Don't shoot me down for saying this but it's been about 4-5 years since rm2k and other game design creators were really popular, shouldn't the site be looking to move on and expand from that area? Obviously that's no easy suggestion and understandably we shouldn't throw that part of the website away, the site has produced some great game making talent and should continue to help push those kind of individuals into the limelight. But GW has been growing quiet over the last few years and the most important thing here is the community (which is why it's last so long), maybe the site should expand into more general gaming or possibly other areas because there's some decent taste in this forum in all areas. I'm saying all of this as an outsider, and don't want to be a hindrance, but with the idea of having a whole new site with a different name and almost a fresh start, would it be an idea to expand from something that the community itself seems to have grown out of?

HTML5 is the new rpg maker, just wait for it guys

Lots of flash ads. And all articles should be divided into at least 10 pages no matter how long or short they are. Make it happen!

oh you premiums think that you are so special.

That's because we are.

If we attracted more of this sort of group thought then we would?  I dunno I could imagine that troubadours being something that might cause people to be drawn in if they are interested in that sort of thing.  I dunno.  Regardless, we really need to get rid of the whole games thing

That's exactly what the GW Blog attempted to do, and it didn't really succeed. Take a look at the forum directory right now. The two forums that have the most people currently viewing them are Gaming and Game Design. Granted, the numbers are pretty low compared to when GW was in its prime, but the common interest that brought almost everyone here was gaming. You may have met some really great people and then started some sort of creative collaboration with them in the form of music/art/etc, but can that really draw new people to the site? I don't believe so, because while these creative outlets allow you to draw closer to some people in the community, to an outsider all they are is some inside-thing they don't don't really "get". (Personally, I don't get some of these things either, so if that was the sole draw to GW I probably wouldn't be here. I came for the games, stayed for the community, but I haven't forgotten about gaming completely. Now that I'm out of College I'm ready to delve back into game making. Maybe some other GWers are feeling the same?).

That's exactly what the GW Blog attempted to do, and it didn't really succeed. Take a look at the forum directory right now. The two forums that have the most people currently viewing them are Gaming and Game Design. Granted, the numbers are pretty low compared to when GW was in its prime, but the common interest that brought almost everyone here was gaming. You may have met some really great people and then started some sort of creative collaboration with them in the form of music/art/etc, but can that really draw new people to the site? I don't believe so, because while these creative outlets allow you to draw closer to some people in the community, to an outsider all they are is some inside-thing they don't don't really "get". (Personally, I don't get some of these things either, so if that was the sole draw to GW I probably wouldn't be here. I came for the games, stayed for the community, but I haven't forgotten about gaming completely. Now that I'm out of College I'm ready to delve back into game making. Maybe some other GWers are feeling the same?).

As much as I think this is a really great community and I'm glad to have been, or still be, a part of it, I can't really imagine moving to another site just because the community moved. Hmm.. that's not exactly what I want to say. I just can't see a new GW, without the G... I still feel like even though a lot of people have moved on from game making, or even gaming, it's still like the midichlorians of GW's bloodstream.

Or something.

Especially considering Gaming is still the second most popular subform on GW, behind General, for obvious reasons. I guess I just don't feel like the community would survive a transition to a new site that had very little to do with gaming.

does anyone know if bonzi_buddy made it home safe? he said he'd post later tonight . . . that was two days ago

well I was going to wait for ramci's post to see what he's got to say but since he passed away I'll just go ahead

That's exactly what the GW Blog attempted to do, and it didn't really succeed. Take a look at the forum directory right now. The two forums that have the most people currently viewing them are Gaming and Game Design. Granted, the numbers are pretty low compared to when GW was in its prime, but the common interest that brought almost everyone here was gaming. You may have met some really great people and then started some sort of creative collaboration with them in the form of music/art/etc, but can that really draw new people to the site? I don't believe so, because while these creative outlets allow you to draw closer to some people in the community, to an outsider all they are is some inside-thing they don't don't really "get". (Personally, I don't get some of these things either, so if that was the sole draw to GW I probably wouldn't be here. I came for the games, stayed for the community, but I haven't forgotten about gaming completely. Now that I'm out of College I'm ready to delve back into game making. Maybe some other GWers are feeling the same?).

