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GabrielKeybordzLady Kestrel

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does anyone know whats going on?..

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Joined 2005-09-29

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Hey Nevermind , i am leaving these forums, before i change my mind
Some posters still asking me not to, but i guess it would be better to leave and let the natural selection takes place

So Jackal , ignore the post above , its no use anymore

Thanks

And Bye you all

     
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I don’t want to get involved in the personal arguments, but just to comment on the thread topic:

I think the site caters for a niche audience. The idea of a gamer who only plays point n click type games is fairly outdated. Even the site name is outdated. Some of my friends play the newer style of adventure games like Firewatch and What Remains of Edith Finch, but they wouldn’t ever think of them as “adventure games”. Sometimes they recommend games to me but they never say “here’s an adventure games you may like”, they describe them as “story-heavy games” or something similar. I don’t think people care as much about genre as they used to. The lines are much more blurred these days and people (including myself) are finding there is so much diversity in every genre that they can enjoy any type of game if it caters to their taste.

I don’t think such people will be attracted to a site like this. It’s more for a purist audience that grew up in the golden era of the 90s. And that’s okay.

     
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If that’s all you’ve chosen to take out of this entire conversation, nomadsoul, it sounds you’re making the right decision to leave.

Luhr28 - 03 April 2018 07:47 PM

Even the site name is outdated. Some of my friends play the newer style of adventure games like Firewatch and What Remains of Edith Finch, but they wouldn’t ever think of them as “adventure games”.

Anecdotal observations aside, they’re called adventure games pretty much everywhere such games are categorized: Steam, Metacritic, mainstream review sites, etc.

But yes, we’re a specialist site with a niche demographic. Always have been. And people have been arguing about what is and isn’t an adventure game ever since we’ve been around. So that hasn’t changed. And like I said, the site’s traffic isn’t suffering at all. In fact, it’s steadily grown larger and larger over the years. Whether as many people are sticking around to join the forums, that’s the only thing in question here.

     
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Joined 2018-04-10

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Well I guess this answers the question of why no-one commented on my thread about how the site looked 17 years ago, I thought there would have been more interest. Since there’s only 5 people left here there’s probably no point me posting the group photo collage we made at the time.

The site started over 20 years ago and that’s a few community cycles you must have gone through. I doubt traditional adventure games are anywhere near as popular now as they used to be. People change. The world has changed. I don’t play AG’s any more, and I’ve played a *lot* of them in my time, ones no-one has heard of from back in the 90’s on platforms that don’t even exist any more. There were a lot more AG’s being created 20 years ago, and people would come to this site and visit the forums every day. People would spend half the night chatting and joking and sharing on here. This was our community, hanging out with your friends, sometimes chatting about the games you were playing and had played, helping each other when you got stuck, and the Chat forum was so busy just talking about whatever. Anyone remember Tamz? Or jaf? phil, Quiff, intrepid? Remember when Curt visited megryan? We used to share so much, back in the days before social media ruined conversation, and interactions were meaningful.

If the forums are dead, that’s a shame. AGs were always niche, so there never would be the volumes of people you get on other sites. And even 20 years ago we had the “are AGs dead?” discussions. AGs were beautiful, fun and often frustrating, and nowadays people have far less patience for this, are far more unforgiving, including me. Often you had to guess what was in the developers head in order to solve a puzzle. We don’t need to put up with that any more, there’s tonnes of other games we can turn to if one gets frustrating. AGs require dedication and patience, and come from a time when games weren’t as utterly prolific as they are now.

Anyway, hi to anyone who recognises me, nice to see we still have the frying pan in the smiley list.

     
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burnsflipper - 11 April 2018 02:20 PM

There were a lot more AG’s being created 20 years ago, and people would come to this site and visit the forums every day.

Nah, that part’s not true at all. In fact, the last couple years have blown the roof off the total number of adventure games being released. But they’re generally all smaller now, more indie, and even more niche now than they were two decades ago. Not nearly as “sexy” as a new LucasArts or Sierra game to get people excited.

You’re certainly right, though, that people change. We get older, circumstances change, priorities are different. But I think what’s changed even more than us is that there’s so much more of everything now. Way more games to choose from than anyone could possibly even play—even among just adventures, let alone all the genres, all the platforms combined. Way more movies and TV and other entertainment at our fingertips 24/7. And way more ways to reach out and connect with others. Who needs forums now when there’s Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and texting and what have you.

There are still lots of people around, still lots of regulars, even. But not the same sense of community, because most of just drop in now when we have a fleeting bit of spare time, not hang out here because we have all the time in the world.

Advie - 01 April 2018 02:20 PM

@Jackal we need to expand our vision for what falls under the genre Jack, we need more non-adventures to be melted into the site, even if it is against our definition, even if i was once against it and aggressively.

