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

[pevergreen]

I've said all I had to say here, it's up the .org now and it's staff to choose between bringing about real change or continuing as they are.

Over and out.

I'm glad you've come to say what you've said, mystery man.

[gollum]

!...

[Kagemusha]

I am back form a trip to Mexico and i am glad to see this conversation taking place about this important topic.
My five cents is that our main problem has lot of do with access.We need to get rid of the junior member access problems.Backroom access problems and the likes. We are like a coffee shop which is behind a labyrinth, while for example TWC is right next to a crowded street with huge neon lights flashing out. If people have hard time getting settled to here,they dont stay. It is like finally finding your way in and then being refused to order anything before you die of thirst.
It could be said that there are risks of making the place crazy by opening the flood gates, but i think that only a challenge for the moderation team. I say we open the gates and light the beacons that we are here by creating content and if something undesirable comes in the gates we Moderators can send it back where it came from if there is enough of us and if we are committed to this place.

Thats my five cents.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I am back form a trip to Mexico and i am glad to see this conversation taking place about this important topic.
My five cents is that our main problem has lot of do with access.We need to get rid of the junior member access problems.Backroom access problems and the likes. We are like a coffee shop which is behind a labyrinth, while for example TWC is right next to a crowded street with huge neon lights flashing out. If people have hard time getting settled to here,they dont stay. It is like finally finding your way in and then being refused to order anything before you die of thirst.
It could be said that there are risks of making the place crazy by opening the flood gates, but i think that only a challenge for the moderation team. I say we open the gates and light the beacons that we are here by creating content and if something undesirable comes in the gates we Moderators can send it back where it came from if there is enough of us and if we are committed to this place.

Thats my five cents.

I would be willing to be an extra mod on hand if the flood gates are opened.

[drone]

I would be willing to be an extra mod on hand if the flood gates are opened.

Smiting spambots can be therapeutic.

[Gregoshi]

Unless I'm forgetting something, I've not read the post.

FYI: Discussion: Downloadable Content...

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Smiting spambots can be therapeutic.

I give you a year's worth of Cashews and Milk to be Moderator!

[gollum]

Kikuchiyo certainly brings up important points, and his doing so comes with a certain amount of contradiction. Some of it is warranted and some of it is not, in my view. There most certainly is an issue of direction for the org and 9 months ago there was a less heated, but actually nearly identical discussion here in the wathctower: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...-to-this-forum , where among other people i made the very same points about accessibility and opening up the forum in terms of atmosphere and intrinsic direction by staff to the younger breed of TW fans and young forum members.

However, as well meaning Kikuchiyo is, he is also reactionary and a contrarian by nature. The fact is that if the org was not as it is, there is a high chance that Kikuchiyo himself would have never taken root here. He would have run away from "the mindless youths that play the new toy feature ladden TW games that are custom made for such an audience" had the org accepted the new TW community in 2005-2007, the transition period. Forgetting this and burrying it is somewhat unfair to the org and to himself.

Neither its completely true when he says that "we all started saying the same thing (criticising new TW) because others did". For once, Kikuchiyo himself has very harshly criticised twc and its members in many occasions in private and in public over the years, its organisation, internal politics and member atmosphere. He also isn't really interested in the new TW games himself, and he is still quite critical of new TW and CA - critical enough that is, not to bother playing them. If anything, in terms of criticism, Kikuchiyo was among the leaders, not the followers. I understand that opinions and perceptions change and that this is natural and even necessary, but Kikuchiyo, really, wouldn't you be critical of the org since a long time ago if the org had actually become twc? I bet that if so, your contribution in this thread now would be about "the disastrous effects the mass influx of newer fans and new TW had on the org".

In light of this, saying that the direction TW took has nothing to do with what happened to the org and that people who mention this are using it as an excuse isn't really true neither really fair for someone with the positions you have had in the past, and most likely still have in the present. In fact, Kikuchiyo, yourself you are the type of fan that new TW made redundant, and you have wrote extensively about that. How can you close your eyes to this now? Is it because you can see the merrit of the other view as far as the direction of the org is concerned? But then, you knew the risk the org was running of being extinct if alienating itself too much from new TW and only very willingly went along from very early on. How can you deny that now? It isn't very honest, first of all to yourself.

