RO Social Website?

[Syd_Vicious]

Hey guys I have been kicking around an idea for the community for sometime, but figured I would post now.

Would you guys care to have an RO social website away from the forum?

I have seen that updates to vBulletin now include social networking functions, but I don't think they would ever be incorporated into the RO game site. So I was thinking maybe the community could benefit from such a site. My reason for thinking this is for a couple different reasons:

1. Currently when sharing content most users post to outside links.
2. The current vBulletin doesn't support more modern media sharing methods and tags.
3. Ppl could blog their ideas and receive feed back prior to hitting the suggestion box, making more well rounded suggestions (in theory).
4. We could kind of self regulate ourselves leaving less to sift through for community managers

There are a lot more subjective benefits that could be taken advantage of (like a Facebook style chat button at the bottom of the browser), but my main idea is to create a more positive environment on the RO forum by ppl communicating more. We are somewhat a small community so I don't think we would have any issue with social obscurity and talking more with each other we maybe able to come to more reasonable solutions and recommendations. I also think it would be improved to have it linked to the wikia and a linked back to the official forum, without a forum of its own.

I will repost an addy to a beta site I will be working on, but if ppl like it I can make an RO one as well.

[Syd_Vicious]

All right here is a link to what I have created so far that I am considering to be pretty close to Release Candidate:

Full Screen Link:
http://rosocial.tk

Mobile Device Link:
http://mobilerosocial.tk/

I just need to clean up/make some graphics and adjust the theme and it should be pretty much good to go for a 1.5 hour project.

Here is all it can do:

1. Act as a total Social website complete with rich media links, photo albums, user chat, and a Facebookish style wall post. All this without connecting your entire clan to your facebook/myspace/whatever.

2a. Act as a clan management site as it fully supports Groups. You can have a clan forum, clan event calendar, clan shotbox, clan files, and clan photos all private to your clan within the larger social cloud. I threw this in since a lot of folks out there that have clans do not have any external clan aides and it provides these tools without any knowledge of coding.

2b. This also allows clans that have low numbers to be added to a "featured" list that may help them with recruitment, they will show up prior to other clans in the group list.

2c. It allows individuals to see who is in a clan prior to joining.

2d. The clans are broken down into first server and then realm. So if you are a member of multiple clans across the servers and realms you can become a member and join them all (if it is within their rules of course, some are touchy about this).

3. On every user page there is a link back to the official forum, the regnum wikia page, and the official downloads section so that reciprocity isn't lost and new members with have these links available in one location.

If needed I can look into it and possibly insert a "classifieds" module that would satisfy the requirements of those who would also want to trade items with others. If you guys have the time, try it out and let me know what you think.

[Pizdzius]

To be honest, I really dislike the idea. :S Facebook clone really doesn't speak to me, we already have a forum here. And most clans already have websites.

[Myxir]

There are several facebook groups for Regnum, we have a forum, irc rooms. We can share jabber, icq, msn...
What do we need more?

[Mattdoesrock]

It's not that I dislike the idea, I'm all for innovation; but I don't think that it's something we really need. Like Myxir said, there are already several platforms for social interaction, and alot of people already have each other added on Facebook.

[Anpu]

Ro social website?
Nope.

[Heru]

f*** Facebook ! 0_O

[DemonMonger]

It is a very nice idea and shows your dedication to the future of this game


But since we all have roots in other outlets it will be difficult to gather us all on one site....

[Syd_Vicious]

I figured as much negative feedback for the established player who has their own clan and run their own website, but thought I would give it a shot considering that the main individuals that I was thinking of attracting are the newer players who have clans that do not have coding experience or their own website. I am well aware of other options out there, but figured I would give an RO spin of one.

Also I seem to understand a little of what the devs here go through now as well, since I combed through my logs and no one went so far as to create a temp account to even check it out that had posted a comment .

f*** Facebook ! 0_O

Good for you, it has nothing to do with what I was doing besides making a site that only contained one or two capability resemblances - unless it was a comment referring to those who use facebook for RO purposes, not discounting your opinion just the context isn't crystal clear. The site I made runs off of the open source Elgg engine and doesn't use invasive appz that collect your personal information to be sold for marketing/advertising purposes.

The end state idea that I had for the website is the community. Having a lot of disjointed clan sites, information spread through out various areas of the internet, and having people segregated into groups is what this idea is against. When Ark posted his "what is making RO Live" post, a good deal of ppl said the community. So I decided to do something that from my perspective would help the community and hopefully retain players, besides those who are just in "retirement" waiting on a better tomorrow.

To put it into a different perspective you play the game. You do not play multiple versions of the game connecting to separate servers that have their own content (just different players). Your clans exist in the game, friendly clans exist in the game, your friends outside the clan exist in the game. Everything occurs under one umbrella.

Same line of thinking players can use the website, their friends can use the website, their clans can exist in the website. Even friendly clans exist in the website. Everything again occurring under one umbrella. Information can be published publicly or kept within the group container. You can also create realm specific groups for event planning, lots of things that aren't done through solely utilizing the previously posted methods and the access controls can be handled by someone in the realm for the realm group. You wanna set a time for 30+ ppl to take Pinos or Samal and hold it for 6-12 hours when only 6-12 capable enemies are online? You can do that here (humor intended of course).