Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

Hello everyone,
This is somewhat of an aimless post. But...

Every time I visit this forum, even today, the forum shows a lot of people that are currently actively visiting. Yesterday it showed 100 viewers, this morning 93.

For a game that has been out for years and years, that's remarkable. Of course, I've been playing for years and keep coming back to the game, so maybe that makes sense.

It's a game that just has never gotten old to me!
-cc

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

The way I see it this game has a legion of staunch followers, I used to play in a MUD that was easily 10 years outdated and we still (have) a strong community....The game goes from strength to strength.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

Recently this forum splintered and scattered. Its now about 4 forums that I know of.

Plus this game has always been on multiple levels creating the numbers you see. The need to create a login tends to go hand in hand with either posting a question on this forum, or joining a game on this forum, or getting some quick answers from the Chat on this forum (the link up top here by the Forum Rules). Many people play solo, or in "me and my friends" games. And now there are multiple places to sign up for mp games where you dont have to have a login here for it. So we have always had a high number of lurkers just looking up answers. Lately even more.

But Im confident (see my title under my login name) that this forum will pick back up once people who were chased away by some of the split-off factions come back to try again. Not to mention the influx we are seeing of new players since Dom3 became a digital download.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

I'm not confident of that at all personally.

A fair number of the former regulars can't come back for obvious reasons, while another fair number weren't 'chased away' at all, as they decided for themselves to simply not post here any more due to 'the incident', and in particular the way it was handled.

I think this forum will only pick-up again if new players seeking to play MP games become regular contributors, while at the same time developing the skills and knowledge base (especially in the modding department) that was possessed by the former regulars referred to above, who are now no longer part of this forum community (although they do continue to be part of the Dominions community on the other forum(s)).

Everyone has their own opinion on 'the incident', and on those individuals who were banned. I'm not at all looking to open that issue up again, but a lot of skills and knowledge was lost on that black weekend in early May, and this forum community will take a long time to recover from it. If in fact it ever does actually fully recover from it. (Which is doubtful IMO)

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

Personally, I'd say that these forums are a lot less active than they have been half a year to a year ago. Where do you get your numbers about visitors? From the view count? That's a page view count, so you'll have to divide it by a non-negligible factor.

But it's true, it seems like there's been a lot less activity especially since some people were chased away. Those were big-time contributors whose lack of presence can be felt very strongly.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

If it really is view count, you basicly divide it by 5 i guess.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

Most peopl ehave spent years going to one forum, or only seeing something like the NewPosts link.
If you to go the main entrance of the forum and scroll to the bottom.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/index.php

it presently says
<table class="tborder" align="center" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="thead" colspan="2">Currently Active Users: 249 (36 members and 213 guests) </td> </tr> </tbody> <tbody id="collapseobj_forumhome_activeusers" style=""> <tr> <td class="alt2">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...hos_online.gif</td> <td class="alt1" width="100%"> Most users ever online was 577, 05-01-10 at 07:52 PM.

</td></tr></tbody></table>
If the high point was 5 years ago and we are half of that, its not too bad as game forums go.
Of course it should be mentioned that a number of those guests are spiders from search engines. But the admins can see that. I see them on my server and their numbers are never those numbers. I feel safe in saying we have many lurkers reading but not yet interested in joining our mp games.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

Oh, but that's a side-wide counter. I haven't visited the other forums myself, but it is my impression that they're at least as busy as the Dom3 subforums. You're the only Top five poster that I know, after all, I have never noticed the four other guys.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

As a honorary member or the Lurker Alliance (TM) I can attest that, while i only post once every month or so, i check these forums and read threads pratically every day....

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

Taking both this and the dom3mods forum together there is still quite a lot of activity going on. This forum has more volume of posts, that one far more productive output (actually output has been really very high lately).

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

If you look at the number of posts, only space empires and dominions have serious activity here.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

I know, speaking for myself, I visit this forum probably (on a conservative estimate) 20-30 times for every post I have, just to read what other people say. It wouldn't be surprising if I wasn't the only forum stalker on the internet.

...or at least I hope I'm not the only person that weird.... :(

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

Nahh the weird ones are the ones that haunt the forum and chat for 16+ hours a day for no pay.
THATS WEIRD (yeah I know thats me)

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

I'm one of those who bought the game recently, and was wondering what the "incident" was that sounds like it chased away a lot of old vets.

