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

Maybe a section covering older rpgs? Like the Ultima series, or Might and Magic. Stuff like that. They are roleplaying games after all (unlike Diablo 2), and alot of people do still play the old-school rpgs. Just a suggestion anyway.

 

One of the major strengths of BoM is the almost "Elitist Jerks" http://elitistjerks.com/forums.php quality posting when it comes to the technical discussions of the games themselves, compared to a number of other gaming sites I've seen.

Only that the games the discussion is about are so old and thoroughly plugged that the actual interesting topics to discuss have most often already beaten to death by someone else anno 2002 or so.

So it's more of a question to which can of worms to open next.

 

I love me some EJ to my WoWing.

 

A shame that the Drakensang franchise is lacking. It is the next best thing.

 

I don't think this constitutes a suggestion but more rather an observation. Fact is, in this month alone, this is the 3rd forum I am visiting that have been discussing about dwindling members or trying to generate more forum traffic. It seems that social network sites such as Facebook had done in a big blow to forums in general. Only forum loyalist remains... unless the forum is the kind that doesn't require any real member like trading forums. My observation is, forums that were able to maintain a steady influx are forums that caters to stuff that had an endless supply of audience. Like teen-age talks (for girls), trading forums, and certain sports like running or general gym activities.

With regards to the PC gaming community, I am currently playing the on-line MMO game called WarFlow (I followed the link here in SP). The developer had a special forum for it but if you visit it, you'd realize that the number of people active there are just a small fraction of the actual number of players. And reading some comments, you find out that the reason for this is the in-game messaging facility. Players would rather ask their questions there and get the answers right away. Gamers nowadays would rather have instant Q&A rather than the post-Q-today-and-hope-for-an-A-tomorrow scenario of a forum.

I may be wrong but perhaps we are here in SP not for the games anymore. I know I'm not.

 

Is there a way you can take advantage of Facebook rather than seeing it as a threat?

 

We could charge a fee in order for people to be able to view anything other than the most basic forums (mainly a forum set up to explain why we are charging a fee). That way, we would set ourselves up as an elite community, and people would undoubtedly be knocking down our doors I order to gain admittance to our privileged society, if for no other reason than to see what we are up to.

We could write a simple script so that anyone going to facebook.com would automatically be redirected here.

Excellent idea. As long as no one else is allowed in. And as long as that is the only forum I can post in.
No, wait…

OK, so seriously (yes, believe it or not, seriously), I think part of the problem is that gaming as a whole is a much broader market than when SP started. SP started when PC gaming was much more popular than it is now (or perhaps more accurately, had a much bigger share of the overall gaming market), whereas now, consoles and the like have taken over. And yet SP still seems to cater to the PC gamer (non-PC games are lumped into The Playground). Maybe consideration needs to be given to put more emphasis on console games.

 

I have played 3 games on the PC in my life -- BG, BG2, and an aborted attempt at Torment. I'm not really here for the games. I'm here for the social discussions (as proved by my posting locations.) I suppose I could find another community that focusses more on politics and social issues, but why would I? The members here are interesting to talk to and represent a wide spectrum of opinions that I find stimulating. I've also become friends with many of them. I don't see many changes that you could make that would attract more people like me. But as long as I have breath and computer access, I'll be a loyal SPer.

 

About Console games:

As far as I know (which isn't very far, I should add) console games often use different rules for D&D feats. I have to plough through quite some text on sites like Gamefaqs to get nice suggestions. SP and the BoM can do better than that and since SP is already in the top 5 google results for any (D&D based) fantasy PC game, I guess you'll attract a decent amount of people for console games as well.

Most wanted downloads for games:
A goofy, slow-witted numbskull like me can easily get lost on SP when searching for downloads that add or restore fun to a game. People don't want to go through several subsections of downloadable stuff (Mods/Official patches/editors etc) to find the most wanted patches and such, I guess. SP offers an awful lot of downloads which is nice, but perhaps also confusing. Would it be nice to suggest the most wanted fixes, mods, patches and perhaps custom stuff to browsing people?
Or: When I go to the BG2-subsection of the Games-section of SP, I immediately enter the walkthrough sub-subsection. Perhaps iso ending up at the walkthroughs, an "all about this game"-infosection would be nice, in which SP suggests the most wanted downloads/walkthroughs etc as well as the related BoM-forum?

We lost forum-members to jinglebells. Wouldn't the BoM loose even more members to cowbells?

 

Ban the ****ing PG rating.

 

There are plenty of other forums that are poorly moderated. I like that this one is well moderated and that the pages aren't full of sparkly animated signatures and incomprehensible / irrelevant posts.

 

At the risk of sounding overly cynical...

Looking at the few game sites I occasionally visit, they offer information that I want and/or need. SP basically offers information on old games that weren't that popular to begin with (loyal followers: yes, critically acclaimed: some, overly popular: maybe KoTOR). Does anybody still download guides and walkthroughs or soundsets or portraits anymore? (I'm kinda curious about this)

I haven't read the news in ages (does anybody still?), since it doesn't cover anything I'm really interested in anymore. I'm guessing the news on the front page doesn't attract new regular visitors since it can be read at various other news sources around the internet.

What I do visit SP for are the forums (non gaming forums that is), but I must admit my interest in them declined a few years ago as well. Like said before by others, not many new people come to the forums to ask questions about the games since the information they need is readily available elsewhere or in game, and games nowadays require you to think less making discussing them less interesting. I don't really think making changes to the forums matters much, except cater to the old regulars.

So, how to breathe life back into this dying old contraption... did you miss Voy's suggestion? (didn't see you comment on it)

I think switching medium might be the only way to attract new people to this site. Maybe make videos of old games like BG 1 and 2 with tips, hints, tricks etc. that will direct niche gamers that never heard of SP to the site and maybe interest some new people to the games. And of course review and talk about new games that are covered by SP. Nothing too serious tho, just light hearted and fun (if you could get someone with the enthusiasm of this guy, you're golden ). Yes, you'll be using somebody else's platform, so some people watching the videos will never visit SP, but if you refer to it, make it well known where the video are from, I'm sure people will visit.

And yes-vote on the Splunge forum

 

Bull-****ing-****. You and your tools have been on my ass time and time again in the past about how I should put the brakes on my use of swear words because apparentness you have a deep hatred of asterisks. Remember that? I remember the number of warnings you dropped on my head about that. You said yourself SP is "family friendly" and with you being on a zealotic quest against asterisks. That is ****ing PG.

The "MUG" should be called "PG13-UG", as it's barely better than the overall boards.

Also, for those of you who were inquiring where the hell CD is, allow me to educate you... I don't know exactly what happened in regard to her being part of the news team, and frankly, I don't give a flying ****. CD, as well as myself and several other longtime former members of this PG-rated purgatory all left for the same reasons. What reasons? Those will remain ours and ours alone. I'll just say this: SP used to be a great place. It's now a pale shadow of it's former self.

I know I said I was leaving for good, and that is still the plan. That is just something I needed to get off my chest.

 

"Still the plan?" What the hell are you waiting for? Just go already.