I was thinking in bed this morning that it'd be a good idea if someone went through the Game Discussion (and Troubleshooting) sections, and, for any game which has had more than a couple of pages of discussion or lots of technical enquiries, create an FAQ which could be linked to from the review page and updated as we go along, made up mostly from the existing answers and suggestions. For instance, the UFO thread contains solutions to various problems (including the one with flatscreen monitors) which get asked again and again because nobody wants to read 84 pages of discussion (plus several troubleshooting threads) to find them, whereas an FAQ might help reduce that.

Unfortunately I personally don't have time to do this now, but I might do come June when I've finished uni for the summer - of course if anyone else wanted to make a start, the Grammar bods (well, me at least) would be happy to help with sorting out the spelling and grammar in the material.

I think it's a pretty good idea (sorry man, it's not the best I've ever heard :)), and I wouldn't mind helping out. Unfortunately I too am pretty busy at the moment, with exams coming up, but in a month or 2, I think I may have time to help out with this.

I believe Kosta is already working on this. Contact him. ;)

Good idea.I could help, but sometime in june, when i finish this grade.I actually wanted to do a full clean up of the game discussion forums

Good idea. Myself, when I am uploading / reviewing a game, I try to list problems encountered and their solutions.

Sounds like a good suggestion, but we need someone who would do it (I'm rather busy at the moment - otherwise I might help out as well).

As i said i can give you my full time at the end of june

I can do it if someone show's me an example one of how they want it, and what they want in each one.

I agree it's a good idea to see, it'd be good to see, also games could be handed out by requests and such to users who are interested in doing them.

in case you're undecided, witness the Crusader savegame confusion in the troubleshooting forum.

I almost checked the bottom option there.. just for the pure fun. This is why I never go to trouble shooting or game discussion etc.

I fully agree! Its an excellent idea, but also a time consuming one (I feel another squad will be forming soon) :) But let's not hassle too many tasks at once. Once some translation crews are over with translating, and some people volounteer to do it, we can form a team for it. Would be very useful. We should also brainstorm about the best way to do it and connect to the page.

The team would have to read all over abandonia games discussion threads and write down every question/answer.... OMG
But I cant say I have something better to do,so when will someone form team to do this sign me up.... :whistle:

I was thinking it's only necessary for the longer game threads or where specific problems have been identified a few times (for instance with Crusader and UFO) - looking over the thread titles in the Troubleshooting forum would also be useful.

I'd say it's a good idea, even though it probably won't stop people from posting the same questions all over again. Quite a few people are somewhat reluctant to read anything which has 'rules', 'instructions' or 'FAQ' written on it.

Having said that, if you still need people, I'd offer to help either with the FAQ themselves or with the proofreading.

Yes your a genius...

You're so buff Beefy :ok:

mmmmm Beef Buffy *drools*

You're right of course, but if it reduces that then it's got to be good. It could also be useful to put some kind of message in the Troubleshooting board and in the template at the top of each discussion (for ones with an FAQ, clearly) that says "If you have trouble with this game, please check the FAQ before posting it here."

You're right of course, but if it reduces that then it's got to be good. It could also be useful to put some kind of message in the Troubleshooting board and in the template at the top of each discussion (for ones with an FAQ, clearly) that says "If you have trouble with this game, please check the FAQ before posting it here." [/b][/quote]
We could also get direct link to FAQ in the review of that game....(under discuss this game for example...)

I was thinking of just adding it into that box of extras, too. Great minds.

That's a good idea. The FAQs will be hard to miss that way.

By the way, have you already decided what format the game FAQs should be in? Locked threads in the discussion forums (to avoid having them cluttered up by replies) or text documents? Putting the game FAQs in the discussion forums would make it easier to update them if necessary, but on the other hand that would mean rather a lot of "dead" threads, unless we set up a special FAQ forum for them...

Well I would appreciate when we could have it as closed threads...
But on other side :For most FAQs would be one post(with all question-answers) enought and creating X-new closed threads with just ONE post is quite wasteful...
It is more or less question for admins but I think text documents is way to go....

