Resource section for Story / Writing

[Scias]

Posting stories / ideas in topics on the forums is bound to get cluttered and spammed away into pages nobody ever looks at anymore and get locked, also browsing / reading stories in forum posts isn't most satisfying experience, I think it would be cool to have a section for this kind of "resources". People could showcase their ideas and their writing skills, and have it on display in a more manageable and easily accessed space on their profile.

Not sure how this would affect Idea Factory forum if people could also write ideas for anything they come up with (maps / abilities / ability kits / race techtrees..)

 

[Ralle]

Hey Scias,

I think Idea Factory might be a good place for it here and now. You could also look into a combined Idea Factory and Pastebin effort. Pastebins can be set to never expire.

 

[Kyrbi0]

As a former Contestant of the last Story-Writing Contest... I find this an interesting proposition. Unfortunately, I have to wonder if there are really that many people posting stories, to necessitate an entire (sub)forum.

 

[Scias]

Hey Scias,

I think Idea Factory might be a good place for it here and now. You could also look into a combined Idea Factory and Pastebin effort. Pastebins can be set to never expire.

Hey,

Yeah I know about Idea Factory and Pastebin, been posting in both, but I think having this kind of writings under your resources on your profile is much better option, as well as having different staff rating / states approved / restricted etc, and even lacking / recommended / high quality / directors cut, would be nice.

As a former Contestant of the last Story-Writing Contest... I find this an interesting proposition. Unfortunately, I have to wonder if there are really that many people posting stories, to necessitate an entire (sub)forum.

That's one of the reasons I'm suggesting it, I think some kind of reward system and "competition" for posting this kind of content would encourage it more, besides just having it in a more manageable place and not having your writings get locked for inactivity / lack of replies.

I remember reading through some posts on Argent Archieves website before, people writing some good character descriptions and stories for their WoW characters.. I think there's definitely a lot of writers out there in Warcraft community, but you just gotta make this place a bit more inviting for them.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Hey,

Yeah I know about Idea Factory and Pastebin, been posting in both, but I think having this kind of writings under your resources on your profile is much better option, as well as having different staff rating / states approved / restricted etc, and even lacking / recommended / high quality / directors cut, would be nice.

I can understand that, but 'Resources' seems strange. No one is downloading them to use them elsewhere, right?

What about the Media section? Every profile has a dedicated Media tab (& they can make their own Albums for organization).

That's one of the reasons I'm suggesting it, I think some kind of reward system and "competition" for posting this kind of content would encourage it more, besides just having it in a more manageable place and not having your writings get locked for inactivity / lack of replies.

I remember reading through some posts on Argent Archieves website before, people writing some good character descriptions and stories for their WoW characters.. I think there's definitely a lot of writers out there in Warcraft community, but you just gotta make this place a bit more inviting for them.

Competition-wise, you can always post in the Arena to try & start something. Unfortunately Story-writing has historically been one of the weaker Contests (in terms of attendance/participation). :< But I might try, so that's ~2. ^_^

 

[Remixer]

Don't we already have a story/writing section in the forum? Granted it does get cluttered with all kinds of writings from poems, ideas to actual stories to full-fledged novels.

Having writings as resources seems odd to me, since they can already be displayed in so many places on Hive. I think perhaps the issue is that it's hard to 'find' certain kinds of writings and thus it's hard to appeal to certain kind of audience. Perhaps the Screenwriting, Storyboarding & Concept Creation section of the forum should get some kind of tag/filtering option: poems, non-topic stories, Warcraft stories, story proposals, campaign novels or such?

 

[Scias]

I can understand that, but 'Resources' seems strange. No one is downloading them to use them elsewhere, right?

What about the Media section? Every profile has a dedicated Media tab (& they can make their own Albums for organization).

Yeah I agree about calling it Resources being strange, but it seems like the simplest way to implement the idea.

Don't we already have a story/writing section in the forum? Granted it does get cluttered with all kinds of writings from poems, ideas to actual stories to full-fledged novels.

