Better Business Bureau [Feedback & Advice]

[Diaboland]

I don't know if this is the place to post this, but I just opened the Diablian stock market and I'm so excited!

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=518601

[Sorci]

Quick question for those with more experience here than I -- Which would be more helpful for future browsers of my products: to fully write up my product pages first or to first post and format my storefront?

For more information, I plan on writing up a MT or MT+ military storefront with a focus on small arms and ground combat vehicles. I have no real method for creating images of any of my products at the moment, but have a passing knowledge of BBC code for formatting purposes.

[Neu Engollon]

Quick question for those with more experience here than I -- Which would be more helpful for future browsers of my products: to fully write up my product pages first or to first post and format my storefront?

For more information, I plan on writing up a MT or MT+ military storefront with a focus on small arms and ground combat vehicles. I have no real method for creating images of any of my products at the moment, but have a passing knowledge of BBC code for formatting purposes.

It's a military storefront. If you want to stand out from the mediocre and run with the big dogs, and I think you know who I mean (I am excluding myself from that)...and I think you do as indicated by the fact that you are even worried about decent formatting, then...

I think it's not an either/or situation of format or product write-ups coming first. You should be patient and get it all together - images, formatting, products stats, any other content such as company history. Test it out in post preview without actually hitting that 'Submit' button, to make sure it works. Then, if you don't already, use some sort of doc or text program to get it all laid out before you starting putting it in a thread.
You will be glad you waited to make a shiny, slick thread you can be proud of. Or intertwined purchasing and catalog threads as the case may be.

Then...feel free to use that 'Edit' button as needed when you think of more stuff. No one is going to think any less of you for improving upon your work.

[Sorci]

-snip for brevity-

It's a military storefront. If you want to stand out from the mediocre and run with the big dogs, and I think you know who I mean (I am excluding myself from that)...and I think you do as indicated by the fact that you are even worried about decent formatting, then...

I definitely plan on standing out, but have also been looking up to those extremely well made storefronts for quite a while now. I'm working under the assumption that it takes months of work to reach even an iota of that professionalism.

I think it's not an either/or situation of format or product write-ups coming first. You should be patient and get it all together - images, formatting, products stats, any other content such as company history. Test it out in post preview without actually hitting that 'Submit' button, to make sure it works. Then, if you don't already, use some sort of doc or text program to get it all laid out before you starting putting it in a thread.

I concur on the doc/text program, and learned that lesson very early on when posting large projects. Don't wanna lost hours of work by closing a tab. On the topic of images, is there any program or method that you would recommend? The pixel art that everyone's using looks amazing, but I have no idea whatsoever how to start.

You will be glad you waited to make a shiny, slick thread you can be proud of. Or intertwined purchasing and catalog threads as the case may be.

Indeed. This is a time sink like no other.

[Marquesan]

Quick question for those with more experience here than I -- Which would be more helpful for future browsers of my products: to fully write up my product pages first or to first post and format my storefront?

For more information, I plan on writing up a MT or MT+ military storefront with a focus on small arms and ground combat vehicles. I have no real method for creating images of any of my products at the moment, but have a passing knowledge of BBC code for formatting purposes.

Oh, mine are ongoing. The process of revision is constant. When I'm developing a new product, I start with research, and I look at real-world examples before I write. Any new project starts with data-compiling and math; only when the numbers are frozen do I write my descriptions, and only when that is done do I think about the art, but I'm weird about that. The design lives in my mind most clearly and I've worked really hard in the past to find art that represented my idea, and not the other way around. Lately, I've been commissioning artists like Myric, Nachmere and Lauzanne to draw for me, and the results have been stunning.

As far as formatting, I tend to keep works in progress in a separate thread so I can work on them as I have time, a bit here and a bit there. I've been working on reorganizing my military and found Excel indispensable for making it make sense. The best advice I could give you is to read your finished work from a perspective of "If I knew absolutely nothing about this thing, could I buy it from this storefront and have the information I need in the writeup to write with whatever it is, to be precise, to know what it can and can't do." If you read your own work and it doesn't make sense from that perspective, rewrite. My pet peeve in formatting is unbroken gigantic walls of unformatted text, so taking the time to make it look -nice- scores big points with some of us old folks.

