The title asks where we are we going, but perhaps a better way of describing the raison d'etre of this thread was given to me a few months back when I first mooted the idea: 'New game, new members, let's get ready - how can we do better?'. This thread is therefore intended to review the current status of the Org, to suggest how we can consolidate on our many strengths as a community, and how to improve things that are perhaps not going so well. The focus will primarily be the on topic TW forums.
Many of us have probably enjoyed the recent M2TW background competition, which was started up by a couple of the Org's staff and subsequently received the full backing of CA (it was featured prominently on their official site). That it ran so successfully, with many fine entries that can be enjoyed by the community at large, is a credit to those who organised the competition. Recent additions such as the mod links and download section have undoubtedly been a significant improvement to the site. My congrats and sincere thanks go out to the members of staff who spent much time and effort getting that up and running, especially as it makes such effective use of the excellent modding resources we have to offer the community here at the Org. Another fine example is the reinvigorated PBEM forum, which has taken on a new lease of life recently, and next door the 3rd annual story contest showcased more of the Org's resident talent, with the Mead Hall library effectively indexing the many stories that have been posted over the years. In similar vein, initiatives like the Org Gazette are definitely a positive development, and need to be encouraged and nurtured.
Kudos also go to the Org's cadre of guide writers, with many worthy contributions housed here at the Org, one of which has been highly praised by the developers themselves. The Ludus Magna, the game mechanics research forum, has been also been a success (although I admit a modicum of bias here), collating technical material for easy access for players and modders alike. I hope it will be continued with M2TW.
I apologise if I -- as undoubtedly will be the case -- have missed something out: feel free to suggest other initiatives that have contributed significantly to the on-topic Org forums over the past few months and years.
Despite all these varied positives, a number of Members I've spoken to of late about the strategic direction of the Org have given me the general impression that a malaise appears to have settled over the board, with established Members expressing some serious concerns.
For much of its existence, the Org has been the de facto unofficial Total War site. Over the last two years, this position has been gradually eroded to such an extent that the Org is a currently half the size of the current largest board, and the erosion continues unabated. I would argue that the rate of decline is perhaps even accelerating. Whilst the quality of the posts around the Org hasn't (yet) diminished IMO, and we retain many of the outstanding members of the community from yesteryear, it is also true that an ever increasing proportion of the more recent exceptional members (in particular modders) make their main TW contributions elsewhere. The Total War online community has expanded hugely in recent years, but the Org has become an ever smaller part of it. Given the vast strengths of this community, one is forced to face some uncomfortable truths about why this might have happened.
Of greatest concern to me, as both a Member and as a modder, is that a significant number of new (and existing) RTW modders have chosen to base their mods and their modding efforts elsewhere. In the days of MTW, and those leading up to the release of RTW, the Org could lay claim to the title of "Home of TW modding". Not any longer. This trend may well continue with M2TW: I have no reason to believe that it will not, and every reason to believe that it will. It's certainly clear that many mods will be primarily based on other sites, as other sites have already started to designate hosted forums. No such (public) effort appears underway at the Org.
Of paramount importance, and underpinning everything else, is therefore the attractiveness of the site to new Members and for existing Member of the community to join up here. I'd like to raise three issues that I think have a detrimental effect on this, and may be why so many new Members decide to go elsewhere to discuss and mod the Total War games.
Firstly, the front page of the site hasn't changed much in years, and despite the valiant recent efforts of a few staff members to make the current design work, it still reflects poorly on the Org. Many (I would say vital) functions are housed there, principally the Org's upload/download facilities (the existence of which is generally not well known), but the site navigation, for instance, is far from straightforward and there is a general dearth of dynamic content. Compounding this, a fair proportion of the front page links point to outdated content. A radical overhaul and redesign is desperately needed, hopefully adding much more integration with the forums.
Secondly, the very restrictive (and inconsistent) nature of the posting and user account permissions granted to new Members (often referred to by staff and others as the "Entrance Hall system") is likely to be a major annoyance for new Members. It has been my experience that there is strong support amongst certain factions of the staff for this system, but also a number of detractors. Which perhaps accounts for the widely ranging permissions granted to new Members (just have a look at the complexity of the posting permissions in the Guild FAQ for details). Indeed, arguably the most popular forums right now, the M2TW and the RTW/Hosted mod forums, are generally open to new Members. Which rather makes a mockery of the system. I can understand the reasons why the OT forums, and particularly the Backroom, are off limits to new Members, but it seems rather pointless to completely restrict them from the other game forums. Why, for instance, can a new Member reply to threads in the M2TW forum about the forthcoming game, but someone who has come here to discuss a previous game, perhaps having bought the Eras set, is barred from participating in the other forums? What is special about the RTW, MTW and STW general discussion forums that means new Members cannot be allowed to participate there until after going through a relatively lackadaisical selection procedure (every new Member who asks is told that gaining full Membership is usually trivial: a dozen posts in a couple of weeks and you're in)? For those who have come here determined to cause trouble (as opposed to those who are merely passing by), the EH system is therefore hardly much of a deterrent.
