The VG Resource

(01-09-2024, 04:01 PM)Petie Wrote: [ -> ]I think there's an immediately apparent and significant difference between the forums being closed and being deleted. With deletion, the entire history is lost, some of which may still be valuable from a research or archival perspective whereas leaving it online but read-only at least prevents that loss so they imply entirely different things unless your only concern is being able to post at which point yet, they're the same. That said, the decision to close was made primarily because almost nobody posts and half of what we do here at this point is just clean up spam bots. A lack of posting isn't going to make a huge difference since activity here has all but ceased.

Except that is not what I am trying to get at, what I am getting at is that regardless of whether or not the the forums are deleted or left in a read only state, they’re still closed and not able to be posted on. That said there's a reason why I put that question in as a rhetorical.

I get why the decision is being made, but the wording in how this came off is where the confusion is because it comes across as a mixed message in that regard and that's what I am trying to point out.

Quote:Is it possible that changes made earlier on could have helped keep the forum alive in the long-term? Absolutely. But I'd argue it's also unlikely. With forums as a whole becoming a thing of the past online and an interest in pixel art waning as well, I can't think of anything that would have kept this place up to its old levels of activity indefinitely. This back and forth between us is the most activity we've seen in a while (exaggerating but probably not far from the truth) and I still prefer this method of communication but the vast majority just don't.

If this were true, websites such as Newgrounds and Deviant Art wouldn’t have active users on them either. While it’s true that forums aren’t as widely used in the advent of social media and discord there are still plenty of sites that use forums and where those systems are still active. They’re still kicking around.

As for an interest in pixel art “waning” as you put it, I’m not entirely sure where you are getting that from. There are plenty of people who still make and creat pixel art and in the past two years I have been gone, between the two above mentioned sites, ArtStation, Instagram, and even a few groups on Facebook where some of the people who used to be on here post on every now and then there is still a pretty strong interest for it from what I have seen outside TVGR as a whole.

In fact it does lead me to another point because I've talked with several former users about this in the past.

Quote:nothing we've done has managed to bring ours back.

This is where thinking outside the box needs to be considered.

Truthfully, some of those who were from the core group of members from back in the day would say that you guys haven't really done anything to keep the forums active. That's taking it from both sides into consideration.

I'm not accusing anyone on the staff of this, mind you. The way I look at it was that there was a communication breakdown somewhere along the way and things ended up going down south and that's why a lot of people ended up leaving.

Where I think a lot of it stems from was when the priorities changed from TVGR over to DYKG was when things started to get into a transitional point where it felt like that core user base felt like it was being abandoned in favor of other things, I guarantee you that if you actually reached out to some of those people they will likely tell you that the pixel artists who were on here felt shafted because of all the changes that were going on.

Hell, there are plenty of users who feel like social media is shafting them out of having a platform to share their work. And that's where there is a possibility, albeit a long shot to gain back some traction if the cards are played right.

Quote:If you have ideas for something that can be done to drive activity back here or some significant reason you can see to keep the forums open even after disconnecting them from the sites, I'm all ears.

Well for starters if there is a way to pull this off, the first thing I would say is that TVGR forums needs to get it's priorities and goals straight because right now, they don't feel existent and this was an issue dating back in the late 2010's that came to surface.

Because frankly if all else it just felt like that those two things were never really established with the community from what I recall and then there was just a ton of chaos around the time the transitional shift happened.

If anything if there is one thing I would directly say up front is that there needs to be a rule against politics or serious discussion because that's an issue that happened every now and then. I can remember at least two threads off the top of my head on this board in the last decade alone that should have been locked way sooner than they did, one of them happened to be a topic called "The Male Gaze" and another where I believe it was in the real world discussion where transgenderism was brought up and a lot of us had a massive disagreement with one or two users who brought up controversial opinions. due to a lack of containment board for it.

Even if there was a containment board, I don't think it would be healthy and I think a stronger stance against it in the same way Tom Fulp decided to close down the General and Politcal boards on Newgrounds last year since it didn't align with the goals of NG due to a lot of the drama that came from those two boards.

I'm not saying that just because they got rid of their general board means that we should, but what I am saying is that we should have a rule against any political discourse and serious discussion from happening.

