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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 11 2012, 12:14 PM (728 Views) | |
| Dubbmatic | Jul 11 2012, 12:14 PM Post #1 |
Carnival Night Act 1
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I just feel the need to say, I really miss the old feel and magic that Sonic Blast used to carry years back. These days, in all honestly, the forum has become quite boring and repetitive, at times a bit too rule uptight too. Maybe just growing up caused my perception to change, but really I think the forum has lost a lot of the magic it once carried. For the first couple years, it was so fun to watch Sonic Blast just take form. The amount of active members had been a bit smaller in number, but were very on top of keeping posts flowing and discussion was very fun. There wasn't much in terms of problems caused by bad members, as I don't think we really had any, and it was just so laid back. Metallix used to be on virtually daily interacting a ton, sadly I know he's become very busy in life, but it was fun to have him bouncing about with all of us. And I remember he and I would brainstorm on things we could do to help better the forum. I was only about 15 at the time so there wasn't too much I was capable of helping with, but I did what I could, such as adding the Cheats/Mods section we once had. I tried to collect television show links from Youtube and organize them into topics as to have a sort of forum media library, little silly things that in retrospect were fairly pointless. But then again, isn't everything on forums? Nothing we do on here is out of a need, it's all supposed to be just for fun, all the projects we take on are for amusement more so than anything. Though I just feel like a lot of that silly random and needless things and just all the fun of it all, it's almost just dried up. And what little does remain ran off into Casino Park mostly in The Shack. Just wanted to share my thoughts. |
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| Devy The Mutt | Jul 11 2012, 01:56 PM Post #2 |
'Ello, lad!
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I haven't been here that long (only have been here since December 29th, 2011), but I can definitely relate to what you are talking about. I ended up leaving a forum for good because of how boring it was. Not to mention I had a point that I wanted to leave here as well. Pretty much the same reason as what you are describing this forum as. Boring, repetitive, and Metallix is never on. The reason why I'm sticking here is because I want to keep my commitment, even if it gets very boring and inactive here. I'm sure something will happen to brighten this forum up again though. There was only two people here that were actually considered "BAD" in my opinion, but they are both gone. Yeah, people move on, eventually I'll move on, but that's a sign that we are aging and maturing. But yeah, I'm going to stay active until it is impossible to stay active. I don't know and neither do you, but some day, this forum will get better. I kind of wish that I was here when the forum was sprouting, getting tons of active members. Now, all I see is about twenty new members a month and only one or two of them is active. Even then, they are only active for some period. But still, if I was like you, I'd probably feel the same. Missing the old days. |
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| Lord DragonFlame | Jul 12 2012, 12:34 PM Post #3 |
Christmas is back again
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The forum's moved to the Shack. That's all there is to say. Metallix's busy with life, work and getting old. Heh! Picking up a girl, and the forum ain't his first priority. Seen as it works fairly well without him having to keep an constant eye each day. But then again, nothing is like the old days. I believe the last enjoyable year that SB had was back in 2010, ever since that, Shack has slowly consumed what's left of this raveling society, that now dwells deep within that one topic. I'm sticking here, truth been said, for the few RP's I still have in the private section. I failed to contribute to the tournament, and I'm fed up even trying seen as no one cares, or it's basicaly summer holidays. People tend to use the forum like a sideshow activity along school, even if that's the hour of study. So quite frankly, forum won't change. It'll stay like this and continue to strive on. God knows, killing off the shack will leave every one to abandon this forum, due to it's inactivity, and liability to actually put anything constructive making a topic. Because they've all been made. Afraid to make a thread that's already been made before. Let's bump and two year old one, after tending to the search function. The door's shut closed, for not adding anything irrelevant. Bah! It's an everlasting wish that can't be fulfilled. Keep them few who still thrive around here, and let the new folks bundle up in the shack. |
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| Devy The Mutt | Jul 12 2012, 12:46 PM Post #4 |
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'Ello, lad!
