Do the staff still care about this forum?

**Rowan** · 08-31-2017, 05:48 PM

Im only asking because so far it seems like in comparison to other forums, this has extremely little activity, you have since removed both the arcade and the 'like' post features for no reason, the regular posts and updates from the one committed staff member (Andromeda) I haven't seen in months just makes me think this site is pretty much dead. Its not really about having a tight-knit community anymore if none of those 5 people are even posting. Ive been a member for about 6 and a half years, which doesn't come close to some other members here, who are actually non-existent at this point anymore. Its sad to see people come and go, especially those who've been here long before me.

Feels empty here and has felt empty for quite some time. Chalk it up-to there not being much news, chalk it up-to there being too much online competition but I'm just gonna assume that the people running TFF are just too lazy to put effort in to try and make this site worth visiting. I obviously have no problem pointing the finger at you, because that's where it belongs. I used to like visiting here everyday, even when i was getting in arguments with people because I made some cool friendships and learned a lot of things. But now, I can log in after a week and see a single new post with one or two replies. I don't know how much traffic the website gains when there's a new piece of information,(FF7 remake will be released within 6 years pls b excite), but it really cant be that much if our forum consists of 3 -once in a while- posters.

It mustn't be easy running a website, but It should be when you have a bunch of people running it for you. I see hardly any contribution from the staff anymore, be it a means to increase activity within the current members (the years TFF awards, games etc), and absolutely no effort to try and engage new potential members (events, giveaways etc). I admit that people get busy and its hard to contribute as much as we grow older and gain new responsibilities in our lives, but if this place really felt like family, then you'd continue to be apart of it.

Look at some of the most recent thread topics;
"Does anyone even play Final Fantasy anymore?"
"Are RPGs Passe'"

Not a criticism of the topics, in fact I highlight these in particular not because they are the most recent, but because they are ironically relevant to what I'm saying here. People wonder why noone is talking about them so it prompts topics like that. About the only thing we can count on is a smartass remark by loaf.

**Heartless Angel** · 08-31-2017, 06:06 PM

Can't really blame the staff. Forums just aren't very popular anymore with the spread of social media. Fewer people are willing to sit down and write long thoughtful posts when other platforms are there just for people to vomit random single sentence thoughts all over everyone they've ever met, and anyone everyone they've ever met has ever met.

Add on to that, the decline of Final Fantasy itself. FF used to be the definitive JRPG (at least as far as what's available internationally. There are other that have always been more popular in Japan), but a lot of its fanbase has drifted away from it over the past decade of experimenting with changing the core gameplay of the franchise.

Whatever happens though, I'll still be here for you <3

**Rowan** · 08-31-2017, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by Heartless Angel

Can't really blame the staff. Forums just aren't very popular anymore with the spread of social media.

I disagree this time. While that may be true that forums aren't as popular, the bunch of staff we have here should be actively contributing. I'm gonna cop a lot of hate for this but its true. Using social media should make it easier to promote the website and create opportunities for new members and that should be one of their responsibilities. If what you are saying is true, then why is it that every other forum "both ff and non-ff related" are still hugely popular? I'm criticizing based on random decisions that have been made that have removed various features from the forum that old members are reminiscing about in threads created about what they miss.

**Heartless Angel** · 08-31-2017, 07:42 PM

Only forums I've seen that are still popular are things that my parents use, mostly because it's other old people who haven't caught on to social media yet. That isn't to say forums are totally dead, but the days of forums all over the web with thousands of active members has come and passed.

As for the missing features, I can actually explain that myself, as i used to admin an anime forum (which also died long ago). When vBulletin updates their software version, a lot of addons don't work anymore. Largely due to the decline of forum popularity, not as many people are developing and updating those addons, which is where you get things like clubs, our profile customization options, the arcade... etc. It's not that they were arbitrarily removed, just that the newer vB software doesn't support them

**Kurt Zisa** · 08-31-2017, 08:49 PM

Not having a near constant flow of newer members has hurt this place a lot, and the ones that do stick around don't for long. I can accept my share of the blame on that as a longish-time member, if you look through the introduction threads from the past year how many have more than 5 replies? The newbies who do introduce themselves aren't met with much enthusiasm most of the time. But at the same time, we're not all high school or college students anymore, we don't spend all day here like we used to. Not to mention I'm nowhere near as passionate about FF as I used to be.

I'm on break atm so this is probably incoherent garbage but the point I was trying to make was: little to no newbies + old timers with busy schedules don't mix. I'll probably rewrite this whole thing when I get home.

**Spooniest** · 09-01-2017, 03:25 AM

It would really disturb me if I actually managed to make enough progress in life to the point where I didn't have time to check tff and other forums once a day...mostly they are dead as crap, yeah. There's stuff people could try but people are tired of their new toy, the internet, they just want to eat and have a roof over their head and dumb normal boring stuff that everyone needs/wants/etc. Humans are human, and sometimes they just lose interest in non essential things, foruming and FF among them. What you have, instead, is the hardcore forumers who will just stick around no matter what.