Lastly off the top of my head I would say that promoting TVGR forums might actually help in some way. IDK if that's possible for Dazz to consider in the last bit of a DYKG video aside from a sponsor, but you know if it helps garter interest then who knows, it's a long shot that could actually work.

There are other ideas I do have, I'm not saying that they're fool proof suggestions but you know, sometimes it really doesn't hurt to have those conversations with what didn't work in the past with some of the members who did leave.

You'll have to forgive the wall of text and mentioning other sites that aren't related to TVGR, but I think in this case it's a bit warranted because we have to start looking for solutions from perspectives that aren't necessarily related to what the staff has been doing here for the past ten years alone now.

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TL;DR Key Points
- There are still plenty of websites that have active forums
- There is still an interest in pixel art when you look outside of TVGR
- Many of the people who were part of the older user base felt isolated when the overall goals that Dazz had shifted and communication became lost between the staff on the site and them happened.
- Clearer goals and priorities for the site need to be better established and followed for everyone.
- A rule against politics and hot take topics should be made since it wouldn't align with those goals.
- Last but not least, more promotion of the forums to the masses and trying to bring in a user base who feels disillusioned by the current state of the internet and online communities on social media.

I won't sugar coat that even with these in suggestions in place, it's going to bring the forums back to life overnight. But it is possible to bring back some of the activity so that we don't have just 9 posts every day, if not a week.

(01-09-2024, 06:19 PM)DioShiba Wrote: [ -> ]- There are still plenty of websites that have active forums
- There is still an interest in pixel art when you look outside of TVGR
- Many of the people who were part of the older user base felt isolated when the overall goals that Dazz had shifted and communication became lost between the staff on the site and them happened.
- Clearer goals and priorities for the site need to be better established and followed for everyone.
- A rule against politics and hot take topics should be made since it wouldn't align with those goals.
- Last but not least, more promotion of the forums to the masses and trying to bring in a user base who feels disillusioned by the current state of the internet and online communities on social media.

Okay, so let me start by saying that I read the entire post but I'm just going to quote the end to keep the page from getting too cluttered. I'm also going to direct my responses at those specific bullet points for simplicity's sake.

• Yes, but far less than there were back in the day, so to speak. I'm not saying forums are literally completely dead and we're the only ones hanging around by any means. I'm saying that the internet as a whole has moved on from them for the most part and those that remain (obviously not all - some survive on their own merit) were either the entire purpose of the site originally (think something like PokéCommunity which is just a forum, not a component to a larger whole) or was otherwise integrated more tightly into the core offering from the get-go. That latter point is actually one that's especially relevant here since originally (I'm sure you remember this - I'm just including it for anyone else reading who might not), submissions happened via threads on the forum and then uploaded to the site by staff. This obviously encouraged posting on the forum but also gave submissions more of a sense of community since others could provide feedback on them before they reached the site. This method of submission management was unsustainable and I don't regret the switch to a queue-based direct upload system but I do think it likely contributed to the decline of the forum's usefulness. The forum did have a real direction and purpose back then which was lost as the sites evolved.
  
• As with the above, I'm not saying pixel art is dead. There are plenty of indie games using pixel art still and I'm sure lots of artists still making it elsewhere. We still get plenty of custom submissions here as well. I'm just saying it's not in the spotlight like it once was. There aren't nearly as many people making and sharing sprite comics or animations and things like Flash games are also no longer as simple to produce. Maybe waning interest was the wrong way to phrase that. It's more that there's not as wide an audience now.
  
• I don't know if DYKG really had anything to do with it. Activity was declining long before he started making videos. I don't have a solid argument for or against this though so this one could go either way.
  
• As in the first point, I think they existed once and don't with the site's evolution. As for defining new ones, I'm really not sure what those would be. The sites have clear goals and priorities - archival of assets from games - but the forum isn't needed for that and I'm not sure what we could offer here that isn't already offered elsewhere. Drawing people back to a technology that most view as obsolete requires doing something unique that can't be found anywhere else.
  
• I'm not sure about this one. I think when handled civilly and moderated well, "real life" discussions can be fine. We started the Discord with a rule against political, religious, etc. discussion but eventually created a space for them and it has worked out surprisingly well. They're not strictly needed here or there and I'll be the first to admit that these topics have frequently gotten out of hand here in the past but an outright ban on any topic when trying to revive a discussion-based system may be a bit short-sighted.
  