Having writings as resources seems odd to me, since they can already be displayed in so many places on Hive. I think perhaps the issue is that it's hard to 'find' certain kinds of writings and thus it's hard to appeal to certain kind of audience. Perhaps the Screenwriting, Storyboarding & Concept Creation section of the forum should get some kind of tag/filtering option: poems, non-topic stories, Warcraft stories, story proposals, campaign novels or such?

Well, imagine if other resources would be posted in a forum section like story writing is, of course it would be dead, x days of no replies and the post gets locked from ever getting any, and for views it gets spammed away, difficult to find (doubt anyone goes looking at pages past 1 in either Idea factory or Story writing sections), posting a reply on a 1 month old topic feels like bringing it back from the dead, but commenting on a 15 year old model is fine. it feels a bit annoying to find even my own topics/posts. Having a section for this kind of writing and rating system on it would make it easier to access and to follow work of the good writers, and might give more of an incentive to write.

 

[Celaquil]

Granted it does get cluttered with all kinds of writings from poems, ideas to actual stories to full-fledged novels.

As of today there has been a grand total of 2 threads posted in that forum for all of 2024 and going back to the end of page 2 takes you almost 6 years into the past, saying it is "cluttered" is a bit of a stretch.

Sadly, I would also argue that said inactivity in that forum goes to show how few writers there are on this forum in total (or at least how many there are that actively want to publish their works). Thus the implementation of such a suggestion as a wholly new resource section with dedicated moderators to review and rate stories would be a whole lot of work for a whole lot of nothing. And I am saying this as a writing enthusiast myself.

How about a "Writing/Story" tab in the Gallery section instead? It would be a more easily accessible place for stories to go and they would show up on your profile-page under the "Media" tab, so you could easily keep track of your own or other people's works there. Additionally, what if the Gallery section had a popup window on the main page that cycled through the most recently posted media posts @Ralle, like "Popular Resources" and "Popular Maps", I see a lot of empty space on the left side That could help with visibility, not only for stories but also for other media.

 

[Scias]

The gallery section makes as much sense as resources section to me, by that I mean not much at all.

I think mixing it with gallery images in Media would be a bit more untidy and unorganized, but for most part what I don't like about this idea is the comment section and the page layout of Media files compared to the Resource files, the resources page layout is much nicer with comment section being below, and even linking "Assets" part could be recycled for linking Chapters in writing (although not necessary). And having the Writings section in your Resources tab on the profile being neatly organized with possibly some kind of document icons, would be pretty clean and nice.

I originally came up with the idea to suggest this after seeing @Shar Dundred's Tales of Arkain topic, it's neatly organized but a little bit annoying to view / read through, with spoilers containing the stories.. Also no comments being allowed.
There's also Fan Fictions of Arkain that shows there's other writers around here..

What if there was a section for it under Postings tab on your profile, with a button in this tab allowing you to write a post that doesn't go into any specific forum section, but just in this tab on your profile.
Idk if I explained it right, so I'll show the idea, something like this:

Spoiler

(Ignore the pending approval icon, I was just lazy to edit it out)

 

[Celaquil]

The gallery section makes as much sense as resources section to me, by that I mean not much at all.

Saying they make equal amounts of sense and then going on one paragraph rant continuing to promote your idea for them as resources is a bit---
Hypocritical. In any case, you have some good ideas, but it is also important to manage your expectations if you want something to happen at all.
The ideas you are championing here will take a lot of effort on Ralle's part to implement, and although you might be right that there might be more people interested in writing than the Storyboard section lets on, I still doubt there are enough for Ralle to seriously consider your ideas.

If we want to make a difference here, we gotta thread that sweet spot between not making too much work for our dear site-developing chieftain and simultaneously cater to his good natured want to make his community happy, especially if he can do so with minimal effort

Absolutely not trying to shut you down here, I love grand ideas, never stop dreaming! I just also see a real potential for something good to come out of this tread ^^

 

[Scias]

Saying they make equal amounts of sense and then going on one paragraph rant continuing to promote your idea for them as resources is a bit---
Hypocritical. In any case, you have some good ideas, but it is also important to manage your expectations if you want something to happen at all.
The ideas you are championing here will take a lot of effort on Ralle's part to implement, and although you might be right that there might be more people interested in writing than the Storyboard section lets on, I still doubt there are enough for Ralle to seriously consider your ideas.

