Where 3DG stands...

Don't bite off more than you can chew...do take it gradually.

Let me just toss out a few thoughts...

I think what ricktu said about the steps to re-creation are a good idea. It’s so true there are so many dead forums out there, its not even funny. A well thought out general theme and purpose would go along way.

The kind of content I would like in a website would be:

1. Industry News (either in TV, Film or gaming but real news.)
2. Tutorials, for a variety of 2d and 3d applications
3. A high grade front end, that is updated frequently. As an example, I really like 3d totals layout, its quite smashing.
4. A quality gallery or artists
5. A broad range of themes, not tilting towards something (ala scifi). I can’t stress this enough guys. 3DG absolutely HAS to find a way to reduce the scifi emphasis.
6. A bias towards appealing to adults. Professionals don’t like hanging out with 15 year olds with cracked software.

Also I don't think there should be any emphasis being put on a mesh download section. Perhaps it’s true that a lot of sites have them but most of the highend websites, in fact, don’t. So obviously it wasn’t detrimental to their success. For instance, if I release any of my future work, its going to end up on Turbosquid or the like before I give away months of hard work for free.

[Kai]

you know the funny thing?
logging in just now, there were 11 users online. this is a normal figure for most parts of the day. yet the post count is nearly zero. why? we get plenty of ppl looking.. just not posting...

[skyhawk223]

If the site is to take a new direction, it might be prudent to do a little pruning of the member list. Weed out every who hasn't posted in, say the past 30 days. That way we get a better idea of who really contributes.

Originally posted by skyhawk223
If the site is to take a new direction, it might be prudent to do a little pruning of the member list. Weed out every who hasn't posted in, say the past 30 days. That way we get a better idea of who really contributes.

I wouldn't recommend this. After all we're trying to re-interest people in this site. If an old member hears about whats going on and comes back to find his username deleted it may be just enough to make him say "stuff it" and move on before seeing if he likes the new place or not.... you should never tick off potential customers....

If you want to find out the real size of the current userbase over the last month either just look through a months worth of posts and write down the names or better still start a rollcall thread...

Richard.

Don't just delete willy nilly, Rick. Send out a general email to everyone saying "anyone who hasn't posted in 30 days will have their account deleted", that way anyone who wants to come back can and the rest, well, ****'em.

[scaramanga]

1. Yes the site could use a 'flashy-er' design, but let's not use templates. The site should refect originality. (Why not have a site design contest or something? No need for a prize, the honour of winning it would suffice )
2. Maybe we could 'downsize' the forums a bit, you know bookshelf and stuff adding to general discussions. That way you don't get the idea that some parts of the site are 'dead'
3. I know that big projects are out of the question, but what about small ones?

[Kai]

update lol
through today I've been checking in. I keep seeing 12 to 19 users listed on the forum front page... yet.. 6 posts all day.. and most of them in here.

ok.. we're getting traffic.. but why are they not posting?

[General Phoenix]

Once again, our projects will be small, at least at first. Nothing gets a group motivated like a sense of accomplishment, so if we set attainable goals, and keep acheiving them, we'll become more and more motivated to take a crack at larger and more ambitious projects. The problem with the Romulan project we began was that we were trying to do too much all at once - it was like dumping a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle out on the table and saying "Let's get started!" We need to take things one step at a time.

Kakaze, I don't intend to delete any members - after all, once we start producing some real content here, old members should start coming back, and I don't want to make them re-register.

And I like the idea of a site design contest, once the forums get trimmed down - it could be a good way to get the creative juices flowing.

And Kai, the reason a lot of people aren't posting is because we don't really have anything for them to be a part of. All we have right now are threads where the replies consist mostly of "Yes, that's a nice ship." or "My favorite movie is..." When we start our new project, we will actually have something for people to participate in, not just something for them to observe.

[Kai]

maybe...
but right now, we seem to be an online library service..
some of the threads (about 50%) being viewed are over a year old.. so why are they digging those up?

[moovok]

Because we're archeologists

[i]
Kakaze, I don't intend to delete any members - after all, once we start producing some real content here, old members should start coming back, and I don't want to make them re-register. [/B]

It wasn't my idea, even though I think it's a good one.

Nothing turns me off to a place more than seeing 3000 users and like 5 new posts a day, or a bunch of posts a day but by like the same 10 people each time.

If they have to reregister, tough. If the whole site is going through a rebirth of sorts, then those who aren't here for it should have to resign up.

[Chris B]

i personally would re-set up everthing. start with a blank forum.
a newcomer-board looks better than an old board full of dead thread-bodies.

i'm also willing to re-register myself, why not? we could even consider registering with our real names, instead of un-personal nicks.

Originally posted by ricktu
It's nice but to be honest is still light years behind the current high tech ones in use.

If the contents are there and of the right quality, that will be just okay... We dont have two thausand members, we have two dozen at best, we don't need to be high tech just yet.

But starting off on a fresh start should be with a complete redesign and a new registration and if it's not too difficult with a new name too probably.