• Again, what are we offering that's going to justify former users returning and new users joining specifically for the forum? This is a rhetorical question - I know you don't magically have the answers and neither do I. And I agree with you - many are sick of the current state of social media but the real question is how many of those people are willing to return to this kind of system? How many are even familiar with them at all? I'd wager a non-insignificant part chunk of our visitors are young enough that they've never really engaged in a forum setting before.
  

As for your very first point in your post, I'm still having trouble following. What mixed message is being sent or what exactly is confusing? I'm happy to reword things if it would help.

(01-09-2024, 07:00 PM)Petie Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-09-2024, 06:19 PM)DioShiba Wrote: [ -> ]- There are still plenty of websites that have active forums
- There is still an interest in pixel art when you look outside of TVGR
- Many of the people who were part of the older user base felt isolated when the overall goals that Dazz had shifted and communication became lost between the staff on the site and them happened.
- Clearer goals and priorities for the site need to be better established and followed for everyone.
- A rule against politics and hot take topics should be made since it wouldn't align with those goals.
- Last but not least, more promotion of the forums to the masses and trying to bring in a user base who feels disillusioned by the current state of the internet and online communities on social media.

Okay, so let me start by saying that I read the entire post but I'm just going to quote the end to keep the page from getting too cluttered. I'm also going to direct my responses at those specific bullet points for simplicity's sake.

I'm writing a lot of my points by reading the post backwards. But hopefully reading this from bottom to top helped me break this down better because there is a lot to unpack here.

Quote: Yes, but far less than there were back in the day, so to speak. I'm not saying forums are literally completely dead and we're the only ones hanging around by any means. I'm saying that the internet as a whole has moved on from them for the most part and those that remain (obviously not all - some survive on their own merit) were either the entire purpose of the site originally (think something like PokéCommunity which is just a forum, not a component to a larger whole) or was otherwise integrated more tightly into the core offering from the get-go.

 

True....

Quote:That latter point is actually one that's especially relevant here since originally (I'm sure you remember this - I'm just including it for anyone else reading who might not), submissions happened via threads on the forum and then uploaded to the site by staff. This obviously encouraged posting on the forum but also gave submissions more of a sense of community since others could provide feedback on them before they reached the site. This method of submission management was unsustainable and I don't regret the switch to a queue-based direct upload system but I do think it likely contributed to the decline of the forum's usefulness. The forum did have a real direction and purpose back then which was lost as the sites evolved.

I suppose the question here is how can the forums become useful again in that case. I do think I have an answer for this on a latter point but one of the things that I think that could hypothetically help is where a sense of community can be made if posting submissions on the forums is not a thing that could be helpful given that the switch to a queue based direct system ended up taking that over.

I think where part of this stems where people feel that discord is replacing the forums. I know you said that discord is meant to be a supplement as a means for communication, however looking at some of the things from here and what got moved from the forums to the discord... I think there's reason for people to say that it does feel like a replacement.

Part of the answer may actually end up having more to do with Discord and how that can be better integrated as more of a supplemental thing as opposed to making it feel like a replacement as other users pointed out. More on that in a later point.

Quote:As with the above, I'm not saying pixel art is dead. There are plenty of indie games using pixel art still and I'm sure lots of artists still making it elsewhere. We still get plenty of custom submissions here as well. I'm just saying it's not in the spotlight like it once was. There aren't nearly as many people making and sharing sprite comics or animations and things like Flash games are also no longer as simple to produce. Maybe waning interest was the wrong way to phrase that. It's more that there's not as wide an audience now.

Flash has become obsolete HOWEVER... I would make the argument that people would much rather make sprite videos with a combination of any pixel art program and After Effects, I've actually done this once for one of my pieces. Maybe even blender if someone knows how to composite animated videos in 2D (which, is a thing that I have seen.)

I don't see why people would need to use Adobe Animate unless they are ballsy enough to pull something elaborate with a team of people to do the roughs in that and then make their clean ups in aseprite. That's just me saying.

