This place is on life support

[JsinOwl 644]

What do we do to fix it? I keep refreshing Tapatalk, and the last few days, there's nothing, absolutely nothing going on.

[NCA-Paendrag 2,758]

Think most people are playing silent hill.

Was some action after Destiny came but seems to have dried up.

Don't think we'll ever come back to the action it was in the good ol days.

Only a handful have active ppr's and not much traffic in them.

Maybe it will get better when COD comes out but I doubt it will last that long tbh.

I know I'm not getting it so not much help from me in that section.

I think the main reason is that not as many people play together anymore, like it was in the past.

And not that many good games out yet so less to talk about.

I miss the old days..

[TigerBurge 2,375]

I absolutely agree with you. Like them or not we are missing members like McNasty and Spectra. Hell even Auptyk. No one really starts threads. If someone does it's the same three or four people that respond. It's been a bad year for gaming. Not very many good games. Not many games at all.

[Playertd 177]

I think the main problem is not having a game (like call of duty) that everyone plays and enjoys playing together.

[Madjonny 386]

We all need Call of Duty back in our lives!

[JsinOwl 644]

I wish there was a way I could down vote you Johnny. No offense, but my life has been much better without CoD in it.

I've posting some on the Destiny boards, but that place is fucking brutal.

[Drifter 851]

Honestly I think times just simply change and internet forums are starting to see a lack of participation all over the place. Facebook is killing a lot of forums IMO. I run a few fishing websites, and am a member of a half doz other fishing sites and I have noticed the activity level on all those sites go down by at least 50% over the past 3-4 yrs now. And I've seen a lot of the people I use to know from those sites be active on FB now rather than on the internet forums because they feel it takes less time and they can keep in touch easier that way. Personally I don't care for FB anywhere near as much as I do internet forums because I feel FB is just less personalized than forums, but I do think FB is a big part of why forums all across the internet are slowing down at the rate they seem to be, sadly.

[Drifter 851]

Oh and also. That "like" button here on this site is killing participation as well if you ask me. Use to if someone posted something cool then you had to reply to their post to let them know. Which in turn got them to reply back to you and others joined in and activity went up. Now with the "like" button all you do is click "like" and that's it. No reply, no conversation, no activity level. Yet again another thing from FB that is killing sites (the like button). IMO that like button should be removed from the site if you want to try to boost activity.

 

Just my .02

[NCA-Paendrag 2,758]

I don't use FB so this forum is all I got

I remember the time before MW3 came out. Forum was buzzing and peoples ppr's were full of action (spamming ) and I could sit on the forum for several hours each day

[kylebees 242]

I like both of the above posts by Steve. Couldn't agree more about the Like Button and I'm guilty as well. There are plenty of posts that I have just liked and not posted in and that's not how it used to be. I think we should try it.

[Playertd 177]

Drifter, on 01 Oct 2014 - 12:06 PM, said:

Oh and also. That "like" button here on this site is killing participation as well if you ask me. Use to if someone posted something cool then you had to reply to their post to let them know. Which in turn got them to reply back to you and others joined in and activity went up. Now with the "like" button all you do is click "like" and that's it. No reply, no conversation, no activity level. Yet again another thing from FB that is killing sites (the like button). IMO that like button should be removed from the site if you want to try to boost activity.

 

Just my .02

I completely agree with this, if I like/agree with someone's post I usually just "like" it instead of commenting and starting conversation. Gotta get out of that habit LOL. 

[Madjonny 386]

I don't use FB so this forum is all I got

I remember the time before MW3 came out. Forum was buzzing and peoples ppr's were full of action (spamming ) and I could sit on the forum for several hours each day

and that's how I liked it...

You could go make a drink come back and there was loads more to read...

All those threads with class setups, tactics, our long technical discussions, like 'Beast Factor'...

You could barely keep up with it...

Same as Brede, I don't really do Facebook... I don't really know many of you all that well either, but I really would be lost without you all... I really hope the Christmas games give us something more to talk about...

EDIT: I do agree about the like button, it is a bit lazy.

[J4MES OX4D 10,034]

It has seemed really quiet lately but I think this is more down to people feeling less motivated to post and contribute because of the lack of games on the new systems. I wasn't on here in the old Call of Duty days but I can imagine the place was rampant and everyone playing together on their respective systems, sharing tips, tricks and just having a laugh. Late 2013-2014 so far has been an absolutely pitiful year for gaming which I believe to be a major factor. COD Ghosts was fucking shit, Battlefield was broken for months and the next gen launch was the equivalent of a tumbleweed disco in Borneo. When COD was in its prime years ago; the internet was absolutely buzzing; me and friends would play for hours after work and you could spend ages chatting about the game the next day. I think COD going shite/stale has left a gaping hole in gaming and the lack of other games on the next gen has been very disappointing this last year although it was expected. 

 

Thankfully, despite me not being too excited; Advanced Warfare could unite the COD community again. There are plenty of other games on the horizon too. Could really rejuvenate gaming and the forum. It's not just this site that has gone quiet; major YouTube channels have collapsed into oblivion since the next gen changeover and COD Ghosts being awful. It's just a really downbeat time for gaming and people have been left deflated this year with a lack of titles and ones that showed considerable promise; being ultimately disappointing and over-hyped by marketing and media. 

