New Layout Update

[Huntkillaz]

bullet points represent fourms
writing in blue is my comments explaining stuff
also the (mods) thing just helps ppl teling them how many mods are supported by the bots


Re: Bot Forums one advantage of having the same layout across all bot froums is so that ppl will start posting in the correct forums



[index.php:]

Important Read First (have things like forum rulz important notices links and stuff like that whihc applies to everyone. no posting except council\admins here just for reading)

The Agora

General
Polls
Sugesstions \Ideas
Report Problems
YappA (Disccuss\Help Stuff)

First Person Shooters

Half Life 1\2
Counter Strike (Original\Classic\\Condition Zero\Source)
Quake 1\2\3

Source & Source Games
Steam
Other Games\Mods
Offtopic
Spam (junk post thread stuff get deleted after some months?)
Counter Strike Bots


PODBot MM (A similar layout applies to all bots?)

READ FIRST (THIS IS NOT A THREAD BUT A POST GIVING ALL THE MAIN INFORMATION NEEDED)
General
Bug Reports
Coding
Suggestions\Ideas
Common Questions

RealBot
JoeBot
YaPB Bot
E[POD] Bot
Half Life Mod Bots


GrogBot
ShrikeBot (2 Mods)
Grave Bot (2 Mods)
HPB Bot (Multi Mod)
RC Bot? (Multi Mod)
Other Games\Mod Bots

Fritz Bot
Dead (No Longer Developed\Updated) Bots

Ivp Bot
Under Developement Bots\ModsGames

Racc Bots
United Bot
Obsesssion Software Ltd
Enhance Your Gaming

Mean
Metamod + Plugins
Scripting
Others
Forging Digital Worlds

Mapping
Waypointing
Severs

Bot Servers
Server Admin Help
Web Based Server Tools
Developers Farm

Bot and Metamod Coding
C/C++/HTML/JavaScript/PHP coding
Docmentation,Imaging
Sdk Discussions

Half Life 1/2 Sdk
Others Sdk

[botmeister]

Well done! I may have some comments to make later, but I think what you've laid out is a good improvement right out of the box

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Just two things: I wouldn't divide the waypointing forum, and not into PODBot, RealBot and others. I'm saying this for three reasons:

1) There is often confusion between the different PODBot offsprings, not all of which share the exact same format. Some people even post questions for PB 2.5 in the PODBot mm forum because it's hard to keep these jobs apart. If we divide the waypointing forum, I would suggest dividing it into a) PB 2.5 / YaPB / IvPB / EPB format and b) PB mm format, among others.

2) If BU wants to get away from being a CS bot forum with some little appendices like HPB-Bot, FritzBot, ShrikeBot etc. (no offense intended, I just want to express that 90% of BU stuff is CS-related so far), it might be a good step to make a sub-forum for each bot, including the non-CS ones - not to mention FritzBot, which isn't even HL-based.

3) Since we (= MarD, Biohazerd87 and me) are planning to make a waypointing portal for BU anyway (one for ALL BU bots, btw!), I think we could leave the waypointing forum here as a kind of bug report / WP request / waypointing question forum for all bots, whereas releases would be made on the waypointing portal itself.
Or we could think about adding a waypointing sub-forum to each bot forum.

However, I am against splitting the WP forum at all. There's just too little traffic there so far, and empty sub-forums may discourage people seeking waypoints for not-so-widespread bots.

Other than that, everything looks really good. :)

[Huntkillaz]

2) If BU wants to get away from being a CS bot forum with some little appendices like HPB-Bot, FritzBot, ShrikeBot etc. (no offense intended, I just want to express that 90% of BU stuff is CS-related so far), it might be a good step to make a sub-forum for each bot, including the non-CS ones - not to mention FritzBot, which isn't even HL-based.

yes i wanted to make it so that the subforum format i have shown on podbot will apply to all bots no matter what game or mod they are for...

maintains consistency and just makes it easy for the mods\new developers of those sub forums to have pre establish layout for them rather than having to do it themselevs or request it


ps: changed the waypoint thing

:) :)

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Awww... now I can't place a second vote for "yes".... :'( Well, I hope this new layout gets some support from others...;)

Concerning the idea of applying the sub-forum structure to all bots, you might want to have a word with the respective bot coders first... I'm not sure what stefan, Whistler or Maleficus would say when they suddenly find their cozy, familiar little forums split into several sub-forums without their prior consent...:D

[Huntkillaz]

of course, thats the point of this poll :)

bugger cannot edit polls :S the word up there should be "this or" not "thisor"

oh well thats now 4:0 :)

[Whistler]

Sdk Discussions
- Half Life Sdk
- Half Life 2 Sdk
I think make one forum for all game modding stuff may be a good idea

[Huntkillaz]

now?