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Yeah, all I can really say is Sonic Blast isn't SONIC BLAST anymore. This forum doesn't even deserve the exciting name anymore. |
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"The life I live will never be the same without you here..." | |
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| Nico Yazawa | Jul 12 2012, 01:09 PM Post #5 |
Lava Reef Act 2
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Hey! Don't hate on the forum! >w>; It's a good forum. Sure the activity might've decreased, but it's still a good forum. Just cause all the activities moved to the shack doesn't mean it's bad or anything at all.. Okay so it says I've been a member of here since October 10th, 2011, but I actually joined back in February of 2010. (Long story) When I was a member in 2010, the forum was lively, active and new members joined every day and most of them actually stayed active, really as far as I remember. It was a good time. And then some stuff happened, I got banned and missed out on a crap load of stuff and then when I came back and was given a second chance, (don't count on it..it's rare!), the forum had settled down a lot, of course, but the forum seemed...off a bit. The activity had decreased by a bit, you could tell. But it was still a good forum to me of course. I got my posts up quickly by roleplaying in short sentences. |: (Regret that now). But then after a few months or so, the activity became even worse.. Everyone just started posting in The Shack. And nothing else really. You could tell the activity was just really bad. (No offense..) But I don't mind. I've made some good friends in The Shack. They might be some crazy goons but they're still good and very close to each other, I'm sure. My point is, don't give all hope on this forum yet. It's a bit dead right now, but the light on this forum will shine eventually. The activity will get booming again soon and everything will go back to normal. I'm sure it won't be the same as the old times, but activity will still be better than how it is right now. You just have to be patient and wait. The time will come soon. |
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| Wallace | Jul 12 2012, 01:33 PM Post #6 |
Break out the L-word. The other L-word.
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You guys are making it out like the only topic ever posted in is the Shack. It's not. There's also a lot of other topics in the Casino Park, too. And hey, there's even occasional topics elsewhere that get some fair traffic. Looking down the board, I'm having a hard time finding sections who don't have a topic or two that's been replied to in the past day or two. Admittedly, though, The Shack is where most of the traffic lies nowadays. Not all, but certainly a lot. But, as it has been pointed out countless times, on the off-chance that it is suggested again: Removing the Shack or Casino Park would not increase activity anywhere. If anything, we'd end up losing the majority of our members because most of their posts were concentrated in the Shack. There is really no way to solve the problem. As DF said, there's not a whole lot to talk about in the Sonic sections anymore. There hasn't been a new game announced in a while, and who knows when the next will be. There's occasional news on other fronts, such as Station Square, Gaming Industry, or Entertainment Cafe. Art topics, RPs, FCs, and stories are being posted and added to regularly. We're having tons of members join who all post introduction topics--though admittedly few stay for long--and quite a few topics in the Support section. This is what we have, there's no way to change it without forcing things awkwardly or losing more members than it's worth, and we're going to have to just deal with it. |
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| Lord Pianta | Jul 12 2012, 02:06 PM Post #7 |
Il Piantissimo
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The problem is that the only activity can be found in the Casino Park. I remember the time that activity was everywhere. It was fun everywhere. Nowadays the trolls don't even bother to post here, plus there hasn't been an Epic Lulz in a while. We've lost a lot of fun members overtime, everyone has matured and moved on. It's a sad fact that we have to face, and I wouldn't know how to make it better. It's been like this for the past two years. |
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| Dubbmatic | Jul 12 2012, 03:17 PM Post #8 |
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Carnival Night Act 1
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It's refreshing to see such response to this topic, didn't quite expect it really, and you guys are all mostly right. I mean, even those who wanted to say that there is more activity than just in The Shack kinda started to back on the words a bit. Sonic Blast in present day is essentially The Shack with a few other small topics and posts peppered in. I hardly pay attention present day though, so I wasn't at all aware of just how long this was the case, but it sounds like year and a half to two years, averaging out what you guys are saying. Yeah, to me the forum has had phases. There was the beginning phase where it went through name changes and many new threads were added and dropped, then you had a growing stage when we got the first wave of regular members and active discussion (If I recall, DragonFlame and SuperShadowGal had joined up in this phase). Then for a few years we were I'd say prosperous and just fun, with frequent new members, lots of new ideas, new content, we were fast becoming one of the top Sonic based forums out there. But then with the growing member count came the growing problem members, so Metallix had to instate a larger staff to help deal with this, and this staff I recall did their job almost TOO well in my opinion. Yup some of them are still on today, go ahead and get mad at me for it if you must guys, but this was the stage when I was also on staff and often clashed with the rest of them. To me though, when things got uptight around here for a while, that just began the collapse. That was around late 2008, and carried into 2009 some. But also around 2009 I think is when the Shack and Casino Park started to attract more people, which wasn't a big deal at the time, the forum was well balanced, the staff took it down a few notches allowing for more fun and freedom, and things were good through 2010. Then the final phase, which is today, when the forum itself began to become more neglected, while Casino Park and The Shack was the place for most members. Yeah, that to me sums it up pretty well. Personally I think that unless we get our old long running members to be able to go back into regular posting (some of you are I know), or a new set who value the discussions and other things that used to carry the forums, Sonic Blast will continue to diminish. But given it's size, it will never fully die out, but it's glory days are probably long since past. Oh, and by the way, for those unaware, I know my account says I joined up in 2009, and yes with this account I did, but I actually have a different account from when I first started on here back in 2006, Pacfan47, and when I had left the forum for what I thought was for good, I told myself I would not ever go back on and actively use that account again, thus I made Dubbmatic. Edited by Dubbmatic, Jul 12 2012, 03:20 PM.
