What happened to this forum?

[ZeroleTheUntamed]

There seems to be so little activity going on here and in Free/P2P MMO/RPG Hub compared to a couple years ago. I don't know if less new MMORPGs are coming out nowadays, but I'm seeing so little mention and hype. Did something happen?

[Ronin]

My 2cts:
The forum tried to beat the "OMGrandom" pages at their own game and predictably failed.

(More true: Classical web-forums have just naturally reached a point of technical obsolence.)

[M1nGs3N4yuk1]

Reddit happened. Everyone migrated to r/MMORPG

[████████]

Forums are pretty much dead now a days. All reddit.

[Hizumi]

Nothing has changed boyos

[Abhorsen]

I'm not ready for reddit yet
also i dont know how the new generation (age 10-16) thinks about mmorpg's these days, but for me (29) theres nothing coming out that interests me anymore, nor am i looking forward to any mmo in the works. the last mmo that interested me was tree of savior so its been a while.
and i still think theres potential for the mmofps/rpg genre and action based mmorpgs, however its very hard to do. if a company is too small the game could be great since the team communicates a lot, it would be a project they put all their love into, but the lack of funds will hold them back.
if a company is too big however they put all those funds in the wrong places and it turns into a mess that lacks any sort of quality content.
i feel like back in the day game companies had way more freedom and didnt look at other games at all, the goal was to make something unique and fresh without constantly having to worry about deadlines. they didnt have much games to rip off features from so they had no choice.

[Kamilla]

/r/onrpg lol

[prettylittleliar]

I noticed that a lot of gamers actually transferred to reddit. I see a lot of discussions there about a variety of mmorpgs such as guild wars 2, aion, black desert, etc.

[dswl173]

REDDIT facebook groups, youtube game channels almost killed traditional forums

[Songz]

What bothers me the most is that the BB Code shortcuts don't show when replying to threads. Why the hell am I typing out [[img]][[./img]] manually and shit... it's annoying

[darkness35]

What is MMORPG?
What is life?
What?

[annakieu541]

Reddit happened.

[chaoscauser]

Reddit happened.

You mean Discord?

[Abhorsen]

What bothers me the most is that the BB Code shortcuts don't show when replying to threads. Why the hell am I typing out [[img]][[./img]] manually and shit... it's annoying

that's your adblock causing this. (for some reason)

what bothers me is that parts of the forum are still broken and nothing has been fixed in the past 6 or so months lol, so if the dying mmo genre didnt contribute to the forums being a wasteland, the lack of a fully functional forum is.
examples: https://www.onrpg.com/boards/threads...-Thread/page42 dead links like this everywhere.
video tags work but youtube tags are still broken.

[MissyS]

that's your adblock causing this. (for some reason)

what bothers me is that parts of the forum are still broken and nothing has been fixed in the past 6 or so months lol, so if the dying mmo genre didnt contribute to the forums being a wasteland, the lack of a fully functional forum is.
examples: https://www.onrpg.com/boards/threads...-Thread/page42 dead links like this everywhere.
video tags work but youtube tags are still broken.

- AdBlock decided to be aggressive with our sites and blocked many of their core scripts, which is why it has to be disabled for giveaways on site too. I can't even get work done on the back end without disabling it. It's something they really shouldn't do, given that it goes beyond blocking ads to block actual site functionality, but there's nothing more we can do about it.

- Dead links are dead links. There was a loss of posts here or there in the database when we had that incident months ago, and we had no way to recover them. The thread referenced isn't broken, it's just that the link you referenced is going to a page that no longer exists because someone hacked the forums and nuked the database. We recovered most of it, but some threads managed to remain nuked.

- Youtube tags being broken sucks, and it's because we're using an old version of vbulletin and YouTube has since updated its embed coding (several times). Updating the forum software is on the to-do list, but it's a slow process as the tech behind the sites is all connected and other changes are being made first to the backbone of everything.

I definitely agree that it's frustrating nothing has been done in the past six months (not ignored, I promise you - just not going as fast as we'd like). However before that the forum code hadn't been touched for years, so there's more forward momentum now than there had been.

[GenoX]

Everyone is blaming reddit but the truth is forums like these are pretty much outdated. Kids don't even know what a forum is. Also conversation about mmorpg have dried up. There hasn't been any "new" thing out that people has not played before. Pretty much all talks are about the same old gw2, bdo, wow, ffxiv, and one or two not very known/old games. Anything new that is coming out are taking forever given they are mostly pre-alpha. Except for Camelot unchained it's one of the few games that might come out within q1 or q2. Possibly even q3. It's in beta 1 playtest phase.

