Forums not what they used to be

[lo_res_man]

For a long time I stuck to the C+C. was also, rather kowtowing to anybody, reading my first posts was very timid,(sometimes an inadvertent ass as well) I really started reading Gen-Gen, when there was this HUGE thread about christianity and white magic and all that jazz. I stuck my neck out and voiced an opinion. I was disagreed with, but it was so much fun. Those massive forever threads are why I  love this forum. It helped me gain a thicker skin, whilst having a rather enjoyable discussion. I think my favourite thread was when we all disagreed on wether the forgotten element was silicone. you know the one.

[Dualnames]

Well, I check many threads but yeah I've noticed that as well. We're a kinda close community. People around the globe are obsessed with writing in L33T and when they're forced(which is a good thing) to write in proper english they're put off. Also we all have a bad habit about hitting a guy when he's down. Which means that when someone breaks the rule we usually make fun of him... But we can't change it's that what the forums are like..

[Pet Terry]

I think the answer is probably because people are having less fun and more people are creating threads that are limited in any enjoyable participation. When I think of these forums now, I think of words like "serious", "dry" and "straightlaced". There tends to be very little playfulness and lot of seriousness here.

These two threads came to my mind after reading DG's post:
Shoes for Santa Claus' wife
Dog pixel art

I miss that! Then again, I haven't really read the forum properly in ages, so perhaps there has been more similar threads recently. I just don't find the forum as interesting as it used to be for me anymore.

[SSH]

Actually, can I venture a contraversial opinion:

Move the popular threads back into gen-gen. That way gen-gen stays interesting even when nothing is happening because of the old stalwarts and encourages people to think of interesting new things to chat about.

Or maybe I'm spouting rubbish.

Personally, I'd also like to see some silly game threads like AdventureGamers have in their free-for-all forum, but I know they are often kept separate in C&A, too.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Come to think of it, this issue has been mildly brought up in Yufster's latest thread, whichever it was. She kept being told "write sensible stuff or stop creating threads at all", basically. But for me, her posts and DG's were a big part of the forums when I first came here.

It shocked me, that the attitude towards her had turned so much, and I said so.

Doesn't mean we should allow rubbish... but that's the thing, it wasn't rubbish, it was rather friendly stuff. Maybe we did get really stuck-up, if we don't recognize between friendly rubbish (which everyone can take a swing at, like in the two threads Petteri linked to) and true rubbish...

[ambientcoffeecup]

You categorize people? It's not enough that they are human beings or whatever, they have to be lumped into set categories defining them by what kind of artistic output they have? It's things like the word n00b that probably need to be dropped from peoples vocabulary because it's such a coined internet term from a long time ago that lumps every new member of the community together in one "You are Shit" category.

No wonder people are leaving if people say things like that. "Here are your set categories. You as a new member are official a n00b well done."

It's like saying "Just because you are new, you are automatically shit." and not only that it is like laughable QUAKE lingo or something. I thought you only heard people talk like that on Counterstrike "lol pwned that n00b." It's so broken.

[Nikolas]

I will repeat that the fun people are gone from here. Don't know if they were chassed away, or just stoped coming and the forum turned this way. Maybe it's just that they grew up a bit as well? I mean, it does tend to happen at some point... 

[ManicMatt]

I'm fun! Weeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Okay I'll stop.

"I'm not so manic now..."

Hmm maybe I should think of a thread to post, I haven't actually posted a topic in ages!

*This boring thread is sponsered by The Parliament channel, the exciting tv program that is probably still on air somehow. Watch! A bored man sitting down asleep! Entertainment doesn't get better than this. I say that, but then people will apparently watch people asleep in Big Brother...*

[vertigoaddict]

How I survived:

1st week

1) Read the rules

2) Read the posts

3) If I had any technical questions, I would FIRST use the 'search' link and type in keywords that would probably be involved in my question.

4) Work on a SHORT - MEDIUM game, but DO NOT POST a GIP thread!

2nd week (depending on the game, at least have a structured summary plot and two backgrounds)

1) It's safer to post, BUT REMEMBER, use proper english!

2) Post a few comments in the crittics lounge, don't crittic yet (what do you know? you're a nooB!) COMPLIMENT them!

3) Make sure you've posted about 10 times before you;

4) Post a GIP thread of your game, it would probably be ignored for a while, but hey as long as you followed the rules, everything's fine and Darth can rest.

3rd week

1) You can Joke but remember to be suttle.

2)You can crittic and ask for crittics (don't be offended if someone say you suck, instead listen to the critics and actually try to improve; prove those suckers wrong). When critisizing be suttle and try to sound calm and not intimidating. (" It looks good, but the ___could be improved with a little shading" NOT " This is utterly the most abismal attempt to draw, in fact I wouldn't even call it drawing at all! You are pathetic!")

a month later...

