questions

[who_cares973]

in your eyes how has the ffr community changed? do you think the change is for better or worse? what do you think the first impression is on a newbie of the ffr community as a whole?

being as id like more people to see this thread im posting this in chit chat as opposed to critical thinking. lets not make an ass out of ourselves guys

[vantilburg]

The fact that it took two hours for anyone to respond to this (and it's from someone who lurks much more often than he posts) paints a pretty gruesome picture of the activity.

That said, the community itself is still pretty solid. It's much smaller than it used to be, but there are still quite a few prolific posters to give it at least some semblance of liveliness.

[TC_Halogen]

There is a level of emotion in this message - such that is probably troll-worthy; I truly hope that people can at least be mature enough to respect my thoughts.

I actually logged on here for the first time in five days today. I've been having problems trying to actually come onto FFR for these past five days because of a few certain people, and it's actually somewhat upsetting/saddening. This community as been around my life for close to seven years, and while I haven't been an incredibly active member through that entire span of time, I've been here as an active member since 2007. It really starts to hurt me when I separate myself away just because of a few certain people; if I linger around said people, I start to give off a horrible forum behavior/impression that I don't want to give off, because I'm a calm/stoic person as long as you come forward to me civilly without targeting me/attacking me for something.

Before the site started hitting the downtime, the community was a fairly welcoming one. There were the occasional members who were rude to others, but the ratio of rude members to really nice people was incredibly small, which made it easy to lose sight of those not-so-friendly users. The site went through occasional additions/changes through these times, but users never seemed to care about a lack of change to the site as long as game content was added, for the sake of having something new to do. Even if that was a problem, there were multiple areas of the site to linger around, like the Video Chat, Profile Chat, Multiplayer, and MeTrivia/Psychopath areas of the site. A majority of people were happy with what was going on.

Now - the community is considerably smaller, and people who have poor/irritating attitudes are much easier to spot because we're seeing the same active members on a day-to-day basis. This is why it's important to have everyone have a good attitude that doesn't target specific users for not belonging in the same "clique" as other users on the site - the elite players (which is a huge majority of the active community), the very active forum posters, or the frequent chatters in PC (etc.) need to be more willing to open up to newer people. This can be done by answering questions when newer players/members need help, socializing with them when they enter unfamiliar areas, or even approaching them with a nice and welcoming attitude.

Right now, we don't have that. The really strong players aren't all welcoming to newer players - many of them keep to themselves while setting personal accomplishments while playing the game. This isn't a bad thing. However, I feel that if you're a person who is playing the game for self-achievement rather than competition, you are more than likely the best player for drawing in newer players - you can congratulate them for their own achievements, as you were once in their shoes as a newer player.

In addition to that, there's also people within the forum who like derail conversation or skate by posted rules; that doesn't set a good example for newer people entering the community. What happens if a new user who wants to get involved with the community runs into a chaotic situation that is filled with flaming, arguing, and/or rule-breaking in the forums? If they bandwagon, they'll get in trouble. If they step away, they lose the position they had in a thread. It's incredibly difficult for new users to swim down a stream of forums/threads when they have no one to relate to. Things like this are things that should be thought about.

FFR isn't how it once used to be, and it doesn't seem like the community (as a whole) wants to do something about it. A majority of it does, but there will always be a few people who will contest everything, or will cause problems constantly.

(i'm done now, I apologize.)

[Syhto]

lmfao

Honestly, it seems pretty cool these days. The forums may suck and the staff may care too much, but the user base is chill. Most people are nicer than you think. Everyone scrambles to talk about themselves on the forums and make impressions/quick to defend, w/e. While I can't stand the lack of thought that goes into a lot of posts I can see the people as just wanting a community experience and acceptance. Sure, maybe that is something we all would like. But post/thread quality will keep deteriorating, because y'all have bad taste. Bad taste. The forums used to have a lot better taste, but worse attitudes. The attitudes are improving in many ways, but the taste is terrible.

Honestly, the same people make all the threads here. You look at us in contrast to the other forums, like ffya, odi, etc, and most that are left are very goody goody or confused. The humor is almost nonexistent. The only alright place to be is in the chats. The forums take on a concrete feel and many people are walking on eggshells. The staff kills it tho.

