Games forum re-merge

Stercus Accidit

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Oblivion/Fallout don't need their own forum. Both have intricate wikis and faqs on game faqs and once the hype dies down on a release the forumis going to die until the next installment. The only games that warrant their own forums are ones with multiplayer communities that need a place for that community to grow. Single players games or ones with no multiplayer community don't need a seperate forum. If you asked your obscure fallout/elder scrolls question in a united games forum you wouldn't be waiting long for an answer.

I heard the exact same after F3 was released, and it never died down as a topic.

The wikias are a source of technical information covering a tiny portion of the fallout franchise, it misses out entirely on the mod scene, props, re-enactors, any form of discussion.

Feel free to post in the forum request, I would like to discuss it there if possible, thanks.

quarryman

Spear wrote: »

So people understand why the Quake forum is regarded as sacrosanct:

http://wiki.boards.ie/wiki/Pre-History

3rd post in this thread Spear.

quarryman

Hercule wrote: »

Segregation is necessary

Joe bloggs is an owner of a console and a console copy of GTA4 - what interest does he have in the optimisation of graphics for nvidia users on PC?

John Doe owns a PC and a PC copy of Alien vs Predator - what interest does john have in the PS3 users multiplayer lobby issues

A few months ago a lot of people were calling for the segregation of platforms (with good reason too) - I don't believe individual games need their own sub-forums (not even quake).

if we merged everything I can just imagine the "cod4 blackops superthread" that would be made which would be so full of absolute drivel that is virtually unreadable.

Its the equivalent of putting racquet sports and table tennis on the same forum as they are all virtually the same game give or take a few differences - people who like one MUST be interested in the other right?

What evidence are you basing this on? Look at the most successful pure gaming forums, neogaf and grcade. Both a single forum style with lots of megathreads and it works great.

I think you might be over-stating the amount of confusion multi-platform releases would cause in the same thread. Any threads i read on other forums focusing one game have no problem if technical questions pop up. It doesn't descend into the baby-eating anarchy you are suggesting.

Stercus Accidit

I always thought the ps3/xbox divide was silly, the major games these days are cross platform, PC/console could make sense, different scenes entirely, but the only difference between xbox and ps3 is the colour of the plastic box and controller you use.

I am pro merge in that regard.

Spear

quarryman wrote: »

3rd post in this thread Spear.

D'oh.

TouchingVirus

quarryman wrote: »

What evidence are you basing this on? Look at the most successful pure gaming forums, neogaf and grcade. Both a single forum style with lots of megathreads and it works great.

There are more eloquent solutions out there. And given that a good few subforums have developed over time into their own community it'd be a ****ty thing to uproot them in favour of the megathread. Leave the communities alone, but do tidy up the quiet forums and lay clearer rules on what goes where. A compromise is the best solution.

Neogaf never spent any time with 60 forums where mini communities could form, but you can bet anything if they did they also wouldn't go to the one-forum-for-all solution either.

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

I always thought the ps3/xbox divide was silly, the major games these days are cross platform, PC/console could make sense, different scenes entirely, but the only difference between xbox and ps3 is the colour of the plastic box and controller you use.

I am pro merge in that regard.

Not really true, at all.

Dr Bob

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

I always thought the ps3/xbox divide was silly, the major games these days are cross platform, PC/console could make sense, different scenes entirely, but the only difference between xbox and ps3 is the colour of the plastic box and controller you use.

I am pro merge in that regard.

Not really , most games are multiplayer ,and its a big part of most AAA games. So if you have a single thread for "super shooter redux IV: the reduxening" ps3 owners arent going to want to sift through XBL tags to find people to play with or against and vice versa.Having an online forum is just going to spawn seperate "super shooter redux IV:Xbox live and PSN threads.
To be honest this is why I like the seperate catagories.

dreamers75

Hated the idea when it was 1st done the splitting of the games forum, this forum died and it was easily the best on the site.

Certain games users wanted their own forum which is fine BF2, Fighting games and themselves became a decent forum.

Some others didnt the opflash forum was brought from the dead just for Arma 2 altho other games in it, its mainly arma 2 and tbh its reasonably active.

PES/FIFA forums are the same very busy. I dont think remerging them will help as each forum is now its own little place and people who frequent it have a sort of community within.

