This is it

[lel]

@Marsh:

> I didnt read the giant walls of text yet as i have to goto work.
>
> Its not nostalgia. I personally think the site is wrecked because newcomers are seeing posts by robin and trying to emulate him.
> Stop trying to act like Robin. Your making yourself look like a douche.

Wow… I never thought I'd see Marsh say something like that. Well maybe we can get some where with this thread? Probably not..... But if enough people tried, this could be the start of the end (by the end, I mean the end of a nasty trend .

[Marsh]

Yea we have gone through a few rough patches in the past. I am sure we can get through this one. Still a lot of good times to be had here. Kind of like an extended family when you have been here as long as i have.

[Gwen]

Why do i keep thinking this is a thread about Michael Jackson?

Things have changed around here. Maybe it is nistolga, but you know what I like nistolga!

The other thing i have seen is the bashing of creativness. People say that they want to add a feature to eclipse, and then there is a big backlash on how stupid the idea is, or eclipse is perfect and no one can add anything better to it, or whatever. Overall the general comrodery of the community seems to be lacking.

[SawQuart]

@Gweneth:

> Why do i keep thinking this is a thread about Michael Jackson?
>
> Things have changed around here. Maybe it is nistolga, but you know what I like nistolga!
>
> The other thing i have seen is the bashing of creativness. People say that they want to add a feature to eclipse, and then there is a big backlash on how stupid the idea is, or eclipse is perfect and no one can add anything better to it, or whatever. Overall the general comrodery of the community seems to be lacking.

That's partly due to the fact that everything has been done before. Remember when everyone was raving for a pet system? Now we have several pet system threads and every time someone adds it to their game it's considered "unoriginal". It requires a LOT of source edits nowadays just to get people's attention.

[evilbunnie]

Basically, if you want to have a "new" feature, the only feature that you could possibly create is a strip club.

[Marsh]

@Captain:

> Basically, if you want to have a "new" feature, the only feature that you could possibly create is a strip club.

I bet draken has done that in COI

[Ruins of Hell]

@Jungle:

> It requires ~~a LOT of source edits~~ _something original_ nowadays just to get people's attention.

I feel like this is more accurate. When there was no pet system, cool games had pet systems. When there was no guild system, cool games had guild systems. The key is to make something new.

@Gweneth:

> Overall the general comrodery of the community seems to be lacking.

Perhaps some monthly contests (thinking: 24-hour challenge with a certain theme, the contest categories we have but don't use). It'd be easy to organize and I'd be willing to do it.

Maybe the renewal of groups (SB, Taco God, etc.) would help. It did make more cliques, but at least there were people actively visiting the forums. If I recall, SB even had little rewards (small things you could put in your personal titles) once you helped a certain amount of people, which was supposed to encourage people helping each other. It's a long shot, but it's worth trying.


[Marsh]

While page views are up new topics and posts are way down. While more people are visiting they dont seem to want to make posts anymore. That is a pretty big reflection on the community.

[Gwen]

Its just the attitude towards people has changed a lot…

it basically goes like this.

person 1: Hey lets have pets
person 2: hey lets have pets
person 3: hey lets have pets
...
...
person 344322: petz plox!!!! thankzorz!!11

over all response: fuck your pets do it yourself.

same for guilds, and any other thing that a lot of people request.

instead of telling people to basically fuck off there needs to be better communication on why its a bad idea to add it to the main source... or maybe there should be multiple sources that people can download that has features that are most requested built in. Not everyone knows how to program, or has the tools, but they really want to try to mess around with making a game.

But seeing as I dont venture to far from the general boards who am I to say anything?

[cheatking]

@Soul:

> I feel like this is more accurate. When there was no pet system, cool games had pet systems. When there was no guild system, cool games had guild systems. The key is to make something new.
>
> Perhaps some monthly contests (thinking: 24-hour challenge with a certain theme), or maybe the renewal of groups (SB, Taco God, etc.) would help. It did make more cliques, but at least there were people actively visiting the forums. If I recall, SB even had little rewards (small things you could put in your personal titles) once you helped a certain amount of people.