There are specific groups of people that all ~LOVE~ one another and do the relationship thing, and share about their lives, and care. Cool, well, did you notice that you isolate all the people that do not think similarly? We all have the tendency to ignore or make fun of those that do not accept us in full. Many of us have huge egos, are afraid of being scorned, are obsessed with being right, etc. But that is just like being out in the real world, and it's nothing that can't change with time.

I see the forums taking on a new maturity, but there are also all-time lows. Look at critical thinking. LOOK AT IT. Is it wrong to be gay? Nice. Well, I don't know if this place will actually ever be FUN again but I still do come to check in because I care. I have had a lot of good times here. Some people take their personas way too seriously. Some people post the same shit over and over. I'm looking at you Nyokou. These things add up and make the experience less desirable.

We have a lot of growing up to do is all. It may seem shitty now especially since everyone is getting to an age where they SHOULD be having an identity crisis and are also busy doing their passions, etc. That is fine. Have to start seeing past what is and into our potential. I am also guilty of getting frustrated with the lack of quality here. But I still stick around. And I love you guys, for real.

My Post ^_^

[rushyrulz]

Everybody is a damn troll nowadays and the reputation of the site is going down with the ship.

AJ hit it on the nose when he said that threads get derailed quickly and the reason is that a lot of forum regulars go from thread to thread trolling because that's how they want to spend their day/waste their life whatever you wanna call it.

[justin_ator]

Very sad but true statements, honestly..

[who_cares973]

Originally Posted by rushyrulz

Everybody is a damn troll nowadays and the reputation of the site is going down with the ship.

AJ hit it on the nose when he said that threads get derailed quickly and the reason is that a lot of forum regulars go from thread to thread trolling because that's how they want to spend their day/waste their life whatever you wanna call it.

very few people here troll. people have just gotten overly sensitive when it comes to any topic thast they consider anyone who doesnt share the same views a troll.

[DarknessXoXLight]

I agree with the ~everybody keeps to themselves~ comment because I'm intimidated to talk to top tier players but as soon as I do they're really nice. But I would have never known without having a need to talk to them. Nobody is really openly friendly.

[welsh_girl]

Since I've been here nearly 8 years, I have seen a tonne of changes. I think the biggest change has been since FFR came back after it went down, obviously we've lost a lot of members but a lot of old regulars came back.

As much as I do agree with everything said above, I still think we are a tight community, which I think is pretty special. Ofc, we'll get someone being an asshole once in a while, but every forum is like that.

[justin_ator]

Originally Posted by DarknessXoXLight

Nobody is really openly friendly.

/hurt

=]

[dragonmegaXX]

I really only have to comment on the overall activity of the site. I was on for a few hours last night, and I was hitting new posts every five minutes only to have nothing show up for long periods of time.

As for trolls, either I don't get on enough to notice them in the sub-forums that matter or my assumption that they confine themselves to TGB is correct. In that case, it isn't really a big deal to me.

I do agree this place overall is less inviting than it used to be before the shutdown. I remember always seeing new threads in the newbie forum introducing themselves and saying how excited they were to find a site like this. Now, I don't really see that ever (Unless I'm missing something)

[Nyokou]

Originally Posted by Syhto

I'm looking at you Nyokou.

I do agree with what you said tho. But that's always been the case with FFR - the part about groups of people being close and ignoring everyone else. I don't even understand why tbh, but that tends to happen on any online community

My reason for posting GIFs n' stuff so much now is cause I'm just bad at expressing myself with words. And that has led to so many problems for me on FFR in the past. Cause at least by posting pictures people can just make fun of the stuff I like, and I could honestly not give a **** if they don't like my favorite idols/artists lmao

I mean, seriously, just one slip up in something I type or strange way of expressing myself (like I said, I'm not very good at that) and people on FFR will just bring it up over and over and over to try and get reactions out of me foreverrrr. It gets tiring and it just bothers me. Like, really? Do you have nothing better to do?







Plus it's fun posting pics and watching everyone get so angry about it

[Poptronix]

There aren't any true trolls here, there are a lot of flamebaiters.

[jimerax]

pros: less elitism (there still is, comparing with like 5 years ago)
cons: less grateful (or just standards for everything have got higher)

simply put.

[Reincarnate]

I think it's just that a lot less people care about the game now because there isn't as much site development as there used to be. The official rhythm gaming communities have died down a lot, too. Everything's pretty much stagnant.