[TruB]

READ first is an good idea.. since many quistions comes back.. and some dont seem to be able to read around..

[Huntkillaz]

+bumps+

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

That makes a lot of forums... I'm not sure what to vote :|

The draft is good but I think regrouping some of them would be a better idea ; all comes down to the estimated traffic in each of these forums. And a dead forum is a forum nobody bothers to visit...

After that, personally I'm not fond of clicking more times than needed to browse down a forum's hierarchy, it makes the navigation a pain IMHO.

There is however a need for a good revamp. I like the idea of the separation between bots.

[sPlOrYgOn]

I don't like the idea of seperating bots...
people just won't be exposed to as many bots because they'll just keep visiting their own little forum section they visit a lot and they won't get to try out the many other bots here...
perhaps just seperating the dead ones...

[Huntkillaz]

@splo

yeah well they will still browse their own little sections if the'yve bookmarked that particular bot forum so it makes no difference


@pmb yeah i thought that was alot of clicking but i had to be to keep it simple clean and well laid

[Huntkillaz]

hey pmb

do u reckon it's possible to have something like this


http://isohunt.com/

top right corner menu


therefore we can have the sub froums pop under form the index and then clicking will take you to that chosen sub-sub forum

so all the dark dot forumlinks will be in the pop under


be a fun timewaster too :D

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

*BUMP*

Now do we switch to a new layout or not? I don't mean to be pushy, but look at poor dead bwoy - where's he gonna post all the stuff? Shouldn't we try to get the new layout up and running and include a HL2 SDK-related forum there? Then we could start a poll if dead can be moddie there and get it over with...

[dead bwoy]

Hey, TWrecks, thanks for trying to kick these guys into action...
I have a couple suggestions:
=================================
The Yappa:

Half-Life and HL Mods
Source and Source Mods
Steam
Other Games / Mods
Offtopic
Spam
games run on different engines should be in their respective categories.
=================================
Developers Farm

Mapping

HL1
HL2
Other

Modeling

HL1
HL2
Other

Waypointing

If we divide the waypointing forum, I would suggest dividing it into a) PB 2.5 / YaPB / IvPB / EPB format and b) PB mm format, among others...

Or we could think about adding a waypointing sub-forum to each bot forum.
Agreed...
=======================================
Developers Farm

Bot and Metamod Coding
C/C++/HTML/JavaScript/PHP coding
Docmentation,Imaging
Sdk Discussions

Half-Life 1 SDK
Half-Life 2 SDK
Others Sdk

====================================
There's my suggestions...
I think it's important for games using different engines to be in different categories!

- DEAD

[Huntkillaz]

bullet points represent fourms
writing in blue is my comments explaining stuff
also the (mods) thing just helps ppl teling them how many mods are supported by the bots


Re: Bot Forums one advantage of having the same layout across all bot froums is so that ppl will start posting in the correct forums

possible drop down menus????? top right corner menu

http://isohunt.com/ (http://isohunt.com/)



[index.php:]

Important Read First (have things like forum rulz important notices links and stuff like that whihc applies to everyone. no posting except council\admins can post, everyone else just for reading)

The Agora

General
Polls
Sugesstions \Ideas
Report Problems
YappA (Disccuss\Help Stuff)

Half Life and Halflife 1 mods
Half life 2, Source & Source Games
Steam
Other Games\Mods
Offtopic
Spam (junk post thread stuff get deleted after some months?)
Counter Strike Bots

PODBot MM (A similar layout applies to all bots?)

