Imic has a bit of a point, there has been substantial slowdown since 2014, with a huge dropoff in new members, topics created, and overall posts. That said, it still hasn't dropped to below 2009 levels, so I think this is more of a stabilization than anything.
Panic threads about the future of the forum, it's just like old times.
Also, a few of the top posters were banned/were on hiatus, so it's no surprise post counts are down.There were also quite a few "discussion-starter" posters, like Neonivek, that also got banned.
Also, a few of the top posters were banned/were on hiatus, so it's no surprise post counts are down.There were also quite a few "discussion-starter" posters, like Neonivek, that also got banned.
Looking at the banlist, I'm actually surprised we've gone almost 6 months without a non-troll/spammer ban.
The forum should perk up again with the Myth/Magic release.I'll probably have to try playing DF again when that comes. Or maybe when I get a new computer. Either/or, really. New computer would mean more space (I use so much space holy shit, I'm a virtual packrat. But I really need this file that generates markov-chains for comments, it's very important! And that thing, and also that other thing, and of course this thing here...) and probably be faster, while new release would give an excuse to relearn things.
Panic threads about the future of the forum, it's just like old times.Sure brings back the memories, yeah.
I don't see how anybody can still believe that Neonivek wasn't trolling. It's plainly obvious from that perspective, where as every other perspective comes out as pure confusion.All I have to say on that matter is that the time or two I played D&D with him on Roll20, he wasn't anywhere near as confused/oblivious as he came across in text. I don't know the dude personally, I can't say whether he had something else going on, so I'm not going to judge one way or another. Will note that if he was trolling, he's the most convincing actor I've ever seen, because his tone and mannerisms didn't shift at all, at least as far as I could see. Honestly inclined to think that Neo just had trouble parsing tone in text.
I quite like this software, actually. I don't want us to switch to some weirdo counterintuitive interface just so we can have some extra features I won't use.Definitely. SMF is superior to these other crappy elaborate shitfests.
Hell, I've seen people try to use it on these forums, by referencing people with @name despite it not actually doing anything (as compared to other forum software).Eh, @name was a standard way to indicate who you're talking to before it became something with actual code attached in any forum software, so chances are that they're just trying to do that, not actually expecting it to do something.
help
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What the duck did you just ducking say about me you little quackYou can see some of the stats here: stats (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=stats). It doesn't give monthly breakdowns by forum unless I missed something, so it's not immediately clear where the falloff is.
Anecdotally, it does appear that there's less activity in the community games and in the DF related boards in general. Could be a lot of reasons why, but for me at least that's because I got burned out on community games. As a result, I also don't play DF very much anymore, which means I'm not really qualified to answer questions in those forums these days. Accordingly, I don't post there unless I happen to stumble into a rare topic that nobody has replied to yet which I also definitively know the answer to.
My inclination would be to say that not as many people play DF now, and that its heyday appeared to be around the DF2012 era, but I don't have any real proof of that. Donations haven't dropped off, but then maybe many donations come from people like me who support the project even if they don't play the game much these days.
If y'all convince Today to change the forum software I'm outta here.
Most forums are pure cancer. The current setup is probably as close to ideal as I've seen.
...We should start a Bay12 Habbo Hotel room.
What is this even for
Yeah, fixing search would be nice. But while threadmarking MIGHT be useful, links in the OP and updating the thread title does the job well enough, and unlike threadmarking it doesn't come packed with a big pile of other cancerous features.I think it clearly does not. While in principle it works, the difference in effort between clicking "mark post" and doing the whole copy/paste/format rigamarole in the OP is such that I only rarely see people doing it even in fortress threads.
I think it is quieter around here than it used to be, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's dying. There's just been... a sort of generational departure, in a way. People come, people go, some of them post more than others.Pretty much this. The forums still live, the DF boards I feel produce less discussion than they did, but are still pretty lively. General discussion I find is still very lively too, though I don't think there is an unspoken tension, I think that it's mostly just business as usual when it regards politics and the tensions arising from flame wars and stuff.
A person does not search for something, have the search crash, then pull an infomercial and throw their monitor out the window. But what does happen is that people are encouraged to host forum activities elsewhere or just never start them because they can't get useful searches, among other inadequacies in SMF.
