Are things slower around here?

[psychospacecow]

I kind of like slower forums. Personally, I kind of like the pacing as I tend to cling to constantly changing things.

[Kosheh]

the thing is that sitting and wondering will not revitalize the board, or anything in particular. As I always try to do, I try making the experience of being in tsr the best for everyone. And I don't mean banning bad members or closing bumped threads: I do contribute to the board by coming up with events and activities, and general topic making/drawing/stuff.

if the board is interested in doing something collaborative, post here, in this thread, and I'll try whipping up for everyone to enjoy.

the board, the board, the board

most people don't even know that the forum exists because ok here i am, i am going to the spriters resource. i really need that megaman sprite sheet real bad but i forget what game mega man is in let me look at teh site (attn: pic outdated but still relevant)


ok....so megoman was in mm7 let me look that up on wikpedia


oh!!! hes on SNES! ok good got my sheet time to make a sprite comic and post it on my forum where all my friends are 8-D


so uh, where do the forums come into play in all this? they don't.

typically, when you're in that mad rush to get That Sprite, you usually breeze right past it. And that's another thing - our servicebase (not member base - i'm talking people who use TSR as a means to get their sprites) come here to look up sprites, find them, and then go back to whatever they were doing (spriting). Clients of TSR are very impulse-driven (like come on, they're 14) and most people who use the site don't really give it much of a second thought.

The site redesign fixes things a little - it's literally the second thing after "Home" and changing the premise of VGR from another IGN to the new address for the messageboards was a step in the right direction. But if you really want new members to join, you've got to smother them with it. After all, what's the place you think of first when you want to buy, sell, or trade used games?

Yes, that's right - because they cram the advertising down your throat every time you visit their website or give them a call.

Now, we don't have to make Gors record a looping audio clip begging users to visit the forums, but - assuming we use like, Drupal, Wordpress (lol) or something - it wouldn't hurt to have a sticky post at the top of the site updates reminding users that they can visit the community to get feedback on submitting spritesheets, share game projects (ugh) or critique on their pixel art, that only pops up on the weekends when users browse the site.


Like, honestly: no one's gonna look at the forums if they don't know that they exist. :/
don't get me wrong, i love my little quiet TSR forum, but unless you guys like, proactively acknowledge its existence on the internet, it's going to stay quiet and going to have the same 20 members posting (and 4 webcrawlers crawling) every day. :/



(((((i also had another mind-blowing idea for the forums but ill wait for this post to sink in first)))))

[Gors]

that does make sense and i'll see what i can do. (not that I'm the right one for this (i do have the power for that tbh but I prefer brainstorming it before putting into action))

after all, all I can do is record myself saying "TORNE-SE UM MEMBRO DO FÓRUM AGORA (temos sorvete de graça)" and putting it in the header of the site

[E-Man]

Considering what you said, Kosheh, that's actually quite sad. We have this diverse and (mostly) intelligent community that welcomes new talent (even though we do get fussy if it's simply a recolor or a cheap edit), but most people don't even stop by to lurk a little. To make matters worse, most of the new members that do join are either spam bots or just one of those requesters who show up once, gets warned by an admin, and are never heard from again.

While the already existing community is going strong as it is, I can actually agree that the overall growth is heavily stunted. Not all of us are going to be on this site forever, so when the amount of members participating drops to zero, what would become of this site is anyone's guess.

If I'm not mistaken, it was sprites from popular games (i.e. the Mario & Luigi series) that caused the forum and site to have a flux of activity. When the first M&L game was still a big thing, I saw many sprite sheets trying to emulate that style. Even though I wasn't a part of the community during that point in time, I did managed to pick up from some members that they had a blast during that sprite craze. You reckon a similar phenomenon would do the trick?

[Garamonde]

Not to be a Cynical Cindy, but unless there comes another "phenomenon" that we can actually rip from (or if there's another TUGS-esque compo), we're out of luck with bringing such a flux of activity to the forum again.

...Aside from forum drama, that is.

[E-Man]

Well, maybe when it becomes possible to rip from the 3DS (which would take a while from what I'm gathering), I think this site will be crawling with Mario fans trying to be the next big M&L spriter by ripping from the fourth M&L game because the sprites in those games tend to be enormously popular for some reason.