Sorry, missed this earlier, Advie. I’m not really sure what kinds of games you have in mind. We do cover lots of games that don’t fall neatly under our genre definitely now. If we expand any farther, we really WILL have to change our name to just Gamers.com. Tongue

In any case, AG staff is already stretched far too thin as it is. There’s just not enough time and manpower to do even more than what we’re already doing.

     
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Sorry burns, I enjoyed your screenshot and meant to reply but somehow passed it by without commenting.

I even checked and your shot is earlier (and way more legible) than the first archive.org capture.

I think I actually recall when it looked like that even though I was just a lurker back then.

     
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Jackal - 11 April 2018 03:54 PM

Sorry, missed this earlier, Advie. I’m not really sure what kinds of games you have in mind. We do cover lots of games that don’t fall neatly under our genre definitely now. If we expand any farther, we really WILL have to change our name to just Gamers.com. Tongue

In any case, AG staff is already stretched far too thin as it is. There’s just not enough time and manpower to do even more than what we’re already doing.

Ahhh, nevermind Jack, i see day by day what you guys are doing, its not visible to the passers by eyes, but the review new outlook Cali had presented is more more delightful, and the games Database which now has been taking care of with more options and actually effective than before, even The Council: Episode 1 review proves expanding had already been happening.
thanks you for reply anyway Laughing

     
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Jackal - 11 April 2018 03:54 PM
burnsflipper - 11 April 2018 02:20 PM

There were a lot more AG’s being created 20 years ago, and people would come to this site and visit the forums every day.

Nah, that part’s not true at all. In fact, the last couple years have blown the roof off the total number of adventure games being released. But they’re generally all smaller now, more indie, and even more niche now than they were two decades ago. Not nearly as “sexy” as a new LucasArts or Sierra game to get people excited.

Yes, I think that’s maybe what I was thinking of. We had plenty of indie games at the time, but probably more commercial games than we do now, or at least more high-profile ones. Certainly in the genre of “point ‘n’ click”. I never liked that term, I remember before that was coined they were called “Graphic adventures”, I guess to distinguish them from the text adventures that were the precursor.

Jackal - 11 April 2018 03:54 PM

You’re certainly right, though, that people change. We get older, circumstances change, priorities are different. But I think what’s changed even more than us is that there’s so much more of everything now. Way more games to choose from than anyone could possibly even play—even among just adventures, let alone all the genres, all the platforms combined. Way more movies and TV and other entertainment at our fingertips 24/7. And way more ways to reach out and connect with others. Who needs forums now when there’s Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and texting and what have you.

There are still lots of people around, still lots of regulars, even. But not the same sense of community, because most of just drop in now when we have a fleeting bit of spare time, not hang out here because we have all the time in the world.

Maybe that’s the difference - this was a hangout. You’d reply to a thread, go reply to another thread, and by the time you’d done that there would already be 3 replies to your first thread, and 4 new topics. I remember replying to someone, then you’d wait a couple of minutes, hit Refresh, and you’d have a reply. Always so many replies, so many things to talk about. And so international! There were two other people from my country that were regulars, but everyone else were from different countries. Canada, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Malta, US. All different ages, different sexes, different native languages, but all chatting about our lives and the things we enjoyed the most.

dumbeur - 11 April 2018 04:41 PM

Sorry burns, I enjoyed your screenshot and meant to reply but somehow passed it by without commenting.

I even checked and your shot is earlier (and way more legible) than the first archive.org capture.

I think I actually recall when it looked like that even though I was just a lurker back then.

Hi dumbeur! At the time I created the screenshot I actually had to take multiple shots and then piece them together because we had such low resolution monitors back then Tongue . Wow “lurker”, there’s a word I haven’t heard in ages! I guess people don’t hang around in forums like they used to. We had plenty of lurkers back in the day, I remember someone started a thread so the lurkers could introduce themselves - it seems many of them were quite awestruck by the high-flying posters and were nervous of joining in. A bit like if Angelina Jolie started commenting on your facebook status I guess.

I took the screenshot for a project I was working on and wanted to capture the whole page. It was an example of a well-designed web page of the time!

     

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Joined 2003-11-10

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burnsflipper - 11 April 2018 06:03 PM

We had plenty of lurkers back in the day, I remember someone started a thread so the lurkers could introduce themselves - it seems many of them were quite awestruck by the high-flying posters and were nervous of joining in. A bit like if Angelina Jolie started commenting on your facebook status I guess

That’s exactly how I felt back then in 2003 (I think) ; I felt pretty nervous submitting my first post. :-)

     
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Ninth - 12 April 2018 11:18 AM

That’s exactly how I felt back then in 2003 (I think) ; I felt pretty nervous submitting my first post. :-)

Me too! phil and Flux were in the middle of a conversation and I finally decided to jump in with a joke after a week or so of lurking. My post was utterly ignored Grin

     
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This is an interesting thread.
I read the whole thing.

Some very astute points were raised, and admittedly a degree of irony followed.