[Sorci]

-snip cause that's myself-

Oh, mine are ongoing. The process of revision is constant. When I'm developing a new product, I start with research, and I look at real-world examples before I write. Any new project starts with data-compiling and math; only when the numbers are frozen do I write my descriptions, and only when that is done do I think about the art, but I'm weird about that. The design lives in my mind most clearly and I've worked really hard in the past to find art that represented my idea, and not the other way around. Lately, I've been commissioning artists like Myric, Nachmere and Lauzanne to draw for me, and the results have been stunning.

As far as formatting, I tend to keep works in progress in a separate thread so I can work on them as I have time, a bit here and a bit there. I've been working on reorganizing my military and found Excel indispensable for making it make sense. The best advice I could give you is to read your finished work from a perspective of "If I knew absolutely nothing about this thing, could I buy it from this storefront and have the information I need in the writeup to write with whatever it is, to be precise, to know what it can and can't do." If you read your own work and it doesn't make sense from that perspective, rewrite. My pet peeve in formatting is unbroken gigantic walls of unformatted text, so taking the time to make it look -nice- scores big points with some of us old folks.

Thank you to much for the advice. The past week of effort been a lot more work than I expected, but I think that's a good thing in the long run. More effort means better products... I hope. My apologies in advance if you can't answer this question, but are there any examples of storefronts or products here on NS that work particularly well? I'd love to avoid falling into the infodumping trap if I can.

[Marquesan]

Oh, mine are ongoing. The process of revision is constant. When I'm developing a new product, I start with research, and I look at real-world examples before I write. Any new project starts with data-compiling and math; only when the numbers are frozen do I write my descriptions, and only when that is done do I think about the art, but I'm weird about that. The design lives in my mind most clearly and I've worked really hard in the past to find art that represented my idea, and not the other way around. Lately, I've been commissioning artists like Myric, Nachmere and Lauzanne to draw for me, and the results have been stunning.

As far as formatting, I tend to keep works in progress in a separate thread so I can work on them as I have time, a bit here and a bit there. I've been working on reorganizing my military and found Excel indispensable for making it make sense. The best advice I could give you is to read your finished work from a perspective of "If I knew absolutely nothing about this thing, could I buy it from this storefront and have the information I need in the writeup to write with whatever it is, to be precise, to know what it can and can't do." If you read your own work and it doesn't make sense from that perspective, rewrite. My pet peeve in formatting is unbroken gigantic walls of unformatted text, so taking the time to make it look -nice- scores big points with some of us old folks.

Thank you to much for the advice. The past week of effort been a lot more work than I expected, but I think that's a good thing in the long run. More effort means better products... I hope. My apologies in advance if you can't answer this question, but are there any examples of storefronts or products here on NS that work particularly well? I'd love to avoid falling into the infodumping trap if I can.

I mean, not to shamelessly self-promote, but Royal Marquesan Exports products are all written to be understandable and to be usable at different levels of technical understanding. I provide the specs in numbers and a written description of the capabilities. I then typically provide a real-world comparison to a similar product plucked from Wikipedia. I finish each product with some of the relevant research links I used in developing the product, to "show my homework" and I make sure all that is formatted to not present you with a gigantic wall of text when you first look at the product. Here's an example:

HKD.965R2 "Damballa" class Destroyer

With ship designs, it always annoys me when the product page gives range and speed but not endurance, or vice versa. I always give you how long it will take for your ship to travel x distance. Everybody has maps, most are scaled. If you know that your ships can transit whatever body of water in six days and your enemies would take ten, you have a qualitative edge in planning. I penned my designs for the vast expanses of Gholgoth; each grid square on our map is 2,500 nautical miles. This ship, in particular, is built to dominate Gothic seas, not an easy feat.

Missile descriptions, I try to do a little more briefly. The Misericorde missile is a fantastic balance of traits. The idea with every product was that I've copied no number directly from any real-world product. So, Misericorde is like many real-world missiles, while being truly made for the game, from subsystems up.

