I don't feel that this place is going to the crapper. I have been with these boards since the roarvgm days, all the way back to 2001. Back then I was just a lurker asking simple questions about the PSX debug that still pop up today. We were all "noobs" at one point in our lives and we got wise, but you have to remember is that there will always be someone new here asking simple questions about such and such dev hardware. Just be helpful, thats what sets us apart from the other forums. There will always be the occasional asshole poster that shoots down every opinion you have and ignites a flamewar. Just don't let that person get to you, its the Internet!! Its thread like these that actually get me worried sometimes. What I don't want to see is this place to get uptight with the rules and then end up dying because the members will be afraid to get modded for showing any opinion in what they posted and the mods are afraid that it will get out of hand. This type of thing almost happened and I'm seeing the signs of it happening again. Grant it we did have immense flamewars over politics and now ppl don't post about it, which is ok but I don't care what you're political affiliation is, but that doesn't mean I don't mind reading what you have to say even if they are opposite of my views. I've been starting to see a new wave of regular posters which is good so of course, it will keep this place alive. I will still be around, posting from time to time if I'm interested in what you guys are talking about. I just don't want to see this place die, it almost did, then Acclaim had their bankruptcy auction and I'm glad I played a major role in that. Just relax, be cool, be respectful, and use common sense.
maybe...and bare with me...maybe we need to enforce some things around here.....ive seen them remove posts bout screaming matches at other posters, but do these posters actually get justice for it, maybe you 'kno suspend them or something or do like a 3 shots and your gone kinda deal for insulting someone, or doing something,...i dunno....i cant very well convey what im thinking, sorry for wasting your time with this post Ryan Adams
I know I'm biased against Sony, but whatever. Just as car enthusiasts have their favorite makers and models, I feel so too should video games. That's the way it was back in the NES and Genesis days, and to me video gaming has and always will have some element of fanboyism. With that said, I don't go into threads with the only intent to demean people over their choice of system. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, just as those who have system biases are.
What can I say... as a site grows, there are more and more novices. I myself have noticed the posts, quite ridiculous posts about basic items you should already know about if you are here. No one seems to like strict moderation. To give criteria for posting, well... it is perhaps too close minded. And now we will have several thousand new people drop by when a magazine article in the working drops. So what to do. The board is not meant to be for the novice. However, I wont kick people because they dont know as much as veterans do. It's very much a hard spot. The only thing I can do is make another forum that is locked to all but existing members. That way when the newbies come, there is a safe haven. I can close membership ranks. We have a good community, to dilute it further may be harmful. Therefore I put to you the idea of closing the forum to new users. I neeed ideas here, because I too have noticed that there is a large amount of crap posts. I personally would remove the off topic area, I think it distracts us too much.
I've been reading/posting less not b/c of bashing, but it just seems there's a lot of lame posts in general... there are plenty of veterans that are guilty as well, IMHO. It's not my place to point fingers or anything, so I just do what I do... post and read less. No sense in whining about it. On that note, I don't think locking the forums is the answer... although it would cut out some of it I'm sure.
What Magazine is this article going to be in? I'll have to pick up a copy when it ships. I don't really like the idea of removing the off topic section. It seems to me that a lot of the new members think this is just another video games forum, when the main focus is Rare, Obsucre, Dev, and Prototype. I'm not too much of a Dev. person, but I do know a thing or two about Rare, Obscure, and Prototype systems, and that's what I originally came here for.
I think the current forum structure is not bad at all. Yes, we're here to discuss videogames, but we're also here (IMHO) to form a brotherhood and become friends with one another (which is why the Off Topic area exists). We have a common interest, but to know more of those people you share an interest with, you can also see their other interests and learn about their lives. And there could be complete newbies that may come and teach even the most knowledgeable experts a thing or two. Who knows, maybe one of the zero-posters is Hideo Kojima or Yuji Naka or Jack Tramiel - so maybe locking down forums to newbies is also, I think, not a very good idea.
Agreed. I don't think anyone would suggest that it's a good idea to discourage new members...but it is frustrating to see the same old questions repeated over and over again. I think that in a perfect world, there should be some sort of ASSEMbler primer that new members could read. For me...that was the old ASSEMbler website. I read through that all about a hundred times before I ever posted a thing. I know that you can't force new users to read anything (ooh, maybe you should have a primer with a quiz you have to pass for membership, haha), but it's a nice thought.