Far as sprite comics go that is another beast where I think that those may be gone. Unless someone opts to make pixel art comics entirely from scratch and not rely on any sort of pre-made sprites that's another story but I don't often see that. (If anything my recent little thing for Ed Edd n' Eddy's 25th anniversary probably comes close to it)

Quote:I don't know if DYKG really had anything to do with it. Activity was declining long before he started making videos. I don't have a solid argument for or against this though so this one could go either way.

Maybe, maybe not. Even if activity was declining before that I do think it may have contributed to it since the priorities did shift and TVGR felt like less of a focus, primarily those who do make custom work.

Quote:As in the first point, I think they existed once and don't with the site's evolution. As for defining new ones, I'm really not sure what those would be. The sites have clear goals and priorities - archival of assets from games - but the forum isn't needed for that and I'm not sure what we could offer here that isn't already offered elsewhere. Drawing people back to a technology that most view as obsolete requires doing something unique that can't be found anywhere else.

Perhaps saying for the site overall didn't help, but I do think where the forums more so in specific need clearer priorities and how that can be gone about where it supplements the goals of the overall site is where the real challenge is.

Because even if the goals for the site regarding the archival of sprites, models, sfx and textures are met, that kind of doesn't help with those who wish to make custom work for their indie projects.Which in that case the forums themselves would need a new priority to help supplement what the main purpose of TVGR has going for it.

Far as doing something unique goes, I do agree with that it would be a challenge. What I am wondering is if there is a way to integrate the forums with the discord server so that when there is a post on the forums it could be monitored by some kind of bot that the server would have.Ultimately you did say that the discord was meant to supplement communication so, if there is a way it can be done so in a way where there is to tie activity between the server and the forums as to play off one another simultaneously. (like say if there is a dedicated discord channel for threads that are posted on the forum to be recognized by a bot and then it's sent to the discord server in a respective channel.

Because I'm going to be honest my biggest gripe there was that whenever something was posted it could easily get lost due to the amount of messages from users certain channels would get.

Quote:I'm not sure about this one. I think when handled civilly and moderated well, "real life" discussions can be fine. We started the Discord with a rule against political, religious, etc. discussion but eventually created a space for them and it has worked out surprisingly well. They're not strictly needed here or there and I'll be the first to admit that these topics have frequently gotten out of hand here in the past but an outright ban on any topic when trying to revive a discussion-based system may be a bit short-sighted.

Even if it is civil, who is to say that the problem might happen again in the long run should the forums pick up activity? It's a hypothetical obviously but even then I would be concerned if those topics do get out of hand when we are trying to revive a forum because prospective users who may be interested as they're browsing the forums as guests may feel discouraged to join if that is the case.

TVGR is apolitical is it not?

I just don't see where it would beneficial to allow for it when it can in turn create more headaches. This is where I disagree that it would be a bad idea to allow for some certain topics such as that may have the potential to offend or cause some drama. That said this is how I see it, either have a containment board, or don't allow it.

Quote:Again, what are we offering that's going to justify former users returning and new users joining specifically for the forum? This is a rhetorical question - I know you don't magically have the answers and neither do I. And I agree with you - many are sick of the current state of social media but the real question is how many of those people are willing to return to this kind of system? How many are even familiar with them at all? I'd wager a non-insignificant part chunk of our visitors are young enough that they've never really engaged in a forum setting before.

Perhaps, but I'm willing to wager if that some of those younger audiences are able to figure out a website like Newgrounds, even if it's just at the bear minimum of typing a post, then that is a start for some people to learn how a BBS or online forum system works. While the real question still stands on how many people are willing to come back to this kind of system, it's likely most of those who feel that social media is either too fast paced or poorly moderated may end up being a pretty significant margin.

Maybe I'm wrong, but honestly with some of the social media groups involving pixel art I have been a part of, some of them either let their groups die off, or it's not as efficiently moderated and there's more cause for the wrong kind of discourse to occur without cause.

Quote:As for your very first point in your post, I'm still having trouble following. What mixed message is being sent or what exactly is confusing? I'm happy to reword things if it would help.

Alright I re-read the post where I was having confusion on and I get what you were actually saying now. (This is where I have been getting myself confused so there is that)

In any case that can be disregarded, you'll have to forgive me if I pushed on that a bit and didn't comprehend what was fully said since I was on break from work and my mind was a bit more focused on that aspect.

