The Games Category: Discuss

Ponster

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

But why have 20+ dead forums, where you could have circa 5 or so active ones - is that not what boards is about

Because the day that a new version of one of those games comes out, or even a new patch, it could take over the entire forum for a certain period of time.

People keep on complaining about the amount of discussion in those forums.
Certain forums I'd argue aren't there so much for discussion but also for helping new players and working on patches/bugs. Someone who asks why their Unreal game isn't working properly in a week that "Call of Duty" release a new game isn never going to get a reply. Their post will be on page 2 before anyone ever sees it (imho).
It would be like having to rename/tag every AfterHours thread with a header :

"DRUGS: Why is cannabis illegal"?
"RANT: Poles taking our wimmin"
"YOR MA: Your Ma"


IMHO a certain about of discussions levels on on the mods shoulders. You don't just create a forum and sit back to mod all day; you have to keep a forum active by driving the discussion yourself.

Earthhorse

Personally, I think this is symptomatic of a bigger trend on boards; it's so big now that creation of even the most specialist forum will get traffic, at least for a while. Perhaps having a Games forum with a "Latest Releases" subforum would be the way to go. Having forums dedicated to individual games would seem to me better suited to a website's forum rather than a subforum on boards, though if such websites exist, accomodating them under the Hosted category (that's still around, right?) would be feasable.

Mr E wrote: »

I think alot of fora could be merged... perhaps some tags, a-la the developer forum could be used to categorise threads at a glance?

Don't know how far along CuLT is with the tags but I think they're the way to go. Creating a tag per game just recreates the problem so genre tags, platform tags and a few miscellaneous tags would cover it. Don't know what the problme is with having one busy central Games forum over many small less buys ones; once you can filter on the tags you'll find the content you're looking for and be able to remove it and find out what's happening elsewhere at a glance.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Also keep the arcade/retro forum. It's far from dead!

Definitely. There are probably cases to be made for each of the individual forums in existence.

Ponster wrote: »

'Helo'

Hi.

Ponster

I also think that no global decision can or should be taken on the future of all the Games sub-forums. It takes a while for forums to get created around here and even longer to have one removed. If the members of PES forum are happy with the way its being run then I don't see why anyone else can have an opinion on it's existence or not. If a chmod feels that by combining FIFA and PES together there will be more traffic generated then having them separate then that's fine. But the idea of removing a whole bunch of forums and putting them into a generic one isn't IMHO on the cards at this point in time.

As tHE vAGGABOND said, in the beginning there was just 'Games'. Unreal was spun off due to popular support. if they support is gone there should be no problem in 'Games' absorbing the 'Unreal' forum. But it doesn't make sense to remove all Unreal-like forums in this way. Talliesin said something important regarding how the precedence of a particular forum affects a request for another forum (hint: it doesn't !). The same rule should apply regards the removal of a forum.

Stercus Accidit

Maximilian wrote: »

I think a lot of people look for new game forums (latest being fallout 3) for no other reason than the kudos of getting a new one created and perhaps a hope they will be made moderator of it.

*cough*


Fallout's 1,2 and 3, and I suggested it include eldar scrolls, bethesda games and all.

Also I could give two sh1tes who mods it tbh, as long as they don't ruin it, I'm happy, there are plenty of people who would be more qualified*.

This is a separate issue though, I do also support a reshuffle of the games category, I asked for this forum in the first place as I couldn't find an obvious suitable place to post on it (games, rpg, xbox). That and I was just simply surprised that there wasn't one in the first place.
I'd prefer that the request for a Fallout/Eldar Scrolls forum wasn't used as a negative example of what's wrong with the games cat.


*interested in being a mod on an internet forum and all the "kudos" that entails.

faceman

I hate seeing sub forums for specific games being made. They tend to have regular postings for a few months every time a game or sequel come out. But it gets confusing then when e.g. the Guitar hero forum has threads about Rock Band.

Then you get pointless threads about which version is better, xbox or PS3 etc which is like being 14 again and arguing with your classmates on your lunchbreak.

