The Future of Battleforums

[Glowpole]

i think bf is actually getting better imo

[Lizardbreath]

I have begun to think the same thing recently...Especially with Tipsy being the new GM.

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted by The Ugly One

I have begun to think the same thing recently...Especially with Tipsy being the new GM.

AND TALIGARO GETTING HIS LIKE 5th CHANCE TO BE A GOOD GM!!1

=[

we'll see how this turns out.

[TrongaMonga]

Tbh I have no idea why Taligaro is a GM. I hardly ever see him posting anymore.

[Lizardbreath]

I don't understand it either but whatever.

[little-cheeze]

erik is truly a supreme admin and he is the future of battleforums

[Ninja_Blue]

...I thought cheeze was perma-banned?
Or does the meaning of perma-banned not mean permanent ban?

[CelestialBadger]

@roach: I don't think I've seen any staff problems (staff being at each others throats) that have had any sort of major impact on the way the forums are run. You have staff who, sure, don't respect some of their fellow staff members, but that's because some of their fellow staff members are just plain ****ing retarded. That's ok. You've got slim pickings here as far as promotions to staff go. I think that below the admin level, most of the staff trust each other to do their job though, and trust that the job will get done.
F'instance: I've always disliked Bret. He's clueless about a whole bunch of things, but he's done a terrific job in the past organizing info on SC2, and I have to respect him for that, and I think most of the other staff members would agree no matter what their personal feelings of him are. And I think Bret would agree that no matter how much the other staff members flame him for being dumb as shit, he'd continue to put effort into the forum he's in charge of.

Sorry for picking on Bret in that example... It's just an example that I thought was relevant.

Probably needless to say, but I don't agree with your second point either. I think most of the staff here set a good example simply by being active and encouraging discussion. All we can ask from our members is that they continue to visit the site and continue to post. I think most of the staff members know how to encourage posts and get people talking, and despite various rules that they've broken, know where to draw the line when it comes to intelligent discussion.

This is being dealt with through redefining the roles of different staff levels and will probably be released soon. This will, most likely, fix the administrator handing out warnings/infractions scenario.

I do think that more clearly defined roles will help the situation. I think the roles you've defined are overly optimistic and overestimate the amount of effort that people are willing to put into this site, but it's probably a step in the right direction. If I continue to break the set of rules for elders (which I probably will) it will only be because the thing I enjoy most about this site is interacting with people however the **** I feel like it, and it probably won't have much to do with my actual opinion of the rules.

[Emperor Pan I]

I think the biggest problem is each admin and each group of admins have no idea what they are doing, and sadly as Skuzzy said in his last post, are simply trying to turn BF into something they want to see or they think is for the best, instead of staying the course which made BF popular and kickass in the first place. I think this threads very existence is proof that pretty much everyone here is more into talking about how there are so many problems, instead of well, you know doing something about it. (example: I asked the staff to just once a day or two, take a minute out of there busy complaining and post one thread or post in the gaming section. Of course I think I got two replies, and only one person decided to post. Good effort guys!) Lack of Respect lack of initiative, pretty much most of the staff don't even play video games, but think they are qualified in brining in video game members to a forum. I think the thing that got me to stay at battleforums was the effort Skuzzy had put into launching the site and then organizing and playing games with us. He ruly was a god.

Now I'm going to go jerk off to the thought of skuzzy, and i've filled my gushing quota for a year. See you next year.

[Roach Of Discord]

While I'm sure Skuzzy was a great admin..what you say is not entirely true. Skuzzy had the chance to create BF when the blizzard games were still in their prime. After he left, BF continued to do well because the games were still popular. The only thing the newer/present admins at that time had to do, was maintenance work. The gaming forums got a decent amount of traffic on their own... there was more interest, and more people who played these games. Now, however, most of the games we have are tired and fading. So, unlike the other admins, we're now pretty much stuck in a rut, with various options on what to do. Our job is alot tougher, because we're left with a bigger decision..to carry on hosting not so popular games, expand, or hope that blizzard pumps out newer games that will bring in more traffic.

I know what I'm doing as an admin. I've known what I've been doing since Cort promoted me and got me ready to be a full-time admin. But as I said..our job was easier for awhile...but the forums are getting older, they are no longer new and fresh, and we're faced with alot of challenging decisions and questions.