READ FIRST (THIS IS NOT A THREAD BUT A POST GIVING ALL THE MAIN INFORMATION NEEDED)
General
Bug Reports
Coding
Suggestions\Ideas
Common Questions

RealBot
JoeBot
YaPB Bot
E[POD] Bot
Half Life Mod Bots


GrogBot
ShrikeBot (2 Mods)
Grave Bot (2 Mods)
HPB Bot (Multi Mod)
RC Bot? (Multi Mod)
Other Games\Mod Bots

Fritz Bot
Dead (No Longer Developed\Updated) Bots

Ivp Bot
Under Developement Bots\ModsGames

Racc Bots
United Bot
Obsesssion Software Ltd
Enhance Your Gaming

Mean
Metamod + Plugins
Scripting
Others
Forging Digital Worlds

Mapping

HL1
HL2
Other

Modeling


HL1
HL2
Other

Waypointing


PODBot MM Wp Format
PODBot n Clones Wp Format (PB v1.0-2.5/YaPB/IvPB/EPB )
Auto Node (Realbot)
Navmesh (Racc)
Other

Severs


Bot Servers
Server Admin Help
Web Based Server Tools
Developers Farm

Bot and Metamod Coding
C/C++/HTML/JavaScript/PHP coding
Docmentation,Imaging
Sdk Discussions

Half Life 1 Sdk
Half Life 2 Sdk
Others Sdk

+updated+

[dead bwoy]

Me likes very much!
Go for it!!!

[sPlOrYgOn]

pbmm waypoint format is exactly the same as CF's waypoint format, except it stores different values into the camp start and end direction...
Austin and SF's waypoint editor is just the waypoint editor.. has nothing to do with the waypoint format..

[Huntkillaz]

pbmm waypoint format is exactly the same as CF's waypoint format, except it stores different values into the camp start and end direction...
Austin and SF's waypoint editor is just the waypoint editor.. has nothing to do with the waypoint format..but twrecks say's they should be seperate due to the fact that the camp wp's :'(


fixed the other peice



WHAT ABOUT DROP DOWN MENU'S GUYS?????

need some feed back on weather it's to much clicking and we should use drop down menu's or weather ur fine withthe clicking

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

The layout looks fine now. I say we do it. If the layout can be changed now, it can be changed again if someone finds out a major disadvantage.

Concerning the bot sub-forums, I would leave that decision to the bot coders. If they see fit, they can split their forum into more sub-forums, if they don't, they just let it be. Besides, for less visited bot forums, splitting into sub-forums would mean more sub-forums than threads, which is a bad structure IMHO.

Don't forget the visitor side of the whole affair: At least in the respective bot forums, guests will feel more "at home" if the layout isn't too different from what it used to be.
And if, for example, JoeBot users think that the JoeBot forum layout sucks, they can always discuss that right there, and eventually ask Asp to change something.

As for the waypointing forum: Once again, think about our visitors. What do they care about angles, vectors, different values stored into files, format discussions etc...? They care about having a waypoint file that friggin' works as perfectly as possible. And I think we agree that having a PB 2.5 WP for PB 2.6mm isn't as good as having a PB 2.6mm one, right?
Besides, the editor also has an influence on the waypoint files, as it allows WPers to implement things that would be so insanely work-intense with the old WP editor that NO Pb 2.5 WP takes advantage of them.
Not to forget the different use of button flags, and the new lift flag...
I say keep them separate.

Strictly speaking, there is no format difference. But for the user, there IS a difference. And the forum is for other users... or isn't it? :|

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Yup it's high time to do something. Argh.
I have a few comments: (in red)

possible drop down menus????? top right corner menu
http://isohunt.com/ <-- needs a bit of PHP coding, i.e. requires some time for doing it, but possible. What would you want this menu to be ? Quick access to every forum or something else ?

[ index.php: ]

Important Read First <-- /me likey

The Agora
nice separation but is there really that much traffic in the Agora to require several subforums ? What's good with the current layout (no subforum) is that all the active topics are immediately visible on one page. If we had several subforums we'd have to check them one after the other.

General
Polls <-- but having a special polls subforum is definitely a good idea.
Sugesstions \Ideas
Report Problems
YappA (Disccuss\Help Stuff)
nice separation

Half Life and Halflife 1 mods
Half life 2, Source & Source Games
Steam <-- does this really require a subforum ?
Other Games\Mods
Offtopic
Spam (junk post thread stuff get deleted after some months?) <-- what's the point of this one ?
Counter Strike Bots
like T Wrecks I think we should let the bot forums layout the decision of the bot makers. But separating them into categories is good IMO.

PODBot MM (A similar layout applies to all bots?)