Instead of having the forums prima facie unpostable for newer patrons, with exceptions as determined by individual moderators, why not have them open for new Members with exceptions in special cases? We should place the emphasis on where new Member should not post (e.g. the Backroom), rather than where they should be allowed to post.
Make no mistake, the EH system deters not only the transient spammers and malcontents here to cause trouble, but also good quality Members. Several Members I have spoken to, who joined whilst the EH system was temporarily dropped after the release of RTW, commented that they would not have joined under the restrictive posting scheme. Two of these in particular are important members of the modding community, with thousands of high quality posts between them. In any case, the number of potential Members who come purely to cause trouble is the tiniest fraction of the total new registrations. With the current system, the onus is on the new member to demonstrate that they are worthy of acceptance as a new Member of this community. This is completely backward, so far as I'm concerned. We should be more welcoming to new Members, but willing to respond strongly if a new patron demonstrates an incompatibility with the ethos of these forums.
It is also true that many of the less desirable members this board has seen over the last few years have come through the Entrance Hall system in its most restrictive days, when new Members could only post in the Entrance Hall and not much else. In this scheme, it was actually possible (though very labour-intensive) for the Entrance Hall staff to sift through a Member's posts before granting promotion to Senior Patron. There was, unlike now, actually a strong selection procedure in place. But new Members wishing to discuss the games didn't have all that much choice but to join up, such was the predominance of the Org. Things have changed.
Further, the system unquestionably sullies the reputation of the Org amongst the Total War community in general: we are seen as elitist. It may be that some feel that we need to be shielded from this new type of Total War or Warrior player, who may not be such a fan of the strategic elements of the game and prefers the RTW style to that of the previous games. Maybe an influx of such Members would drive off older Members and lead to a general drop in quality of the board. But I doubt it.
It is therefore my opinion that this system is strangling the Org, depriving it of new blood, and must be addressed urgently, especially in light of the impending release of a new game.
Thirdly, in generally well behaved boards such as this, the primary role of staff members is to be community leaders. IOW, staff members should be participating in their forums as patrons first, moderators a distant second. There are certainly some staff members who appear to take this view, organising events and the like, galvanising their forums, but there are others who appear to take little or no interest in the content of their forums except to moderate them. Whether they actually have in interest or not is largely irrelevant to this point: in this case, it is the perception that counts. It is not an ideal situation, IMHO, when the average member only sees a post from a forum staffer when they are stepping in as a moderator. It does not breed a particularly friendly atmosphere.
In addition to these more general issues, the lack of communication from senior staff members is becoming a significant issue, in particular the lack of the "public face" for the Org, i.e. someone who Members, new and old, can contact with issues concerning the site. We currently don't have that. I understand the Org is going through a transitory period, and accommodations must be made for this, but it has been over 2 months now without an active leader, and decisions need to be made.
Coupled with this is a critical lack of transparency about the current decision making structures at the Org. For most of my time here, we have a discernable and stable "chain of command". However, in recent months, with the absence of the Forum Administrator, this has dissolved and now matters such as board downtimes and problems with the forum software are not being publicly addressed (they used to be). Even things as trivial as name changes are going past without acknowledgement of who is actually handling these matters with KukriKhan inactive. This is leading to confusion about who is running the site and which staff members have responsibilities over which areas. This used to be clearly understood by the membership at large. I know for a fact that PMs have been sent to KukriKhan requesting admin action only to seemingly be ignored.
So, who does one speak to about issues concerning hosted mod forums? Why was the board recently down for two days in a week? Is anyone looking in to the postcount, thread starter, or false PM count issues? On current form, I doubt those requesting a Mafia/Forum game forum are likely to get an answer: the forum will either magically appear completely unannounced (like the M2TW mod forum) or it will not.
With the forums themselves not running smoothly (they haven't for months) there is a general concern over the stability of the site, especially from people who come here to do more than just discuss the game and OT issues. The potential loss of access to their posts is a concern that the admins must be seen to take seriously, but confidence in the staff is being eroded by their lack of participation in this forum on matters including the current problems with the forums and Org policy. The latter of which is meant to be the entire point of this forum.
Some of the issues I raise in the second section of this post are undoubtedly going to be contentious, but some, like the need for a "go to" man for Members, are I believe not contentious at all. I strongly urge the staff to select a representative amongst their number to handle these requests as soon as possible.