[Emperor Pan I]

Originally Posted by Roach Of Discord

While I'm sure Skuzzy was a great admin..what you say is not entirely true. Skuzzy had the chance to create BF when the blizzard games were still in their prime. After he left, BF continued to do well because the games were still popular. The only thing the newer/present admins at that time had to do, was maintenance work. The gaming forums got a decent amount of traffic on their own... there was more interest, and more people who played these games. Now, however, most of the games we have are tired and fading. So, unlike the other admins, we're now pretty much stuck in a rut, with various options on what to do. Our job is alot tougher, because we're left with a bigger decision..to carry on hosting not so popular games, expand, or hope that blizzard pumps out newer games that will bring in more traffic.

Battle.net still gets 60,000+ users a day for various games, Starcraft Warcraft III and Diablo II are still for PC gaming one of the most popular games on the market. In comparison Microsoft's amazing Xbox live which supports all of Xbox's online games gets 6 million subscribers for all of it's online games. Battle.net with a collection of 5 games has 12 million + users pass through it. Battle.net is the largest online gaming network. Starcraft is the second best selling computer game in history with 9.5 million. Starcraft is the only game which has been on the WCG game list since 2000. Diablo I & II 16 million. WOW has 8 million players.

There are only 17 Pc games which have sold in excess 3 million copies and BF has already hosted 6 forums of those games. The "newer" games you might want to host are not as popular as any of the Battle forums franchises, and never will be. I mean Titan Quest hadn't even sold 1 million copies, how many people could you really expect to attract?

The only other option is the console gaming forums, but BF isn't a forum that can cater to blizzard PC based strategy games, and add a console forum to that. It doesn't work like that. In addition it is much easier for strategy type games to attract forum posters than a console forum. No "dwindling popularity" is not the reason BF doesn't get the members.

ALL the problems BF has are direct results from stupid things an admin(s) have done in the past since Skuzzy left. ie. retarded forums, crap skins, the store, warning system, the "new" moderating system, trying to remove the asylum, alienating members, the "archive" mistake, the summit. etc. So much time is spent trying to figure out what all the problems are and fixing them, than is spent on making the forums a great place to be. God help us if Hellwolf decided to actual finish the strategy section with actual strategies WCIII might have some posters. Those are just a few examples in one big cluster **** of inability.

That is why SCII is so important. I couldnt believe back a few montsh before it was announced how obvious it was blizzard had a new game around the corner and there was talk of completely removing Blizzard games. Blizzard is the company pretty much anyone with a PC and an eye for gaming that sold games at any level. Each couple years if you ask most people what game you were playing it was most of ten a Blizzard game. You think that is going to change in the future? There is a slim chance things could turn around with SCII, so there cant be any **** ups.

[little-cheeze]

did you know eric threatened to perma ban me because he thought i was bizzy bone and some one else?

[Tipsy]

Originally Posted by CelestialBadger;

@roach: I don't think I've seen any staff problems (staff being at each others throats) that have had any sort of major impact on the way the forums are run. You have staff who, sure, don't respect some of their fellow staff members, but that's because some of their fellow staff members are just plain ****ing retarded. That's ok. You've got slim pickings here as far as promotions to staff go. I think that below the admin level, most of the staff trust each other to do their job though, and trust that the job will get done.
F'instance: I've always disliked Bret. He's clueless about a whole bunch of things, but he's done a terrific job in the past organizing info on SC2, and I have to respect him for that, and I think most of the other staff members would agree no matter what their personal feelings of him are. And I think Bret would agree that no matter how much the other staff members flame him for being dumb as shit, he'd continue to put effort into the forum he's in charge of.

Sorry for picking on Bret in that example... It's just an example that I thought was relevant.

Probably needless to say, but I don't agree with your second point either. I think most of the staff here set a good example simply by being active and encouraging discussion. All we can ask from our members is that they continue to visit the site and continue to post. I think most of the staff members know how to encourage posts and get people talking, and despite various rules that they've broken, know where to draw the line when it comes to intelligent discussion.

I do think that more clearly defined roles will help the situation. I think the roles you've defined are overly optimistic and overestimate the amount of effort that people are willing to put into this site, but it's probably a step in the right direction. If I continue to break the set of rules for elders (which I probably will) it will only be because the thing I enjoy most about this site is interacting with people however the **** I feel like it, and it probably won't have much to do with my actual opinion of the rules.