1) you're secured, if you followed the above and continue to be nice, people might begin to notice you and recognize you as an okay person so;

2) this time you can show a little bit of you (no, you still have to follow the rules, so no bad spelling! but you're allowed to curse and post various innuedos)

3) If you've finished your game, good. But make sure your game is proof read and betatested.
--

If you're very good in art or in music, post it in the crittics lounge and it's a shortcut to recognition! (of course I didn't do this...)

This should be a tutorial 'HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE AGS FORUMS: FOR NOOBS'

EDIT: I forgot to add something

NEVER BE RACIST! OR ANY KIND OF DISCRIMINATIVE....thing.

unless you make it obvious that it's a joke, and the joke should be suttle or/and both sides find it funny.

[Haddas]

This thread is way too silly for my taste. You should all be ashamed of yourself for posting such nonsense. Where are the scientific charts and statistics?

No fun allowed.

[SSH]

This thread is way too silly for my taste. You should all be ashamed of yourself for posting such nonsense. Where are the scientific charts and statistics?

[voh]

Talker (generic gengen babbler, useless ones)

Though technically I'd be a combination of Game Maker and Talker, your simple dismissal of talkers as being entirely useless is a prime example of the attitude I've noticed time and time again.

I work on my game on and off, because my free time is limited, so most of the time I'm hanging out at the forums to keep contact with the community and show my face, so that when I DO ask a question, I'm not ignored like I was when I was 100% new and unknown.

Without naming anyone, I've had quite a bit of flak, like Nightfable, from the 'established' community members. In that sense this community is much like any other, those who've been around longer and have contributed more are automatically more respected.

But when someone says "You've been registered for 3 years and you haven't finished a game, so you matter nothing to this community", I get annoyed and pissed off, because it gives the distinct feeling of being dismissed. I've stopped posting in C&C because I hardly ever get worthwhile responses, and I stopped asking questions because I hardly ever got worthwhile responses.

The community isn't as 'open' and 'friendly' as some may think. But hell, I'm an outsider anyway, so what does my opinion matter?

[vertigoaddict]

I'm used to being an outsider... as sad/pathetic as it may sound, this forum is the friendliest I've ever been into (excluding Mr. Bates' the clock tower forums

[Andail]

I don't buy the forum hospitality (or lack thereof) theory. When I joined the community was much more "lawless"; newcomers could be openly mocked and there was basically only one social clique which you either were a part of or quite painfully outside of. This may sound dramatic, but it is my recollection of it.
Ever since, the community has been gradually easier to grow into.

Also the moderation theory sounds like nonsense. Please direct me to one community of this size with such a small (almost empty) ban list. Most other forums I've been to are subject to very arbitrary policing where moderators administer justice any way it pleases them.
As much as our forums can be complicated (because they have very defined purposes, and can easily fall into disorder) it's not like posting wrong will lead to any severe consequences.

I think it's a question of trends. We're the generation who were young enough to experience these games when they first came, and still young enough to have the time and interest to make our own games. Sure, there are exceptions, and some members are middle aged, but the target audience of AGS consists of young people, but not so young that the age of adventure games died before they were able to play them.

[Adamski]

I think the majority of people who initially made this place a community back at the turn of the millenium have all more or less moved on, for various reasons. This is not unnatural, the internet is a lot different these days. Hobbyist adventure making is no longer new and exciting, and I think a lot of people have either grown out of wanting to make games or have come to the conclusion that making a good game is too much work. The standard is considerably higher than it once was.

But yes, when it started out people were using the forums in a more bloggy way, and generally mucking around as for many it was the first community they'd been part of. I think the forums are more of a functional place now, as there are other places to get that 'community' fix. A lot of the friends I've made here over the last six years I socialise with in a more direct way now, outside of the forums, so it's no longer a place to kick about and chat for me. It's no big deal really, it's just the way things change.

Edit: In conclusion, I think people generally are less interested in making games and investing in a community than they once would have been.

[Radiant]

For example, if I was new here, and excited about my game, and posted a Games In Production thread with all the details but one screenshot instead of two, I'd probably get my thread locked with a "READ THE RULES!!" type comment. That'd be pretty offputting and I might well not bother coming back.

Frankly I recall several instances of people being downright hostile to new users, and chasing the new blood away is not healthy for the contributors.

I think that perhaps we are too harsh towards newbies in beginner tech, and maybe also in the GIP. I know the forum rules are clear on that, but perhaps the forum rules need to be relaxed a bit?

Or perhaps the moderators for each individual forum need to rotate to a different forum, so that they don't become jaded on the forum they take care of.

[DGMacphee]

These two threads came to my mind after reading DG's post:
Shoes for Santa Claus' wife
Dog pixel art

I miss that! Then again, I haven't really read the forum properly in ages, so perhaps there has been more similar threads recently. I just don't find the forum as interesting as it used to be for me anymore.

Before they ended on a serious note, these are examples of threads that if on another forum they'd be locked not because they're bad but because they're so hilarious and perfect and must be preserved AS IS for future generations to see. Especially the Shoes for Santa Claus' wife.

Another thread was the I LOVE MARK LOVEGROVE thread. One big joke that everyone was in on and there was no animosity whatsoever.

