Why does TWC have more hosted modifications than the Org?

[Epistolary Richard]

Notice - along with mod-bashing and CA-bashing, there will be no more site-bashing - if you have issues with a site raise it with that site not here, this is the Mod Discussion forum and so is not only wrong, but worse... off topic

We now return you to your regular moderating...

If OR and EB are merging then that will probably mean that TWC becomes the new home of EB! Can I specially request that EB stays here at the Org so that I don't have to use TWC? Please! Please! PLEASE!

Such a request might be better made in the EB subforum rather than here.

The Org is the best forum that I ever signed up to and as an added bonus it has the most friendly staff out of any forum that I have ever seen in my lifetime. Hooray for the conservative and freindly Org!

Are you saying that the staff at TWC aren't friendly? *feels insulted*

Are you saying that the Org staff are friendly? *feels insulted* *never been called friendly before* *scary, creepy, give people the willies but friendly never!*

I recently noticed while browsing TWC that they have many more hosted modifications than the Org. This is terribly annoying because if you want to talk about some of your favorite modifications then Org members have to set up a separate account on TWC. So what did the Org do to scare all these modders away and make them want to set up on TWC? I would have thought that the Org would have have more hosted mods due to it's age and it's (reasonably) friendly community.

The Org first started having hosted modifications back in June 2004 and they were created because some mods grew simply too big for a single thread. It was intended that once released that a community would grow around that specific mod and that a subforum was required in order to allow the modders to offer the full range of activities for their players. They were intended to be the 'home' of the mod, where its development and interaction with players would take place, rather than go to the trouble of setting up a completely different forum. Hence a 'hosted' mod - in a similar manner to a 'hosted' site such as we have on our front page.

As ever, all mods were encouraged to have a thread in the mod development forums (the Engineers Guild for MTW, then the Forge for RTW) - so every mod who wanted to could have a presence on the Org. A mod that garnered a significant amount of interest from Org members and who had their 'home' here could then be given a 'hosted' forum if they requested it. Something that's often not considered is the amount of work that's required in maintaining your own subforum (in terms of the time it takes away from your actual modding) so it's perfectly understandable that some modders didn't want to bother with one, certainly until their mod is released.

With the release of Rome, some new staff on TWC wanted to develop the modding side of their site and in March 2005 announced their first hosted mod forums (or Major Community Projects as it was called back then). These included several mods that were formed from a 'core' of members who primarily hung out on TWC - such as RTR - but also a board for Europa Barbarorum (which already had a 'Hosted' board on the Org - and khelvan has explained the rationale for both mods presence there).

Throughout the main period of Rome modding - even when Major Community Projects was renamed to hosted mods - both TWC and the Org have stayed true to their individual concepts of what the areas for. For the Org - a 'hosted mod' was one that had their home on this site and it looked for mods that had gained significant interest from the Org community and were well-advanced in their development to try and ensure that their mod would ultimately be released. TWC had always maintained a more transparent process of how they go about creating new mod subfora. They were open to creating new fora for mods from all across the community and were generally more open to the idea of having a forum for a mod far earlier in their development.

What happened across the whole of the community during the Rome period was a change in the perception of having your own subforum. It stopped becoming a simple matter of having a space to develop a mod and having a home to immerse your players and became a matter of prestige. A mod, even one in development, felt judged as more of a success if it had its own subforum. Mods felt they needed a presence on several sites to attract interest and (for the larger teams) more modders. A simple thread in a mod development forum was less prestigious than a whole subforum as you got less attention from that site's members. It was natural therefore - as more and more modders pushed to have subfora of their own - that a site who was more open to it would create more than a site who considered that a hosted mod should be one that had it's 'home' on that site.

And this is an attitude that has been predominant in some of the new modders who've come along with Rome. Mods created by old MTW modders on the Org - such as Blue Lotus, Citadel and The Wheel of Time don't normally bother having subfora elsewhere. Equally, mod groups like the Lordz despite being wildly popular on the Org have never asked whilst I've been on staff for their own subforum here and have only just opened up one on TWC.

