<aside>
ℹ️
So I’ve put together this knowledge hub (or whatever you want to call it) with the intention to hopefully make resources and information about the Tower game a lot more interconnected, less fleeting, less siloed and less one-dimensional than what is usually shared in other formats. But you’ll be the judge of whether I succeed with that or not!
</aside>
This knowledge hub was created for several reasons.
The Tower community is amazing and so supportive, but…
First of all, the Tower community consists of a huge number of supportive and caring individuals who are eager to help others. Whether as a result of - or in spite of - the game not having a gentle learning curve, the community across Reddit, Discord and beyond are able to enhance the game experience and game progress for so many.
However, when similar questions are asked thousands of times and people are complaining about dissparate information and guides, it is worth contemplating relevant solutions that can streamline efficient access to information and answers.
There’s a plethora of great content out there, but…
The Tower community consists of some wickedly talented and hard-working individuals who have created all kinds of tools, infographics, guides etc. but it is all scattered across tonnes of different Google Docs, Google Sheets, Discord channels and pinned messages, websites, and so forth. And even when being able to access and find these scattered resources, they are missing ingredients to make them truly impactful to a wider audience. Here are some quick examples:
- Even when someone may be able to access a respective infographic, there’s little hand-holding as to what the viewer is actually looking at and why, and how they may go about applying it themselves. It is just assumed that the viewer knows all these things.
- Even when someone reads something on the Fandom Wiki website that helps them develop an objective understanding of a subject, they would have benefitted even more if they are then also able to access and gain deeper insights by seeing additional related tips and FAQs, related guides and videos, related tools, and so forth. And so, while the Fandom Wiki page does a tremendous job of laying out the core facts, its abilities to go beyond that are limited.
- Even when someone is pointed to a beginner guide on Discord, the limitations of a Discord channel resource is the one-dimensional nature and challenges of cross-linking, including relevant photos and related context and so forth. It basically doesn’t lend itself to this in the same way an interconnected hub of relational databases can. Even in key locations, such as the channel “beginner-guides-new” on the Official Discord, information is very simplified, outdated, and hard to utilize and make sense of in their own individual silos.
- And when someone finds a YouTube video, while it may serve as entertainment and with some tidbits of knowledge-transfer, the reality is that it is also one-dimensional, fleeting information that can also quickly become outdated.
So overall, this leads me to conclude that Tower resources and information currently have a lot less value than they otherwise could have had. And that they serve fewer people than what they could have done. And that the community is spending a large amount of time answering basic questions, when instead such conversations and interactions could have been a lot deeper and more impactful if overall game information and resources were just organised and presented in a more helpful and comprehensive manner.
Combining it all
Considering the challenges and drawbacks on how information is accessed, utilised and shared, it then becomes a question of how many of these pain points could be addressed, such as:
- Reading a wiki page or guide ought to also include relevant tips, FAQs, related resources, anecdotes etc. - but these also shouldn’t have to be re-invented each time.
- It should be easy for someone to see all FAQs on any given subject matter.
- It should be easy to create concise guides with relevant cross-linking
- And related to the above, it should be possible to create a guide that is both helpful to beginners and to more intermediate players, such as through relevant cross-linking, appendix etc.
- It should be easy to organise content by categories, tags and other parameters for the viewer/reader. And which they should also be able to customize and view based on their own preferences.
- It should be easy to have “one source of truth” that can be populated and re-used where relevant and that updates in real-time
- It should be easy to add a new infographic or resource and have this auto-populate to any relevant guide and articles - without having to manually input these one-by-one