Games forum re-merge

quarryman

A couple of years ago the games forum was split into Nintendo/Xbox/Playstation.

Following this idiotic decision it seemed any minor release was awarded a forum to itself. Most died but were not removed.

The result now is that multi-platform releases can have 4/5 threads. One for each console, one in games, one in the forum dedicated to that game, etc etc...... Ridiculous.

We now have sections for Guitar Hero, The Sims even bloody Wolfenstein with ONE thread.

The games split was stupid and reeked of a message board expanding in the belief that it was bigger than it actually was.

Time for a cull. There'll be the usual moaners (probably moderators of that forum) crying out that we NEED a Metal Gear Solid forum. No we don't, it should get one thread.

The games section is the most bloated stretched section on Boards. Please change it back to something closer to how it was.

(Keep Quake though, for obvious reasons.)

Tallon

quarryman wrote: »

(Keep Quake though, for obvious reasons.)

Why?

quarryman

Tallon wrote: »

Why?

http://wiki.boards.ie/wiki/Pre-History

Jazzy

Tallon wrote: »

Why?

BECAUSE QUAKE IS BETTER THEN YOU AND THE GAMES YOU PLAY

Tallon

quarryman wrote: »

http://wiki.boards.ie/wiki/Pre-History

Yeah but it's pretty inactive compared to some of the other split forums

Kersmash

Loads of the smaller subforums are very active. Yeah some of them are pretty empty but a good few of em have some pretty good discussion.

gizmo

I agree with part of your post anyway, there is quite often one thread in each platform forum for the same game. This can lead to fractured discussion and people missing some info if they only peruse a particular forum.

Imo, if a game is multi-platform then there should be one main thread in the Games section for it, if it is an exclusive title then it can stay in platform forum. The exception to this could be specific platform related threads for these games such as the BC2 clan thread.

Retr0gamer

Before this split happened it was suggested a few times but each time was shot down by every regular poster. Anyway the split occurred when the adins implemented it without consulting any forum regulars of creating any discussion about it. I've noticed the level of discussion has nose dived particularly in the PS and Xbox forums (especially the xbox forum) were they are full of mostly technical questions which are frankly boring as all hell. People will say that there's too many games released that one forum can't handle it but it was doing fine before the split occurred with the same amount of hardware released. I'd like to see any games discussion left to the games forum and technical questions left in the platform forums but when I suggested this there was a good bit of disagreement from some newbie posters and regulars. Some said they didn't need to know what someone with a different console thought of the same release on their console which is frankly stupid and some said that they didn't want to hear from arrogant PC gamers. I'd like to see this happen but since it's been left the way it is for so long it's turned into something like the situation up the north.

Some of the single game forum ideas were frankly stupid including 2 I moderate. I don't see the point of a resident evil forum and I got the Final Fantasy forum renamed to JRPGs because the conversation nose dived and was sick looking at necro threads of someone saying how FFVII is the best game ever.

quarryman

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Anyway the split occurred when the adins implemented it without consulting any forum regulars of creating any discussion about it.

This bugged me too. NOTHING was said beforehand. No feedback was requested after it.

For a site where the content is driven by its users the arrogance to change it without consulting the regulars is baffling.

K.O.Kiki

I just ignore the Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft forums.

And why the hell is it called "Xbox" forum, anyway? That's not the company's name!

RobertFoster

It'd be great if the console forums at least merged back together. I remember one of the reasons given for splitting them in the first place was flame wars over which platform was superior. Currently, any topic like that is fairly quickly doused by the regulars and mods. Whether this is a result of the segregation, or the fact that the regulars have matured is unknown.

tman

quarryman wrote: »

This bugged me too. NOTHING was said beforehand. No feedback was requested after it.

For a site where the content is driven by its users the arrogance to change it without consulting the regulars is baffling.

And they didn't even make a Nintendo forum! I can remember the nerd rage I felt like it was only yesterday!!

It kind of works the way it is, but can be a pain in the arse trawling through 3-4 forums to find an active thread for a game that you've started playing

RobertFoster

tman wrote: »

It kind of works the way it is, but can be a pain in the arse trawling through 3-4 forums to find an active thread for a game that you've started playing

Unless it's a popular multi-platform game, in which case you can find 2-3 topics on it across various forums

KilOit

keep consoles to one forum though and have pc on another, i'd rather not mix with console people.

SeantheMan

It's an extra 2 mouse clicks. I am not overly bothered.

Works fine as is I think. I like the Consoles -> Categories -> Major Franchises format

I would prob stop using the games forum if I had to go through 100 threads of "What is your best kit in COD" ..."How many kills did you get in COD" etc etc

ShaneU

I think having separate forums for different games/genres is a bit silly, I do however think it would be useful to keep the playstation/xbox forums for technical questions related to those consoles.

