Restructuring "Gaming General Discussion"

[flibitijibibo]

Modacity needs to improve its image too.
What I've found is that the forum is pretty stuck to Halo CE, and because of this, the other sections (Source/OB) are stuck as discussion boards because people still know us as a Halo modding community only. One thing that's bugged me is the fact that the other sections are crammed into the "Gaming General Discussion", even though lots of us play those games as much (or even more) than we do Halo CE, especially TF2. While I don't want to sound like Nintendo's executives, I think a restructure toward appealing to new users or users who aren't Halo CE modders is needed. So, here's what I had in mind:

Modacity:
- News
- Feedback/Questions
- Off Topic (Non-gaming stuff, articles/pictures and such)
- Tech Talk (Non-game software and hardware discussion)
- General Gaming (Obvious. Articles for games not seen below)
- The Studio (or the other Studio idea)
Halo Universe:
- Halo CE
- Halo 2 Vista
- Halo 3
Source Engine:
- Half-Life 2
- Team Fortress 2
- Portal
- Left 4 Dead
- Left 4 Dead 2 (Pre-release discussion)
- Garry's Mod
- Other Source Games*
Unreal Engine:
- Unreal Tournament 2K4
- Unreal Tournament 3
- Older Unreal Games*
CryENGINE:
- Crysis/CryENGINE2
- Crysis 2/CryENGINE3 (Pre-release discussion)

* May not be necessary

Some of the sections will obviously be pretty empty at first, but I think these modifications could make us seem less like a Halo modding board and more like a general modding board, without having the excessively huge sections we had when Modacity launched.

[Timo]

We've had the Source/Crysis/Unreal topics for a long time now - as it is, they don't get much usage. Adding more won't make the site less halo, it'll just make the site look less active.

In my opinion we just need to bring the General gaming discussion forum down to one central forum, there's not enough traffic in them to warrant 4 frontpage forums. Have the one forum until it's obvious modacity needs to add more, depending on what games are discussed the most.

[Heathen]

I don't really see the point in it either.

[flibitijibibo]

Think it would work if we did it one step at a time? We could start by expanding Source, and keeping CryENGINE and Unreal as they are, and see how that works out...

Plus, there's a lot of content around the interwebs for these games... people could/should feel more encouraged to post their findings here, even if the poster themself didn't make it (this definitely goes for Gmod).

[n00b1n8R]

I'd group L4D/L4D2 and Crysis/2 into the same section since they're not very busy and there's not much to talk about for the sequel atm.
Separate them later.

I say do it (why not?) and it may end up attracting more (new, constructive) members.

[English Mobster]

I say do it (why not?) and it may end up attracting more (new, constructive) members.
Are you implying something, sir? :raise:

And while I agree this site needs moar Source members, it won't happen unless this site is posted in signatures on popular Source boards.

[FluffyDucky™]

Expanding sections won't do any good until there is more activity in them. Instead we should attract people that are involved with those fields to join the forums, there is really no other way, imo.

If you find yourself adding to things, there is more chance of fail. The best things are generally made by stripping down.

[TheGhost]

Sections will be made bigger if their use requires it. The converse does not apply.

[p0lar_bear]

We had more sections like that when we first transitioned from h2vista.net to modacity.

We condensed after seeing that nobody fucking used them. :(

[sdavis117]

All you need to do is combine the Source and the Orange Box sections, get rid of the Unreal and Crysis sections, and make a new "General Mods" section for every game not covered.