Lets get GR going again..

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Shaggy, Dec 11, 2012.

  1. Shaggy

    Shaggy Administrator Staff Member

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    I am serious about getting this place active again. I see my mass email got some of you back for atleast today. I need to get you all to stay and come back everyday. I want to stick with the art theme/gfx, but need to do some thinking on how to setup the forum to accommodate that. Need something to keep you all keeping back.
     
  2. Marforce

    Marforce Senior Member

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    This place lacked a unified vision, and committed staff. (I have to admit some staffing choices were quite detrimental to the overall health of the site) Once it totally lost those it just kind of died off. There were a lot of promises that were over promised, under delivered and often extremely too late to the party.

    Introducing a site specific economy and then allow it to be tied to real world dollars also didn't help things. It's hard to develop a sense of community when people are focused on making money. Your various subforums had there individual cliques but they were often not very welcoming or acted like a mini 4chan.

    If you truly want to revive the site I don't think it'll be from its past members. You'll have to dedicate a ton of time finding a new purpose, with a new vision for it. You can't revive this from within because the pervasive attitude of so many here is to just let this site die or they can't believe its not dead yet. A sense of nostalgia won't really get you very far, but I wish you all the best.
     
  3. Dior

    Dior -1xx,x00 credits.

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    Just posting that again as I'm curious and unsure whether or not you missed it.
     
  4. Shaggy

    Shaggy Administrator Staff Member

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    They are auto forums. Based on cars and trucks. So that niche is more stable then renders.

    I admit I did make some bad choices on some decision makings. I just think I can revive the forum with old and new members, I just need to find a setup to the forums to do that.
     
  5. Marforce

    Marforce Senior Member

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    Warez, or a theme that has remained relevant.
     
  6. Shaggy

    Shaggy Administrator Staff Member

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    I shut down AF as I didn't feel like getting into trouble. ;)
     
  7. zelfr

    zelfr Member

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    Well, I still do photoshop and I've had 2 accounts on this site this being my 3rd I just made a little bit ago because I missed making signatures, but I came back and it was so inactive I had to start looking for other sites. Making signatures was awesome back in the day, I miss all the great renders. I think you can make a community based off of the old GR and just implementing new things.

    I totally think you can get this thing going again using the main focus of video games and art. I don't think you need to change game renders, we can bring it back to life might just take a lot of time and work though :yuush: ESP with these dope ass smiles :D I'm down to try and help with w/e free time I have, I really miss GR spent all of my lonely late late nights during the week on here when I was in highschool and Jr high.
     
  8. Zarox

    Zarox Retired IRC Mod

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    A familiar name! I would definitely agree that some of the staff choices contributed to the demise of the popularity of the site.

    Credits -> Cash were indeed a problem but was also a reason a lot of people were so active.

    I was definitely a part of one of the many cliques. Do you guys remember the newspaper war back in 2006/7? That shit was ridiculous. Also, we had our IRC clique as well.

    I've moved on to other communities and probably wouldn't be interested in anything so general as gaming or graphics. Niche communities are really popular right now with sub-reddits (i'm known in /r/leagueoflegends and /r/globaloffense as alexpenn), twitter, and more specific forums.
     
  9. Catapult

    Catapult Well-Known Member

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    dinges on page 1 is right on the money. It seems like forums aren't popular anymore, and sites like Reddit are in the ascendant. But I do miss the old days of getting to know a group of people via a forum and shared interest. Those were fun, great times.

    I agree with having to target the age 12 to 15 demographic. When you're in that age range, you have a lot of free time and you're more in tune with fads. I joined GR because I got interested in making these little boxes of "art" called sigs, which I saw on a RuneScape forum, which I joined because I played RuneScape. I'm much older now, and I honestly have no idea what kids do these days. Maybe it's Minecraft mods?

    But hey, it's great to be here again! I don't care what anyone says, I was obsessed with the forum credit system. If anyone remembers Renegade, Airisus, eccentric, Rogue, I do too! :D
     
  10. Shaggy

    Shaggy Administrator Staff Member

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    Yea, the credit system was the main drive of the forum. It gave reasons for members to be on here as it was real money. Some members did will with buying and selling tuts. It started to get inflated and not worth as much as it was, so we tried to take some of the credits out of the system. That didn't go over to well. I believe at that point was the start of the downhill spiral that caused GR to be where it is today, oh and my lack of effort trying stop that downhill spiral. :(
     
  11. Someonedying

    Someonedying Well-Known Member

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    League of Legends, WoW, Path of Exile, Aion, FireFall, ect.....their own section on the forums.

    I still look for renders nowadays, so don't think negative on that, this was the best place for renders, and I dont know where else to go for them.

    I'd like to get back in to photoshop, but having those extra game sections would want me to stop by here more often to see what people have to say about the games I play.

    I hope this moves somewhere, probably not within a few months, but a year from now I would love to see this place booming again.

    Have to find a way to adapt to the new SCENE on the internet these days to grab attention of loads of people and get more members here and old ones return, as myself.

    Let me know how I can help.
     
  12. Shaggy

    Shaggy Administrator Staff Member

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    I am all for adding a gaming section. I believe that will help with more members that are still playing them(I still do and I am 36) to stick around. I think a game section for Skyrim, COD, Battlefield, boarderland, dark shadows, and so on would be good to have.
     
  13. Skoll

    Skoll Senior Member

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    Got me to log back in.

    As many have posted before signatures were big when forums were big certain forums are still big.

    Maybe advertise on MOBA forums such as league,dota,hon etc. and make signatures with links to the site or in the tag have text talking of us and take the willing forum users to post a lot more then they usually do to get people to check out the site.

    MOBA are big and if we focused a lot of moba signatures we could get some popularity over how many users use those forums.

    ps. Having a dota section would bring me back Dota is a huge time sink for me.
    oh and on anther note if you do, do the gaming section don't make like a million sub forums for different games the smaller number of games we focus on the better imo
     
  14. Shaggy

    Shaggy Administrator Staff Member

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    It would be just the major games. I do like the idea of the MOBA. Need to looking that a little more.
     
  15. deters69

    deters69 New Member

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    instead of image thumbnails for attachments, add mouse over functionality where it expands to full or near full size on mouse roll over. This eliminates the extra clicks just to see an image.
    As for drawing users, perhaps focus on what folks still need... many folks still get on Gamebattles and sites like that and want avatars and clan tags - but Dinges is correct, the old signatures are becoming a thing of dinosaurs and folks are flocking to social networking in droves. Get a following on Twitter and fans on Facebook and push promos in 140 characters at a time. #gamerenders - like us on Facebook - etc

    By the way, I'm a dinosaur myself... I'm 36 - so it isn't just kids who log in here, but I agree it IS the target demographic.

    Lastly, with social media, I see TONS of "eCards" and the like. Incorporate this concept into GR. Have a place where folks can create and upload their own unique GR ecard type things and share them on facebook. Imagine a hero or villain offering his own advice on dating, politics school etc.

    2012 epic.jpg
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2012

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