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THE COMMUNITY'S FUTURE
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| SimTheDog | Date: Friday, 2012-01-13, 6:44 PM | Message # 1 |
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Advanced Member
Group: Generation Masters
Messages: 420
Status: Offline
| The people that have hanged around the Ucoz spriting & pixel art community for as long, or even longer than I have would probably agree with me that the community is dead. It isn't too late to save it though. These are the main reasons why the community has died:
Not enough artists
Not many are interested in taking part
There's no real inspiration
Too many communities
Our real problem, though, is that we think about making a site, when we haven't even grouped a reasonable amount of ACTIVE members. The only guys holding it down for us at the moment really are snoop755, souleaterf, Ace, and MugenMaster. Whether you think that they're good or not, we are dependent or them. We haven't got a strategy to getting more members, and even though we have tons of sites for spriting & pixel art, hardly anybody even knows about them. We need to start thinking about ways to group more active members, and not just on this site or any other ucoz site. We need to split up individually and spread ourselves all over the place and display our talent so that people will know about us to places like DA, since thousands of people are frequently active over there. Whether it's art, animations, stuff like that, we individually have got to hold it down for the community and play our little roles.
http://simthedog.deviantart.com/
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| Souleaterf | Date: Friday, 2012-01-13, 9:40 PM | Message # 2 |
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Great Member
Group: Generation Starters
Messages: 215
Status: Offline
| Retro is actually doing alot of work on that with this group. http://jusspriter.deviantart.com/
However I think the ad for pixel gen should be moved up near activity.
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| Ace | Date: Friday, 2012-01-13, 9:58 PM | Message # 3 |
 Master
Group: Generation Scholars
Messages: 553
Status: Offline
| Hm... You're right. We probably should look into doing some advertising. Retro brought a bunch of people here, but most of them stopped coming on after like 2 weeks. Now we've just got one or 2 of them who come and post now and then. The thing is, I'm not really sure how to pick up activity. We can tell as many people as we want about the place, but it doesn't make much difference if they post once and disappear forever. We need a way to keep the members here. All of us could do something on dA of course. Maybe mention the site in our deviantID or something.
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| RetroMafioso | Date: Saturday, 2012-01-14, 0:58 AM | Message # 4 |
 Advanced Member
Group: Generation Scholars
Messages: 382
Status: Offline
| I'm not going to go through a whole other advertising spree. I personally invited over 100s of people, and replied to whoever had a question - which were lots. I can't really do much else because it requires a group effort from incomers and already present people. We need a reason for them to stay- for them to want to stay. Sure we have a site, but there's really not many things going on. Poeple not familiar of sprites won't exactly see this as user friendly, because it's more of post your works here and get crits. They don't even know where to start.
Making a thread like this is only stating the obvious. And sdaying spreadin these ideals out to other places even those who did not already sprite, and yet a while ago several members go attacking newcomers who are ignorant to spriting. To some one new, it is a very hard grasp to tackle what spriting is. It requires more than just a harsh comment because they edit. How else would they know any different.
As far as more advertisement for the site through the da group, I feel I've made a mistake by doing all that prep work for that speciifc group because whenever I do soemthing productive that damn meow goes on and completely regresses all for the progress. It's my fault, and I'm sorry, I should've made a group of it's own. Nonetheless, to get back to that point- it's that I had it originall where soul had said, but Meow changed it. We could change it back, but then it would just eb a back and forth thing going on.
Message edited by RetroMafioso - Saturday, 2012-01-14, 1:00 AM |
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| Ace | Date: Saturday, 2012-01-14, 1:12 AM | Message # 5 |
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Master
Group: Generation Scholars
Messages: 553
Status: Offline
| Quote (RetroMafioso) I'm not going to go through a whole other advertising spree. I personally invited over 100s of people, and replied to whoever had a question - which were lots
TBH, I think you've done more work for this site than anyone else.
But yeah you hit it on the head with Quote (RetroMafioso) We need a reason for them to stay- for them to want to stay.
The question is, what do we have to offer that they want? I've known of sites in the past that encouraged activity by making a private section with all the best stuff that you had to have at least 200 posts or so to get into. I never much liked sites that did that because it seemed too restricting and encouraged spam.
Quote (RetroMafioso) a while ago several members go attacking newcomers who are ignorant to spriting. To some one new, it is a very hard grasp to tackle what spriting is. It requires more than just a harsh comment because they edit. How else would they know any different.
Again, a very good point.
Like Sim, I know you mean well and want to help the members improve, but sometimes your criticism comes across as quite harsh. A fairly recent example was Dancing-Flames' Scarecrow thread. When someone's new to spriting, they need not only criticism but also some encouragement.
So, to sum it up we really need to focus on encouraging members to stick around.
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| RetroMafioso | Date: Saturday, 2012-01-14, 1:26 AM | Message # 6 |
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Advanced Member
Group: Generation Scholars
Messages: 382
Status: Offline
| Yes. Basically, I was planning on doing a series of videos on youtube with audio explaining my own theories and getting started for sprites and basically just basic overlays of things and then speciifcs. I was planning on mentioning this site on the summaries and in the video itself.
