DiabloFans

Personally, I think a forum restructure would do well to promote socialization.
Divide the forum into 3 main categories, with all of the forum sections as drop down menus.

Have a section for Diablo, a section for general discussion, and a section for anything website related, like suggestions, news, and the wiki.

Quote from Zhar

Personally, I think a forum restructure would do well to promote socialization.
Divide the forum into 3 main categories, with all of the forum sections as drop down menus.

Have a section for Diablo, a section for general discussion, and a section for anything website related, like suggestions, news, and the wiki.

I think that could work quite well actually.

And on the subject of saying people are just here for D3, I strongly disagree with that. I mean sure that is what drew me to this site in the first place but the reason I have been here for about a year and a half is because of all the kick ass people like Zhar and Az and Turm (sorry if I didn't mention you, just know I still love yall ) It's like going to a resturaunt, you go for the food, stay for the people.

You completely misinterpret things, Pryda. Seriously.

Yeah, I'm making suggestions, going out of my way to figure things out..but if it doesn't work out, it will have no impact on me or my life. That's what is meant by "I don't give two shits". It would be marvelous if it worked out the way I said, but if it doesn't, then it's too bad. I care about this forum to some extent, but if it fails, I wouldn't flinch an eye, because I said that it would happen. If it succeeds, then that's awesome. Several forums started off based on the discussion of a specific game, but then developed into something so much more than that. That isn't an illusion. If you want illusions, go watch Chris Angel.

Lol@the concept of me spewing nonsensical crap. You vote for me in every "favorite member" contest that happens here..don't try to take the morale high ground saying that my posts are meaningless, when all the while you blatantly support me and my style (which is infallible and awesome). That's just ridiculous. I mean, I like you as a user, but this is just coming right out of your ass, that it's fucking hilarious.

Ready to take action..support all he says..bla bla bla. Don't try to impact me. You're just misunderstanding and misinterpreting basically everything. I already explained that. I'm saying all this, voicing my opinion, investing my time in it, hoping that what I say is implemented, because it would be for the better, and it would ultimately make it a better place to spend time at (at least for me). If that doesn't happen, too bad, I tried my best. If it does, then hurray. Doesn't mean that I have to actually care about it like it's a girl I'm hoping to go out with and fuck before the night is over.

Try understanding things better. Maybe you'll make sense the next time you post in here.

So I take it you still love me? Good..good.

What we need is a new Picture Thread, that should do it. And a life-story thread

I have not been active lately mostly because the forums have not been that active. lol Join the bandwagon!

Quote from DesmondTiny

I have not been active lately mostly because the forums have not been that active. lol Join the bandwagon!

That solves nothing, though :(.
Now, if you were complaining about inactivity, then I'd trip balls.

But I want you back Desmond, I enjoyed you :(.

What the hell? Is this place a giant sausage fest or am I missing something here?

Quote from Zhar

Quote from DesmondTiny

I have not been active lately mostly because the forums have not been that active. lol Join the bandwagon!

That solves nothing, though :(.
Now, if you were complaining about inactivity, then I'd trip balls.

But I want you back Desmond, I enjoyed you :(.

"I enjoyed you" ?....Seriously? Who the fuck are you, a member of NSYNC or something?

Quote from Lt. Venom

What the hell? Is this place a giant sausage fest or am I missing something here?

You're missing the fact that you being here, it's no longer a sausage fest! There's also Seth, but that's not what we're talking about.

Quote from Godric

You're missing the fact that you being here, it's no longer a sausage fest! There's also Seth, but that's not what we're talking about.

Oh yeah! *Drops pants, revealing python with massive sack hanging underneath.*

Holy shit dude, there's a snake living in your vagina.
Might want to get that checked out.

#1 the new layout sucks. i still cant figure out how to "subscribe" to threads and have them neatly displayed like the older versions.

#2 not much time or threads i like.

but i read somethings sometime and start to post, but change my mind ><

I will be done with university in less than 22 hours. You guys should prepare a surprise party or something.

This, like many other forums, flourish in the beginning. Everybody and everything is new and exciting. People share information, feelings and opinions with one another and people rejoice. After a while when nothing new happens, people might be tired of hearing old news and are too tired to comment on/reply to things people have asked a few times before. There's nothing wrong with that, it happens to everyone every once in a while!

Thats just it though. It shouldn't be because of news. There was a time when there was no news.

Exactly what I'm saying.

Quote from Zhar

Holy shit dude, there's a snake living in your vagina.
Might want to get that checked out.

:laugh:

Quote from carambolage de charogne

#1 the new layout sucks. i still cant figure out how to "subscribe" to threads and have them neatly displayed like the older versions.

