Lack of new people is killing the backroom and the entire forum

Things should pick up a bit once TW: Shogun 2 is released--for a while anyway. From the standpoint of marketing, this would be a good time to consider any changes to forum structure (the interface), and to the process for new members, which might encourage people to join and participate.

The rules shouldn't be changed. They were the same when this place was rife with life, so I don't think they have anything to do with the lull in substantial activity here. The style of enforcement might have something to do with it, as staff has changed a lot since the old days. But I doubt it. I haven't noticed this to be true to any great degree.

I detest the Backroom, but the suggestion about making the link to the Back Room more visible from the main page makes sense if folks think it might inspire more people to inquire and eventually join in. Out of sight, out of mind, etc..

All-in-all, the game is the initial draw. People will hang out and join in in the ancillary forums if the game forums meet their needs and they find that they like the people who participate here (that's how it was for me, and I would guess, many of you). I say just be helpful, and encourage new gamers that do show up to check out the other forums once they've gotten their feet wet.

Just a video game forum. :balloon2:

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Originally Posted by AntiKingWarmanCake88

Just a video game forum. :balloon2:

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Not just a video game forum, no. This is the video game forum. The only one that has ever been able to keep my interest. TWC? Left after a week.

This is the good gem, and it should shine brighter than all the rest! But my babble will aid us not in this battle, no, for we must all babble! Maybe some newer folks are intimidated by resounding silence, no?

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Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost

First of all, Tribesman was not banned. He left the forum of his own volition.

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Honest mistake, but thanks for riding my ***, obviously you think this is late 2008 and the EB tavern is going to make your internet life hell all over again before you even read what I say.

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If the Backroom suffers poor discourse, then it is up to the members to improve it. Above, you consider us too restrictive but the rules are in place to encourage respect and higher standards of discussion. There are plenty of places on the internet where people can abuse one another and swear. This has never been one of them.

The biggest challenge facing this site is that fewer and fewer new members are signing up. I respectfully suggest that may have something to with the fact that the Totalwar games are not as compelling as they used to be.

We have a decent community in the off-topic fora, but I am fairly sure that it would disintegrate even faster should we loosen the rules. I really don't see what is so difficult about treating other people with respect and dignity.

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1. Not asking for people to be able to swear. Did I say I wanted that? No, so good job making your self to be a fool who can't figure out where someone is coming from before posting. I am asking for more discussion and threads, and fresh blood bringing in new topics. The discourse is poor from the same people posting on the same issues. I already gave an example in a previous post, I'm talking about the discourse in that one of the backroom threads is "What is better then sex?", that's a terrible discourse we have if that is one of the most popular threads right now. China is showing off a new stealth bomber, where is the thread about it's implications?

2. Again you did not read anything of what I have been saying. Way to go. Good job mod. The whole point of what I have said was that there needs to be more people and the crappy total war games recently is what is causing the lack of membership. You repeating my entire point as if you just came up with it shows you do not even want to communicate on the same level as me.

3. Not asking for people not to treat each other with respect and dignity. As I said in my very first post "I don't know what the answer is but I feel like this forum is going to have a problem this next year if new people are not coming in." How is that, "hey guys I want to turn this place into 4chan."?

Long story short, you are a terrible mod if you are coming into a discussion with a preconceived notion of what someone is saying without even reading it properly.

And yet again ACIN, you show yourself to be a person who is pretty much just a :flower:head.

Is anyone going on about the EB tavern? We all moved past it, obviously you still hold bad blood about it?

Seriously, you're a self admitted troll, and to be honest, the forum would be better off without you.

...

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Long story short, you are a terrible mod

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Just responding to what you say a completely idiotic name.

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Originally Posted by ACIN

That's cool that you have to jump in and directly insult me. I don't insult anyone unless I feel like they have done me wrong, in jest, or I am in a heated discussion about politics, but you know glad to see that a **** who insults people to their face thinks I should leave the forum.

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Again, just responding. I don't care if you think you 'dont insult anyone unless they've done x or y', but your posting manner has remained the same, and sure, sometimes its funny, but a large percentage of it is pointless and annoying.

This is, of course, not including any gameroom stuff, as that can't count, nor backroom things, as I don't really read the backroom.

Your original point is true, yet you're being a pretty big douche about it.

Come on guys, is it that hard to discuss something without throwing insults at each other? I mean, i've hardly been on this forum for long so i'm not familiar with what you're discussing right now, but surely you can be a bit more respectful.

Can anyone fill me in on this or is the topic merely what the thread says, in that the backroom doesn't have enough interesting topics and people?