The example you give about Bret is still valid under the new rules. You can flame those characteristics all you wish as long as they don't impact the way the forum has been run. And looking at the statement you made that "I don't think I've seen any staff problems (staff being at each others throats) that have had any sort of major impact on the way the forums are run" then you should have no problems with the universal staff rules because that they wouldn't have stopped anything in the past and if they had been made a year ago they would have made no difference. However, if you did see an example of a personal conflict causing that problem, would you not agree that it would be good to stop?

Outside of the Bret example, I'll deal with flaming dealing with moderating job flaming (since he can't be flamed for that as put in your example). A big purpose of this is to get the would be flaming into BattleStaff as constructive criticism. Despite the lack of belief in many people (I'm not pointing at you, but from some response in the Asylum threads) everything posted in BattleStaff will be listened to, even if it is just me (which it most likely won't just be). With the growing lack of respect of staff and lack of thinking they actually listen to the members of Battleforums there has been an utter breakdown in communication and this seems to be the quickest path to continue communication. If we could run on the ideal respect-only thing (what others suggest) it would not work right now because there is none to very little respect for staff. That is what is trying to be changed. It's not perfect, however this rule will hopefully get staff members, elders, and ancients back into two-way communication with the staff (or the other staff members for the case of staff). With the large number of elders (41 with nearly all of them active), this is a large group that can help people realize that the staff will be doing their job, will be listening to them, and maybe deserve some respect. If someone doesn't want to engage in this 'grand experiment' than they have the ability to check themselves out by becoming a regular member. Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect, however it does seem to be pragmatic - at least I think it is.

As for the roles being overly optimistic, it may be true, but in my opinion it is better to shoot high and have something to strive for rather than lowering the bar for success just so we can say we've been successful.

[Roach Of Discord]

Originally Posted by Mike

Battle.net still gets 60,000+ users a day for various games, Starcraft Warcraft III and Diablo II are still for PC gaming one of the most popular games on the market. In comparison Microsoft's amazing Xbox live which supports all of Xbox's online games gets 6 million subscribers for all of it's online games. Battle.net with a collection of 5 games has 12 million + users pass through it. Battle.net is the largest online gaming network. Starcraft is the second best selling computer game in history with 9.5 million. Starcraft is the only game which has been on the WCG game list since 2000. Diablo I & II 16 million. WOW has 8 million players.

There are only 17 Pc games which have sold in excess 3 million copies and BF has already hosted 6 forums of those games. The "newer" games you might want to host are not as popular as any of the Battle forums franchises, and never will be. I mean Titan Quest hadn't even sold 1 million copies, how many people could you really expect to attract?

The only other option is the console gaming forums, but BF isn't a forum that can cater to blizzard PC based strategy games, and add a console forum to that. It doesn't work like that. In addition it is much easier for strategy type games to attract forum posters than a console forum. No "dwindling popularity" is not the reason BF doesn't get the members.

ALL the problems BF has are direct results from stupid things an admin(s) have done in the past since Skuzzy left. ie. retarded forums, crap skins, the store, warning system, the "new" moderating system, trying to remove the asylum, alienating members, the "archive" mistake, the summit. etc. So much time is spent trying to figure out what all the problems are and fixing them, than is spent on making the forums a great place to be. God help us if Hellwolf decided to actual finish the strategy section with actual strategies WCIII might have some posters. Those are just a few examples in one big cluster **** of inability.

That is why SCII is so important. I couldnt believe back a few montsh before it was announced how obvious it was blizzard had a new game around the corner and there was talk of completely removing Blizzard games. Blizzard is the company pretty much anyone with a PC and an eye for gaming that sold games at any level. Each couple years if you ask most people what game you were playing it was most of ten a Blizzard game. You think that is going to change in the future? There is a slim chance things could turn around with SCII, so there cant be any **** ups.

That might all be true, but it doesn't discredit what I said. For instance, how many people here..still actually play the games we host? How many of our active members still play diablo, or WC, or SC? Some of course, but the rate of game players has dropped significantly since the start of these forums... basically for the reasons I stated above. Statically, those games may have sold millions..and may have been rated #1 by whoever, but the fact remains that they ARE old, and tired. I use to play Diablo, but now I find it too horribly boring to even try. Along with that, our forums ARE tired. That isn't to say we can't be rejuvenated, we can, but it takes motivation that we just don't have right now. I hope to start putting some of MY true motivation into this place, but I need some sort of inspiration. I use to have it, but now I don't. I can't work without anything. I'm trying, though. The first step to that, is being able to work without being called a ****tart or whatnot. I find it frustrating and horribly displeasing when there is so much drama around this place. THAT is why we are implementing these oh so horrific staff rules. I, as an admin, cannot be motivated or inspired to put effort into this place without a little support. I just cant =\

