Original Post
Forum Incentives
I was reading through this thread that was posted earlier this year by Ancient, and I wanted to touch on an aspect of it that seemed very overlooked. That being forum activity, which seemed to just be taken for granted in the discussion and presumed as the forums are dead because users do not use forums anymore, while I believe its because of a lack of drive.
https://forum.toribash.com/showthread.php?t=653958
I will firstly explain my suggestion, and then go into more detail as to why I think it could be a viable addition to the game.
Forum Incentives : More specifically, something that will create demand for mostly newer players to visit the forums. This could be something like the client TC login bonus, but in a forum visit. Or something that can be decided upon the future. But paired with an actual marketing push I believe it could drive a wave of players to the game over time.
I started playing in 2013, after nearly maybe a year or so I was kinda tired with it and ready to throw in the towel, and then I discovered the forums. Upon opening the forum I was presented with a plethora of various communities in the form of organizations, clan channels that were brimming with activity to where you couldn't refresh the page without there being a new post. The replay thread opened my eyes to an entirely different side of replaymaking, and the general sense of community was nothing short of amazing and I met a lot of great friends through the forum that I would have never had the chance to interact with in-game.
What happened?
Well, you can say in this day in age, maybe the forum type of communication is something of the past.
But that can''t be true, I take place in various other online forums that are still very active to this day, some even more obscure than something like Toribash. Which, let me remind you, is a game where there are *infinite* possibilities regarding how you want to move.
Where does that leave us? Well, I feel as if shortly(1-2years) after Steam Greenlight of Toribash, forum activity had started to fall completely from the activity level it was at before hand.
Source: Google Trends "Toribash" Interest over time.
I would like to comment on long, consistent wave of activity from through 2007-2013. In this time, Toribash was still new, just as hard as it was today, but there were a few differences.
1.) Forums were brimming with activity
2.) Small/bigger youtubers such as MOFF and Chilled Chaos brought people to the game in herds, not to mention an IGN video it was featured in.
*side note* Marketing through smaller youtubers to advertise your game would be a great option still today.
This was all before greenlight and the peak of its activity, so why after that did it rapidly decline?
Let's all be honest we all would have stopped playing this game if there was not a large community fostered around it, and as the forums started to die throughout 2015-16 I believe this was a large part of the inactivity of newer players that had no real incentive to keep them playing.
Personally, I have never been a fan of the environment of the Toribash discord. It is unorganized, sloppy compared to the forums, and is not the correct place that should foster the main portion of the community. Why would you stray from the countless opportunities to create monetization through your actual forum and instead push your community to gather onto a 3rd party platform.
This is an opinion supported by staff. As upon trying to revive a still-viable forum that was once very popular known as "The Tricktionary," which provides toribash examples of irl tricks to users, I was presented with the comment.
"Well, the thing is it would just be better on Discord."
no hate, just saying it shouldnt be completely overlooked
Final comments: It is stupid to foster a community on a 3rd party service like Discord and there should be an actual attempt to push for forum activity. The forum could be a very overlooked and underutilized tool for player retention.
Discord should have replaced the IRC, not the forums in its entirety.
https://forum.toribash.com/showthread.php?t=653958
I will firstly explain my suggestion, and then go into more detail as to why I think it could be a viable addition to the game.
Forum Incentives : More specifically, something that will create demand for mostly newer players to visit the forums. This could be something like the client TC login bonus, but in a forum visit. Or something that can be decided upon the future. But paired with an actual marketing push I believe it could drive a wave of players to the game over time.
I started playing in 2013, after nearly maybe a year or so I was kinda tired with it and ready to throw in the towel, and then I discovered the forums. Upon opening the forum I was presented with a plethora of various communities in the form of organizations, clan channels that were brimming with activity to where you couldn't refresh the page without there being a new post. The replay thread opened my eyes to an entirely different side of replaymaking, and the general sense of community was nothing short of amazing and I met a lot of great friends through the forum that I would have never had the chance to interact with in-game.
What happened?
Well, you can say in this day in age, maybe the forum type of communication is something of the past.
But that can''t be true, I take place in various other online forums that are still very active to this day, some even more obscure than something like Toribash. Which, let me remind you, is a game where there are *infinite* possibilities regarding how you want to move.
