[Cyclonit]

- 19 Jan 2014 04:30 #100817 Hi,

I found this mod through videos on YouTube and since I love both Minecraft and Pokemon, I decided to check the mod out in detail. While searching through the forums, the blog and the wiki I realized, that none of them are what I would consider "easy" to use and may easily scare of some people interested in the mod. Please allow me to first address the key issues I have noticed:

Forum structure
There are a lot of people who like to check out how much is going on with a project prior to contributing. These forums however are not well suited for "surfing" them. One short example: If somebody wants to check out the newest models, they have to maneuver through 5 different sub forums (Trainers and Generations 1 to 5), each with an additional 2 relevant sub forums inside of them (Feedback and Approval). This structure helps those in charge of managing the approval process by enforcing a very rigid submission structure, but anyone who is interested in seeing the big picture without wasting vast amounts of time is more or less out of luck.

Currentness of information
Some pages, e.g. the "Available Pokemon" site in the wiki and the corresponding Pokemon's sites, do not contain any information on when they were updated. When I read that a lot of the models are being reworked I would've loved to see some page containing a list of the current state every individual Pokemon is in. I've been part of a few different modding projects thus far and most of them included major revamps of code. Having up to date lists showing which files had to be rewritten, revised etc. proved to be extremely valuable every single time.

Please let me know if I am the only person who thinks that these are actual issues and let me hear some feedback.

Cyclonit

[Blaster]

- 19 Jan 2014 06:18 #100824 Coming from a web developer. I would agree with the user friendliness issue of the forums. Using your example, a easy solution of that could be a page, closer to the main part of the forum, that has a "slideshow" of each of the screenshots and a link to their post. The Wiki on the other hand is a slightly bigger issue. What you would need is a person willing to update and maintain the wiki. I would volunteer but I am currently working on the IC2 Wiki (which is in worse condition).

The problem with your suggestions (and mine) is this quote. "The more user friendly you make something, the bigger the idiot".

[Cyclonit]

- 19 Jan 2014 09:57 #100847 First of all, I do not approve your quote There is an important difference between being user friendly and being dull. What a project with a lot of contributors needs is a website which fulfills all of their requirements without over complicating it.

Let me give you one example regarding the management of Pokemon models and textures. There are several different criteria which have to be fulfilled until a Pokemon can be added to the game. There have to be a model, textures, animations and the necessary database entries. All of those have to comply certain standards. A rather simply possibility would be to create a table containing all Pokemon and adding columns for the individual criteria. Like this:


Nr._______Name______________Model________Texture______Animations____Ingame

001______Bulbasaur___________2.1__________1.0__________1.2___________true
002______Ivysaur_____________1.3__________1.2__________1.0___________false

In this example, the coloration means whether the version of models etc. fulfills the required quality standards. This would be necessary because standards can be changed after a model has been approved and thus invalidate the approval.
Why would a table like this be nice to have? Because everybody would be able to see which models and which textures are needed. An important piece of information is whether the textures for a certain model are present or if the textures are part of an older, out dated model. I have not yet figured out how to easily represent this.

[SPG]

- 19 Jan 2014 11:30 #100857 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv? ... =drive_web

As for how approval works, its not made for the common person to just look and see what is new, the system is made for volenters who want to take their time to make something look fantastic, the archiev section could get removed but what ever. With how its set up the user posts it in feedback, then after a few think its ready it goes to approval for me to determain if it gets in game.
And finally, the modeler doesnt need to animate it or put it in the database, we do that

http://www.youtube.com/user/PyroBlock
https://twitter.com/PyroBlock
http://www.patreon.com/user?u=294176

Want a pokemon in game? Make it yourself

[Cyclonit]

- 19 Jan 2014 11:47 #100864 I think the approval system is setup and works fine, but its kind of nontransparent for new people who are interested in contributing. Part of deciding whether you want to become a volunteer and make something look fantastic is becoming familiar with the current situation. The spreadsheet you posted is a good start, but at least the way it is presented is certainly not ideal. The place where I ended up finding it was at the very end of the Guidelines of Modeling thread. But wouldn't it be better if information like this would be presented at the very beginning? "Hey everyone interested in helping us, this is what we got!".

[SPG]

- 19 Jan 2014 11:51 #100868

I think the approval system is setup and works fine, but its kind of nontransparent for new people who are interested in contributing. Part of deciding whether you want to become a volunteer and make something look fantastic is becoming familiar with the current situation. The spreadsheet you posted is a good start, but at least the way it is presented is certainly not ideal. The place where I ended up finding it was at the very end of the Guidelines of Modeling thread. But wouldn't it be better if information like this would be presented at the very beginning? "Hey everyone interested in helping us, this is what we got!".

Its at the bottom so you read everything above it, its more of a "thanks for taking the time to figure out how hings work, if you are still interested here is what we need"

http://www.youtube.com/user/PyroBlock
https://twitter.com/PyroBlock
http://www.patreon.com/user?u=294176

Want a pokemon in game? Make it yourself

[Cyclonit]

- 19 Jan 2014 12:09 #100874 But isn't this the wrong way around? People should become interested first, get the viable information and get going. That thread however wont be read by those who are not yet convinced whether participating is a good idea in general. Companies don't tell you how their database system works prior to telling you why working for their company is a good idea either.

[Some Body]

- 19 Jan 2014 12:49 #100896 Your complaints about the wiki seem only to be from the perspective of someone who wants to help make models. The version history of the Pokémon isn't nearly as important as information about each Pokémon that regular players (that don't model) would use. There are several pages that do have pictures of what the older models looked like as trivia. If you have any complaints related to people who are simply using the wiki as a source of info for playing the mod, say so, as that is more important to the wiki than all of the behind-the-scenes development and version history.

Blaster, you're not helping with "bigger issue". Be more specific.

[Cyclonit]

- 19 Jan 2014 13:04 #100898 Why should I "have any complaints related to people who are simply using the wiki as a source of info for playing the mod" and where do you read this in my writings? I never mentioned that I want any content to be removed from the wiki, neither did I say that the content on the wiki is bad. I specifically addressed the issues of those who want to get involved but may not be able to find the right angle of attack because they are missing key information.

Regarding the history of models: Seeing older models and things which made them look different than the newer ones can be very helpful for making new models and for seeing the development progress further in general. The key reason for why I thought about adding a history was for granting a slightly more detailed view into which textures are missing and where help is most needed.

[Some Body]

- 19 Jan 2014 13:16 #100899 The key word is "if", and if you don't have any complaints there, then that's good.

There are several Pokémon pages with pictures of their former models. Not every Pokémon has an older model though; only the more popular ones and the Pokémon that were added first like the Kanto starters and Pikachu actually do. A list of Pokémon by the last time they were updated would be nice, but that's probably not for the wiki; a thread on the modeling forums may be better for that.