As you can see from my sig, ive being tried to rally support for a multiplayer sub forum where boardsies can get together to arrange leagues and informal party nights. For a site as large as we are, its surprising to see that the existing fora dont really cater for it. (and despite what Maximilian says, i couldnt give a dog's dickie who moderates it!)

I think a reduction in the number of forum is definitely needed.

thelordofcheese

Disclaimer: This is a cross post. Sorry if you've read it before

I've had a think about it, an i think we should reduce everything down to about 2 forums. MMOs and Games.

I'm being serious here.

we don't really need the sub-divisions on the level we have them, do we really need to break things down for various consoles. They're all games.

Flamewars? Better modding would stamp that out far more than segregation. That doesn't solve the problem it just prevents the problem from occuring provided people don't look over a forum and see the one dedicated to the console that isn't theirs.
And a new game spawning 10+ threads? Merge them. Easiest way to go about it, it's not like it's hard to do under VBB either.

If we want more conversation here we need more people, we won't get that by splitting games into smaller chunks based on Genre or system or whatever.
And before people think what i'm speaking of is madness, the penny arcade Games and technology forum operates under this same principle and it (probably) has higher traffic that here and isn't a heaving sea of constant flamewars.

Ohh, And the only reason MMO's get their own space is well... WoW players, man. They're mental.

Ponster

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Disclaimer: This is a cross post. Sorry if you've read it before

I've had a think about it, an i think we should reduce everything down to about 2 forums. MMOs and Games.

I'm being serious here.

we don't really need the sub-divisions on the level we have them, do we really need to break things down for various consoles. They're all games.

I thought you were joking. If you're not well then lets say that I hope you never get a job of making any decisions around here


What you're proposing is IMHO impractical and not needed. "Games" isn't Afterhours.

thelordofcheese

Ponster wrote: »

I thought you were joking. If you're not well then lets say that I hope you never get a job of making any decisions around here


What you're proposing is IMHO impractical and not needed. "Games" isn't Afterhours.

Why is it impratical? I'm not seeing it.
Why is it not needed? The community is fragmented and we have a load of dead forums. More to the point, why do these sub forums even exist? Is there something stopping people discussing Nintendo games in 'Games'?
The case for sub-divisions is lost on me, i can't see a single benifit of slicing the community into tiny slivers.

5starpool

Is the focus on this purely on computer games? There are a number of non computer game entries on the list and if they are looking to get moved or consolidated I'm sure people other than myself would have views on this too.

Speaking for poker only, I would not be in favour of having this as a subcategory within a menu structure. It was like this before and it was decided to move it out to a cetegory of its own.

thelordofcheese

5starpool wrote: »

Is the focus on this purely on computer games? There are a number of non computer game entries on the list and if they are looking to get moved or consolidated I'm sure people other than myself would have views on this too.

Speaking for poker only, I would not be in favour of having this as a subcategory within a menu structure. It was like this before and it was decided to move it out to a cetegory of its own.

I imagine that things like poker would be left alone, at least until the various game types of poker start getting their own sub-forums

KevIRL

5starpool wrote: »

Speaking for poker only, I would not be in favour of having this as a subcategory within a menu structure. It was like this before and it was decided to move it out to a cetegory of its own.

+1 to this. Its one of the busiest forums on boards.

Ponster

thelordofcheese wrote: »

The case for sub-divisions is lost on me, i can't see a single benifit of slicing the community into tiny slivers.

Do you suggest we do the same with Music and the 19 sub-forums? I mean, it's all music isn't it?

What about the 35 Edu forums? Aren't all those students just learning?


There is a lot more to a games forum then just discussion. There may be some posts about the game in question but most will be from people looking for help with installing, patching, getting the damn thing to work properly.

These questions aren't going to get answered in a generic forum which receives many new threads per day. If you delete a sub-game forum and replace it with nothing but the existing Games forum then don't expect the members to start posting there as a certain % will just not bother posting anymore leading to even less 'discussion' then there is today.

quarryman

5starpool wrote: »

Is the focus on this purely on computer games? There are a number of non computer game entries on the list and if they are looking to get moved or consolidated I'm sure people other than myself would have views on this too.