 

I don't use social media these days and other forums I have no interest in or quit last year. This place has a great community and when its thriving; it's just fantastic and wonderful to be a part of. People are still floating around as I've seen various different names signed in but there is a certain depleted feel in the industry but I'm sure things will pick up. I've seen a few people have had personal issues to deal with and others have been heavily committed to work. Rich is also struggling to come to terms with how useless Man Utd are these days too; so those are probably other reasons for why its very quiet at times. 

 

Next month is a really exciting time for the industry so we'll see how it goes. Maybe in a few weeks, we'll look back and wonder why we were worried

[Plumbers Crack 4,062]

I agree with the like button comment despite having used it 4 or 5 times in this thread alone.

How about trying not to use the like button for a month and see what happens?

[Diddums 4,346]

My biggest reason for being so absent is making promises I can't keep. I wanted so much from this place and asked people to chip in but I get too frustrated with coding and the people I paid to help out were useless. I don't want people to feel let down or frustrated that I didn't stick to my word so I tend to keep it on the low down. I've spent countless hours fiddling, tweaking, installing, but not being a programmer myself, there's only so much I can do and then I get too frustrated to carry on. 

 

I'm well aware of the issues that have been posted in the forum issues thread but I just don't know how to resolve them, and they annoy me every single day. The tech support for this forum software is non existent and I don't know anyone who can sort it out. Well, I do, but he's got multiple organ dysfunction syndrome and could pass away at any time, so I try to keep my interactions with him pleasant and not bother him with things like this. Bart has been a great help but I can't lean on him for everything, he has his own issues to deal with. 

 

Getting new traffic is hard. Seriously hard. Every time I think I'm on to something, it fails or Google changes their search algorithms and I'm at square one again. Running a successful site, by someone who knows nothing about this kind of thing, is impossible. 

 

I'm also a bit over gaming at the moment, although I need to get into Destiny properly. 

 

A huge factor for this place being so dead was when the PS4 released. Many of us played on the PS3 together and since the PS4 came out, lots of connections were lost, although that seems to be picking up slowly since Destiny is out. 

 

I might remove the like system to see how that goes, maybe it'll encourage people to reply, that's a good shout and one I thought of months ago but just left it. 

 

If you want, I can disable it for a week or two and see how it goes, report back here with your input please. 

[Diddums 4,346]

Done, like system disabled. Now you'll hafta reply

[TigerBurge 2,375]

I wish there was a way I could down vote you Johnny. No offense, but my life has been much better without CoD in it. :DI've posting some on the Destiny boards, but that place is fucking brutal.

That forum may be one of the worse I've ever seen,the Warframe forum is a very close second.

[Madjonny 386]

That forum may be one of the worse I've ever seen,the Warframe forum is a very close second.

Oh you should try looking at EAs FIFA forums... It's a horrible place, nobody has a nice thing to say about anything, just whinge whinge moan moan...

It's funny, Diddums just posted, like Button removed, I read it and then reached for the like button...

[NCA-Paendrag 2,758]

Cool beans Dave. One might consider removing the shoutbox for a while too.

Any thoughts?

[TigerBurge 2,375]

Oh you should try looking at EAs FIFA forums... It's a horrible place, nobody has a nice thing to say about anything, just whinge whinge moan moan...

It's funny, Diddums just posted, like Button removed, I read it and then reached for the like button...

Me too

[Diddums 4,346]

See? talking already

[JsinOwl 644]

Browsing the Destiny forums seriously makes me worried for the the future of mankind.

[TigerBurge 2,375]

Browsing the Destiny forums seriously makes me worried for the the future of mankind.

I've never seen so many trolls and douche bags in my life. It's actually amusing read.

[Drifter 851]

Way to be on things Dave, nice to see ya zapped the "like" button already. I honestly think that is a good step forward IMO.

 

I'm no site guru but I have helped run a number of successful fishing and rod building sites over the past 10 years so I'll just toss out a couple other things that I feel helps to get a site active.

 

One thing to try is to condense the number of forums as much as possible. Reason for that is because if a potential new member comes here and looks at a whole wall of 20+ individual forums on a site and lets say there's only 5 of those forums that have new topics at a rate that is anything close to often, then that person is going to think to themselves that 75% of the site is dead most the time and they will end up not joining. So it's better to have less individual forums on a site that are active, than more forums on a site that sit for days or weeks at a time without a new post icon next to it. It just gives the "look" of a more active site to potential members is all. So if there' some forums on here that could be made sub-forums, or combined with other forums then I would suggest trying that as well.

 

One other thing to do is rotate through the moderators each week giving the mods the job to start some new topics. Here's what I mean by that...and I can't remember whom all the mods here are so I'm just gonna pick a few fake names...

 

Lets same your mods are Johnny, Jake, bob,and Larry.  In the Mod forum set up rotation list like this...

 

This week- Johnny, next week, Jake, 3rd week Bob fourth week Larry. When it's your week then that mod needs to dedicate a little time to searching the internet for what ever is the latest gaming news then starting up a few posts about it. Same with the next weeks mod, and so on and so on. Obviously you don;t want to start a post that is pointless or lame, but it shouldn't be that hard to find some relevant gaming news that people would like to hear about and discuss on a gaming website. And it would only take a few minutes each day for the mod who's job it was that week to start some posts.

 

We did that on some of the sites I run and it worked very well. Then after the first year or so of doing that the sites were active enough with enough new people that we no longer had to have mods kick start things and the sites kept going on their own accord.

 

Anyway, just a couple suggestions.

[Jason 1,245]

Good ideas Steve.