The Nexus++?

[DragonFlight]

Right, well, the subject isn't too helpful. Sorry about that.

So I think, like most everyone, I've noticed that the Nexus has been a bit down as of late, and in the midst of typing notes at work, I thought....

Would it interest Nexus-goers, old and new alike, to pump a bit of new life into the Nexus? I mean, like.....would it be of interest to add some features or make it more than a forum of posts? Would it be something you'd want to be able to mess with from a mobile phone or tablet from some sort of app? Is there anything we could do to draw people back again or get their attention even with real life going on?

Random idea, I know, but if it could help, maybe it's worth considering ideas for?

[Dray]

I have been wanting to automate my Nidus for a long time now; not so much having a wajas or pony island image generator, as having it go through, randomly select breedings from the options that year, generate offspring stats, fill out the basics of stats pages -- that way I can go back and draw images for the ones that I want to...

Okay, maybe EVENTUALLY having an image generator. XD But I don't want my own involvement in the place to become completely redundant!

Aside from that, as far as optimizing the Nexus for community participation, having an interactive calendar that we can update with upcoming events (and alerts on the forum when things are one week away, two days away, etc.) would be fantastic!

Having a wiki might be pretty rad, too. I feel like we did this at one point and it didn't pan out too well because we were focusing more on characters than on larger concepts... but I don't remember where that wiki got to!

I think that advertising on dA is kind of a dead end, since most of the people into adoptables there are more into points and less into writing.

Maybe rethinking our concept as a community to inspire worth and value in the dragons that we give out would help to draw in new blood, and to give us something to aspire to gain. I like the idea of rares, and writing to compete to gather them. Putting an embargo on giveaways, or limiting them to species that are not labelled as 'rare' might be the best way to go about this. (That would of course limit the new species that people create for the hell of it, which is kind of a fun part of the Nexus...)

I also think that creating a new forum on its own host would be a really good move to make at this point; if we could find a way to make the Nexus forum have an open front page that describes what the place is about, and makes it more welcoming to newbies. I don't know if it's possible to protect from bots and trolling for long on a new forum, but updating to a new format might help. It'd also free up Dev from having to host us. I'd be willing to host the place and put together the host name (nexusdragons.com?) or something?

Of course, I don't know if you guys actually want to make a move. I'm perfectly happy with sticking around here, though I think it would be nice to work on giving reasons to write bonding stories again regardless of if we stay or if we go. Writing 'and then they bonded!' stories has gotten pretty repetitive. Having a reason to continue stories after the bonding would be pretty sweet. Basically, finding something that helps content become important beyond 'flight, hatching, growth stages'.

[DragonFlight]

Those kinda of suggestions read to me like a customized Content Management System. Alot of free stuff has excessive random crud in it for businesses, but something developed from scratch or edited from open source by the code monkeys that hang around the Nexus might work - I know I'm not the only one that does this sort of thing for a living. ^_^

We could actually integrate messaging like a chat program, instead of bouncing them off site where they only get used on rare occasions.

We'd certainly have to do spider-blocking, and as annoying as they are, have some sort of image-based challenge to limit spam-bots creating accounts.
Wikis, even as default software on their own and not integrated into a CMS, can be blocked from spammers with other techniques, but would still allow full viewing rights to outsiders - so that other, potentially new people, can actually see what we do and enjoy! :D

That said, if I (or we!) wanted to tackle this, I'd want to see a list of ideas for stuff members would want/need, and try and take tally of the code wranglers the Nexus has that could make this magic happen.

Before we commit to a move, I'd think we'd want to set up a test version and get it running, and see if people liked it. But it sounds like it'd take a bit of work to get started up so it wouldn't be an instant shift over if we did do something like this.

[Dray]

For specific code-based shenaniganery, anything that opens up the Nexus, allows us to chat when we happen to cross paths, and makes the place more accessible to newbs (part of the appeal of the yahoo groups was that anyone could find it because it was based off of a larger community-building system, after all!) seems imperative to getting the Nexus more active.

Regarding content and the like, either finding ways to keep us oldbies interested, or drawing from a newer user base and providing them with opportunities to build up huge collections would be ideal. I think that most of us are past the point of wanting to write stories and draw images that repeat themselves so much (or else, we don't have time, or it's just that it's so quiet in here, so what's the point?)

I'm thinking again of having one IC location where we could work from that would allow people to create characters, similar to back in the day with Pern, Alskyr, and so on. Aireona was talking about it but we never did get around to setting things up. Maybe focusing in on one location within a bigger world or setting would be an interesting way to bring some attention back to the Nexus in a new (or revamped) way.

