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 Alpharius wrote:
That forum is also included in the currently ongoing Forum Re-Org conversation.

What's the future look like for Forum Games?

Will there be a forum focus group for research purposes?

 d-usa wrote:
Will there be a forum focus group for research purposes?

Research is 'otiose'

 Alpharius wrote:
That forum is also included in the currently ongoing Forum Re-Org conversation.

No argument against admin decisions from here, but I named two. Just to clarify; Forum Games?
I'm just spending a lot of spare time writing fic, so I'm pretty invested in the conversational wasteland that is DF.

I'm not sure why a forum site can have 'too many forums'?

The purpose of dividing the conversation up into different forums is to make it easier to find conversations that interest the user, so that (for example) an Age of Sigmar player doesn't have to trawl through five pages of 40k rules questions in a generic 'rules' forum before he finds a thread he can help with.

The obvious way to help the user is to split the forums along the lines that most divide the users' interest already - game system.

There are already a lot of forums out there who handle Heresy. There is definitely an appetite on the web for discussion of Heresy-era games. If just doesn't happen on THIS forum, because folding it into 40k makes it difficult for 30k players to find and continue those conversations. If you folded Infinty into the general 40k forums and called them 'sci-fi', I imagine the amount of Infinity discussion on Dakka would decline too, as the players would find it more difficult to locate relevant conversations.

By folding 30k in with 40k, what we're actually doing is reducing the amount of 30k conversation happening, and making it more difficult for 30k fans to have those conversations. So they go elsewhere for that. Heresy30k is currently the only other toy soldier forum I regularly post on, and I only signed up to that (reluctantly) because I couldn't have those conversations here on Dakka, despite trying. I would MUCH prefer to be able to get my Heresy fix here!

Of course, it may be that Dakka feels it doesn't want to have the extra weight of conversation and manage/host that. That's absolutely fine. But please let's stop pretending that the current policy of hosting 40k and 30k together is adequately catering to the 30k fan base. All it's doing is driving the conversation elsewhere.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I'm not sure why a forum site can have 'too many forums'?

The purpose of dividing the conversation up into different forums is to make it easier to find conversations that interest the user, so that (for example) an Age of Sigmar player doesn't have to trawl through five pages of 40k rules questions in a generic 'rules' forum before he finds a thread he can help with.

The obvious way to help the user is to split the forums along the lines that most divide the users' interest already - game system..

That's exactly it. The trick in finding exactly where those lines lie.

Breaking the forum down into different sections only works so long as those different sections still generate discussion. You reach a point if you break things down too far where you fragment the discussion too much... For example, we currently have a '40K General' section where people talk about anything 40K-related that doesn't fit the other 40K sections.

If we took that section and, say, split it off into '40K - Eldar Discussion', '40K Space Marine Discussion', '40K Ork Discussion', '40K Fishmen Discussion' and so on, the immediate effect would be that people could much more easily find discussion related to the armies that interest them. But the long-term effect is that armies that are less popular would flounder along with even less discussion happening in their section than would have happened in the combined section, because the casual browser who isn't overly invested in any particular army takes one look at the list of different subsections and wanders off to check out Facebook instead, and those who are interested in discussion on that army lose interest in the forum because there's no discussion happening in the specific section that interests them.

More division isn't automatically a good thing.

At the risk of seeming otiose, how much 30K game material is there and how different is it too regular 40K?

I am aware of the FFG Horus Heresy board game that was launched a few years ago. From what I can make out, the new Horus Heresy game from GW is a hex based skirmish board game with figures. This to me is not radically different in general concept to Space Hulk compared to 40K.

Is there a set of general 30K tabletop rules and how different is it to current 40K?

I am just trying to get a feel for the structure and direction of 30K separate from 40K.

Forge World do a set of HH rules that are based on 40k, but really a whole other ball (or minis) game. The principles are the same, but the design methods, the way lists are built, the whole approach is markedly different to 40k. On top of that you have all the background stuff from Black Library, the models from Forge World.... Pretty sure that if 30k were to get its own sub-forum, there would easily be as much discussion there as you find in the likes of the LotR or Malifaux sub-fora, ie. plenty to keep regular conversation going but little enough that it would quickly fade away in the traffic-heavy 40k forum.

Please either reduce the overall number of GW forums, or code some way I can collapse them so I never have to see them.

Or just put them all at the bottom.

Thanks.

I decided that i'm putting a [30k] in front of all my 30k topics now - theres definitely a great amount of interest in 30k but it's just not getting directed to this site because it's known for 40k despite it catering for a wide range of tabletop games.

HH FTW!