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| Katsuko | Jul 12 2012, 03:29 PM Post #9 |
Sandopolis Act 1
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Communities develop and take on new personalities generated by new and different members. This will often alienate old members and make the community less attractive to new members, but it's as natural and inevitable as the sun setting. No one can make SB what it was 5 years ago, and nostalgia's just going to make things worse. If you want a good forum, you should contribute what seems best, most exciting, most interesting, most fun to you now, and hope that SB evolves in a direction that favors you. Edited by Katsuko, Jul 12 2012, 03:47 PM.
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| SuperShadowgal | Jul 12 2012, 03:50 PM Post #10 |
The Female Ultimate Life Form!
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That's the problem though honestly. Casino Park sees the most traffic within the day, whereas most other areas see less. I have checked the forum sometimes to see if there's anything interesting when I get up, then sometimes come back on later in the night to see most of the areas, as of current, either had no activity, or still have posts from "yesterday," while Casino Park regularly has updates from a 30 minute period, with at least 5 pages worth of "discussion" going on from the beginning of the day. There is quite the disparity in activity. I have no problems with the Casino Park, but you can't deny it's a tad depressing when at least half of the members list on is perhaps just sitting in the Shack or another spam game, while the rest of the forum is sitting with topics that haven't been posted in for days since the OP made them. And yes we have some fairly active topics in various sections right now with 10 or so posts, but those are far and few to the magnitude of activity Casino gets. Looking through most of the topics posted within the past month... There are at least 2-3 semi-active/active role plays, 1 WIP in the drafting area (XIII), one that was axed due to no activity. Most of the RPs that seem to be fairing well at all are in the Private section. The art section - Art/Fan Fics/Fan Characters does slightly better, but most of the people replying are only 2-3 different people. With more of the replies being back and forth between the OP and another member. The topics with 20+ posts are exceptions which have been around for months,even years, but upon checking them out there are only a few people as of recent who even comment. The Sonic sections fair slightly better with about 10 recent topics, a couple of them being bumps by newer members. Let's not deny the fact there are few games out right now, but that shouldn't diminish discussion value of misc. topics such as theories or reviving the comic book discussion again (which stopped I think due to lack of talk) Station Square topics range from a low 3 recent topics, to 11, not counting their sub-sections. Sure the Shack and other Casino games are fun, but I think we're all forgetting how much fun there is outside of Casino Park. We should have our fun little spam games, but it shouldn't become this mandatory monster it is right now, where the bulk of the forum is dedicated to it... |
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| Wallace | Jul 12 2012, 04:02 PM Post #11 |
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Break out the L-word. The other L-word.
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Okay, Dubb, I just want to say this before I start: No one really cares that you're the second member of the board. You don't have to remind everyone of that in every post you make. Sure, it might be worth pointing out that you had an older account to explain why you know so much about the history of the board, but it's not necessary to constantly flaunt your longevity here in what ends up seeming almost like name-dropping. The entire forum does not exist solely in the Casino Park. It's not hard to take a look around and see that. Hell, this topic is proof of that. If you truly believed that, you should have posted this in the Casino Park. As I said and as you can see if you look, almost all sections on the board have been replied to recently, as in in the past day or so. I'm not denying that the Shack gets the most traffic here, but it's certainly not the only place where anyone posts. This topic testifies to that. You admit that you've not been around much lately, and don't seem to realize how much that damages your credibility? Your claims are not only false, but you admit that you wouldn't know. Discussion in the Sonic sections of the board are obviously diminished, for two reasons: one, there has not been a release or an announcement of significance in some time, so there's not much to talk about on that front; two, a great deal of topics regarding preexisting games and other parts of the franchise have already been done. There are very few things people can think of to talk about any more, to discuss. If you value discussion in general, not specifically Sonic-related, you should take a look at some of the more recent topics here in the Station Square. We don't fool around all the time here. There is absolutely no way to fix the board, and to be frank, aside from the complaints of returning veterans who thirst for nostalgia, no one thinks there is anything dangerously wrong that needs to be addressed. It's obvious that you either want veteran members to stop posting in the Shack and Casino Park, or that you just want a whole lot of new members to make this place the perfect little utopia for your tastes. There's only one way to force them to stop posting in the Shack and Casino Park, and that's by getting rid of them altogether. If you did that, I guarantee you a lot of your precious little veterans would leave, because there's frankly not much else to do. Well, you may say, if they leave, I may get my alternative fulfilled as more members who value discussion (on over-discussed topics, though you wouldn't say that) will magically flood in to restore the population. I think there are several things wrong with that line of thinking: one, it promotes the idea that the audience should conform to the media, and not the media to the audience. It is damn near impossible