Speaking for poker only, I would not be in favour of having this as a subcategory within a menu structure. It was like this before and it was decided to move it out to a cetegory of its own.

True. Computer games only.

throw the rest in with After Hours.

L31mr0d

I'd be for splitting it up into Genres, and if certain games in that genre are particularly popular (i.e. quake, CS, Unreal in an FPS forum) they can get their own subforum as required

Most gamers have the genres they like and the ones they don't so having separate genres that can be subscribed to would be better. A tag system such as [xbox], [PS3], [Wii], [retro] could also be a requirement when titling a thread in these forums

Kurtosis

Some consideration has to be given to practicality, there is a sweet spot somewhere between the current number of forums and just having one Games forum.

I would make a case for keeping the console forums in place as this is a limiting factor for a lot of people - if I only own a PS3, I want to be able to read topics relevant to the platform and to be able to post about it without having to trawl through pages of posts about every other platform as well. Fair enough on moving some topics on multiplatform titles from the console sections to the Games forum (I feel if there are drastic differences between versions e.g. 360 and DS versions, they could stay in their own sections), but discussion on games should not be outlawed from the console forums - that would take away any interesting topics the console forums have.

I would disagree with the suggestion of filing all the individual games forums under various genres, as it doesn't really solve the problem to any great extent. Best case would be to try and shift the little discussion that happens in some of these forums into the Games forum in an effort to try and reinvigorate it.

I feel any reorganisation should not be done in one fell swoop, maybe pruning back some of the very very quiet forums first and seeing what effect it has might be the way to go.

Earthhorse

Ponster wrote: »

Do you suggest we do the same with Music and the 19 sub-forums? I mean, it's all music isn't it?

I would, yeah, pretty much. Any other forum I visit tends not to split things as much as boards.

Don't really know what the problem is with having megathreads for games or a particular console.

quarryman

Ponster wrote: »

Do you suggest we do the same with Music and the 19 sub-forums? I mean, it's all music isn't it?

What about the 35 Edu forums? Aren't all those students just learning?


There is a lot more to a games forum then just discussion. There may be some posts about the game in question but most will be from people looking for help with installing, patching, getting the damn thing to work properly.

These questions aren't going to get answered in a generic forum which receives many new threads per day. If you delete a sub-game forum and replace it with nothing but the existing Games forum then don't expect the members to start posting there as a certain % will just not bother posting anymore leading to even less 'discussion' then there is today.

Ponster I think your views may be heavily biased (judging by this thread).

Yeah though it'll never happen. Boards.ie is a business and part of my 'job' as I see it is to increase traffic to this site so more people click on ads/subscribe leading to hopefully a better site for everyone. Directing members to a different site would probably result in me being sent on a long holiday somewhere (probably the Battlefield forum for the rest of my life...)

It looks to me like your 'attachment' to the Trophy manager forum might be distorting an opinion.

IMO, Trophy manager is a perfect candidate to get killed off. A forum that barely gets 1 post a day should be merged with something else.

Retr0gamer

Splitting it into genres is just giving us the same problem we have now but under new headings. We still have loads of different forums with very little discussion going on in each. Where would the games that defy genres go?

thelordofcheese

Ponster wrote: »

Do you suggest we do the same with Music and the 19 sub-forums? I mean, it's all music isn't it?

What about the 35 Edu forums? Aren't all those students just learning?

Poor analogy. A better one would be to divide the film forum based on what studio produced the film, and then seperate forums for big name directors/Actors.
Which is kinda what's going on now with games.

Ponster wrote: »

There is a lot more to a games forum then just discussion. There may be some posts about the game in question but most will be from people looking for help with installing, patching, getting the damn thing to work properly.

Ok, three forums, Game, MMO and Help/Advice. Actually yeah, a seperate help/advice forum, that's a good idea. Definatly should have one of those.