I think not having video chat hurts, too. That place became very active and newcomers were welcomed all the time. It was a good way to get acquainted with people -- but unfortunately, its heyday was cut short by the site crash, which killed off a huge fraction of the userbase (many people who were around then simply haven't come back since). Not getting VC back up was a poor choice.

The site is still not very newbie-friendly. Everything's pretty much geared towards the elite and so your community is only going to be as strong as the willingness of the elite, and that is a recipe for the limit as x approaches cbf.

[Syhto]

Originally Posted by who_cares973

people have just gotten overly sensitive when it comes to any topic thast they consider anyone who doesnt share the same views a troll.

tru

[Patricoo]

Eight years going on nine years and whereas I've had major shots of activity, I've been a lurker on the site a few times a week for near all of the time.

I've seen major shifts in tone in the site, its forums, and different elements.

For one, there have always been trolls, flamers, and bad/abusive staffers. Always. Sure the instances have changed. For instance there were spamming bombs in the chat, people getting high on cam (back when the community wasn't so smoker majority that people gave a damn), people with troll mic sounds, and overt flaming in the forums. Sometimes more overt, I'd say. Its always been here.

Yet right now I think we're in a community decline at the moment. The game, I'm happy to say, is on the upswing what with its regular music, active homepage updates, and the brainstorming of a new engine. Mixed with multiplayer, its really all I can fairly ask in a game.

So why is the community going down? I'd say the site right now is something different that what it was before. At its best it grew into a series of mini-social groups but now its reverted into this single giant nebulous one. Wherein years past, even in points of FFR stagnation, you could be active in vidchat all day and no where else, or just in challenge threads, or in forums, or a little bit of prochat and a little in other areas. Now Chit Chat and Prochat make up the overwhelming bulk of the social activity of our social leaders (Or at least, when any site drama goes down its there now.) Its hard for new people to enter this sort of attitude in a group and frankly its in two worst possible mediums. (One is a super anything-goes forum and the other is a text only chat that feels restrictive.) So many people have such apprehensive starts.

Secondly, this structure makes it easier for problems to explode. Get in a forum argument? Hey, it happens sometimes. But where do you go to avoid those you fought with? I'd say before you could just lurk on another end of the site, but now with everything so centralized most just sort of quit for a while which hurts for the few who actually don't ever return.

The point is, I don't know how but the community should be doing more to find ways to branch out rather than move in. Obviously there are exceptions, and not everything has been bad but hey, what do I know.

[ic0slay3r]

Originally Posted by vantilburg

The fact that it took two hours for anyone to respond to this (and it's from someone who lurks much more often than he posts) paints a pretty gruesome picture of the activity.

The name of the thread dint really help, I just clicked it cause its 3am here and I'm really bored lol. But yeah its kinda true, the activity on this site have been going down since the the crash :/

I kinda like the community as it is now, but at the same time I would love for more people to join this site. It gets really boring seeing the same people post in the same threads.

Originally Posted by WC

what do you think the first impression is on a newbie of the ffr community as a whole?

I was talking with a friend of mine not so long ago about what does he think of the website now. (He has been a member for like 2 months)

He told me that the community is pretty calm, but slow. The website has pretty low activity and doesn't really motivates to play that much. And that he haven't post in the forums cause he feels intimidated. (but I think everybody past through this, every time they join a community)

[yo man im awesome]

This is the Exact reason I wanted to make an FFR Rebirth Project. I, like most of us, don't want to see the site finally crash and burn. I want to see it continue, I want to see more newbie's. Honestly, I love talking with new players. I want to see more options community-wise than just adding to the game itself. The general appearance to the site should probably be upgraded as well, which somewhat goes along with my Blackwebb contest, but that's only for the engine.

[xXAll-ProXx]

You guys have no idea, I've been on other forums where 5 out of 10 threads would get locked 2 hours after their creation. FFR has an outstanding community imo. Most of the people are very helpful and nice. I've been helped out numerous times by many different people. There are a couple of trolls (...plan lol), but I don't mind them, as long as they don't push it too far, it's not really something that can ruin the community.

I just feel like FFR's community is very small. I've never seen more than 400 active members at once, and I'm pretty sure no more than 2000 members are active in total. If we had more active members, FFR would have a brighter future (Tournaments would be hell of fun, more people in MP, more recognition, etc..)