What would you like to see more of or change on SP/BoM?

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I do not think a mobile version is necessary. Mobile browsers are quite close to their desktop counterparts nowadays and smartphones have a lot of computing power. At least I can surf the site comfortably with my phone.

 

I can't surf this comfortably at all my phone, so I don't try any more.

 

The site needs more cowbell.

 

I think that SP should perhaps give more profile to BioWare's non-D&D productions. As much traffic as BG 1&2 have generated, and still do, that won't continue forever. BioWare's other properties are thriving, so as much as their forums have changed the game there must be some latitude for grabbing forum goers who want a more mature (as in sensibly moderated) forum experience. The main reason I don't post here as much as I might is that there is a paucity of game discussion. The Alleys do not hold any appeal for me anymore, as I have relatively little interest in US politics & who Fox News/CNN/whoever's hate figure of the week is.

I think that breaking up the games forums is a positive step in the right direction... But don't overlook the Mass Effect frachise. Again, this generates huge amounts of interest -- The Escapist received quite a bit of traffic just over the news that ME3 would have a new composer working on its score -- even if it's a diversion from SP's fantasy & D&D-based heritage. Along with TES, ME is the premier running Western RPG series. Of course, you could also branch out to JRPGs, but that may be a bridge too far. Embracing more of the broader church of CRPG gaming would be a good & sensible step -- can it really be right that a CRPG forum has separate politics and philosophy forums, but KotOR (1&2), Jade Empire & Mass Effect get lumped into one forum? In a way, it's to SP's intellectual credit, but it also shows a lack of willingness to embrace new frontiers in what should be SP's core interest.

The key to any modernisation is to be prepared to diversify and shift the focus from what has become customary. Being too afraid of offending the existing user base can become a paralysing fear, that leads only to stagnation and decline. This is as true in the virtual world of the internet as in real life. In the UK retail industry, the decline and rise of Marks & Spencer is a good example. They were heading downhill fast in the 90s, only to pull out of their commercial nosedive after realising that they couldn't make money selling pleated skirts to OAPs forever.

Similarly, if D&D-style games are going out of fashion, then going down with the ship doesn't help anyone; diversify, run off of other interests, and be ready for the renaissance when it comes.

 

I think you also have to know who your customer is, and if Bioware traffic is really a lost cause, what's the point in trying attract Bioware traffic? If your base is indeed hardcore D&D fans, I can think of little that would be more off-putting to them than being confronted with a bunch of non-D&D forums and news, etc. Just my

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An unrelated suggestion would be to expand Creativity Surge to include more than just writing. There are lots of amateur musicians, artists, and even film-makers out there (well Saber anyway). I know you can make your own photo albums, but a forum that lets members showcase their material more widely might be neat. Personally I'm interested in the creative endeavors of the little guy - sometimes you can find genuinely good stuff that way.

 

I've been lurking this site for a long time now, and it's pretty sensible the decrease in forum activity over the years. Mostly, I believe the reasons to be those that Tal mentioned, it's much more difficult to attract a crowd to a fan site when game developers/producers hordes all players on theirs own communities. How do we change that scenery? Truth is, I'm not sure it's possible. It's just so much more logical for a new player to search for help/information in the developer forums, especially with the entire stimulus they receive to register on these communities.

Besides my pessimistic overview, I believe that the whole idea of expanding the number of games covered is a sound one, as that could work as an attracting factor to new members looking for information on more that just a specific game from a specific developer.

Another suggestion would be to focus on others areas of the whole fantasy world, like specific books series or specific authors, RPG systems(besides D&D) specific forums…

And, by the way, I agree with Barmy, the possibility to have a lighter version of the forums would be a nice addition.

 

It is the games that draw a crowd but as Tal said by making games more accessible the need for advice and discussion has decreased. Rarely do I play a game more than once now but every time I get a new RPG game I try to make a thread with the questions I have, comments and general rambling about my experience. There are many experienced gamers here who wants this site to keep going to them I say: Post and talk about your gaming! The Diablo II thread is live and kicking and I am sure there are plenty of lurkers reading them. I like to talk and read about the games I am playing and I am sure most people do, traffic draws traffic and if people come here and see that there are a few threads discussing just the game they are playing in a mature and intelligent way they just might stick around.

 

+1 both

IMO
- forum should try expand to action rpg's giving them forums and move them up; like fallout3, Oblivion, Risen or Gothic or w/e

- and dead games forums should get reduced to subforums(for example Baldurs gate 3 could be easily reduced to subforum of Baldurs gate II, plus why shadows of amn have diff forum than ToB, i dont know one person who has bg2 and didnt play ToB could be easily one forum- Icewind has one for HoW+Totl+orginalgame and it works) I know such ppl can possibly exist but big brains of bg2 here can handle any question launched at them and they know game very well with both ToB and without it ^^.

- layout of the page could change a bit it's quite messy(main board), blue color and "red stones with gold outline" should stay ofc it's sort of a trade mark but if any member here has skills to improve it than mby its worth a try.

- youtube account sorcerers.net? Mby someone can make decent gameplay movies and has skills in aftereffects and is a user here could be arsed to do a cool gameplay movie from a new game like WItcher2, put the adress of forum in desription and tell to ask questions there.. good vid of popular game can get like 100-500k or more views in few months... Plus with account you can friend any person out there who has some sort of video of gameplay from DnD games, comment his channel saying cool vid or smth, people like that, mby he'll check out the forum or at least he will be aware it exists

I also have an account on bioware and I don't use it anymore because this forum is more fun and it also has/had Klorox

Anyway this things are easier said than done...

As a plus sorcerers really google good, thumbs up for that

 

I like the look of the new blog forum - nicely accessible. Also, yay on expanding CS.

 

@Voy on the bg1 bg2 thing, they have different engines, so i think it's because of modding questions(for BG2), note the descriptions of the forums.

on the page, mostly lurk these days, but the pop-up ads are kinda annoying.


edit:
if you could fix the page navigation in the threads to show all the pages it would be great. this means not jut the first<1 2 3 .. x >last
but every page like <1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 (you get the idea...)(...)> you are not really using the space for anything else, come to think of it, i think i could do it.

 

i meant Bg2:SoA and Bg2:SoA+ToB and bg1 and bg2 both run on infinity engine plus there's separate Infinity modding forum

plus maybe some forums can be removed/moved to save some space?





Maybe also BG2 should be on top of that list as it's the most popular forum? and the least popular could be lower

 

I don't play games much I'm here because of the people. From my perspective no change is necessary, but that's purely selfish.

 

@Tall: when viewing a thread, there is one on the top of the thread(below the commercial banner and the bottom(above the bookmarks). sorry, i can't take a screen shot on this computer(don't know how).

 

Er, why would the IE modding news go to the graveyard? It's updated regularly.

SoA+ToB could probably merge easily, at worst you can add tags to posts as SoA or ToB

As for people not playing without ToB, I know someone who got SoA when it came out and asked me earlier this week "What's Throne of Bhaal?" because it was sat on my desk

Featured Polls perhaps could be in a subfora?

Multiplayer adventures probably disolve into own game forums. Perhaps a sticky in the playground referenced in each of the forums with the common issues of getting online throughout the IE games and NWN games. (Never actually played BG online, closest I got was figuring out how to get it to bloody work then the other person having to go.)

It looks like Tal has already cleared out the modding forum itself so I guess that's going already

 

I think there should be a Splunge forum.