I think people here are a little afraid of upsetting everyone else. I've read a lot of threads on here that follow the same pattern: one person will say something to someone else, that someone else will misunderstand and take offense over nothing. A prime example is when someone gets called a "n00b". It's seen as a term of offense when really it's nothing. It's not really a big deal but people treat it like it is.

It's already happened in this thread...

You categorize people? It's not enough that they are human beings or whatever, they have to be lumped into set categories defining them by what kind of artistic output they have? It's things like the word n00b that probably need to be dropped from peoples vocabulary because it's such a coined internet term from a long time ago that lumps every new member of the community together in one "You are Shit" category.

No wonder people are leaving if people say things like that. "Here are your set categories. You as a new member are official a n00b well done."

It's like saying "Just because you are new, you are automatically shit." and not only that it is like laughable QUAKE lingo or something. I thought you only heard people talk like that on Counterstrike "lol pwned that n00b." It's so broken.

Really, you're just making a big deal over "n00b", a word that essential means nothing. It's got nothing to do with being "new" or "automatically shit". It's more so that new people often do absurd things. It's part of the nature of being human. And even the oldies who've been here for ages get picked on because they do crazy things. For example, I'm a pretty ripe target for mockery. A very ripe, intelligent and sexy target.

I just think people need to realise that sometimes others will make fun of them, not  because we're jerks and hate you, but because all human beings do silly, absurd things that make others laugh now and then. In life, you just have to have thick skin and realise that it's all just lighthearted and nothing personal.

[hedgefield]

I wouldn't say that forum has gone boring, but game production is dried up indeed.

I've been Critics Lounge resident for 4 years, and this is one place that's gone down. There's no more superb entries, no noticeable quality in entries, and no-one cares to C&C any story or music thread.

I agree, this is mainly why I don't come around much anymore. I was never that active, but I used to love browsing the forums looking at what other people were working on. Not to judge or offend anyone here (I play far too little AGS games for that), but when I occasionally visit the C&C these days, I don't see a lot that inspires me, or makes me say WOW! There are a few exceptions, like the Forgotten Element, Rising Sun, the Blackwell games and an occasional small game, but the problem is they are just too few and far between.

Not that I am not guilty of this either... (TMC going on 4 years in development now I think). Since I'm not actively working on a game most of the time, I don't have a lot to seek info about on the forums. And I'm working in AGS 2.62, so I can't indulge myself in all the wonderful new modules out there. Can't wait until I'm done so I can adopt AGS 3.0.

So let's hope it's just the silence before the storm (like what happened in mainstream games this month).

[ManicMatt]

Didn't Holland get Kane & Lynch, Assassin's Creed, Need for Speed Pro Street, Smackdown 2008, Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect, Crysis, Sim City societies, Super Mario Galaxy, Mario & Sonic at Olympics, Mario Party on DS etc this month?  :o

Or did you mean that was the storm?   

[blueskirt]

Yes, the number of post is declining but 5000 new post every month is still healthy in my opinion, and AGS is still my number one stop to hear opinions from all side of the debates and stay in touch with reality and this vast world. The number that interest me the most personally isn't the number of post per month but the number of quality games released every years. The moment it will get pretty low, I'll start worrying.

And while the numbers of quality games might have slightly decreased in the last year, the quality greatly increased, and quality games take more time to produce, we just have to compare the delay between each Ben Jordan games. It seems like it's the spirit of 2003 that's making a come back, back when we collectively had big hopes, great projects but little experience. The epic projects collapsed but after 3 years of short yet completed games, it seems like game makers are confidents and feel they have the experience to take on projects we dreamed of back in 2003.

Also, increase in game quality means our standards also increase. I was much more tolerant with games' quality back when I discovered about AGS in 2002 than I am nowadays. And in such environment, I can understand that it might be intimidating and discouraging to submit a little game and get very few downloads and comments compared to a big name like ATOTK or the Blackwell series.

That being said, I will not deny that I miss the 2005-2006 era, which represent in my opinion the pinacle of AGS games productivity, and I wonder what happened to Buloght, ProgZ, Bernie and the others who made games like Knightsquires, Family Treasure or Dance 'Til You Drop... some of these games might have been small but these games still made my day. I also miss a lot of faces who used to post here a lot, I do hope some of them will find the time to come back during the holidays.

Move the popular threads back into gen-gen. That way gen-gen stays interesting even when nothing is happening because of the old stalwarts and encourages people to think of interesting new things to chat about.

That would be counter productive. The purpose of the Popular Threads is to give popular threads visibility, in the Gen-Gen these threads would be lost in the flow of new threads and we'd constantly have to search for them. Also, not every forum sections need to be as active as the Gen-Gen. I say we leave the Popular Threads section alone. Same thing with the Adventure Related Talk, no need of merging.

Regarding the decline in C+C and Competitions, could it be linked to the rise of Pixel Joint and similar websites? I mean, why limit yourself to the comments and competition received from a few artists here while you can have all the comments and competition you want on a community entirely dedicated to that?