Off-Topic Discussions

On an outside chance, did you happen to get involved with Playdom's Mobsters back then at MySpace? I did 5 hard years in that game and spent more money on it than I could ever truly justify. That game got freakin ruthless.

nnooooppee, I've made a point to stay away from the whole mobile/ online social media game thing.

Yes, i think you're right. But personally i don't spend time on them anymore and i can't figure the ones who spend their whole day on em out either!
i mean the addiction is getting pretty serious, nowadays when i hang out with my friends, all the heads are in the cellphone and i'm standing there shouting on em! it gets me mad so bad!

This is what PWiz said back when the social side first started slowing, I wasn't convinced that was the reason then, but I think that I am now.

I'm a new member. I have no idea what this website was like more than a few months ago.
If the community has decreased that much in size, perhaps it is an idea to 'socialize' CH? Like & share buttons, youtube vids with links to the site, etc...
Or would game developers get upset?

the community has not decreased in size, it has grown quite a lot.

It is member activity on the message boards that has gone down considerably over the last 5-7 years.

Ah, sorry dstates, I misunderstood.

I think it would be difficult to get more activity on the boards. Messageboards have become a lot less popular throughout the years. What would probably be the best way to make the boards more popular is by integrating facebook. Replies to topic would go through a Facebook API, can be (auto-)shared to a person's status update, things like that.

More than anything it seems to me we just need more people starting topics people are willing to talk about. Like I said earlier, every time I checked back here back in the day I would have to catch up on 1-5 pages worth of topics. And now I can wait a week before coming back and only find 2 new topics. Both of which do have active participants, but the topic is usually some general question that gets answered early on. I think we have thousands of active lurkers who just don't see anything as worth their time contributing too.

This may be pushing it a little but I think a lot of it might have to do with the Law running around. We have great moderators who are phenomenal at their job, but it almost feels like a police state to me. In the sense that they are sitting there judging everything said deeming it worthy or not. Back before there was an Off Topic Discussion board it was similar to the wild west. There was one pub everyone gathered at and it may have been a little smelly and disturbing but hot damn if it wasn't an exciting place to mingle. Johnny Law was still around but he hung out at the courthouse getting drunk with his deputy until things got really out of hand and had to step in, just to haul off the town miscreant, lock the topic, and then letting everyone get back to business as usual.

Everytime I talk about this I feel like my grandpa reminiscing about WWII and I'm only 23.. A thought just struck me, a realization even. That wild west was populated by what was largely a swarm of young teenagers. Now days, and I'd be curious of actual statistics if available, I'd bet the average age of the user of this site is mid to high 20's? In which case it's likely not the website that has gotten more boring but us as the users in general because none of us are as energetic or creative as we once were... well that's slightly depressing thought so I'm gunna go drink a beer and smoke a bowl.