TF Views

Hey, I've nothing against people from those forums who want to come here as well. But the attitude those larger forums tend to get is just one I don't like. It's not just TFW and it's not necessarily their fault, either; I used to be part of a very large forum dedicated to modding WWF No Mercy for the N64. It was *extremely* hostile there--still is, in fact. That's why I left, it was literally being toxic to my life.

I'm going to do a mockup of this to see how it feels...

Here's how the boards look now:

The Now
TF: Generations / Universe / Classics
A modern take on a Real Cybertronian Hero
Transformers Movie 1, 2, and 3
From the king of Awesome himself, Michael Bay, comes a Michael Bay production spawned from the genius of Michael Bay and his co-writer, Michael Bay's ego. It's MICHAEL BAY's "transformers". Coming soon, another sequel directed by Michael Bay... maybe with robots!
TF: Other Now Lines
Wow, Transformers sure has a lot of other crap out there right now!
Star Wars TF, Marvel TF, Robot Heroes, Titanium Series - they're all kinda neat, but we all know they're not really that important. Admit it, you know it's true.

The Then
G1 | G2
The originals... ok, not exactly, but the original named "The TransFormers" anyway. Take THAT, Diaclone!
Generation 1, Generation 2 - Removable fists? Check. Unlicensed vehicle modes? Check. Kickass tape deck robot with transforming cassette minions? DOUBLE CHECK!!!
Beast Era
"What? Transformers made from animals instead of vehicles and stuff? Doesn't sound so great, throw it to Kenner division, maybe they can make a quick buck or something."
Beast Wars, Machine Wars, Beast Machines... seeing a pattern? Coming soon: "Wars Wars"
RiD | Arm | Ener | Cy
Acronyms and abbreviations are fun. That, or these lines don't deserve quite enough respect for full names.
Robots In Disguise, Armada, Energon, Cybertron - there, that's their names, happy now???
Alternators | Masterpiece
Complex, highly detailed, very poseable, and mostly licensed. A real hit with fans and fair-weather fans alike. Naturally it tanked? Yeah, I don't get it either.
TF: Animated
Some cartoon with big chins and a little girl that's not on anymore for no reason

The Other Stuff
Talk Here Suckas!
Our version of general discussion.
Comments / Board Biz
Comments, suggestions, problems, other board business, bring it here and drop us some knowledge
Sightings
Hey, look what I found! Hey, look what he found! Hey, how did that get over there?
Trading / Buying
Buying and trading on the open robot market! Optimus Prime might call this slavery, but he's never had to track down Energon Ultra Magnus before.

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Here's how I think it might end up looking:

The Transformers Talk
TF: Other Lines
Wow, Transformers sure has a lot of other crap out there!
Star Wars TF, Marvel TF, Speed Stars, Titanium Series, Robot Heroes - they're all kinda neat, but we all know they're not really that important. Admit it, you know it's true.
Transformers Movie 1, 2, and 3
From the king of Awesome himself, Michael Bay, comes a Michael Bay production spawned from the genius of Michael Bay and his co-writer, Michael Bay's ego. It's MICHAEL BAY's "transformers". Coming soon, another sequel directed by Michael Bay... maybe with robots!
TF:Prime
Coming 10-10-10, a mixing of the movie-verse with a cartoon full of pointless drones!
TF: Generations / Universe / Classics
A modern take on a Real Cybertronian Hero
TF: Animated
Some cartoon with big chins and a little girl that's not on anymore for no reason
RiD | Arm | Ener | Cy
Acronyms and abbreviations are fun. That, or these lines don't deserve quite enough respect for full names.
Robots In Disguise, Armada, Energon, Cybertron - there, that's their names, happy now???
Beast Era
"What? Transformers made from animals instead of vehicles and stuff? Doesn't sound so great, throw it to Kenner division, maybe they can make a quick buck or something."
Beast Wars, Machine Wars, Beast Machines... seeing a pattern? Coming soon: "Wars Wars"
G1 | G2
The originals... ok, not exactly, but the original named "The TransFormers" anyway. Take THAT, Diaclone!
Generation 1, Generation 2 - Removable fists? Check. Unlicensed vehicle modes? Check. Kickass tape deck robot with transforming cassette minions? DOUBLE CHECK!!!

The Other Stuff
Talk Here Suckas!
Our version of general discussion.
Comments / Board Biz
Comments, suggestions, problems, other board business, bring it here and drop us some knowledge
Sightings
Hey, look what I found! Hey, look what he found! Hey, how did that get over there?
Trading / Buying
Buying and trading on the open robot market! Optimus Prime might call this slavery, but he's never had to track down Energon Ultra Magnus before.

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

I do see what Scourge means that the Alternators/Masterpiece forum is a dead zone, so I would just move those threads into their respective sections. This feels pretty solid, I'll wait a few days for your feedback but it does seem like the best route.

Dominic wrote:I have not seen her recently, and never in person. Ah well, I have no real stake in this, (badbingiggitygoo!).