I was thinking a competition myself.  I'd happily donate some prizes. hehe.

@Gwenny:

> or maybe there should be multiple sources that people can download that has features that are most requested built in.

I once had an idea about a sort of plug-in system, no idea how to work VB6 to that extent.

[Marsh]

Contests are a good idea. Though we have no real prizes to offer as i am currently broke. I suppose we could do forum name colors again but that gets out of hand after awhile. Maybe wipe the colors every 6 months or so.

[Ruins of Hell]

@Marshy:

> While page views are up new topics and posts are way down. While more people are visiting they dont seem to want to make posts anymore. That is a pretty big reflection on the community.

Not really, you could look at it another way, more people are reading tutorials + FAQs. Therefore, they don't need to make little topics. We also have been moderating the W.I.P. and Talent Centre more strictly (which I'd attribute to about 20 topics lost a month, and twice that many posts). The best way would be to pinpoint exactly where Eclipse started failing, and then search for major events around that, to find the problem.

I don't like to play Devil's Advocate, but we have to consider the fact that maybe there's something we're missing.

@Gweneth:

> person 1: Hey lets have pets
> person 2: hey lets have pets
> person 3: hey lets have pets
> …
> ...
> person 344322: petz plox!!!! thankzorz!!11
>
> over all response: duck your pets do it yourself.

Hasn't it always been like this? I remember that generally we would inform them that nobody has done it before, it was futile, etc. (and there is a pet system in the source tutorial as of now, so we don't say "duck your pets do it yourself." we say "look there and do it yourself").

@Gweneth:

> Not everyone knows how to program, or has the tools, but they really want to try to mess around with making a game.

That was the idea behind Eclipse Automata, to do the programming aspect for you. To put it nicely, it had a terrible reception. There were people who talked about "how amazing it is!" (and then, with an exception or two, did nothing). The point is: you can't force people to do something. If the people with the tools wanted to do something for the people without the tools (make a custom version) they would have.

I think that our best bet now is to make a leap to another engine, or at the very least, fix the bugs in Eclipse Origins (Robin has documented some of them in tutorials, so we'd have to copy and paste a line or two.)

1 new reply.

@Marshy:

> Contests are a good idea. Though we have no real prizes to offer as i am currently broke. I suppose we could do forum name colors again but that gets out of hand after awhile. Maybe wipe the colors every 6 months or so.

I don't know: egos can make up prizes and people who want in for the learning experience can have fun. The winner's name in the news, give them a name color for 6 months (Contest Winner G12, where G would be Graphics and 12 would be December, then wipe after time). **I think that the most important thing would be to make it official, predictable (1 contest every 2 months or something) and give a reward, if minuscule.**

Anyway, I'll get to organizing a 24-hour challenge/game jam/what say you.

[evilbunnie]

I vote for groups back! Har har har remember the "Evilbunnies"

[SawQuart]

@Soul:

> Maybe the renewal of groups (SB, Taco God, etc.) would help. It did make more cliques, but at least there were people actively visiting the forums. If I recall, SB even had little rewards (small things you could put in your personal titles) once you helped a certain amount of people, which was supposed to encourage people helping each other. It's a long shot, but it's worth trying.

I couldn't agree more. Groups added a sense of community. If we revamp groups I think we should start over though and make sure that the groups are constructive. I'm also not sure how we would manage them and make them unique (name colors maybe? although that could get annoying fast).

@Captain:

> I vote for groups back! Har har har remember the "Evilbunnies"

Your group is the reason we don't have groups anymore ;D

[Muffen]

Or, you could have a list of profession groups that go in with game making. Each user could check off which professions they specialize in. Or, if they don't make games and are just here to chat, then there can be groups for that.

For example…
Pixel artist
Music Producer
Programmer
Mapper
Designer
Player

And so on. Not those exact names, but something to that sort. This would help people understand each other more if they never met.

[SawQuart]

@Muffen:

> Or, you could have a list of profession groups that go in with game making. Each user could check off which professions they specialize in. Or, if they don't make games and are just here to chat, then there can be groups for that.
>
> For example…
> Pixel artist
> Music Producer
> Programmer
> Mapper
> Designer
> Player
>
> And so on. Not those exact names, but something to that sort. This would help people understand each other more if they never met.