As far as other storefronts on the game go, (and prefacing this by saying that me not mentioning anybody is not calling anybody out by omission) I particularly like Etoile Arcture's storefront, Consortia. Technocratic Syndacalist's storefront, SDI is absolutely first-rate. Of course, I have to shout-out Lauzanne, who painstakingly researches and works out real world functionalities for what he draws for Lauzanexport. Allanea, goes without saying, is a fixture on Nationstates; the game wouldn't be the same without him or Allanean Defense Exports. There are lots of great ones, and as you get to know the game better, you'll come across some of these wonderful people that make the game that much cooler.

Oh, one last thing. About the research, the more you do, the more it shows. The better you understand the product, the better you understand what information is relevant to include, and what isn't. I'm always evaluating what's in the product page for "could knowing this substantially effect gameplay?" If it doesn't effing matter, I try not to waste spece describing it. Like...metallurgy. It's one thing to say what it's made of, it's another to try and design custom metals, etc. I am guilty of having done this in the past and it's something I try to actively quash in my own work now.

[Alfordshire]

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=520027

Heavily WIP, anything I can do to get this off the ground?

[Gothian Crimea]

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=520027

Heavily WIP, anything I can do to get this off the ground?

I'm no expert on running stores, but I like to use the "hr" lines on both sides of text to make nice little bars. Speaking of that your hr lines are best used compactly, otherwise they produce lots of white space.

Code: Select all

line line [hr][/hr]
text tex[/box]


line line

---

text text

But if you do THIS

Code: Select all

line line [hr][/hr]text text


Then you get this

line line

---

text text

Not the box part, I added that to show the examples, I mean the spacing.

---

Also, if you take a look at the 3rd post here Cygnus Arms you can see a custom section. Since you are building boats, the ability to make hulls to their need can be VERY useful.
Also I noticed you won't/can't do certain weapons together, meanwhile Cygnus would strap a death star laser to a dirt bike.
Unrelated, but you should PROBABLY make yourself a flag, your current one gives off the feeling of someone not familiar with the game, as it is the generic one.

[Femcia]

Hello.
I'm kind of in a existential crisis right now. I wander if, even, these types of things are authorized on NS roleplays or not. Here a peek of what I've worked on on a dispatch.

AVA Seashell
Light ATV
Description: Fast and light ATV capable of military, diplomatic and economy matters.
Resistance: +++
Attack: ++
Speed: +++++
Price: $


AVA C4
Medium ATV
Description: Medium weighted and armored ATV capable of military, diplomatic and economy matters.
Resistance: ++++
Attack: +++
Speed: ++++
Price: $$

It looks like that and so on with other vehicles.
What is the problem is that it takes hours to make units in a -slightly- more realistic style like these of mine:

Tetra
Main battle tank

Description: Fast armored light tank. 2 crew.
Resistance: ++
Attack: ++
Speed: +++
Price: $$

Quarrel
Main battle tank

Description: Armored medium tank. 3 crew.
Resistance: +++
Attack: ++++
Speed: ++
Price: $$$

I'd kind of worked around that they may, could, somehow, be converted to a boardgame unit (which is kind of my objective) like rolling a d20 with 1 in bonus for when it have more + than another unit or i don't know.
In fact I'd really like to be useful to this community and work on lots of assets and arts. It would be kind of strange maybe for some but. I just get to feel I'm useful existing. I feel really great fulfillment when I'm complimented on my arts and its kind of whats really keep me going, since I've started worldbuilding worlds, adventures and ttrpg campaigns, and nowadays, Nations and stuff.
So I'm kind of reaching out to you to know better what I would have to do or not. I can't draw cause of dyspraxia, and I don't yet feel like wasting huge amount of money and time on actual 3d models (Which I'm not exactly mastering for now). So should I do illustration pictures on Spore, or on Mecabricks -the thing for Legos modelling- or should I stick to no arts and more scientific units and descriptions? I feel like a lot of people are on the realistic side -which is totally understandable- meanwhile it is a long research process and quite not the fun and energic roleplays I'd like to have in conflicts? If ever I'm in some anyways. I'm not that interested in actual conflict RPing for all that matter, I'd prefer making competitions and boardgames probably. I think I've found that, different groups can set different rules? That is what is wonderful in these roleplaying, because games have too much rules to follow to make them fun. I'd like some tips and advices on how to rule a good store without having to work on it more than like, sleeping.
Thanks for anything!