The idea of stories and the like isn't too bad, but you're forgetting one simple fact. ADULT people lack the time and interest to read internet stuff. The crowd you are going to attract is going to be that of 14 year olds with nothing else better to do.
It's not a bad idea to have illustrations and stories and much more, but the texts shouldn't be more than possible ideas for inspirations or contexts, and they shouldnt exceed a 15 minute's read, for me that'd be about 10-15 kilobytes of text in .txt format... For native English speakers that'll probably be more kilobytes, for those who have less experience reading english texts probably that'll be more time.. But nonetheless.

I think we should have tutorials, and you know what, most people have tutorials for 3d programs, for photoshop, for paint shop pro...

But I think you nearly always start out with a sketch unless you've got a photo of it. So why not have some tutorials on the drawing on paper that preceeds the modelling of the starship or the room or the paint shop pro drawing of a human or whatever?

Concerning any type of series or long stories, I'd again have to point out that this will only attract people who are 14 year old imaginationless kids who dont even bother to learn for school - how would they ever bother to do something for 3dg?

A spy story, well that sounds interesting to me but how many others would be into it? Besides spy stories - well how to put this well, if they're written by several people who dont know where the plot is going, the stories become very mediocre. And a spy story is interesting if
a) its like james bond and has so much action people dont have time to think of the scenery, this is never ever possible with texts because people by definition have the time to stop and think
b) if its got a brilliant plot

we're not able to provide the 2nd, I'm rather certain of that, at least not like things are now.
And anyone who would write a spy story brilliant enough to really attract attention to the site, won't publish it here, they'll get it published by a book publisher

Kai - whenever I log on, there's never anyone but me online.

On on the crowd of 14 year olds - I think that's exactly the problem we're facing

we started out a couple of years ago with a crowd of 14 - 18 year olds. Since then, of that crowd, most people got lives (schools, work, girlfriend-boyfriend, etc) and although they haven't lost their skills, they've not got any time to work on anything. So they do look in occasionally, but they dont post because they dont make much anymore!

Of those few hundred people, only a few still make art on a large scale, and only a handful is making anything worth mentioning - I'm most certainly NOT including myself into that number, because what I do is very and very average, late night sketches that take 10 minutes a piece, whenever I'm bored of my homework.

That's not the sort of thing you're going to keep a site living with... We should have gotten new members, from the 14 year old region as well, but not only. We didnt.

If we would have, some of those would now have grown up and be doing brilliant artwork, all the others would just be filling the quanitity. What we have now is a half dead site with all the brilliant people having decided long ago to go to other sites and present their artwork there - and you cant blame them.

There's two fronts we have to fight at, the quality and the quantity.
The quality, let's face it, doesn't come from the 14 year olds. It comes from a handful of brilliant people over 20 who maybe still visit, but mainly are oriented at other websites. WE HAVE TO WIN THEM BACK. Not with contests, with life.
We have to have quanity, and for that we need those 14-20 year olds doing average stuff, we also need them as a future investment for the site, because out of every 100 of them, 1 just might be doing brilliant stuff in 4 years time from now. WE HAVE TO HAVE STUFF TO GET NOOBIES INTERESTED.

We have to have enough interesting stuff for both.

Originally posted by Sess

The idea of stories and the like isn't too bad, but you're forgetting one simple fact. ADULT people lack the time and interest to read internet stuff. The crowd you are going to attract is going to be that of 14 year olds with nothing else better to do.

Sorry but this is just not true. I'm 38 and most of my friends are around my age or older and more and more of them are turning off the television in the evenings and logging on to see what they can find. Even my parents are spending a fair amount of time surfing the net nowadays.

While it is true that a lot have people have drifted away from these boards because they are just starting to settle into their lives ( girlfriends, new jobs etc) the are an enourmous amout of people like me with established families and carears who prefer to spend our free time on the net rather than watching the crap thats on the box.

The Internet is not just a place for the young and should not be treated as such.

Richard.

I think frankly contests can be fun. But its not a useful thing to drum up user interest. Its good if you already have interest. But not good for creating it.

I also wouldn't prune the membership. Frankly, it serves no useful purpose. pruning the membership list will not increase posting.

The thing that increases posting is quite simply content. A steady flow of something new. Working and constantly adding to a forum helps. Having an artist around making art helps too. Or with agora having people who had things to say and discuss.

The design of this place is mostly fine. A new layout always generates interest. But most of the art design is good. The only real ugly parts is the integration of those top buttons into the template. They just sort of sit there.

Get rid of the store button. Ya never had it. And frankly there ain't enough organization or will to do it.

Alot of the bad layout will be fixed if you upgrade to the new VB 3 candidate 2. I haven't implemented it yet, but I plan to at fleets. It has some real nice features. Plus it will allow you to get rid of all those buttons.

One of the big mistakes I believe was to break up 3dg. Having fleets and agora part of 3dg helped keep the place lively. having all those unigue show forums gave 3dg alot of stuff to talk about. While I was codamining with Darrell I was always creating forums for people to talk about shows. Some worked, some didn't. But it was always lively.