(01-09-2024, 07:59 PM)DioShiba Wrote: [ -> ]I'm writing a lot of my points by reading the post backwards. But hopefully reading this from bottom to top helped me break this down better because there is a lot to unpack here.

I suppose the question here is how can the forums become useful again in that case. I do think I have an answer for this on a latter point but one of the things that I think that could hypothetically help is where a sense of community can be made if posting submissions on the forums is not a thing that could be helpful given that the switch to a queue based direct system ended up taking that over.

I think where part of this stems where people feel that discord is replacing the forums. I know you said that discord is meant to be a supplement as a means for communication, however looking at some of the things from here and what got moved from the forums to the discord... I think there's reason for people to say that it does feel like a replacement.

Part of the answer may actually end up having more to do with Discord and how that can be better integrated as more of a supplemental thing as opposed to making it feel like a replacement as other users pointed out. More on that in a later point.

Quote:I definitely understand why people feel the Discord is replacing the forum but there's not much that can be done about that. The forum has been here the entire time the Discord has existed and if the bulk of users choose to exclusively use the Discord, then activity is going to be focused mostly on the Discord. That said, the Discord isn't crazy active either (not to the extent that the forum was in the past, anyway). I'll touch more on this further down though (with your integration suggestion).

Flash has become obsolete HOWEVER... I would make the argument that people would much rather make sprite videos with a combination of any pixel art program and After Effects, I've actually done this once for one of my pieces. Maybe even blender if someone knows how to composite animated videos in 2D (which, is a thing that I have seen.)

I don't see why people would need to use Adobe Animate unless they are ballsy enough to pull something elaborate with a team of people to do the roughs in that and then make their clean ups in aseprite. That's just me saying.

Far as sprite comics go that is another beast where I think that those may be gone. Unless someone opts to make pixel art comics entirely from scratch and not rely on any sort of pre-made sprites that's another story but I don't often see that. (If anything my recent little thing for Ed Edd n' Eddy's 25th anniversary probably comes close to it)

Quote:I was only using Flash as an example. I think sprite comics were the more relevant example anyway and we seem to be on the same page there.

Maybe, maybe not. Even if activity was declining before that I do think it may have contributed to it since the priorities did shift and TVGR felt like less of a focus, primarily those who do make custom work.

Quote:That's fair though I'd add that a lot of the more prolific custom artists that used to hang around went on to bigger and better things. There are at least a few who made careers out of it and would have left (rightfully so - not blaming them at all) when those careers called.

Perhaps saying for the site overall didn't help, but I do think where the forums more so in specific need clearer priorities and how that can be gone about where it supplements the goals of the overall site is where the real challenge is.

Because even if the goals for the site regarding the archival of sprites, models, sfx and textures are met, that kind of doesn't help with those who wish to make custom work for their indie projects.Which in that case the forums themselves would need a new priority to help supplement what the main purpose of TVGR has going for it.

Far as doing something unique goes, I do agree with that it would be a challenge. What I am wondering is if there is a way to integrate the forums with the discord server so that when there is a post on the forums it could be monitored by some kind of bot that the server would have.Ultimately you did say that the discord was meant to supplement communication so, if there is a way it can be done so in a way where there is to tie activity between the server and the forums as to play off one another simultaneously. (like say if there is a dedicated discord channel for threads that are posted on the forum to be recognized by a bot and then it's sent to the discord server in a respective channel.

Because I'm going to be honest my biggest gripe there was that whenever something was posted it could easily get lost due to the amount of messages from users certain channels would get.

Quote:The idea of integrating the forum into a dedicated Discord channel is interesting but I think won't have the intended effect. If we had a bot of a webhook or something that triggered every time a new thread was posted and also posted it to the Discord, people would just discuss those topics on the Discord (assuming the text was present) or we'd have a channel full of nothing but "there's a new post!" messages (if it wasn't). Either way, I'm not sure it would actually drive traffic to the forum. I'm not completely shooting the idea down though - I feel like I'm not thinking of everything here and there might be a way to make this work.

Even if it is civil, who is to say that the problem might happen again in the long run should the forums pick up activity? It's a hypothetical obviously but even then I would be concerned if those topics do get out of hand when we are trying to revive a forum because prospective users who may be interested as they're browsing the forums as guests may feel discouraged to join if that is the case.