The lack of posts/threads in a OT subforum should not mean that the entire forum is dying.
Backroom is just a little subforum. Who cares if no one posts there?
The main point for this forum is to give people the chance to discuss over the Total War games.

And I agree with Lysimachus here. Don't you know how to discuss something without throwing insults at each other?

Ibn, over the last few years, you can't deny that the activity levels have dropped over the entire forums.

Most of the long time members are only here because of the non-total war sub-forums.

I came around the launch of M2TW. When that was released, the activity was huge. ETW and NTW, nothing compared to it. Even the pre-release of S2TW is less talk than the lead up to ETW.

Less people are coming here, I really do believe the largest influx of people in the last few years has been from other forums, to play mafia.

New people would help a lot. One of the problems is that the old-timers are tired of having the same arguments over and over again. There are only so many times you can write a quality post to a gunbortion thread, and most members already know everyone else's talking points.

My :2cents: on the Backroom decline:

Bush leaving office 1/20/09. His administration was worth at least one quality thread a day. His "wars" and the other proxy conflicts drove a lot of discussion. Not much hot going on right now, even though there is a lot of cold conflicts and maneuvering under the surface.

Obama taking office and the ensuing media lovefest. The liberal media took it easy on him (at least for a while), while for the most part the conservative media went on a continuous, ugly rant about socialism, with veiled racism on the side, instead of just blasting his policies with decent arguments and good reporting. USA-related Backroom threads at this point changed, with liberals (US version) on the defense while the conservatives went into attack mode, this generally doesn't make for good conversation. And to the last...

US-centricity. It's not that having a very large percentage of USians is a bad thing, but frankly our news media is craptastic and interesting, compelling storylines don't get much play over here. It's hard for us to start good topics if we aren't aware of them. One of the main draws for me in the "old days" was the threads about stuff the US media either ignores, hides, or is just plain incompetent about. AdrianII, Tribesman, etc. used to find stories with all kinds of cool slants to them.

So, yes, I blame the Backroom decline on Obama. :tongue:

tribesmen got banned? for what may i ask?

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Originally Posted by Prussian Iron

tribesmen got banned? for what may i ask?

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He didn't. He left.

why?

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Originally Posted by drone

Obama taking office and the ensuing media lovefest. The liberal media took it easy on him (at least for a while), while for the most part the conservative media went on a continuous, ugly rant about socialism, with veiled racism on the side, instead of just blasting his policies with decent arguments and good reporting. USA-related Backroom threads at this point changed, with liberals (US version) on the defense while the conservatives went into attack mode, this generally doesn't make for good conversation. And to the last...

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Ok I resent the label of us Conservatives being labeled as closet racists. While there are Conservatives out there who are racist, there are a very small minority, and for the most part, Conservatives like me (well Im more independent than anything else but whatever) hate Obama's policies, not his race. If you stopped only looking at Fox News for Conservative talk, you would see there are many very good, valid, Conservative talking points out there. Just saying.

Also dont forget how before there was no Israel/Palestine thread moratorium. I remember during/after the Gaza war the thread went on for about 300+ pages before it was locked. Then something like four more, also spanning 100+ pages each sprung up over the next three months. Then the moratorium was issued by BQ, then there wasnt for a long time. Then I left because I was spending too much time on these forums and not enough time doing school work. Plus the stress was taking a toll on me.

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Originally Posted by Prussian Iron

why?

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He just had enough of us and left.

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Originally Posted by Hooahguy

He just had enough of us and left.

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:(


also to other posts above....


come on guys, name calling? I know we are all emotionally devestated at the loss of Tribesman and his many contributions, but we should not have to be mean to one another. I suggest instead a community mourning, a funeral of sorts. There we can all express our feelings and connect through our love of Tribesman; it's what he would've wanted.

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Originally Posted by Prussian Iron

come on guys, name calling? I know we are all emotionally devestated at the loss of Tribesman and his many contributions

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Tribesy has been gone for a while. Its hardly new news.

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Originally Posted by Hooahguy

Ok I resent the label of us Conservatives being labeled as closet racists. While there are Conservatives out there who are racist, there are a very small minority, and for the most part, Conservatives like me (well Im more independent than anything else but whatever) hate Obama's policies, not his race. If you stopped only looking at Fox News for Conservative talk, you would see there are many very good, valid, Conservative talking points out there. Just saying.

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Thanks for making my point. I didn't label conservatives as racists, I said that some of the coverage by mainstream conservative media had a racist tone. Constant posting of articles written by authors declaring Obama a socialist Muslim with a white-hating Christian preacher does not advance the quality of the discussion. Combined with a liberal MSM too scared to give him any bad press and what are we left with? 43 was the gift that kept on giving, at least from a Backroom perspective.

