DiabloFans

Not to go on a massive rant, or sound naggy, but this has to be said eventually, right?

I joined this place, and it was full of life. It was full of pretty solid posters with meaningful posts that were fun to post with, and genuinely cared about this place. Now these users have disappointed me. Not to come off as an egotistical maniac, but they have. Almost all of them don't even care anymore. No one is posting. No one is doing anything. I know that the topics' quality has sunk so low, it's fucking animals that science still hasn't discovered in the depths of the oceans, but why not create topics? I've been trying to do so, but that has done very little. The topics just sink, and crappy topics like "Rate the eye lashes of the user above you!" get 190 pages or something. With all due respec tto the users who post such topics, they're just terrible. They don't do anything that benefit the board. Topics like Nektu's Cooking Corner, Which Movies Should Have Never Been Made? are topics that make some amount of sense, and make a great deal of sense in comparison.

I've been a forumer since forever. I know what works and what doesn't (again, not to sound egotistical). This doesn't work. The forum will eventually lose all its good posters, and turn into an automated gizmo that's worthless. The only activity it can ever hope to get is when Diablo 3 is released, and that would be activity from mindless posters posting idiotic gibberish. This is exactly what happened to the Midway forums. Eventually, all the users that were actually worth 2 cents went rogue and created a board, and that board is still running today (it has been what..4 years I think? pretty damn good for an independent board) and has went through so many things, that it has become my most cherished memory chest on the entire internet. I seriously hope this forum doesn't just sink into oblivion because of our neglect.

I still don't get why this drought is happening. Is Curse scaring you guys? Staff changes? Site changes? I don't get it. Something should be done though. Staff hold the major part of the responsibility, but us users also have to carry some load to make this work. I'm trying, but I can't seriously do anything alone. Users like Zhar, Umpa, Daemaro, Siaynoq, and such aren't posting NEARLY as much as they used to..things need to change here, seriously dudes.

There was a lot of posting not pertaining to Diablo.

I agree that it is slow around here, but Pryda has a point. Summer is starting in some areas soon, so people will be going on vacations and such. There hasn't been much new news, if any, so people are pulling away and finding other things to occupy their time.

I agree (with the OP). I know I'm not one of those that made this site what it is (at least not in a very meaningful way), but I do miss it's activity.

For me, the change happened due to the fuss that Curse caused (Mockery having to leave, Silver angry because of some issues in the higher powers of the site, the introdution of Sixen as a Curse moderator). We, as run-of-the-mill users, where never explained any of this either. It made the site more "official" and less of a "guys who just enjoy Diablo" kind of site. Plus, now we have this overly sophisticated forums with all the fancy features. It's more of a serious place. I, myself, don't feel very comfortable in it.

Add this to the fact that Blizzard is practically spitting at our feet considering how much info the give us, and the activity is bound to decrease.

And yeah, the fact that more than 50% of the active threads belong to the spam forum is quite pathetic. No disrespect to the guys that dwell there (actually yes, a little, within-the-rules amount of disrespect), but Meph is right, one gets tired of seeing them over and over again in the "New Content" tab.

I do remember Blizzcon raising the activity quite substancially last year, maybe there's hope there.

PS: I actually enjoyed very much the "Is time linear?" thread. It made me realise how long had it been since we actually discused anything interesting. Keep up with those, and hopefully more users will follow, myself included.

Activity is up to you guys. We are and have been doing everything within our power to offer creative alternatives to "rate the user above you" and they are largely not being taken advantage of (clan forums, fan fiction, etc.). We offer utilities for information on anything you could possibly want to know about the game this site was founded for (e.g., the Wiki). We're completely open to new, plausible, and possible ideas (I.E., here). We've tried expanding our news venues to attract more members and get people back in to the games, like mod review articles, support in the Wiki, etc.

Myself and others have sacrificed many, many days (months, years) to fix problems, address news, and try to make this place all that it can be. We are taking initiatives, and thanks to some awesome talent around the site, new little gizmo's are on their way for the site. Unfortunately, as a fan site for a ten-year-old game series, seeing nothing in the way of news for almost three months and likely more does not bode well for attracting a lot of new members or keeping the ones we have returning. The Wiki team is doing their best to upgrade the templates and information in their project to compete with the other Diablo Wiki's, but there's only a very small handful of active contributors, including the Sysops, and they can't do it all. What happens next is up to you guys.

Edit~

I agree (with the OP). I know I'm not one of those that made this site what it is (at least not in a very meaningful way), but I do miss it's activity.

So do we, and believe me, many an intense MSN conversation on a daily basis has led to arguments over this very subject.

We, as run-of-the-mill users, where never explained any of this either.

Yes, it all was, multiple times, in threads during the period which those changes took place.

I do remember Blizzcon raising the activity quite substancially last year, maybe there's hope there.

That's what we're really hoping for.

