36 replies to this topic

[Fire Blazer]

This forum's pathetic. Any suggestions?

[bluspidr]

[bblues]

I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favourite forum on the citadel.

[SmashedFish]

Add a RP.

Instant regulars.

[Fire Blazer]

Tried, they never last

[Shu]

I have an idea, but it'd be almost a revamp of the site...

Currently, the only thing that the forum really focuses on is Fire Emblem and modifications of Fire Emblem (Hacking community). We all know that while there still are many fans of the official series, a new game hasn't been announced in quite a while. That contributes to the lack of activity, because no one is speculating or analyzing leaks and scans that come with the development of a new Fire Emblem title. In short, it's my belief that the lack of activity is attributed to the fact that none of us really have much to say about the series that hasn't already been covered.

What I propose is that we start advertising ourselves as not only a Fire Emblem forum, but a (Insert popular game series/anime series/whatever that is fairly popular with the members already here. I'm sure we can come up with something. Super Smash Brothers comes to mind...) forum as well. Not only would this give the members already here something more to talk about and focus on, but it would attract new people as well. These new members in turn, might get into Fire Emblem.

Who knows if it would work as well as I'd like to think it would...I'm just trying to think of stuff to get this forum to high activity levels. I can't really think of anything else other than "Spam the forum to everyone that even shows the slightest hint of an interest in Fire Emblem".

It'd probably be a lot of work to fix up the main site to hold content for a new focus as well as the Fire Emblem stuff, but I think that if the new focus is something that we know enough about, we could get content we need just out of the people here, provided we aren't lazy about it. I would help out for sure. In addition, I should be getting Creative Suite 5 (The whole thing) because I'm a student and I'll be starting a freelancing Graphic Design site with my knowledge of Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Illustrator. So you'd have an "Official" design company backing you, Blazer. I suppose that's true no matter what we do to boost activity here.

Anyways, that's just my thoughts. You're in charge, obviously.

[bluspidr]

you could post my guide that i sent to you a while ago

[Green]

Tell your subbers to join your site.

[Blood Falcon]

[Shu]

We aren't FEU.

[Blood Falcon]

You're right, we're not as active, making it a greater risk/ less fallback. It sounds good in theory, but ends up terrible when it's all done.

[bluspidr]

idk about you guys but i enjoy conversing with the regulars on this site as it is. i would welcome growth, but if everything stayed the way it is, i would be happy

[Shu]

Alrighty, if my idea has an almost 100% fail rate, then what other ideas can we come up with?

[Tino]

Here's me popping my lurking head in again.

Shu, you are at least going in the right direction. It's true, there's not a whole lot to talk about on a relatively small-scaled forum like this one. Everything has been discussed to death, and even on the larger forums like Serenes Forest, people are sort of running out of ideas for Fire Emblem related topics. And let's be honest, there's nothing that can really be done about for the exact reasons you stated - there's simply no new noteworth content being released that relates to Fire Emblem.

So yes, you will need to find something else to cover on the web site and forums. However, content is not all that matters. Whenever a user visits your web site, they will first take a look at how your web site looks. Now, I'm going to be very honest here... When I see the main page of the main site or the index of the forum, I can't say it looks all that appealing. It's not bad by any means, but if I would have to choose between a great looking web site and this web site, I would definitely go with the first one if I wouldn't know which web site would be the best one. Unfortunately, yes, people do judge books by their cover.

So while it's true that content matters a lot, aesthetics and good design matter a lot as well. With good design I mean things like the accessibilty and readability of a web page. For example, use headings to specify the start of an important area, and make sure those headings are descriptive. People are scanners when it comes to reading content on the web, so they will basically just read a heading that stands out, see if they like what it says, and then read it if it's appealing. If it's not, they'll just move on, but if you don't have those headings at all, you take a big risk that people will leave the site immediately.

It's all about selling your web site, essentially. If users like what they see, they will stick around to check out the content. If they do not they still might, but you definitely risk losing them right off the bat, and that's definitely not what you want.

So if you ask me, there are a few things to do:

1: improve the aesthetics of the web site and forums
2: improve the readability of the web site
3: think about what other content could be added to make sure new users will keep coming, of course here you need to keep in mind that you shouldn't generalize this too much, since people still like to go to somewhat specialized forums/web sites, if that makes sense.

I hope this little post will help out just a bit.

[Fire Blazer]

What we need is something to attract members that other forums don't have.

Even SF isn't that active and it's the BIGGEST FIRE EMBLEM FORUM. So it's Fire Emblem's creator's fault (cough IS/Nintendo).

Spriting and hacking have been used up. Debates have been too. RP's are getting less and less popular with MMO's and other stuff... so in other words, I can't think of anything, except...

we all petition to Nintendo to bother IS to make new games as well as get them localized over here (cough NoA). If all of the Fire Emblem forums can get signatures of people and we uh, scan them or something, and send them to NoA, maybe they'll do something.

It's a long shot, but hey, Namco-Bandai contacted the translator for Absolute Zero Translations about how to be involved with the Tales community. And these are the guys who translated Tales of Innocence and started a translation for ToG F (until the Tales creators finally got together and used their brains, resulting in an American release).

[Shu]

Yeah, you guys both make sense. If we are going to improve the site's look (Time for another revamp, Blazer?) I'm totally read as of now, the summer just started and I have quite a bit of time on my hands. I could put together a lot of graphics.

[Tino]

The only other idea I could possibly come up with to keep it all Fire-Emblem related is by doing something like setting up a minecraft server on which you would create a fire emblem world... At least it would be unique, right?

But in all honesty, I really think it's important that you find a way to primarily attract more users to come and stay here, as well as find a way to branch off into somewhat related content. I think both need to be done, if you really intend on keeping the site not only running, but also have new members. After all, there's not a big point in having the same members all the time. Most likely you want the community to expand, and in its current state, that's just very unlikely to happen.

[Fire Blazer]

Yeah, well, first of all, I have very little free time on my hands. I don't have time to even update the site content, forget the look--and even if I wanted to update the look, it's fine to me as it is/I really am not interested in updating it. Sure, it can be better, maybe less red, but I don't feel like the site can't go on without a remake.

And I don't know PHP or anything all that special (my Javascript skills suck) so I don't have much to work with anyway.

And I'm totally out of request ideas for graphics >_>

@Tino I wouldn't mind too much except...time. I couldn't do it, or even help. And who would be interested? Fire Emblem's just so not popular. The problem is, there aren't many people TO attract. The scope is "Fire Emblem"--anyone who does not like this first and foremost will not join the forum. :\

[Smash]

I wouldn't mind the idea of roleplay. I'd be up for a decent FE one myself.

[Shu]

I still think we need to change up our focus. Really, are there any FE Forums that have great activity right now?