jtr7 on 11/7/2007 at 05:59
Ha ha haa!
The Alchemist on 6/11/2007 at 21:09
This is probably terribly redundant at this point but I guess ill throw in my two cents worth:
TTLG for me, is as has been stated, a tight group of smart gamers who appreciate the underrated gems that still carry the gaming soul and aren't just mass-appeal money generators.
The front page needs more activity than just news.
So I figure we should cover the sort of games that we care about. News, previews, reviews, featurets, etc.
And to incorporate the community, these previews, reviews, featurets etc should be community contributed. This can be done in a lot of smart ways, with links to threads about said games in that games frontpage area, previews/reviews/opinions from TTLG people that automatically go to the frontpage database.
Ok so basically we're knocking off Shacknews's user-review thing, but we'll add some more to it (something wikiish where the games "page" contains news, reviews, links to threads about it on the forums, blurbs, and user content etc) and, well, it'll be specifically about the sort of games we give a shit about, and reviewed by people whose opinions we (and hopefully now, maybe at that point - other people) give a shit about. Cause I read reviews at other sites and it really means didly to me until I hear about it on TTLG.
So yeah, I say cator to our niche, make content community contributed (also saves you guys the trouble), and we'll be good. Just make the frontpage a satellite for all the genious (and madness) that happens in the forums, and it'll gain inertia from there.
Hell we could go one step up with the wiki idea and also make it community moderated content.
Also its been a long time since the last time any mods spoke of this. Is it still "crawling" or are we at least "walking" at this point?
Digital Nightfall on 7/11/2007 at 02:59
It's currently overwhelmed with school and work, though I can't speak for GBM. I am still over a year away from graduation, too. This Master's degree ended up becoming a second 4 year degree.
Though I have kept a mental deadline of TTLG's 10 year mark as when any cool new things we do should be finished. That's July or so of next year.
What I have been up to is guiding the recovery and revival of T-TC.com back to where it should be. I always felt that that should come first, and we are very near to that goal now.
I have about a month free in Dec, though I plan to devote most of it to dromed and ms-word, that will also be prime time for any TTLG related machinations.
Aerothorn on 14/4/2008 at 00:22
Any updates?
Recommended this thread to a buddy who currently runs an ancient Final Fantasy site (Final Fantasy Alpha) currently in a situation somewhat analogous to TTLG.
Digital Nightfall on 14/4/2008 at 00:40
I think the lot of us are way too wrapped up in what we're busy with these days in order to have our discontentment with the status of TTLG.com out way our contentment with the status of the forums and success of Thief-TheCircle.com.
I do have one update though... I graduate in 8 months! :)
Shadow Creepr on 14/4/2008 at 07:03
Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall
... I graduate in 8 months!
That's great! :D
Goldmoon Dawn on 27/4/2008 at 17:39
Quote Posted by Digital Nightfall
I do have one update though... I graduate in 8 months! :)
:cheeky: :p
Nicely done.
Dario on 4/5/2008 at 05:54
To back the OP (who started this thread one year ago), if TTLG is slipping, I would suggest that part of it has to do with the fact that the most recent news article on the home page is from 2006... and there's still a load of stuff from 2005.
What does that do? Two things, I think: 1) it tells potential new users to "move along. Nothing to see here," and 2) it tells potential site-deserters that abandoning ship right now wouldn't necessarily be such a bad idea, because the ship has been anchored since 2006.
'Course, I'm not the type to just blow the whistle on the issue; I have to list my ideas for helping the problem as well. :) Here are a couple ideas that *could* potentially help in keeping things afloat.
1) Change the main page into a more blog-like platform, frequently casting light on amusing facets of the gaming industry (and games that are in the Looking Glass vein). Assigning a group of witty forumers to manage articles would be my vote. (imagine the traffic such articles could draw, bringing much-needed attention to the types of "
intelligent games" that we live by here)
2) Post even
subtle news updates on games like BioShock and Stalker, etc. (meaning to say, don't wait till there's something "huge" to say about them: just "blah" a little on events/updates/fun-facts that other gaming sites are already more than happy to dive into)
3) Allow the community to post content. - This is just a generic idea of allowing the aforementioned group of forumers (not everybody) to control some form of content-posting that breathes new life into the site. The idea would be to pull more attention away from the forums, and into the realm of actual content (which in turn strengthens the forums). Maybe they could moderate community reviews of FM's, or other such nonsense that keeps things moving and interesting.