People don't stick around to run forum games and create stuff, then other people stop sticking around to partake of those things. Overall attendance drops rapidly as a result. It's the kind of thing that could threaten DF's livelihood if it gets bad enough.
A person does not search for something, have the search crash, then pull an infomercial and throw their monitor out the window. But what does happen is that people are encouraged to host forum activities elsewhere or just never start them because they can't get useful searches, among other inadequacies in SMF.
People don't stick around to run forum games and create stuff, then other people stop sticking around to partake of those things. Overall attendance drops rapidly as a result. It's the kind of thing that could threaten DF's livelihood if it gets bad enough.
IMO, that's extremely hyperbolic. I think most users don't even use the search function that much.
/me had to look up what threadmarks are.Threadmarks came about pretty much because compiling indices of important posts is a complete pain in the ass, and not having any way to find specific posts by GMs, authors, &c. is incredibly archaic in the worst way.
Looks pretty interesting, their function seems to be served by simply linking to the post in question in most cases. But it couldn't hurt I guess.
The broken search function is the worst though. Come on SMF. Whatcha playing at?
Verily I say unto you, the era of the sword and axe is nigh, the era of the wolf's blizzard. The Time of the White Chill and the White Light is nigh, the Time of Madness and the Time of Contempt: Tedd Deireádh, the Time of End. The world will die amidst frost and be reborn with the new sun. It will be reborn of Elder Blood, of Hen Ichaer, of the seed that has been sown. A seed which will not sprout but burst into flame.Whut
Verily I say unto you, the era of the sword and axe is nigh, the era of the wolf's blizzard. The Time of the White Chill and the White Light is nigh, the Time of Madness and the Time of Contempt: Tedd Deireádh, the Time of End. The world will die amidst frost and be reborn with the new sun. It will be reborn of Elder Blood, of Hen Ichaer, of the seed that has been sown. A seed which will not sprout but burst into flame.
We could possibly advertise the forums and Dwarf Fortress ourselves.
Anyone else remember the days back before anyone had avatars?
Anyone else remember the days back before anyone had avatars?
I hang around exclusively to keep people aware that it is possible to not have avatars :P
But I want to throw my two cents here: We are getting old.
When I joined I was a teenager, and took all opportunities to check what was going on in the forums.
Now I forget it's existence entirely every few days. Maybe we are just becoming a little less focused on the old things.
I'm worried about the trends.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=dwarf%20fortress
So it is not only the forum. The trends indicate less people are interested in Dwarf Fortress. The release in november barely made a difference in the downward trend. Currently there is no impact in donations, but for how long?
| Interest Donation Don/Int 2004 1 2005 0 2006 57 2007 214 19 052 89 2008 337 32 318 96 2009 428 32 516 76 2010 729 54 501 75 2011 767 42 294 55 2012 752 57 855 77 2013 663 48 999 74 2014 553 66 765 121 2015 391 60 603 155 2016 387 89 423 231 2017 319 83 491 262 |
I'm worried about the trends.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=dwarf%20fortress
So it is not only the forum. The trends indicate less people are interested in Dwarf Fortress. The release in november barely made a difference in the downward trend. Currently there is no impact in donations, but for how long?
If you make some stats on this, you see that the "trend" is downward since 2011.
Look at the stats carefully (I did that for you)
Interest Donation Don/Int
2004 1
2005 0
2006 57
2007 214 19 052 89
2008 337 32 318 96
2009 428 32 516 76
2010 729 54 501 75
2011 767 42 294 55
2012 752 57 855 77
2013 663 48 999 74
2014 553 66 765 121
2015 391 60 603 155
2016 387 89 423 231
2017 319 83 491 262
So, interest trend has been falling for 6 years (most than half of the project life), and, at the same time, it has generating 5 times more money than it used to make.
Therefore, I don't think an hypothesis of a huge drop of donation will follow this drop of attendance.
Also, let me say...Reddit has by far the worst and most hard to follow layout of anything I've read, ever.God yes. SMF may "look pretty early 2000s", but, if so, I guess that means the early 2000s were our cultural acme for basic legibility.
