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Project: elvesonline.net, the future pan-elven website

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:42 am
by Calisson
elvesonline.net project

[spoiler="Preamble - How a community became scattered"]Three elven websites, Asrai, Druchii and Ulthuan, used to represent the three elven factions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
Games Workshop, the maker of the game, merged the three factions in its campaign End of Times, then destroyed its universe.
GW ceased thereafter to support WH and created a new game, Age of Sigmar. Despite some remote continuity, the old factions do no longer exist, even the names are no longer in use, with vague aelf equivalents of Sylvaneth, Exiles and Highborn.
Many WH players were not satisfied with AoS. The community shattered.

Some players moved to AoS.
Some players stuck to WH in various editions or adaptations (WH8, WH7, WH6, Oldhammer...). They are the only ones to keep the old faction names.
A group of players created a game inspired from WH8 and named it The 9th Age; the rules are yet to sabilize. Elven names are different again: Sylvan, Dread or Highborn elves.
Other popular games took advantage of the end of WH: King of War and Warmachine/Warmahorde. They do not even have three elven factions.

This came at a time when forums are becoming less appreciated than Facebook or other new social media.
Forum activity was already declining, killing WH was a very hard blow.[/spoiler]

The mission:
This project aims to revive the proud heritage of the old Fantasy Battles Elven websites,
and to adapt it to the present reality.


[spoiler="Preparation"]Issues to develop:
Models: The common factor of interest remaining across the community is modelling. This becomes our first, uniting topic.
Gaming: We accept equally all commonly played fantasy wargames using elven miniatures, no matter the editor.
Fluff: We accept equally all associated backgrounds, including the names given to elven factions in these various games.
As most of these games do not follow the old division between the three elven factions, we are open to all elven factions.
We keep a privileged room for our roots, despite not being supported anymore by a company or a large community. Therefore we preserve the archives of the old original factions, Asrai, Druchii and Ulthuan.
We will complement the website with a FaceBook account.

Technical developments:
The three elven websites, Asrai, Druchii and Ulthuan, have been moved to a single host. This saves money and Webmaster time.
This opens also some prospective for building something in common.

Opportunities to grasp:
The rich heritage of Asrai, Druchii and Ulthuan must be preserved.
AoS has a website for Grand Alliance, to which all Aelves belong. There is no specific website only for Aelves, let alone for each Aelf sub-faction.
T9A has a website with subforums for each faction. However, they are not customized for each faction. Asrai, Druchii and Ulthuan are natural hosts for the respective factions.
KoW has a website with one subforum for Elves. No other specific forum for KoW Elves.
WM/H has a website with one subforum for Elves. No other specific forum for WH/H Elves.

There is clearly an opportunity for a common website displaying all kind of Elven models. All together.
For each game, there is an opportunity for a specific website dedicated to each Elven faction and each Elven sub-faction. Even if this does not make a specific common website, at least it allows:
- owners of Elven models to exchange ideas on alternative games payable with same models
- discussions across various elven cultures.

Work with the two other forums:
Informed Ulthuan here: Merging a bit more with Druchii and Asrai
Reaction is a polite refusal, they seem to be wanting to wait what becomes with this project.
Informed Asrai here: Merging a bit more with Druchii and Ulthuan
Reaction is all positive. We start with them.

Preliminary work.
What do we want the future of Druchii.net to be?
and Which name for pan-elve website and FB account? polls[/spoiler]

Plan

Root forum: elvesonline.net, associated with a Facebook account, named elvesonline.

Main forums:
1. P&M.
- all combined (1).
2. Aelves in AoS.
- subdivided in fluff and gaming (2).
3. Elves in T9A.
- subdivided in 1 fluff and 3 factions gaming (4).
4. Elves in WFB (all editions)
- Asrai, Druchii, Ulthuan (3).
5. Elves KoW
- no subdivision (1).
6. Elves in other games (BB, WM, 40k...)
- subdivided by game (4).
7. Website miscellaneous (everything not model, fluff or gaming).