Click "Watch topic" right next to "Add reply?" up top?

I understand many of your sentiments, Godric. The fact of the matter is, this site used to be a small time operation ran by some shmoe who made a few extra bucks on the side with some relatively unobtrusive ads. And now it's a fully operational business that does whatever it can to maximize its profits. And there is nothing fundamentally wrong about this. It's just the way things work. Some transition well into it, others don't. For a long time after D3's announcement I was very pleased with a lot of the changes and improvements the site was undergoing. Even when Curse purchased the site, I still thought we were headed in the right direction for a long time.

I suppose things really got sour for me when I felt like all the spam and forum games were becoming the main focus of so much attention. And it's not like I can blame anyone for that. People like what they like. And for most people, at least the most commonly active users I was observing, seemed more interested in just alleviating their boredom in the quickest and most satisfying way possible. And those people would spend lots of time on the site. I hated sometimes writing huge long replies to people's topics, only to return a couple days later and see no one had even viewed the thread since then, yet all the threads that I found to be most inane were just inundated several times over with shrift replies. But again, what can you do about that? That's just what people want and I can only begrudge them the right to do so for so long before even I realize how futile it all is.

And then what I think happens is sometimes some of those older, once more active users try to return after awhile and test the waters a bit to see how well they can still participate in the new environment. It doesn't take much before they conclude that it's not worth it to them anymore. If you look to see who most frequently is updating their status, these are the people who have transitioned best into the new format of this site. They are the most active users on the forum and seem to spend the most time either updating their status or blipin' it up in spam section. Come on, we all know that's what it still is despite its new euphemistic term.

When Curse bought this site, they brought about many changes. Many of them here were desperately needed. I personally don't like the new aesthetic of the site. I find it really cluttered and distracting. But there are some features that I think are really cool. These new emoticons to the right of me are a real turn off, though. But I understand that the majority of people like this kind of stuff and there's nothing anyone can do about that.

I don't think however that the lack of activity is due to lack of news and updates. Back when we were diablo3.com there was tons of conversation always going on. We'd have in-depth conversations about the first Diablo game. People were always discussing D2 builds and arranging new groups to play in on Battle.net. We even had more discussion on Starcraft than the actual Starcraft fan page. And the off topic section was great back then. Lots of great political and ethical debates. Granted, debating that stuff on the internet is pretty pointless, but I still found it pretty gratifying anyway. The last thread I even saw remotely like those old threads was Jetrall's misandry thread. There was a lot of good discussion going on in it. But for most people around here, those discussions aren't a fast enough way to treat their boredom. So yes, they would rather just go rate each other's eyelashes. LOL

But not even counting those huge debate threads, I even still just drop in on threads discussing other games. Yet people are hardly even discussing other games anymore. Or like, I remember when that Huck guy started a Cowboy Bebop thread. I was like, this is cool, I'm just starting to watch this show. I'll talk a lot about how I feel about it and I just know we'll get lots of pages of discussion outta that. But no....we didn't. Sometimes though I do see a pretty good thread and decide to post in it. But because I got to the thread kind of late as I do not frequent the site as much as I used to, my reply wouldn't really get noticed by anyone and the thread had already died on its own.

I do think that it is up to the users for the most part to make this site into what they want it to be. However I can also understand what it's like to actively try to jumpstart discussions only to wonder where the fuck everyone went and later find them in the spam section or just having conversations via the status updates. And heck, a lot of it is probably my own fault. I'm certain I've done several things to damage my own reputation and credibility here. So it's likely when I type up responses in threads people are like, "Oh, it's just Siaynoq." This kind of thing happens inevitably to others too. There are several users here that I just sort of tune out cause I'm so used to the kind of content they put out there and it...disagrees with me. And maybe similar things have happened to other users here too. Or maybe they just found they didn't fit in here anymore.

Change is inevitable, obviously. You could tell the moment Diablo 3 was announced that many changes would come. Some were great, some were really bad. But I've always tried my hardest not to sound like some stubborn dinosaur who just wanted his old precious forum back. Granted I sure did bitch a lot about spam, but my brain just doesn't have the capacity to care anymore. Things just are the way they are now. I like stopping by sometimes and seeing if there's any spark left around here. Then I might read poignant statements like, "supar dupar hamster" or "I don't even need a gun when I'm paintin' my balls." or "supar dupar hamster". And I realize, it's their site now, they can have it. The status updates may not mean much to some, but I find it quite indicative of most user content to be found here. I can't even browse inside the spam threads to find examples their because they're too depressing to read.