[Gattsu]

The golden age is long gone.

[Abhorsen]

- AdBlock decided to be aggressive with our sites and blocked many of their core scripts, which is why it has to be disabled for giveaways on site too. I can't even get work done on the back end without disabling it. It's something they really shouldn't do, given that it goes beyond blocking ads to block actual site functionality, but there's nothing more we can do about it.

- Dead links are dead links. There was a loss of posts here or there in the database when we had that incident months ago, and we had no way to recover them. The thread referenced isn't broken, it's just that the link you referenced is going to a page that no longer exists because someone hacked the forums and nuked the database. We recovered most of it, but some threads managed to remain nuked.

- Youtube tags being broken sucks, and it's because we're using an old version of vbulletin and YouTube has since updated its embed coding (several times). Updating the forum software is on the to-do list, but it's a slow process as the tech behind the sites is all connected and other changes are being made first to the backbone of everything.

I definitely agree that it's frustrating nothing has been done in the past six months (not ignored, I promise you - just not going as fast as we'd like). However before that the forum code hadn't been touched for years, so there's more forward momentum now than there had been.

thanks for the detailed explanation Missys, im glad to see the forum is still being worked on.
also strange how ad-block is so aggressive, didn't it start being that way around the same time the forums got nuked? i think ive disabled it ever since anyway because the ads on this site dont bother me as much as on other sites, but it can suck for people who are unaware that all the functions are missing. ill try the report function within adblock itself, if that helps anything.

[Meis]

forum > reddit

I'm not ready for reddit yet
also i dont know how the new generation (age 10-16) thinks about mmorpg's these days, but for me (29) theres nothing coming out that interests me anymore, nor am i looking forward to any mmo in the works. the last mmo that interested me was tree of savior so its been a while.
and i still think theres potential for the mmofps/rpg genre and action based mmorpgs, however its very hard to do. if a company is too small the game could be great since the team communicates a lot, it would be a project they put all their love into, but the lack of funds will hold them back.
if a company is too big however they put all those funds in the wrong places and it turns into a mess that lacks any sort of quality content.
i feel like back in the day game companies had way more freedom and didnt look at other games at all, the goal was to make something unique and fresh without constantly having to worry about deadlines. they didnt have much games to rip off features from so they had no choice.

Overpopulation. Over-produce. Over-consumption. Hence, so many clones. Every day, there will be new releases in various countries... I don't have to name it out. Do you guys remember gamengame??? Even that is slowed down.

m m o rpg[dot]com
m m o site[dot]com
... still going strong. You can't say forums are dead.

The MMORPG has reached its peak or mature stage I guess, just like how POP music did in early 2000. The next stage is VR-MMORPG... which is taking too slow ZZZZzzzzz.

[Arnolddo]

Forums in general become obsolete. You have reddit and facebook groups, not to mention twich. Forums are mainly for the oldschool gamers

[Hello Kitty]

It deded .

[Songz]

Forums aren't completely dead, but vbulletin definitely is (maybe just our old version). Need a completely different board, and new target market. 100% the focus of the future off OnRPG should be Mobile MMOs. It's a no brainer there.

Forums are still alive and well, game-specific forums are alive, VR forums are alive. Obscure hobby forums are still alive.
Our community is dead because there is no reason to come here.
How often do we even have discussions on the latest games? We're a terrible MMO gaming forum because nobody cares anymore. Mabinogi mobile, maple mobile... we should be grabbing content, posting it on our forum, big well detailed threads again with pictures and videos, and linking that shit to Reddit to bring in traffic.

We 100% should allow guests to post again on the forum. We need active mods to take care of the trolls, spammers, and bots when we welcome open Guest/Anon posting.

Let's not roll over and die.
MissyS, is any of what I said actually applicable or actionable?

We're right in the middle of a new boom. Survival games, battle royales, and Mobile MMOs. Soon VR gaming. We need to direct our focus. Forums are great because of categories and organization. That'll always be an advantage over Reddit. Guides die and go obscure on Reddit, and FAQ links are never consistently updated.
This is our strength. Always has been. This is why we came here over the official forums for specific games. And for gods sake add a limit to the signatures sizes if the forum gets a rehaul on the look.

