Are things slower around here?

[Kriven]

I would say a general focus area on video games with some branch to the video game-inspired arts (spriting, models, chiptune, etc.)? I would say editorial and opinion pieces are permitted alongside breaking news articles and reviews.

[Vipershark]

I know this is a response to something over a week old, but it's since become relevant.

Remember when I said that a big contributor to the inactivity and lack of finishing projects was school, and I got this reply?

It doesn't really send a message to people to get their shit together and finish for a deadline if the deadline keeps getting pushed back.

Well,

I agree with Koh, if the deadline could be February 2nd that would be swell. I'd love to actually try my hand at this, but I have class all week, and while I can do some work in between here and there, it shall be a busy week for sure.

This post isn't intended to throw it in Flannel's face or anything, but I hope this at least makes my point a bit more clear. Even if the problem isn't people blatantly not caring (though that is kind of a big issue), the fact remains that real life stuff gets in the way for a lot of us since we're all older. Without new people around to keep things going, things will pretty much only continue to be stagnant since pretty much all of us have prior obligations.

[Gwen]

Here's my counter to that;
The submissions for these contests Gors have been throwing are growing in number, and unlike the examples I was talking about, the issue of the due date was addressed immediately, and not a day or two before the due date like what always happened in the past.
EDIT: You keep talking like the forum's on it's dying breath, when I've actually been seeing more activity this past month and some. And like I just said above this edit, there's a major difference between addressing something immediately like asking for the due date to be moved back one day for those with school to have a chance to have time to throw something together, and what was going on the past couple of years with contests and TUGS, where people just waited until the deadline and then asked for more time.

[Gors]

the forum only dies if the members die. As long as activities goes on, the forum will go on.

what viper means is that wanting it or not, work/school/life will diminish the activities, direct or indirectly, period. This is a fact. Though, like Bastard also said, if there's interest on something, people will actually find a time to work on the activity.

I've been doing the little compos exactly to test the activity (and I'm happy that it's working so far), it's a step on the right direction and I hope to make more interesting stuff.

[Kosheh]

you know, following up on my intial Decent Post

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. :/

That sticky at the top of the site that I mentioned doesn't have to be solely limited to general forum ads. It could rotate out if possible (Javascript), and highlight the new weekly contest, aspects of our site, such as Oh I Don't Know Our Online Store

yes

we actually had an online store where you buy shirts and stuff did anyone else know that? =:-0

[Kosheh]

hey i had a Really Funny Epic Idea xD



We have a humongous compendium of sprites, sounds, textures and models. But the idea behind the VGR network seems that we just hoard things on our sites which people then use in other media that we don't always get to see.

What if we had a Creative Zone subforum that allowed people to showcase the things they've made using resources from our site?

We could add that to our rotating internal ad sticky I've been trying to pimp and shizzam the community we had from 2010 comes back in blazing glory


!!

[Kitsu]

some sort of encouragement to use the site's assets would be pretty cool







if not even more infringing than archiving it alone already was

[Goemar]

Because most things people do with sprites tend to be... kinda shitty?

[Koopaul]

That's why we encourage them to do better.

[Kitsu]

"Let's not do a thing. Because it might turn out badly."

[Sketchasaurus]

I always like to see the amount of collaboration that happens with some of the games that have risen out of this forum, I'd like to see some of these types of things be shown more prominently on the site somehow. There are a lot of talented content creators on the board, and I think that fact should be celebrated a bit more.

I've also been wondering about projects that use sprites but don't fit under a game development and how (and where) one would go about creating a collaboration topic with that in mind?

[Vipershark]

Creativity
that's the catch-all area for stuff that isn't a game

[Kosheh]

Creativity
that's the catch-all area for stuff that isn't a game

wow how wildly...
abstract of a thought, huh


there's a thread for "What are your projects using the site's models?" in TMR's subforum

it'd be neat to have at the very least, one of those as a stickied thread for TSR's subforum

* Kosheh twiddles thumbs

just sayin'
it'd be nicer to just full-out have a subforum of creativity that conglomerates them all together but w/e

[StarSock64]

In regards to things that use assets from the site:

I'm not opposed to the idea of showcasing, but I don't know if something like that would really increase activity. I'm personally not interested in things like sprite comics, fan videos with sprites, or fangames at all, and I haven't seen other people express that much interest when those types of projects are posted either.

Original works are a different story, and I'd like to see those put somewhere nice...

[Jermungandr]

I'm personally not interested in things like sprite comics, fan videos with sprites, or fangames at all, and I haven't seen other people express that much interest when those types of projects are posted either.

You essentially listed everything anyone would use the sprites deposited on this site for. What exactly is it you desire people to do with these assets? To me this sort of attitude is practically saying "Whelp, might as well just shut the site down".