Massive Proposal For Guide Overhaul (Mods please read over)

[Egg99]

This post has been an extremely long time coming, but since no one else ever seems bring it up, I've finally decided to. With that said, here's my rant:

Something needs to be done about the absolutely abysmal way PSU guides are currently organized on this site. As it stands, there are three different links to completely different guide pages. Don't believe me? Check these links below and see for yourself:



1) http://www.pso-world.com/sections.php?op=viewtopsection&section=Phantasy+Star+Universe&secver=1

2) http://www.pso-world.com/viewtopic.php?topic=111078&forum=20&0

3) http://www.pso-world.com/viewtopic.php?topic=124388&forum=22&0



...and of those three different links, two of them are totally hidden to the average PSOW visitor as they reside within different forums instead of the main page.

Consider this for a moment: this site has thousands of visitors a day no doubt. Possibly even more. Now, of those thousands of visitors, how many do you think actually use the forum? I'd be willing to bet it's far less than half. There's hundreds of users that are signed up and have a forum account, sure, but all of us forum-goers constitute about 5-10% of the total visitor population for this site. So while those three links may be easily accessible to us, they are not easily accessible to the thousands of others who visit this site daily. Why? Because those thousands of other people don't browse the forums looking for additonal guides that they don't even know exist. And why should they? For all they know, all PSU-related guides are linked on the main page. But as we all know, they're not.

What brings this to a higher level of stupidity is that the two guide links that are fairly well hidden in the forums (#2 and #3), contain more important and vastly superior information than the guides in link #1 -- the link that isn't hidden. Does that make the slightest bit of sense to anyone? Newbie guides, Ventrilo help, PS2 performance tips, basic PSU FAQs, PC setup help, race statistics, playing tips, job guides, PA information, leveling tricks, walkthroughs, etc etc etc. All of these things are found in the "hidden" links; there must be over 100 guides of relevant and superior information that are not linked on the main page for every day people to locate. My question is, why the hell aren't they?

Below is my plan for revamping and reorganizing the current system so that all guides are easily noticed by everyone, and easier to access for those of us that already know of their existence.




Step 1: Get rid of the useless guides...

This is the first step of the overhaul. There are several guides that I've scanned through briefly that are extremely unnecessary (and in some cases, inaccurate) now that the game has been released for a year and changed around several times. Many of these guides contain old old OLD information, broken links (mostly for pictures), issues that are no longer a problem, and/or a fairly old topic that no one ever looks at anymore. These guides are (as of now) a waste of space, and do little except clog the alread-disorganized system with information that is no longer necessary. So step one is... get rid of them.

Examples:

-Tons of the guides in link #1 (as stated, many of these are inferior to new, more detailed guides found in links #2 and #3)
-The entire "Translations" category in link #1 (we've been playing the english game for a year, why is this even still here?)
-Partner Machinery info goes here (http://www.pso-world.com/viewtopic.php?topic=119195&forum=22&182)
-Attention: Whoever wants to try character creation (http://www.pso-world.com/viewtopic.php?topic=113761&forum=20)
-The 'My Character' Thread (Possible 56k Warning!) (http://www.pso-world.com/viewtopic.php?topic=114301&forum=20)
-All of the NPC shop pricing guides, save for one (why in God's name do we have six different guides that more or less say the exact same thing??)


(*Note: if you happen to be the author of a particular guide listed in these examples, I truly apologize if I've offended you by categorizing it under "useless". I do not mean to imply that it was never of any value, and I do greatly appreciate that you took the time to write it. I'm just politely trying to say that as of now, the guide no longer serves much purpose and in my opinion is no longer necessary. Again, I apologize, please don't take it personally.)




Step 2: Update the outdated guides that still contain relevant information...

This step is a no-brainer. There are many guides throughout the site that are well put together and extremely useful... they just contain outdated or missing information. So, obviously, they need to be updated. This step will largely involve the community submitting the proper information for said guides. This is probably the easiest step of all, as much of this "updated information" is common knowledge, it just hasn't been submitted yet.

Examples:

-All the bestiary guides in link #1
-The Skills and Technic guides in link #1
-Great Leveling Spots Guide (http://www.pso-world.com/viewtopic.php?topic=150556&forum=22&23)
-Guide to Nanoblasts and SUVs (http://www.pso-world.com/viewtopic.php?topic=124387&forum=22&3)




Step 3: Reorganize ALL guides onto the main page, with new categories/divisions...