If you have a line on well-thought out, critical analysis from the conservative side, please, by all means, post it. This is what is missing. The Backroom needs controversy to survive, but it needs to be well-defended controversy to keep it from turning into cable news.

Fair enough, I see your point.

It has definitely slowed down...

For me, it seems to be the lack of staying power that is coming out in the games, rather that the Back Room's quality of reactionary doo doo someone (sometimes myself, just stating not judging) decided to drop that day.

In brief synopsis, Empire Total War, while it made fantastic advances for the game, such as naval battles, technology, etc. severely lacked the character development that marked the earlier titles. The game simply does not give the player the ability to become emotionally immersed in the story, and there for it looses it's long term connect.

I've never played Napoleon, so I cannot judge. But unless you play as Napoleon riding around on a horse picking up traits and stars, I imagine it's a similar fate: a bunch of short stories and no novel.

Totally agree, Yoyoma: I logged hundreds of hours with RTW and EB, and only a few dozen with ETW. As you said, the lack of generals that were born into the family that had traits that you could watch and see how they grew really ruined the immersion for me.

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Originally Posted by Hooahguy

Totally agree, Yoyoma: I logged hundreds of hours with RTW and EB, and only a few dozen with ETW. As you said, the lack of generals that were born into the family that had traits that you could watch and see how they grew really ruined the immersion for me.

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The role playing element in a strategy game is what keeps us hooked....yes, I see this as so.

I have a couple of suggestions. Fix the search so it works, which it hasn't done since the upgrade to vBulletin 4.x (this is a common problem with vB 4.x forums). And enable search for the Backroom. Search was disabled for the Backroom because of lack of resources. With fewer users, it's not such a problem. There are some real gems in the Backroom archives that are lost because it can't be searched.

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

I have a couple of suggestions. Fix the search so it works, which it hasn't done since the upgrade to vBulletin 4.x (this is a common problem with vB 4.x forums). And enable search for the Backroom. Search was disabled for the Backroom because of lack of resources. With fewer users, it's not such a problem. There are some real gems in the Backroom archives that are lost because it can't be searched.

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Incidentally, ever since the last board maintenance I can do searched. :shrug:

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

I have a couple of suggestions. Fix the search so it works, which it hasn't done since the upgrade to vBulletin 4.x (this is a common problem with vB 4.x forums). And enable search for the Backroom. Search was disabled for the Backroom because of lack of resources. With fewer users, it's not such a problem. There are some real gems in the Backroom archives that are lost because it can't be searched.

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yeah, the search is pretty awful. But I dont think it is enough to keep anyone from staying here.

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Originally Posted by Yoyoma1910

It has definitely slowed down...

For me, it seems to be the lack of staying power that is coming out in the games, rather that the Back Room's quality of reactionary doo doo someone (sometimes myself, just stating not judging) decided to drop that day.

In brief synopsis, Empire Total War, while it made fantastic advances for the game, such as naval battles, technology, etc. severely lacked the character development that marked the earlier titles. The game simply does not give the player the ability to become emotionally immersed in the story, and there for it looses it's long term connect.

I've never played Napoleon, so I cannot judge. But unless you play as Napoleon riding around on a horse picking up traits and stars, I imagine it's a similar fate: a bunch of short stories and no novel.

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I agree with this. The roleplaying part is missing from ETW and NTW. This could be another reason why I don't like them. It's quite interesting to see how a young general after he became of age gets new traits through the campaign. New games are directed to MP players and not to RP players.

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Originally Posted by Motep

yeah, the search is pretty awful. But I dont think it is enough to keep anyone from staying here.

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I don't know, I remember being able to pull up a plethora of quality information on MTW, which had me sticking around.


Then there was the Bartix thread... *sigh*

Like it is the way it is really, quality over quantity, backroon is a nice place for a good cigar

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

I have a couple of suggestions. Fix the search so it works, which it hasn't done since the upgrade to vBulletin 4.x (this is a common problem with vB 4.x forums). And enable search for the Backroom. Search was disabled for the Backroom because of lack of resources. With fewer users, it's not such a problem. There are some real gems in the Backroom archives that are lost because it can't be searched.

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Hello Pann.

I don't know about you guys, but search works for me.

I think its one of the best searchs around, keywords, users, words.

Never had an issue with it...:confused:

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Originally Posted by pevergreen

Hello Pann.

I don't know about you guys, but search works for me.

I think its one of the best searchs around, keywords, users, words.

Never had an issue with it...:confused:

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The last time I tried it was a few months ago, and it didn't work. Just tried it now, and it works. I still think search should be reenabled for the Backroom.