I'd also like to point out that without even ATTEMPTING to identify "the problem" these statistics are pretty useless. And take that sentence itself with a grain of salt because as far as I can see, there is no problem, there is simply a cultural shift. Much like how MUDs are complete trash compared to modern day games, traditional forums have become somewhat cumbersome and unwieldy in comparison to social media.wat
God forbid we translate Bay12 into a twitter following lol, but there is something to be said for how sites like Reddit and Imgur organize posts, content, and interesting groupings in general. The appeal of DF is in part it's refusal to rely on visual clarity, apparent via endless upon endless tirades about menus, and graphics, and visualizers, but if you take a huge step back and really be objective about it, these forums look pretty early 2000s.
Though search query volume is something to be concerned about, it doesn't necessarily mean that interest in the game is fading, it could simply mean that interest is not growing as quick as it once was, and with famously long periods between releases that is bound to happen in an increasingly ADHD social media environment.
To go back to the MUD analogy, if you've ever played a MUD, you'll usually find a grizzled, ugly group of core players that has been playing for 30+ years, and likewise you'll find another group of spritely, young curiousos who are very much interested in the game, but can't really fit in with the now-ancient veterans, whose decades of in-jokes, house rules, and tastes fly over the heads of the youngsters. The same thing very much happens in any community, business, or other social grouping and certainly could be happening to this one. I think, in part, we have actually lost a surprisingly high number of core Bay12ers (RIP Girlinhat, the OG Bay12er that everyone knew) which, exacerbated by a high volume of more recent bans, has left the community feeling a little devoid. Some new members came in to fill the void, but were quickly rejected by Bay12 at large (See: Neonivek) -- and I'm not saying that it was wrong for that to happen, but we are now at a place where the most iconic members of an older generation are gone and the new generation has very few iconic members.
Heck, I remember when I was essentially the Neonivek of the community (I think) but lo and behold Bay12 has generally shifted much more towards my brand of humor/argument/general attitude. I've changed as well of course, probably becoming a little more aligned with how things were originally done around here.
The point is this: Bay12 is shifting culturally--as it always has, as we always are, and as most humans do in general--and though it has become more modern in its "site personality" it is still perhaps an artifact from a different time. It's really hard to predict what will happen to Bay12, The Forum, in the coming years. I think it IS safe to say Dwarf Fortress is no longer quite as famous as it once was, the articles have been written, the interviews given--what more is there to tell, until people feel it is time for such a gem to be rediscovered? If there is a major, major update then perhaps bay12 will be on the up and up again--after all, it seems most people discover the forums through the game--but perhaps it will simply slide into decay until someone wonders what ever happened to it all? And I think without reinventing ourselves, which carries it's own diverse range of positives and negatives--some quite extreme--we are mostly at the mercy of public curiosity.
There is no problem with this really, it's just life, and whatever happens most Bay12ers will always be able to say that the forums had a lasting impact on them, that this whole thing was a part of their life, and that the memories made here are for forever. Such is the way of things, and if you are a connoisseur of internet history, you may already know that such a thing has happened many times before to sits more famous than this one, and that it will probably still be happening after we are all long-dead.
Honestly, even the idea of "most of the forum posters here have been around forever" isn't really true. I just went to one of the more popular DFGD threads (this one (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=168955.0)) and sure, there are people posting in that thread who have accounts registered in 2008, 2009, and 2010. There are also several posters with forum registration dates in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017.I think that idea applies more to regular GD than to DFGD.
I suggest more LotR movie quotesThe forum is changed.Foru aldaketatuta dago I feel it in the threadsHagietan sentitzen dut. I feel it in the polls Inkestetan sentitzen dut . I smell it in the shitposts. Gorotz-mezuetan usaiten dut
I think bay12 is uniquely attractive to a peculiar sort of people, and that this source of people is nearly entirely independent of whatever other developments happen on the internet (or the slickness of the software), but what I will say is that the small size of the lower boards community makes it vulnerable to internal volatility.Ain't gonna lie, the great Ameripol massacre of 2016-17 impacted my posting frequency. Not because I was scared, or felt censored, but because I recognized that I wasn't necessarily a positive voice and had contributed to that strife.
I consider the "recent" bans to be significant, because a single person can be very influential in a roster of like 15-20 in an area. What's specifically stood out to me as lacking lately is impassioned debate and argument, relative to the previous years I've been around. Maybe that decline is due to the bans, maybe it's just people getting tired after the 2016-17 madness, or maybe it's just temporary fluctuations in the personalities present, but significant disagreement seems to be getting rarer.
I suggest more LotR movie quotesIt´s of no use, scriver. The forum is changed. I feel it in the threads. I feel it in the polls. I smell it in the shitposts.