Finding some way to make dragon collecting competitive again would be fun. When every clutch is new and different, it homogenizes the value of the images and makes collecting them a pain in the ass, because then you have to page everything, and bleargh. Right now I think we're all suffering from that sort of overload, even months and years after having collected our hoard/horde. (How many of us still have unpaged folders that we cringe over at the thought of having to page 'em all?) That's possibly why no one is writing or drawing right now. I'm not sure how we can make this a more self sustaining cycle other than by introducing newbies who will start it all over again, or restraining ourselves to certain sets, and only updating them once in a while (probably both, along with other things.) Maybe the cross-breeding aspect of the Nexus could be toned down for a while to avoid making new+shiny=overload on paging images? Or... we could rate our images on a scale of rarity and scale the clutches so that the more rare dragons have less eggs, thus making competition for them more likely?

I'm not sure how to instill value in (essentially) a product that us oldbies have far too much of and that newbies don't even know about yet. Giving away some of our images to newbies via raffles and story-writing challenges, maybe? That becomes difficult when the artists who drew their images want to track where the heck their art has gone. And what about the art that has no owners anymore because they've bowed out of the Nexus for good?

Anyways, back to the features that code monkeys could use, I think that having an integrated chat that ran beyond the limits of cbox would be fantastic. It would give a reason for StarFyre's hard work to be put to use; I loved that she had done so much work to create stat-ed characters, and would like to see that put into use more. (On the story end of this, a reason for the stat-ed characters to be used would be helpful. We might need to set up some kind of DM/campaign sort of deal so that we can have a coherent role play going? I do like the idea of having hatchings/bondings that are just a night of roleplaying without stats, but I feel like having a place to use the characters that we already have is more important. Maybe have a soft requirement of storied reasons for flights/matings before we even get to the eggs??)

Bah, off topic again. XD Like I was saying before, I'd find a calendar of upcoming events handy, with announcements up to a couple of days before.

How about a banking system? I don't mean this in the sense of buying dragons and market-based cyberpets, but rather, a system wherein those who write stories gain a small amount of 'build grist' (for lack of a better term, and because I've been reading homestuck like crazy lately. XD) Build grist allows you to create clutches and introduce new species to the Nexus. By writing flight and hatching stories, you gain a small amount. Writing candidate stories gives you a slightly larger amount. If your story causes your candidate to bond a rare dragon, you get a bonus. Writing after your character bond contributes grist, and roleplaying with them creates more. I'm not sure how one would automate this, aside from making an input system where we could say, "wrote a story!" and that would get you a basic amount. Rank clutches into about five categories, and whomever has run the clutch will state that each player has gained x amount due to the rank their character bonded. The grist goes to the player, not the characters, so that could make it easier to maintain, at any rate.

What people do with grist is up to them. We could potentially have a market for firelizards and other pets where you can spend your grist on pimping out your characters. A certain amount could contribute to holding a flight/clutch combo; a larger amount could contribute to a giveaway thread. An even larger amount could go towards establishing a Weyr/Nidus/Adoption Agency... or perhaps setting one up and sticking with it should be the incentive, rather than spending grist to build more? This way we could maybe manage the amount of dragons getting put out there, and give people a goal to reach that isn't just about paging dragons, for those of us who like to accumulate sums of things. XD

As for newbies and getting them interested, I think we really need to break down what the Nexus is about, and what about it is appealing. Writing stories for our characters, seeing baby dragons hatching and anticipating getting the one that you want and competing for it. (It's easier to do with a Pernese clutch because you know what the limits are! Having a ranking system for clutches regardless of their species might help to bring some of that anticipation back.) Seeing your dragon grow up. Seeing it go on to contribute to further clutches; seeing neat crossbreeds! Seeing story arcs rise and come to their conclusions. Seeing characters and Nidusi/Weyrs coming under peril, and resolving that!

Giving incentive to sponsor newbies, or for newbies to sponsor other newbies would be neat. Giving them a bit of power to muck around with when they first show up, but also having a groundwork laid down that allows them to progress to an end goal, other than having a heap of dragons to page and a headache, would probably be better. I'm not sure how coding things would provide this sort of infrastructure, unless of course you wanted to have levels or runner boards with who has the most of x, y, and z. I feel like for that sort of thing, everyone should begin at 0; maybe with a bonus of being an oldbie in honour of our huge piles of dragons... but going through and cataloguing our achievements would probably take more time than it's worth... XD It might also be another area in which we could find a reason to start dragoning again, ourselves!

