The Andor's Trail Website

[chaosrunner87]

Yes I'm new, and yes I may be overstepping my boundaries as a result, but it seems to me that this website is very cluttered.

Ex: Last week I viewed a thread that discussed which skills were useful and worthless, etc etc. I have been looking for that thread for three days now, and have been unable to find it again.


Personally, it seems like the "General Game Discussion" and "Game Related Questions" boards are very similar, which makes it rather bothersome to look for specific topics. Yes this is my responsibility since I have a favorites bar I can bookmark to, but it's aggravating when looking for new topics to see if I'm potentially reposting a question that has already been asked (as it turned out the case was with my Key of Luthor question)


Is it not possible to weed out repeat threads and condense like topics into one if nothing else? The (at this moment) three hundred and one combined threads that the two aforementioned boards contain seem a bit excessive.

Ex: Take five various threads about a single quest, put all comments into a single thread, name said thread ""Quest Name"", and then delete the other threads you copied from to clear clutter?


If nothing else, at least sticky the threads that have a high view count, or contain useful information to make them easy to find by newcomers; things such as skills, quests, and items advice, as well as the threads that have things such as map links provided within them.


I enjoy the website and the friendliness of everyone, and the game is rather addictive, but this site really is a chore to navigate.

Edit: Just noticed the "bookmark topic" button at the bottom. I'll enjoy that slice of Humble Pie, but I feel the rest of this is still legitimate.

[nyktos]

The Questions Board is a new section, created from the Discussion Board.
It was the first step in cleaning up & consolidating the growing forum...
and it's still under construction - so progress will most likely be sporadic.

We have a few ideas on where to go from here,
but brainstorming is always encouraged.



I'm hoping an F.A.Q. will slow down the repeated questions,
So we can get to the meaty things...
but until then - we can learn some of the search bar tricks!

Like adding a + at the beginning of a word if its being ignored for being too small
tons of ways to filter this mass of information...

[kerasi]

everything you need to know is in the sticky threads at the top of each section of the forum. Every question that gets asked regarding quests, items, where is so and so? are already answered. I think more attention needs to be made to these.

What confuses me the most is there is no need for Developers and then Developers Corner, they're the same thing, and general game discussion and then game related questions, they're the same thing. Maybe ideas and future development could go with Developers and Developers corner too or just rename it too ideas only. My thoughts anyway.....

[sdevaney]

The game related questions section is for content specific questions. It is for the "Where do I find X?" or "How do I complete X quest?" type of threads.

The general game discussion section is for general discussion about both content and game play. This section is more about debate and discussion than getting questions answered although in discussion there is bound to be questions and there is a little overlap, which is intentional.

As far as stickies go as long as the information is all there and is presented nicely the good threads get stuck.
Oskar and I rely a lot on our wonderful team of moderators to make sure everything is in order, put threads where they need to be, delete what needs to be deleted, move what needs to be moved, etc.

Condensing all questions about a specific quest into one thread is not going to happen, it looks sloppy and creates more confusion than it prevents. I think most people would rather skim through topic titles and look at the few repeating threads to find their answer than look through a 30+ page thread about one specific quest with no way of knowing where their answer may be.

Then there will be those people that simply post a new topic even if the answer is already posted, stickied, or whatever.

Thank you for bringing up these issues.
sdevaney

[fiernaq]

I think chaosrunner87 just applied to be a moderator

[chaosrunner87]

Condensing all questions about a specific quest into one thread is not going to happen, it looks sloppy and creates more confusion than it prevents. I think most people would rather skim through topic titles and look at the few repeating threads to find their answer than look through a 30+ page thread about one specific quest with no way of knowing where their answer may be.

Ah, I think you may have misunderstood. Part of the purpose of slimming down and combining threads would be to weed out the useless posts, which would keep it from looking sloppy and confusing. Like if there are sixty different responses about how to solve a quest, the mod types up a new post about how to complete said quest while referencing them, then deletes the sixty while posting the one simple easy to read summary in there place.


Take my Key of Luthor thread for example:
http://www.andorstrail.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1443

There are multiple responses, but the one posted by fiernaq is the most in depth of them.

"You'll have to talk to Leonid in the Crossglen inn first and he will send you to Gruil (also in Crossglen inn) for more information about Andor. Gruil requests a poison gland which can be found from the green snakes south of Crossglen. Once you retrieve the poison gland he sends you to look for someone named Gaela who is in the stable in Fallhaven. Talk to him and he'll send you to Bucus in the derelict house southwest of the Fallhaven inn. Bucus will then start you on the Key of Luthor quest which will involve talking to the priest in the temple and then the dude in the house just to the south of the big church and bring him some cooked meat etc..."

The mod could tidy up the vaguer parts of the post (like changing "the dude in the house to the south" to "the priest Athamyr, located in the house directly East of the Fallhaven tavern"), and then add it to another stickied thread where all of the quests are named in the top post and then how to activate them hidden with spoilers directly under the appropriate quest header, before deleting my thread since it's no longer required.

In this sense, everyone still has their cake of being able to form new threads to ask already answered questions, while simultaneously making it easier/swifter to check for frequent visitors of the site, as they can check the stickied "everything" thread as opposed to sifting through the other threads hunting, as I'm sure there are a number of players who play on lunch breaks, smoke breaks, etc, and don't have sufficient time to check multiple threads.


Again, these are just thoughts, I'm not trying to step on any toes since I'm the newest kid on the block.

I think chaosrunner87 just applied to be a moderator

Lol, that really wasn't my intention when I started this thread, I was just offering ideas cause the mods here seem very open to them. I'd gladly help institute my ideas if the higher ups thought they were worth implementing, but becoming a mod was not my goal at all.

[fiernaq]

Awww, but "dude in the house" just sounds so much better

j/k, to be honest, I actually started a new game because I wanted to make sure I got all the details right and I just burned through that quest without stopping for anything else while writing everything down. Then I got to the part with Athamyr and decided that I'd answered your question so I stopped and went back to my main character

[sdevaney]

Awww, but "dude in the house" just sounds so much better

j/k, to be honest, I actually started a new game because I wanted to make sure I got all the details right and I just burned through that quest without stopping for anything else while writing everything down. Then I got to the part with Athamyr and decided that I'd answered your question so I stopped and went back to my main character

That is a nice thing to do. That is part of the reason AT is the best community ever. You guys go out of your way to help each other and us, you guys really are a huge motivating force.

@chaosrunner87 You are correct I was mistaken about your idea. Now that I have a better understanding of it, we will definitely take it into consideration.