Tolero asked us to tell her what we think, and we ALL know how I never skip on an opportunity to share my opinion.

I planned to post this as a comment to her blog, but the reply has gotten way too long for the comment section. Plus, it makes it easier to follow the conversation if it happens on my blog rather than one someone else’s comment section.

1. Should the index allow you to sort the guides by more than just topic, such as sorting by what kind of guide it is (video guides, image guides, etc) or even who contributed to it?

I could see video guides being an useful category, because it’s a quite unique medium, but I don’t see what other “type” category would be useful to users. Other than the tow you’ve mentioned in your question (video guides and image guides), do you have any others in mind?

It would give me a better idea of what you have in mind.

2. Is it important to see what awards a guide may have earned that landed it in the index in the first place?

At the moment, no. If you were to start awarding prizes for guides more often and that those prizes had more meaning than merely stating that they are a good guide, it would be useful. However, currently, it would only be added clutter with no real functionality.

In other words, unless the award gives meaningful information to the user about the guide, I don’t think it makes sense to show what award it has gotten.

3. Is it more important to group guides by topic than to format them in a single sortable list?

Yes. Very important. I think the ability to choose to sort guides either by alphabetical order or by category would be worthwhile, but I think that listing them by category is really important. It greatly helps the user to look what he’s looking for (assuming the categories lines are well cut - don’t hesitate to put a guide in several categories!).

Alphabetical order might be good for general browsing, though.

4. Is it more important to sort the guides by when a user might need them in their character career than to sort them alphabetically by topic? (Example: showing ‘newbie guides’ at the top rather than ‘classes’ if it were by alphabetical).

I think a ‘newbie guides’ section is crucial to any guide index. We have one on the wiki for a reason! Simply put, a new user will be itnerested by completely different things than a veteran will. DDO is a game with a character generation with a LOT of depth so there is just no way a new player to get anything wrote with a veteran audience in mind.

With that said, I don’t think it’s a good idea to list guides by when a player will need them - with the exception of newbie guides. Usually a player will know what he is looking for, unless he is really new, so categories will be enough. It’d be just another function that would not have much usefulness. Better leave it out and focus your time on more important functions/tasks.

5. Do topically-themed images help you to more quickly navigate to the subject matter you’re looking for as opposed to strictly text, or are they immaterial to your search for knowledge? (Example: Perhaps there is a header that says “reincarnation guides” vs a header that says “reincarnation guides” with an image of Kruz)

No images. Please. No. Images make guides pretty, so they have a place there, but when I’m trying to find the right article I want at little clutter between me and the information I want.

6. Do you find it better to see wall-o-guides or categories that you drill down into deeper yourself?

I think it’s good that, by default, all the guides are shown as a by wall. It’s more useful to both new users and users who will use Ctrl+F to find what they want. However, allow us to collpase what we’re not interested in using. It’ll reduce the amount of scrolling necessary at time and our scrolling finger will thank you for it. (Or, even better, add a table of contents! We’ll love you even more.)

Talking about walls of text and Ctrl+F, try to add a short summary for each guide on the list. Keep it VERY short - you should be able to fit it in a tweet or close to - and use keywords to help anyone who might use Ctrl+F to quickly search through the page (ie use common expressions and synonyms).

It’s late, I am bored, I can’t sleep and I have nothing to do.

Usually, that’s the best time to start editing the wiki as there is nothing distract me: no phone, no IM, no TV shows to watch, no books to read. Hours can disappear when you get “in the zone” and start editing like crazy with good music in the background. While it might come across as surprising to you, editing the wiki is lots of fun.

I was born to be a WikiGnone, I guess.

Sadly, the wiki is down so I’m stuck being bored and that sucks.

Just to tell how bored I am, I’m starting to consider editing the Compendium. That’s how bored I am.

I am so bored that I started to look at the Compendium to learn my way around the place, and maybe edit it. It’s designed differently from my wiki so I can’t just jump in and start editing like I usually do.

I miss my wiki.

It probably had one of the ugliest skin ever and be someone else’s brain child, but I still loved him!

Has anyone else noticed how often the same people that complains that “an easy button” has been added to the game because that “dumbs down” the game will also complain when an easy button has been removed from them by a nerf?

I have been fairly busy over the last three weeks and I have thus neglected my RSS feeds. As a result, I had over 1,000 items to read today.

I just got finished with reading about 200 Ghostcrawler posts and about 640 LOTRO developers posts. Damn those LOTRO guys are prolific! Now, only 118 webcomics, 56 game design blogs and 180 gamer blog left to read!

I just came across a quote that is so good that I just could not not reblog it:

“I think the big thing missing from these games is a sense of adventure. [...]

Looking at the inspiration for our games, we can see how far things have gone off the rails in our quest to provide the streamlined experience. Frodo and Sam didn’t go kill spirits in the Dead Marshes to level up before heading into Mordor. Luke didn’t broadcast on /lfg before heading into Jabba’s palace to try to save his friends. Batman doesn’t have to go ‘defeat’ 500 more criminals to be able to buy and learn to throw a Batarang. Yet, these are the expected behaviors in a typical MMO.”

Source: What is missing in our games? by Psychochild

I just learned that there is a Japanese company called Broccoli…

HTFU - Permaband

It’s pretty funny.

Now, the real question is, does Turbine have their own band? If so, are there any plans to share your stuff with the community? That’d be pretty cool, no?

If you suffer from it, you are probably not reading this because the title scared you.

From TV tropes:

Using the word “Hitler” at all on GameFAQs (most of the time) causes your post to be automatically flagged for moderation, as well as informing you that you have “absolutely no grasp of history“.

This should totally be added to the DDO forums as well.

While we know how awesome DDO’s combat really is, most gamers just roll eyes when they see another MMO claiming that they have “the most awesome combat”.

I figured that we would have to let’s persuade them that it indeed is the best combat out there, without the shadow of a doubt, and not some ordinary WoW-like combat like every other MMOs out there.

So, I got an idea: how about we make videos to show off?

Click here for details.

If you’re too lazy to click, then the basic idea is that we make a short montage showing off how awesome DDO’s combat system is, upload it to YouTube and post it as a response to Turbine’s official DDO:U Launch video.

Who’s in?