It was essentially a question of who would move to who - the mods or the players. The players need the mods to keep themselves interested, the mods need the players for self-validation and recruitment. Previously it was thought that the players would move to the modders' homes - whichever site they were own. Now it seems modders think they must move to the players' homes in order to be successful.

Strangely perhaps, when the topic of the Hosted Mod forums came up as part of the first round of our 'Future' discussions on the Org most of the comments were in favour of having a single 'home' for mods and maintaining single threads on other sites.


But all the above is in the past - and a new game is bearing down upon us. Hugely ambitious mod projects have already been announced and are laying out plans based on assumptions made around RTW. Just as the question of why there are relatively few Hosted mods are on the Org has emerged so too have TWC staff had to deal with having to clear away the subfora of mods which have died or risk the active mods being lost even more than they would be in a mod development forum.

What the Org's approach to Hosted Mods will be in the future will depend on what happens to the community and what the leaders of that community think - it may change completely or it may stay the same. Maybe I'll be involved in influencing that decision or maybe not. Omnia mutantur and all that.

[Lusted]

As a TWC admin i thought i should respond to some of the posta made:

I would have thought that the Org would have have more hosted mods due to it's age and it's (reasonably) friendly community.

TWC has more members and more traffic, a mod will get noticed more at TWC.

TWC is an unfriendly place. A place with a community that is too large. The Org however is a nice (reasonably) small site which is personalized with things such as the forum skins. The Org is like a little village where everybody knows everybody while TWC is a huge city (like London) where nobody knows anybody. TWC is just too modern and too large. It also doesn't have the nice avatars either. The Org is the best forum that I ever signed up to and as an added bonus it has the most friendly staff out of any forum that I have ever seen in my lifetime. Hooray for the conservative and freindly Org!

I'd hardly call us unfriendly. I always try to be as friendly as possible and answer any and all questions i can. And i would disagree with you saying nobody knows anybody at TWC. Most new members i've seen soon become familiar with the most well known members of TWC. We may not have nice avatars, but we can chose our own at TWC(im not havinh a dig at .org, i really like the avatars you guys have, im just saying).

They're friendlier here, probably because they're based in one forum (sometimes two) and have their name at the bottom of the forum screen which adds a sort of personal, individual touch, whereas at TWC mods are ferried from one forum to the other and it's not as easy to find out who mods where. Add the super moderators who can mod anywhere, it all gives a feeling of a sort of faceless group of mods.

The forums leader page at TWc is such an underused funxtion, allowing you to see who mods where at the click of a button on the forum index. And i'd hardly call TWc staff faceless, most of us are involved in either the Tw or CC side of things, and post in the Curia/Symposium. If some of us don't post as much as we used to before we were staff, its because our time is taken up in moderating.

Yeah, I've spent some time reading the posts and threads there, and I would have to agree that TWC is pretty unfriendly compared to the Org. TWC also seems way too political. I think recently they even had some sort of rebellion or something. I definitely like the Org environment better.

Once again with the unfriendly comments, what is it about TWc that makes us so unfriendly?

Whilst recent events were unfortunate, and should have been kept in staff, TWc just wouldn't be TWc without its politics and dramas.

Regarding the mods, I don't know. I think it's ultimately based upon the choice of the modders themselves. But if you look at the hosted modifications section of TWC, you'll see that most of them are just ideas. Many of the mods end up dieing prior to even being finished. Either way, M2TW will bring in a wave of new members to both communities and a wave of new modders as well.

Part of the requirements for getting a hosted mod at TWc si that you must already have a team, have work done on the mod, and have people interested in playing the mod. Yes, most mods do die, but thats true throughout the modding community. Im not sure how we could make sure the mods don't die as we only host them, and we cannot force them to have a release before hosting them as a forum can often give mods extra publicity that helps them get finished.