But as far as keeping activity, it's hard to say. There could be loads of features that can be incorporated in order to keep activity, but they have to be run, well and although leniant- strict. That and features that require coding could definitely cause for a nicer experience.
Also writing up beginners' guides and guides and navigating the site and just explaining everything and mods redirecting people to said topics so they (new users) will understand that things are well organized.
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| Ace | Date: Saturday, 2012-01-14, 1:54 AM | Message # 7 |
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Master
Group: Generation Scholars
Messages: 553
Status: Offline
| Quote (RetroMafioso) Also writing up beginners' guides and guides and navigating the site and just explaining everything and mods redirecting people to said topics so they (new users) will understand that things are well organized.
I thought we were doing pretty good there. We do have the guides and such, and in a good number of intro threads links to them were posted.
On another note, I know a lot of people come on with out bothering to log in sometimes, just to check new messages... but THIS is kind of ridiculous.
Message edited by Ace - Saturday, 2012-01-14, 1:55 AM |
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| Souleaterf | Date: Saturday, 2012-01-14, 3:41 AM | Message # 8 |
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Great Member
Group: Generation Starters
Messages: 215
Status: Offline
| Quote (RetroMafioso) As far as more advertisement for the site through the da group, I feel I've made a mistake by doing all that prep work for that speciifc group because whenever I do soemthing productive that damn meow goes on and completely regresses all for the progress
Who is that meow guy? W.e I post crit he writes something I can't understand but I think it's hostile lol
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| reborn574 | Date: Saturday, 2012-01-14, 4:49 AM | Message # 9 |
 Very Active
Group: Generation Starters
Messages: 111
Status: Offline
| We could try advertising again.
Though I really doubt we`ll get much from going to DA or youtube because alot of other spriting sites/forums clog up that place.
You could try TIGsource or around the Stencyl forums or any other indie game devolopment sites(theres bound to be artists over there),I`m pretty sure there will be pixel artists willing to join us.
Or even places that are full of spriters like TSR,PixelJoint or Pixelation.
You could even search for small communities like ourselves to join.
Or even be affiliates with other sites.
And to grab/keep their we could possibly make something like a game or a project,places like Mcleodgaming got most of their members by SSF2.
- http://venuford.tumblr.com/ -
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| RetroMafioso | Date: Saturday, 2012-01-14, 4:55 AM | Message # 10 |
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Advanced Member
Group: Generation Scholars
Messages: 382
Status: Offline
| Quote (Souleaterf) it's hostile
It most definitely is >.< I don't know he asked me to be cofounder at one point and I decided meh why not have fun and I created the entire group, but I couldn't defounderize him.
I agree with reborn- game projects will definitely be a keepsake.
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| Ace | Date: Saturday, 2012-01-14, 5:50 AM | Message # 11 |
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Master
Group: Generation Scholars
Messages: 553
Status: Offline
| A game project would be cool, but do we have anyone who can code?
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| RetroMafioso | Date: Saturday, 2012-01-14, 8:24 AM | Message # 12 |
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Advanced Member
Group: Generation Scholars
Messages: 382
Status: Offline
| I'm teaching myself C++ But I am willing to dabble in MUGEN as well. sgn, who just joined us is a well-knowledged and skilled mugen coder as well. I think a mugen game would be a good fit for a first project
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| Ace | Date: Saturday, 2012-01-14, 8:32 AM | Message # 13 |
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Master
Group: Generation Scholars
Messages: 553
Status: Offline
| Quote (RetroMafioso) I'm teaching myself C++ But I am willing to dabble in MUGEN as well. sgn, who just joined us is a well-knowledged and skilled mugen coder as well. I think a mugen game would be a good fit for a first project
Hm... that's true, but to make a MUGEN game worth playing it'd have to have a good number of characters. It'll be a lot of work to sprite all of them. Do we have enough active members to undertake something like that?
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| RetroMafioso | Date: Saturday, 2012-01-14, 8:36 AM | Message # 14 |
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Advanced Member
Group: Generation Scholars
Messages: 382
Status: Offline
| To be honest, it's not entirely a matter of how many- more like how much dedication. With enough dedication, basic works can get done real quick, and at least a single moveset within two days at max (as long as it doesn't require too much detail)
The style could be custom, that would be simple to sheet but looks pleasant to the eye.
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| Ace | Date: Saturday, 2012-01-14, 8:49 AM | Message # 15 |
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Master
Group: Generation Scholars
Messages: 553
Status: Offline
| Quote (RetroMafioso) To be honest, it's not entirely a matter of how many- more like how much dedication. With enough dedication, basic works can get done real quick, and at least a single moveset within two days at max (as long as it doesn't require too much detail)
That is a good point. However, some people, like myself, have trouble focusing on one project for a long time. I've only ever finished one sheet to my satisfaction, because it gets to a point where I'm just tired of working on something. That could lead to problems if we have a few people like that.
Quote (RetroMafioso) The style could be custom, that would be simple to sheet but looks pleasant to the eye.
It's a good idea, but a lot of the spriters on the site tend to specialize in a single style, and we aren't as good with other stuff. For example, I always like to sprite JUS and Snoop has his LSW. We would have to make a style that we all like and can sprite.
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