 SirDonlad wrote:
I decided that i'm putting a [30k] in front of all my 30k topics now

Yes please do this! This will be extremely helpful to us in the event that a separate 30k forum gets underway (because we would need to manually move previous threads over). Anyone who is interested in an eventual 30k sub-forum really should be doing this.

The decision about establishing 30K as a separate forum will depend mainly on the amount of separate interest.

So it's a bit chicken and egg.

Your idea to put [30K] on relevant topics is a very good one.

insaniak wrote:Breaking the forum down into different sections only works so long as those different sections still generate discussion. You reach a point if you break things down too far where you fragment the discussion too much... For example, we currently have a '40K General' section where people talk about anything 40K-related that doesn't fit the other 40K sections.

Yup, I totally agree. You can certainly reach a point where you've divided up so much that there aren't enough people in each sub-forum to generate discussion.

I'd suggest that, with the 30k fanbase, we know that isn't true because of the amount of forum content it generates on the wider internet. We know there are a lot of people talking about 30k. We just know it isn't happening here. Because of the chicken/egg situation mentioned, the only way to find out if there would be enough discussion to maintain 30k forums HERE may be to test it. Maybe set up a 30k Rules/Lists forum for six months and see if discussion builds?

Kilkrazy wrote:At the risk of seeming otiose, how much 30K game material is there and how different is it too regular 40K?

Realistically, the vast majority of 30k material and discussion is going to come from the Forge World Horus Heresy variant of 40k. This is basically 40k, but with different armies, codexes, army building methods, campaign systems, missions and a big bolt-on of extra weapons, equipment and special rules. I'd imaging it's like adding four or five full Campaign supplements and a bunch of new Codexes to 40k - all designed to work together rather than with any of the existing 40k campaigns/codexes.

There is also the FFG Horus Heresy board game, and the old card game, though they may not generate that much discussion.

'Battle for Calth' is a whole separate thing, which may or may not generate a load of discussion. It's much more likely that the release of 'Battle for Calth' will generate a lot more discussion of the Forge World Horus Heresy game - since BfC is likely to be relatively simple as a game, and many people will use it to start a HH army.

SirDonlad wrote:I decided that i'm putting a [30k] in front of all my 30k topics now - theres definitely a great amount of interest in 30k but it's just not getting directed to this site because it's known for 40k despite it catering for a wide range of tabletop games.

This has been tried before, I think (I certainly tried it). The issue is that, because it's lumped in with the busiest forum, any 30k questions tend to get bumped off the front page pretty quickly, and then ignored. Of course, 30k players could search '30k' in each individual 40k forum if they want to talk about their game, but I think we'd all agree that it's much easier to just go to another, 30k-themed, forum!

I admit my interest in 40k is pretty much crap, at the moment. But having read some of the really important Horus Heresy books, loving the new plastic models...I'd love to jump feet first into a 30k/HH section. But I just can't be bothered trawling through a section that only snags my attention if something I feel curious about is showing on the main page.

Hope that helps add interest for a 30k sub.

 Alpharius wrote:
That forum is also included in the currently ongoing Forum Re-Org conversation.

If a forum that isn't really a "core" forum for DakkaDakka's Vision Statement takes a tremendous amount time from Moderators (OT) or your database/server/whatever space (Forum Games) or has very few active threads (Dakka Polls), then feel free to gak-can it.

I really hope 30k gets a forum, we'll have to spam the 40k area with 30k tags when Calth hits.

 Stormwall wrote:
I really hope 30k gets a forum, we'll have to spam the 40k area with 30k tags when Calth hits.

Don't spam it. If we post [30k] as needed, the forum will come naturally.

I think the thing we'd really need is a "Horus Heresy Army Lists" and "Horus Heresy YMDK." Proposed rules isnt a must because FW knows how to write rules and General discussion is always vague enough to be for either

 kronk wrote:

 Stormwall wrote:
I really hope 30k gets a forum, we'll have to spam the 40k area with 30k tags when Calth hits.

Don't spam it. If we post [30k] as needed, the forum will come naturally.

I don't think that's true.

If I'm going to make a post, I'd like some replies. I don't think I'll get that by posting a [30k] tag, watching it drop straight off the frontpage, and hoping the 30k players search for the tag to find threads to comment on. Arguably, that's exactly what people have been doing to date, and we see that while there is a lot of 30k discussion on the web, it doesn't happen here.

I'm more likely to get replies if I post in a 30k board, where 30k players will see it without having to search for it. Dakka doesn't have any of those. :/

I meant spam as in all these people making legions each makes a thread.

That way there are tons. Then this will be addressed. (Not that it hasn't already.)

If that logic makes sense?