I think all of it would be so much easier if I even still cared about Diablo 3 as much as I used to. But consider sexual abstinence. Many people believe that the longer one abstains from orgasm, the more their sexual energy will build up. And that it will build up so much that they're be constantly brimming with sexual energy like a pink flamingo with a boner. But this is only true for so long. What actually starts to happen to the body is it begins getting signals that perhaps it no longer has orgasms because it is finished trying to procreate. In males, the level of testosterone starts dropping after a time. And it can drop to the point where previous levels of virility are never achieved again. So with Diablo 3, I was excited for a very very long time. Then I started to feel that even for a game developer that is supposedly is obsessed with quality, 11 something years is just too long to produce a sequel to a game. But maybe I also felt like the time in between D3's announcement, and when I can actually start to expect the game was way too long. The climax just didn't come soon enough. And my metaphorical genitals are now just wilting away with apathy for a game that I feel has been long overhyped and teased on me. This anyway is possibly what happened for a lot of users who were anxious awaiting D3. It all just went on so long, they just sort of stopped caring. And the ones leftover on the site hardly had the needed caliber to keep them involved.

All these ideas though, there's no one unified theory to explain it all. But I can at least agree that it's kind of sad. I especially miss a lot of people that I used to get into lengthy discussions with. Maybe they were just wiser than me to walk away and never look back. I still feel drawn to this place no matter what's become of it. Aaaand *soapbox off*

I don't think a lack of news is ever what's wrong with this site. I think even though the news has been slow that a lot of good stuff still manages to be reported on consistently.

I'm really glad your drawn to this place Siaynoq. We DO need the members like you. I think a unified theory can easily be conjured up. This place was once an underground band metaphorically. The only people that ever listened to said band were die hards who searched long and hard(^^) for quality. But then, it became mainstream. The band didn't change, but the followers did. At first it was nothing but people who desperately loved the music, but once the band became mainstream everybody and their little 13 year old sisters were listening to it. However, unlike that band, we are not completely mainstream. We go in and out of popularity. Even despite Curse, we are still nothing like say...the B.net forums. And, for this very reason I think its so incredibly crucial that the members who really care have to stick around to keep it from becoming a mindless eye lash counting game.

This is why, a few of us are trying to do a few things around here to involve the users that really have committed to this place in one way or another.

Ironically I fear that D3 could mean the end of this site. If you go back to when we were first obtained by curse I went off on every thread I could about how useless the transition was. Mod's would defend the move by saying things like "the bills dont pay themselves" or "how do you think we got this cool background?". Firstly, the background is useless when it's covered by a huge fucking ad. Secondly, I never understood what was wrong with the site in the first place. When did the site transition from just a fansite to a site dedicated to making money? I know it's not ALL about the money(I hope) but who was it that decided "This site is never going to be "popular! We need to be endorsed by a big name"

I digress, the reason I always made such a big deal over it was I knew that the move to curse was putting us in a coffin. The quality of the incoming users declined and it just annoyed the old users to a point of disgust.

Curse put us in the coffin, Diablo 3 will put in the nail. Once D3 hits...the site is going to get so crowded and flooded with useless users it isn't even funny. I think that will drive away just about all the old users. I don't even know that I would want to stick around to even see that.

I just like to remember the good times I've had here. I was never even an official member for like...YEARS because I could never get the account activated so I made different ones and it never worked. Then I finally got a hold of MD and he brought me on.

I honestly don't know what's happened to this place, but I do know that I'm contributing to it's bleakness by not coming on here often enough.

To be completely honest to you guys and myself, I absolutely despise the new software. There, I said it. It's confusing and I hate the way it's laid out. There used to be a place in your User CP where you could go to the last post of an active thread, but I can't find that now, so it's harder to keep discussions alive. Also, it just isn't the same talking to you guys.

By that, I mean that... hell, I didn't come on for about a month because I felt I needed some clarity in my life and the best way to do that was to step back from everything. One day, I come back and the software is all different. I had to get a Curse account (which really pissed me off, I hate registering for new crap) and when I went to go put in a siggy and avatar, it was all different.

Now, I know I sound like a whiny bitch, but you have to realize that I started posting on here when I was 14-turning-15. This place was a sanctuary where I could have intelligent conversations in a world filled with morons and people obsessing over the material world. I was venturing into the philosophical world to increase my comprehension about why people do what they do. I learned life lessons on here, worthwhile knowledge. Now, this place doesn't feel the same because it's difficult talking to you guys because of this bloody software.

I know I should be more active. I'd like to think that people respected me as a member, as a person, and as a friend, but now I feel like an outcast in my own home.

That's what's happened to this place.