New User Groups

[Vansen Tyree]

I know it's a "can't be helped" situation, but the fact that certain ranks aren't showing up "in the right place" (ie. above the Old Fart banner) isn't going to do the board any favours aesthetically. It's the kind of thing our site review would have picked up on and called us out for, and it sorta detracts from how neat/orderly the ranks otherwise look. It is a really cool feature for us to have, and considering the work it took, you sorta... deserve to have it look "right", y'know?

I know it's easy for me to say, because I don't have the access to do it myself... but I genuinely do think it's worth trying to fix it, even if that just means replacing those few old groups with brand new groups with a more recent creation date.

[Atreyu]

As always we should defer to the mods/admins needs and limitations, but I agree with the good Captain about trying to get the aesthetics somewhat in line. At the very least I hope this feature will help streamline the titles now and avoid 'title bloat' which a few people have been having in recent years (sorry but some are really beginning to look like a smorgasbord of various titles cluttering up under the username, not to mention take up way too much space).

On a related note re: titles, is there a reason why some (including myself) still have 'SW-Fans.Net Poster'? I'm guessing it's because of the custom titles added in which have overridden the default title settings.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Ok I blew up the old ones and remade them. That's the best I can do. Any other rank rearranging will have to be Ogre or Morgan because I got no clue. If the order of the ranks is bothering you then don't use 'em!

[Marlon Kori]

Title bloat is something I'd very much like to avoid. If OOC accounts have OOC titles I've no problem. IC accounts I feel could do without the OOC ct stuff. The usergroup icons are acceptable and helpful I think, but we need to refine them a bit more in my opinion (in terms of what goes where if that makes any sense).

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Just a random thought and figured I'd slap it in here... While on the talk of these fancy user groups, you think we could get an Old Republic one?

http://theholo.net/forum/member.php?5321-Al-Maisan

Even already have the fancy tag thingie for it!

I know there's only a handful of people RPing in that "setting" but figured I'd toss it out while all this was fresh

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I like that idea! So would it be for folks that want to do stories in that era, or folks that want to show that they play TOR, or both?

You don't mind if I check the size of it to the other icons, do you?

[Amos Iakona]

I like that idea! So would it be for folks that want to do stories in that era, or folks that want to show that they play TOR, or both?

You don't mind if I check the size of it to the other icons, do you?

I think that one was for characters from that era... though if people wanted to apply the tag to their OOC accounts to indicate that they play the game, I don't see any harm in that.

Maybe it'd be worth having ones for Shadows of the Republic / Clone Wars stuff and What If? / Future characters? A lot of us have some of those kicking around, so it might be useful?

Title bloat is something I'd very much like to avoid. If OOC accounts have OOC titles I've no problem. IC accounts I feel could do without the OOC ct stuff. The usergroup icons are acceptable and helpful I think, but we need to refine them a bit more in my opinion (in terms of what goes where if that makes any sense).

How do you mean what goes where... as in, what character should belong to which group(s)? Maybe a "rule of two" would be a good idea - you can display up to two icons above your avatar (by joining permission groups)... any additional ones you can put in your signature manually?

Something I've seen on other boards is sorta... little "character trait" icons (exactly like "hunter", "scoundrel", etc) that players had the option of putting in their signature as a sort of at-a-glance character summary. So, in addition to be able to use it for overflow for the above avatar icons, we could maybe have stuff like "light side" and "dark side" (because not all force users neatly fall into one of those ranks), things like "patriot" or "healer", stuff like "guardian"/"sentinel"/"sage" for the different varieties of Jedi, and that sort of thing. Maybe even tags for specific settings, like "Cloud City", "Jovan Station", "Novgorod", "Corellia", etc.

