Where are the CATEGORIES in this forum?

[RetroBlast]

Forgive me for saying this but this forum has no organization. There should be a category for general comments about the game, some other general categories, and each table should have their own official thread / category. Under each table category there can be a Report Bugs category, etc etc .... This forum is all over the place and close to impossible to know what has already been discussed and what has not. It really needs some organization. I am not complaining or trying to insult anyone in any way ... but with a better organized forum things are easier to find and it makes it easier to post. In addition, it also lets those at Zen Studios find things easier and see what people are saying and suggesting as well.

[caper_26]

I already brought this up inside someone else's thread. The answer I got was the type of forum hosting used doesn't allow sub-forums. You SHOULD click on, for example, Zen Pinball 2, then inside there, there should be sub-forums for all the tables in the game, as well as general game questions, etc, so if someone had a question about Tesla, they would go to that particular sub-forum. Kinda like this:

[Solitude]

The problem with splitting things up that much is that you end up with a bunch of forums with little to no activity. It's better for the sense of community to have fewer forums that have more activity on them.

Also you can use the "tags" field when creating a thread to improve the search functionality.

[BarbieBobomb]

The problem with splitting things up that much is that you end up with a bunch of forums with little to no activity. It's better for the sense of community to have fewer forums that have more activity on them.

Also you can use the "tags" field when creating a thread to improve the search functionality.

Agreed. I came up with a huge chart of awesomeness to organize the place but when I started to go through and sort it out... wow. So much of everything in every thread, there's just no way. I have been trying to consolidate similar threads so we can maintain some sort of order.

[Cloda]

The problem with splitting things up that much is that you end up with a bunch of forums with little to no activity. It's better for the sense of community to have fewer forums that have more activity on them.

Also you can use the "tags" field when creating a thread to improve the search functionality.

Agreed. I came up with a huge chart of awesomeness to organize the place but when I started to go through and sort it out... wow. So much of everything in every thread, there's just no way. I have been trying to consolidate similar threads so we can maintain some sort of order.

Sorry guys, I can't disagree more I'm sorry, but the search function ends up with you having 50 threads, all on the same general topic, but still with no easy way to quickly find information (even if you refine your search). You will always have parts of the forum that don't have much activity such as established guides and tips sections etc. but these are crucial threads to have as these are the areas where new players want information from. Your general discussion etc. sections will always be the active places as well as the threads for new table releases and the discussions around that. That is the case now but old information just seem to disappear into a garbage heap once it is not current any more.

I made some suggestions (please see below) in response to a question Barbie asked a couple of weeks ago, but she obviously missed it because the mess the threads are in

Here copied from that post is my response:

How would you suggest it be organized? I agree though, the search tool is not great, unless you know exactly what you're looking for.

Apologies for only responding now... I suddenly remembered about this when I looked at Wims web-site now. When you posted this I was smack in the middle of a 48hour exam and did not have much time or capacity for anything else

Anyway... the basics of a good forum layout in my opinion is that topics need to be contained and that there should be a logical layout. E.g. If I want to know about glitches in Paranormal I want to know that I automatically need to go straight to the bugs thread or the tread discussing Paranormal gameplay. That should only be a few clicks away.

Quite a few forums from some of the Zen studio forum members have done a really great job at this. The best example is Wims forum @ http://www.lupsclub.com/. It is in French but through google translate you can check it out. You need to register though to get the full picture (all the sub-threads such as the guides). In short for each table it has a sub-thread for pre-release discussion, for when a table just came out and is being figured out and then a finished guide for each table. There are also many other sub-threads for general discussion, high scores etc. All is very logically laid out and you know exactly where to go to find info on a particular table or other topic.

Here is a link to a previous discussion on this topic with some more ideas. There used to be a few other French web-sites that did a similar thing but I think they closed down now.

I gather from some of the other responses to this question that there might be limitations to what is possibly, but I would seriously suggest that you consider changing to a forum system that offers more possibilities. As discussed before... after a month or so a particular thread is more or less lost forever and it is inevitable that a new one will be started again on exactly the same topic.

[RetroBlast]

Organizing the forum is quite easy in fact.

General Game Discussion
Off Topic
Breaking News From Zen Studios
Real Pinball
Other Video Game Pinball Games
...etc etc

Then each table should have its own heading and some sub categories
for example

Fear Itself
Bugs
Tips & Tactics

then people can create threir own sub topics related to the particular table

I really believe something needs to be done here for the users sake and Zen itself

[VivekThakur]

Go to Forum and all category will shown.

[SuekSeath]

At some point the true shT will come to surface and everyone will see how shTTY the team really is this season. The offense has done nothing and Peyton manning has been bailed out for 5 straight weeks. Just look at yesterday for proof, the offense only produced 9 pts which was 3 Field Goals.


And this is a 5-0 we are supposed to take seriously?

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