How are my divisions arbitrary?
Media tie-ins:
-movies/cartoons
-comics/novels
-videogames

Toys:
-Generation 1 (1984-1992) Generation 2 ('94-95)
-Beast Era (1995-2002: Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Robots in Disguise and Machine Wars)
-Unicron Trilogy (2002-2006: Armada, Energon, Cybertron)
-Movie/Animated (2007 to current)
-Iterative lines (not defined by year, includes Classics, Universe, Generations, "Transformers" and various re-issues lines, along with secondary and tertiary lines: Alternators, Masterpiece, Legends, Heroes of Cybertron, Robot Hereos, Crossovers, whatever....)


General:
-Open Discussion
-Comments and Questions.
-Sightings/Buying/Selling/Trading


I do agree that we might consider easing off the smack-talking other forums.

It's arbitrary in that it separates entertainment from the toys, and also that it puts RID in with Beasties.

I do like the idea of your sightings mixed with buying/trading, but will the titles confuse people?

I don't see any reason that wouldn't work. Things have moved, but it's not like it'll be hard to find it. I'll give it the thumbs up.

It's arbitrary in that it separates entertainment from the toys, and also that it puts RID in with Beasties.

I do like the idea of your sightings mixed with buying/trading, but will the titles confuse people?

How is it arbitrary to separate the entertainment from the toys? Many people just take one or the other, or will take both but look at them separately. (Up until about 2 months ago. I was focused mostly on the comics and paid little mind to the toys for about a year before.)


As for the buy/sell/sight title, anyone confused by it should probably not be on a forum for adults.



Dom
-RiD belongs with the beast era.....

138 Scourge wrote:I don't see any reason that wouldn't work. Things have moved, but it's not like it'll be hard to find it. I'll give it the thumbs up.

Thanks for the feedback.

Dominic wrote:How is it arbitrary to separate the entertainment from the toys? Many people just take one or the other, or will take both but look at them separately. (Up until about 2 months ago. I was focused mostly on the comics and paid little mind to the toys for about a year before.)

Because many of the entertainment segments are meant to go hand-in-hand with specific toy lines, they're designed to support those lines. The movies have nothing to do with the cartoons, yet everything to do with the toys from that movie.

As for the buy/sell/sight title, anyone confused by it should probably not be on a forum for adults.

Not the site title, the item title. When there's a sighting for Drift, the thread might say "Drift in Boston!" and it might be confusing for traders/buyers/sellers. Thoughts?

Dom
-RiD belongs with the beast era.....

Only to you though. They're a different design team, a different lore, a different era in the canon, a different aesthetic.

RiD and BW look right together. If you did not tell me it was a different design team, I would never have thought so.


That being said...

We are hopefully smart enough to list our topics clearly. In a business oriented forum (such as "buy/sell/trade"), we should be able to manage to post clear titles. ("Drift in Boston" would a ttitle for a sighting. "Drift for Sale" should not need a location notice in the posting.)


As we discussed above, the delineation between various lines is muddy in places. Rather than quibble about "what is G1", we could delineate by toys/content/whatever. If nothing else, that would help us streamline the forums.


Dom
-wants a good Overlord figure.

I'm hoping for a good new Overlord sometime after the third movie. I just hope that, euughh...Botcon don't get to the idea first. (And you *know* it's on their list now. Get ready for them to ruin everything you liked about him, Dom!)

RID wasn't a different design team, was it? And technically it's during BW. Or the characters come from then. But this isn't the place to have that argument (Again!) so I say we put RID in the Other Stuff place and be done with it.

I could get behind putting RiD in as "other". It was effectively the pre-cursor to much of the "other" category.

BotCon did not ruin Spark/Pyro for me. Granted, the toy is horrible and the context is worse. But, they cannot touch "Last Stand of the Wreckers".


One more thing: De-snarking would be a really good idea. It makes the forms less approachable, and harder to read/understand. We do not need to prove how whimsical we are when labelling the forums themselves. The posts we write can do that well enough.


Dom

But then we run the risk of being dry and dull and bleah. (Kind of like Ben's site could be sometimes. The atmosphere of that place was really quite different from what we all brought to the table.)

Onslaught Six wrote:RID wasn't a different design team, was it? And technically it's during BW. Or the characters come from then. But this isn't the place to have that argument (Again!) so I say we put RID in the Other Stuff place and be done with it.

Yeah, it was a different team, and it was part of the Cincinnati design house no less. It was also in design a year before Car Robots/RID - a line which was released in Japan at the end of Beast Machines and here a cycle later.

Dom wrote:One more thing: De-snarking would be a really good idea. It makes the forms less approachable, and harder to read/understand. We do not need to prove how whimsical we are when labelling the forums themselves. The posts we write can do that well enough.

Geez, what a buzz-kill.

Onslaught Six wrote:But then we run the risk of being dry and dull and bleah. (Kind of like Ben's site could be sometimes. The atmosphere of that place was really quite different from what we all brought to the table.)

What he said.