Frankly ya have to keep adding stuff.

There's a store.

But I guess you wouldn't know that since you're one of the people who just left and never came back.

A perfect example of why the user list needs to be pared down to the people who actually post here still.

[Kai]

Kakaze.. please? there is nothing to be gained by comments like that.

Originally posted by Kakaze

A perfect example of why the user list needs to be pared down to the people who actually post here still.

Sorry but I just cannot agree. A lot of people browse but just don't post. Hell I've barely posted in the last few months but that didn't mean I didn't occassionally stop by to catch up. It just happened that there was nothing happening that I felt I wanted to contribute to. If on one of those occasions I came by and found I'd been deleted I'd have been offended and not too interested in staying around to participate.

The point is NOT to delete those members who aren't posting. The point is to provide content interesting enough that those members want to get involved. And realistically even if there are lots of people reading but not posting so what. At least our work is providing pleasure and getting out there. Those people may just have nothing particularly to say.

Sorry but I think people are fixating too much on the member database. So what if there are plenty of old entries in there. If you want to guage whats happening keep and eye on the whose browsing numbers and the numbers of posts. Pruning it has no great benefit but can do potential harm.

Richard.

[General Phoenix]

Kakaze, thomas has still been around here - not so much on the open forums, but behind the scenes.

I love that you guys all care about the place enough to want to help - but let's not start sniping at each other - it's not one specific person's fault that 3DG has slowed down, and it's been happening for quite a long time.

My best suggestion for now is to keep posting, and keep being active. I'm curretly recruiting some members to post more content specifically designed to inspire communtiy involvement. But if you have something particularly stimulating to share, please don't wait for me to contact you - just post it, and let's get some buzz started around here.

Originally posted by Kakaze
A perfect example of why the user list needs to be pared down to the people who actually post here still.

Do you really think that was called for?

There certainly won't be that many more former posters posting here again if the ones who do poke their heads up get flamed for their trouble.

While it was a really good shot Enlightenment, that site design you posted was exactly like MCGI's V2 I made like 4 years ago. Trust me, it was shot down within two months by the other members

I really don't want to see 3DG fall apart. You guys are one of my favorite places to stop by. I wish I had the time to post more here but I barely get through my own forum.

If everyone doesn't mind I do have some suggestions based on what I've seen. Mostly I visit WIPs because that's what I like to see more than 3d artwork. In that respect I've noticed that even Ebolii's Valiant Class thread can go three to four updates without anyone saying a word about it. Responding to threads can increase the likability of a forum and increase visits. A new person isn't going to stick around if they get no replies. Even if their stuff isn't the greatest it's still something they're proud of and want acknowledgement for. It triples if they get praise or advice from someone they recognize as being important.

Also, I've noticed posting on other boards usually draws in people from other sites to visit. It only really works with WIPs and artwork. I managed to get #dude to come to my forum from SFM with my Nx as well as a few others. Recently Deks and Trooper stopped by MCGI because of the Akira. The best place to advertise is where that target audience is. Get yourself a few people on your main team to start some projects. Cross post at other forums as well as 3DG and see if you can draw some of their heavier traffic. Make sure they load their sigs and avatars down with Gladiator stuff

A nice site will only go so far. We're 3d communities and the forum is the backbone to that. It's easy to drop dead forums, test out ones you think might be popular. Make a list and try them for a week or two.

This is just my two cents. Thanks

[Chris B]

Originally posted by ricktu
The Internet is not just a place for the young and should not be treated as such.

Richard.

I know that.

But tell me now, would you go read someone's story for 4 hours before making a picture to it?

oh this was by Sess btw

Originally posted by Chris B
I know that.

But tell me now, would you go read someone's story for 4 hours before making a picture to it?

Absolutely. Most of the adults I know rarely watch television anymore so therefore have whole evenings free just like everyone else.

Why is this so hard to believe ? Trust me folks you're lives dont cease just because you have jobs and families. Yes you have a lot more responsibilities and things to do but that doesn't mean you don't have any free time.

Richard.

No its not the ceased lives that Im talking about, just the range of interests in stories...

say is this dear on our forums already?
http://forum.sevspace.com/sevilianbo...ages/47086.asp

I dont think so! Im (hopefully) gonna talk (nag) him into it

[General Phoenix]

Wow - that Killeroo is great.

Kai, Ricktu, GP, Enlightenment, Thanks.

And I would listen to enlightenment.

My apologies to eveyone for my "absence." I was posting in other parts of 3dg, but was too busy with Fleets to post much elsewhere. Fleets has been kinda like a rocket on afterburners, and a bit of a bucking bronco.

Though I think maybe I should stay where I am. I really just want to enjoy my online time.

here ya go guys curtosy of mcgi's webdesign aka me

a) too much like what we have
b) too much stress on 3d, I thought we decided not to profile on 3d and 3d tutorials?

my opinion

but I'm no one here