(you can stop here if you like)
4) And if you
reeeeaally want to get nutty, consider this: "TTLG", simply by design of its very name, is designed to only appeal to a tiny minority of the gaming population (even when there is a huuuge sub-set of gamers out there who completely speak our language, and yet would never even consider visiting a site like this, because they don't know what the heck Looking Glass is). I would seriously consider (and "consider" the is key word here) changing the focus of the site to encompass ALL intelligent games in the TTLG vein, and lowering the "Looking Glass legacy" thing into the background (not killing it - just lowering it). I don't recommend writing any hard-coded rules on what games are "in" and what games are "out" (example: don't say to the content-posters, "Hey, don't post interesting things about GTA. That's not "in" here.") I think just letting the content-posters choose what titles to hammer on could allow a natural type of inclusion system, so that they set the "weather" for what games are "in" or not, based on the interests of the community at large.
[continued from 4]
When it comes to what to call a site like this, and what potential mantras to put in the site header, etc (to inform new users what type of site they're looking at) it's hard to draw the line of what kind of games/genres a site like this would be about, exactly... I'm thinking of something to the general effect of "intelligent games", but then that means some puzzle and sim games as well... so then I'm thinking "intelligent shooters", but Thief isn't a shooter, and we like mystery games as well. This is an interesting challenge. My thoughts gravitate toward something to the effect of
"games that win, don't scream mainstream brain-dead entertainment, and don't suck down drop-dead simple mechanics"... but of the particularly cool persuasion; not just John Romero's failed attempts at doing smart games.
When it comes to thinking up actual titles, I'm reminded of blogs like (
http://consumerist.com/) The Consumerist (corporate BS whistleblowing), and (
http://strobist.blogspot.com/) Strobist (photography wireless lighting talk), which have
both earned a monumental number of monthly readers, just from their article content (2 million page views per month at Strobist, don't know about Consumerist, but something at the very LEAST as much - and I really think these sites are over-blogged, with way too much new stuff to read all the time, causing major dilution of what's important/interesting). Yet they have titles that mean something, AND are easy to remember and pass along, which I think helps greatly for the simpletons who browse the net casually.
...but I can't think of anything for TTLG (and I have to get back to work on Gunreal), so I'll let you chew on that one, if you were to so decide that you like the idea.
I think it's all really easy as cheese, because the difference between fresh content and NOT fresh content can be as simple as "hiring" a free staff of witty forumers who know how to post interesting crap (and I personally couldn't imagine having a better selection of witty taffers anywhere, as much as here).
Just my 2 cents. .......3 cents (inflation). ;)
Orobas on 4/5/2008 at 23:10
I have to agree. I don't bother to go to Thief the Circle anymore because there is nothing new or exciting there. I don't even look at the news links anymore either. But if there were a dedicated group of posters (Bloggers if you will) who are willing to contribute, review, report, or even just gossip, and put it out front for everytone to see. That would help. The fact is, all the talk, all the news deemed not necessarily fit to print, but still noteworthy is spewed forth in the forums. When you ask "Is TTLG dead as anything other than forums?" the answer is yes, and that's because it is the only place that people go to hear anything new.
Case in point: There is a recent thread about whispers of Thief 4. Something someone mentioned in connection with Deus Ex I think. This is news worthy. While an editor may not have put this on page 1 section A, the fact is is that an editor would not print the archives on page 1 either. If it were me, it would have gone onto the front page, with links for discussion to the forums. People should know that something new has happened.
TTLG should be a focus point for the fan base that make up Thief, Deus Ex, UT and the like, to compel game developers, as fans always can, to put out a product that we will buy. In reality, is it possible that FM makers while keeping Thief alive, have put the need for Eidos/Looking Glass/Ion Storm to try to keep our loyalty, and by that way, money, by producing new missions, addons, etc. We proved that you can add to Thief indefinately. But in doing so, we have removed their motivation to even try. FM makers do it for free, but they won't.
Kolya on 5/5/2008 at 07:39
Everytime I visit this thread (which isn't that often) I half expect one of the mods to say: "But we have a new home page out for 3 weeks now!! All your ideas have been incorporated!"
The president's dead, no one can find his head, it's been missing now for weeks.
But no one noticed it, he had seemed so fit... I'm sick of it!
