subject disversity(?)

I don't even recall having the ballsy tendencies to ever come out and say anything regarding the status and providing any ideas but hey, what the hell. I'll go for it:

One of the things that have been thinking about while being part of this place for a while came about once the whole merging of Miraigamer to the tribute site forums thing began. Could it be possible to change the whole structure of the forum to fit a wider spectrum of indie game-relevant topics? As we all know, Cave Story is a game that is slowly aging year after year, and unfortunately the game is losing it's touch with current media standards. I'm not saying to abort ship and change things just for the demographic, but if there ever was a goal to obtain the same amount of active members like how we did in mirai, perhaps broadening out our spectrum wouldn't be such a bad idea? Doing so could potentially sustain life of the forum and perhaps allow more staff and a new generation of members within the next 5 or so years.

"Undertale" is one of those indie games that has gained high traffic of attention; if not more than what Cave Story got over the years of being around. If the forum were to not specifically focus on one particular subject (being Cave Story), perhaps more people who are interested in the "current indie fad" would feel more humbled and welcomed to the community. Yes, we have the indie game section of the forum where people can talk about such things, but why not make that the main focus entirely instead?

I might just be talking out of my delirious ass, but it's just a given thought. To see a "Miraigamer 2" is a fantasy, and considering how we're having older veterans coming back occasionally just rings a new awakening.

Any thoughts about the idea? Does it sound outlandish or considerable? Your call..

**I still love this place as it is, and if it doesn't change that's absolutely fine.

 

One of the things I've noticed about this place is that no matter how old Cave Story gets, this place always seems to get a steady enough supply of long-term members to sustain itself. Also, keep in mind that Cave Story isn't really the main focus of the forums (at least how I see it), it's more of a discussion place for all of Pixel's work (but Cave Story is by far the most popular so that's kinda irrelevant anyway).

But I actually agree with your points. Maybe make some minor changes to account for some of the more popular indie games to breathe new life into what may become a stagnating community. It just depends on how we'd want to go about it. I'm not familiar with the Miraigamer board categorization since I wasn't around back then, but I'd assume you want to model it off of that? Would we include a subforum for the next big indie game, like Undertale? I'm all for phasing in some board changes as long as they aren't too radical and they make enough sense to include.

 

My only personal concern is with games that meet a middle ground of popular and well-done, yet obscure, I'll use OFF as an example, a game loved by a small community with some spin'off' games by other creators, but I wouldn't say it meets the popular demand of well-known-indie games, and it'd be hard to do the same for other games like that. If we dedicated a section to the hot, new, current, indie fanatics/fandoms (You be the judge on this one), it would seem logical to see them appear during their strongest period, where it rises, like when Markiplier played OFF or some other games like the million FNAF clones/spinoffs. And it'll be hard to know then it the game's fandom dies out, I personally see Undertale in it's recession and it may never come back, but the amount of memes, animations, after/alternate-universes, and spinoff games (I'm looking at you Unitale) will keep it engraved in gaming, similar to Shovel Knight. I'd think it'd be a hard as well to even find a current hit, because everyone's preferences are different, some may find the next hit well after it's popularity, or will find it early on. Some don't even get past their infancy stage of popularity, but some will deem it popular. I think it'd be best to not have this kind of topic on the forums as it's own subsection, but it's an interesting topic I'd love to see develop as time progresses.

 

The core of these forums is the fact that it's centered around Cave Story. If we removed this element, it would simply become yet another general-purpose forum about indie gaming. Also the modding sections would make way less sense.

Also the fact that it is still alive and active today shows that its basis (which is, I repeat, its focus on Cave Story) is way more stable and solid than the average gaming forum, whose life expectancy is around five years (source: ??? my butt?).

Finally, I feel that Cave Story, above most, is something that deserves its own forum. Forcibly removing that would be a waste.

 

The core of these forums is the fact that it's centered around Cave Story. If we removed this element, it would simply become yet another general-purpose forum about indie gaming. Also the modding sections would make way less sense.

Also the fact that it is still alive and active today shows that its basis (which is, I repeat, its focus on Cave Story) is way more stable and solid than the average gaming forum, whose life expectancy is around five years (source: ??? my butt?).

Finally, I feel that Cave Story, above most, is something that deserves its own forum. Forcibly removing that would be a waste.

Correct me if I interpreted the first post the wrong way, but I don't think he ever suggested that we remove the Cave Story aspect of it altogether. Just put more of an emphasis on other indie games, perhaps. Personally I agree with you that this forum should always remain the Cave Story forums, but I don't think restructuring the other game-related boards to expand the indie section is necessarily a bad idea.

 

Correct me if I interpreted the first post the wrong way, but I don't think he ever suggested that we remove the Cave Story aspect of it altogether. Just put more of an emphasis on other indie games, perhaps. Personally I agree with you that this forum should always remain the Cave Story forums, but I don't think restructuring the other game-related boards to expand the indie section is necessarily a bad idea.

That's absolutely correct. The idea isn't necessarily about changing the entire forum, but more of adding on to it. I also agree with your main post and you're right on the idea.

 

The idea isn't necessarily about changing the entire forum, but more of adding on to it. I also agree with your main post and you're right on the idea.

In a way, that's kind of what's happening. The consensus I almost see forming here is steering these forums more toward Pixel's works in general, which is already happening with the "Kero Blaster" forum we have set up, as well as the "Other games by Pixel" forum. I agree that broadening the topics on these forums helps breathe new life, but it's kind of already happening naturally, and I think trying to force it to expand much beyond Pixel's work would make these forums less unique.

 

The problem with not having a dedicated game focus/ongoing user generated content is that it doesn't create a lot of staying power. Even the sections we have already don't get a great deal of traffic. Undertale, for example, has mostly been and gone by this stage, even though it generated as much buzz as just about anything could. If there were enough of an interest base here to accommodate another focus we'd probably be happy to do so but there isn't really. Personally I'd love to see more discussion about Kero Blaster (or Guxt ).

 

Correct me if I interpreted the first post the wrong way, but I don't think he ever suggested that we remove the Cave Story aspect of it altogether. Just put more of an emphasis on other indie games, perhaps. Personally I agree with you that this forum should always remain the Cave Story forums, but I don't think restructuring the other game-related boards to expand the indie section is necessarily a bad idea.

That's absolutely correct. The idea isn't necessarily about changing the entire forum, but more of adding on to it. I also agree with your main post and you're right on the idea.

What I meant is that expanding the "other indie games" side of the forums would only serve to denaturate them (the forums). It would not be interesting (as countless other forums already do that), and it would not generate content (as newcomers are here for Cave Story, not for other indie games). No matter if it's only expanding or removing the Cave Story aspect altogether, it is only a step in the wrong direction.
Maybe expanding toward games related to Cave Story (basically Pixel's other games) would be good, but the fact that the forums never really naturally went down this path means that the interest in those other games is not quite high enough for such an operation to noticeably increase traffic.

 

It's because of threads like these that really get gears moving for a second, and I like to see that this is one of the few forums to last this long and still be unique in itself.

But what if we made this 'hip-new-fresh-cool-game-filled-indie-topic' into the Indie gaming sector of the forums? Would it be hard to manage, or is it hard to find a good indie game early in it's popularity/or rising in popularity.