I've always felt that the Nexus had about three different kinds of members: artists, writers, and collectors. (Coders could probably be added, as well!) We're all a mixture of those traits, but I think that whatever we wind up using, we should cater some features to each group. Featured art, featured writing, featured dragon databases, perhaps? This could go alongside announcements, I suppose?

I think I've about run out of ideas. If anyone thinks any of them are particularly good or particularly bad, please let me know what you think!


eta: TL;DR: A point-by-point list of potential coding challenges for Nexus code monkeys:

-An embedded chat window
--A chat window that uses the stats input for characters, as well as a dice rolling system, for encounter-based games.
-An informative front page that we can link newbies to, with a clear link to the forums. Could also host some 'rules for the game' so that newbies have an idea of where to start and what they're aspiring towards.
-A calendar of upcoming events that we can add to; flights, hatchings, role play sessions, and raffles/giveaways
-A banking system; Nexus grist goes up when writing stories (bonuses for RP and snagging rare dragons); grist goes down for hosting flights/hatchings; giveaways are even more expensive, new adoptions agencies are also more expensive. Build grist could go towards expanding a shared world (see below) that starts in one location. It could be used to import old characters* to a new system (limit the amount of characters or dragon/bond pairs to begin with and require grist be used to import them to this fancy new system?) Could also be spent on pets and other things within the community.
-A leader board for various aspects of participation. Posts, dragons, clutches held, roleplays attended, grist had, etc. Possibly all would start at 0* from set up to give newbies an easier way of catching up.
-Featuring Artists, Writers, and Collectors equally in the community with links to art, writing, and hoards. Could be in the same area as announcements for upcoming events, or could have its own page. Writers nominate artists, artists nominate stories that were submitted, and collectors can be nominated by anyone to look through their sweet cache.
-Some kind of traits combining database. Could require grist to submit old dragons* to the database.


Some ideas that aren't so much code-based, but might be fun to try:
-A singular IC location/adoption site that is shared, with a limited amount of species that players can hold clutches for and interact with. (could be expanded over time/leveled up?/RP'd to be explored?)
-A ranking system of 1 to 5 applied to each egg, regardless of its species, that allows certain portions of a clutch to be more rare and gives writers a goal to compete for.
-An overarcing campaign that players could participate in that allows them to write for characters that are already bonded and wouldn't otherwise get much use.

*By importing old characters, I'm not suggesting that we get rid of or stop using the rest of our hoards! I'm only suggesting that we pick a few of our favorite dragons or characters (or both) to import into this system; we could always continue the old way with our big old batches, but I think that limiting ourselves would give newbies a way to 'catch up', and give us something to aspire to with our writing, and get us to look over our collections to see which we're most interested in writing for and see used regularly. The rest could be slowly imported over time as you have a hankering to use them, and this gives DF and other code monkeys a smaller batch of data with which to work so they don't go crazy over the prospect of huge databases!

[DragonFlight]

As an addition from the chat we had earlier (for the benefit of anyone who reads this) - the banking/grist idea would be available through means other than just writing, still hammering out some ideas on specifics.

With this checklist in mind, this randomly occurred to me as well - does anyone here play Minecraft? Because if people were interested in /literally/ building a shared world (at least from a map perspective, running around actually building farms and castles and such) - I would be willing to host a Nexus-only Minecraft server. :3

[Yakima]

With this checklist in mind, this randomly occurred to me as well - does anyone here play Minecraft? Because if people were interested in /literally/ building a shared world (at least from a map perspective, running around actually building farms and castles and such) - I would be willing to host a Nexus-only Minecraft server. :3

I'm kinda stuck on LotRO atm...and i think I need to find a way to set the screen to display websites a bit differently...wow...the line of text is to loooong in this resolution...hmmm Will come back and try to sort that out laters...

[Dray]

I have minecraft, but I've pretty much exhausted my interest in it, unfortunately!

[DragonFlight]

I tend to play it when I want to actually build something elaborate - it was mostly a suggestion if people were interested in more literally building part of a shared world. :3 Towns, landmarks, giant monolithic structures, whatever. ^_~

[Yakima]

*finds old post and starts to giggle cause we're working on this*

And I need to sleep or something cause random stuff is making me giggle...or I need less sleep...*blink blink blink*