READ FIRST (THIS IS NOT A THREAD BUT A POST GIVING ALL THE MAIN INFORMATION NEEDED)
General
Bug Reports
Coding
Suggestions\Ideas
Common Questions

RealBot
JoeBot
YaPB Bot
E[POD] Bot
Half Life Mod Bots

GrogBot
ShrikeBot (2 Mods)
Grave Bot (2 Mods)
HPB Bot (Multi Mod)
RC Bot? (Multi Mod)
Other Games\Mod Bots

Fritz Bot
Dead (No Longer Developed\Updated) Bots

Ivp Bot
Under Developement Bots\ModsGames

Racc Bots
United Bot
Obsesssion Software Ltd
Enhance Your Gaming

Mean
Metamod + Plugins
Scripting <-- you're thinking of AMX ? if yes, then okay...
Others
Forging Digital Worlds
/me agrees

Mapping

HL1
HL2
Other

Modeling

HL1
HL2
Other

Waypointing

PODBot MM Wp Format
PODBot n Clones Wp Format (PB v1.0-2.5/YaPB/IvPB/EPB )
Auto Node (Realbot)
Navmesh (Racc)
Other

Severs
very nice :)

Bot Servers
Server Admin Help
Web Based Server Tools
Developers Farm

Bot and Metamod Coding
C/C++/HTML/JavaScript/PHP coding
Docmentation,Imaging <-- what's the point here ? a doc is always specific to a particular project, hence must go in that project's forum, no ?
Sdk Discussions

Half Life 1 Sdk
Half Life 2 Sdk
Others Sdk

other than that, very good. Ah, but we'll finally end up with something potable ! =)

[Huntkillaz]

re: drop down menu

that would be on the index

so on index u'd see
___________________________
The Agora

Yappa

...
___________________________
then mouse hover over one of those would bring up the sub forums.


alternatively we could have a side bar doing the same, just have main forum titles, click on one brings sub froum titles underneath then clicking on the subfroum bring it up on the right hand side


esentially this keeps the page changinin the same as it currently is even though we now have more sub forum this will be 56k freindly :P


re: the seperation in agora is due to being easier on u admins

ulitmately the most active will be the general then the polls, Report problems i think is good beacuse it won't get lost in all the other stuff and same with suggestion\ideas we wont have to bump topics as much to be seen

re: yappa

your right,steam has become stable so we can dump that
and so to spam

RE: doc n imaging

righty u r once again :)

[stefanhendriks]

i go with PMB.

Though, next time PMB. DONT USE RED!!!! omfg, my head hurtss......... :)

[dead bwoy]

Do people still play WON Listen servers?
If so, there should at least be a steam sub-category under Yappa/Half-Life & HL1 Mods/Non-Steam
???

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Is the difference between Steam a non-steam so huge that it requires a separate forum for each ?

Anyway, HL2 is out, it's high time to move on. If nobody sees anything else to say, tomorrow I'll post a new thread for the final vote.

P.S. What does "YappA" mean ? :D

[Cpl. Shrike]

May i take a shot at the YappA... may i may i..

Yet another PotPouri AI.....

Smelly bot. :D rofl.

[Huntkillaz]

general [chit-chat]ing

some ppl just [yap yap] all day

talkalot

yappa

thats how it got it :P

@pmb so how is the men goin to be worked popunders? sidebar? more clickin subforum?

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

I will make it, once the new layout has been decided. It can be a drop-down menu, or anything. A drop-down menu would be simpler. Just tell what you'd prefer...

[von Ryan]

Listen, just an idea from the top of my head: How 'bout changing the colours a little bit? This magenta and blue tones are so... "unlively", if ya know what I mean...

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Anytime, BUT you have to provide me with the set of colors you want. I won't search myself. Usually people don't seem to realize how hard it is to manage to make 20 different colors blend together nicely. So if you are good at this sort of stuff, just do a screen capture of the BU forum homepage, paste it in mspaint, reskin it with the colors you want, and show it to me :)

[Maleficus]

Looks good.

Don't see a need for breaking the Agora up either - just keep it simple. You make 100 specific forums, and only 1 or 2 of them will actually be used anyhow....

