The Games Category: Discuss

quarryman

Bubs101 wrote: »

There's a massive difference. Trophy manager, football manager and Pro Evo could all be morphed into a football game forum whereas Chess stands practically alone

no i agree, well kind of. I would say Trophy manager, football manager and Pro Evo should be in a "Computer games" forum. Chess should be in a Chess Thread in a "Real World games" forum.

quarryman

CuLT wrote: »

Thread isn't being ignored, fyi.

cool.

Earthhorse

CuLT wrote: »

Thread isn't being ignored, fyi.

Big Brother is watching you.

Dont be at yourself

This is going to happen with every forum. A shortlist will be made.

Then someone will pop up saying "you can't get rid of trophy manager!", "ok we'll keep that one."

"you can't get rid of chess!"

Eventually we're going to have a list of forums that's pretty similar to what we have now.

Well, I think taking an everything-or-nothing approach is probably going to cause as many problems as it will solve.

I'd be in favor of merging slow-moving forums whose topics fit easily in general 'Games' or 'Online Gaming' forums, whereas I think it would be to the detriment of active, fast-paced boards if they are lumped into one forum. Communities that have grown and developed should naturally have the space they need on their own board, provided they have that critical mass.

The Chess community seems to be a rapidly growing one, and I would be in favour of a wait-and-see policy to give it time to find its feet.

Stuff like Chess and Trophy Manager are the exception rather than the rule though, in my book. There are too many forums with overlapping areas of discussion, each with a mere trickle of posts per months.

CuLT wrote:

Thread isn't being ignored, fyi.

That's good to know. I think there's plenty of discussion left in this one yet anyway, but it would be enlightening to know the thoughts of the higher-ups. I don't want to be stepping on anyone's toes.

CuLT

I think it's very important personally; it's totally outside my remit as developer, but it has been highlighted to higher ups.

quarryman

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

I'd be in favor of merging slow-moving forums whose topics fit easily in general 'Games' or 'Online Gaming' forums, whereas I think it would be to the detriment of active, fast-paced boards if they are lumped into one forum.

But what would be the point of just merging the dead forums? What will they contribute to the general games forum?

While i agree we can't merge everything in one go but i think we at least need to do look at getting the console discussions back into one.

Dont be at yourself

But what would be the point of just merging the dead forums? What will they contribute to the general games forum?

It will mean if posters want to post about CoD or RPGs, they won't have to go those specific boards to find like-minded people. It's not even a question of the forums being dead - there are forums which are active, just not enough to warrant their own forum.

While i agree we can't merge everything in one go but i think we at least need to do look at getting the console discussions back into one.

Yeah, I do think that needs to be looked at. Perhaps a board for Hardware Issues is in order, with posts on games themselves redirected.

Raphael

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

How much of a crossover is there between the LARP/p&p and CRPG communities on the board? Is it a case of two largely separate communities living side-by-side, or do posters generally post on the two topics?

Looking briefly at the RPG board, it does seem quiet, and I do believe that the CRPG-side of things could be better discussed on a board like Games. There are only two threads that have posts in the double figures, and I think it is fair to say that that figure would rise where they on the Games board.

When I suggested the merging/culling of inactive boards, I did not have obviously thriving niche communities like Trophy Manager and LARP/p&p in mind.

I'd kind of agree about splitting it off, there are some people in both communities, but the communities themselves don't intersect, if you follow.

monument

Err... feck. I'm just after accidentally closing the tab in which I had written a reply. Anyway, my 'thanks' selections should somewhat show where little old me stands.

