The Games Category: Discuss

Sabre0001

There are still oddball games that don't fit into categories really plus general questions (what mags do you read? best demo sites? etc etc).

Still agree with the genre splitting...Don't think new releases should be pre-empted for forum approval - Age of Conan, Warhawk are two examples that just haven't worked...

Dyr

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

I'd be happier without genre forums (the films forum and the like dont need them)but i see why people might want them.

Also: why is The elder scrolls in hosted?

Retr0gamer

I don't see why people are looking for genre forums. The thread was started because of the lack of discussion and activity in the games and console forums due to the split in the games forum. Splitting it into genres will only end up creating even more forums dividing the user base even more so and multiplying the problem we already have. Not to mention the fact that categorising anything into genres is silly, it's only a handy way of giving a bare bones description to something.

Again for me I'd join the 3 main console forums into the Games forum and leave the separate games forums for later review. Creating a tech help forum would also get rid of all the tech questions that are clogging up the games forums.

Ponster

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Again for me I'd join the 3 main console forums into the Games forum and leave the separate games forums for later review. Creating a tech help forum would also get rid of all the tech questions that are clogging up the games forums.

I give this a big +1

Remove the console forums. Create a Games Q&A forum. And leave the rest alone for now to see how things work out. Changing everything at the same time would IMO be too much of a change. As already pointed out, the aim is to generate more conversation, not to reorganise the existing conversations.

quarryman

+2

quarryman

Seems like nothing is really going to be done on this. *sigh*

Here's another example of a thread with confusion over where it should belong. I'm seeing one of these threads every second day now.

Note the comment:

That thread is in the Games forum which I hardly visit. As this is a PS3 game, and this is a PS3 forum and I did not see any thread on Deadspace already, especially regarding release dates, then I think this thread is relevant. Hardly going to check all other subforums.

Retr0gamer

There's also multiple farcry 2 threads and just yesterday I had to move a 'which should I get PS3, 360 or Wii' thread into the games forum from Nintendo because the poster, as they said themselves, didn't know where to post since there was no general games forum.

I'd give it some time Quarryman. It's a very big change to make so might be a while before the admins come to a decision. Either that or we need a representative of our cause to go to the boards beers and ply them with alcohol.

quarryman

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd give it some time Quarryman. It's a very big change to make so might be a while before the admins come to a decision. Either that or we need a representative of our cause to go to the boards beers and ply them with alcohol.

yeah agreed. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't forgotten.

ok i'll ply DeVore with alcohol and you can sleep with him. That should take care of it.

Though, that way, we'll probably end up with 'Panzer Dragoon Saga' and then 'Other games' forums...

Dustaz

games.boards.ie

PLEASE.


Whatever is to be done (and i compleely agree that the games section is massively diluted due to the runaway train that is boards popularity and subsequent forum-mushrooming), Can the admins think about boards history and what made it work initially.

Once upon a time there was one forum for quake people to call each other gobshìtes and arrange stuff that needed to be arranged, but mostly to call each other gobshìtes. As time went on, other forums were created but the great thing was that no matter if you were discussing quake, the pub, football or films, it was mostly gamers doing the discussing. A community sprang up and that community is now as severely weakened as the games section. The games section no longer serves as a hub of action for gamers or an impetus to start leagues, lans or websites. I dont know why that is, but the dilution of it doesnt help. Maybe its because boards is no longer where one goes to talk about games. When i want to look at a website dedicated to my work, I dont look at the AV section here, i look at a dedicated website for it. Smaller more foccussed services are better than behemoths offering sidelines in Dreaming, Zombies (...) and Lifehacking.

Start from scratch. New area of boards, new registrations, new forum trees, new forums etc. Make it for gamers alone, no mustard, consipriacy theories or nocturnal bòllocks.

Thats what I'd like to see anyway

Rev Hellfire

An excellent idea Dustz.

Though I suspect unless you severely limited the number of forums in it you'll just have a repeat. Added to which you had a active community arranged around a small number of games, in many ways the boards then was closer to a large clan/guild. Kind of like what unreal.ie and perhaps tig are now.

Spear

Dustaz wrote: »

Start from scratch. New area of boards, new registrations, new forum trees, new forums etc. Make it for gamers alone, no mustard, consipriacy theories or nocturnal bòllocks.

Thats what I'd like to see anyway

This strikes me as segregation and fragmentation. Other fora such as the aforementioned mustard, conspiracy theories and nocturnal hardly interfere with games, and vice versa, I don't see anything to be gained by separation like this. Boards.tv was split off along similar lines, and a quick check now shows a grand total of 9 people on there, but 2844 on boards.ie.

Dont be at yourself

It boils down to what should be built first, the community or the boards.