Quote from Nektu

I agree that it is slow around here, but Pryda has a point. Summer is starting in some areas soon, so people will be going on vacations and such. There hasn't been much new news, if any, so people are pulling away and finding other things to occupy their time.

They can do all that and still post. I go to university, study, go out, and have a really active life, but still have more than enough time to post on forums. It's not an obligation, but those aren't serious excuses. I might take such things religiously because forums mean to me a tad bit more than they do to most people, and that's not a bad thing. It's completely normal. I have a complete social life and a fulfilling existence, but that doesn't reflect on my posting, and vacations and such shouldn't reflect on the posting of others. That's just my opinion.

Maybe you're right, Meph, but when I'm on vacation, the last thing on my mind is posting on forums. If I were in school, that mght be different. But even as it is, I do post from work, even if it is from an iPod.

Exactly. They can at least laugh at all the fucking awesome jokes I've been laying on the forums recently. They're going unseen, sadly.

It also depends, with me that is, if I can get a good WiFi signal.

Now you're just nitpicking for fuck's sake!

Godric, on 07 June 2010 - 09:42 PM, said:

Nektu, on 07 June 2010 - 04:32 PM, said:

I agree that it is slow around here, but Pryda has a point. Summer is starting in some areas soon, so people will be going on vacations and such. There hasn't been much new news, if any, so people are pulling away and finding other things to occupy their time.

They can do all that and still post. I go to university, study, go out, and have a really active life, but still have more than enough time to post on forums. It's not an obligation, but those aren't serious excuses. I might take such things religiously because forums mean to me a tad bit more than they do to most people, and that's not a bad thing. It's completely normal. I have a complete social life and a fulfilling existence, but that doesn't reflect on my posting, and vacations and such shouldn't reflect on the posting of others. That's just my opinion.

In addition to this, i hate people who study until they have a seizure for final exams, it is pointless, even when i have exams i'm on games and forums, and i get 80-90's...

I for one stopped posting a lot after i was warned for discussing a no-cd crack program and after my opinion thread on why i like the diablo 3 spell graphics/art direction was deleted, no notification, nothing, it just #)*URUJ)RJ)EJF)WJ(*GWJR(GJ vanished, and that really pissed me off (!@(#$)!@($ you whoever deleted that.) I still don't understand why that was done, is that not in your interest? well good then at least send me a *ucking notification on why it was deleted.

The initial idea that I was thinking too that Hammy brought up was "Oh well, there's finals right now so everyones busy." Well, it's clearly not that. I've had finals before too but I mean...Really? How long does it take to hop on, notice maybe only 1 new thread that you want to comment on if your busy, more if not, and log off. I definitely don't think it has anything to do with the fact that people are busy. Because, frankly, I've been out of school for a month and I definitely don't post as much.

Like I said before, the community is lucky to have you Mephy for trying to make interesting topics. However, I think that a lack of news + the fact that pretty much everything has already been talked about is why there are no decent topics. Thats one thing thats fact, good topics are certainly far and few between.

you can go look at the threads I started, most of mine come from my single player experience. I got bored with online play a long time ago. So, whenever I came across something interesting in single player, I would make a topic about it. But considering so much has already been said it's a bit hard sometimes to start a really decent topic that won't flop.

In my mind, the only topics that I think have not been completely tapped would be something along the lines of lore speculation in retrospect to the most recent and most interesting books "The Sin War" trilogy. A friend of mine is borrowing mine at the moment but when I get them back I'm gonna go through them and if I see anything I'm going to start a topic of course. Also, expect some stuff from me and Nekrodrac at some point. We have some stuff in the works.

It's the end of the school year. I'm going to spend more time on this site when summer starts so don't worry about it.

Not to be hatin' on Curse (because they've done a HECK of a lot for this site!) but I do think that a whole bunch of people left due to the switch-over. Not because Curse is evil or anything but because people don't like change and it was change.

I personally don't like it, but I'm not known to be a user who just picks up his shit and leaves over stuff like that. I just don't get involved much in those issues. I've gotten some kind of answer out of this, so it's all good.

If you consider this "high" then it was in up in heaven before you guys came, lol.

I agree these forums are quite stagnent relative to many other forums of comparable userbase (I can only generalize, I have no idea what DFans was like prior to Kevin's aquisition) but as to why I can only conject it's due to a lack of exposed interests between users and a general lack of motiviation (personally, I find interleaved discussion unappealing -- I prefer immediate feedback for philosophical discussions as opposed to days later when I have too many other things to think about)

Then again, it could be worse.

Sixen, I agree that the number of users/viewers has greatly increased since before the Curse days. But what I'm talking about is the exodus of core members - people who'd been around forever and provided a lot of the momentum that kept the site going. I don't think the actual activity levels (per member) have been any better since the Curse deal, having already spiked around the announcement of D2 where we went from about 10-15,000 members to about 30,000 overnight.