Kinetic^

I don't care what happens tbh. I think it's fine teh way it is but if there's change goign to happen, then fair enough. If change happens, then there will need to be some serious strict moderation in place as the fanboys will start jerking each other off when they got lobbed in on top of another forum.

dionsiseire

I think if a forum is active enough is should be left alone, the likes of PES and FIFA could probably share a forum, even if they might argue a bit at first, once a year there's a burst of posts and the rest of the years its rumours and organising online games

Trophymanager is a different beast, it might be a football game but under the popularity of Football manager it would get lost and be useless, chess however i would suggest could fall under a board games forum and thus never need to create a checkers or ludo forum.

if a forum is dead, then the people who requested it dont deserve to keep it, im sorry but as neccessary as people thought certain forums were it just is only useful if people use it

dead forums need to be merged to the general games forum and forums with X amount of posts a month should be kept

if people REALLY want their forums they should start using them now, a restructure might help focus people into what their looking for, i run a music forum and we had 7 different forums to seperate out items, the forum died a bit last year and recently i did a revamp and merged forums together and now we have 3 forums, suddenly traffic is coming back and people are talking again, because they can see other people talking

now i would suggest that on a lot of these forums thats the problem, no-one is posting so the thought is, why start a new thread, no-one is reading.

Thus these forums are dead beyond recovery and if people arnt willing to fight for a forum then it should go

believe me when i say there will be enough fighting for the trophymanager forum to warrant it staying

i would suggest that it be put to the devs to produce a list of forums they feel are borderline dead (or other people) and challenge those who want it kept to make it active again, if they cant, goodbye, if they can, keep it

however whats kept or deleted should have no bearing on a restructure of the forums for simplicity, i use vbulletin and i know moving forums around is a simple process and can be done quite easily and quickly, so why not sort out the disparate locationing of forums into a structured manner for all to understand

Lan parties forum , is that REALLY neccessary, could they not be organised in the relevant games forum?

Console Forums
SEGA DONT EVEN MAKE CONSOLES
Console modding, would you not talk about modding a playstation in the playstation forum?

Games Workshop - the concept of this forum with 3 threads a month is lost on me

Game Editing - Desperately inactive

Game Awards - Once a year?

Role Playing and Game Threads - Again seems like these could be part of another forum on RPG Games

A lot of forums need to be actually reviewed

Sabre0001

I agree with most of your points ^^

Just LAN Parties are for all things related - the organisation, promotion, discussion, etc. And is an active forum (especially around event time ). Therefore I would say it should be left alone...

Retr0gamer

I'm finding it kind of worrying that the is a lot of talk about a reshuffle with the real world game from a lot of videogamers. I think the real world games is another discussion entirely and that anyone that isn't an active user of these boards really isn't qualified to say whether these forums need changing. I think we should keep it to videogaming for the time being.

As for the merging of the of the console forums here's something I just noticed. Here's a megaman 9 thread that was started in games yesterday:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055396214

And here it is being discussed already in arcade/retro

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=57524155

Nintendo

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055337562&highlight=megaman

Xbox

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055389337

and Playstation

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=57395523

As can be seen a lot of people didn't know that this game was being discussed in other forums, or didn't know it was out. Discussion has been split between 5 forums with very little discussion on each thread.

At the very least the division of the games forum into separate consoles needs to be sorted. This has been happening way to often.

I'd be for keeping a Sega forum because of the small dedicated community that has grown around it and the Games Awards forum despite being active only for a few weeks a year is very active during those weeks and Film and television have similar forums.

Kurtosis

Retr0gamer wrote: »

As for the merging of the of the console forums here's something I just noticed. Here's a megaman 9 thread that was started in games yesterday:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055396214

And here it is being discussed already in arcade/retro

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=57524155

Nintendo

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055337562&highlight=megaman

Xbox

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055389337

and Playstation

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=57395523

As can be seen a lot of people didn't know that this game was being discussed in other forums, or didn't know it was out. Discussion has been split between 5 forums with very little discussion on each thread.

Was there not an argument earlier that discussion on multiplatform games should be moved to the Games forum from the individual console forums and then merged together? This gives the advantage that there is the thread moved link in each of the console forum which will lead to the larger thread in the Games forum.

