Layout will be very important in putting our intentions and desires across, also it will play a large part in keeping the attention of the reader. We need a good layout plan where we know what needs to be worked on next, how we need to aproach certain areas and how we can come together to finish and idea in presentable form. It also needs to display the main features whilst maintaining a high detail level throughout.
Points To Consider:
How do we make it look professional and well presented?
Any suggestions on font colors/layout and type?
How will we add new items and information to the proposal?
Can we make it easy to navigate?
What areas do you think we should cover under headings?
Introduction: What the proposal is for, the process we go through, what's its purpose.
Glossary: Numerical list of what is included, where to find it etc.
Layout: An explanation about how the doccy is set out
Ranger Role: What a ranger should be all about. Primary Role, Sub-Roles
The Ranger Tree: A overview of the ranger tree highlighting the 4 tiers, and their repsective roles and integration into the profession.
Tree Breakdown: Go through each branch of the tree individually fucusing on skills, mods, roles. Abilities, counters, knowledge.
Impact on SWG: A detailed review of how we thing ranger would impact the game as a hole, how combat would be changed and how we would fit in. This would be split into 4 areas. Combat, Grouping, Income, Overview
Tactical examples: Some short fictional stories related to the new ranger set up. How would you use them, what possible tactics would arise.
Closing thoughts: A community wide final thought highlighting why we think we should get this, how it would benefit swg and basically anything else we want to add.
In terms of balancing brevety and detail, I'd make sure to include an Executive Summary that pretty much covers the entire document in a few short pages - lots of bullets and lists and just say it all short and sweet. After that, the document can go into lots of detail on all of the areas covered in the summary at the beginning. Doing it this way ensures that you can give the reader the full depth of information but also allow the more impatiant reader to know where we stand. That's my two cents on just one aspect of it. Good luck.
Introduction: What the proposal is for, the process we go through, what's its purpose.
Glossary: Numerical list of what is included, where to find it etc.
Layout: An explanation about how the doccy is set out
Ranger Role: What a ranger should be all about. Primary Role, Sub-Roles
The Ranger Tree: A overview of the ranger tree highlighting the 4 tiers, and their repsective roles and integration into the profession.
Tree Breakdown: Go through each branch of the tree individually fucusing on skills, mods, roles. Abilities, counters, knowledge.
Impact on SWG: A detailed review of how we thing ranger would impact the game as a hole, how combat would be changed and how we would fit in. This would be split into 4 areas. Combat, Grouping, Income, Overview
Tactical examples: Some short fictional stories related to the new ranger set up. How would you use them, what possible tactics would arise.
Closing thoughts: A community wide final thought highlighting why we think we should get this, how it would benefit swg and basically anything else we want to add.
What do you guys think? Any other suggestions?
Message Edited by Owen-Lars on 11-22-200410:42 AM
Glossary should probably be something more like Contents or Index (Glossaries are usually more of a list of definitions).
I personally think it might be better off to give the Ranger 4 sub-roles (or whatever number we end up with) instead of splitting things specifically into trees. The sub-roles would sort of equate with trees but wouldn't necessarily limit placement within those trees (i.e. recon might be a role but both the tracking tree and the wayfaring tree could have skills from it but they can also have skills from other roles). Talking about specific roles is probably better than talking about specific trees. Some sort of suggested placement can be listed within the breakdown (i.e. pathfind should go in wayfaring while tracking should go in tracking/hunt leading) but we should probably work on fleshing out roles instead of fleshing out trees.
Other than that, I think it looks good. I get the feeling there will be quite a bit of overlap (i.e. you will probably get some of the impact portion floating into the breakdown and vice versa) but this should give the Devs something nice to look at. You might want to reserve a bit of extra space for it in the revamp thread, though.
So do we post here what we think the rangers should be able to do? or save that for another thread? I've been a ranger eversince i started and I've got some ideas. Not many but a couple that i feel would greatly make us more valuable yet not change the overall balance of the game.
In this thread we talk about the layout we want for the doc and how we think it should be presented. The next focus will be ranger roles etc, what you think the ranger roles should be.
Save your ideas for another focus because they will come in handy.
You are on the right track. If you take the introduction of the profession and spice it up with a fictional story that covers the aspects of being a Ranger would set the hook for the reader to read all of the Ranger Profession.
My question is how detailed do we as a Ranger community want to go with this. There can be volumes of Ranger items to discuss from hunting, trapping, and tracking techniques.
Lupas Octuras
Master Ranger / TKA
Infinity Ranger
Looking for the Altarian Ranger Movement on Infinity
Thats completely up to you guys. And we can develope it as we go. At first i propose we be as detailed as possible, then when it comes to the editing phase (near completion) we add everything together and take out the 'crap' we dont need.
Thats completely up to you guys. And we can develope it as we go. At first i propose we be as detailed as possible, then when it comes to the editing phase (near completion) we add everything together and take out the 'crap' we dont need.
But "crap" goes in the appendix. If it's good enough to be put in to begin with, it's good enough to stay somewhere in the end where the Devs might just see it anyway.
Thats completely up to you guys. And we can develope it as we go. At first i propose we be as detailed as possible, then when it comes to the editing phase (near completion) we add everything together and take out the 'crap' we dont need.
But "crap" goes in the appendix. If it's good enough to be put in to begin with, it's good enough to stay somewhere in the end where the Devs might just see it anyway.
hehehehe....
the beginning outline with specific body is a good following.
outline will be more of a brief summary (as someone else has mentioned) to get the dev's prepped for what we're proposing (kind of like reading the questions that you have to answer for a book you're reading before reading so you can make a mental note of what to look for).
Hakai Youkai
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Hakai's Hardware
(-211, -5812) (6197, 4326)
Hunting outfitter since 9/22/03
Anchorhead, and Mos Tyrenia, Tatooine
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I would suggest that the "why" element be brought more to the fore than just included in the closing thoughts which it seems to be. Really this could be treated as a set of "user requirements", with each statement in the Ranger Tree and Tree Breakdown (which I assume is where the proposals will sit) that is asked for supported by a justification and maybe even a priority. It then seems to me that the other sections would support these 2, adding context and providing the game environment that the new improved Ranger would operate within.
Regards Tar
-- Tar Antas Soldier of The Empire
Mags Ocos Master Tailor Tailor Vendors at -2922 2092, Nr Imperial Outpost, Talus
"But "crap" goes in the appendix. If it's good enough to be put in to begin with, it's good enough to stay somewhere in the end where the Devs might just see it anyway"
Yeah hehe, just trying to say we can go into how much detail we want then 'refine' the information into something more managable in the editing stage. We can always have like you say, an appendixes where all the extre info goes. This doc needs to be very readable though, its not only for us, its to represent our goals.
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