Why do you still come to the Escapist forums?

[Barbas]

You know what...that's a really good question. The forums have become even more passively aggressive than they once were, as hard as that is to believe, and the ratio of conversations-to-arguments has skewed far more to the latter.

Spoiler: I resent yo implication an' shit.

No, but you're fine.

Because I'm too stubborn to quit anything.

I will call you Cool Hand Soup.

Because even with its decline in the past two years or so this is still just about the best videogame/entertainment forum I have ever found.

I mean, where else am I gonna go? GAF is a bad joke on so many levels, /v/ hates video games more on a good day then this site does on a bad one, GFAQs is poison, Steam forums are the Youtube comments of videogame boards, I hate the Reddit layout and the nicer boards tend to be single game focused (Destinythegame, DFO, ect.) rather than general discussion. Escapist strikes just the right balance in moderation and has decent site design plus a userbase that is generally worth engaging with, even if the constant negativity does get noisome.

I tend to be wary of boards or forums where there's no hint of even minor complaints, because it makes me wonder what (meaning who) made the complaining parties disappear. Some complaints is a good sign, I think, because it shows that somebody somewhere cares some amount.

 

[Sassafrass]

Whippersnappers, gerroff ma lawn, etc! *shakes cane*

Pfft, I've got a year on you, young man.

OT: I'm not allowed to leave. I tried to once and they dragged me back in again.

The old guard of 2008 never surrenders! Alas, it seems I'll never outlast you guys.

[sub][sub]I should forum game more but school <.<[/sub][/sub]

Pff, it's not about outlasting anyone, it's having the biggest post count dick.
C'mon, you should know this.

OT: 90% sheer habit, 10% to find a post I can fuck about with, like above, when I've got nothing else to do.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I came for the waters.

 

[Something Amyss]

Because some of the people here are sort of okay and I'm too lazy and antisocial to make better friends.

<.<

 

[Hagi]

A combination of habit, occasional interesting topics and no place else I've seen that's significantly better.

 

[Hero of Lime]

For me, I found an amazing small group of online friends from Squid Boards who we now meet on a Discord server. So admittedly, I don't really need to visit places like the Escapist as much anymore. I have a group of people I really relate to online, who are some of the best friends I've ever had. I never got that here, not that I'm angry about that of course. I never tried to connect with others on a deep level here. I've also been more busy IRL, which means less time I can spend on a forum.

Despite that, I can't see myself just leaving for good. I've been here for a while now, I've made over 3000 posts. But yeah, situations change, and this forum has changed a lot in the last year and a half. You'll still see the old Hero of Lime chilling here once in a while.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Mostly Yahtzee, but sometimes I peruse the threads and post some things. It's even better when I can make any of the mods do spit takes at their computer. Ah, the days when I used to get sky14kemea with the ol' jokes. IIRC, I think she only covered her monitor twice with whatever she was drinking at the time because of something I posted.

Wub yew, spidermod >:3

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

You know what...that's a really good question. The forums have become even more passively aggressive than they once were, as hard as that is to believe, and the ratio of conversations-to-arguments has skewed far more to the latter.

I'll become the old man of the Escapist yet! All of you from 2005 onwards have got to start withering away! >:3

Great, now I have to stay, if only out of spite.

Thanks.

>:'(

As long as I don't suffer alone. c:<

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

Honestly? Yahtzee and habit. I still have the escapist open as one of my starting tabs but now I use reddit instead if I want to find some news or entertainment apart from the fine Croshaw. Even the forums are either dreadfully boring or just covering old ground.

I guess habit is part of the fact I recognize most members. It's like playing Siege in Australia, I start to recognize players after so many games

I really think that since the escapist starting bleeding talent and the forums dried up, I sort of realized that I can have the same thing but more targeted in subreddits and the like, but I still can't force myself to just drop the Escapist. It was my first actual "community" of sorts, the first forum I frequented for the actual forum and I enjoyed all the content on the front page. I don't think Gamer Gate killed these forums, they weathered it only to die when people realized that there is nothing here to watch apart from month old episodes of shows that are already on YouTube and Yahtzee.

Ah man. Now I'm sad.

EDIT: Also, I guess all the chat groups that a lot of people just disappeared to. I never really got into that but apparently a lot of people disappeared into those groups whenever things went down or just stopped posting in forums instead. I'm still part of the bunker though, I guess, but that was just sort of someone telling everyone the cats were coming every six months.

EDIT: AHHH FUCK I got more to say. I really think one of the big issues/sort of advantages is the Escapist strict rules on attacking other members. This is really why a lot of the debates around here are so passive aggressive you could cut it with a cleaver. While it is intended for debates to be factual arguments, some people don't want to debate and often just straight piss you off, so since you can't be directly mean to them people just started being super passive aggressive. I liked the concept of the rule but it just makes the forums feel shitty now. People need some rage against some form of robotic contraption every now and then.