Where does that leave us? Well, I feel as if shortly(1-2years) after Steam Greenlight of Toribash, forum activity had started to fall completely from the activity level it was at before hand.
Source: Google Trends "Toribash" Interest over time.
I would like to comment on long, consistent wave of activity from through 2007-2013. In this time, Toribash was still new, just as hard as it was today, but there were a few differences.
1.) Forums were brimming with activity
2.) Small/bigger youtubers such as MOFF and Chilled Chaos brought people to the game in herds, not to mention an IGN video it was featured in.
*side note* Marketing through smaller youtubers to advertise your game would be a great option still today.
This was all before greenlight and the peak of its activity, so why after that did it rapidly decline?
Let's all be honest we all would have stopped playing this game if there was not a large community fostered around it, and as the forums started to die throughout 2015-16 I believe this was a large part of the inactivity of newer players that had no real incentive to keep them playing.
Personally, I have never been a fan of the environment of the Toribash discord. It is unorganized, sloppy compared to the forums, and is not the correct place that should foster the main portion of the community. Why would you stray from the countless opportunities to create monetization through your actual forum and instead push your community to gather onto a 3rd party platform.
This is an opinion supported by staff. As upon trying to revive a still-viable forum that was once very popular known as "The Tricktionary," which provides toribash examples of irl tricks to users, I was presented with the comment.
"Well, the thing is it would just be better on Discord."
no hate, just saying it shouldnt be completely overlooked
Final comments: It is stupid to foster a community on a 3rd party service like Discord and there should be an actual attempt to push for forum activity. The forum could be a very overlooked and underutilized tool for player retention.
Discord should have replaced the IRC, not the forums in its entirety.
Last edited by Chilledon; Dec 7, 2022 at 08:12 PM.
[My Replays] | [Aether] | [PM Me For Request Mods] | [Tricktionary]
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Originally Posted by Chilledon
Forum Incentives : More specifically, something that will create demand for mostly newer players to visit the forums. This could be something like the client TC login bonus, but in a forum visit. Or something that can be decided upon the future. But paired with an actual marketing push I believe it could drive a wave of players to the game over time.
What is the benefit of driving users to the forum?
Originally Posted by Chilledon
Personally, I have never been a fan of the environment of the Toribash discord. It is unorganized, sloppy compared to the forums, and is not the correct place that should foster the main portion of the community. Why would you stray from the countless opportunities to create monetization through your actual forum and instead push your community to gather onto a 3rd party platform.
How can the forum be further monetized?
Originally Posted by Corey
What is the benefit of driving users to the forum?
How can the forum be further monetized?
Take a look at this this article
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/are-fo...uable-resource
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Indonesian? | Magical Mode!
Chronoptic energy bursts from one plane to the other, evaporating anything it touches.
Indonesian? | Magical Mode!
Chronoptic energy bursts from one plane to the other, evaporating anything it touches.
There are a few good points here so I will respond to them individually.
Well, I always saw the forum as a more "official" landing page for anything Toribash. As I explained in the OP, I believe newer players entering an environment like this would be conducive to larger player retention over time. I believe Discord is not helpful to beginners as 90% of replays are glanced over or foreshadowed by random conversations. The forum is in a position to either die out entirely or actually become a useful tool and meeting place again. With a coordinated efforted by the active community and staff we could see this happen.
It just hurts to see a game that is so creative be overshadowed by its lack of community and help towards newer players, which is definitely not reflected in the Discord environment.
I am a computer networking major, so I wont claim to know the ins and outs of marketing entirely. But having ran a family business for years, the one thing I can tell you is where ever there is a large group of people gathered, there can be many methods to monetize it.
Furthermore, the monetization could come from overall activity based of forum visits. Game activity going up over time would lead to more newer players getting some of the microtransactions.
The point about reports and and issues that need to be resolved with staff, I believe discord could be a great tool for that. There could even be a "contact" section or something that would lead you right to the reports channel or something.
But as far as replay threads, clan chats, event threads, etc. I have no problem with them not being in a chat message environment. It is neat to add on to a thread and go about your day instead of having to divulge in a drawnout conversation in discord, or having to scroll back up hours later when i want to see if anyone commented on a replay.