Total 7 main forums, 15 main sub-forums.
We will see when more sub-forums become necessary.

Identity:
The user may select among 3 atmospheres (blue/green/purple) which influence how the screen looks.
We also let the user select which forum are visible and which ones are not seen on the screen.
The three old addresses Asrai, Druchii and (when they are ready) Ulthuan will be redirected to the new website elvesonline.net.

Milestones:
1. (me) Reorganize Druchii.net forums according to the above.
2. (Daeron) Build the new site.
3. (Mods) create some activity here to be transferred to the new website, and in the FB account.
4. (Daeron) Migrate D.net and A.org into that site.
5. (who?) Advertise for the new website on every major forum.
6. (them) When ready, U.net joins.

Team:
Admin = me + ?
Webmaster = Daeron.
Moderators = Shadowspite, Cultofkhaine, Amboadine, + ?
FB animator = ?

and... you? :D
Please reply below!

Re: Project: elvesonline.net, the future pan-elven website

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 6:16 am
by cultofkhaine
Looks great - finally a positive step forward for a new community base!

Re: Project: elvesonline.net, the future pan-elven website

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 9:10 am
by Daeron
I might add that we have to upgrade the forum to version 3.1. I can handle the upgrade (I think) but it's a matter of design. If we need to create new skins and styles for the new site, we might as well do it on the new platform. The main benefit of sticking with 3.0 is that we can keep the old skin. Of course, it also saves us some technical challenges, but assuming those can be overcome, they shouldn't be part of the decision making process ;)

Re: Project: elvesonline.net, the future pan-elven website

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 10:31 am
by T.D.
Looks good!

Thanks for all the work guys :)

Re: Project: elvesonline.net, the future pan-elven website

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 3:14 pm
by Calisson
Daeron wrote:If we need to create new skins and styles for the new site, we might as well do it on the new platform.
the idea would be to leave the choice between different skins:
- the present dark one for Dark Elves/Dread Elves/Exile Aelfs/Drows/Svartálfar/dark humor sadistic depraved members
- a green one like Asrai for Wood Elves/Sylvan Elves/Sylvaneth/hippy shroom-smokers tree-hugger minded members
- provision for a light blue one like Ulthuan for, eventually, High Elves/Highborn Elves/Highborns/Dökkálfar/haughty know-better-than-thee elitist perfectionist minded members.
- possibly, a default one for Elves/Álfar/Alpî/pointy ear scholars.

-=-=-
More important than the skin, the flesh:
We need animators.

Re: Project: elvesonline.net, the future pan-elven website

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 9:53 pm
by Saintofm
Good.job :D

Re: Project: elvesonline.net, the future pan-elven website

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2016 12:50 pm
by Amboadine
Nice summary. Just catching back up after my unfortunate absence.

Re: Project: elvesonline.net, the future pan-elven website

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 5:14 am
by cultofkhaine
Howdy all - renewal for the domain elvesonline.net has come up and I am having reservations about renewing it. Is this project going anywhere anytime soon? Personally I think it has failed to become anything at the moment. Do I go ahead and renew it or should I let it lapse.

Re: Project: elvesonline.net, the future pan-elven website

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 7:13 am
by Calisson
Agree, panelf website is not going anywhere.
Ulthuan seems happy with the low activity they have.
D.net is less active but still better than Asrai.

On the 9th Age side, 2nd edition should stabilize the main rules, and DE is among the next AB to be revisited. This should improve the situation, with clearer vision of what DE are able to do. I a still hoping that it would raise the interest for DE, however T9A forum will get most of the activity.
The question remains whether there is a niche for DE-specific website. For P&M, the answer is probably yes. For tactics, well, we will see in ne year.

-=-=-
Note to self: why did I open two near identical threads?
Apparently, this one was for the manning, the other one for the organization.
Oh well...