I wouldn't close the forum, new members is what keeps forums fresh. Even though there may be 1000+ members I notice only a handful of us actually post more than once in a while. (Take a look at the people who posted in this thread.) Besides, it's kind of cool to educate new people to the sordid histories of videogames. What's the use of knowing all this stuff if you can't tell people about it? The restriced forum idea is a good one, maybe they have to meet a cetain criteria before they're allowed in (say 500 posts or something.) I'd personally go with that. Then when someone meets the criteria to be allowed in the big boy's forum the losers and spammers will be filtered out. I don't think the forums here are any worse than before. Compared to Ne- errr.... other video game forums this one has a suprisingly low amount of dumbasses on it.
How about 1. 100 posts to start a thread 2. Banned if at least post is less than ~50~ and posting less than 1 post a week 3. 250 posts to post view and post in Off-topic 4. Mods go in and correct spelling and grammar if post is uncomprehensible. 5. Locking threads that already are similar with other ones Thats all I can think of...
This is so true. The other day someone posted that discovered a famicom game + converter inside a NES cart, and from what i remember everybody's replys were polite and giving info about it.
1. The problem I see with this is that since the older members tend to be the most experienced members all the good post would go in this forum and further dilute the existing gaming forum. 2. This might be the best option for now. There comes a point were something becomes so big the it becomes quantity over quality. The downside is that we might miss the opportunity to gain some real knowledge and good members as well. As elitist as it sounds maybe going to something like invitation only would be a good move. How to do something like that would have to be worked out though. 3. If you close the off topic forum it will inevitably spill over to the other forums so be prepared to do some heavy modding to enforce it. Doing that will just cause people to post crap to gain privileges. I thought that post was funny. If there was an import gaming 101 that would be one of the first questions.
ill be honest my posts have been a bit long and at times i seem to drag on with my opinion at times, i mean even then i myself have been with the forum since the the 6 last months or so of the old roar forum and i must say things seem a little quite. In reality i dont think its at its worst, ive seen it more dead at times. And yes ive been here when the politcal disccussion got heated( i wont get into cause we came to an agreemnt and i prefer to be nutreal on the subject). But what has happened is there are newer member(some of which have brough some life back in) and there are as well those who do not know as much as we do and some posts seem redundant. Even then i noticed there were 3 ps3 posts that seem to have a similar topic, but then those post turned into sorta a reduncance of what was mentioned in previous ones. Then the whole hot coffee thing, well that almost got ugly, then a similar one was opened up, then i guess it didnt help i mentioned the sims 2 accusation as well. But in time it will be find again. I noticed that alot of the older members havent been posting as much as in the past. But then again as far as next gen talk goes, theres not too much exciting suff. And yes i did enjoy that nes converter post, all those roach stories were just classic. Now then we had the taito arcade post and of course there was debate on why the us arcade industry is down, and that almost turned ugly. I think what it is these days is alot of the older members arent as active (i should talk, ive been here alot longer than cahaz has and even then he has WAY more posts then i do). Still i think even then its just a down period at the moment, all forums have this, plus mind you look how many members are real busy with their personal lives if you think of it, in fact one that i forgot his name, but was a very active member in the old forum gave a shout out as to his absence. But the only improvment im really looking for is acurate post count (yeah i know its not a biggie that much, but its kind a cool to keep track of how many posts you have), as well as make a ground set on what belongs in off topic and what belongs in general, since i noticed some that belong in general or on off topic. Anyway thats my long ass posts, cheese maybe this is part of the reason its down at the moment, i have no clue why ive been writing such long as posts, apoligiezes.