This kind of mindset from staff actually makes me sad. To see something once so amazing and something with what I believe could be a second opportunity for activity over time being referred to as an "Archive."
Have we ever thought of why this is? Literally there is still nothing else out there like toribash, the closing thing would probably be Endorphin and even that is a stretch. By its own merit of being so unique, Toribash should have atleast a somewhat active playerbase compared to the golden years.
Are people just too obsessed with triple A games nowadays? Maybe. Are there better games around that spoonfeed you every tutorial you need? Maybe. Was Toribash not marketed properly after greenlight causing it to die? Maybe. Is there a disconnect between the community and the staff? Maybe. But there is still nothing that exists like Toribash and with the proper ad campaigns I believe staff could push to see a new wave of activity and retention.
To clarify, using "staff" in my original post was more so an attempt to not to call anyone out by name, rather than to reflect the ideas as staff in its entirety. As far as the Tricktionary, I would definitely be interested in talking more about this aspect. I believe with the tricking community in Toribash still somewhat active, this could be a great resource that would lead to *slightly* increased forum activity among that subset of the community.
All in all, I see the forums as a great option for the main place of everything Toribash. Other games still have very active forums in the day-in-age of discord(Star Citizen, for example.) The way I see it in my eyes, community is everything about this game. We can either keep pushing them all away to discord or either create a better environment for the newer players trying to learn your game to actually thrive. I see this as even more important since the release of Toribash Next is under development, and this new wave of players will be first introduced to a unorganized discord filled with random chats, wibbles, and banter not conclusive to the main thread.
My suggestion all-in-all is not groundbreaking. Implement something like the in-game TC bonus into the forums. Not much TC at all but something that will give newer users the knowledge that the forum is even here. Upon visiting to get their TC bonus, they get to see all the various sections of the forum and be exposed to areas of Toribash they would have not discovered.
Originally Posted by Corey
What is the benefit of driving users to the forum?
Well, I always saw the forum as a more "official" landing page for anything Toribash. As I explained in the OP, I believe newer players entering an environment like this would be conducive to larger player retention over time. I believe Discord is not helpful to beginners as 90% of replays are glanced over or foreshadowed by random conversations. The forum is in a position to either die out entirely or actually become a useful tool and meeting place again. With a coordinated efforted by the active community and staff we could see this happen.
It just hurts to see a game that is so creative be overshadowed by its lack of community and help towards newer players, which is definitely not reflected in the Discord environment.
Originally Posted by Corey
How can the forum be further monetized?
I am a computer networking major, so I wont claim to know the ins and outs of marketing entirely. But having ran a family business for years, the one thing I can tell you is where ever there is a large group of people gathered, there can be many methods to monetize it.
Furthermore, the monetization could come from overall activity based of forum visits. Game activity going up over time would lead to more newer players getting some of the microtransactions.
Originally Posted by list
There's no point waiting around for hours & days for the appropriate people to come around and respond to your messages. I've resolved matters over discord in 5 minutes that would've otherwise taken over 48 hours in the forums. IRC was a substitute and again mind you I was and am a big fan but Discord just provides a range of features that are more convenient in every way imaginable. For this very reason, Toribash forums will remain as an archive for most purposes and seldom entertain posts that require some legroom to stay up for a while (such as events, rules etc).
The point about reports and and issues that need to be resolved with staff, I believe discord could be a great tool for that. There could even be a "contact" section or something that would lead you right to the reports channel or something.
But as far as replay threads, clan chats, event threads, etc. I have no problem with them not being in a chat message environment. It is neat to add on to a thread and go about your day instead of having to divulge in a drawnout conversation in discord, or having to scroll back up hours later when i want to see if anyone commented on a replay.
Originally Posted by list
For this very reason, Toribash forums will remain as an archive for most purposes and seldom entertain posts that require some legroom to stay up for a while (such as events, rules etc).
This kind of mindset from staff actually makes me sad. To see something once so amazing and something with what I believe could be a second opportunity for activity over time being referred to as an "Archive."
Originally Posted by Link
Also, toribash is actually dying.