We've been building boards hand over fist for years, but the community hasn't developed.

I believe that we should consolidate the community, let it prosper, and then peel off new boards as the demand manifests itself.

Dustaz' idea is not without merit - he recognises the importance of giving the gaming community on boards.ie a central place to go to. My only reservation is that we will have similar problems to the existing ones unless the number of boards is not seriously curtailed.

Overheal

Heres another fresh example of Games Category Chaos:

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055403020

Arcade & Retro: Sonic 2 Discussion

"Uhm, can some mod move this to the Sega Category?"

That kind of ambiguity is seriously splintering the ability to pool a community.

quarryman

I just realised I'm subscribed to 3 Dead Space threads and 2 Fable threads. They are both discussing the same things but across different forums. The problem now is that the I get updates from all but the discussions are completely split.

GAH!

Overheal

I've compiled a quick census of all the Games Forums based on activity

Arcade & Retro <<Moderate>>
Battlefield <<Low>>
Call of Duty <<Low>>
Chess <<Low>>
Command & Conquer <<Low>>
Competitive Gaming <<Moderate>>
Console Modding <<High>>
Nintendo <<High>>
Playstation <<High>>
Sega <<Low>>
Xbox <<Very High>>
Counterstrike <<Low>>
Final Fantasy <<Moderate>>
Flight Simulator [LINK] <<Low>>
Football Manager <<Moderate>>
Game Awards <<Dead>>
Game Editing <<Dead>>
Game Reviews <<Low>>
Games <<Very High>>
Games Workshop <<Low>>
GTA <<Low>>
Guitar Hero <<Low>>
Half-Life <<Low>>
Halo <<Low>>
LAN Parties <<Low>>
Galway LAN <<Low>>
Magic The Gathering <<Dead>>
Massively Multiplayer <<Moderate>>
Age of Conan <<Low>>
EvE Online <<Moderate>>
LoTR Online <<Dead>>
Warhammer Online <<Moderate>>
Warhammer Guilds <<Dead>>
World of Warcraft <<High>>
WoW Competition <<Dead>>
Metal Gear Solid <<Low>>
Poker <<Very High>>
Holdem' <<Very High>>
Omaha <<Low>>
Online Tournaments <<High>>
Pro Evolution Soccer <<Very High>>
Quake <<Low>>
Racing Sims <<Dead>>
Resident Evil <<Low>>
Roleplaying <<Low>>
RPG Threads <<Dead>>
Second Life <<Dead>>
Strategy <<Low>>
Unreal <<Dead>>
Warcraft <<Dead>>
Warhawk <<Low>>
Webgames <<Low>>
Wolfenstein <<Dead>>

Rev Hellfire

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

It boils down to what should be built first, the community or the boards.
We've been building boards hand over fist for years, but the community hasn't developed.

I don't think creating the forums has been the wrong decision, where we've failed is having a not having an equal willingness to remove those boards which aren't working.

The AoC forum is a case in point. It was deserving of a forum when it was created and allowed a community to develop for that game. But once the community evaporated it should have been perhaps merged back into the main MMORPG forum.

That said some forums are worth having regardless of current activity, for example the quake, battlefield and halflife forums which while inactive now will no doubt be re-energised once their inevitable sequels come out.

KevIRL

Overheal wrote: »

I've compiled a quick census of all the Games Forums based on activity

Good work, you missed Poker Tournaments and events though. I'd imagine its high to very high

Overheal

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

That said some forums are worth having regardless of current activity, for example the quake, battlefield and halflife forums which while inactive now will no doubt be re-energised once their inevitable sequels come out.

You could say that of any game though. Im sure if you put up a Spore forum it would see a good 6 months of activity before people got fed up with it.

Games are too fickle. Its just a matter of keeping a close eye on the activity. For example, close the Half Life forum, have people post about it in a more generic forum. Then, when activity revives in anticipation of a new release, re-open it.

If you leave it open all the time, it gets a reputation as a dead forum, and I for one would not ever think to check on it like I would the games forum, say. So when activity does return, outside of a major release (eg. someone starts a thread asking where everyone is) you can expect little to know reply. If you left that same thread in the games forum though, it would be jumped on.

Here's an idea for a Forum Structure I'm still working on:

*Games (cross platform, review, preview, etc)
- Arcade & Retro

*Unplugged (Traditional Games: Games Workshop, Chess, Roleplay, TCG)
- Poker

*PC (FPS, Strategy, etc)
- Online (Webgames, LAN, Competitive Gaming, BF2, CoD, etc)
- Massively Multiplayer
- Technical (Links To Tech->Computers Fora)

*Consoles
- Modding
- Nintendo
- Playstation
- Xbox
- Cross-Platform

*By Demand (high traffic titles go here - to be pruned regularly)
- Final Fantasy
- Football Manager
- Pro Evolution Soccer
- Metal Gear
- Guitar Hero

*Games Archive

And poker would have its subforums, Football Manager, MMo, etc.