It was already pointed out why it doesn't fit the Resources section in previous posts, you offered an alternative and I explained what I see as it's cons, since it wasn't criticized yet. Not making any sense point was just that it doesn't fit, like writings don't fit to be labelled as resources (as pointed out by others), they don't fit under gallery section either, imo.

I agree entirely on your point about finding a way to implement this in the most simplest way possible, but at same time I think it shouldn't look too botched and should be professional maintaining the standard of the website.

Not trying to discourage anything either, just trying to find the perfect solution, I suggest anything that comes to mind not exactly knowing how difficult it is to implement.

 

[Shar Dundred]

My tagging senses are tingling.
I have been following this thread and its arguments for a while. I can see the point Scias is making here and we have seen
how the addition of the Sounds section has also had a positive impact on published sounds.

Personally I am not opposed to the idea per se even though I see a question mark regarding "reviewing" those stories/writings.

Overall I must admit that I am somewhat torn regarding this topic.

As @Celaquil pointed out, I am not sure how much activity such a section would receive in spite of the effect of sections like the
Sounds or the ported sections.

Another thing I cannot help but ask myself is how high the "demand" for this kind of section is.
Aside from maps, all resources are meant to be put to use by users for their own projects, whether they ever publish them or not.
This might be just my personal opinion and others might see this differently, however I see stories not fulfil that role.
They're more similar to maps from my point of view.
I can only speak for myself but when I create something I want to tell my own story, not someone else's. Granted I am moving outside
of the WarCraft universe which is... Well I am not the only one doing it but a lot of stories told in projects on this WarCraft 3 fan
website are ofc related to WarCraft 3. Maybe having basically abandoned the WC universe makes me view these things differently.
I can see the appeal of seeing a good story and then getting your own idea to create something however.

Therefore I would compare a story/writing section more to the Map Section than any of the other resource sections.
While I am unsure how many people would really be interested in this, it might be a situation where demand is created by supply.

That being said, I would love no longer having to use my current method of publishing short stories for Arkain.
Maintaining the thread by editing the posts, especially for the human stories, is not "difficult" for me, though it is annoying, but I
can completely understand the argument that it is not the perfect solution.
It works better for Character and Faction sheets than the short stories.
Also the thread keeps reminding me how few stories the non-human factions have compared to the human ones and how many
stories I need to write to "even the score".
An own comment section per story would definitely make discussing it more comfortable than it is in its current form.
Granted, for Arkain I could have made a new thread per short story but that would clutter the forum and not solve the issue from my pov.

Long story short:
Personally I definitely have an interest in this kind of section and would make use of it. I also see it as a way for people who want to tell
stories without "having to" create maps/campaigns for it.
In general, for Hive and its community, I have my reservations regarding how many people other than myself and @Celaquil would use this
kind of section. I have simply no numbers of interested writers and readers this would have to make this decision easier.

I do like the suggestion however and encourage its discussion.

 

[Celaquil]

I agree entirely on your point about finding a way to implement this in the most simplest way possible, but at same time I think it shouldn't look too botched and should be professional maintaining the standard of the website.

Regarding this and your earlier argument:

I think mixing it with gallery images in Media would be a bit more untidy and unorganized

I'd like to offer a counterpoint: Would it really look more untidy than it already does, and does it really matter that much if it does?
See, this is how the Gallery section currently looks:

Spoiler: Example A

Whereas here is an example (shameless self promotion) of my Instagram page, which includes terrains, texts, screenshots and some cosplay:

Spoiler: Example B

I would argue that it looks less, or at least similarly, untidy to the current main page of the Gallery section. Obviously, there is a discussion to be had on how to improve the Gallery section, but that is a topic for a different thread. The point I am trying to make here is that this would be relatively easy to implement (adding a new category to the gallery section), it wouldn't look any more or less messy than it already does and it would be a great way of gauging the community's interest in writing and reading stories before going full throttle and making a whole shebang about it.