Inactive Members/Lack of Posting

[Braeden]

Ok, i have noticed that there is a lack of posts, 1500 members and not a single post for 4 days? On another forum i am a part of there is a post about every 3 minutes, using math, or even logic this forum should atleast get a post every 10 hours and 33 minutes on average. Is it because inactive members on the forums? I would like to know whats the problem.

EDIT - Ok i did my calculations wrong, but those arent the point.

[Young Dragon]

Yes, Well i once asked the same thing and well its just that its an oldish game and im shure* that many of the old members stopped using it or somthing like that... 

[DM8954]

There are less than 170 members with more than 5 posts on this board and less than 50 truly 'active members' in the last year. I think I can safely say that there are less than 20 people left on the boards that still check in regularly. Things have really gotten slow the past few months. It's pretty sad to see and worse than I would expect.

I figured we'd get less busy after this long but all the conversations have just died down. I'm not quite sure how to improve the situation.



By the way, the reason for most of the inactive members came from only about a week or so of mandatory registration. That was Lots of guests signed up in order to view the site, never posted, and never came back... at least not on the same user name. So, the numbers are misleading.

Still, I wish things would pick up again.

[Braeden]

And now I see that the active members aren't posting because there's nothing to post about. I've been looking around, I haven't found a oblivion forum much better than this. I wouldn't think the problem is that the game is outdated, 2 years or something like that. The forum I mentioned in the first post is about a 2002 game, hell I'm part of a Age of Empires I forum, the game was made in 1997! The problem is that the few active members that are on the site don't post. If the few active members stay active and post, there will be more to post about giving the partly inactive members something to post getting the site more active members which could possibly  acquire new active users.

[Igiss]

Yes... true, not much activity lately. It's been even worse from time to time, but things improved. It's a gradual process, and summer is usually a silent season for this place.

Also true that the game is relatively dated... won't say there were many better singleplayer RPGs in the recent years, but most people now play online (me included, although Age of Conan subscription ends today and I'll take a break from MMOs). Most active users involved into Oblivion are modders or those who use/try many mods, and they prefer to stick to sites (or, to be precise, the site) that provide(s) most mod downloads. We, on the other hand, don't have any.

[Young Dragon]

Well Mod downloads sounds like a great way to get more users or atleast get more activity.

[DM8954]

These forums aren't really set up for that sort of thing and it could get expensive to host all the huge files. Besides all that, I doubt that we could compete with the site that has 95% of all Oblivion mods on it.

Now, I really think it would be good to at least start talking about mods more, since that's the true lifeblood keeping the Oblivion community alive. I'm currently working on a few different mods. The problem is, the one I'm working on now, is just an update to someone else's mod. I'm not supposed to release any screenshots or anything until it's time to release it. Maybe then I could show off my work a little, but that would feel more like bragging and 'advertising' to me.

If anyone is interested in discussing some mods... start a thread or help me come up with ideas for what to talk about. Someone could just pick a mod they downloaded and tell us about it. We've also had lots of mod ideas come up in the past... people just never seemed interested in actually modding them into reality.

If there is anyone left out there that reads this board AND is interested in actually creating mods, speak up. We can all help you brainstorm ideas to get you started and myself and a few others should be able to help you learn what you need to in the CS. I'd suggest starting out with a few tutorials but if you run into any snags, I'll do my best to help.

[Paragon]

I'm one of those few members that check (nearly) every day and will regularly post....although it is typically in the screenshot competition. I agree with the suggestion that the reason for lack of posts is probably the lack of things to post about. I personally have never gotten into modding. I'm not opposed to it, but as a mom with two kids time never seems to be on my side.

I love the game but because my main character has "been there and done that" with everything, I don't get on it except to capture a screenshot for the contests. I also agree with the summer thing. Seems harder to be in front of the computer...unless of course it's simply too hot out to do anything.

I really like this forum and have often tried to come up with discussion ideas that I could post. I love the game and recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in RPG's, along with recommending this site to help inspire their interest.  I know that alot of members are probably viewing the forum while at work or on some other computer which does not hold their game. For that reason, any new discussion topic should be something that doesn't require game access....at least this is the conversation I have with myself. 

I've seen other sites have fan fiction or light role play....has that been done here before?  Hell I've even thought about posting an in-game scavenger hunt. But as soon as the first person posts the location of an item the topic would be dead until a new one was added (too much maintenance seems to me).

Ok, that was my 2 cents.

[DM8954]

[Speaking of screenshots, there are only about 30 hours left to get in your entries for this one. I gotta take one tonight.]

I generally do check the boards during down time at work, so we should definitely take that into consideration for some of our ideas. I don't think we should hold back on additional ideas if they don't fit into that category of discussion, though.

I don't think they've done any role playing on these boards. I've heard it suggested before but it hasn't really come together yet. I don't know how much interest is left but it could be worth a try if you, or anyone else, would like to start one. I don't think I would be joining in for such activities but I support the idea of it.


Slightly different from your scavenger hunt, maybe there could be a short, simple mod that adds a few unique items to find and clues on how to get there. Adding 3 items and a few clues would make for an extremely small file to download but could turn into an interesting little game. It would be a sort of cross between modding and a forum competition.

The part that would take the most time would be in thinking up the clues and item locations to create a challenging course. This isn't the sort of thing just one person could keep doing as a recurring competition. We could challenge a large group of modders to each make their own, with a few rules and constraints. Depending on how many we get and how long it takes to go through them, we could have competitions to see who is the fastest at going through each one. Maybe every 2 weeks a new hunt is released and we have a race to see who can do it in the least in-game time. [Maybe included in the mod download is a common save-game so that everyone starts in the same location with the same stats]

Then, after we've played enough of these mods, (all of them if there are only a few, 5 or 10 if there are many) we can take a vote on which one was the most fun or most creative. Every entry is it's own competition but there is also a modding competition at the end of it all.

[Young Dragon]

Adding one to the idea for a mod involving a few items to find you could try an idea for finding a needle in a haystack, mabey looking for a Jack-o-lantern in the many pumkin patch's, or a missing crystal skull in a necro cave...