Until then though, I think things are going to be quiet unless a new spriter comes along to shake things up.

[Ton]

We'll get a rush when there's a breakthrough on 3DS ripping.

[Kosheh]

also, i don't mean to shoot lemon juice in the wounds and then rub salt in them, but another reason we're slow is that the potential community is just doing other things.


Like we're what - mostly 17 and up? When we were teenagers, we didn't have Farmville or Candy Crush (OK, there was newgrounds) or iOS devices to post our high scores to leaderboards. These short, impulsive games also seem to contribute to the general slowness of the community. Small game studios are popping up all over the place now. I don't know how to put it; but there isn't enough nothing to do to get our younger generations into spriting/dollmaking as there used to be. At this point, we have Android/iOS-based dollmakers and so much character customization in games that we've also stunted the creativity of the new generation :/

Spoiler

fun story, i actually joined a dollmaking community that a girlfriend of mine used to run and made a few SF2 dolls to fit in. needless to say, i was the hit of the board because i actually made custom candybar doll clothes that weren't recolors. it was pretty awesome, and i have to thank you TSR for bringing my then-girlfriend and i closer together

btw, the candybar dolls are korean-inspired pixelart dolls. they're actually pretty neat and actually required payments in korean won for premium clothing styles.

[E-Man]

That's funny, Kosheh. Considering that you mentioned the boon of small indie studios, I thought it would actually benefit the community due to the amount of new sprites needed to be ripped and how many new spriters would want to join those indie companies. Therefore, they would have to start out here (or another similar web site) to polish their sprite skills.

Anyway, two of the biggest mediums on the web that still use sprites a lot are sprite animations and comics (I would say games, but not everyone is good at coding compared to making a simple comic). If we could somehow show those guys how fun it is to create sprites for their works, then I think we could get at least a little more activity around here. Now, trying to advertise all over about our site isn't the best course of action (not to mention that we won't be any better than some of the spammers that advertise their works), but maybe if we tell some of our friends and let them tell their friends, we might get a start to a type of flux this site needs. On top of that, if there is any motion to host some comics somewhere on this web site (I think this has been done before, but it wouldn't hurt to re-explore it), I think we might attract some more users that way. Smack Jeeves is very popular for sprite comic artists because they're one of the few comic hosting sites that allow sprites, so maybe providing a similar place is worth a shot?

[Kosheh]

That's funny, Kosheh. Considering that you mentioned the boon of small indie studios, I thought it would actually benefit the community due to the amount of new sprites needed to be ripped and how many new spriters would want to join those indie companies. Therefore, they would have to start out here (or another similar web site) to polish their sprite skills.

...yes. that was actually my next point i was going to bring up, thanks. finally, i make a post that prompted a user to bring up my next point

there is a boon of small indie studios, and some of our Best and Brightest are freelancers working on indie game projects
the thing is, okay - step back a second and check this out. check this out im gonna pick a word apart

The Spriter's Resource

provides what? A resource for existing sprites? We're more like "The Game Sprite Repository" if we provide this service. Most serious spriters would probably visit our site looking for valid C&C (and get good feedback from a few artists here - like 5 valid C&C max) but then they're more likely to drift off to another place with more C&C and a stronger focus (PixelJoint), or make their own lil group dedicated to their projects (such as our Old Pal tyvon and Digital Haven Entertainment)

I feel like if we want to stay relevant, we should actually provide the tools that future spriters and indie developers need. Like, we could offer things that people who are interested in making their own indie game could use - more in-depth spriting tutorials on the mainpage, maybe guides on working in GM8, RPG Maker or Unity? Maybe even open-source materials for amateur programmers to work with? (i.e. character movement scripts, collision box programming etc.)