[Santheres]

Hello.
I'm kind of in a existential crisis right now. I wander if, even, these types of things are authorized on NS roleplays or not.

Here a peek of what I've worked on on a dispatch.

(Image)
AVA Seashell
Light ATV
Description: Fast and light ATV capable of military, diplomatic and economy matters.
Resistance: +++
Attack: ++
Speed: +++++
Price: $

(Image)
AVA C4
Medium ATV
Description: Medium weighted and armored ATV capable of military, diplomatic and economy matters.
Resistance: ++++
Attack: +++
Speed: ++++
Price: $$

It looks like that and so on with other vehicles.
What is the problem is that it takes hours to make units in a -slightly- more realistic style like these of mine:

Tetra
Main battle tank
(Image)
Description: Fast armored light tank. 2 crew.
Resistance: ++
Attack: ++
Speed: +++
Price: $$

Quarrel
Main battle tank
(Image)
Description: Armored medium tank. 3 crew.
Resistance: +++
Attack: ++++
Speed: ++
Price: $$$

I'd kind of worked around that they may, could, somehow, be converted to a boardgame unit (which is kind of my objective) like rolling a d20 with 1 in bonus for when it have more + than another unit or i don't know.
In fact I'd really like to be useful to this community and work on lots of assets and arts. It would be kind of strange maybe for some but. I just get to feel I'm useful existing. I feel really great fulfillment when I'm complimented on my arts and its kind of whats really keep me going, since I've started worldbuilding worlds, adventures and ttrpg campaigns, and nowadays, Nations and stuff.
So I'm kind of reaching out to you to know better what I would have to do or not. I can't draw cause of dyspraxia, and I don't yet feel like wasting huge amount of money and time on actual 3d models (Which I'm not exactly mastering for now). So should I do illustration pictures on Spore, or on Mecabricks -the thing for Legos modelling- or should I stick to no arts and more scientific units and descriptions? I feel like a lot of people are on the realistic side -which is totally understandable- meanwhile it is a long research process and quite not the fun and energic roleplays I'd like to have in conflicts? If ever I'm in some anyways. I'm not that interested in actual conflict RPing for all that matter, I'd prefer making competitions and boardgames probably. I think I've found that, different groups can set different rules? That is what is wonderful in these roleplaying, because games have too much rules to follow to make them fun. I'd like some tips and advices on how to rule a good store without having to work on it more than like, sleeping.
Thanks for anything!

Pretty much anything is fine. There's no such thing as being "authorized" on NS RPs. The question remains of if there will be any interest/response to what you have, but you are certainly free to use it.

[Imperial Majapahit]

Hello everyone, question for GE&T experts. I'm thinking of starting an international development initiative akin to China's BRI. Would GE&T be the forum the post that in, or does that kind of stuff belong in NationStates? Thanks in advance!

[Neu Engollon]

Hello everyone, question for GE&T experts. I'm thinking of starting an international development initiative akin to China's BRI. Would GE&T be the forum the post that in, or does that kind of stuff belong in NationStates? Thanks in advance!

I think you could comfortably fit that into GE&T. What kind of participation are you looking for from other players?

[Japuile]

I feel very bad for not having an idea, so if I could ask for some help on how to put it all together. I've been reviewing all this and it scares me, especially since I'm as much of an IT guy as a volcano is a life creator...

[Neu Engollon]

I feel very bad for not having an idea, so if I could ask for some help on how to put it all together. I've been reviewing all this and it scares me, especially since I'm as much of an IT guy as a volcano is a life creator...