Penn

Its not like there's a new sub-forum created for every game series. The way I see it, sub-forums are created for games series' which tend to generate a lot more threads than others so as not to clog up the forums. While the two forums I moderate (GTA and MGS) are pretty slow at the moment, I've been part of those forums when a new game in the series has been released and obviously, they can get very busy very quickly. And in particular when it comes to the Christmas Games rush, the amount of those threads would clog up the Games forum too much in my opinion.

With regards to the Playstation/XBox/Nintendo forums, they come in very handy with regards to exclusives, as they can help reduce the risk of arguments between 360/PS3 owners etc. With a lot of multi-format games and less exclusives, this may be where the problem lies. However, with the release of PS:Move and Kinect, I'd say we'll be seeing more exclusives by next year

quarryman

paddyirishman85 wrote: »

While the two forums I moderate (GTA and MGS) are pretty slow at the moment,

2 perfect examples of forums that should get the chop. There's been, what, 15 posts in the last 2 months in MGS? This thread has more posts than that.

Also, "moderate" is a bit generous when it comes to those two

IMO, everything in Shooter should be merged into Games. Same with Simulation and Strategy. There's no need for them. Cull the mods, lose the zombie forums. Who cares if they have some life during the few weeks of the "Christmas Rush".

Xbox/Nintendo/Playstation could probably stay for specific technical questions but all game related threads should go into the Games section.

Retr0gamer

You see the games forum would never get clogged up with threads about one game or series, or if a multiplayer series came out that was big it would lead to it's seperate forum. I don't see how a GTA or MGS forum needs to exist, the games forum never got clogged with threads when a new game in the series came out. Also console wars were kept to a minimum and handled well by the moderators. I atually saw an increase in fanboy behaviour when the seperate forums were created.

Retr0gamer

quarryman wrote: »

IMO, everything in Shooter should be merged into Games. Same with Simulation and Strategy. There's no need for them. Cull the mods, lose the zombie forums. Who cares if they have some life during the few weeks of the "Christmas Rush".

I don't believe in this, there's a few series there that are still very active and need their own forums and nobody wants the CS forum muppetry spilling into the games forum. MMO's as well need their own forum as well.

Overheal

after a long feedback thread about this a couple years ago, nothing has been done.

just do as i try to do: boycott all but the main games forum.

quarryman

Overheal wrote: »

after a long feedback thread about this a couple years ago, nothing has been done.

And guess who started it....

I've just noticed things have got worse if anything, more and more pointless forums popping up.

There must be some aspect of trying to make the site look larger than it is. More page hits, ads revenue, etc.

Wolfe Tone

Threads will descend into Xbox fanboys vs PS fanboys with PC gamers saying "STFU Noobs"

Retr0gamer

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Threads will descend into Xbox fanboys vs PS fanboys with PC gamers saying "STFU Noobs"

Again, was never a problem before.

Wolfe Tone

You cannot envsion:

Screenshot of game x on PS3 vs Xbox


Followed by pages of sh!t?

super_furry

Overheal wrote: »

after a long feedback thread about this a couple years ago, nothing has been done.

just do as i try to do: boycott all but the main games forum.

I've done that before but when you make a post on say, the new Halo game, you'll have two or three people telling you to post it in the Xbox/Shooter/Halo forum before it's moved.

I doubt anything will change though. The orignal split was done on the whim of an admin who took it upon himself to change things and there's pretty much no arguing with that.

super_furry

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

You cannot envsion:

Screenshot of game x on PS3 vs Xbox


Followed by pages of sh!t?

Thing is, that never happened. And if someone did want to start some daft console war, they were always shouted down and ignored before the mods even had to step in.

Coriolanus

The way I'd do it is have Games as the parent forum with technical forums for the consoles (ie: RROD qs etc) and then just play it by ear. If a genre needs a sub-forum, so be it, but make it a child forum of Games, so they remain connected.
The main list at the moment is a mess, computer games alonside miniature games etc etc.

Jazzy

stay on the course Ned! You're doing super!

johnny_ultimate

Actually I wanted to bring up the problems of multi-threads recently. There are plenty of times when I'm frustrated as hell trying to figure out where a particular game is being discussed. It always seems kind of random whether the main thread is in a console-specific forum or the main one. Alan Wake is the one most recently that had two very active threads going: no reason why we shouldn't just keep that discussion in one place and one place only. It will allow everyone to participate and not get lost.

