Expanded responsibilities

[Razorwing]

[1st]A[/1st] recent discussion (elsewhere) got me thinking that raggidman's position of Editor is really the only case of someone in the Silgrad Tower team having a defined, wide field of responsibility outside their personal contributions.

Don't get me wrong. Talented modders like sandor do a sterling job as interior reviewer, and modellers like Caligula Superfly and gundalf certainly have responsibility for Redoran and Velothi architecture respectively, and they excel in those fields. Rodan and DarkAsmodeus certainly do a lot of work on their city projects. And the list goes on.

Neither am I trying to say we have a shortage of responsible people here, because we don't. What I mean is the defined, wide field of responsibility that most teams have positions for. I've made a few inquiries into it earlier, but it hasn't been very fruitful, but I thought it's important enough that it could be worth opening a new discussion on it.

Personally I would love to see modders in our team who have an affinity and interest for -- and preferrably skill and knowledge in -- specific fields showing their interest in spearheading those facets of the mod. It's not a first-come, first-serve kinda suggestion because the core should probably discuss it in parallell with posts in this thread, but I have a personal hope that in the end we'll see a few modders from our team who's great at a particular thing take charge of administrating those departments with the core's thumbs-up. =)

By taking charge, I mean taking charge. Working independently and becoming a pillar of support for the team as a whole, stepping in when matters concerning their field is being discussed and offering their viewpoint, guiding new members interested in working in their field. It's not something that would preclude doing what you would otherwise do, you absolutely doesn't have to give up say modding or modelling or anything else; it just means you become the go-to-guy for special questions and issues. Or go-to-girl, as the case may be.

Though taking charge doesn't mean the core wouldn't still have a say; They always have a say. But I doubt that would be much of a factor.

Here is my suggested list of fields/departments I think would benefit from having leadership, in no specific order of importance. They are all important in my opinion.


? Website Editor.
The articles on the website is in a bit of disarray. I haven't had much time (or interest, to be honest) to work on the articles since last fall, and it's really starting to show now I think. Most of them are outdated or inaccurate, and have been patched here and there to just link to sections on the forum instead. So, what I think we could really need right now is a person willing to take up the responsibility of managing the articles.

Here's a description of what the position entails.

It's done through a content manager system so all you really need is internet access, but of course you absolutely need to fully understand html to be able to do it. Personally I write the articles in Dreamweaver and then copy-paste them into the content manager entry for that article. Working in the content manager is not unlike posting a new thread on the forum (or editing a post, as the case may be) but has a lot of extra options and naturally doesn't use BBCode but raw, hardcore html. At the same time the complexity of html also means there's not many barriers to what you can do.

The articles are what's displayed in the middle of the pages, so you won't have to worry about design components and stuff like that.

The CMS is rather complicated to use, and not very intuitive, and it was made by a German company so the English translations doesn't always make sense... but once you get used to it I'm sure it'll work out. The whole website uses the system. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about how to use it. I wouldn't have understood it myself if I hadn't been able to talk with the person who installed it.

? Marketing and PR. DarkAsmodeus :check:
Something we're not that good at I think is getting the word out there, and as head of the PR department that would be the jist of the job. How do we get people to become interested in Silgrad Tower? What do the rest of us need to do to get attention from players and modders on ESF and other places? Are there big ES sites out there willing to affiliate with silgrad.com? How do we phrase information threads on ESF to highlight why we're the coolest group on the scene? If you think you might have the answer to those questions then I think this job would suit you well.

? Voice Work
There's a lot of interest from voice workers in supplying their talent to the team, but no one to guide them, give them scripts, give creative advice, teach them how to make .lip and .mp3 file pairs if they don't know, and so forth.

? Warden of TES3 Community Models.
As cool as many Oblivion mods are, the TES3 community produced a wealth of modders resource packs and similar, and there are undoubtedly gems no-one here has heard of before. In this position you'd be responsible for the whole process of finding, editing and migrating these types of models into Oblivion .nifs useable in our mod.

? Video editing.
Reich Parkeep might be the only case at the moment, but undoubtedly it won't be the only case for long. As video editor your job would be to capture the needed footage, edit it, add voiceovers or music as needed, add effects as wanted, and package it for distribution. Feel free to add credits at the end so it's clear you made it, if you want, and use it in your portfolio if you're a professional video editor.

? Lead concept artist
This is an area that virtually doesn't exist here, which is a pity because concept art can serve as a great inspiration for modders and modellers alike. By leading the concept art department you'd identify the general needs of the team, recruit or headhunt on ESF as needed, organize fun little challenges or contests and similar at your discretion. If you have a little bit of experience working with nifs it would be really cool if you could also transform the more beautiful artworks into in-game artwork, for instance by reskinning one of the stock paintings or other drawing surface.

? Codemonkey InsanitySorrow :check:
There's always neat ideas floating around here which would need scripting in one form or another, and if you're a real wiz at scripting then giving advice and help on solutions to those neat ideas - or possibly even writing the scripts - your aid would be most helpful.

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black[/hr]

The following is written by raggidman

? Lore Meister
While we are on the subject I would like to suggest that ST and the Associated Projects could do with a Lore Meister (and team) too.

These are vital skills, with Lore esp mostly handled by Razorwing atm, but his focus is mainly Administration and ST. He has only so much time and I suspect he and the other team leaders would appreciate some back up to bring essential lore into their forums and bring it to the attention of their teams and co-ordinate shared concepts and required differences...?