Ponster wrote: »

If you delete a sub-game forum and replace it with nothing but the existing Games forum then don't expect the members to start posting there as a certain % will just not bother posting anymore leading to even less 'discussion' then there is today.

Well seeing as a large portion of the fourms are dead, then a certain % of zero is still zero lost posters.
But to be serious for a second, i don't believe for one second that people will simply vanish if their sub forum goes. They like games, they also like a certain subsection of them, like say PS3 games. Why would they suddenly stop posting alltogether because now instead of 8 subforums that could possibly be applicable to talking about, say, LittleBigPlanet there is now only one?

I'm not following your reasoning here.

super_furry

Personally I'd have just a few forumes. PC Gaming (with a MMORPG sub-forum), Console Gaming and get rid of everything else with the exception of arcade/retro. The console forum by nature would have to be modded more strictly to prevent the fanboy flame threads but that could be done easily enough.

quarryman

Maximilian wrote: »

I think a lot of people look for new game forums (latest being fallout 3) for no other reason than the kudos of getting a new one created and perhaps a hope they will be made moderator of it.

Agreed. Also i'm noticing a lot of the resistance to forum merging is coming from moderators of said forums (with some notable exceptions - kudos Retrogamer!). A certain vested interest is evident.

Ponster

thelordofcheese wrote: »

But to be serious for a second, i don't believe for one second that people will simply vanish if their sub forum goes. They like games, they also like a certain subsection of them, like say PS3 games. Why would they suddenly stop posting alltogether because now instead of 8 subforums that could possibly be applicable to talking about, say, LittleBigPlanet there is now only one?

I'm not following your reasoning here.

Normally forums get created when Admins can see a need for a new one based on either a potential for more traffic/threads or to accommodate an existing fanbase who are stuck in a 'generic' forum who are generating enough traffic to justify their own forum. It keeps them happy and also the users of the generic forum who were being 'polluted' by their posts. These sub-forums allow us to increase traffic even further by having one area where all info based on that game is kept together. I know that in 2 years there are a little more than 50% more people playing Trophy Manager than there was in Jan '07 and we have attracted new members to Boards.ie who were existing players of the game but not aware of our little website here.

Our sub-forum allows us to create a community of like-minded players who like to have a place to 'hang-out'. I really don't see as many as these people visiting the forum if the day comes that their forum is removed and the threads put in a generic one.

I also don't get how this will increase discussion. Taking all the people from CoD and all the members from HalfLife together and putting them in the same forum is not going to do anything to increase 'discussion'. It'll make things tidier maybe and I'm not against a genre system but I haven't seen an argument here yet to convince me that this will make things better for Boards and the people who use those forums.

Ponster

quarryman wrote: »

Agreed. Also i'm noticing a lot of the resistance to forum merging is coming from moderators of said forums (with some notable exceptions - kudos Retrogamer!). A certain vested interest is evident.

Oh if you like I'm pretty sure I can get 40+ people from my football forum to come along and give their opinions on losing their forum.

My 'job' here is to make my forums as good as they can be so as to attract as many people as possible. My interest is in my members not my forums as such.

My resistance is towards thelordofcheese's plan of removing almost all of the games forums, not merging, though I think that there are risks involved with merging that everyone should be aware of first.

Kiith

I also think the genre splitting is a bad idea. It should be like other have said, with Games, Consoles, Retro, and MMO's. Thats it. Games for all your games threads, Consoles for all your technical console questions, Retro for all the oldies and MMO's for...well MMO's.

But then i also agree in some sense that when a new big game comes out, there will be a load of posts taking up the first few pages. Could we maybe have a thread merging rule, where any threads on a sspecific new game get merged into one super thread, and stickyed for a few days/weeks (as necessary)?

Retr0gamer

Ponster wrote: »

Normally forums get created when Admins can see a need for a new one based on either a potential for more traffic/threads or to accommodate an existing fanbase who are stuck in a 'generic' forum who are generating enough traffic to justify their own forum. It keeps them happy and also the users of the generic forum who were being 'polluted' by their posts. These sub-forums allow us to increase traffic even further by having one area where all info based on that game is kept together. I know that in 2 years there are a little more than 50% more people playing Torphy Manager than there was in Jan '07 and we have attracted new members to Boards.ie who were existing players of the game but not aware of our little website here.