This forum is tbh about 40 odd people posting and last few months its gotten a lot better in time it will get back to being the best.

TouchingVirus

Oh, I've not even thought about the PSN/XBL networks or games. I'd suggest heavy use of Thread Prefixes if we're discussing games available to a specific platform only (e.g. XBL Arcade games). I don't think they belong anywhere other than the Games forum, but it should be clearly marked as an Xbox game, no?

TheFairy

I vote for PC/XBOX/PS seperate forums, then split by game type, ie FPS/RTS/MMO/??? etc. I am fed up clicking on a thread that started as a PC discussion to see it taken over by console discussion. Have nothing against console gamers, but its just not me!

Single player games might be the same on various platforms, but the multiplayer aspect is not, its different through and through and we need seperate areas to discuss all things for that platform.

If we dont have this it would be like a motoring section with bikes and cars in the same forum. They both are vehicles and drive on roads so they are the same.......thats my point.

A-Trak

Please please leave the Fighting Game forum as is.

Lot's and lot's of fighting goes on there, as well as being the main channel for organising of tournaments.

TouchingVirus

TheFairy wrote: »

Single player games might be the same on various platforms, but the multiplayer aspect is not, its different through and through and we need seperate areas to discuss all things for that platform.

I fail to see the difference between online XBL and online PSN apart from lobbies and other technicalities. Especially nothing that would warrant game discussion in several threads over several forums which is what we're trying to change at the minute.

TheFairy

TouchingVirus wrote: »

I fail to see the difference between online XBL and online PSN apart from lobbies and other technicalities. Especially nothing that would warrant game discussion in several threads over several forums which is what we're trying to change at the minute.

My view is consoles/pc, not specific console platforms, so cant comment there, sorry. PC Online gaming and Online console gaming are vastly different beasts.

TouchingVirus

TheFairy wrote: »

My view is consoles/pc, not specific console platforms, so cant comment there, sorry. PC Online gaming and Online console gaming are vastly different beasts.

Again, only in the technicalities - as in how you host a game, connect, and maybe the odd strategy. The games themselves are the same. I can nail you with a sticky mine in GOW on the PC or on XBL. I still fail to see how discussing stuff like this needs to be done on a platform-specific level as opposed to a general level. At the moment it's done on a platform specific level, and it's fairly crap because there'll be 3 or 4 threads about a cross-platform game, each with 5 or 10 people posting on each thread. Why not get them all together?

Of course for the technical stuff I mentioned it should be taken to the respective forum, but general chat about the game should be centralised

TheChrisD

I think the proper first thing that needs to be done with the forums under the Games category, is to specifically section off video games from the other aspects of the Games category, those being the RPGs, Poker, Warhammer, and Boardgames.

Maybe something like:
Games -> Poker
Games -> Miniature Games
Games -> Roleplaying
Games -> Toys and Boardgames
Games -> Video Games

And then work out a rather structured system inside of video games to cover everything, where everything spreads out from Video Games?

TouchingVirus

TheChrisD wrote: »

I think the proper first thing that needs to be done with the forums under the Games category, is to specifically section off video games from the other aspects of the Games category, those being the RPGs, Poker, Warhammer, and Boardgames.

Maybe something like:
Games -> Poker
Games -> Miniature Games
Games -> Roleplaying
Games -> Toys and Boardgames
Games -> Video Games

And then work out a rather structured system inside of video games to cover everything, where everything spreads out from Video Games?

Nice idea, but it presents a little issue for the navbar at the very top of Boards which only goes 3 levels. so you're already 2 in before you hit the big problem of sorting through video games

TheChrisD

TouchingVirus wrote: »

Nice idea, but it presents a little issue for the navbar at the very top of Boards which only goes 3 levels. so you're already 2 in before you hit the big problem of sorting through video games

Well, bear in mind when I refer to "Games" I refer to the category, which doesn't count as a level (at least assuming so with the fancier navbar).

Surely it's not that hard to fit Video Games sub-forums into two nested levels?

Fnz

If, as a few people have suggested, 'technical issues' is given its own sub-forum won't that present a problem, in that, the pool of people available to answer queries will be limited to others who currently have problems, and altruistic-types who bother to enter such a forum.

