Reviving the Community

Discuss all things Battleships Forever that aren't Ships and Shipmaker - Missions, Development, etc.!

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Kaelis
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Kaelis »

Anna wrote:If what I said was not the truth, then it's your own fault, I got all my information on this from you, Kaelis, and everything you had ever said to me implied that it was pretty much done. You're also the one who told me that the coming multiplayer was the reason for the change in attitude, and I'm fairly certain I have Skype logs to back that up.

...

So basically, if I misrepresented things, it's because you misrepresented things to me.
*shrugs* Okay. can't be arsed to dig through logs. doesn't really matter whose fault it is anyway, who cares?
Anna wrote:And you can't deny you're a wonderful anti-social jerk. :P
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Anna wrote:And are you denying that the reason we haven't seen any progress on the BSF front is because of your little tiff with th15?
Um. No. Im not.

Aaand im pretty sure i explained to you what exactly happened, but in case i didnt after all: wasnt really a quarrel, argument, disagreement or anything like that. th15 just... suddenly decided he doesn't like me. I still have no idea wtf is his problem.
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Son Tzu
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Son Tzu »

Regarding the lack of posts, regular visits from members etc. there have been times when I've been browsing the forum, and the only other "users" online have been half a dozen bots...
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Preacher
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Preacher »

Personally I think that you can add as many features as you like but the most important thing is nurturing new members, i have seen many people come and go sooo quickly because they burst in all enthusiastic with there aegis spammed stock sectioned newb ships only to get shot down and crushed by criticism, at which point they leave and never return. I acknowledge that dealing with the same inane questions and annoyingly awful ships sucks especially since there is so much help provided in the literature, but if we want this forum to succeed i believe a more patient and constructive approach is necessary to enable newer shipbuilders to learn and flourish.

Also there's the age old problem of time and laziness, I myself have a full time job and have to work to maintain my family's current standard of living but there seems to be alot of half heartedness when it comes to commenting on ships (I am also guilty of this), I appreciate that most of the time you can't be arsed to post on some lame piece of junk but the more we post on each others ships the more active the forum will become as conversation is more actively encouraged by a broader range of views on topics and people want to post more ships as they know that they will receive more replies. Im not saying we should give credit where it isn't due but more activity as an individual member will promote activity throughout the forum and encourage newer members to stay, we need only look at ourselves for our own problems.
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Orelius
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Orelius »

I think what this forum needs is an influx of new members from other sites. Maybe someone could go host a contest or something else on some other forum. A contest on the Kingdom of Loathing Forums drew me and a handful of other forumites to Spelunky, for example.

To be honest, after lurking around for a few months, it was a while before I finally decided to register because I was afraid of Anna. Not kidding.

But then again, if I started posting ships the moment I started playing this game, I'd probably have the typical aegis-spam stock section stuff. Again, not kidding, I was actually rather proud of a aegis-spam weapon-spam stock section piece of crap that lagged my computer to oblivion with too many bullet instances.
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Atomic Avocado wrote:Think about section spam like this.
Congrats! Youve been promoted to head designer for a car company! Now for your first design are you going to cover the car in tires? In axles? In bumpers? NO! Your going design something that uses the right parts for the right places.
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Kiltric
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Kiltric »

This is what got me into BSF in the first place. With the metagame slowly coming along, I think making videos of the action would help a lot.
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Ixranin »

You can only build and look at so many shiny ships before you think "What's the point?" Spending forever just trying to get doors, weapon sequences, and such to work for the sole purpose of... just showing them off in a gif doesn't help.

Once you've moved on to working on other things, it becomes harder to come back. Myself I would've stuck around longer if we had a less barebones campaign editor, but a new one at this point would be too late as I've set up my own projects to work on instead of taking the time to learn lua.
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Admiral Patches
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Admiral Patches »

Since returning from an almost non-noticeable absence from the forums, I come back to find almost half the community demolished. The hardcore veterans (you know who I mean) have preserved the core of BSF, but not the glory they'd once had. So. What's really happened?
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Anna
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Anna »

Like has already been said, people lost interest. I myself have only a wanning interest in the game itself anymore, and many of the old members just don't care enough to make ships or post on the forum anymore.

Fun fact: More than half of the regular active members of the IRC channel pretty much never post on the forums anymore, and I think only a small handful ever make ships. Even less people actually post their ships. Multiplayer would breathe new life into things, as has been said already, but otherwise there's not much you can do to bring back old members. If they're no longer interested in the game, or in the community, then what can you do?
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Normandy
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Normandy »

Oh, by the way, anybody else notice that our front page has almost 1 million hits?

Come on guys. A little under 5000 more. Then we can rest in peace.
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Hege
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Hege »

You know, I only visit this place about once a few months nowdays just for the false hope that something new would've popped up, such as news from BSF2 or something, but this topic made me actually log in, more or so this post;
You can only build and look at so many shiny ships before you think "What's the point?" Spending forever just trying to get doors, weapon sequences, and such to work for the sole purpose of... just showing them off in a gif doesn't help.

Once you've moved on to working on other things, it becomes harder to come back. Myself I would've stuck around longer if we had a less barebones campaign editor, but a new one at this point would be too late as I've set up my own projects to work on instead of taking the time to learn lua.
Because it is pretty much why many people such as myself aswell have lost intrest on this.
It was fun back then to make ships, it was fun to experiment, but then it just started to become less fun and basicly half way though when I was making that pack of sections I just asked myself "why am I doing this again?" and just stopped and started doing other things.

Honestly, one of the only things that actually kept me around was the hope of a good campaign maker, I actually enjoyed making those basic simple ones too, though I had to seriously work around shit such as making meteor ships to distract the AI with.

Honestly speaking, at the current state I don't think there is much we can do for the community, even if we'd get new members they will probably look at the forum area and just state "oh a dead forum, nevermind".
It would require one hell of a update to get enough oldies to return activity to keep this place alive enough for new members to become intrested.
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Atomic Avocado
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Atomic Avocado »

Also: People are getting older. They all have commitments now that they have to make. Me, still being in school, don't have as many as you adults do. That is why many people have left, IMO
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Slominator
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Slominator »

I've been checking back about once a month to see if anything new has happened with the development. I was working on making the FreeSpace 2 ships a couple years ago. It was fun for a while until I started trying to make some of the bigger ships. I was already getting somewhat discouraged by the time the newest ship maker came out because there was no way to use the ships in the game other than in the sandbox mode and the few other pre-made missions that are available. When the newest ship maker came out it was no longer worth it to me to work on them. I originally started the project with the hopes of making FreeSpace ships that were faithful to the originals while being very playable, balanced, and to use them to make my own missions. I did actually work on making a fleet of my own custom ships for a while after but my interest slowly went away. I would most likely become an active member again if the frame rate issues were fixed and there was a way to make good encounters (with messages). Multiplayer would probably help a lot to get me interested again as well. I've lost interest in BSF until at least the frame rate and mission editor are fixed and even then I don't know if I will be interested again by then.
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Arcalane
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Arcalane »

The only way to boost FPS is going to be moving to a new engine. It's not as simple as just "fixing" stuff. GameMaker has been pushed to it's limits or thereabouts.
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TormakSaber
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by TormakSaber »

I miss encounter maker and when there were more stock related ships to play with. Ships became art and the game became phased out in favor of an easel.

I miss "the game", really.

My two cents. Normandy basically echoed my thoughts on page 1, first post.
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Areze
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Re: Reviving the Community

Post by Areze »

Would a move to the Spring Engine help? I heard it worked very well, personally. I haven't got a clue if it would work with ShipMaker or not, although I see no reason why it shouldn't.
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