There wasn't really a need for the split and most people were against it at the time.

Ponster wrote: »

I also don't get how this will increase discussion. Taking all the people from CoD and all the members from HalfLife together and putting them in the same forum is not going to do anything to increase 'discussion'. It'll make things tidier maybe and I'm not against a genre system but I haven't seen an argument here yet to convince me that this will make things better for Boards and the people who use those forums.

Well the busier forums like COD should be kept until they die. Something like Half-life is effectively dead and even if we get another half-life game one thread in the games forum is enough to cover it.

thelordofcheese

Ponster wrote: »

Our sub-forum allows us to create a community of like-minded players who like to have a place to 'hang-out'. I really don't see as many as these people visiting the forum if the day comes that their forum is removed and the threads put in a generic one.

Every niche game does not deserve it's own forum. The problem is that everyone thinks they do. It's a nice idea, but it's just unnessicary.

Ponster wrote: »

I also don't get how this will increase discussion. Taking all the people from CoD and all the members from HalfLife together and putting them in the same forum is not going to do anything to increase 'discussion'. It'll make things tidier maybe and I'm not against a genre system but I haven't seen an argument here yet to convince me that this will make things better for Boards and the people who use those forums.

Likewise the constant splitting up into forums that only spark into life once every few years is a waste.
And you need to stop thinking in terms of people only liking one game. What if i like, HL, CoD and Final Fantasy? Why should i have to go to three forums what could be done in one? And what if i like more than those three games, christ if i visited every sub-forum for every game i like, that's something like 15 or so. What is this crazy bullshit?

More to the point, if more people are looking at the one forum the chances of them contributing increases as opposed to sitting away in a neglected sub forum, waiting for that once a year burst of activity.

quarryman

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Something like Half-life is effectively dead and even if we get another half-life game one thread in the games forum is enough to cover it.

Exactly. Any forum that only gets 1/2 posts a day should become a THREAD. There's threads on the games forum that get more activity than some of the forums do.

Ponster

thelordofcheese wrote: »

What is this crazy bullshit?

The way that Boards has been run for over 10 years now?


I agree that not every game deserves a forum. What I'm trying to say that your idea of deleting over 35 game forums is IMHO never, ever going to be accepted by the Admins (unless I'm really out of the loop) and that maybe suggesting something less radical would be more positive.

thelordofcheese

Ponster wrote: »

The way that Boards has been run for over 10 years now?

The other divisons make sense, the ones on the games forum don't. Like i said it'd be like dividing films up into studios and then more for currently popular Actors/Directors, or having a Subforum for all the various premiership football teams and then popular players.

It's madness and this is not sparta.

Ponster wrote: »

I agree that not every game deserves a forum. What I'm trying to say that your idea of deleting over 35 game forums is IMHO never, ever going to be accepted by the Admins (unless I'm really out of the loop) and that maybe suggesting something less radical would be more positive.

I know i'm not going to get my way, but i still think i'm right. That said any move towards my glorious utopia would be a good one, i do genuinely believe the games section of boards could be very well serviced by about 3 sub-forums. five at a stretch.

But i imagine the end result is going to be a cull of the dead forums and alot of the older game specific ones and hopefully a folding back in of the console specific forums to a main 'games' one. I'd like to see the creation of a generic 'Help/advice' one for people having issues with getting games to run, the RROD, getting connected to PSN and all that. That'd be useful.

Ohh, and the quake one will never get deleted, it'd be like building an ikea on a historical landmark.

Sabre0001

Pruning back is fine but I wouldn't agree with lumping everything in together - that is why original splits occured and why people ask for new forums. Because if they post about some game, it can get bumped off the page very quickly unless people are actively looking for the discussion / are on hand to throw in a post to bump it.

But certain forums that are quiet could be cut out (and put back in "Games") or be the first to be put into a genre category...