With the useless guides gone, and the old-but-still-relevant guides updated, the final step is to place them all on the main page for all those non-forum visitors to see. Obviously there will be a ton of guides to browse through, so many categories will have to be renamed and many guides will have to be reassigned. To make things immensely easier on the user, the new system should have the same "expand" function that the item database has which would allow for much easier access to sub-categories and guides without having to go through several different links. Here is AN EXAMPLE of the new category system and what exactly I'm talking about:




Gameplay
-Overview
-Getting started*
____Account setup
____Credit card help
____etc.
-Shops and clothing
-Nanoblasting & SUVs
-Weapons palette
-Guides

Character Creation
-Overview
-Human*
____Male
____Female
-Newman*
____Male
____Female
-Cast*
____Male
____Female
-Beast*
____Male
____Female
-Level 1 base statistics

Class selection
-Overview
-Basic classes* --> See below.
____Hunter
____Ranger
____Force
-Advanced classes* --> All guides pertaining to each particular class would be listed under the link of that class.
____Fortefighter
____Fortegunner
____Fortetecher
____Fighgunner
____Wartecher
____Guntecher
____Protanser
-Master classes*
____You get the idea

Photon Arts/Technics
-Overview
-Level statistics
-PA guides
-Technic guides

Partner Machinery
-Overview
-Item synthesis
-Feeding charts
-Models*
____41X series
____42X series
____43X series
-Guides

Missions
-Overview
-Mission branches*
____Parum
____Moatoob
____Neudaiz
____Guardians Colony
-Guides

Beastiary
-Parum beastiary
-Moatoob beastiary
-Neudaiz beasiary
-Guardians Colony beastiary

Grinding
-Overview
-Guides

Walkthroughs
-Offline mode
-Online mode
-Online story mode

Miscellanious
-...well, any miscellanious stuffs that doesn't fit into the new categories


(*Note: a '*' denotes a category that can expand.)




Please remember, that's only an example, so I'm all ears for adding or removing certain categories/sub-categories. I'm also intelligent enough to realize that this new system would be a significant overhaul and therefore isn't something that could immediately be implemented, but I urge the mods to look over this and seriously consider it.

As I said at the beginning of this post, the current guide layout is a complete disaster. I still find it hard to locate certain guides sometimes due to the fact that we have three different links and the guides themselves are all over the place and poorly organized. Like the item database overhaul, this would be an efficient and excellent step towards a better organized site that allows for much easier access of information for the thousands of other visitors on this site. Hell, it would probably stop all the "I can't find the link for..." threads popping up as well.

Constructive criticism and/or a show of support would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading!


Edit: sorry, my ASCII skills really suck >.>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Egg99 on 2007-10-17 13:56 ]</font>

[JAFO22000]

Proposal 1: Post this in the "Site Related" forum.

Proposal 2: How about PM'ing the owners of this site and going over your idea in private with them, perhaps even offering them some help. It's probably not updated because the people who actually do the work (for free, mind you) just don't have the time. I'm sure they would listen to your ideas and accept any help. What you SHOULDN'T do is critique unless you plan to help them fix it (and not just by pointing out that it's bad!)

[Egg99]

I'm planning on posting in the site-related forum, but I wanted to post it here first because I'm looking for some constructive criticism. As I pointed out, helping them out is a community-based thing and this is just a first step. A blueprint sort of thing. When I get a little feedback, I can figure out whether or not I should tweak some things, and then I'll post it there.

And I never thought about PMing the owners, thank you for the good idea. However, I don't know who runs the site, all I know is that Ryna is one of the moderators.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Egg99 on 2007-10-17 14:06 ]</font>

[Rizen]

There has been multiple proposals, including ones I have made in the past, about multiple sections for guides and etc. From my understand, they want to keep it simple for users to make their own guides, post, and manage, thus the reason for a guide section. As for deleting old guides, that is far too much trouble and time consuming. It should be up to the user to look at the date of guides and posts to them to determine whether or not is "useless" or outdated. Most of the time, these posts can serve for future references.