[MissyS]

Songz:

I think you've got some really solid points, honestly. Personally I'd like to move off vbulletin entirely, at the VERY least, I'd like to get us on the latest version. It's on the list of tech issues to be addressed, we're just not to that point yet.

As for Guest/Anon posting - I can probably turn it back on. In an experiment to try to thwart spammers, I've been able to find new methods they're getting around our systems.

A lot of what you're getting at though - is community. I'd love to come in here and give this place more life, but I've got a ton on my plate to keep everything running on OnRPG & MMOHuts. I've been trying to stir up discussion in the background, but it's not going anywhere. (Also, I'd love links/cached links of some of those old topics you're referring to if they're available.

What I'd like to do that's most actionable at this time:
- Reopen guest/anon posting
- Hunt down ways to shut down more spammers. They follow patterns, I've just got to find the best way to block those patterns. Our mods are pretty fast on removing the posts, but that's only part of the equation.
- Clean up and clean out the forums. Possibly a bit of reorganizing. I know everyone loves their history but the forums -look- dead, especially when the most common topics are a year+ old and we're getting necros on threads from 2011. I don't mind archiving, but our active forums should have some sign of life in them.
- Get people being active in creating daily topics & discussions. There's plenty to talk about, it's just not being talked about here. I see people replying to new threads, but there's just not many new threads happening.

What's on the list, but can't be done yet:
- Forum software (security, updates, etc)
- Chat software (we'd like to add some sort of live chat again to the site even if it's a chatbox/shout box that actually works)

I am all for suggestions and feedback. I think for too long the attitude toward the forums (from the business end of things) was to try to twist them into shape that would work for business purposes. We've long overlooked what makes the forums the community they are and have been for years, and that's kind of a shame, because they still provide a lot of traffic to the sites and a less gimmicky way of engagement than other social media.

[Hello Kitty]

I said stuff.

You should hire a thread-starter. Ou~

[Songz]

Songz:

I think you've got some really solid points, honestly. Personally I'd like to move off vbulletin entirely, at the VERY least, I'd like to get us on the latest version. It's on the list of tech issues to be addressed, we're just not to that point yet.

As for Guest/Anon posting - I can probably turn it back on. In an experiment to try to thwart spammers, I've been able to find new methods they're getting around our systems.

A lot of what you're getting at though - is community. I'd love to come in here and give this place more life, but I've got a ton on my plate to keep everything running on OnRPG & MMOHuts. I've been trying to stir up discussion in the background, but it's not going anywhere. (Also, I'd love links/cached links of some of those old topics you're referring to if they're available.

What I'd like to do that's most actionable at this time:
- Reopen guest/anon posting
- Hunt down ways to shut down more spammers. They follow patterns, I've just got to find the best way to block those patterns. Our mods are pretty fast on removing the posts, but that's only part of the equation.
- Clean up and clean out the forums. Possibly a bit of reorganizing. I know everyone loves their history but the forums -look- dead, especially when the most common topics are a year+ old and we're getting necros on threads from 2011. I don't mind archiving, but our active forums should have some sign of life in them.
- Get people being active in creating daily topics & discussions. There's plenty to talk about, it's just not being talked about here. I see people replying to new threads, but there's just not many new threads happening.

What's on the list, but can't be done yet:
- Forum software (security, updates, etc)
- Chat software (we'd like to add some sort of live chat again to the site even if it's a chatbox/shout box that actually works)

I am all for suggestions and feedback. I think for too long the attitude toward the forums (from the business end of things) was to try to twist them into shape that would work for business purposes. We've long overlooked what makes the forums the community they are and have been for years, and that's kind of a shame, because they still provide a lot of traffic to the sites and a less gimmicky way of engagement than other social media.

Sadly most of our history was deleted with that Database error.
Even edited posts on previous threads are missing a chuck of the information:
https://www.onrpg.com/boards/threads...ask-questions)

Every time I would play Mabinogi, I'd go to that big Bag o' Tricks thread on these forums, but I cannot find it anymore, must've been deleted.

Very detailed Bright Shadow and Conquer guides are gone...
https://www.onrpg.com/boards/threads...Guide-amp-Info

Gosh, very sad. Our history is already stripped and deleted.

But yeah, basically the posts format were: Basic info, video or picture, news, Discuss:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130506...nline-2-Thread
https://web.archive.org/web/20130524...er-Help-Thread
https://web.archive.org/web/20130508...ter-Discussion
https://web.archive.org/web/20130518...nds-Discussion