Its certainly ok if you have changed your mind, but i feel its somewhat dishonest to you first and foremost if by doing an 180 degree turn you reject all that you stood for.

Some people are so much sceptical and reactionary that in the end they become sceptical of scepticism and reactionary to reactionism and Kikuchiyo you are such a fellow in my view. That is a gift and a curse; a gift because one can change his mind and be receptive to a healthy critical self-assesment, and a curse because in doing so in a reactionary manner one abandons truths that are part and parcel of who one is.

In any case, and beyond the person of Kikuchiyo, which as he says himself isn't really the issue, there is a situation for the org, and a crossroads is at hand. With the release of Shogun2 comes a new opportunity to embrace new recruits that would know nothing of old TW or of the org history while at the same time retaining all those things and members that make the org what it is for the most part.

I am not a moderator, but the junior membership system and lack of editing feature in junior accounts does hurt new influx. I do not know however how much more work load that will entail for the admin and moderators and so what are their reasoning is for this. Also some parts of the subforums need to be moderated in accordance with the communities that frequent them rather than with a general "org" mentality. Young members that play the latest "kewl" TW title cannot be moderated as veteran members in specialist mod subfora, nor the mp community can be moderated as the gameroom - this happened at the release of empire and it was pretty hurtful for member participation. Some break of uniformity of appearance might also help, and there is already a feature in place to do so, by choosing to see images rather than avatars. Members can choose images from an org pool, but they can also upload their own, so this goes quite a long way to solving the issue.

I think that the org admin and stuff do really care about the place, its a matter of how rather than if. The fact that this is the second quasi-identical topic on the subject of new member influx within the last 9 months certainly means something.

At the end of the day its up to the administration and staff to decide policy action for the org's benefit and future.

[pevergreen]

Also some parts of the subforums need to be moderated in accordance with the communities that frequent them rather than with a general "org" mentality. Young members that play the latest "kewl" TW title cannot be moderated as veteran members in specialist mod subfora, nor the mp community can be moderated as the gameroom - this happened at the release of empire and it was pretty hurtful for member participation.

I think this could be something worth looking into. I know that my mind has always tried to but a blanket over it and say that it should all be the same, bar the backroom, but its a strong point.

Stop making me think!

[gollum]

A nasty little bug, thinking is.

[pevergreen]

There most certainly is an issue of direction for the org and 9 months ago there was a less heated, but actually nearly identical discussion here in the wathctower: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...-to-this-forum , where among other people i made the very same points about accessibility and opening up the forum in terms of atmosphere and intrinsic direction by staff to the younger breed of TW fans and young forum members.

This is the one thing I hate about forums. Everything I say can be read after the discusison is over.

I just re-read the thread.

Can't believe some of the stuff I said.

I think I'll stop posting in here, I'm not helping.

[gollum]

You are actually helping a lot pever. Don't get discouraged, you are maturing fine ;)

[pevergreen]

You are actually helping a lot pever. Don't get discouraged, you are maturing fine ;)

You make it sound as if I'm a teenager

Regardless, I got bigger things to worry about. Flooding, for example.

[gollum]

Small issues account for large ones sometimes. But yes, flooding should be a priority :)

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

TWC has had a much stronger modding community since the release of Rome which has, imo, contributed to the Org decline in members. I frequent both forums from time to time. I don't particularly find anything childish over at TWC but then again I only turn up from time to time to look at some of the modifications which are outstanding. I've found most of its members as friendly as over here.

[gollum]

In fact, the mods section for RTW in the twc accounts for 500+k posts and the M2TW mods section for about a million.

On the other hand, the STW/MTW section and mod section is at least poor compared to the one here, which kind of speaks for itself.

[Yoyoma1910]

You make it sound as if I'm a teenager

Regardless, I got bigger things to worry about. Flooding, for example.

Flooding passes. But those Justin Bieber tattoos... well those are forever.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

In fact, the mods section for RTW in the twc accounts for 500+k posts and the M2TW mods section for about a million.

