Is it just me, or has there been a severe lack of activity in the beginner's/tech forums lately? Is it because fewer people are asking for help or are all the people who used to give help on these forums dead, or getting lives or something? Not that I'm demanding activity or anything, but it just seems to have been a sudden change that happened just about after the forums moved o_o
My guess is that most of the people found out what they were doing wrong over the downtime and realized they are capable of fixing their own problems. RTFM.
Yes, yes. Of course plenty of people post those questions that shouldn't be posted because they didn't bother going through the tutorial/manual. Some of us still have questions we need help with, despite reading the manual and knowing individual functions quite well.
I've noticed this too... there were times when if you entered beginners tech, you could see several new threads with no replies, and the aswer to each of the questions could be found in the manual... but it's diffrent now... could be the downtime, as Evil said.
I don't know about Scummbuddy, but I've been rather busy lately with school, work, and video games (WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw rocks!). But seriously, I don't know how else to moderate the forum besides locking topics with obvious answers that have been posted time and time again. And moderating the BegTech board is wearing down on me, little by little. I'm not sayinig I don't want the job anymore, but I regret not having enough time to update the BFAQ anymore. One of these days, I shall resume updating it. Only then will I rightfully be able to lock topics answered there and in the manual.
I'm sure we all appreciate what all you mods do it there, Rich ^_^ I've wanted on occasion to start answering questions in the beginner's forum myself, only to find that apart from all the questions that had already been answered adequately, the rest were cases of people stating the same questions over and over.
I've had at look at the tech forum properly since starting this and all the posts except mine were pretty much answered and it was the case that it was just people not posting any new questions. So... perhaps people have started answering their own questions o_o I'm just the dumbass who still needs help.
I check the forums regularly and I've noticed a decline in new questions as well.
Therefore I looked over the tech forums to find questions that haven't been sufficiently answered yet, but I could hardly find any. It's mostly cases of users not reporting back if ideas/solutions have worked for them or not.
Another problem is, trying to solve someone's complex problem, but not having the actual game and/or script, usually involves (at least for me) having to replicate it beforehand.
That requires some effort and although it can be fun at times and I do it on occasion, particularly if it's something I can see being useful, I freely admit that I don't like doing all that just to fix some simple mistakes that ends up just solving this user's particular problem. Thankfully we have people like Scorpiorus, Gilbot and Ashen who take care of that most of the time.
In short, I like answering questions that I think benefit a larger group of users.
And since I'm the one who converted the to-do list to the tracker, I often have a good feeling for what bugs and suggestions are up there, so I also see part of my job to refer to these entries when suggestions are made.
All in all I think the tech forums are well taken care of, and there's always new talent on the horizon (like Goot who's really being helpful).
It has been an extraordinarily quiet week in the main tech forum, and of course this may not be entirely unrelated to the release of Half Life 2.
Still, it's rather nice to have a break from answering questions and actually be able to get on with doing stuff ;)
Chris Jones has been playing CS: Source :P
Personally I don't use the technical forums. I have actually read most of the manual. :o
And strangely I kinda treat scripting like a puzzle, and get the same buzz, from solving something difficult, as I do from solving a difficult puzzle. Maybe I'm not the only one? Or more likely, its the number of eagerly awaited games that have come out recently. ;D
Quote from: netmonkey on Fri 19/11/2004 20:39:29
Chris Jones has been playing CS: Source :P
Nonsense. CJ doesn't play any game made in the last 10 years.
QuotePersonally I don't use the technical forums. I have actually read most of the manual.
And strangely I kinda treat scripting like a puzzle, and get the same buzz, from solving something difficult, as I do from solving a difficult puzzle.
That is of course the best approach, and the best way to learn. But sometimes, if you're really struggling with scripting something, a quick answer on the forums can alleviate hours of puzzling :)
QuoteNonsense. CJ doesn't play any game made in the last 10 years.
Nonsense! I er.. bought Grim Fandango. Yeah.