Have things changed?

[Dark Angel Warlord]

im kinda new and people gave me hell for my puncuation errors what are u the grammer police....?

but other than the first few hundred flamings i got everyone been rather nice

 

[ottenni]

There is indeed intelligent discussion but you have to find it, those long essays you talk of died around the time i found the site(i lurked for about 6 months), trolls killed them off. But things are getting better, assuming you ignore MM that is. I find that it is good in the user groups.

To be honest, I'm growing less interested in the forums and sticking around for the user groups.

Change it to that, and you've got my position down. I mean, the forums are nice, but I think if this place was only forums I wouldn't be nearly as interested in it. User groups are great for cultivating friends.

I agree, i'm really liking the Escapist Fitness group. It helps with my studies.

 

[Celd]

Doki you may not know of me at all.(Ok I know you dont but still) Even before I made an accont I lurked around and remember the great times this place has had. I remember when lynchers and other forum games still showed on the recently posted thing on the front of the site. I remember reading in glee as Jonh Galt, GenHellspawn and all the other people I consider legends of this site made amazing stories playing off of each-others character's actions to create interesting stories. Things have really changed since those days. To me the site never seemed the same when John went to college and everything seemed to be dull from then on. I have not even found RP's on here that maych the depth they legends made in their RP's. I am still around myself because I am stubborn and wont to give up on this site even though I myself do not post alot out of my shyness. Hope this helps but it probably wont.

Also terribly sorry for the wall of text.

 

[jim_doki]

hmm. Perhaps it is time I made a full return
/me dons a cowl and throws a sonic screwdriver into his utility belt

looks like there's still plenty to do

 

[Xylis]

Oh lord another one of you people.

Just because youre little group of friends used to run free and are no longer here, does not, for fucks sake make this place some type of medical journal/philosophers playground. Things change, it happens. Get used to it, if you dont like it, too bad. Has it changed? No, the same pretention is still around. The only difference now is there are a lot more of us willing to debunk the myth of the escapist forums.

As brutal as this sounds, I actually agree with this.

Things will always change, no matter what happens. Learn to deal with the changes, or find somewhere else.

You are not in our buddy club!

 

[Lord Krunk]

I'm of the opinion that the Religion and Politics section is something of a harbinger. When the community manager deemed it necessary to split those discussions into their own forum just so they could be moderated effectively, this place lost all hope of ever returning to what it once was.

A friend of mine (the one that introduced me to this site) left fot the xkcd forums as soon as he found out about it. It doesn't affect me though; I just avoid the forum altogether.

When the Review Tournament ends, I'm going to retire to the more laid back life of a reviewer. Really, being around here so much isn't doing anything good to me.

I need to get back into that. I just don't get the time to review for fun anymore. My new Facebook account is hardly helping either.

Also, I just noticed something that has changed: you've got [a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.186226-Insanity-in-individuals-is-rare-but-in-groups-parties-nations-and-epochs-it-is-the-rule]a new neighbour[/a] in the sticky department, Krunk.

Yeah, I noticed a while back. I'm leaving it because mistakes like that have been made before. Alternatively, they could be doing what they did with Pimppeter's plagarised review and using it as a warning for all to see. Probably the former though.

 

[Fightgarr]

Come on back if you feel like it, Doki. It's always nice to see old faces. Just bear in mind that it is incredibly easy to become bored or enraged with the community as a whole.

 

[Keepitclean]

Oh right, I forgot something. There's also a good few trolls now. The one currently spamming threads? Yea, he did that the other day too. It's just sad that a lot of people here don't know how to handle it.

That the guy with the ZP avatar of Altiar stabbing some bloke? He is a pretty rubbish troll. If you're going to troll do it properly and fuck shit up whilst being funny.

OT: I came a bit before the nightmare but it's cooled off quite a lot now. March Madness has brought it's fair share of retards but really it's not too bad. Repeat topics are here quite a bit occaisionally someone will make a copy cat thread just to get replies (not looking at anyone in particular .>
<.<). You are the only one who can judge the status of the forums. It is no where near as polluted as the GameTrailers forums if thats any consolation.

EDIT: This is also a bit of a repeat topic to a degree. There has been multiple threads in the last couple of weeks where people have been discussing the health of The Escapist forums.

 

[Vitor Goncalves]

I am somewhat new to this forum but welcome back.

The best way to tell if the forum has changed is to lurk a little bit. The community banded together to beat Zynga in the developer contest so we may be a bit high on that victory but this place seems nice enough even without that.

The bound was weaker then horde and alliance bound. Its just shattered with the MM final Valve vs. Bioware, I just voted and get the hell out of that page.

I am kinda new here too but enjoying so far. I like the forum here, its better then WoW forums our Youtube anyway, much much much better.

