Pyrian on 10/3/2021 at 02:42
Quote Posted by heywood
$5m/month is an order of magnitude less than my beer budget.
:wot:
...I assume that "$5m" doesn't mean what it usually would mean... :joke:
Tomi on 10/3/2021 at 11:42
I wouldn't want to see any huge changes in here. I like the simplicity of TTLG; no big flashy signatures and banners, no "like" buttons, no tons of animated emojis. I'm sure that there are a lot of things that could be modernised while maintaining the old-school forum format, but would any such changes really bring more people in here?
I used to be a regular on a small music forum that is sadly long gone now, so TTLG is pretty much my only internet home nowadays. I've always gone through phases when I post a lot, and then I don't post much at all for months, but for twenty years (damn, I didn't even realise that I had missed my TTLG birthday!) I've logged in here just about every day. Apart from things being really quiet in here sometimes, I don't think that this place is any worse or better than it used to be. Times change and people change, we're just all getting on with it and our lives. TTLG is a bit like the world in miniature size, except in general I think we're more liberal and tolerant than most people. We've got all sorts of different characters, some are hilarious and some can be quite annoying at times, but I still feel that this is a fairly friendly place. I think the mods and admins are doing a grand job by not banning everyone that people ask them to.
The real question is: Why would anyone join this forum in 2021? Thief and System Shock (and maybe other LG classics) are the reason why the majority of us are here, I imagine, but they're all ancient games, and newer generations of players have never even heard of them. Us oldbies are a dying breed; sometimes literally, as we've sadly noticed over the years, but many of us have families now or don't have time or interest for gaming anymore. People move on, and unless someone successfully manages to resurrect the Thief or System Shock franchise one day, I doubt that we'll suddenly see a rush of new members.
Social media platforms may have killed the traditional forum format, but I think there's still a place for a place like TTLG. Facebook and Twitter are more personal for sure, which can be nice, but they're awful for any kind of discussion. Discord is nice for some things, but it's completely different. I'm not against change really, but I have a feeling that turning TTLG into something totally different would only drive away a lot of people.
I'd be very sad if one day I got a 404 error when coming in here, but I sure hope that it doesn't come to that any time soon. :) Perhaps we could use some of heywood's beer budget to lure in some new members with a promise of free beer?
Nameless Voice on 10/3/2021 at 11:49
Aren't we also one of the main immersive-sim communities?
Maybe we should expand out a bit more to cover all of those new indie immersive sims in development these days.
henke on 10/3/2021 at 13:12
Yeah, there's like a whole loose-knit immsim community on twitter and they're into some (
https://twitter.com/FPScarol/status/1361706043764396033) WEIRD (
https://twitter.com/KinoFabino/status/1350868732319567872) STUFF. :D
Not sure how to attract all the immsim weirdoes out there buuuuuut... front page interviews with Gloomwood/Graven/Skin Deep devs? Reviews? Game jams? Community art contest events? Just spitballin here, I don't wanna be in charge of actually doing any of this stuff I'm just an IDEAS MAN ok.
Seriously, some kinda immsim game jam where people gotta put together an immsim in 2 weeks would be fun.
Nameless Voice on 10/3/2021 at 14:06
I suppose a dedicated Immersive Sims forum could be a start?
Not sure if there'd be enough interest, but I can name a half-dozen more imm-sims in development that could get threads there.
PigLick on 10/3/2021 at 14:45
the thing is Thief and System Shock and Deus Ex are still mentioned all the time in gaming sites, I dont think they are as dead as people here might think.
faetal on 10/3/2021 at 15:21
I like the forum format.
TTLG discord and Facebook have been active a while and I never use them (other than to check if the site is down occasionally). I have a few of you on Facebook, which is nice, but safe to say that if the forums were replaced with something more like a chat room, I don't think I'd use it much. I'm more into dumping a few paragraphs than replying to stuff in realtime and losing the thread if I need to step away for a bit.
That said, I'm just one person, and I could live with not visiting TLLG anymore if it came to that, so maybe not a big consideration. I've donated in the past (hence my snappy title) and would again if it was to fund some kind of make-over / re-brand to open the forums up as an immsimm community and maybe bring the UX into the 21st century. That said, this place functions well enough as a sparsely populated bar with a badly varnished counter top that I visit despite the lack of polish (lower case p Yakoob) to see who's about and what's going on. I will always take opinions of new games more seriously from here than anywhere else including reviews, so that's something I guess.
Kolya on 10/3/2021 at 16:01
If you want, visit (
https://zulip.com) and click through those few slides. The 3. & 4. slides address the concern of catching up/async/forum format: Topics are basically threads in a chat-stream.
I'm not trying to convince anyone anymore. But it might be helpful to know what you're comparing against.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/gkJNPdB.pngFingernail on 10/3/2021 at 16:30
Quote Posted by PigLick
the thing is Thief and System Shock and Deus Ex are still mentioned all the time in gaming sites, I dont think they are as dead as people here might think.
Yes, if anything probably more than ever, the nostalgia market is growing and I'm sure interest in 90s/00s games is higher now than it was 10 years ago. Loads of YouTubers covering these old games, the various patches/remastered editions etc.
I see the same thing happening in music where kids of this generation are discovering older music via the internet, which you'd think they'd have little interest in.
I'm another example of someone who still enjoys regular lurking, although I've had long periods away, it's a lovely place to come back to and check out what's going on. I think with age I edit myself a lot more than I did, and I don't post as much as I did when I was younger as a result (asking, "is it really necessary to post this?").