the supposed broad focus of the GW Blog was probably the least of reasons why it failed. and as I said in maybe my first post? I think the best thing we could do in terms of GW would be to reinvigorate the current community by focusing on user-created content in general and providing all the forum memberg we've already got with some sort of main-page outlet with a real user interface, something similar to what resource sites like www.freesound.org have. the user-created content I'm speaking of includes stuff by game and graphic designers, musicians, film makers and comedians.

but it doesn't seem like anything like this will ever happen if drule's proposal comes into effect. from what I've gathered out of his kinda oddly cryptic posts, it sounds like he's almost just tacking our community onto some existing group of people. then apparently after pushing us into this new setup, drule's letting the new guys from the existing game engine community run the show and expecting our community to for some unknown reason feel like integrating ourselves and participating in this new site despite having no predictable incentive and having literally nothing to do with these people or their game engine. like if the new focus of the website is this new engine and future engines, who here knows or cares about any of that stuff? who's gonna be writing the tutorials and the latest/last issue news articles? if you're depending on the userbase participating on a website that has a focus they're only theoretically interested in, you're leaving a pretty big question mark pertaining to how these jobs are gonna get done. if you're depending on these new guys doing this stuff, then what purpose does our community have being there at all? how are we expected to be integrated into or to care about this new site if it's just some guys independently running the show? the GW Blog had the exact same problem, and I believe that is ultimately why it failed. it's not as simple as well they've got something people want, we've got members, why not combine the two?? if this is the case, should we even bother trying to integrate the two projects or should they remain separate?

I dunno, I need someone to either tell me where I'm wrong or to start thinking of some better ways to handle these issues

Been busy this week but I just want to clarify that this is in no way an attempt to revive GW. We're not looking to retain anything that is typical for GW except for maybe the knockdown on dumb internet memes and topics. I don't see what could possibly be at risk of disappearing if we actually bring some new blood into the picture and have them - gasp - intergrate with the members who choose to come along to the new site.

Maybe calling it "New GW" is a bit misleading since it's going to be a spiritual successor at best, but the good news is that those of you who are vehemently opposed to the idea of trying to do somehing viable with the site now that we have two coders despite its history of failure can stick around the old GW forums and draw Muhammed pictures all day until Bart finally decides to pull the plug. :-)

Now if we could come up with ideas or criticism on anything BUT the odds of this site surviving that would be swell.

see, this is what makes you such an awful guy to try and share ideas and criticism with. I post something, and then you get offended and write up a snarky reply, suddenly releasing new information you had for some reason withheld before. I explicitly asked what you meant by "run by new people" and all you gave me was some vague response that apparently led me down the wrong line of thought. and a lot of this is really important information you probably should have included in the first few lines of the topic.

but most of what I said last post still stands. I'm not sure where you got irritated, because I'm talking about some real abstract issues that your current plan has, and not some stubborn unwillingness to cooperate on our part. you're essentially creating a new site and asking us to come over. I'm saying that won't work out as smoothly as you'd hope unless you stop entirely ignoring our community, who we are, and what we like to do. it's really not much to ask, and it would only benefit the site and make the transition so much easier. so uh, why not carry over the essentials and give them some sort of mainsite visibility? doesn't it fit in with your plan?

let's just go to tomatoland instead

ok I'll let you read through it, but first I should clear up a couple things. I don't think that adding new members will take anything away, the only thing I was worried about was how you said the site was going to be run by new people, in which you apparently meant two coders. is this true, or will it be run by outside people in a further capacity? will you and ase still be in charge? and I don't mind at all if this is more of a spiritual successor to GW as long as it's headed in the right direction. the only thing worth preserving is a lot of the people here, and I'm not sure that's gonna happen. I know you're not going to clone gw, but I think you do need to be sensitive to some of the reasons why people still come here even without a functioning mainsite for how many years. those reasons have already been discussed pretty thoroughly throughout the thread.

and not that it matters but the blog was kind of failure before it stopped being updated. I don't know what you had planned, but as it was it was really detached from the community and kinda useless to read unless you were interested in indie games and game making. I'm afraid this will happen again if the whole thing is run by outside people and we've got no interest in what's going on. that's what all my talk about providing a mainsite outlet for stuff like album releases etc was about

edit also literally everyone here hated the draw mohammed idea but bled and he's an internet guy who no one likes!!