July monthly review.
One year!
Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:54 pm Post subject: D.R.A.I.C.H. - Table of Contents (Druchii's Art of War)
One year ago, a new army book was released for us to explore, triggering a lot of enthusiasm for sharing experience. A plan was set, authors were identified.
One year after, you can see the result, and it is quite different from what was considered.
The plan that was set did not develop as expected (not a surprise: see Note 1 in second post). However, thread after thread, pretty much all topics were covered, in a somehow lesser elaborate way, with the many hyperlinks collected in the detailed Table of Contents. It's not as convenient and well written as hoped for, but at least something is available on all topics.
Many doubted and warned that the task was too huge and relied naively on dubbious goodwill. Indeed, many a promise was not fulfilled. However, even if the D.R.A.I.C.H. did not achive all that was hoped, at least it did incite several authors to write good articles which probably would not have been written if not for the D.R.A.I.C.H..
These articles are not "living" as I wished, i.e. they are not maintained, with the single exception of
tmr updating his
D.R.A.I.C.H. - Complementary material on a regular basis, and of course, with the Table of Contents itself, which has become progressively much more than the mere backbone of the D.R.A.I.C.H., thanks to a total of... 1150 edits.
The quality of the result is not as good as readers wish. Too many threads with too little interesting content. It requries time to review them all, select the most interesting ideas and arrange them in a clearly written thread.
I told those who criticize that it's up to them to devote some of their time to improve the D.R.A.I.C.H., as a result I've received less criticism but still little help!
Experience shows that initial ambitions often do not result in finished work. It must not prevent us to have ambitions and to start working, and some result is actually achieved.
Present situation.
For stat lovers, there are 16710 views as I write.
Reading back the stats of views, the trend is to have 1100 more views per month, rather constant since January, slightly down from 1300 per month last year.
The D.R.A.I.C.H. has now achieved its goal to help all of us to get a quicker grasp to our new army book. Seasoned gamers have now experienced the various aspects of the new army book, and have tried their ideas. No more theoryhammering is needed for them. The D.R.A.I.C.H. is of little help anymore to them.
New gamers keep coming to Dark Elves. I believe that they are now the ones who find in the D.R.A.I.C.H. the most useful information.
The future of the D.R.A.I.C.H.
As I said in February, I will devote less time to the D.R.A.I.C.H. now that it has matured. Little more threads need to be added (although it still happens).
There is a greater requirement to reduce the D.R.A.I.C.H. than to increase it.
One possibility is to take one topic after another one, create a new thread with the summary of all linked threads on that topic, and receive comments.
For example, from the character section, there could be summaries about:
- Khainites characters
- Weapons for non-Khainite warrior characters
- Mounts for warriors characters
- Sorceresses' equipments (a lot has been said by Dyvim Tvar in his threads about magic).
- A discussion about the special characters
Five threads are easier to swallow than one larger.
Another example is the anti-strategy. Each of the opposite race deserves a single thread, with a summary of all the good ideas scattered in several threads.
I'd like one of the D.R.A.I.C.H. readers to do that. If nobody does, I may do it myself, as I did in June for the beginners's section, but if I'm alone it will take a lot of time and I'd rather receive some help and let others be praised for their work.
No more monthly review.
As long as the project does not evolve much anymore, there is no reason to review a plan of action and milestones.
..__
.(°°).Now I'm going in summer leave, with my favourite pet
Squiddy.
./()\
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for all who participated, especially warm for those who finished what they endeavoured.
Calisson.
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EDIT 24th July 09. Action taken following "The future of the D.R.A.I.C.H." paragraph.
Help me to improve the D.R.A.I.C.H.
EDIT 19 Feb 10. Previous thread split, with the call for help with the antitactica to be found there:
If you play another army, could you tell how to beat it?
EDIT 18th August 09. Action taken to simplify the presentation of the D.R.A.I.C.H..
No more % showing the progress of D.R.A.I.C.H. sub-chapters, as they are not progressing anymore.
Instead, I included the hyperlinks in the relevant part of the ToC.