What would you like to see in this forum?

[Deathcom3s]

In the coming weeks and months, we are going to be working to improve and expand the Dota 2 area of the site, with an emphasis on the modding element of it (naturally). With that in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to get some feedback from you, as for what sort of things you would like to see here. I've included a few ideas below, but would love to hear what you all have to say about it.

As always, any suggestions and criticism are highly appreciated, and in fact encouraged. This is about providing the community with what they want and need in order to learn and grow, and to foster the unique sense of community that The Hive Workshop thrives on.

So, here are some ideas:

• Project Spotlights. Either a bi-weekly or monthly schedule. Includes a brief Q&A with the developer(s), overview of the project, and whatever else would seem relevant/interesting.
• Articles about a variety of subjects, from basic design principles, to initially planning a project, methods for working as a team, to more specific aspects of Dota 2 modding such as scripting. Would essentially fill the role of a tutorial, but would hopefully be more in-depth with a bit more insight into the process rather than a simple "How-to".
• Project/Mod of the week/month/whatever. I feel that the title is self-explanatory for this. Spotlight the community's favorite mod on a set basis, determined by popular vote.
• Organized events, either for regular Dota 2 matches or for Custom Games. Just a way for the community to come together and enjoy the game together in an organized fashion.

So, there are a few ideas that I had floating around, but as I mentioned, we would love to hear what you have to suggest.

 

[invalidnick]

This sounds very exciting!

Perhaps some type of calender for the organized events, where you can request to set up a playtest or similar (for wip project) and what type of feedback you are looking for. It's always nice to get a few extra eyes on something early on.
And - like you said, have some organized events for regular Dota2 games and various custom games,

Once Dota2 modding becomes more popular the project spotlight and "project of the..." (month) could be a very good way to promote new project, and keep developers motivated to complete their projects.
Remember that planethalflife.com used to do similar things back in the days with their "level of the week", although I think it might be a good to it monthly rather than weekly, and -or wait with "project of the month" until there are consistently 2-3 new project releases every month,

 

[Jicyphex]

Honestly, the biggest issue right now is the userbase here. Instead of thinking about expansions about additional features , one should probably think about increasing the userbase first.
This section has been online for over 4 months. It has 34 threads of which only 10 are actually somewhat related to Dota 2 UGC development. I count 5 active developers in the whole sub-forum while the rest is either complaining about Valve, arguing about which game is better or saying how great Galaxy Editor is compared to Hammer & Tools.
Without a large user base and exposure (comparing to the WC3 user base for example), having "events" of some sort for ~10 potential attendees seems rather futile.

 

[Noya]

I think anything that generates interest and gets people interested in developing mods would be nice. The tools are quite accessible and the available docs should be enough for many users in this forum to just give it a try, but perhaps more "hey this can be done really easy, look" type of guides could provide the extra push needed for this board to gain traction.

 

[Dr Super Good]

A lot of threads flaming DotA 2 for killing WC3. How I miss those threads which people made saying how DotA Allstars killed WC3.

How much DotA 2 traffic does Hive Workshop even get? Making a massive forum full of tumble weed is not a good idea. I would advise sticking to only 2 or 3 sections such as one for moding, one to arrange games etc.

 

[Deathcom3s]

Honestly, the biggest issue right now is the userbase here. Instead of thinking about expansions about additional features , one should probably think about increasing the userbase first.
This section has been online for over 4 months. It has 34 threads of which only 10 are actually somewhat related to Dota 2 UGC development. I count 5 active developers in the whole sub-forum while the rest is either complaining about Valve, arguing about which game is better or saying how great Galaxy Editor is compared to Hammer & Tools.
Without a large user base and exposure (comparing to the WC3 user base for example), having "events" of some sort for ~10 potential attendees seems rather futile.

First off, my apologies for the late reply here. Had some situations come up that prevented me from getting on here to reply.

That is definitely a valid statement, and something that we're well aware of.