Games Awards forum despite being active only for a few weeks a year is very active during those weeks

Would it be possible to shift it out of the main Games category list to try to declutter it a bit? It could be made a subforum of Games and then when it comes to nomination/voting time each year there can be an announcement in the Games category to bring it to people's attention.

Retr0gamer

penguin88 wrote: »

Was there not an argument earlier that discussion on multiplatform games should be moved to the Games forum from the individual console forums and then merged together? This gives the advantage that there is the thread moved link in each of the console forum which will lead to the larger thread in the Games forum.

Even if we do do that we are still left with 3 forums that are best served by the 1 forum. Again discussion on console exclusive titles will be stiffled like it already is.

monument

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Even if we do do that we are still left with 3 forums that are best served by the 1 forum. Again discussion on console exclusive titles will be stiffled like it already is.

Exactly.

And even tho I've now merged what I could (the PlayStation one into the Games one), a mod of Nintendo and Xbox would have to do the rest.

Rev Hellfire

Forums should only be merged on the basis on activity not content.
Each forum has its own personality stamped by a combination of moderators and regular users, some forums are heavily regulated while other allow almost anything. Its important to keep this distinction in mind when proposing merging forums.

Basically any forum which doesn't see weekly activity should be put up for merging while those which have an active element though not necessarily a daily one should not in my view.

Such users may feel alienated and overwhelmed in one of the super (and I suspect heavily regulated) category forums who would have you would suspect a rapid turn of topics with the less popular forum topics getting rapidly shifted of the main page.

In short if it ain't broke don't fix it. Culling forums with no activity is a good idea, merging active ones should be avoided.

quarryman

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

In short if it ain't broke don't fix it. Culling forums with no activity is a good idea, merging active ones should be avoided.

But, a lot of the regulars feel it is broken.

Taking your activity arguement. The general games forum would be considered active but it is still a pale comparison of how active it used to be. Splitting out into various sub-forums has had a negative effect on it.

Retrogamer's example of Megaman threads appearing FIVE times shows how disjointed its got. The community element has been diluted.

I would agree that some of the sub-forums should stay put, but i feel a heavier hand is needed to tighten the games structure up (did i read there was 58 sub-forums now? nuts!).

I think there is a certain fear of stepping on toes here with a merge, people are a little worried they might lose posters if their precious forums are removed, so i'm thinking there will probably be little done on this.

just my 2c (again ).

Rev Hellfire

All of what you say is true. But and there's always a but, why must all the particular threads on a game reside in a particular forum? If I post in a particular forum its aimed at a particular audience.

I for example may post in the rpg forum if I'm looking for an rpg'er spin on a mmorpg. I think we should give people a bit of credit and assume unless they're a first poster they who where they're posting and why.

That said I totally agree that a forum which isn't working should be merged into the main category under which it resides. There are many forums which for example have not any serious activity in months. We should be willing to grant forums, but equally willing to remove them.

Thats my 3 cent (see inflation!)

Davidius

The only change* I want to see is "Metal Gear Solid" being changed to "Metal Gear".

What about Metal Gear 1 and 2? The Acid series? MGO? Uh..Ghost Babel I suppose? It done not make no sense. :pac:

*Lies.

The Half-Life forum seems to be more of a Valve forum too.
Also it seems kind of strange that the strategy forum would list Command and Conquer as an example. :pac:

Other than that I have no worthwhile input.

homergriffin

Just a thought, it might be useful to have a sports games section. Pro Evo, rugby, Fifa, Madden et cetera can be discussed.

homergriffin

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

So, what was I prattling on about anyway?
- There are too many overlapping forums
- There are too many forums that don't warrant their own forum
- Moderation needs to be stricter in moving threads to more suitable boards

Possibly do it by genre (broad as possible).
1 Action-adventure
2 Construction and management simulation
3 Life simulation
4 Role-playing
5 Strategy
6 Vehicle simulation
7 Sports
8 Old-school Games
9 Other genres

All other sub genres aren't needed because you'll go to the section you think the game is in and search it (assuming it's not already being discussed). Any more genres wouldn't be necessary.
Any chance of a sports games section regardless for Pro Evo, rugby and Fifa discussion?