TWC staff had to deal with having to clear away the subfora of mods which have died or risk the active mods being lost even more than they would be in a mod development forum.

As the task of making new hosted mod forums, and removing the old ones has recently become one of my taks at TWc, it is a never ending process deleting the old and making the new. And over the next few months i fear there will be lots of dead mod forums to be cleaned up.

[khelvan]

I don't care to be involved in site politics. I will simply say that the absorbtion of OR has not changed any of EB's plans, though of course as our decisions are made as a group perhaps the future direction will change a bit. (As there are far fewer active OR members than active EB there won't be any radical changes, as we would hope there would not be anyway, as we approached them assuming they had the same end-goal as we do) Regarding the forum presence our long-term plan has always been to have our own forum at our own domain, which we have now, but we have not yet made it public.

When that happens we will continue to have our presence here at the .org as well as at TWC, just as we have one now at TWC when we do our development here. As far as I can tell doing our mod development here does not actually bring in revenue for the .org so really we're a bit of a pain for them more than we are a benefit, and I expect they'll be happy to have us begin development elsewhere. We certainly appreciate all of the hard work and sacrifice that the .org continues to provide for us, when they get little in return.

I don't see why or how this event can affect our public presence in either community. I can't understand the poster's reasons for believing this. Everything we need for a full public presence exists in both sites - they are mirrors of each other.

[Garbarsardar]

Hi all. I am an administrator at TWC and long time lurker here. I am probably naive about both site's politics but I never sensed enmity or agressive competion between the .org and TWC.

The .org has helped me a lot both in my game with the excellent guides you have compiled and also in answering queries from members; I link to your site in my answers very often to feel a stranger here.

Anyway I always felt that both sites were facets of one community and until now I had no indication to the contrary.

Thank you all for your great personal and communal work and please don't hesitate to contact me here or in TWC about anything.

Take care
Garb.

[Ares]

Hi all. I am an administrator at TWC and long time lurker here. I am probably naive about both site's politics but I never sensed enmity or agressive competion between the .org and TWC.

The .org has helped me a lot both in my game with the excellent guides you have compiled and also in answering queries from members; I link to your site in my answers very often to feel a stranger here.

Anyway I always felt that both sites were facets of one community and until now I had no indication to the contrary.

Thank you all for your great personal and communal work and please don't hesitate to contact me here or in TWC about anything.

Take care
Garb.

So you joined here just for this thread?

Anyways, as a general statement, I think it all comes down to personal preference. I guess both sites have their own appeal. Some people like TWC for their own reasons, and some people like the Org for their own reasons.

[MSB]

Anyways, as a general statement, I think it all comes down to personal preference. I guess both sites have their own appeal. Some people like TWC for their own reasons, and some people like the Org for their own reasons.

I like the Org for EB and the avatars. Most of that is dead now EB has got it's own forum.

Anyway

Thanks Epistolary Richard for the answer. It surprises me that this modding sub-forum craze only started in 2004-I would have expected modding sub-fora to be appearing in 2002 with MTW's release.

[Garbarsardar]

So you joined here just for this thread?

Anyways, as a general statement, I think it all comes down to personal preference. I guess both sites have their own appeal. Some people like TWC for their own reasons, and some people like the Org for their own reasons.

I was actually promised 40 virgins and a larg(-ish) basket of fruits by ER, which I still expect...

But you are completely right on your statement. Being an administrator TWC is a frenetic place for me, while the .org a welcomed refuge;I can guess it's the inverse for some friends here...

(plus you have a cooler "cool" smilie...)

[Epistolary Richard]

I was actually promised 40 virgins and a larg(-ish) basket of fruits by ER, which I still expect...

Never fear, Garb. He's in the mail!



Oh _forty_ virgins... I get it now.

I look forward to the resulting recipie