'Dungeon Master: YOU are the hero!'

[boyflea]

Hi all,
FYI - this has been a lot of fun - but I'll have to be offline for a while now due to real-world commitments.

In the meantime I would like to include these (partially-vetted) reports, giving an overview of the site at the beginning of 2015:
Overall, this site is in very good health, considering its age.

ANALYTICS:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tcndnjm841l5e ... .xlsx?dl=0
Since then of course, we continue to see a strong influx of new users.

SURVEY:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BVZNQPY

This is a generic poll to understand user-behaviour - it's simply a curio to get a feel for users old and new.
NB: DO NOT EXPECT THIS POLL TO BE USED TO CHANGE OR AMEND THE CURRENT SITE.
This is for me, not for the moderators.

I'll be back in a while to give an update on the survey, [if this post is still here ].

Until then, thanks for all the many hours of gaming - perhaps one day I'll finish Dark Reign 2 - which is an absolute marriage of joy and pain.

[Ameena]

Did the survey. Had to pick the "Other" option on the "How did you first play DM" question as the nearest option otherwise was "Bought the original". Being about four or five years old at the time, this wasn't the case and I suspect some other people on here will be the same .

[Chaos-Shaman]

thy bidding is done, it's a good idea

[Sophia]

I had the same issue as Ameena but I put "Bought the original" because I figured someone in my family doing it was close enough.

[Ameena]

I considered doing that but wanted to give as accurate an answer as possible - I didn't personally buy our original copy of DM because I was barely three years old when it came out...though I'm not sure if my dad got it then or a year or two later, but either way I was a bit young to have any idea about going out and buying a computer game - I just played them when they showed up .

[Chaos-Shaman]

hooked the first time playing it, so were my children watching me play it on the old tube TV. at the time to buy DM was like $70, and an Amiga expansion floppy drive was $350. was so hooked on it that I stopped showing up to the dart league. miss those days sitting in front of the TV playing DM with the family in stereo.

[Saumun]

Did the survey.

[boyflea]

Thanks for the feedback... interesting so far. I promise to post the results in a couple of months time, give the polls chance to get enough data in.
And by all means: if it does not fit fully with the options, please do add your own.

[boyflea]

Hi all,
the results are in: hope you find this interesting. X

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vl97uonjna9wp ... .xlsx?dl=0

[Jan]

Wow, good job! Well done! I'm sorry I wasn't around to participate.

By the way, what was the turnout? I don't seem to be able to find it anywhere in the file.

[Gambit37]

Thanks Dave for all your efforts on this. I've had a quick look and it does seem that there's little new interest in DM and these forums: it's mostly us old timers.

The supposed "influx of new users" doesn't really seem to be there, unless they are all lurkers. Honestly, if you lurk and don't engage, please re-consider: Forums live through the contributions of all members. If very few people are contributing, it does send a message that is hard to ignore.

[Chaos-Shaman]

yes, thanks Dave. it was a great attempt to wire up the community. I can assure you that this old timer has not given up. i tried and failed to get the community to move together. going through years of messages i can see it was futile. i''m still screwing around, learning on my own since nobody else is interested in DM accept us few. the last example i sent you, much has been done messing with it since. it is completely turned into an interactive engine, combining the AI with Pathfinding has really made the difference, i only wish the engine was 3D because quite frankly it is better in some ways thank Unity engines. i have plenty of questions still, probably plenty of answer too depending on ones needs. it's up to the community now. maybe if we all built up a bon fire and toast some marsh mellows and stare up at the night sky and think once again how DM has affected our lives, drink from the wine skin and plan a way into Mt Anaias. as any great hero will tell us, there has to be a way.

[boyflea]

Hi, thinking about this, there were only about 20 responses:
Either no-one is interested, no new-blood wants to participate or it simply became too hidden:
Given that there are STILL a lot of new members and traffic, would not wish to review this survey in isolation as I don't believe no-one is interested in DM.

perhaps there is a way to promote this poll again and am happy to expand on these results if more responses come in:
could have just been hidden away for inexperienced users.
(Forum topics only stay at the top if responded too, so this is an issue with me posting findings here.)

Either way, perhaps it is best to view this result as 'how the old-guard got here' and act as a companion of the 'getting to know you' thread.

The survey is still live and I will happily update if people still want to use this, and all the other facts-and-figures to help gauge things in the DM community. happy to amend as well: replace with a new survey and evolve it a bit - felt the last two questions were a bit of a 'filler'

anyway, always happy to contribute - let us know if you need something: of course the tools here are all public-domain: if it sparks a debate or others to raise polls, act, etc, then this will all help get a clearer picture of where the audience are at.

If nothing else: tell your friends that DM lives and is a cool place to go visit sometime

x
DAVE

[Ameena]

I still tend to try and bring up DM with any new friends I make in the event that they'll be interested (or have actually heard of it and maybe even used to play it back in the day). I'm sure there are still people out there who knows of DM but haven't managed to discover this forum yet - maybe one day they'll end up here by some means or other .

[Jan]

Oh, I didn't know the survey was still open, good, goooood, I'll come later and take a look at it.

[cowsmanaut]

I'm debating sending out a global email. See how many people even care if this places still exists.. Honetly, these forums each have gone through cycles of this.. Ian's forum was dying out before it's time back in the early 2000 or 1999 or something.. DMJava also had it's forum begin to die out many years ago.. other start up projects have also suffered the same, where their forums died.. Often replaced by something new and it made it all go again.. one of the things this place did was incorporate many into one, and sort of adapt and make adjustments to it's identity over time.. allowing new areas to be created or expand, and others to merge or be shut down.. This organic nature may have been a factor in how long it's lived over all others.