Much that once was is lost; for none now live who remember it.
Ameripol... You fear to go into those threads. The forumnites trolled too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Ameripol. Bans... and mutes...
Ain't gonna lie, the great Ameripol massacre of 2016-17 impacted my posting frequency. Not because I was scared, or felt censored, but because I recognized that I wasn't necessarily a positive voice and had contributed to that strife.
I suggest more LotR movie quotesThe forum is changed.Foru aldaketatuta dago I feel it in the threadsHagietan sentitzen dut. I feel it in the polls Inkestetan sentitzen dut . I smell it in the shitposts. Gorotz-mezuetan usaiten dut
Much that once was is lost; for none now live who remember it.
2.) I mean, okay, but for how long was he highly visible--towards the end, it felt like everyone knew him and was tired of him. It certainly wasn't always so.
Nah, it'll just end with Threetoe being mortally wounded mounting a frontal assault on the Pentagon, plugging a USB into the mainframe before succumbing.
Humanity survives for mere weeks afterwards.
Nah, it'll just end with Threetoe being mortally wounded mounting a frontal assault on the Pentagon, plugging a USB into the mainframe before succumbing.
Humanity survives for mere weeks afterwards.
Maybe, but I bet with all that attention nobody would be complaining about the forums slowing down.
FG&RP is still its own beast, but I do want to mention that freeforms seem to be more or less dead. Metric h*ckton of "Arms Race" games, whatever those are, and an active FEF community, but ye olde flood of Magic Girls games and whatever is a thing of the past. Mafia is a ghost town and the traditional forum games (of the player-above-you variety) are pretty quiet.
More than anything else I want threadmarks. It's hard to have a structured thread run long without it, and I don't even play forum games which I'm sure would benefit from it. Once you've spent some time with them the idea of not having them just comes off as senseless, and frankly I don't know what's going on with SMF that they're repeatedly breaking their search function instead of adding threadmarks.
As for the rest - you'd have to ask, I guess. But let's not pretend like SMF is elegant and minimalist, I mean look at this shit
help plox
I am a walrus Code: [Select]What the duck did you just ducking say about me you little quack
What is this even for
Also you can email threads to people, which is either useless or harassment depending on what the end product looks like.
Wait, Toady One really does not have successors!Me?
Do we have a cupid or something lying around?
He cannot simply die and leave us with no leader!
I demand offspring for me to offer my loyalty to!
Wait, Toady One really does not have successors!
Do we have a cupid or something lying around?
He cannot simply die and leave us with no leader!
I demand offspring for me to offer my loyalty to!
Ah, Truean. One of the things you just said about the decay of society is something people have been going on about since ancient Greece. Literally. Back then it was people complaining about writing.And those societies are fucking extinct
Obviously to avoid this problem we need to get Toady to appoint somebody as the official Toady Two. :P
doesn't find it funny
Toady doesn't find it funny. Just letting you know.
That isn't helping matters.Toady doesn't find it funny. Just letting you know.
I appreciate.
Perhaps the Dalai Toady must appoint a Panchen Toady before he dies. When the Dalai Toady die the Panchen Toady will find the new Dalai Toady, who will then be taken to ThreeToe to be taught the ways of Armok.
DOOM I say!
download stats (which aren't public, are they ?)
there's a lot of people who have just kind of mysteriously disappeared (KingofstarrySkies and TamerVirus spring to mind.)
Dunno if this has been mentioned before, but the reason for the long-term slowdown in Community Games & Fortresses (and to a slightly lesser extent the DF forums in general) is that the list of possible things left to do with DF has slowly run down. There was in fact a thread in that forum on this topic. Playing a community/succession fortress normally, with no restrictions or goals, has fallen deeply out of favor. Doing special or restrictive community forts, like evil glaciers or entirely aboveground forts, have also become less and less in number. Huge !!SCIENCE!! projects like computers and necrobacon and the sort have nearly finished up all there is to do. Of course, some new ideas become possible with every new release, but at this point ideas are being consumed faster than they are being created.
I hope, as you do, that the mythgen release will reinvigorate the DF community, because not much else is going to save it.
Come to think of it, I think this is the main reason that I stopped paying attention to the community games section. Most everyone sticks to writing the same in-character journal format to describe the same in-game events and player decisions. The personality of the character writing the journal may vary, but that's about it. Reading the same narrative approach to the game over and over again gets boring.