And I disagree completely when you say ALL of the problems have been caused by internal issues. It just isn't true. Everything grows tired after awhile...and I'm sure you'll come to find that out. It's the same with games...or music artists, or even television. This may be a bad example...but here I go. For example, most television series, once they get to about the 6th season, if they don't start really changing things up, viewers drop and the show gets cancelled. It's simply because after so long of seeing same thing, viewers get bored and agitated, and leave. It's the same with this place..or anything else. Without true motivation and effort to make this place MORE Interesting than it ever has been, people will just leave or not care. That is the problem..atleast in my honest opinion. It's not to say that we, the admins or the staff aren't to blame for a bit. I think everyone shares a bit of the blame..but the truth is, we have to make things more interesting, and more original to ever pull this place back to the glory it once had.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Mike

God help us if Hellwolf decided to actual finish the strategy section with actual strategies WCIII might have some posters.

Half of those guides are outdated and written mostly by people who don't play the game anymore. And even if those were completed, it would still not really affect activity at this place.

I have said this once before and I will say it again: I have considered the WC boards to be a Request board. People want help with something, we help them with it. Then they come back for more if the advice offered was beneficial.

Originally Posted by Cheeze

did you know eric threatened to perma ban me because he thought i was bizzy bone and some one else?

That has nothing to do with the topic in question.

[little-cheeze]

it is the Future of battleforums

[Guest]

Originally Posted by Roach Of Discord

That might all be true, but it doesn't discredit what I said. For instance, how many people here..still actually play the games we host? How many of our active members still play diablo, or WC, or SC? Some of course, but the rate of game players has dropped significantly since the start of these forums... basically for the reasons I stated above. Statically, those games may have sold millions..and may have been rated #1 by whoever, but the fact remains that they ARE old, and tired. I use to play Diablo, but now I find it too horribly boring to even try. Along with that, our forums ARE tired. That isn't to say we can't be rejuvenated, we can, but it takes motivation that we just don't have right now. I hope to start putting some of MY true motivation into this place, but I need some sort of inspiration. I use to have it, but now I don't. I can't work without anything. I'm trying, though. The first step to that, is being able to work without being called a ****tart or whatnot. I find it frustrating and horribly displeasing when there is so much drama around this place. THAT is why we are implementing these oh so horrific staff rules. I, as an admin, cannot be motivated or inspired to put effort into this place without a little support. I just cant =\

And I disagree completely when you say ALL of the problems have been caused by internal issues. It just isn't true. Everything grows tired after awhile...and I'm sure you'll come to find that out. It's the same with games...or music artists, or even television. This may be a bad example...but here I go. For example, most television series, once they get to about the 6th season, if they don't start really changing things up, viewers drop and the show gets cancelled. It's simply because after so long of seeing same thing, viewers get bored and agitated, and leave. It's the same with this place..or anything else. Without true motivation and effort to make this place MORE Interesting than it ever has been, people will just leave or not care. That is the problem..atleast in my honest opinion. It's not to say that we, the admins or the staff aren't to blame for a bit. I think everyone shares a bit of the blame..but the truth is, we have to make things more interesting, and more original to ever pull this place back to the glory it once had.

Starcraft II.

[AZN_FLEA]

the problem with starcraft 2 is that we dont know if it is going to be a good game or not. i can almost guarantee its going to be a good game because its from blizzard but what if it isnt?

and will starcraft 2 actually bring activity to these forums? the most active place here is the general chat place (chitchat and asylum). there will prolly be better sites to look up starcraft 2 info on. we cant guarantee being the first search results when someone searches starcaft 2 on google.

my point: starcraft 2 can be, but isnt guaranteed to be the saviour of BF

[Chris]

Just because a game is created by Blizzard, doesn't mean it will totally be awesome. People said that about Serious Sam II when Croteam finished it, but it turned out to be not one of thier finest moments.

But I am not sure how much activity ScII will bring, cause it will eventually end up like the Warcraft section when it comes to posting: mostly used for requests or guidance.

[Flempipes]

I have been a member for nearly 4 years, and honestly never had the urge to post, just read.... But I got bored and tired for waiting for D3 so I started posting. I want some damn credit for sticking around this long and finally starting to post >