ok let's come up with the basic structure of this idea to help me when I go code all of this. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here:
http://www.interguild.org/members/forums/newest.php?id=1285

now here's my rough idea on each phase of the add-new-game process: (by the size of this post, you can tell that this topic is for intelligent people only )

Browsing Games
First of all, I imagine that we'll have an "All Games" section of the site, where people can look at everything on the site. this part of the site should also serve as a mini-homepage for each game. These pages should be built and maintained by the staff. And I'm thinking of also creating a page where staff members can publish articles (instead of posting something like a guide on the forums and then linking to that). It'll be like a wiki but only select people control it.

The Chosen Games will have full-fledged pages separated from that part of the site.

Adding Games
There will be an "Add a New Game to the Interguild" page where members would have to submit a link to the game/site and a description that will teach us what it is and how it works. I'm thinking maybe instead of working like the video archive where it sends a universal PM alert and then one person looks at it, I really want to make a page where mods can discuss the game and they can all get a look at it at once. I want it to be a mod-only discussion because then the other members (and I'm talking about the younger members >_> ) might get too excited or something just to have us reject it b/c it's incompatible with the theme of the Interguild or something.

I know I said I wanted it to be a quick no-think process where it just gets approved almost automatically, but if we're going to add a new game to the site, we should plan it out. Especially if it's something we never heard of and we're all trying to figure out just how you make a level in it. 0_o But I would still like to keep the process fast, so it is ok if one mod approves the game without anyone else seeing it, as long as he knows it's an ok game.

OK I'm just rambling now and you're probably asleep or skimming or something....

Game's Early Life
Once a game gets approved, it'll join the masses of other games that we may have accumulated by then. These regular games will be grouped into categories, like Jell suggested. I'm not sure how the categories would work, but I'm assuming it would be based on genre, such as "Platformer", "Puzzle", and the famous "Other" category, if anything fits in it.

Each category will share one forum board (maybe two). And I'm thinking also giving each category a competition game category. Small games should not be allowed to have full-fledged site comps, but they can the comp allows only games from one specific category. The galleries and the video archive will each still have individual game categories like the do now, so they won't change.

Like I said before, each regular game will also have a mini-directory of the site maintained by the staff where people can find a mini-homepage for the game, guides and articles published by the mods, and links to gallery and video sections of that game.

When do games become Chosen?
If a game gets very popular, the staff will probably start a discussion topic in the mod forum contemplating on whether that game has become popular enough to become chosen. But they should also consider the lifespan of that game's popularity: Will it stay popular for a long time? Or is this boost in popularity only temporary? I'm also thinking of creating a page that'll do all of the work for me when converting games to "Chosen", like creating that new homepage for it based on information that you put in. I'm also thinking of making all new topics created in the game boards force you to choose what game it belongs to (there is no 'other' game, b/c if it is then you shouldn't be in that board). that way, when we convert the game to "chosen" we can easily move all related topics into the new board (could you imagine doing all that manually? )

The Chosen Games
I already listed the privileges of chosen games, but I'll put them here for reference:
--entire section of the site based on that game, which means more around-the-site content, such as images, game-themed layouts, a whole category for news posts on the Interguild homepage
--it's own competitions schedule (our schedule will probably change depending on our # of games and # of members. If we have a lot of games and a lot of members, we can probably afford to run several competitions at once)
--its own set of forum boards
--more custom features in general b/c we'd care more about it (for example, HATPC has the cavegrabber and the cavelist-- no other game will have those features)

hopefully we won't ever have to make a game "unchosen", so I don't know about that.




I hope you read that all. Because now I want you to think about what parts of this plan doesn't work, and what parts do. I'd also really like to see suggestions. You might not be able to think of anything specific right now b/c it was a pretty big post, so I suggest going back and quickly skimming over the words to remind you of anything you wanted to say.

lol, of course no one wants to read the giant post.

well, this was helpful to me since I have a more solid idea on how to do this. I'll probably just use this topic as a blueprint in case I forget any parts of my plan. I remember during the newinterguild construction days where I would post giant things about how the galleries and comps would work. Those were surprisingly useful for me in the long wrong...

...I really don't think that the interguild will be of any more use to games besides HATPC. But that's not a bad thing; I actually kind of prefer it that way. Since the interguild is only focusing on HATPC, there are a lot of competitions and a lot of guides and videos and all of that neat stuff that goes around. If we add more games, eventually the attention will have to be balanced, taking away from the HATPC fun.

I don't think that this place is fit to be a center of multiple games. Why not just HATPC?

Because hatpc has a very small fanbase. We've come to realisation that the only members we're going to attract, are going to be aged somewhere around 8-11 years old.

You've missed a lot since you left...

But honestly, I don't think we'll be taking much away from hatpc's comps and all. There really aren't many games as good as it, so the other ones won't get as much attention as hatpc, until we eventually find a game that is better than hatpc.

and besides, more games will bring more members just naturally through google. and as the site gets more well-known, there'll be all kinds of members here. The point is that there will be some members who greatly prefer HATPC from all other games, and some who prefer other games. It's not like more games on the site will divide our attention to the game because there will still potentially be more people to enjoy it.

and besides I'm planning this whole system to keep the site maintained by the members. So you guys don't need to depend on me to officially release guides and other member-created content related to the game. That way even if I or the staff don't care about a particular game anymore (whether it's HATPC or any other game) then as long as there are people still contributing to it, then they can keep the game alive in the site, as if we were still putting all our attention to it.

What I'm saying is, any other game that has a decent fan-base already has a regular website that they visit. All of the games that you'll add here won't do you any good and will result in a waste of effort. What I'm saying is that this site is only good for HATPC. ;p

A small community isn't bad.  

ever hear of the "grow or die" thing?

and hey, HATPC had no site before this. imagine how many other games can now have sites? At least, if those fans find us and tell us add the game.

Egruntz is correct about every game already having its own major forum. But there is no major forum dedicated to every game with costumisable content. On other sites you can only talk about Line Rider, or only Spore. This will be a site for people who want to discuss both Line Rider and Spore.

Oh my god!   Think of the possibilities!

Uh, yeah, there's some possibilities to think of.

I support. Then Again, I'd support anything because I have 2 game ideas.