 

[Lord Krunk]

hmm. Perhaps it is time I made a full return
/me dons a cowl and throws a sonic screwdriver into his utility belt

looks like there's still plenty to do

And come to Escapism. I saw you for a good, like, minute at Escapism '09 (the first one).

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'm more of a casual onlooker myself.

So I don't really have a bead on the cultural decline of this forum.

 

[erto101]

I still say that this is one of the better places all though i haven't been here long. Joined sometime ago but don't remember why (something with my friend being here and unforgotten realms) someday i just thought hey why not? and found it pretty cool

 

[Fire Daemon]

Hmmm. How have things changed?

Off-topic has become more relaxed since Religion and Politics has been set up, there are still the same amount of serious topics and joke topics but now that Off-topic has been split into two each gets more time on the front page. It was a clever idea to split Off-topic into two, helped with the large amount of posting that was going on.

User Groups are a lot more popular now. I can't stand them to be honest, lousy bubble communities.

Forum Games and RP are filled with very similar RPs and games that probably shouldn't be as popular as they are. There are good RPs; I guess (RW IV and the Oblivion RP I signed up for both seem good), but I rarely find anything there interesting anymore.

Gaming Discussion hasn't changed much but why would it?

The News Room is the same and there is still the magazine, so yeah...

Things haven't changed greatly but when they have I feel that they have improved since a year ago. The Escapist celebrities (they know who they are) don't seem to be massive jerks, so that's always nice and there doesn't seem to be that cult following that MaxTheReaper had, thank God. March Mayhem just happened and a lot, I mean 20, 000+ people, signed up to vote for either Valve or Zynga. I can't see many of the Zynga fans staying around but we might just have a lot more Valve fanboys. Judging by the way they act in the Bioware VS Valve thread I don't think that will neccesarily be a bad thing.

EDIT: Going back to that thread... it seems that things have turned quite bitter.

Fucking March Mayhem. It's April. YOU SHOULD END!

 

[Kasawd]

I know they haven't changed in the last couple of months, as I see forums.

To tell you the truth, this forum, no matter it's disposition, is always going to be a step up from the other forums I frequent because most of the others are simply playgrounds for trolls and elitists that allow me to post without donning a name or mask. This site, though, is a mixture of my hobbies: Video games, books, people with similar hobbies and news articles.

Though, really, in the end, it still is just a forum. I'm certain if you could look past the change(as all things must do), I'm sure you could find a new form of entertainment, here.

Besides, the trolls aren't nearly as bad here even if a lot of people don't handle them well. As for repeat threads, I kind of like them. It's like dwelling on an old experience by viewing it in a different manner, for me.

 

[DigitalSushi]

I've seen people become mods who may or may not deserve it, and several of these problems increased. In a term coined by our very own Ultra Joe, I went rogue and "Cyber Vigilante" -d anybody in my way. But it got too much

I take offense to that, I think they do a great job with the tools they have... or should I say the tools they moderate.

Slycne or Virgil (can't remember which) let slip that the forum gets 13,000 unique commenters each month, that's alot of bile to trawl through before you get to the good stuff, its still there its just harder to find.

 

[4fromK]

if you really are looking for extremely intelligent discussion on gaming, you could do worse than the insomnia forums (forum.insomnia.ac) although a word of caution" its run by an absolute ZEALOT by the name of Alex Kierkegard, so you better read the forum rules. It is moderated heavier than any other forum I have ever seen; you post one thread or reply that rubs Alex the wrong way, or that breaks one of the rules, or that shows an ignorance in reading the sites content (which as an aside i must admit I have enjoyed quite a bit - the guy is unabashedly hardcore, bemoaning the consolification and casualisation of games, and hating on the "artfag" movement quite a bit. however, hes also somewhat of a genius when it comes to philosophy and the like, and relating high level concepts to gamer culture. the content is almost refreshingly free of bullshit as well - although some may find it almost too much so) you will be banned instantly and most likely ripped to shreds by the community (which is incredibly small, once you factor in how many people are banned.) personally, I think this fanatical level of moderation is benificial to the overall quality of the posts; there is no wasted pixels, as they are simply altered, sometime to the level of cutting down posts; but it is also not a very good method of constructing an easygoing and friendly environment, which is why I still pop in here.

 

[Sketchy]

hmm. Perhaps it is time I made a full return
/me dons a cowl and throws a sonic screwdriver into his utility belt

looks like there's still plenty to do

I REMEMBER YOU! Actually, I only really remember you being the guy with the Stormtrooper girl as your picture.

But yes, I remember the good ol' days. Perhaps I don't post frequently enough to have noticed a change, but I just notice there's a lot of new members, joining more quickly than they were back when I joined. Perhaps more stupid and redundant topics, but overall still one of the best forums around.

EDIT: I also remember doing the whole "welcome" thing for new posters. I think that just doesn't happen anymore, which is disappointing. I got a welcome, and it made me feel warm and fuzzy.