It's wonderful when someone like KKA to shares his Argonian passions with Black Marshes, but he is not a Lore Specialist, which means that the time he can devote to this aspect is limited nd creatively oriented.

What we really can use is a data-base focused approach from someone who loves to compile and collate information to provide a centre tailored to our needs where we can go to seek new ideas, check the basis on which we are working and the essential, living response that such a Meister can provide in working with us to keep us aware when there is Old Lore that can be useful to us.

Further this kind of Lore Meister should be acceptable to, and work with all the project leaders liaising between the projects and making the mayors and leaders aware of the events that are going on outside their own domains and esp those that have potential to be linked between the projects.

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black[/hr]

Looking forward to your opinions. :yes:

Perhaps you have a suggestion for a new field which you are interested in, and would like to officially spearhead?

[Siegfried]

Excellent post Razorwing. I can give a few tips about marketing and PR, since I would like to think of myself quite good at it, and perhaps help you guys out a little bit if no one steps up to the position, but I can't do to much since I have my obligations with Skyrim. Also on the topic of Voice Work, I was just thinking recently that maybe we should create one big linked Beyond Cyrodiil Voice Work Forum, that way if one of our teams has a voice actor that can do a specific voice particularly well or something, we can have them help all the projects, since as far as I know now, voice claims come in rather slowly, so voice actors wouldn't be that bogged down with work. On the subject of shared forums, perhaps we should have some kind of a shared CS FAQ board, I'm sure there are plenty of questions people from different teams would like to know, for me its heightmaps, the Black Marsh team had questions about cities and worldspaces that I tried to answer as best I could for them, overall though it would help our teams become more cohesive, and make more use of our affiliation.

[DarkAsmodeous]

Razorwing, I would love the expanded responsibilty of PR, and I think I have somewhat of an affinity for it. Contacting people and garnering enthuesiasm is something I love to do, and I desire to do more for the project (sorry siegfried about the short delay in contacting your list, my laptop comes in 15 hours, then I'll handle it) I like having titles as well ^^ but I would certainly do a good job.

[X23]

Out of those things I could do PR work, but I've never done it, and would like someone with more experience to handle that. Maybe I could help a bit with whoevers the leader of that.

[Razorwing]

X23: Yes, maybe. =)

Siegfried and DarkAsmodeus: Wicked cool to see you're both interested in PR for Silgrad!

I could be wrong but I get the impression that you (Siegfried) wouldn't really want the position, because as you say you've got your obligations to the Skyrim mod - and I bet that has it's work cut out for ya. So, unless I misunderstood things, I'll go ask the core about your (DarkAsmodeus) interest. =) Your (Siegfried) feedback and ideas would of course be very much appreciated at any time.

We actually already share many of the boards in the "Silgrad Tower Development" category with Vvardenfell, particularly the Lit board I think. Perhaps we could open them up for Skyrim too? I know the category name is misleading... come to think of it, the "Silgrad Tower" portion of the boards is a bit redundant in either case, so maybe I could just remove the ST references from the titles and descriptions?

Oh, and the Faq board is open for that too if you'd like - and I'd be happy to remove the redundant "Silgrad Tower" text bit from it as well in that case.

It's definitely true - and a bit funny - that there are more voice workers than there are dialogue for them to voice Do you think the Acoustic Development board could work, or should I perhaps split it in two?

[X23]

I think we should try to revitalize the other two mods-Valenwood and Elsweyr.
They aren't progressing at all. Valenwood did nothing, and Elsweyr stopped in their tracks. They did have heightmap and some new khajiit races. I heard Arsonide started another mod anyway.

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by X23
I think we should try to revitalize the other two mods-Valenwood and Elsweyr.
They aren't progressing at all. Valenwood did nothing, and Elsweyr stopped in their tracks. They did have heightmap and some new khajiit races. I heard Arsonide started another mod anyway.

Those mods aren't really connected to us though. It's a bit fuzzy, but things just happened that way that Silgrad, Vvardenfell and Skyrim stuck closer together and has perhaps gotten more work done. Still, the jobs I mention above is specifically meant with the Silgrad Tower mod in mind (atm: Blacklight - Reich Parkeep - Steadhelm - Ebbedin).

[X23]

Well, you've posted the Reich Parkeep versions in alot of different forums so thats good. What we basically need to do is to get mod sites to write reviews and previews about our mod like you said. The more that we get to, the more publicity and new modders.

[DarkAsmodeous]

We need to make it clear we are getting work done, have gotten work done, and that their is more work available. Im certain there are many moders out there who desire to be part of a large team, not to mention that if you make someone feel good enough about their work, they will want to make more where it is most apreciated.

[Razorwing]

Yaay, those ideas are great! If we could get fan sites to review our current mod version that would surely generate exposure, as X23 suggests, as would increasing our information to modders as DarkAsmodeus suggests. Steadhelm would play a big part in that, I hope, because at the moment we're a bit stuck in our tracks as far as claims go over at Reich Parkeep, until the interiors are modelled. But I'd rather wait a month for great interiors than have not-as-good interiors right now, so I definitely don't mean to stress or critisize Caligula; he does fantastic work.

Will be interesting to see what the other core members think once they log on for the day.