[IP] Redux of the Redux

[torstan]

So now that we have a nice shiny new forum and so much great work is being done on redesigning it - I was wondering what we Industry Pros would like? Arcana's been darkly hinting about larger schemes afoot for the site as a whole so I thought I'd start a little discussion on here about what we might like.

I've a few questions first and then some initial thoughts.

Question for Arcana: What kind of fancy new bells and whistles are there that we might be able to take advantage of?

Suggestions:
From my point of view, the most important benefit of being an IP here would be having a gallery that could take decent sized images as well as having a clean interface that people could be pointed to - so we could use it for say our 5 best maps. I have my own website for that, but people will come here looking for our work and that would be the most obvious way to help out people wanting to get started.

After that, I guess that it might be useful to have updates on new jobs coming up - but that's mostly done in the main Mapmaking Requests forum. I'm wondering what topics there are that are interesting here that wouldn't necessarily be interesting to the wider readership of the guild? Are there any services that would be useful here?

Obviously I would love there to be a storefront through which we could sell map packs. That would be amazing. But I'm guessing running an e-store is way beyond the scope of Arcana's planned forum redesign. Just as a note though - I believe OneBookshelf and RPGNow take arounf 35% cut and Paizo take 25% for all sales, so you could use those as reasonable numbers for seeing what you might reasoably take as a commission on each sale through the site.

Thoughts?

[Robbie]

I'd like to turn this a bit more into something that supports a business model. There are some vbulletin extensions that I plan on purchasing that will open this site up to be more of a content management system and I'll also offer some users (probably IPs and maybe premium members) the ability to blog. I definitely want to allow IPs to have a more professional "place" here, and I like your idea for larger images...I can probably set that up within the next few days actually.

I also would consider a storefront type approach for selling map related things. And I'd also like to turn the mapmaking requests forum into more of an application than a sub-forum. Having a map request "function" would be a bit more visible than just a sub-forum I think.

All of this will require development of course, and time too...but we're moving that way.

[torstan]

I think concept art and CGHub both do a good job with their member's galleries and if we could move the galleries towards that model - emphasising it's use as you're stand out portfolio pieces - then I think that would be great. I don't know whether you'd want to place more of those thumbnails more visibly on the site as both those sites do, but I'd certainly suggest those as good inspiration.

As for a map storefront I say YES! It's relatively difficult to ge stuff onto the Paizo and RPGNow stores which is a shame because most of the stuff people produce here is saleable quality, and indeed are of much better quality than much of the stuff on those sites. If it's easy to set up - say a very straightforward contract - then I could see a huge benefit to that. You'd have to allow people to sell it elsewhere too, but a non-exclusive sale here should work.

The map request function sounds interesting. I think the forum approach works well at the moment because it allows people to discuss the details in the thread, but if that functionality was wrapped up in the new function it should work.

[Robbie]

I'm planning on being pretty open minded here. I also still wanna implement a more direct affiliation with GP for printing as well.

[torstan]

That's a good idea. He still does the best deals for individual print runs.

Let me know what kind of input you'd like from this side of the aisle when it's appropriate. And thanks again for all your work on the site.

[misteradam]

The site is looking great! I think it would rock for all the IP to have an easily visible and accessable gallery space. Something that helps people find the right cartographer without them having to browse through all of the forum threads and a link to easily contact. Maybe have thumbnails of map styles underneath our names when clicked upon go to the gallery. You could take a cut of profits in exchange for the advertising and effort to create and maintain it.

[Robbie]

Definitely a good idea...I'm not going to go so far as conceptart.org went and have a huge mini-thumbnail page because that really doesn't look good to me...but I think once the CMS is in place, having the site focused more around user (and pro) submitted artwork will be a huge draw. Especially if I have a quick and easy way to view pro work.

[torstan]

Some new thoughts for threads that might be of interest.

* Job rumours. Postings of jobs an opportunities that appear around the web. Not sure this couldn't just go in the main forum though - everyone would probably like to know about open calls and that sort of thing.
* A sticky of all the IP best maps. Until we get the gallery space, a sticky at the top of the IP forum where devs and publishers can go to see the IP five best pieces might work well.
* A listing of good sites to post on to get your work seen.
* A note from publshers on what they want to see in a portfolio

Thoughts?

Oh, and Arcana? I'd definitely go for a blog set-up if such a thing were available.

[DevinNight]

I just wanted to chime in and say the site looks great, it's a lot of work to maintain these boards and it's appreciated.
I'll help out however I can, I don't have the quantity of maps that you guys have yet, but give me time.
I would love a place to find more pro input, a private forum like this where we can display private jobs and get critiques from people you can trust to not take your work and post it elsewhere.
Also anything business related to this job and similar jobs would be great. Even though I have been freelancing for over 15 years I know very little about freelance cartography.
Thanks again.