At the same time, a lot of specific forums do have very active 'subcommunities', if we can call it that. Call of Duty and Arcade & Retro are two that constantly seem busy, with some posters I rarely if ever see outside that domain. I'm obviously most familiar with Playstation, which definitely caters to many PS-centric issues, specifically technical, format specific (say the ongoing Battlefield Bad Company thread where PS players discuss the PS version amongst themselves, organising games etc...) and busy PS exclusive threads (Demon's Souls: the thread that never dies). The latter two points have other places they could fit, though.

That said, I do agree that splitting a specific game discussion between multiple forums is ultimately detrimental to a sense of community. While format specific ones often naturally end up in the format specific forums (say Metroid: Other M was primarily discussed in the usually quiet Nintendo forum), perhaps the key is to help identify where main game discussion should take place. I want to talk about The Last Guardian, for example. Where is that posted? PS forum (probably popular there)? General games forum (probably popular there too)? Clearer labelling to sort that kind of stuff out is probably the key. And I'm sure many people want to be directed closer to their topic of choice, rather than one central cluster**** of a games forum. Perhaps the game specific ones should have this main 'games' forum as the place to post: say, an Alan Wake megathread.

I don't think a full-on mega-merge is the ideal solution, and that's honestly not just me speaking is a Playstation mod, as I'd love to see more integration. I just think tidying up the place to make it clear what belongs where is key. Personally, on a basic level I'd like to see the 'broader' area topics kept, but to tidy up the redundant single game ones with little activity. Perhaps a forum by forum basis is the fairest way: no point cutting an active forum like CoD or WoW, but no point retaining slow, almost redundant forums. Communities that are constantly ongoing are far more necessary than ones that get active when a new franchise entry is released for a month or so, only to die again after.

So in summary: messy at moment, spring cleaning very necessary, but don't destroy the active communities in the process.

thewheel2.0

Nevore wrote: »

The way I'd do it is have Games as the parent forum with technical forums for the consoles (ie: RROD qs etc) and then just play it by ear. If a genre needs a sub-forum, so be it, but make it a child forum of Games, so they remain connected.
The main list at the moment is a mess, computer games alonside miniature games etc etc.

^ This needs to happen.


@Retro why don't you just do it and see what happens? Do you have the power to do it?

johnny_ultimate

thewheel2.0 wrote: »

@Retro why don't you just do it and see what happens? Do you have the power to do it?

Only admins hold such responsibility.

Personally, I don't think it should be rushed into, and come up with a workable solution between ourselves before implementing anything. What do our CMod overlords think?

Mr E

CMods are reading this thread with interest.

Fnz

Won't somebody please think of the... rate at which new topics will be ejected from the front page?

Particularly if there will be an increased number of 'stickys', along with evergreen and 'flavour of the quarter' threads.

Penn

Fnz wrote: »

Won't somebody please think of the... rate at which new topics will be ejected from the front page?

Particularly if there will be an increased number of 'stickys', along with evergreen and 'flavour of the quarter' threads.

Then we'll get a bunch of new threads for games which already have threads but have slipped more than 2 pages.

After taking what people have said into account, perhaps some forums could be gotten rid of. So I'd say a cleanup would be in order, but not a mega-merge.

Dr Bob

Jazzy wrote: »

stay on the course Ned! You're doing super!

Damn it! I was going to come up with a proper serious response but that Simpson's quote always makes me laugh!

Seriously though , do things need to be changed? maybe just have a yearly cull of the subcategories that havent seen much action in the past 12 months (I love unreal much as the next guy , but it's just dust and tumbleweeds there right now).Quake stays though regardless of posts for historical reasons.
And dont even f£$king think of messing with from Arcade and retro ...;)!
I'd love to see a PC format forum (alongside the consoles), but I doubt that's going to happen.

cherryghost

I fully agree with most points in this thread. Hence why I've 100% disapproved of the Fallout forum. It'll just go the same way as most other forums have gone. The Games forum as a whole is a very busy and active community, but unfortunately about a quarter/third of them are fairly dead.

I miss the old ways :pac:



(I reregged a few years back)

Penn

The problem is, while some of them are fairly slow, that changes when there's a new game out. I mean, fair enough, the MGS forum could probably go. But when the next GTA game comes out, the amount of threads a game like that would generate would be too much. And trying to contain it to one or two threads would just mean a lot of things would get lost in the mix. Same with some of the other forums.

Tallon

cherryghost wrote: »

(I reregged a few years back)

shhhhhhhh

quarryman

cherryghost wrote: »

I miss the old ways :pac:

(I reregged a few years back)

Was just about to point out that I was surprised a relatively recent member would prefer the old ways, but the re-reg explains that!

Seriously though , do things need to be changed?

