[Forum] Divide Projects forum into more sections

[Hisymak]

There are really many projects in the Projects forum. The problem is that some projects are for example weapon mods, other are map and megawad projects, other are total conversions. And they are all mixed in a single forum. So for forum visitors it's not easy to search among them if they are interested in a specific kind of project, and furthermore there are many active projects and the threads are getting really quickly on the second, third, etc. page and often being forgotten because of that.

The suggersion is to reorganize the forum a bit and divide Projects forum into more sections according to the kind of project.

For example:
1. Resource projects - just new textures, sprites, music, sounds etc. Also may contain new decorations, weapons and monsters but not as a stand-alone mod.
2. Gameplay projects - projects that significantly change the gameplay but do not contain any maps (big weapon mods etc.). To be used as stand-alone mods.
3. Map projects - projects with new maps and "megawads", may contain also new resources and weapons, but still keeping the original game's feel
4. Total Conversions - as the name says, projects with all three previous combined - new resources, changes in gameplay and (mostly) new maps. Changing Doom into totally different game.

Note: The need for this change emerged in this thread, which gave me idea to post the suggestion here as I'd also like this to be once implemented (and prevent off-topic discussion in that thread).

[Accensus]

And then there are the people who are not sure where to put their threads. I believe this has been suggested once already and it got 'no'd for that same reason.

[Hisymak]

And then there are the people who are not sure where to put their threads. I believe this has been suggested once already and it got 'no'd for that same reason.

That's definitely true, there may be cases when it is not (objectively) obvious where to put your project, but you will just choose the one you think is the most appropriate. But won't be there more benefit of this than drawbacks? Right now the projects are not divided at all (there's just some Resources subforum), also people may give the project an arbitrary name without any division rules.

[Gez]

We already have a Resources subforum.

I don't see the point to make a distinction between map projects and total conversions. TCs have maps, so they are map projects. Besides, attempting to define TC is a can of worm (most TCs are not actually total). What is the original game's feel? The feel of a mapset like Ancient Aliens, with its jokey premises and its neon 70s sci-fi aesthetics, is very different from Doom's abandoned bases and marble realms of Hell, but the gameplay isn't really changed.

[Accensus]

While I agree that it might help with categorising, I don't agree that it'll make things easier, especially for the mods. Why not just put a tag in your project name and then use the search? That way you can't create it in the wrong subforum and mods won't have to be on the lookout 24/7 for misplaced threads. I don't believe there is a need for too many subforums when all this can be avoided with a little bit of common sense and thread name editing.

[Graf Zahl]

Why not just put a tag in your project name and then use the search?

Because that doesn't work. Count on people doing it wrong rendering the search resultless.

I'd agree that it's too much to ask for the creators to properly categorize their project, because you can bet that even if you say it in the simplest terms, some people will ignore all common sense and still get it wrong, but I think that having one designated moderator for that task would be more than sufficient. Let users still create their projects in the main forum so that someone with experience can properly categorize them.

There shouldn't be too many subforums, but it'd be a lot of help if the pure gameplay mods can be separated from those which contain actual levels - because these two category address entirely different user groups. I'd be more than satisfied if mods could be grouped by

• gameplay mods
• map sets
• TC's and other complex projects, containing both maps and altered gameplay.
• dead projects

I am mostly interested in map sets but finding them in that dungheap is next to impossible.

[Hellser]

A similar discussion occurred earlier this year. Note that I'm not saying move your discussion there. Just pointing out what other forum members think about such an idea.

[Graf Zahl]

Oh, I did not realize that this was just a new thread about the same thing.

[Redfox123]

i dont know what a.k would fit into
probably total conversion