Thing is, even with lurkers.. people only lurk and enjoy (or participate) when there are things to do and read.. I try to submit nonsense threads that are fun to participate in every once in a while, and there's nothing stopping anyone from sharing new cool stories and snippets of news here. There is a games section where people can post reviews of games they've been playing.. this forum was founded on games.. We can discuss topics of recent movies.. and we have really.. if you want this place to live on.. find a way to help it.

[boyflea]

That could be a really cool, and pro-active (as they say), move:
As you say, there is a lot of really good stuff here, some new, some old:

worth considering what the message could be to help bring in the lurkers.

In my mind;
- worth linking to where the latest forum updates are, to show new content is being created.
- Of course, link to the main emulator section
- Worth also linking to the 'classic fan dungeons' site - give something aspirational to everyone
- Also, perhaps find a way to promote the more ephemeral stuff: the DM art-style, for example, or magazine reviews, or spin-off games (like Grimrock) - maybe something for a facebook or twitter account to help out with (if only to give alerts to subscribers)

but this is just me thinking out-loud: Cowsmanaut is right and this site has been surviving a long long time... and all of this has been tried before of course - so what does the community think? these are not just actions for 1-2 people...

DAVE

[Gambit37]

I always had a lot of ideas for this place, but never quite enough commitment to put them into practice. I thought the homepage of the site (not the forum), would have benefited from a complete overhaul with a lot of the things BoyFlea just pointed out.

It's possible to still do all that, but it would take a fair bit of planning and execution. And unfortunately I don't have the time to do that any more, as I'm focused on other creative/life things, particularly things that will make me money. (I'm trying to build a self-susatining life from creative pursuits.)

I don't have any answers, and I definitely don't have any time, but I'll try and support anyone who has the ideas and the time to make positive changes.

[boyflea]

I agree.
That said... I got bored again and replicated the front-bit of the site, just to see what sort of options were about.

http://dungeonmastercom.weebly.com/

was fun, but is ultimately a throwaway thing: still learned a few things. If only there was a decent site-development tool about...

Anyway, erm... ??? gimmicks aside, not sure this does much

[Gambit37]

Are you calling me a tool?

Since web design and development is my day job, I'm probably the most qualified here to do the actual work of improving the site. Unfortunately as I already noted, I simply no longer have the time, as I'm developing a web template business which is all consuming at present and will be for at least the next year.

There is another project that I worked on years ago. This was to be a detailed historical look at the development of DM, with interviews from FTL. I never really got beyond the design and planning, I got too distracted by continually redesigning it as I got better at Photoshop. Crazy really. I still think about this project and I wonder if that could be the backbone of revamping this place? Of course, it was always a personal project, so I don't know how I'd feel if I were to pass it all on to someone else who has the time to do the actual work.

DM does deserve a bigger place in computer game history. Our forum honoured that for years and maybe that's enough. Or maybe we can collectively reboot interest by doing some of these new things?

[Jan]

Alright, I did the survey.

Of course, because I'm a "professionally deformed" geographer, I would be interested in the spatial differences of the survey results, I'd like to prepare some maps... but obviously the number of participants was too small for this and it wouldn't be statistically significant... and it's summer holidays anyway.

Looking at the "Analytics" figures... you did exclude Bewuuf as an "outlier", didn't you?

[boyflea]

Are you calling me a tool?

Now now - as if! Though I concede it was a less-than-subtle hint

DM does deserve a bigger place in computer game history. Our forum honoured that for years and maybe that's enough. Or maybe we can collectively reboot interest by doing some of these new things?

This is very true: I think that if DM ended tomorrow, everyone should feel proud.

I think I'm going to setup soemthign on the social media and link these through to bits I like... and happy to share these too; so the old site will remain effectievly teh same, but people get to call out their best bits or latest posts on a more global platform/s. [Basically a twitter I think ] And then... well, adding the occasional comment to a group media account is pretty low-maintenance... I'll go investigate.

[boyflea]

Ok, here it is...https://twitter.com/DungeonMasterDM
happy to share credentials if people want to contribute... but is it useful.. ?

[Gambit37]

Excellent idea to do a Twitter account, thanks for setting it up.

I'm on Twitter regularly, but never even thought to do an account for this site. It could help generate some traffic to our little forums. I'll respond in private message to get the credentials: I'm on Twitter enough that I could post on the DM account too, if you're happy with that? Plus I can do a nice banner and avatar (I'm not sure we should be using the FTL logo).

[cowsmanaut]

The main point of this place is indeed it's community.. it's a part of it's foundation. The unification of multiple forums and projects under one roof, and an array of moderators that have different views and styles.. That despite the occasional death match style argument.. has managed to work together and create a great wealth of topics and supplied a platform for creative engagement. Sadly, though the past years.. real life has happened to many of us.. those who were more unstoppable forces among us, have mellowed to near lurkers at points. and others have vanished in the wind. This has eroded the machine a little and it's going to require others to fill in some of those gaps. So, BoyFlea, your efforts here are greatly appreciated.

[Gambit37]

Just a reminder that if you're on Twitter, we now have a DM Forum twitter account, setup by Boyflea:
https://twitter.com/DungeonMasterDM

I log in from time to time to post DM related things. At the moment, I've only posted links to a few articles/youtubes and some ebay DM items. Perhaps we could collectively get into the habit of posting links to articles from the DM Encyclopaedia? That might generate some interest, although that would be sending people to the wrong site...

[Ameena]

I'm not on Twitter, or Facebook, or any of those, so can't comment as to the effectiveness of those things in generating interest in our little corner of the Internet. It's nice when new people join though, even if they did just presumably see the forum title and assume we're all about DnD DMs rather than FTL's DM .

[Jan]

I'm not on Twitter, or Facebook

It's the same with me. I certainly don't need another time-waster. Although my students are pressing me hard to these things.