Before 2006 the Games forum was much more active place with threads on a wide-ranging selection of games. Now its limited to a few PC games and random topics. No decent discussion at all.

paddyirishman85 wrote: »

The problem is, while some of them are fairly slow, that changes when there's a new game out. I mean, fair enough, the MGS forum could probably go. But when the next GTA game comes out, the amount of threads a game like that would generate would be too much. And trying to contain it to one or two threads would just mean a lot of things would get lost in the mix. Same with some of the other forums.

And when is the next GTA out?
Exactly.
Having a separate forum for it is stupid if it gets traffic once every 2 years.

Something like GTA can be handled by a few megathreads. It works on other forums, it should be done here.

Currently there are SIXTY sub-forums for games on a general message forum that doesn't specialize in games. This is ridiculous.

Penn

I'd disagree about the lack of good discussions on the games forum. Look at recent threads about Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and the thread called "Should I be sporting".

Let's face it, there has just been the summer games drought. I'd say things will pick up a lot over the next few months. If you add a load of megathreads and stickies on top, a lot of threads would get lost. I agree that some forums should be culled or merged, perhaps by genre (eg Fighting Games), but diverting a lot of the extra traffic into the main Games Forum is wrong in my opinion. I mean, is it really that big a problem or that difficult to find what forum a thread belongs to? Is the Games forum really suffering that badly?

Chairman Meow

i used to post here a long time ago before the merge of the forums and i remember it had alot more activity, and alot more posters. I more or less gave up posting here as it can take ages to get a reply, and there are far busier and better games forums out there. Maybe a de-merge would bring the palce back to some semblance of an active games forum

Retr0gamer

paddyirishman85 wrote: »

I'd disagree about the lack of good discussions on the games forum. Look at recent threads about Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and the thread called "Should I be sporting".

We're completely missing out on any input from a lot of posters from the platform specific forums though and before the split I'm sure these threads would have gained a lot more discussion. Just go into the Xbox forum and look through it. Look how many boring technical threads there are there and how few are actually relating to games. I hardly ever visit that forum because hardly any threads there even interest me and miss out on discussion of new games.

It was meant to be that all game discussion was to be put in the games forum and all platform specific discussion was to be left in the console forums but it's since changed and we are getting silly stuff like 3 threads on going in 3 different forums about the same game. The console forums are doing more to breed fanboyism than anything really.

Anyway I definitely agree that some forums need to be dropped but especially single player games that have little to no multiplayer community. I can't see how these forums can't be maintained in one big megathread ala the Demon's Souls thread like it used to be with any clueless new threads being merged into it. Some categories can be merged into bigger ones. A street fighter forum would be stupid but the fighting games forum is perfect and just look at the community around it. It's why I got the Final Fantasy forum changed to japanese RPGs because it was stupidly limited and the discussion inane but since then it's still quite but has a decent small community and the discussion has improved immensely.

tman

paddyirishman85 wrote: »

I'd disagree about the lack of good discussions on the games forum. Look at recent threads about Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and the thread called "Should I be sporting".

That's kind of missing the point though, all of those threads could just as easily have been created in the xbox or PS forums and would have missed out on the input of quite a few regulars of this forum who tend to avoid those forums.

I'm definitely in agreement that the Nintendo, Playstation and Xbox forums should go back to their original intention and only be used for hardware type issues, not games discussion.

Chairman Meow

Just take a leaf out of the bigger forums bookes (rllmuk, neogaf, etc)

Theyre laid out thuswise:

Discussion forum -
Containing all discussion of pc, 360, ps3 games. All big game have ONE official thread that all questions and discussion of said game goes into. Any duplicate threads are baleeted. People argue "oh but youll get xbots arguing with the sony defense force" etc, well if forums with thousands of members like gaf can make it work, a few hundred odd members here can too.

Online discussion -
The multiplayer component of most games is dicussed here, arrangements for froum games of halo, cod, whatever, all goes in here. With each game having its own official thread as in general discussion

Retro & Arcade -
Does exactly what it says on the tin. All retro and arcade discussion in here.

Bada bing bada boom, 3 forums, all discussion you might need compiled into them, with the added bonus of something like an ARMA2 thread in general gaming discussion, it might garner new interest where its easily accessible, where most people wouldnt bother clicking into a tactical shooter forum to read about it.

Theres really no need for 60 odd sub gaming forums, they onyl exist cause at the time, as quarryman said, board was under the impression that bigger meant better, and wanted to be the biggest forum on the web. It jsut dilutes discussion to the point that its at now, with a whole load of relatively quiet subforums instead of a handful of active ones

TouchingVirus

I almost never hit up the gaming forums apart from Games->Consoles subcategory, but I do hear what you're all saying.