Have we ever thought of why this is? Literally there is still nothing else out there like toribash, the closing thing would probably be Endorphin and even that is a stretch. By its own merit of being so unique, Toribash should have atleast a somewhat active playerbase compared to the golden years.
Are people just too obsessed with triple A games nowadays? Maybe. Are there better games around that spoonfeed you every tutorial you need? Maybe. Was Toribash not marketed properly after greenlight causing it to die? Maybe. Is there a disconnect between the community and the staff? Maybe. But there is still nothing that exists like Toribash and with the proper ad campaigns I believe staff could push to see a new wave of activity and retention.
Originally Posted by list
Sometimes messages from people in staff positions are assumed to represent the entirety of staff, that is not always the case. We would like to make it clear that we are not against a forum tricktionary as we see no downsides to the suggestion.
To clarify, using "staff" in my original post was more so an attempt to not to call anyone out by name, rather than to reflect the ideas as staff in its entirety. As far as the Tricktionary, I would definitely be interested in talking more about this aspect. I believe with the tricking community in Toribash still somewhat active, this could be a great resource that would lead to *slightly* increased forum activity among that subset of the community.
All in all, I see the forums as a great option for the main place of everything Toribash. Other games still have very active forums in the day-in-age of discord(Star Citizen, for example.) The way I see it in my eyes, community is everything about this game. We can either keep pushing them all away to discord or either create a better environment for the newer players trying to learn your game to actually thrive. I see this as even more important since the release of Toribash Next is under development, and this new wave of players will be first introduced to a unorganized discord filled with random chats, wibbles, and banter not conclusive to the main thread.
My suggestion all-in-all is not groundbreaking. Implement something like the in-game TC bonus into the forums. Not much TC at all but something that will give newer users the knowledge that the forum is even here. Upon visiting to get their TC bonus, they get to see all the various sections of the forum and be exposed to areas of Toribash they would have not discovered.
Last edited by Chilledon; Dec 9, 2022 at 04:07 PM.
[My Replays] | [Aether] | [PM Me For Request Mods] | [Tricktionary]
[Static] | [Xioi] | [♥2WC♥] | [iFred] | [Oblivion]
[Static] | [Xioi] | [♥2WC♥] | [iFred] | [Oblivion]
I appreciate the motive to want to "revive" forum activity. Trust me when I say my undying love for the forums - I will carry to my grave. This could be for numerous reasons mostly stemming form the attachment that manifested during childhood and my teen years, the sense of community and gaming, mixing with people online was birthed right here in this community. I am also in agreement that discord does not hit right.
However, it is important to recognize the reason it doesn't hit right is because we share an unconventional attachment with the forums which leads us to seek organization in places where it is in the modern day deemed unnecessary. If we were to delve into the multitude of reasons why discord takes precedence over the forums, it'd be a long conversation to say the least. There's no point waiting around for hours & days for the appropriate people to come around and respond to your messages. I've resolved matters over discord in 5 minutes that would've otherwise taken over 48 hours in the forums. IRC was a substitute and again mind you I was and am a big fan but Discord just provides a range of features that are more convenient in every way imaginable. For this very reason, Toribash forums will remain as an archive for most purposes and seldom entertain posts that require some legroom to stay up for a while (such as events, rules etc).
Its solely reliant if the management team decides the forum to serve a purpose for functionality and / or entertainment it currently cannot bear, which is highly unlikely.
However, it is important to recognize the reason it doesn't hit right is because we share an unconventional attachment with the forums which leads us to seek organization in places where it is in the modern day deemed unnecessary. If we were to delve into the multitude of reasons why discord takes precedence over the forums, it'd be a long conversation to say the least. There's no point waiting around for hours & days for the appropriate people to come around and respond to your messages. I've resolved matters over discord in 5 minutes that would've otherwise taken over 48 hours in the forums. IRC was a substitute and again mind you I was and am a big fan but Discord just provides a range of features that are more convenient in every way imaginable. For this very reason, Toribash forums will remain as an archive for most purposes and seldom entertain posts that require some legroom to stay up for a while (such as events, rules etc).
Its solely reliant if the management team decides the forum to serve a purpose for functionality and / or entertainment it currently cannot bear, which is highly unlikely.