When a game forum dies, the Archive is where you bury its rotting corpse. When/if it comes back to life users can come in and request specific threads be moved back, via Report Post function.

Spear

Overheal wrote: »

*PC (FPS, Strategy, etc)
- Online (Webgames, LAN, Competitive Gaming, BF2, CoD, etc)
- Massively Multiplayer
- Technical (Links To Tech->Computers Fora)

A small comment about this, MMO games in future are looking less and less likely to be PC only so a separation of this from PC games might be a more long-sighted approach.

Rev Hellfire

To be honest I don't see the problem with "dead" forums, the main problem is the flat structure and people not been able to easily identify/locate the various forums.
If it was me I'd keep all the forums but move them into a tree structure.

Overheal

When it happens it can be moved to the Root Directory.

I disagree regarding the Dead Forums, They are a problem. First because its confusing as to where to place threads (eg. the Sonic thread above) and secondly Instead of getting one or a few very healthy gaming circles, the many-fora approach gives you many very small/weak gamer groups. If the idea is to build up the gaming community, there needs to be much more cohesion than there has been.

Dont be at yourself

Where's the sense in having separate Games, Xbox, PS3, Nintendo and Cross Platform forums?

Overheal

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Where's the sense in having separate Games, Xbox, PS3, Nintendo and Cross Platform forums?

Like I said its a work in progress. Cross Platform could just as easily be a link to the Games General forum.

Dont be at yourself

But why separate console forums?

As a gamer, I might own two or even three consoles. Should I really need to visit potentially 4 different forums to discuss the same topic?

Or, I may only own one console. Should I need to check to see if the game I just bought is multi-platform before I can decipher where to post about it?

A catch-all Videogames forum, an Online match-making forum, and possibly a Latest Releases forum and a Hardware forum would be the way I would take it.

Overheal

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

But why separate console forums?

As it stands Each platform already receives high amounts of traffic, and more than I think you will be able to fit into one forum.

As a gamer, I might own two or even three consoles. Should I really need to visit potentially 4 different forums to discuss the same topic?

I own one television, but I still have to visit 3 different forums to discuss Heroes, Stargate and Battlestar Galactica. And frankly, I don't have a problem with it. Theres enough content, and posters, in each of those forums to warrant its own forum. Just because the same posters might visit each doesnt mean those discussions should be crammed into Television General, which is already pretty taxed for traffic.

Dont be at yourself

As it stands Each platform already receives high amounts of traffic, and more than I think you will be able to fit into one forum.

A huge proportion of that traffic is reproduced on the other boards. There are numerous threads on Far Cry, Dead Space across various forums at the moment that are better served by a single thread.

I own one television, but I still have to visit 3 different forums to discuss Heroes, Stargate and Battlestar Galactica. And frankly, I don't have a problem with it.

There has to be a line though. Otherwise we could have separate forums for every console, genre and game under the sun - as we are rapidly progressing to. As the Games category mod, and a frequent poster across the category for well over 5 years, I believe that the existing traffic could easily be accommodated in a much smaller amount of boards.

Rev Hellfire

I still don't see the problem with the same topic existing on multiple forums. Quite frankly if I want information on game for a console I known, I'll post in the consoles forum and not the games forum. I'm not interested in hearing what its like on other platforms its the views of the people who have the same console as me that interest me. You'll simply not be able to make it work.

I agree that in some cases the appropriate forums aren't very visible, for example dawn of war should be under strategy, oblivion under rpg, etc.
Thats the only issue I see with the current setup.

Dont be at yourself

I still don't see the problem with the same topic existing on multiple forums.

Because the community hasn't got the critical mass to sustain various topics on the same subjects across different forums.

Overheal

So going with that philosophy and by incorporating fewer boards overall to help build up the community, Here is a version 0.2:

*Video Games General
- Arcade, Retro and Webgames
- Latest Releases
- Upcoming
- Online-Matchmaking & LAN
- Massively Multiplayer
- Hardware (Console Modding, Links to Tech fora, etc)

*Unplugged (Traditional Games: Games Workshop, Chess, Roleplay, TCG)
- Poker

*Games Archive

Thats one hell of a Prune. Are you sure that would handle all the traffic though.

Rev Hellfire

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Because the community hasn't got the critical mass to sustain various topics on the same subjects across different forums.

And you think shoving everyone into a big 'ol melting pot will actually create a 'community' ?
If you're not getting a community going in the smaller more defined forums you've zero chance in the big super mega ones in my view.