 ArbitorIan wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 Stormwall wrote:
I really hope 30k gets a forum, we'll have to spam the 40k area with 30k tags when Calth hits.

Don't spam it. If we post [30k] as needed, the forum will come naturally.

I don't think that's true.

If I'm going to make a post, I'd like some replies. I don't think I'll get that by posting a [30k] tag, watching it drop straight off the frontpage, and hoping the 30k players search for the tag to find threads to comment on. Arguably, that's exactly what people have been doing to date, and we see that while there is a lot of 30k discussion on the web, it doesn't happen here.

I'm more likely to get replies if I post in a 30k board, where 30k players will see it without having to search for it. Dakka doesn't have any of those. :/

If there is not enough interest to keep a [30k] post from dropping straight off the front page, then there isn't really any justification for making a 30k section at all since nobody is talking about it.

If there are a lot of [30k] posts and people are posting in them and they are active and stay on the front page, then that is what will be used to justify a 30k section.

Dakka has never really been a forum of "if you build it, they will come". The approach for every recent sub-forum has been "if people talk about a subject enough, it will usually get a sub forum".

That is what happened when we all started posting and talking about (aka: not spamming) the [infinity] threads in the "other games" sub forum and that's what happened with the [FoW] sub-forum. Show Dakka that a 30k section is needed by tagging your posts and making it plain to see that the discussion is there.

 d-usa wrote:

That is what happened when we all started posting and talking about (aka: not spamming) the [infinity] threads in the "other games" sub forum and that's what happened with the [FoW] sub-forum. Show Dakka that a 30k section is needed by tagging your posts and making it plain to see that the discussion is there.

Absolutely, but every question about those two games - rules, lists, background - was being posted in the 'other games' forum. My point is that the reason [30k] posts disappear so quickly is that they currently have to be split across the regular 40k forums - the biggest and busiest forums on the site, with much, much more traffic than 'other games'. So the same approach won't work as well.

Maybe that's the solution - have Dakka clearly state on all 40k forums that 30k belongs in 'Other Games' and see how quickly that forum fills up! All rules, tactics, lists and background posts about 30k go in Other Games - if we get as many posts as Infinity did we get our own forum, right?

(Edits for spelling)

The oldest post on the front page for the following sections:

40K General: 42 hours
40K Background: 9 days
40K Tactics: 5 days
40K Battle Reports: 23 day
40K Proposed Rules: 16 days
40K YMDC: 6 days.
40K Army Lists: 3 days.

The busiest of all the 40K sections is still showing posts that have not received a response in 2 days. If a 30K post doesn't get a response for 2 days and falls off the front page then it doesn't need to be on the front page.

For now 30K will do just fine in the 40K section and won't be drowned out by week old traffic. Tag your threads with [30K] and when the front page is filled with [30K] threads you will see your new sub-forum. Looking at the dates in the 40K sections I would imagine that there will be a lot fever 30K sections, but they will come.

 d-usa wrote:

For now 30K will do just fine in the 40K section and won't be drowned out by week old traffic.

No it won't! And yes it will! Trolls don't play 30k!! (too much balance probably)

Also, the 'search' function is rubbish! Can't someone set it to bring up just the title of individual threads rather than every post thats ever been done in one listed chronologically?
When i tried using the search function all i got was all the posts i'd already read from the first couple of pages - it was no help at all! i ended up searching manually because of it!!
This will kill any intrest in dakka for someone (like me) who is just DONE with 40k.

 d-usa wrote:
Tag your threads with [30K] and when the front page is filled with [30K] threads you will see your new sub-forum.

Let's fold Flames of War into the 40k forums. When those forums (competing against the most popular mini game in the world) are 'full of FOW threads' then FOW will be allowed it's forums back. Sounds fair/realistic?

I'd love to post my [30k] stuff here, but if the mods can't be bothered to support it, I'm not sure it's worth the time. I can only assume other [30k] players feel the same.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I can only assume other [30k] players feel the same.

As a dabbler/soon-to-be-proper HH player (just waiting until I can afford BaC) I am definitely in support of a 30k forum. I have kind of drifted away from 40k, partly due to gaming group disintegration and partly as I just couldn't be bothered to keep up with the rules (on the rare occasions I play, I play 6th, just because that's what I have). But an all-in-one HH forum for fluff, tactics, army planning, model sharing, all that kind of stuff, I'd definitely read and comment in more than I do 40k these days.

I don't think it needs the Infinity treatment with 3 separate fora, but something more along the lines of the LotR and Malifaux sub-fora, self-contained and getting enough traffic to keep things turning over (actually, I think 30k would get more than either of those, to be honest).