I dont think an overhaul will be done any time soon as the focus on the site construction is on the database.

One thing you should understand is that PSOW is meant to be a forum community. They want to urge people to join and take part in discussion instead of just breezing over information on the site.

Hope this helps.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rizen on 2007-10-17 14:17 ]</font>

[Egg99]

On 2007-10-17 14:14, Rizen wrote:
There has been multiple proposals, including ones I have made in the past, about multiple sections for guides and etc. From my understand, they want to keep it simple for users to make their own guides, post, and manage, thus the reason for a guide section. As for deleting old guides, that is far too much trouble and time consuming. It should be up to the user to look at the date of guides and posts to them to determine whether or not is "useless" or outdated. Most of the time, these posts can serve for future references.

I dont think an overhaul will be done any time soon as the focus on the site construction is on the database.

One thing you should understand is that PSOW is meant to be a forum community. They want to urge people to join and take part in discussion instead of just breezing over information on the site.

Hope this helps.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rizen on 2007-10-17 14:17 ]</font>


Guess it got moved anyway... >.>

As per your post, I wasn't aware that you and other people had made proposals about this in the past. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this way about the guides.

If anything, I would think that a better guide organization would actually encourage more people to participate in the forum community. If more people are able to easily locate the information they need, they'd be more inclined to post a correction, or a response, or perhaps even be encouraged to write their own guide. Instead, with the way things are now, I can see it being where people search for the information they need on the page, end up not finding it or finding it to be outdated, and then searching another site in hopes of finding what they seek. To me, it would seem bad guide organization would actually push people away, rather than draw them in. This is a little condradicting to the site's intent, imo.

However, this new system would be just as easy for users to write and submit their own guides; it would be no different than it is now, and thus no harder. The only difference would be that the guides would be rightfully organized, and easily accessed. Like I said, I know it's not something that could be implemented in a day, but I'd be more than willing to help sort and update the current guides into the new categories, as well as suggest which guides be removed and/or not included in the reorganization.

[mizukage]

Although I thought this site lacks guides, because I didn't know that link 2 and link 3 actually exist, but still.. Personally, I believe your idea of a massive proposal is no more than "asking too much" when there is a "forum search" option. I don't think that it is a nice idea to ask the moderators to work any harder than they already did. This forum site already contain tons of valuable information on PSO, PSU, and AOI. However, this is just my personal opinion, no offense.

[Dhylec]

All helpful ideas & suggestions will be review & consider. However, as Rizen said, we are currently focusing on the DB, so the guides look neglected.

With limited time & manpower, we can only do so much with the staff's volunteered resources. Hopefully, we can get to work on the guides soon.

So for the moment, continue using the guides in the sticky for info & reference.

[Tomeeboy]

I think there are some good suggestions in there Egg and appreciate the time you spent writing all of that out. Our PSU guides collection does need work, and a bit of an organizational overhaul. As others have mentioned, it's more of a time constraint than anything. There are many things that we want to change and improve on the site, but there are very few people actually willing to put in the time and effort. If somebody is interested in helping out and focusing on an area of the site that is currently in need of improvement, please feel free to contact Ryna or myself. While many of the site updates are going to require additional PHP programming and graphic design, I'm sure there are plenty of other things that could be done to give us more time for programming new features and upgrades http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[Ryna]

I used to be the maintainer for the PSU guides section, but that fell by the wayside after I started programming/maintaining the item database. The guy that was going to help maintain that section after that left to tend to real-life affairs.

The current PSU guides section definitely needs some clean-up and expansion. I wrote most of those guides during the initial beta. There are definitely plans and a great desire to get everything updated, but there are only so many hours in the day.

Here are some thoughts on your proposal:
-Link #2 is a sticky for some general forum guides. They don't fall within the scope of formal PSU guides and should only be viewed by people posting on the forum.
-Link #3 received a fairly big overhaul over the last couple of days. Several guides were removed for being out-of-date and the arrangement of the existing guides reorganized.
-I'd like to do some more PSU guide writing, but I simply don't have enough time to. The Item Database is a big time sink for work and research.
-As we get time and people, we would like to add several new guides and update the existing ones. We're definitely always looking for someone willing to help out.

[mizukage]

Usually, I have quite some idle time and I am also willing to help out, as long as its within my limits.