We haven't really considered the possibility of making a concentrated move into Dota 2 modding until now. This area was placed here as a feeler of sorts, to gauge potential and interest. We're going to start small, starting with things that will spur more activity and interest in this sub-forum. Get the gears going, get a bit more activity in here. We're definitely not going to waste our time with large, ambitious ridiculous ideas until there is enough traffic and interest to merit it. Right now, we're just beginning the process of getting things going. This thread is here to help start some brainstorming as to what users would like to see in here eventually.

 

[Jicyphex]

First off, my apologies for the late reply here. Had some situations come up that prevented me from getting on here to reply.

That is definitely a valid statement, and something that we're well aware of.

We haven't really considered the possibility of making a concentrated move into Dota 2 modding until now. This area was placed here as a feeler of sorts, to gauge potential and interest. We're going to start small, starting with things that will spur more activity and interest in this sub-forum. Get the gears going, get a bit more activity in here. We're definitely not going to waste our time with large, ambitious ridiculous ideas until there is enough traffic and interest to merit it. Right now, we're just beginning the process of getting things going. This thread is here to help start some brainstorming as to what users would like to see in here eventually.

No problem.
The state of the situation is simple, the community is slowly (very slowly.. but surely) growing while splitting itself on different platforms (dotarpg, playdota, dev.dota2, reddit, russian sites etc.).
You will either attract masses through
a) holding community events that are compelling enough for people to become active
b) convert the masses of the hiveworkshop from WC3 to Dota 2 (which seems rather unlikely since the old veterans are not interested in switching yet) or
c) offer content that no other "modding" community does.
Unless you gain momentum from a chain-reaction, the forum will stay very small. It would be wise to focus your efforts towards these kind of events around the release of Source 2 since the growth of interest in Dota 2 UGC development is extremely slim right now.
This forum could become an appealing platform for us (speaking on behalf of our developer network) if it's heavily moderated and kept clean. But the general consensus is the rule of thumb that says that the quantity of the user base is inversely proportional to the amount of rules and regulations that an internet environment abides by. Basically: the less rules you have, the more people you will have in a forum at the cost of average quality. It never worked before and it won't work now.
Masses and a decent intellectual level of a community are like orb effects, they don't stack.

 

[Myll]

No problem.
The state of the situation is simple, the community is slowly (very slowly.. but surely) growing while splitting itself on different platforms (dotarpg, playdota, dev.dota2, reddit, russian sites etc.).
You will either attract masses through
a) holding community events that are compelling enough for people to become active
b) convert the masses of the hiveworkshop from WC3 to Dota 2 (which seems rather unlikely since the old veterans are not interested in switching yet) or
c) offer content that no other "modding" community does.
Unless you gain momentum from a chain-reaction, the forum will stay very small. It would be wise to focus your efforts towards these kind of events around the release of Source 2 since the growth of interest in Dota 2 UGC development is extremely slim right now.
This forum could become an appealing platform for us (speaking on behalf of our developer network) if it's heavily moderated and kept clean. But the general consensus is the rule of thumb that says that the quantity of the user base is inversely proportional to the amount of rules and regulations that an internet environment abides by. Basically: the less rules you have, the more people you will have in a forum at the cost of average quality. It never worked before and it won't work now.
Masses and a decent intellectual level of a community are like orb effects, they don't stack.

No idea why you didn't mention moddota.com, which is undoubtedly the most comprehensive Dota 2 modding website at the moment. If HiveWorkshop wants to get serious about being _THE_ dota modding resource, they need to start by giving us more than 1 measly forum under "Modding and Development". And believe me, we're already settling in nicely on moddota. So time is running out quickly for HiveWorkshop.

 

[Noya]

No idea why you didn't mention moddota.com, which is undoubtedly the most comprehensive Dota 2 modding website at the moment. If HiveWorkshop wants to get serious about being _THE_ dota modding resource, they need to start by giving us more than 1 measly forum under "Modding and Development". And believe me, we're already settling in nicely on moddota. So time is running out quickly for HiveWorkshop.

Business 101, you gotta undermine the "competition" (as if that was ever compatible with the concept of community). Seeing as moddota won't eat up stuff like our developer network so easily, it makes sense.

 

[-Grendel]

some random guy posting a thread, giving away free arcanas. i mean, who doesn't want free arcanas? unless its techies.
that's what i want to see in this forum.