Will it be a case of 'out of sight is out of mind'? At least, at the moment, there's an audience to notice peoples' cries for assistance.

Myrddin

Fnz wrote: »

If, as a few people have suggested, 'technical issues' is given its own sub-forum won't that present a problem, in that, the pool of people available to answer queries will be limited to others who currently have problems, and altruistic-types who bother to enter such a forum.

Will it be a case of 'out of sight is out of mind'? At least, at the moment, there's an audience to notice peoples' cries for assistance.

I would think on the contrary, if there was a central forum for that kind of thing it would be fairly obvious that that's where you go if you need tech assistance. Could serve to reduce irrelevance (to a games forum) if a newer scheme is implemented.

VenomIreland

I'm for this.

quarryman

Yeah actually, a technical-only section to answer all the boring repeatedly asked stuff would be great.

Then everything else for proper games discussion.

Fnz

EnterNow wrote: »

I would think on the contrary, if there was a central forum for that kind of thing it would be fairly obvious that that's where you go if you need tech assistance. Could serve to reduce irrelevance (to a games forum) if a newer scheme is implemented.

That's got nothing to do with my point. I was trying to say that questions, posted in a 'Technical Issues' sub-forum, would go unseen by all but those who themselves, need assistance.

People who have the technical knowledge are the least likely to visit such a sub-forum.

Azza

Actually can we rename the fighting game forum to "The Shadoloo Forum"

Overheal

Technical Questions? We have the Tech forums for that. What do you think is generally the area of discussion in Graphics eh?

cherryghost

Overheal wrote: »

Technical Questions? We have the Tech forums for that. What do you think is generally the area of discussion in Graphics eh?

Microwaving graphics cards :pac:

TouchingVirus

The tech areas shouldn't really be referred to as such as they are platform-specific areas. Places to ask questions relating to a specific platform and not games in general. Taking the current xbox forum as an example 80% of the threads are ones like "I got the RROD", "New xbox, which model" and so on which have no place in Games but no place in the Tech area either.

D4RK ONION

Three brief points.

1) Seeing as how Fighting Games is more popular than, you know, GAMES, merging or deleting it would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. We would move on and make our own forums and a lot of traffic would be gone. We have MANY users who only post there. I repeat, FG has to stay.

2) My own quiet forum, GH&RB isn't a "ghost forum" as such, but we do fight to clear off the cobwebs. TBH the name is a bit misleading as the forum is actually for the discussion of all titles which come under the Rhythm Genre and I was recently thinking if the title of the forum should be changed.

It is certainly one that would be considered for a merge or deletion, but I would point out that we do have a nice community, a great knowledge base and RB3 (and GH100) is only just around the corner. RB2 came out years ago and up until a few months ago, we had a great score challenge system taking place. If RB3 fails to reignite this, I will be not only surprised, but entirely for a merge.

3) Finally, if a merge was to take place, I would do it by genre and have a forum for each Company and PC, with a few extra forums for those that would only out-bloat their genre forum.

Doctor DooM

I'll personally gnaw off the nose of anyone who touches fighting games.

Just saying.


It took over 8 months to get that forum (this is not an exaggeration) and I have to be honest we will never know the damage this did our community because we missed the release of the biggest FG in the last 5 years, Street Fighter 4.

This sounds like me moaning but the point is that it happened because just assumed FGs would fail like some of the other ghostland sub cats. It's part of the problem.

Tallon

To be fair, the CoD forum is pretty big too.

Them games come out so frequently that there is always a big following and so a big demand for the forum

Myrddin

Fnz wrote: »

That's got nothing to do with my point. I was trying to say that questions, posted in a 'Technical Issues' sub-forum, would go unseen by all but those who themselves, need assistance.

People who have the technical knowledge are the least likely to visit such a sub-forum.

That's sort of the way a forum works is it not I've never visited the Mustard forum, but if I ever need mustard advice, I know where to go Until I choose to go there, the discussions remain unseen (thankfully, as mustard is vile ).

The fighting games forum is a community unto itself, I would imagine that's well safe. Arcade & Retro the same. Cull some dead/un-needed forums, consolodate all the video games forums into one category (Video Games). It will isolate toys & video games and poker from the rest though. Ah, I'm glad I'm not an admin dealing with this It's like one of those 9 square 8 piece puzzles trying to shift them around.