SHRUG...I just keep rocking.

**loaf** · 09-02-2017, 12:17 PM

My friend runs (and has run) fan websites similar to TFF. For Zelda and general gaming (they are successful, VERY successful). Their forums are DEAD but the website isn't, the community isn't...just the forums. Forums are a dying thing in an age people want to click and article and comment on it and be done with it. Majority of people want to spend their time searching on a forums.

One of his sites doesn't even have a forums anymore. The one he sold has a forums and active because the Zelda community is THAT active. FF community = FF online.

**Pete** · 09-03-2017, 04:36 AM

And to be honest, a lot of people originally came here because information wasn't as easily accessible, and Final Fantasy was both bigger and smaller at the same time. Info was harder to come by, so joining forums made sense. Now you can literally just go on Twitter and ask the developers directly.

It's also not really helping that FF doesn't have the same clout or excitement that it once did. 7 through 10 all garnered almost a fever pitch of excitement, plus the games came out in a fairly short period of time, followed by Kingdom Hearts, which was also really successful and a cool concept. Now, we have all this news back when FFXV was coming out, how it took like 10 years and three systems and was somewhat successful but more disappointing for a game that took as long as it did to come out.

There's also things like Facebook, where you can just have groups and chats, plus literally everyone is on it.

**Taco-Calamitous** · 09-05-2017, 09:45 PM

Life happens. People move on. Things change.

TFF is never gonna be the same as it once was. It wasn't the same in 2005 as it was in 2001, it wasn't the same in 2009 as it was in 2006, it isn't the same now as it was in 2011. It wasn't the site, it was the people who visited, and most of them don't do this stuff anymore.

Fricken' Andromeda was crazy, man. He had something like a 70 hour work week, and he STILL devoted all this time to this place. I imagine he got burnt out eventually, heh... Cain Highwind was here forever, too, until he wasn't. There was a lot of that 2001 crowd that got tired of this place really fast though, heh. Spekkio was like "I'm too old for this now" when he was like 19, lol.

And that's the thing, yeah. Those people were young. Forums were the thing for young nerds. I don't even know what young nerds do anymore, but it probably involves Steam and Discord, or something.

It's a time that's come and gone, pretty much.

**SOLDIER #819** · 09-05-2017, 11:17 PM

I miss the days when post counts mattered and I looked forward to the next Final Fantasy. Now it's all Reddit (apparently on the way out?) and comments sections for games. If the staff have really stopped supporting this site I don't think I'd have too much trouble sympathizing.

God I feel old.

**Andromeda** · 09-09-2017, 04:38 PM

I'm still alive. ^^ Though admittedly I've been absent for a really long time. My personal life has been significantly more complicated and busy in the last year, which has made my ability to stay on top of things really poor. I've been failing to do the one thing that I tried to own on here, the FF/RPG news. I had a little burst a little bit back. But it's gotten harder because of some weirdness with some bug with the uploading of image attachments. So I end up having to do the uploading on a different computer and write it on another. But yeah, most of my purpose around the forums for the last few years has just been keeping the news running since that's about the only thing I can directly control and keep moving. Though with that becoming more difficult it fell off. I do need to get back in that habit. It's been a while since I even had the forums loaded in my browser.

I keep telling myself I need to get back to making news posts. The overhead of it gets daunting since I'm really behind on posting all of the things I know. Sort of resigned myself to when I get back on top of it to just starting from that day rather than a back log and acting like nothing's changed.

This place is hardly a thread to explain my personal life. However, many of you have known me for many years or a decade plus now. So if you are interested, worried, concerned you can messaged me and I can speak about it. My blog post a few months back went into a good amount of detail about it. But yes, basically I finally started getting hit with the cliche phrase we all say when people disappear, life happened.

**OceanEyes28** · 09-10-2017, 03:59 PM

Hi S!!!

I check to make sure nothing blew up, but you are right that I do not post as often. I'll be honest, the topics that seem to get a lot of attention nowadays (I mean relatively lol) are the political arguments, and I do not have the mental energy to argue with like any of you (ily tho). Sooooo..... I care about this forum because it was a home for me for many years, and I met a lot of people who are still so dear to me through this community. But without the community, it's like talking into the wind. That's a cyclical problem, I get it. But I'm not capable of turning it around on my own, and I don't know anyone on staff who is. I dunno what to do, man!

**GypsyElder** · 09-10-2017, 11:02 PM

Originally Posted by Taco-Calamitous

Life happens. People move on. Things change.

TFF is never gonna be the same as it once was. It wasn't the same in 2005 as it was in 2001, it wasn't the same in 2009 as it was in 2006, it isn't the same now as it was in 2011. It wasn't the site, it was the people who visited, and most of them don't do this stuff anymore.