 ArbitorIan wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Tag your threads with [30K] and when the front page is filled with [30K] threads you will see your new sub-forum.

Let's fold Flames of War into the 40k forums. When those forums (competing against the most popular mini game in the world) are 'full of FOW threads' then FOW will be allowed it's forums back. Sounds fair/realistic?

I'd love to post my [30k] stuff here, but if the mods can't be bothered to support it, I'm not sure it's worth the time. I can only assume other [30k] players feel the same.

FoW has their own section because they did what you don't want to do.

And again, the most popular miniature game in the world has two days worth of threads on the front page of the most active section, and 2 weeks worth of threads in the least active section. Tag your posts [30K] and you will show that there is enough interest and you will get you out on forum.

Again, that's what [infinity] did in Other Games. That's what [FoW] did in Historical Games. 30K isn't asked to do anything different than any other game. If you really think that 30K doesn't have enough interest to compete against day old 40K threads then maybe post in the Games Workship Specialty Games section? If the recent news own out it might be best to actually roll 30K into that since it will become more active, or at least make a new "Other Games Workshop" grouping and then have sections for 30K, Hobbit/LotR, and Specialty Games. That would be 3 individual sub-forums in a logical place.

But you won't get a 30K forum just because you don't want to compete against day old and week old threads. Do the same thing every other game system did: tag your threads, post them were they fit the best for now, and if they come they will build it.

 d-usa wrote:
If you really think that 30K doesn't have enough interest to compete against day old 40K threads then maybe post in the Games Workship Specialty Games section? If the recent news own out it might be best to actually roll 30K into that since it will become more active, or at least make a new "Other Games Workshop" grouping and then have sections for 30K, Hobbit/LotR, and Specialty Games. That would be 3 individual sub-forums in a logical place.

The point isn't about who has the newest thread - it's about how many pages of stuff you have to wade through to be able to talk about your game system. And the maths aren't as simple as the age of the thread. To explain, let's assume two things:

1. Infinity currently has enough conversation to justify it's forums.
2. [30k] is as big a game system (worldwide) as Infinity.

The oldest thread (by last comment made) on 40k Army Lists is two days old. The oldest thread on Infinity Army Lists and Tactics is FIVE MONTHS old. If we took all the Infinity conversation and made it happen in the 40k forum, you'd get one Infinity thread per page - the content currently on the first page of the Infinity thread would be spread over more than 50 pages of 40k Army Lists (that's how far you have to go back to get to five months ago).

Obviously, this would be really bad to generate Infinity discussion. Why would you bother going to a forum when you know that you have to search through a page of 50 threads just to find ONE thats relevant to you? You wouldn't. So, very little discussion would happen, which means that far fewer threads would be generated in the first place, and we'd decide that Infinity doesn't generate enough discussion to warrant a forum.

Of course, Infinity DIDN'T have to do this. It existed in the Misc. Games forum, which currently has a turnaround time of just over a month. That means one-fifth of all the threads in that forum would have been Infinity - and that's only counting Infinity Army Lists. That's a pretty decent amount to maintain a community and generate conversation. Dakka decides that Infinity is dominating that board, and gives it it's own forums.

The only difference here is what forum you put the posts in.

I think posting [30k] Threads in the GW Specialist Games section would be MUCH closer to what FoW did, or what Infinity did, than splitting it's posts across a bunch of busy forums. We should totally do that.

But to correctly gauge interest in [30k], we'd need to make this clear on the forum headers to avoid confusion, so that the [30k] threads don't get spread all over the place and everyone is aware of where they can get the best response.

EDITS for grammar!

I think it would also fit best with the new Specialist Studio branding going on at GW which includes FW and 30K.

That decision by GW might end up being the best guidance and makes things easier. It can start out as a one-stop shop which makes it pretty easy to find all things 30K related as well as other things that will be released by the studio, and it doesn't seem like it would take much more than simply relabeling the current section without adding any new sub-forums right away.

Once everything is in one spot it then makes it easy to see if any specific games warrant further division, but even condensing it into Specialty Studio would be a good step forward IMO.

 d-usa wrote:
That decision by GW might end up being the best guidance and makes things easier. It can start out as a one-stop shop which makes it pretty easy to find all things 30K related as well as other things that will be released by the studio, and it doesn't seem like it would take much more than simply relabeling the current section without adding any new sub-forums right away.

I agree - I guess it's also a good time to relabel because, at some point in the future, those games won't be 'Unsupported' any more! Something like :

"Games Workshop Specialist Products
All specialist GW and FW games, from 30k/Horus Heresy to Blood Bowl, Dreadfleet to Necromunda"