to shape a population to an old media when the population has grown out of the older media. When your audience decides it likes one thing about your media, but not the rest, you focus more on the one thing, if you care to keep your audience. Two, I think the hope that more discussion-oriented members will join to fill the gap and to replace what was lost is mostly a lost one. I don't know if you know this (you probably don't since you admit you've not been around much), but among all the new members we get nowadays, very few are attuned to the discussion, and more to the more easy-going nature of the art section and the Casino Park. Those are the places where entertainment is user- and creativity-generated and as such knows practically no bounds as far as expansion and activity is concerned. The fact of the matter is that the only thing you REALLY see wrong is change. Yes, this board has changed since it started, and aside from enforcing coercion and losing members as a result, there is no way to make the board what it once was. Change is natural, and nostalgia-mongering is not going to change the fact that it is inevitable. The only purpose I can see to a topic such as this is to try and decide upon a solution. There is no solution. There is no dire problem that must be addressed lest the board die. It is called change and it has happened. Don't cry about it, just move on. |
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| Dubbmatic | Jul 12 2012, 04:45 PM Post #12 |
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Carnival Night Act 1
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Let's get one thing straight.... I mentioned it this time around to provide context to my reviewing the forum history form back to 2006. But I will GLADLY flaunt my longevity on repeat if I so please as I do hold a seniority resulting from it. In terms of that 'issue', learn your place. As for the remainder of your argument, you're sitting here defending the trends of what has come to pass as if I just sat and offended your livelyhood. FRANKLY it's kind of hilarious that you'd go to such effort to defend this. The things I said are fact, in comparison to what Sonic Blast once was, it is virtually dead. I'm pointing out that I miss what once was, but I'm not whining about it. I am indeed being quite critical of the trend though, I admit to that. And I will remain critical, as it truly shows how little value the forum as a whole has anymore. And let's get this straight here. CHANGE is just fine, so long as it's change in a positive direction, change for the bettering of something. The change that SB has seen over the years is a reverse of that, the change is that SB has become a shell of it's former self. I'm not sitting here pointing fingers or anything though... Well..... Let me rephrase. I have a LOT that I'd be willing to blame for the way things are, but of that amount, I could only really get away with vocalizing a portion of it, but that's all history anyway, a few years old or more. I know things are not going to revert back to what they were, and it's newer members like yourself with this mindset that the present way is of some sort of value that insure it to never revert back to the golden days once seen, but that doesn't stop me from pointing out my disappointment in the change, and my desire to relive the yesteryear. You know what the best thing about this discussion is though? Well really there are two things to be named. One of them is that, it's actually getting people to discuss, to talk things out more, which is seldom seen now adays. Yeah it happens, just not regularly. I knew that if I made a topic of this sort, true as it is, it would cause for a kick up of discussion, debate as well, which frankly is just fun. Congrats guys, we're breathing more life back into this withering forum. 
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| Wallace | Jul 12 2012, 04:53 PM Post #13 |
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Break out the L-word. The other L-word.
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Okay, I'm done here. Two reasons why: One, you think that just because you're the second member here means a damn thing. I'm not going to treat you like God Almighty just because of that. I don't see your name in yellow or purple, so I'm going to treat you and your opinion like I'd treat anyone else's. Two, it's becoming increasingly evident with every post you make that you're hardly even reading what I'm saying. I'd go through and point out everything you've said that I've already definitively addressed that you're just prolonging for the sake of prolonging, but then I'd have almost no room left for any actual additions to the argument that aren't just pointing out the flaws in yours. So, have a very nice day. |
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| Dubbmatic | Jul 12 2012, 05:00 PM Post #14 |
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Carnival Night Act 1
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Oh no I did read all of your arguments, I've even been talking them over with another member via Facebook Chat, and the overall verdict both of us had come to was that you seem oblivious to the main point, so why should I really argue you back point for point anyway? Although I do welcome the debate, if you look at my main post, I didn't actually post anything that could really qualify as an argument starter as it were. I posted simply my thoughts and the facts that do indeed hold true if you were to trace it back bit by bit. But yeah it's whatever to me really, if you'd fancy to just be done overall with what you have been saying, no skin off my bones. |
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| Wallace | Jul 12 2012, 05:03 PM Post #15 |
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Break out the L-word. The other L-word.
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What I don't like is that you're claiming everything you say to be true simply by virtue of the fact that you're the second member. That's bullshit. I've laid out the facts before you, and if you refuse to acknowledge them, that's your loss. For someone so championing of discussion, you don't take it too seriously, do you? |
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