As Jackal and others have mentioned, forum stagnation is certainly not AG-specific. It is a common occurance among online communities and a natural result of social media and the effortlessness with which people can express there views on other platforms. Youtube, Reddit, Facebook, Steam. These have become the dominant platforms now. But that doesn’t mean that the AG forums have to “die off” or anything. When people come to AG they do so because they want the opinions and reviews of experts - which all of you are. You should always remember that your experiences, and your thousands of posts dedicated to articulating adventure information, has made you experts in the genre.

I’m new here. I lurked for ages but I joined these forums because, over the last few years, with the advent of games like Thimbleweed Park. Broken Age, Fran Bow (and many more), we are seeing a revival of interest in the adventure games we hold dear. When you look at the amount of money that point-and-click games are raising on Kickstarter and Indiegogo these days it almost boggles the mind. It’s a clear sign that people are willing to support these games, and that there is still a large global demand for them.

As adventurers we are good at solving problems.
That’s what needs to happen here. We can probably start by not poetically lamenting the effects that other forms of media have had on the community. If the problem is that AG vets are perceiving forum stagnation then the solution is to re-populate the forums with interesting threads (as Oscar mentioned). At least that way when outsiders look in and contemplate contributing to the community they are more likely to see something that compels them to want to offer a response (and join), and less likely to see us bemoaning the state of the adventure game industry.

I will try to think of some ideas for chat that might cultivate interest. If you remember any types of adventure game relevant discussions that got the gears turning in the past then post them below: that should give us information about the sort of ideas that stimulate discussion.

     

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I tend to agree with Jackal’s statement that the forums have little to do with the main site, and I have to admit that I don’t read the main site as diligently as I should either, so there’s certainly a discord there.

But that shouldn’t matter, and it’s probably quite common. In the early 2000’s I was moderator at a (now defunct) Flemish forum that was linked to a TV station. The TV station had a target demographic of 12-16 year olds. The forum was populated almost exclusively by 18-24 year olds that hardly ever watched the station, and it was a fun community with lots of get-togethers… Smile

We all share a love of adventure games here, but as more and more different adventure games are released, there are less and less games that the majority of the regulars here have played. That means that if we talk about games that most of us actually *have* played, we often have to grab back to the 90s classics. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it certainly doesn’t help the forum stagnation. Too few topics that appeal to a large group of regulars and that haven’t been rehashed to death yet, and too many topics with just a very small group of people able to contribute.
So naturally, we get stuck in the past more and more, and that on a medium that in itself is becoming a thing of the past more and more due to the advent of other forms of social media.
Forums aren’t going to die (heck, news groups are still around) but they’ll become more and more niche. And we’re already in a niche genre.

I applaud all attempts to rekindle interest and get people contributing to the forums again, but I think the decline of forums is natural and unstoppable. However much I regret that situation…

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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I’ll tell you what’s wrong with this forum. Emoji list is so 2003 here. Tongue

Honestly, I think the (moderating) team here is really good. I don’t know much about issues nomad soul and other member had, but I think this place is generally nice and welcoming, one of the few a Normal Person™ could relax on. There is not even a hint of various -phobias rampaging on other game’s forums or slight provocations/trolling/insults or situations that lead to them. If anyone gets into in a “fight” here, it looks like a lighter MI swordfight.

As for myself, I haven’t sticked around for a simple reason that life got to me and I had to rearrange my priorities, alas to the damage of time spent playing adventure games. It was just easier for me to follow favorite/promising games on social media, like & retweet for support than to find time to engage in a meaningful discussion of a 10-hour game I played for a month and nobody else is currently talking about because they already moved to the next shiny thing.

I’m still trying to find some consistency in my hobby, even started making a small adv game of my own, but I try not to be swept by FOMO this industry generates by large. Here’s to hoping I’ll be much more active here from now on. Smile

     

Recently played: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons 5/5, Bioshock 2 4/5, Tomb Raider (2013) 3/5 Looking forward to: Gibbous, Saint Kotar

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Jackal - 01 April 2018 12:07 PM

But the uncomfortable truth is that this often isn’t a very friendly forum community. It never has been.

That’s not my memory of the time I used to be a regular here. Maybe my memory is faulty, but I think back to this place as friendly.

It’s been a long time since I was a regular here, and I haven’t read much of the forum besides this thread (I got an e-mail notification from a thread that hadn’t been posted in for years, which prompted this visit), so what I read here is all I know about the current state of the forum.

It sounds as if you’ve given up and accepted that the forums are toxic. The internet has too many breeding spots for nastiness, so if I’m getting the right impression, it should be cleaned up or closed. (But again, that’s just going from reading these posts. Maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds.)

     

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Hi Trumgottist Smile

I think it’s been a lot less toxic recently but there’s still heated debate which seems like a good balance?

Unfortunately, internet discourse has changed immeasurably since you first registered on this forum (about the same time I started my own forums adventure) but we could probably write a full thesis or ten on why that’s happened.  So it’s probably not practical to completely cut it out under current conditions.

     

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