Fricken' Andromeda was crazy, man. He had something like a 70 hour work week, and he STILL devoted all this time to this place. I imagine he got burnt out eventually, heh... Cain Highwind was here forever, too, until he wasn't. There was a lot of that 2001 crowd that got tired of this place really fast though, heh. Spekkio was like "I'm too old for this now" when he was like 19, lol.

And that's the thing, yeah. Those people were young. Forums were the thing for young nerds. I don't even know what young nerds do anymore, but it probably involves Steam and Discord, or something.

It's a time that's come and gone, pretty much.

Yeah, I'm with Taco...

Also, it's one thing to get a flow of people in here and it's another to make people stay. Good luck. It's not the the forum or the staff--it's the internet. It has changed.

I'm just glad that the vets are always lurking here if you need them (for advice, to chat etc.)

**Alpha** · 09-11-2017, 04:36 AM

I still check in, and care about this place. But it's not like we're getting new members. We're older, and have less time for this, and there's limited new blood. The relative lack of activity is just a natural consequence.

That said, people have complained about inactivity literally the whole time I've been a member here.

**Taco-Calamitous** · 10-22-2017, 01:51 PM

I have it on good authority that Alpha is a liar and doesn't actually care. Like, about anything. He's a nihilist. What the fuck, Alpha?

**nix** · 10-22-2017, 06:18 PM

This place has been on life support for over a decade, not long after squaresoft and enix merged actually and started pumping out a diluted inferior product.

That and theres alot more other better games being released at a consistent level, nobodies arsed discussing games for long anymore, they just thumbs up/down and move onto the next.

Hard to replenish the forum member base when nobodies interested in chatting shit, at least not outside the social media giants.

Will this place ever be active again? no

Is it anybodies fault? no

**Meier Link** · 10-22-2017, 09:08 PM

Hmmmm what does the staff have to do with the amount of user based posts here? We are just members that have authority to resolve issues.

We have lives too. I don't post much because life has caught up with me and kept me busy for a while now. Yet I get my emails on notifications and moderate when needed.

Lack of activity has nothing to the with the staff. Forum upgrades have eliminated some older options and opened a plethora of other features, including linking to social media to draw traffic.

Instead of blaming the staff maybe you can open a thread you can open a thread to improve on the site. I'm not making this post as a staff member but as a member that has put 10 years of my life into this site.

I know some other staff members are constantly busy working not only in real life but here to control the spam bots and crap head users that isn't seen by the regular forum users. You don't see it and the staff is to be thanked for that.

Sorry for the rant. I am exhausted both physically and mentally.
Yet keep in mind we are just users who have chosen to work the site (for free mind you) and can't control everything.

In closing the site does not revolve around the staff it evolves around the user base. Want more activity then contribute more and enertact with the other members to encourage more activity.

I don't speak for the staff. This is my opinion as another member of this forum .

**LocoColt04** · 10-25-2017, 03:27 AM

I'm gonna play devil's advocate and side with Rowan here.

While I wouldn't say that it's our responsibility to reactively, proactively, and retroactively breathe life into these forums as none of us are being paid to do this, I will agree that our absence is certainly jarring for any new members who wander in and only see a couple people posting. At this point in time, our entire moderation team could be one person and we'd still survive so long as that one person manages to come on and deal with bots now and again. It's that knowledge that has certainly impacted the frequency of my own visits which, candidly, is a really shitty non-motivator.

I'm not going to sit here and write out another "I promise to do better" post. I can't and won't make that promise. Now, if we want to consider another rebrand... obviously, Final Fantasy is our core and without rebranding the entire website, that cannot really change. But we can simplify and streamline the forums once more. Reduce clutter and broaden our horizons again. Attempt to capture a broader audience by resuming news posts - I can add more users to the usergroup with news posting rights, and we can do away with the guidelines for how articles are written. We can work as a collaborative unit to share news about anything videogame-oriented that excites us, rather than sticking solely to SQEX and JRPG news.

But it all boils down to volunteer work. How much time do you have on your hands? I sit in traffic anywhere from 95-210 minutes per day thanks to the glorious delight that is Portland Metro traffic. Time that I spent on the internet, including this lovely place, is now spent behind the wheel. And it's been that way for me for over two years now. Was I already faltering in my visits back then? Yes. Do I often think about this place and how I should log in and post? Also yes. And if any of you can say yes to the prior rhetorical question, maybe that's all it takes. Hell, if we can even just pick a single day of the week to remember to come in, say hello, and post something fresh, that alone could be enough to prod at that activity meter just a bit. It has to start somewhere.

But, Rowan, the others aren't wrong either. By and large, most forums are dead simply because they lack the flexibility and infrastructure of Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Everyone wants bite-sized information.

**Dawezy** · 11-23-2017, 08:41 PM

Feels like I delete advertising posts and sort out bots a couple times a week now, it's slowed down from what it used to be like but it's still happening.

This is my home away from home I'll be damned if I allow the mess from bots pile up o_o/