IÆve A problemàà

[Triple F]

à.. DonÆt know why itÆs developed into one but it has, and so IÆve hit a ôcreativeö brick wall.

Some of you might remember I put a page together (learning java at the time) listing B5 ships using flash animations of 3d models, it was incomplete and was always going to be expanded. I finished the last of the models a couple of weeks ago so it will now contain every ship design ever seen in the B5 universe. I also took the opportunity to greatly improve the quality of the graphics, and a few other tweaks/additions including browser compatibility, as a sort of natural progression of becoming more familiar with the various software, so visually it does look pretty darn good, even when compared with the original version.

And thatÆs the problem.

It dawned on me that many of the people who would ever see this are, excuse the term, ôhard coreö fans, youÆd have spent years browsing or discussing a wide variety of topics concerning many aspects of B5, read the books, saw the magazine been to the conferences, played the game and viewed the released scripts.

So, visually the site is pretty unique and nice, but actual written content wise, I canÆt think of anything to match it. Originally I wrote a little bit of fictional blurb under each ship, containing stats and how they fit in B5 which is all well and nice but is really pretty lame.

This time round I thought IÆd add in information concerning the 3DS models themselves, - but that takes up all of 2 line or a full list of canon references (and where to find them in the various shows) û but the amount varies widely from ship to ship, from none to over a page, IÆve even drawn up a list of canon references to the various races, made little movie clips considered adding a database of sound effects but none of it really ôworksö or is just more visual/audio candy and not written information. I started doing actor biographies but that just seemed weird and a bit overly intrusive writing about people so dropped that like a hot brick.

IÆm basically at a loss on what to add text wise, so thought IÆd ask some of you (those hard core fans) what would you like to see in a site which lists all the B5 ships. And no IÆm not putting nude photoÆs of the cast in.

HELP

Cheers.

[edit]
If you 've never seen the original, A link to the old site is in the signature, but you will need broad band and IE 6 to make it work.

[prometheous]

The B5 tech manual sites a good start for some information, also the earthforce source book and the EFNI site that far from being Canon is still an interesting and imaginative take on the EA ships at least.

[Triple F]

You see thatÆs the problem IÆm having, visually itÆs pretty unique, and IÆm not sure if I can do the same with the written side of it.

Should it be more factual or fiction based, or what approach to take, humour, cold stats with lots of explanations, like I said, IÆm basically jiggered. Maybe there is no real new way of doing it and just expanding a little on the type of things thatÆs there (and has been done before on other sites) is the (only)way to really go.

I was asking on the off chance that there was a feeling that something was missing from other sites which people would like to be see gathered on the one location û and was ship/model related.

[prometheous]

Go for somewhere in between, the show obviously filled in a lot of the important stuff, however a lot of stuff, for example the qualitative strengths of ships like: can an omega class destroyer take a Narn cruiser, so on so forth. organisations and quantitative strengths of fleets are pretty open to conjecture too, just take a stab at it really

[Dr Maturin]

I'd stay away from the Mongoose books. The ones that I have sampled are highly inaccurate.

[Triple F]

Oh I hear you on the whole AOG/Mongoose thing.

IÆve spent and interesting afternoon trying to track things down in the hope of going for a more factual and informative angle. Man, is the net a wonderful depository of information, most of it contradictory, confusing full of assumptions, false quotes, mis-types and self proclaimed experts using hindsight as a sledgehammer.

ItÆs so bad that I canÆt say with any degree of certainty if Tim Earls or Ron Thornton was the actual designer of the final White Star û never mind the size of it (I get and agree with the obvious size/plot thing).

And if that sort of info is not reliably available for such an important ship the other 140 odd IÆve done have no chance.

I donÆt suppose anyone has any contact address for people who actually worked on the CGI (and might be prepared to talk about it), either Foundation Imaging or Netter Digital.

ItÆs getting to the point that the only way to do something really different on this is to take a more critical, and therefore more judgemental/negative view on how things where done and eventually developed/degenerated, as interesting as it could be IÆd rather not go there.

[jal]

it`s a really lovely site.

just put on your body armour and be prepared for the insane instant hostility from rabid gamers and B5 nit pickers.

[Triple F]

Thats the "old" one the new one is a fare bit prettier, I think I'm developing a workable angle, but I'm not posting it here right now as it might be a bit too sarcastic, so I'm letting my "home" lol forum read it first.