Something I noticed (not so much related to this forum, but to the internet as a whole): Back in 1995-96, my family had just got a computer with AOL (which was kind of cool back then) and that's when I was first on the internet. I remember looking up so much information on it, usually always about games. I loved Gamefaqs, Gamesages, and just searching for stuff about Sonic Xtreme, old systems, Playstation and Saturn, and even looking at some message boards. The net was fun, people were nice, stuff was simple and not pumped full of ads. Well, then for a pretty damn long time I wasn't on the internet basically at all. I got a computer and DSL when I moved out a few years ago, hooked it online, and then said to myself: what happened. Everythings ruined. All those great sites are ruined, mostly with ads, all the interesting boards are either gone or full of people fighting about PS2 vs. Xbox, etc...I'm sure everyone knows what I mean. I've been looking at this website for a long time (on school comps and stuff, probably not as long as others, but oh well) and this is still one of my favorite ever websites. I love how the website is like deja-vu to all those cool sites I use to look at way back when. The people in the board are totally cool too. I never joined any forums mostly because every one I looked at was just flamewars. This one was totally cool though, there was never people doing stuff like that, just lots of information on cool game stuff, which I loved to read. So I said, hey, might as well join, and I did. I liked how noone treated me like I was "new" or anything. It's as if the other new members have been here all along. Well, getting back to what the threads about, I've noticed the forum getting kind of wonky too, mostly in the last few weeks. I've saw in a lot of PS3 and X360 threads there's always someone totally attacking a system that's not even out yet;and although it's never as bad as in other forums where people will jam out an unreadable cuss filled response to the other person, it's still not good. I think Hawanja's site has an awesome quote on it, "You do not live or die depending on what system you own or how many points you can score on Galaga. You come home, crack a beer, eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, maybe do a couple of bong rips, and play a stupid game." Another thing I've noticed happening a lot is on the "Post when buy something" thread, a lot of the time when someone say's they bought something they include the price or where they got it from. I like that, it gives other people an idea of how much something is. But a lot of the time, someone posts something about how the above person is paid too much. This wouldn't be so bad if someone is trying to educate someone about paying too much for games, but more often then not it's pretty much someone trying to make themselves sound more superior because they payed less or have a "source" of where to buy it cheap. I say: it doesn't matter. If someone want's something, they'll pay for it. I don't like telling people I got someone cool and then suddenly someone tells me there mightier than thou because they say I payed too much or something like that. Well, I got the game to play it, it's not gunna sit on a shelf, it's going to be played. I'm getting my moneys worth. If you know of a better price or something, TELL PEOPLE SO THEY MAY GET IT FOR THE AMAZING PRICE, don't be a douche and pretend your ability to spend less money makes you the king of the jungle. It's just that thats one of my favorite threads because I like looking at the imported games, I don't want it to become stupid. I, being a new member, have probably made some totally retarded posts, and I apologize for that. I have a really stupid, immature sense of humor, and I'm sure not everyone gets it, but the intend isn't to spam, it's to lighten stuff up. I'm mostly here because I love looking at pictures of the rare stuff and reading about it, so I hope people don't think me or a lot of the new members just think this is another video game forum, because we really do love this stuff, even if we don't have a lot to contribute to the dev stuff and such. I also think something that contributes to the crappiness of the internet and forums is the fact that games are really mainstream now, and just about everyone who boguht Halo 2 and things think they are a "hardcore gamer". (of course, no offense to anyone who does mostly just play newer games or anything, I'm talking about people who consider old games totally obselete and stuff.) It's the same thing with every category of entertainment; music, movies, etc. You just can't really talk about something without someone blowing in and repeating something they heard from Game Informer or IGN or something. I think (newer) games are ruining it for us, every month theres more hoarders, more stupid kids on Xbox Live, etc. I miss the days where there wasn't too many people except the real nerdy kids to talk about games with.... Well, this was a long post, but I just felt like it was a good place to blab.
I have tried to avoid posting in this thread since I have not been a participant in this forum for very long. I also cannot say that I have seen the animosity that others have seen, although I have seen some of the "fanboy" comments every one in awhile. I tend to lurk in most forums; this forum is the one that I am most active in. From what I have seen, post count limits do not seem to accomplish anything other than "neffing" in order to up post counts. The only exception that I have seen is with buy/sell/trade forums where a minimum post count seems to help eliminate "drive-by" sales ads by people who only sign up in order to sell something. I try to respect everyone's opinion and I hope to learn from the knowledge of others. I do hope that if anyone feels any of my comments have been rude, mean or otherwise out of line, that they let me know publically or privately.
I don't know guys, remember a few weeks ago that guy who posted pics of his M2 he found at a flea market? If no new members are allowed then stuff like that will stop happening.
I don't think that removing forums or limiting members is the solution, for reasons already pointed out in this thread. I think that a clear, concise forum FAQ that spelled out the rules would be appropriate, as well as enforcement of those rules. When someone would break a rule, they would receive a warning. After a certain amount of warnings, change their title to reflect that they are on their last one. Should they break the rules again, ban them for a certain amount of time or permanently, depending on the infraction. If they behave, then perhaps after a month or whatever remove the changed title. And last, I think we should all remember that this is all just about games. Really. It's not a place that worships one system/company, or criticize people's opinions. There's plenty of other boards for that. If you have a problem with another member, please carry it out through PMs, and spare the rest of us. Just my random thoughts on the subject.
Yep i dont think theres much need to become an exclusive community. We will have a bunch of people going around on other forums saying "ha-ha im a member on ASSEMbler and your not!"!
Well, to tell the truth, the assembler forums are already tucked away quite well. Compared to other places (Such as the Gamefaqs/Gamespot or the IGN forums), we have a good ammount of knowledgeable members. For every semi-big forum, there will always be people who won't know as much as others do. At this point, I don't see it as a very big problem. However, if activity like this continues to rise, then I recomend we think of something.
