases in the near future, as well, so I'd fully expect discussion to gear up, and for each to have their own board would probably be helpful. It also seems cleaner and more complete just to have a board for each game. If, as you say, none of them will ever be trafficked, then they'll be very easy to keep clean, right? For the definitive CAVE forum, I think it's a sensible feature.

[EOJ]

Oops. I changed the member settings a bit a few hours back, and for some reason, it took away all permissions for one group of members (so they couldn't post, read PMs, or do much of anything else here). Sorry guys, I think I have it fixed now.

[NR777]

This will confirm that it's fixed...shot off that last email after test #1.  Glad to be back from purgatory.

[skykid]

Couple of little requests:

- Can we make it so when you make a post, you aren't kicked out to the main sub-section, but rather returned to your post. It's always nice to double check you didn't cock something up without having to go back to it.

[EOJ]

You've been able to do that from the start. Go to Look and Layout preferences in your profile, and check "Return to topics after posting by default."

[skykid]

You've been able to do that from the start. Go to Look and Layout preferences in your profile, and check "Return to topics after posting by default."

Ah right, didn't realise I had the option, thanks dude. 

[emphatic]

How about these:

[HVL]

How about these:

Awesomeness. I vote for this.

[brentsg]

Could you work in the Black Label font from DFK BL?

[njiska]

Could you work in the Black Label font from DFK BL?

I agree. The background shot is perfectly framed, but the Mushi Futari BL sitcker looks a little out of place. If you can get the DFK BL piece it would be awesome. If not this is still very nice.

Nice choice of Font for the english BL logo

[emphatic]

All right:



or



Also made the cave-stg wording white. I suppose I could animate this as well.

[brentsg]

Too bad that font isn't readily avail.  The cave-stg part would look awesome in that font too.

[emphatic]

Too bad that font isn't readily avail.  The cave-stg part would look awesome in that font too.

I'm working on it.  



Edit: I recreated the G by flipping a C upside down and blowing it up somewhat. The V is an A that's been shaved a bit, and the T is an L. The S was the hardest (you can probably tell), as it's a font that looked kinda like this one.

[brentsg]

I think it looks awesome.  I love that font.

Might also be able to manipulate the C to make an S.

[EOJ]

Wow, that's great. I'll put it up soon! Thanks. 

[emphatic]

Wow, that's great. I'll put it up soon! Thanks. 

I like doing stuff like this so it's cool. I made another one just for kicks:

[njiska]

That's the best one yet. The C-STG looks much better than the name spelled out.

[drunkninja]

Yeah, that last one is awesome, me likes

[dan76]

Warning - big post ahead.

With regards to improvements/modifications.

I thought of this because I noticed the dots placed after "Member" - so it's an extension of that, plus I want to start posting more scores on this forum - even though they will be pretty crap to start with. Anyhow -

I was thinking about some kind of rank or badge system linked to the scoring thread. Kind of like a tour of duty... Certain posters here are at the top for us western players - so you trust what they say with regards to strategy or info about certain games or cave in general. I guess this would be a visual badge of honor for those already there, but more importantly, something for the rest of us mortals to aim for.

So... what I'm suggesting is that for every game there is a certain score that will earn you a star. Maybe each game has a maximum of 2 stars, quite difficult to earn. Target scores would be set for each game and once you achieve that target score you get a star.

Example - Futari BL -  Manic - Reco. A score of 450,000,000 gets you 1 star. 650,000,000 gets the second.


The number of stars you have could be displayed by your name - or maybe getting 4 stars you could achieve the rank of Original member, 8 stars Manic member, 12 stars God member, 16 stars Ultra member - you get the idea.

Also, I'm saying stars but it could be bees, piggies or skull rings. 4 skull rings = one crown... whatever, you could have fun with that. For instance, seeing a member with 3 Gold Crowns after their name you know they ain't mucking about.

It would benefit top players, but mainly it would set goals for lower scorers to improve their game. Better than a monthly competition because you can work on the games you have access to. You could spend three months on one game knowing there's some kind of acknowledgement where it matters.

A ridiculously complicated scoring system - and rightly so! Not to mention a huge headache to set up and keep on top of.

Personally, I want to improve my game, and as these games and this forum are quite exclusive, I think it would be a kinda fun thing. There would be no shame in not having any stars -  for them to have any meaning they'd have to be difficult to achieve. Also, because the hi-score thread is viewable to non-members, it makes sense to have them as healthy as possible.

Well that's the basic idea  - I'm sure it would be a lot of work to implement something like this, so perhaps it wouldn't be worth the effort (as seeing your name gradually move up a score list is pretty good anyhow), but it would be cool to see a piggy/gold crown/star rank next to your name and have that rank increase over time.


Also - love that last logo.


EDIT: This would be a nightmare to sort because of the number of games and separate score tables involved... way too many I think. Anyhow, I haven't deleted the post because, well, it's an idea.