You want an idea? What do you like to watch, do, read about? What in this forum appeals to you? What would best help you to complete your canon (world building) for your nation, as far as products it might manufacture, or resources it might offer or need?

[Japuile]

I feel very bad for not having an idea, so if I could ask for some help on how to put it all together. I've been reviewing all this and it scares me, especially since I'm as much of an IT guy as a volcano is a life creator...

You want an idea? What do you like to watch, do, read about? What in this forum appeals to you? What would best help you to complete your canon (world building) for your nation, as far as products it might manufacture, or resources it might offer or need?

In my case, it's tourism, but I'm not entirely sure if it would be a good idea. Most things are material, and tourism is usually an experience. How do you convey emotion with a picture?

[Asucki]

In my case, it's tourism, but I'm not entirely sure if it would be a good idea. Most things are material, and tourism is usually an experience. How do you convey emotion with a picture?

Tourism can work, you just have to hit it from a different angle than you might with a goods-based storefront. Your focus should be on explaining to potential customers what makes your nation's tourism special. Point out major attractions and give some info on the history and culture surrounding them. Describe or provide an image of what your environment looks like and think about what kind of people it'd attract. Images absolutely can convey feeling. Are there rugged trails and extreme sports for customers to get excited about, or beautiful beaches with relaxing waves, or even both?

Tourism also has the added benefit of opportunities to work with other storefront owners. Invite hotel companies to establish branches in popular areas in your nation, work out flights with airline companies, and whatever else you can think of. Working with other storefront owners is great because it recognizes their hard work and typically results in more customers for both parties.

I'd highly suggest looking at the websites and publications of some real-life tourism and travel companies to get some inspiration. The GE&T Discord server is linked on the OP of this thread, and it's also a great resource to discuss your ideas.

[Kingdom of Intermaria]

Is this a place to do my advertizement of my Guides to Worldbuilding? - if so, then heres my dispatch, have an happy summer read!
Guides to Worldbuilding

[Neu Engollon]

Is this a place to do my advertizement of my Guides to Worldbuilding? - if so, then heres my dispatch, have an happy summer read!
Guides to Worldbuilding

I'm not certain where the best place to promote your dispatch would be, but fairly certain it's not here.

[Japuile]

Finally, I got together to write my storefront. I am asking for your evaluation of opinion.

[Western Theram]

I want to make a storefront for a recreational substance that other nations can order from. It’s a fictional drug I came up with. Any significant changes I should make before I post it in GE&T? I’m new to this so I’m looking for advice
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=wes ... id=1760253

[Kingdom of Intermaria]

Is this a place to do my advertizement of my Guides to Worldbuilding? - if so, then heres my dispatch, have an happy summer read!
Guides to Worldbuilding

I'm not certain where the best place to promote your dispatch would be, but fairly certain it's not here.

Alright, thank you.

[Western Theram]

I want to make a storefront for a recreational substance that other nations can order from. It’s a fictional drug I came up with. Any significant changes I should make before I post it in GE&T? I’m new to this so I’m looking for advice
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=wes ... id=1760253

I’ve figured out how to upload images on mobile so it looks a lot better now

[Neu Engollon]

I want to make a storefront for a recreational substance that other nations can order from. It’s a fictional drug I came up with. Any significant changes I should make before I post it in GE&T? I’m new to this so I’m looking for advice
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=wes ... id=1760253

I’ve figured out how to upload images on mobile so it looks a lot better now

There’s a bit to work on, but as I said through TG, I’ll help you.

First off, I’m going to help you triple your product catalog.
Don’t mix your buddhas (smoking devices) with the actual product being smoked - the sap.

I would keep the two buddha sizes. Then figure out units for the sap, ‘Morph’. Price it by the kg or oz, liter, etc. How is it refilled into the buddha? Cartridge, bag, condensed brick, liquid bottles? Sell those items in various sizes based on your price per base unit. Voila, more products. Then you could maybe work on flavors/formulas.

[Western Theram]

I’ve figured out how to upload images on mobile so it looks a lot better now

-Snip-

I added flavors and different bottle sizes by the oz. Thank you so much for your help!