[After much deliberation and Sticky-reading, I *think* this is germane and appropriate, here. Move to Connections (?) or just delete it, if not.]
Hi, folks;

This is just an FYI to let everyone on this forum know that I have created the beginnings of the main site for GLASS: Generic Live Action Simulation System, which is still in development (though approaching Gold Candidate for the system).

Check it out here:
http://glasscutters.org

At the moment, there's a BAREBONES Under Construction page and (nearly fully) setup Forums. The Forums is where all the "action" will be until I have final PDF for shotGLASS and links to a POD provider for the full book (and/or a Shopping Cart system). After that, discussions will continue (I hope) but the "main" functionality of the site will be a character and game registration and association database.

Sign up and let me know what you think about GLASS, the forums, and (eventually) the whole site. Also, the forums will always be a means to promote or seek GLASS games, not to mention gaming-related vendors (or customers). If you're planning a GLASS game, it's not a bad place to start promotion. But for the time being, it should be all about the system finalizations (v1.2 Gold will be up within a week; lots of new additions since v1.1).

Thanks for reading (and not deleting, if I have strayed);
David Artman

Hi David !!!

Glad to see your site coming to life (this is really the part that interests me in GLASS. Sorry for that, but I'm better off talking epublishing than rules).

That said, I would see this conversation on the forge maybe as a publishing matter ... For instance :
What do you expect of people subscribing to your forum, beside reading and commeting GLASS ?
Does your forum has any "internal" functions (for instance, for Avalanche, I do have a private forum for work among us only. No public forum yet) ?
How do you plan on using the site ?
What do you plan for the first page ? I guess it won't stay "under construction" for long, so what will you put there (for instance, for Avalanche, we are still in construction, but with a few things on the webpage and we wanted it to be as attractive as possible) ?

I think a first "alpha" site is a very good idea for any epublisher (after all, for GLASS, your goal is to sell as much a service as a book), but I think you need to clearly identify its goal (especially in the early stage) and purposes. Need any help with that ?

Well, at the moment, I am under some pressure to "lock down" the system soon, so that a group can begin to use it to define their game. As such, I am not really wanting to take time away from that to do all the "front end" design for the site: pretty headings, navigation, etc.

Further, there's little need for that later-stage work, at the moment, because the navigation would just point to database engines which aren't yet written (game registration, character registration, and associations b/t the two) or to POD providers (no book yet, though) and shotGLASS download (already there, as text link).

But, yes, in time it will be far more functional, and yes, I have changed my business model somewhat: access to GLASS Cutters will always be free, and I am going to run it with ad revenue (ideally, only serving ads for gaming, costuming, props, etc). I might still have an ad-free, monthly subscription model; but I'm going to let the end users tell me what that's worth to them before I set it up.

SO... for the time being, the help I need is with readers, testers (in play or just making up characters to figure power level points breaks), and general feedback (editorial, organizational) on the System Test Document. For now, the Forums are the only things to "use" because they're all I "need."

Thanks!
David

Well, David don't get me wrong here, I'm just trying to help ...

I'm definitly not talking about full navigation on the website or nothing even close to your database. As I understand it, you have an unfinished product, GLASS, for which you want comment, return on experience of play, or even characters creation. Your website (and its forum) is not the launch of your product, it is more a public working place dedicated to GLASS. Which is fine with me. That's a start, I know how it feels (you're being hosted, you've got your domain name).
But still, I think you want people to participate in it and download GLASS. So, please :
- Present yourself
- Present what GLASS is, what it does, how it is different. Tell me why I should download it. Make me want to download it.
- Explain the purpose of your forum

I'm not taking about much time here, just a little. The little work that will make the difference, in my opinion, for you to acheive your goals. Unless you only count on the people coming from forums and already know what you're doing. But, once you're there (and there you are David), you don't know from where the people will be coming. And you want those people to download GLASS and take a look around.
For myself, doing much to nothing (I'm less active than you on forums) I come to have around 85 downloads of the teaser of Avalanche by month. Not bad. And my website comes out of very strange web research, people who really don't have a clue about what I'm doing, maybe not even what RPG is.

As for the help for GLASS, I'll see if I can find the time to try create some characters and see how it goes. And, if so, I'll keep you inform on your forum.