I'd like to ask what other forums are there that I can refer to for strategy, but there's probably a rule here not to name them or something :p

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

Basically, a very prolific modder got banned for something many people didn't consider a serious offense, there was a bit of a forum war over it that resulted in several more people receiving bannings, and a number of people don't really post here anymore as a result. The threads are pretty recent actually if you cared to go back and look at them. Anyway, there are still people who post here, and most of the vets post at http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php . It's not really a taboo, there are a number of links floating around :P

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

nah, i do this too

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

It's a fantastic game, it deserves the following and I'm happy to see it :) . I've so far only played the demo, but I'm hoping to buy the full version some day.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

There are a number of forums out there that have always had fairly active Dom3 discussions. Quarter to Three *always* have games going on, and reading up on them can provide a lot of play insight.

Quarter to Three

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

Good stuff, I'll make use of them, thanks!

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

To me it seems the problem is/was people that tend to incorporate very black-and-white views and group people into "factions" that they then see as rivaling sides competing against each other. Pick a side, define "good" and "evil", done. Rules and morals that would apply when dealing with "members" of your side can be broken or ignored when you deal with the other "faction" because they're outlaws where those no longer apply. You don't even need to listen to argument anymore because it's void when it comes from somebody you identify as belonging to the rivaling faction.

I am a member of the tuna-eating faction and I strongly oppose all those from the non-tuna-eating faction! :re:

This partition into warring, rival factions automatically leads to perceived ongoing quarrels instead of seeing everybody as part of the community and using informal dictate of the better argument and adopting the motive of a cooperative quest for truth to reach a consensus, i.e. rational discourse. Eh, I'm coming from academia, it's no wonder I come up with stuff like this.

Before I registered on here, I've been playing and hosting a fair number of Dom3 MP games games on the OctopusOverlords forums, which had a handful of users that would engage in continuing MP games, though this stopped as far as I am aware when they decided to dissolve their "Multiplayer Games" subforums. The most recent Dom3 thread that they have is this one, where I recognize a couple of the former players.

Another very big community that plays Dom3 games is the SomethingAwful crowd, though these forums require a small access fee, as far as I am aware.

Dom3 threads can be found on other gaming forums, for other strategy games even. There's a recent "Let's play!" thread on the PA forums.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

I was unaware that us humans are capable of pure rational discourse and logical progression (Flukes and outliers excepted), I think its the nuts (or equivalent).

Thanks for the links, I got into Dom3 from OO forum myself and it's a good crowd.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

Good good lch, I'm a life-long member of the "sod the stupid dolphins, I want my lovely tuna" club myself, so happy to hear you're a member too :)

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

Ive actually been leery of mentioning other forums here. :)

But Ive been a member of QuartertoThree for possibly longer than Ive been here. And it was long the only place that you could get into Dom3 games with Shrapnel staff and Illwinter developers (not so much anymore though so dont go chrging there hoping for that)

Im also a proud Goon on SomethingAwful. Their forum, irc, and Dom3 tracker server are excellent examples of how things once were and hopefully could be here.

There are also a number of non-english forums (swedish, french, and italian come to mind) that I get hosting requests from. And a number of people on UseNet such as comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic or groups.google and groups.yahoo. Altho it might not seem so here, my server has never been busier. I have over 100 games running at the same time fairly often now and have begun hitting limits again on the number of mods, maps, games that Dom3 can "see".

Its been hard to not mention other forums and chats. Particularly in light of discussions about how Dom3 is "always played" and how games "always progress" or the "de facto standards" for how things are done. Saying "you mean on this forum" always generated a request for the other forums which I was enjoying too much to mention :) But since they are mentioned anyway I will chime up and hope that my name alone no longer generates extra interest..

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

The only reason I stay on these forums and keep my guides on these forums are because I think Illwinter are great folks who deserve my hardwork and money. I do not care for shrapnel's latest PR botch.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

I was a lurker for a (somewhat short) while before I made a membership. Even now, I usually just read what's going on more than post, and the only reason I made a membership is that I had a handful of questions. I have a group of 6 friends, and we do "Friends only" games with the six of us, that are a lot of fun. This is why I started lurking, because I was looking for some information (Actually, I had played Marignon on a "random" SP game and couldn't remember their name and wanted to play around with them more. This also happened to me with Agartha). I think a lot of people lurk for the guides or the intricacies of rules.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

There's a number of reasons why the forums are still active... the main reason is multiplayer followed by modding, random map generations, lots of game content and of course intense game depth/strategy. When viewing other successful singleplayer only games such as Galactic Civilizations 2 the forums are scary silent. For the record I play both singleplayer and multiplayer games.

Re: Is this forum really as busy as it claims?
 

Anything is acceptable as long as it keeps me in Tuna Sandwiches. Although I plan to launch a jihad on those heretics who mix it with mayonnaise, lousy traitors desecrating good tuna...