* Kosheh shrugs

Anyway, two of the biggest mediums on the web that still use sprites a lot are sprite animations and comics (I would say games, but not everyone is good at coding compared to making a simple comic). If we could somehow show those guys how fun it is to create sprites for their works, then I think we could get at least a little more activity around here. Now, trying to advertise all over about our site isn't the best course of action (not to mention that we won't be any better than some of the spammers that advertise their works), but maybe if we tell some of our friends and let them tell their friends, we might get a start to a type of flux this site needs. On top of that, if there is any motion to host some comics somewhere on this web site (I think this has been done before, but it wouldn't hurt to re-explore it), I think we might attract some more users that way. Smack Jeeves is very popular for sprite comic artists because they're one of the few comic hosting sites that allow sprites, so maybe providing a similar place is worth a shot?

that would be kind of neat but i swear to god if this turns us into the next fireball20xl. if you turn gors into psyguy. if you are the user responsible. i swear to god i will
i will

i w i l l d e f e c a t e i n
e v e r y p a s t a d i s h y o u m a k e

Spoiler

i really do not like fireball20xl. or psyguy. lets just make that clear.
he neutered toadkarter. its literally machinima entertainment but with sprites

if we made a webcomic that rotated with our pixelartists (even hand-drawing stuff) we could be a little weirdo community that generates a cult following. we could even review indie games and give people the skinny on why they should play them


like penny arcade but really tiny and purely indie-oriented.
hey look on the bright side if we're like penny arcade we could go to conventions representing our site * F * R * E * E **** C * O * N **** P * A * S * S * E * S *

[Candel]

Actually, last year was almost the year I joined,
Things have been going a bit slowly
Last year, we had all this:

The spriting compos,
Werewolf
Secret Santa.
tFR
SAW
The (3 month long) Mario Kart project by Star

Theses were kind of the moments of the year. I just wish we'd have more of this

[E-Man]

*Blinks at Kosheh's over the top reply*

Right then, you made some very clear points there, Kosheh.

Anyway, I can see what you mean by this being the "Spriters Resource." While this is a fantastic place for pixel artists to hone their skills, what this site is at its core is nothing more than a place to get sprites that already existed in that popular video game you created. For the most part, most users would use the ripped sprites found on the site instead of supporting the custom pixel artists who put their heart into their custom sprites, which I find rather sad since custom sprites are the future of this community. Without this forum and budding custom pixel artists contributing to the custom sprites section, this entire site would feel very empty.

To expand on your idea of creating a tool for future spriters, maybe we could make the spriting dictionary public on the site and expand it to include multiple tricks and tutorials? Many users ask developing pixel artists to look at it more times than you could shake a stick at, but besides providing terms and definitions on concepts in spriting, there isn't a whole lot to work with. By cramming it with tutorials and stories by other successful spriters, I think it would end up being way more useful and incline newer users to check it out. It's just a rough idea, but maybe there are parts that could be salvaged from it to create a more refined idea?


As for the comics, I'm all for it. Considering that Drshnaps once hosted a comic site, I think he has plenty of ideas on how it would work.

Also, Kosheh, I wasn't aware of the kind of drama that went on at fireball20xl, but I'm sorry that it happened that way. Since you did mention it though, I actually would like you to become the supervisor of the comic part of the web site if such a thing ever comes to pass. The comic idea is probably not going to happen anyway, but I would like to share ideas with you on how it could be to prevent a similar thing to fireball20xl from happening.

[Gwen]

Can we just get some dramatic hissy fit arguments going? That always seemed to make the forum more lively.
I also have a new tool I could use to debate with all of you at a higher level.
http://lokaltog.github.io/tumblr-argument-generator/

[TomGuycott]

Personally I'd rather be part of a low-key, slower forum of intelligent people than a drama dump truck, just sayin'. I:

Also if you want me to singlehandedly increase the posting here by thousands of posts a day, just make like ten threads about smash brothers, clash at Demonhead and dark souls.

[Gwen]

Personally I'd rather be part of a low-key, slower forum of intelligent people than a drama dump truck, just sayin'. I:

Also if you want me to singlehandedly increase the posting here by thousands of posts a day, just make like ten threads about smash brothers, clash at Demonhead and dark souls.

The drama thing was just a joke Someone showed me that tumblr argument generator today, and I just couldn't resist, it's hilarious.
BUT YES, more discussion about Dark Souls II, Titanfall, and Music(fur real doe, somebody else has got to want to gush about Chvrches, Nine Inch Nails, and Sewer Rapist all at the same time right?)