That defeats the purpose…

[Muffen]

@Jungle:

> That defeats the purpose…

I'm just throwing some ideas out.

[saadhamza]

@Pinkamina:

> When I was active it was because everything posted was hilarious and I loved the people here and had a bunch of friends here. I don't have friends here anymore, so I barely ever come online.

Well shit :3

I think Eclipse changed, but that's from my own perspective. Of course, the entire history consists of noobs coming in, staying for a while or leaving, and then making friends. It just keeps going. And i still know a lot of people form the "old days". Tylian's also come back, which is cool. I heard Hippo came back as well? No idea, i loved him though, even when he was trolling :P And then there's the people that seem to have been here since forever, you know who you are. So, even with new people coming in, most end up leaving, and those that do stay often end up being nice to talk to ^^

So, let's let the teenage angst go, and just deal with he fact that things seem to change to us as time goes by, and that to God, we're still a bunch of computer nerds masturbating to porn every night

[Muffen]

@Zonova:

> I think Eclipse changed


[Ruins of Hell]

@Muffen:

Part of making Eclipse better will be to stop responding with images that add nothing to the discussion, especially if you're just going to use an image macro six characters long.

@Muffen:

> Or, you could have a list of profession groups that go in with game making. Each user could check off which professions they specialize in. Or, if they don't make games and are just here to chat, then there can be groups for that.
>
> For example…
> Pixel artist
> Music Producer
> Programmer
> Mapper
> Designer
> Player
>
> And so on. Not those exact names, but something to that sort. This would help people understand each other more if they never met.

Eh, we could do that. I think that's more suited to the "Personal Title" section though.

@Jungle:

> Your group is the reason we don't have groups anymore ;D

Not really, Marshy Dearest listed his reasons:

@Marshy:

> * Groups aren't providing what they set out to provide. A goodly percent of board content could very well just be chit-chat material.
> * Camaraderie has backfired. Instead of groups providing a way to fit in, they divide the ranks, causing arguments. There have been topics about wars between groups, flaming against one another, etc.
> * There are a lot of boards on Eclipse. Hosting costs quite a lot. Group boards just add to the hosting usage for something that is generally counterproductive.
> * Everyone wants their own board. Picking who gets a sub forum and who doesn't only causes more problems than it is worth.

I understand his reasons, of course. I believe removing groups did more harm than good (hint: look at the interval from October to November compared to September to November). If we made a group _with a focus_, not just chit-chat group, I think it would greatly help Eclipse's community.

[Jeff]

As far as contests go: We could have monthly contests for mapping, graphics, and programming. These items would then be public resources. (though maps would be difficult to make public, perhaps the tileset?) The winner of the contest would then be able to have a custom name color for 6 months.

Groups seem cool, I was just a newb when they were around. I'd say that we should make our own groups, and once we have five people and a total of more than a thousand posts we could become approved.

[SawQuart]

@Soul:

> If we made a group _with a focus_, not just chit-chat group, I think it would greatly help Eclipse's community.

Define group with a focus…

The only way I'd see a group with a focus is if we made groups for C, C++, or Java programmers... but then that would be stupid because we could just make a plain old board and not groups in the first place. An interesting way to incorporate this in would be to abolish the post count/name color hierarchy and just replace it with group colors instead, but then that might lead to less people being motivated to post in order to lose their newb status.

Anyone else have any ideas?

[evilbunnie]

What we need is a 35 character post minimum. That would CURE EVERYTHING!!!!!

[SawQuart]

@Captain:

> What we need is a 35 character post minimum. That would CURE EVERYTHING!!!!!

Ok!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jeff]

@Captain:

> What we need is a 35 character post minimum. That would CURE EVERYTHING!!!!!

OOOOOR FOOOOOOORRRRCCCEEEE PEEEEOOOOPPPLLLLEEEE TOOOOOO PPPPOOOOOSSSST FLLUUUUFFF AAAANNND SPAAAMM CHARAAACCCTEEERRRSSS