Examples:
- Amos Iakona has the "Padawan" icon above his avatar; has "light side", "guardian" and "scoundrel" in his signature
- Chir'daki has "Apprentice" and "Black Sun Enforcer" above his avatar; has "dark side", "hunter", and "ruthless" in his signature
- Charlotte Tur'enne as a "Resistance" icon above her avatar; has "dark side", "ruthless", "veteran", and "Corellia" in her signature
- Vansen Tyree has "Admiral" above his avatar; has "veteran", "tactician", and "old goat" (or "grumpy bastard" or something) in his signature

I know, just a silly cosmetic thing... but if having icons in your signature is a pretty common occurrence, then people are gonna look less like an odd duck if they have to do it for overflow reasons (if we limit the number of permission groups). It also kinda makes everyone having a signature "a thing" again, which is a nice precedent for if we decide to rekindle the old forum Oscars type thing and give people little sig icons to commemorate their awards and such.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Originally posted by Amos Iakona
... what character should belong to which group(s)? Maybe a "rule of two" would be a good idea - you can display up to two icons above your avatar (by joining permission groups)... any additional ones you can put in your signature manually?

Pretty much this. Holly and I had bandied about a three icon limit for IC accounts to keep from things getting too out of hand in terms of what character has what affiliations.

I don't really see it as a silly cosmetic thing, so no worries on that front; rather, I see it as a handy at-a-glance intro to characters. Having them in sigs is something I'd like to see, as I said in the OOC Usergroups thread I started. Or even have a collection of them gathered together on a profile sub-section page that is set up like the old X-Wing game and its' medals case that you could look at, that had the different ribbons and medals that you earned during your time in the cockpit. But, to my knowledge that is a template-associated type of thing, and sadly neither Holly nor myself are comfortable (at this time) fooling with. It's tentatively on the list, but farther down.

However, yeah. I am behind the notion of allowing icons to be available to folks so they can include them in their signatures, and all of your suggestions are perfectly viable in my opinion.

[Vansen Tyree]

as I said in the OOC Usergroups thread I started

Shows how sleepy I am right now... thought that was the thread I was commenting in.

In terms of actual user group icon thingies... might it be useful to have a "third party" set of icons that match with the Alliance and Empire ones, but maybe on a different colour (yellow)? A yellow "Captain" covers freighter captains, police captains, etc, and a yellow "Pilot" covers people like Ben Merasska. A yellow icon with "Corellia" would encompass all of the non-Imperial people there (Resistance, CorSec, civilian, etc), and if we get other settings (Tatooine, Mandalore, etc) with that level of activity it's just a case of adding a new word to the same background.

It might also be useful to add "Soldier" as a ground pounder equivalent of the Pilot tag. Red covers SpecForce people, blue covers Stormtroopers, and yellow covers Resistance fighters, mercenaries, etc.

Edit:

Also, we have bajillions of droids lately. Maybe a "Look sir, droids!" icon?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

We'll probably add a smuggler tag? But the Alliance tag is to cover all the 'other' members of the Alliance. Since there is an Admiral tag in Alliance colors, there's no need to be part of both groups. I had brought up the thought of doing generic "Admiral, captain etc" ranks, and then people would join Alliance and then their rank in the Alliance, but we went with color coordinated ones for the specific factions so there was no need to be in both.

[Alexi Hesith]

I like this groups thing. I like it so much I used part of my lunch break sorting them out with all my alter egos. Such fun!

[Captain Untouchable]

We'll probably add a smuggler tag? But the Alliance tag is to cover all the 'other' members of the Alliance. Since there is an Admiral tag in Alliance colors, there's no need to be part of both groups. I had brought up the thought of doing generic "Admiral, captain etc" ranks, and then people would join Alliance and then their rank in the Alliance, but we went with color coordinated ones for the specific factions so there was no need to be in both.

I think there's a bit of a disconnect between the tag rationale for faction tags, and non-faction tags. Don't mean that as a criticism, just an observation.

On the one hand, you've got the "Alliance" and "Empire" tags, which are supposed to encompass everyone from Stormtroopers to political aides to mechanics - which is fine, neat, organised, etc. On the other hand, you've got the non-faction tags which are a lot more specific: instead of a catch-all "Scoundrel" tag, there's separate ones for pirates and hunters, and you're suggesting adding smuggler as well - which is also a perfectly fine way of doing it. It seems a little odd though that independent characters have so much variety in their tag options, while faction characters have so little. Also, while the idea is that faction characters only need one tag, the variety of options means that independent characters are somewhat likely to need/want two or more.