TVGR is apolitical is it not?

I just don't see where it would beneficial to allow for it when it can in turn create more headaches. This is where I disagree that it would be a bad idea to allow for some certain topics such as that may have the potential to offend or cause some drama. That said this is how I see it, either have a containment board, or don't allow it.

Quote:The site is apolitical but people are not. Banning those topics outright just isn't the best method in my experience (though it certainly can work). That said, the plan wasn't ever to just let those discussions float around anywhere - there would always be a specific section where they were allowed and nowhere else so that those who won't want to be bothered by "serious" talk can easily ignore it.

Perhaps, but I'm willing to wager if that some of those younger audiences are able to figure out a website like Newgrounds, even if it's just at the bear minimum of typing a post, then that is a start for some people to learn how a BBS or online forum system works. While the real question still stands on how many people are willing to come back to this kind of system, it's likely most of those who feel that social media is either too fast paced or poorly moderated may end up being a pretty significant margin.

Maybe I'm wrong, but honestly with some of the social media groups involving pixel art I have been a part of, some of them either let their groups die off, or it's not as efficiently moderated and there's more cause for the wrong kind of discourse to occur without cause.

Quote:I can see there being some willing to try something new but I think getting people who have only ever joined groups via sites like Facebook to make the switch to a non-realtime setup like a forum might be a challenge. It seems like you're on the same page there too though.

Alright I re-read the post where I was having confusion on and I get what you were actually saying now. (This is where I have been getting myself confused so there is that)

In any case that can be disregarded, you'll have to forgive me if I pushed on that a bit and didn't comprehend what was fully said since I was on break from work and my mind was a bit more focused on that aspect.

My responses are in the quote boxes from my previous post for simplicity. As to your last point, it's all good - no forgiveness needed as I only wanted to make sure we were both on the same page.

(01-10-2024, 11:57 AM)Petie Wrote: [ -> ]I definitely understand why people feel the Discord is replacing the forum but there's not much that can be done about that. The forum has been here the entire time the Discord has existed and if the bulk of users choose to exclusively use the Discord, then activity is going to be focused mostly on the Discord. That said, the Discord isn't crazy active either (not to the extent that the forum was in the past, anyway).... The idea of integrating the forum into a dedicated Discord channel is interesting but I think won't have the intended effect. If we had a bot of a webhook or something that triggered every time a new thread was posted and also posted it to the Discord, people would just discuss those topics on the Discord (assuming the text was present) or we'd have a channel full of nothing but "there's a new post!" messages (if it wasn't). Either way, I'm not sure it would actually drive traffic to the forum. I'm not completely shooting the idea down though - I feel like I'm not thinking of everything here and there might be a way to make this work.

I feel like this is a maybe, maybe not scenario. Part of the reasoning here assumes that we leave those discord channels where the threads are posted in a non-real time set up getting sent over to in a state where people are allowed to comment.

Unless those channels are left in a read-only state then yes, it wouldn't do much. But I also think for those who don't have access to discord or would opt not to have it would probably appreciate that there is a bridge between the two set ups.

If there was an ideal world scenario then there'd probably be a way to allow for people to comment on forum threads from discord and visa versa. BUT I would be assuming that aspect of it may end up being an unlikely scenario since I don't really know the full extent of how discord would play well with a BBS based system. Hence why I'm only saying that this idea is an ideal world as opposed to it being realistic since I'm not exactly a programmer, either.

Quote:I can see there being some willing to try something new but I think getting people who have only ever joined groups via sites like Facebook to make the switch to a non-realtime setup like a forum might be a challenge. It seems like you're on the same page there too though.

To some degree, yes. We would be. I do agree that there is a challenge to get people to switch from a real time based communication system over to a non-real time set up.

My only argument is that, unless those who are more willing to teach how a non-real time based set up works and help those understand some of the basic tags for images, hyperlinking and embedding may help. Especially when that touches on some basic level of coding to a degree... Even when we're quoting something using the brackets for [insertcommandhere][/insertcommandhere]

That's just some basic HTML stuff if I am not mistaken. A guide can easily be made and referenced on if anyone has any questions, but that's assuming the idea does in fact work.