I'm going to shamelessly plug a community fort I participated in, and fucking loved it - QuakeMortal (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=79234.0). Was so sad that it died so early. Great example of one where we we had lots of posts that broke the journal format. Detailed descriptions of events and conversations. Lore that broke away from game events.
I tried a community fort with a some RL friends a couple years ago. And I was really surprised how quickly it went off the rails. Even working with people you know, a cooperative narrative can be hard to pull off. Especially when everyone has their own ideas about what the fort needs.Once, that very chaos was the allure of many forts.
My favorites are the ones played by a single person, with others getting dorfed and just contributing writing.Actually... I agree on that, know that I think. It gives a more coherent storyline, allows for less rules and regulations, allows for advenced roleplaying, epbetter dorfing...
My favorites are the ones played by a single person, with others getting dorfed and just contributing writing.
God, Roomcarnage was amazing.Yes.
Seriously, I had to look up "Insurrections" on the wiki and found out that there wasn't any mention of it or how they work. It's a feature that dates from 0.40, in 2014. In five years, nobody bothered to add an entry to a major feature of the game.
The visitors and offsite missions are a major game changer, certainly the game won't play the same if you choose not to. You can send dwarves off to do anything, from stealing artifacts to pillaging sites, rescuing citizens, etc. You can have multi-racial forts, brawls, mercenaries, secret agents, questers, and so on. You can have siege diplomacy and messengers. You may expel or request citizens at will. Certainly the core of the game has been dramatically altered.
As for insurrections, becoming a lord means you can invite people to become your hearthpersons and demand tribute from other lords. It's not just a cosmetic change.
But people don't know about that because the wiki is barely updated.
The upper boards are subject to the whims of new releases. The lower boards endure.Endure. And in enduring, grow strong.
And in strongering, grow ends.The upper boards are subject to the whims of new releases. The lower boards endure.Endure. And in enduring, grow strong.
Of course, the fact that Toady doesn't play the game himself, and doesn't actually like Fortress mode (by way of various clues such as always implementing fortress mode features as the lowest priority, or his own admission in a pc gamer interview that he isn't into fort mode style gameplay) doesn't help. If you keep making a game, travel the world doing talks about your game, have your game featured in the MoMa, but nobody actually plays your game, not even you, is it really a game?
Well, tbh, adventure mode need(ed) MUCH MORE work than fortress. I mean, even in 31 or 40 version, fortress mode was ok, and even fun, while adventure mode felt boring and empty.That said, the emptiness of adventure mode did lead to people finding other dumb stuff to do... Such as mountaineering.
I'm not sure. Some particularly bad, drama filled communities (skulltag and zdaemon) died painful deaths, but the doom community is still producing tens of maps and mods. In fact, just look at the cacowards (https://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/2018/lifetime/).I tend to check here a couple of times a week between like... Month long breaks from remembering the site even exists. And I do have to say It's kind of amazing how consistent the community seems even with those long breaks. Other communities I've been a part of before taking similar breaks from tended to completely and totally change whenever I left that long, even ones I thought were maybe even MORE enduring (RIP doom community).
With that in mind I think this place seems pretty safe and stable. Barring something like toady giving up on the game, which I feel like would even deflate the mostly disconnected lower boards.
wait what happened to the doom community, i've been counting on them as a sort of ancient lighthouse for user-made content and i'd hate to hear that's gone
did they go the way of scoredoom or what
In 11 months what you got, before :I don't disagree that the forums are slowing down, but the decline in FotF responses is probably partially due to people running out of questions.
in 2010, think that http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=30026.15960 this one was 1065 pages long for one year and 3 months.
in 2011 -> 370 pages (15 mar -> 15 feb)
in 2012 -> 334 pages (15 feb -> 15 jan)
in 2013 -> 222 pages (15 jan -> 15 dec)
in 2014 -> 240 pages (15 dec -> 15 nov)
in 2015 -> 129 pages (15 nov -> 15 oct)
in 2016 -> 169 pages (15 oct -> 15 sept)
in 2017 -> 112 pages (15 sept -> 15 aug)
in 2018 -> 100 pages of fotf in 11 months. (1 Mar 2018 -> 1 Feb 2018)