There's nothing wrong with treating faction characters and non-faction characters as separate groups with different tag rationales. However, if that format is sticking around, it might be nice to have a bit more variety for the faction characters - a "Soldier" tag like I already suggested, perhaps changing from a single "Agent" tag to one per faction (so that people don't "need" to include Agent and their faction), and so on. It'll be much more comfortable having just the one tag if that tag is actually descriptive (like the non-faction tags) rather than being quite so general.

And, I also think it would be nice/useful to have a tag for civilian Captains, for Mercenaries, for members of the Resistance (and civilians?) on Corellia, etc. Whether that's faction style yellow ones (for maximum adaptability in the future, to let Resistance leaders be distinguished from other Resistance fighters, etc) or non-faction ones with pictures and such... works either way. Mostly, I just figured the yellow option might be a bit easier on Christin from a graphics-making perspective.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Well, I think that's where we can utilize making some icons available for signatures. I personally see no real problem with making more Imperial and Alliance icons (and I do so love making icons), but the issue of a spiderweb of usergoups can get out of hand pretty easily if we're not careful. Using icons in signatures lets us get creative. I'm not saying that we should go solely to signatures with the icons since I love having them attached to usergroups, but more of a 'spread the love' kind of option.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

We have added a whole bunch of different user groups with their related rank icons. I am also wary of adding {too many}, so lets give it a few weeks to let this settle and see how it works and if we want more. Adding a simple "Resistance" tag would cover all the bases for non-empire/Alliance freedom fighters. Adding a generic "Captain" might be useful. Nearly everyone knows how to fly a ship, adding "pilot" isn't really a rank on the generic non-military level, it's just a skill description.

A smuggler is different from a bounty hunter is different from a pirate. I honestly don't know if we need a pirate tag or not, but I know we have smugglers.

Simply adding ranks because one person is requesting them is not going to happen - that way lies madness and too many groups to count. No "Taa's Angels" user group, sorry. You can, of course, start any Member Groups you like. They wouldn't have rank icons attached.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

We could certainly take the Pirate icon and make it available for sig use, then switch/rename the Pirate usergroup to the TOR usergroup. That way we're not adding another usergroup, we get to open up a more specific character icon for general use in sigs, and to be honest, I really like Sarah's idea for the TOR icon and its' applications.

[Captain Untouchable]

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the pirate user group. I'm just pointing out that pirates, hunters, and smugglers are all (arguably) "Scoundrels", and we have a tag for that. There's a lot more redundancy/variety in those job description tags, and there isn't equivalent redundancy in the faction tags.

It sorta seems like you guys are wanting to gravitate towards the above-avatar icons being for ranks/factions, and then maybe shifting the "job description" icons more to signatures. Maybe that's the solution? A couple of faction style tags ("Independent"? "Underworld"?) that cover the non-Alliance / non-Empire / non-Jedi characters... and then a butt ton of job description tags that people can go wild with in their signatures?

That would (among other things) handily avoid any CT bloat, because it'll be extremely rare for anyone to have more than two rank/faction icons. (Pride + something, Jedi + Alliance, dark side + something, etc) It also minimises the number of user groups needed to probably the smallest number we could get away with.

[Taataani Meorrrei]

No "Taa's Angels" user group, sorry.

Ljike jI need to marrk mjy terrrjitorrjy.

[Justin Dechen]

No "Taa's Angels" user group, sorry.

Ljike jI need to marrk mjy terrrjitorrjy.

Don't you just pee on things to mark them with your scent?

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

It sorta seems like you guys are wanting to gravitate towards the above-avatar icons being for ranks/factions, and then maybe shifting the "job description" icons more to signatures. Maybe that's the solution? A couple of faction style tags ("Independent"? "Underworld"?) that cover the non-Alliance / non-Empire / non-Jedi characters... and then a butt ton of job description tags that people can go wild with in their signatures?

That would (among other things) handily avoid any CT bloat, because it'll be extremely rare for anyone to have more than two rank/faction icons. (Pride + something, Jedi + Alliance, dark side + something, etc) It also minimises the number of user groups needed to probably the smallest number we could get away with.

This is what I've been saying, yes.

[Taataani Meorrrei]

Don't you just pee on things to mark them with your scent?

jYou'll have to ask Jamo and jIjyarr that.