Forums of the Megaverse®

Almost 15 years later, Palladium still isn't planning on doing a d20 conversion, right?


_{Maybe that could be unstickied?}

Well AFAIK, you're the first to suggest that. Which means that thread should remain visible for at least another seven years.

The boards as a whole need a facelift.

This. There are too many boards with not enough traffic to justify the current layout anymore.

When I first saw this post I thought it was odd and maybe petty. Who cares if it's still there. Then I thought of all the pruning they did to topics that people where actually using and I agree 100%. Why delete a thread that was posted on 3 months ago instead of one that no one has even looked at in a decade.


Two problems here. One people, including me, were a little upset when they did the big pruning of the boards a few months ago. Any "facelift" would almost certainly involve this. Two CN hit the real problem when he talked about there not being enough traffic, there just aren't enough users to justify the time needed to do the job right.

I'm still angry that we lost the original "Today I" and the "What Are You Listening To Today?" threads. So much of this forums history has been lost because of that. Our mods do a good job in my opinion, but I would love it if the boards felt like they represented the spirit of community and continuity a bit better in how they are managed.

I mean seriously, can you imagine if they started trimming the Rifts board of the Fantasy board like that? How much would we lose? That to me is the biggest flaw here.

Depends on your organizational choices, and how you work it.

So, let's go with a big reorg. Currently, there are 40 separate boards, in 8 headings. (Excluding any backchannel boards, like for Freelancers or Moderators; I'm not counting those.)

First, up top, we have Links Across the Megaverse, Murmurs from the Megaverse, and Megaverse phpBB Bugs/Wishlist. Pretty basic stuff for a message board supporting a company... "Give us feedback", "Here is external stuff we think you'd like", and "This is unofficial announcements and statements from the company." All three need to be separate. This would be heading 1, "Palladium Books", with 3 boards.

Then, "All Things Palladium Books". This could contain the Rifter, Megaversal Ambassadors, and Palladium Open House boards; those topics are not hugely active, and putting them into the ATPB board would give them a bit more prominence. If the system supports tagging, they could be specifically tagged (even if not, tags could be added manually). I would also move the general rules sections up here... GM Forum, Guild of Magic and Psionics, and a "Megaversal Rules Question" section for cross-setting talk; this would include the Q&A and Archive; the Archive hasn't been updated in almost 9 years, there's no need for it to be separate. Putting these sections at the top gives them more prominence, and might avoid some of the "This could have been answered elsewhere" . but the slight rules changes between systems (i.e. "That clause is left out of the description in Palladium Fantasy") can throw you. This gives us our second heading, and 4 more boards.

Next, Worlds. Don't separate MDC/SDC; there's no need, and it creates clutter. Combine Rifts and Rifts Dimension Books. Combine the two Robotech boards. Again, tags can clear this up (Robotech board users might us [M], [SC], [II], [M2], [RTT]). Palladium Fantasy sees a fair bit of traffic*, as do Heroes Unlimited, Splicers, Nightbane and BTS, so those might remain their own sections. Everything else goes in an "Other Worlds" board, with tagging. 8 more boards, in 3 headings.

Expanded Palladium Megaverse. Combine Movie, Promise of Power, and Podcasts here... we don't need 4 boards for 16 year old video game, a movie that was optioned more than a decade ago, and two podcasts. This one is "Palladium Books Multimedia". I would also include Classified, Game Room Announcements, and Gamers Looking for Other Gamers (combine the last two; you could probably combine all three, though Classified is the odd man out, there, it also has more or less no traffic). Since it's the Expanded Palladium Megaverse, I would include Savage Rifts and the Board Game down here (and maybe RTT), perhaps under "Games in the Megaverse"; none of them have the traffic on their own, one of them is outright locked, and the third kinda fits in two places, so flip a coin. 3 more boards.

Lastly, "Social Boards". Down to two: Sound Off and "Games and Media"... The latter for other games (including the "Word Association" game), the former for raging ******** like myself to argue about why everyone else is wrong. Two boards, 1 heading (pun not intended)

Final design looks like this
-Invisible Backchannel Boards (I'm a mod on another site, and want these up top so I can see them)
--Backchannel 1
--Backchannel 2

-Palladium Books
--Palladium Announcements
--Links Across the Megaverse
--Murmurs from the Megaverse

-Megaversal
--All Things Palladium Books
--Megaversal Rules Questions
--Guild of Magic and Psionics
--GMs Forum

-Worlds of the Megaverse
--Rifts
--Palladium Fantasy
--Heroes Unlimited
--Nightbane
--Beyond the Supernatural
--Robotech
--Splicers
--Other Worlds

-Expanded Megaverse
--Palladium Multimedia
--Playing Palladium Games
--Games in the Megaverse

-Palladium of Desires
--Games and Media
--"The Back Room" (i.e. Sound Off)

Now, crucially, this does not involve deleting anything, just moving things; when Rifts and Rifts Dimension books get combined, you have 1 forum with ~20k topics. You have a smaller Table of Contents (from 8 categories and 40 boards to 5 categories and 20 boards, if my counting is right), which means you have less dead space... boards that have little to no traffic.


*Fair amount of traffic: "How far back do posts on the first page go at Mark's settings?" Fantasy & HU don't show any posts not in 2020. Nightbane shows posts back to May of 2019. BTS July of 2019. My gut says Splicers does not need its own board, but the criteria I laid out says that it does (this is why we establish criteria, to avoid bias). Dead Reign, ATB, goes back to 2018; N&SS 2017; Systems Failure has first page posts from 2011, Mechanoids 2009, and Recon 2014. Chaos Earth, OTOH, does not need its own board; its visible posts go back to 2016. These do not necessarily need to be their own topics.

it seams better but with the Worlds of PB I would use a different order

-Worlds of the Megaverse
--Splicers
--Rifts
--Robotech
--Palladium Fantasy
--Heroes Unlimited
--Nightbane
--Beyond the Supernatural
--Other Worlds

And I would keep the longest running topic "word association" slotting it into the 'Games & Media' forum.

Maybe have the Rifts forum split into three sub forums: CS earth, CE earth and the 3G.

My organization was somewhat arbitrary; did you have a reason for this particular one?



Already mentioned, but definitely.

Like with like groupings.
Top three are MDC
Rest are SDC

D20 conversion ? For D&D3.5 ? Not a chance in hell it will happen
Kevin was quite clear about that 15 years ago.