 

[Padwolf]

Well, I've come and gone here and there. Sometimes I'll go through periods of a few weeks where I don't come by here at all. It's quite sad that when I go I come back and see quite a few of these sort of threads. But at heart it's still the place I know and love. I still like seeing a few people post and it gets a laugh out of me, so I stick around.

BECAUSE I LOVE YOU ALL GODDAMNIT, DON'T YOU GO DYING ON ME :'(

 

[Barbas]

(Snip).

Fear not; there is no tomb built by human hands that can hold me and my collected psychoses.

 

[Snotnarok]

Habit honestly?
90% of the time I come here, I can't say I see any interesting topics. I see the same nonsense about controversy or whatever and not much about actual games or enjoying them.

I just want to BS about games, or art. Just not seeing much of that here for a while.

 

[Tiger King]

I come for the premiere league user group mostly, I like to think I have made a couple of friends on there.
In my opinion I think most of the users grew older and moved on, or got banned.

There used to be a lot of really explosive threads around 2010, I remember the epic shouting matches in the gun threads that popped up every other week and as a neutral it was interesting to read as well as mildly entertaining.
Then the gamer gate thing happened.
Safely ensconced within our football/soccer user group, I rember having a discussion where a few of us admitted we were getting fed up of the skirmishes and battles in the forum over sexism and feminists and all that stuff.
I think a lot of others may have felt the same and moved on, or got banned in one of the screaming matches going on.

I dunno, I enjoyed that time when the escapist was bustling with users but I guess that time has passed.
However there are rumours of the chosen one rising and leading us to the promised land......

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Even though most threads that get a lot of messages eventually break down into the same two people going back and forth while ignoring any good points made by the other party and focusing on the bad, this forum is still significantly less toxic than other forums I have been to.

Honestly though, the best gaming discussions I've ever had have never been on a message board forum, but in MMORPG General Chats. In Final Fantasy XIV I've been part of, or had fun reading, a great deal of the discussions that people have while waiting for Party Finders or just mindlessly grinding. That's not to say that there's no worthwhile discussions here on, or that MMORPGs don't have notoriously off-putting fanbases, but that's just how I've always run across great discussions. Heck I've avoided zoning out of areas to keep chatting with some of the people who just all happened to be on the same map for various reasons.

 

[n0e]

A forum is only as strong as the community that supports it. If you feel as though it's not as active as it once was, why not create content you feel others would enjoy discussing?

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I mostly stick around for the comics. Ever since Nodwick, I'm an official Aaron Williams fanboy.

Plus, I like staying on top of what's irrevocably destroying gaming this week. It makes for fascinating reading.

Because some of the people here are sort of okay and I'm too lazy and antisocial to make better friends.

<.<

Hooray, we're adequate!

 

[n0e]

Oh now, now, that's not at all what I was stating. I simply meant that a forum needs content to stay active and to allow others to participate in new discussions.

It saddens me that there are users who feel as though they're on auto-pilot when visiting the forums. It's not at all what I would like to see. I hope I can do more for those who feel this way as I take on this role now and in the future. If you ever feel frustrated about something that happened, please contact me and let me know.

You do have a very good point that a CM should have a partnership with its community. I wholeheartedly agree. It's how I've acted as a CM for the past 15 years and plan to for as long as I hold this title. While some other sites view a CM as simply a mouthpiece for a company to their community, it's also the duty of a CM to be the mouthpiece of the community for the company.

But, this thread isn't about me. How about we start fresh? What do you feel is the most important item that needs to be addressed?

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

SNIP

Prepare your inbox.

On a more serious note, what precisely does a Community Manager for the Escapist do? What are your capabilities? I think that'll focus what kind of questions you'll receive.

 

[Battenberg]

Same reason as the OP - habit, convenience and nostalgia. The Escapist used to be, at least in my opinion, one of the best gaming culture/ news sites out there. These days most the best content creator have moved on or been booted due to questionable management choices and the once fantastic community is this bizarre mix of the kind of flamebait-y contrarians you see on reddit or a youtube comment section and people like myself who still remember a few years back and spend far too much time pining for those days. I won't even get into the obnoxious advertising, slow-reacting news feed, or increasing prevalence of clickbait nonsense but I'm certainly at a point where the fact I'm familiar with the site layout is probably the biggest draw for me now which is kinda sad really.

I've been trying to ween myself off and go to RPS or videogamer's site but often autopilot takes over and i just wind up back here without realising it.

 

[Something Amyss]

Hooray, we're adequate!

I'm sorry, who are you again?