On the other hand, the STW/MTW section and mod section is at least poor compared to the one here, which kind of speaks for itself.

I'm quite positive that if we take out mods section from twc then the number of visitors will drop 60-70%.
If Org wants to survive then one thing is to really start thinking about S2TW modding.
The first people who get the game should start finding ways how to mod it.
If most of the S2TW mods come from the Org then we have a chance to attract more people to join and most of all.. participate.

Edit: Also, increasing the number of PM's allowed to store in your Inbox doesn't hurt.

I don't know whether all twc members can have as much PM's but...

Inbox contains 54 messages.
You have 87 messages stored, of a total 1,000,000(?) allowed.

[gollum]

If you check the equivalent stats for the org you will see that RTW mods account for about 330k posts - that is (more than) half with respect to twc ie not bad.

The big break comes in M2TW in which twc has about a million posts in its M2TW mod forums while the org figures drop to less than 50k.

I think that this was a sort of "downward spiral" effect, that is modders simply flooded en masse to the centre due to the fact that this was the hub of modding of the time to begin with, and there is very little the org could have done more to attract them - as Ludens said people either come or they don't.

Also back in the M2TW days, there was a dedicated following of the game in the org in terms of SP, as well as a strong PBEM circle and knowledgeable home modders, so saying that participation has only to do with the org being frequented by veterans, having stricter rules of conduct and entrance requirements and less individuality in appearance is simply not true, although all these factors played their part.

The shift of the modding community to twc was a major factor that is often overlooked as well as the fact that the org's core members was focused around the STW/MTW mp community that became badly disillusioned with the release of RTW and M2TW and Empire. All these are factors that were not in the hands of the org staff/administration. CA releasing game after game with moronic AI, little, if any, playtesting, unbelievable bugs and more and more emphasis on flashy graphics after hyping it up to the stars and caring naught for multimultiplayer also didn't help.

All these are major factors and cannot be overlooked or oversimplified in a candid assessment of the situation. Its true that the org should do what it can to improve its position, but blaming everything to the things and members that made it and make it what it is and rejecting its character, past and tradition - the very same character, past and tradition that attracted and kept most of us here - doesn't help either.

If you check the org stats you'll see that the most people online for the day were recorded in Spring 2009 - that's during the high era of Empire. Expectations for the game were high and people did buy and started playing it - however the game was dissapointing from a good deal of perspectives and people stopped bothering. This is neither moronic nor an excuse - it happened.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

If you check the equivalent stats for the org you will see that RTW mods account for about 330k posts - that is (more than) half with respect to twc ie not bad.

I may be wrong but most of those posts have been made in the Europa Barbarorum subforum.

Edit: I was correct.

* Threads: 14,769
* Posts: 256,759

Those are stats for Europa Barbarorum.

Edit2: The only part in the Org that can show as many posts/threads is the off topic part of the forum.
If it's possible to bring those members from the EB subforum to participate other parts of the forum then the future doesn't look that dark anymore.

[gollum]

You are right of course - but then again, isn't EB part of the org?

In fact, a lot of people came to be regulars after being introduced through EB.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

EB is of course part of the Org.
However, there are many members who only visit EB subforum and not the other parts of the Org.
If that could be changed somehow..

[Vladimir]

NM. I'm behind on the times.

[Ludens]

However, there are many members who only visit EB subforum and not the other parts of the Org.
If that could be changed somehow..

I agree, although I am not sure how to achieve that. I've pointed people to the OT and Arena forums, but many prefer to stay inside the EB community.

[Centurion1]

be nicer to new posters. sometimes old guard can be sort of rude

in backroom

[PershsNhpios]

I think the only suitable solution is an amalgamation.

[Strike For The South]

I'm to old to find a new forum

I plan to go down with the ship

[gollum]

And you are not the only one.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I had an idea. There are currently only 3 skins + vB4 default one. What if a competition is held where people can propose their own ideas for skins? Best ones will be picked and new styles will be created based on those ideas? This could bring some life to the Org.

[gollum]

Thinking how to save our skin.