That's why I suggested creating a subforum just for those threads. Adding a new forum usually isn't too difficult, so you could create a FAQ forum and give posting permission only to those people who are working on the FAQs. And it would be easier than text documents which all need to be uploaded first.

it'd be useful to have a forum for it methinks, for easier updating. it'd also make creating them much much easier, like the grammar section has with the editing. we could then open it up once they're ready.

Would the FAQ's only include those? Frequently Asked Questions? Or would they also include Walkthrough's, easter eggs, game maps, etc.?

Well I was thinking just technical problems, since the rest of that stuff belongs in the game discussion thread, but a long thread like the UFO one is daunting to look through to solve a technical issue.

I think it should include all useful information found through the topic, organised into different headlines

then what's the discussion topic for?

Agree with BeefontheBone...
In FAQ should be questions just about technical dificulties.
Othervise Abandonia discussion forum would be, more or less useless...

Ahem... ok let me explain my version of the job:
Let's take the Ufo forum.Between those 80+(might be 90, i haven't checked in a while) might be:
Technical help
Easter eggs
Game hints
Game strategies
Intimate knowledge about the game(like some facts about it's creation)
Links to patches, etc etc
Useful stuff in one word.So i say why waste those?
Why make a Faq only for the technical problems, when we can make a GUIDE that encompasses all that knowlegde.And as time passes we can add new bits of knowlegde, as they get posted.

Surely the thread itself is such a guide, if in a messy form. A more ambitious project could be taken on later, but I think the technical stuff is the most urgent, since it's getting annoying when the same enquiry is posted in about 4 different places, answered in each one and then the last one resurrected the following day for the same thing (although to be fair the Crusader thing could've been prevented by someone with access spending 30 seconds editing the review...)

Whatever i still don't think it's productive to discard these, and make only a tech guide... we should do it in one swoop, and combine all the useful elements in one compact guide.There's no sense in delaying it

I'd love to work on this, but I've been so busy lately...


Maybe I can fit it in, though :angel:

ooo ooo! Pick me Pick me!

So we are 3 now... :sneaky:

@Omuletzu It would be nice, but first we should make just technical stuff...We still can update them later :angel:

I agree...should we research the net as well to find other known problems that people just haven't encountered yet?

I agree...should we research the net as well to find other known problems that people just haven't encountered yet? [/b][/quote]
Nope.For now we should "just" reread throught whole game discussion topic and write FAQs.... :whistle:
Hmmm....We might be looking throught internet for unaswered questions thought...

Nope.For now we should "just" reread throught whole game discussion topic and write FAQs.... :whistle:
Hmmm....We might be looking throught internet for unaswered questions thought... [/b][/quote]
that's true...so are we just doing the technical aspect right now?

that's true...so are we just doing the technical aspect right now? [/b][/quote]
Yup..
And someone should also PM kosta, or Tom and say that we are doing this...

LOL...yeah, that might be a good idea...you know, inform the owners and managment of the site we are going to be doing. It would suck to do all of UFO and then have them say "uh...yeah...we um...don't want it!"

LOL
That would be very nice...
Anyway Kosta said

So it should be OK...
And Ufo thread is mine LOL :ph34r:

be my guest...I'm trying to find one that is known for lots of bugs

yea whatever, i will not take part in such an action...
tell me when you are going to start.As i said, at the end of june i will start to clean every discuss abandonia games threads.So this should be done by now, or at least should be started soon.

I would love to start helping with a UFO FAQ, but I think that it probably should involve some kind of game help, or at least a link to the excellent Unofficial Strategy Guide that I have read (not sure where it was from though).

I think that it would be better to have as a text of .PDF document (I could make it or help with it in OpenOffice, in which there is an option to turn it straight into a .PDF file), maybe a .doc file, but not every computer has the facilities for that.

It would be better to do this rather than, say, try making it into a topic at the top of Game Discussion (although if we had a few of the FAQs there could be a link to them in a stickied thread), due to not everybody being interested in the Forum.

Hoping for replies, PrejudiceSucks (Joe, if you would prefer that)