Guess I'll have the non-HL bot forum all to myself?
Might as well just call it the FritzBot forum, since I'm the only non-HL bot here! :P

I agree with the thought against seperating the bot forums too. Since I'm the only non-HL bot ATM, Fritz will be crammed away in some obscure "OTHER" sub-forum that probably won't be visited much. :(

If BU is ever going to be more than just about CS bots, we should highlight ALL bots.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

oho
yup... makes sense

although if you notice it's not HL1 bots/HL2 bots/other bots, it's rather separated by game, hence since one can consider that CS is a game itself alone, you won't really be the alone, think of GrogBot, GraveBot, HPB_bot and ShrikeBot.

so...
bot categories or no categories ?
other ppl ?

BTW Mal, are you in touch with the other RTCW bot makers ? (and ET too)
Do you think they would be interested in joining BU if you invited them ?

[Maleficus]

BTW Mal, are you in touch with the other RTCW bot makers ? (and ET too)
Do you think they would be interested in joining BU if you invited them ?
One of the ET bot makers contacted me a while back and I invited them to BU, but they didn't seem interested. :(

Don't know about the other ET bots, not even sure if they're still around: they've been pretty quiet the last few months, so probably not. The RtCW/ET bot scene isn't as big as I'd like it to be sadly. :(

I should probably ask the UberSoldat team, since it's coder has updated with news that he is still working on it, albeit slowly. I just haven't had the time.


I guess my main point is: I like Fritz being seen on the main forum page as an equal bot. Being sent off to an "Other bots/games" forum just seems like it would cause it to be ignored. Like its not good enough to get its own category. Many CS players have RtCW too (I am one of those people), and I like that some people, originally just looking for a CS bot, can find Fritz easily and enjoy it too. Right now, ALL bots are equally visible and "findable" , if you catch my drift - even if its just by mistake. ;) :)

[Huntkillaz]

the reason is fritz in the other is so we can hoepfully get more bots there from other games,

its to show we are not just about cs bots

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Maybe we could find a compromise... maybe we could leave the "Cyborg Factory" section "open" like it is now - with "open" I mean that bots aren't hidden in sub-froums, but displayed directly on the main page.

But we could divide the "Cyborg Factory" by adding some more headlines, maybe in a different colour, or smaller...

Then we could have the different categories on one page, but each preceded by a headline that tells our users and visitors for which "game category" (CS, HL mods, other games) the bots under the respective headlines are. The description of each bot could stay as well, which is especially important for multi-mod bots. What do you think?

[von Ryan]

Anytime, BUT you have to provide me with the set of colors you want. I won't search myself. Usually people don't seem to realize how hard it is to manage to make 20 different colors blend together nicely. So if you are good at this sort of stuff, just do a screen capture of the BU forum homepage, paste it in mspaint, reskin it with the colors you want, and show it to me :)
Well, I do know how hard it is... To keep it simple and to make smthing different in the same layout... But I'll try to improve it, soon I'll post the modified print screen here. :-)

[Maleficus]

Maybe we could find a compromise... maybe we could leave the "Cyborg Factory" section "open" like it is now - with "open" I mean that bots aren't hidden in sub-froums, but displayed directly on the main page.


I like this idea a lot. :)

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Let's see what the other bot coders say...

[@$3.1415rin]

yes, that would be a nice solution, just the forum names like [CS] Joebot e.g.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Yes, I like that idea a lot too. It makes all bots "equal" in importance so to say.

Suggestion: we could have the game icon display in front of the bot forum's name (a bit like the nuke sign some people were wearing at nuclearbox), and maybe also an icon that would tell if the bot is active, under development, not yet released or dead. That would leave the Cyborg Factory section layout untouched.

What do you think of my idea ?

[@$3.1415rin]

yes, that's nice idea. although multimodbots would get a lot of them :) and maybe also do some 'hover-text' for each of those items, additionally to some extended legend at the bottom of the page.

[stefanhendriks]

pretty cool idea pmb. I think that gives a lot of info, in a quick way. I'd say, lets do that.

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Yeah, and maybe "traffic light" colours for the development status - green for released bots, yellow/orange for bots in development stage, and red for dead bots. That ought to be pretty international and self-explanatory. neat!

[@$3.1415rin]

well, red is some sort of signal color, I think grey would be more appropriate for such bots.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Okay. No more reactions today? Then I think it's time to post the 2nd poll...
follow-up => other thread

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

@ @$3.1415rin: Good point. You win. :)

@ PMB: Hell, yes! 8D