There is no need to have two or three Alan Wake threads because it's the same game. It'd be much better for the community if there was platform-independent discussion on actual games.

Keeping the console sub-cats (esp Console Modding ) should be done because it facilitates specific chats. Sure, it's a pain in the face that 80% of the xbox threads are stuff like "what's the new slim like", "RROD again" etc but there needs to be places for those types of discussion, nobody wants to see it in a generic Consoles forum or here in Games.

A forum by forum cleanup, merging the zombie forums is a step in the right direction. If at some point a split needs to be made for a specific game then just ask for it. If the merges are done right then it won't be that regular an occurance, will it?

I'm not getting on a mod-bashing course here, I've always found the Games mods to be there when necessary, but the next step would be an active discussion among the mods deciding what goes where and enforcing those rules. There should be one place for general Halo threads, it's been pointed out they could currently be in several places - Games, Xbox or Shooters->Halo. Maybe the online games/hosting posts could be in the platform forums, but maybe just stick it all in Halo with stickies at the top for each platform? I don't mean to tell you your business, I'm sure you can come up with a workable solution yourselves with the regulars giving some input.

Either way I think a change will only benefit the whole games subcommunity and it might even make me participate in here and leave the console subcat more often

TouchingVirus

Chairman Meow wrote: »

Theres really no need for 60 odd sub gaming forums, they onyl exist cause at the time, as quarryman said, board was under the impression that bigger meant better, and wanted to be the biggest forum on the web. It jsut dilutes discussion to the point that its at now, with a whole load of relatively quiet subforums instead of a handful of active ones

Let's say we do that, then I'm afraid some of those threads will become excessively large and active and stymy converstation. There's nothing like asking a question and finding your answer 8+ pages away. At that point you'd love to have your own thread, or a Q&A thread. Games like ARMA2 are so much bigger than a one-thread solution. And sure, while it works on other forums it doesn't mean it works well.

60 subforums is a lot though, there is room for improvement.

Chairman Meow

TouchingVirus wrote: »

Let's say we do that, then I'm afraid some of those threads will become excessively large and active and stymy converstation. There's nothing like asking a question and finding your answer 8+ pages away. At that point you'd love to have your own thread, or a Q&A thread. Games like ARMA2 are so much bigger than a one-thread solution. And sure, while it works on other forums it doesn't mean it works well.

60 subforums is a lot though, there is room for improvement.

Well, like i said, it works for practically every other games forum on the interwebs, why not here?

Myrddin

I think if it were to be done, then all games should be discussed in the games forum. Unless it's a system exclusive, in which case it could be discussed in the relevant forum (PS, Nintendo, Xbox etc).

There would be a need to add more mods in here though, as the traffic would obviously sky-rocket.

The Console Forums are indeed handy for technical reasons, but individual games forums is perhaps a step too much. However, moving that amount of traffic in here would require a new/revised charter with the guidelines on how to post correctly, and keep the Games forum tidy/useable. Oh and some top notch mods in flame resistant overalls Interesting change though.

johnny_ultimate

I said it earlier, but one big megamerge - even to say three main forums - is probably not a viable solution. As said, keeping format specific, technical issues to their own forums seems necessary, and for someplace for players to organise online stuff too. So if someone wants to get other players for, say, Battlefield on Xbox, well then Xbox is probably the right place for that! If the goal is to make the main games forum busier, I'd be personally all for 'megathreads' in there for specific games. Would also be a place for more general topics and discussion. If this means cutting down on the game and genre specific forums, well would have to consult the 'local' mods and users. Also, as I said, losing the 'active' forums such as those for MMORPGs seems like a mistake too.

Tidying is necessary, but no point creating anarchy and clutter in the process. The busier the forums become, the more likely you are to lose track. Not all subforums are bad, just need to sort out a compromise that tidies the place up.

TouchingVirus

Chairman Meow wrote: »

Well, like i said, it works for practically every other games forum on the interwebs, why not here?

Because while it works, it's my opinion that it doesn't work well. It could be so much more efficient and conducive to conversation if the most active gaming sub-communities got their own forums.

If you wanted to ask something about a game, and had to trawl through 20 pages of posts since yesterday when you asked to find that one answer would you come back? I wouldn't. Mega-threads are great when the topic of conversation moves as one, but more often than not the reality is a heap of mini-threads balled into one colossal mess.

I don't see the reasoning for it when there are other options. Not every mega-thread needs it's own subforum, but I think the busier ones should. In effect it is what the others are saying, the zombie forums get lumped back to games with their mega-thread, and the active busy communities keep their subforum.