Dyr

ditch most of the title based forums unless they absolutely show the traffic or longevity to malke em viable ie WOW- TES-GTA etc

Apply the same rule to new forum requests, unless there's:

a) Already enough threads on a particular game in the general forums to REALLY
justify a seperate forum

b) There's potential for the game/series to sustain a forum into the future

Then it doesnt get created.


Take a look at the AOC forum, we all went spastic looking for one before it was released and now its a dead as one of them norwegian parrots.

Keep it simple. Loads of arcane rules about what to post and where to post it etc etc just leads to charteritis. If its not self evident to some one with an ounce of cop on then theres a design flaw.

Tragedy

I like games. I read gaming sites. I never read games forums on boards.

There's a problem, no solution will make everyone happy.

P'raps if they added the tags to thread names like in bargain alerts( [ELECTRICAL] would be [World of Warcraft]) so people could search easier, and merged most forums together? Leaving the historical ones like RPG/HL/CS seperate.

The whole Games section outside Poker doesnt even get that many threads/posts anymore, even if you merged it into one giant forum(aside from CS, **** that ****).

Dyr

Tragedy wrote: »

The whole Games section outside Poker doesnt even get that many threads/posts anymore, even if you merged it into one giant forum(aside from CS, **** that ****).

***** that ***** indeed

Nick_oliveri

gameboards.ie ..... shazam

(bet im not the only one who suggested this)

koHd

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

Have to agree, and I suggested one of the forums listed above.

The cross over with consoles, pc's and games on them, some competitive, some rpg etc. I dont know where to post on what.

Ok, in the case of what I asked for, Fallout, I could post in xbox, games, rpg. or if I had another format, ps3, pc, etc.
So not knowing the extent of the amount of categories I asked will there be a fallout forum.

Too many subcategories thin out discussion, and keeping up with any one game requires checking a few different fora.

I agree with this.

Keep it simple. Each format with categories of genre and other activities related to gaming on that format.

Xbox>General, Action, Sports, RPG, FPS etc.
Playstation>General, Action, Sports, RPG, FPS etc.

Dyr

that aint simple, how about this:

Games-the main forum for posting about ...games :eek: If you really need subforums for it then:

FPS/shooters
RPG
MMORPG
RTS
Sports
Simulation

then

Consoles> xbox
ps3
etc

for forums of historic importance etc
Old skool>quake
arcade
etc

And lastly clan/guild etc forums, which could probably double as a forum for the game they're playing:

And only then add individual forums for games that can support a forum ad infinitum

If it doesnt work we can add the required forums as they're needed. I'd sooner see the cmods simplify the whole category right down and build from there rather than try to second guess everything that's could be useful and wind up all over the place like it is now. We have a working search function now so I dont think we need that many specialist subforums laid out, we can just search for the keywords that we require

Cuddlesworth

Bambi wrote: »

Take a look at the AOC forum, we all went spastic looking for one before it was released and now its a dead as one of them norwegian parrots.

We asked for a forum because we felt it would be a good game. It wasn't so people stopped playing and people stopped posting. Its a good example of a forum that could have had a lot of activity and for a short time did. But now there is no justification for it. WOW still generates activity, as do some of the other MMO forums, EVE, WAR etc.

Oman

just say if you do change it to genre headings and that, whats goanna happen to the Games forum, would you get rid of it completely because i dont see any reason to post there if all teh games are catigorised
Saying that it could be used as gaming questions in general eg whats your favourite game? but that would lead to a lot less activity and the forums would be fairly equal in activity instead of the Games forum being far and away the most active
well thats my rant