Quote:That's fair though I'd add that a lot of the more prolific custom artists that used to hang around went on to bigger and better things. There are at least a few who made careers out of it and would have left (rightfully so - not blaming them at all) when those careers called.

Depends on who we're talking about, while there are those who did make a career out of it that isn't to say that some stayed hobbyists, either.

Then again, who knows. Assuming that there is still a bridge between those who are mere hobbyists and those who wish to make a career from a hobby then I don't doubt that there is a possibility for people to seek the feedback, which is really how I feel most communities for those who are looking to get serious are built on anyways.

Obviously there are going to be those who don't want the feedback but at that point we'd have to be talking about finding a way to divy up the forums between those who want the feedback and those who just want to show off their sprites.

EDIT: On a footnote upon joining the discord channel to see what's changed I did notice quite a bit has happened since I was last on there so I am aware that there has been some significant changes to the discord channel.

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While this last bit has less to do with the discord integration with the forums I do think that... there is one other idea I can come up with that's more to do with what pixel art can be used for based in the same post going off the quote regarding flash that at this point would be more of a separate thing.

[/quote] I was only using Flash as an example. I think sprite comics were the more relevant example anyway and we seem to be on the same page there. [/quote]

I feel like given that sprite videos are still a thing, perhaps not to the extent that it has been in the past, I wouldn't be opposed to dropping some AE knowledge in regards to compositing if people did want to learn how to do that and there probably are people with knowledge that I don't have.

That's especially given when you have people like say... LumpyTouch and Izzi8bit to name two I can think of, there are several others that can be found on Newgrounds since Pixel Day is a thing over there but I do think that expanding beyond just making games and gifs. But that's just me.

I don’t think I can really add anything else here. We seem to be of a similar mind albeit I think you’re a little more invested in keeping the forums alive than I am at this point (I gave up when it seemed forums were all but entirely dead though I never stopped caring about them). Feel free to message me with any specific ideas you want to try and if they’re feasible, we can give them a shot. Otherwise, I’ll just leave this with a note that I appreciate the open and civil discussion around around a contentious topic.

Now that you separated Sega CD into its own section can you please rename the Genesis section to Mega Drive.

Why? It seems to me it's more widely known as the Sega Genesis. That seems doubly relevant when the bulk of our audience is from the US.

(01-20-2024, 10:49 PM)Petie Wrote: [ -> ]Why? It seems to me it's more widely known as the Sega Genesis. That seems doubly relevant when the bulk of our audience is from the US.

Yeah, but outside of the North American area, it's called the Mega Drive. So maybe rename the section to Mega Drive/Genesis perhaps

99% of the planet calls it Mega Drive. Also yeah, what Shin FireyPaperMario said, Mega Drive/Genesis would be the most satisfactory.

Hi~

Not sure if this suggestion has been made before, but I'd been interested in a section of the site dedicated to scripts i.e. dialogue, text, etc. ripped from games.

(01-30-2024, 01:21 PM)chiriku Wrote: [ -> ]Hi~

Not sure if this suggestion has been made before, but I'd been interested in a section of the site dedicated to scripts i.e. dialogue, text, etc. ripped from games.

While it is a good idea, it isn't something that is suitable here on as it is generally more to do with the programming side while here is more to do with the visual/audio (excluding music/speech) side of games. It's more of a GitHub type of thing or somewhere where they focus on dialogue/text e.g. fan translations where that would be useful.

Besides each game does it differently... Some games have all the text stored in the ROM or in a file while others require disassembly as it is baked into the game itself. Worst case scenarios rely on tiles so it is limited on what text that you can change without reworking the game* or even needing something outside of the game to generate the text. Text may also be compressed. In some cases though dialogue/text can be visual (that do get ripped here if it's a graphic) or fonts that are generally on here.

*-Infamous example being Sonic 1 where Clock Work Zone was changed to Scrap Brain Zone as no W tiles were made in the font.

Possibility to see what number a model is in the queue? I feel like that would get people to stop asking so much all of the time...

Nah, that will only cause people to complain more.

especially because (from what I heard when I asked this before) mods have the freedom (as they should) to skip ahead to find models that are easier to approve, or (as I know from experience) to batch-approve a same-game group of one user's submissions upon finding their first one in the queue

number in queue is just a suggestion, not a guarantee