runouw.com

I think it's more that our standards grew too much.

Okay, well, maybe we could have a criteria? One that is a little bit less strict than ours right now?

People need to learn to level design somewhere, so what we could do is, we could allow cut-off through unless the whole level is made up of cut-off. (I think we do that anyway tbh) We can allow through other stuff, e.g. if the story sucks, we still let it through depending on the quality of the level. If the level is 50x30 or less, and is quite plain and boring and doesn't really go anywhere, but there are trees and signs and not too much cut-off, we still let it through. And so on.

That's my idea, anyways. Having the level portal like a mixture with the old one isn't a bad idea too, but I think we should still have some kind of approval system.

Yurimaster wrote:Make a gamethrough of SM63, LL, GT and the evil factory, On The Run, anything. No matter which game it is, it'll certainly attract people.

If you mean a Let's Play, I did one of GT on my channel a while ago. It's kinda crappy but it's there.

~MP3 Amplifier~ wrote:If the level is 50x30 or less

I don't even see how level size is relevant in the first place - I made Melty Magma Lair of that size and it got fourth so obviously level size doesn't matter.

It does if there's barely anything in the level. It falls under the category of minimal effort. Of course if the space is used as well as yours did then it's not a problem.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of these solutions seem to be attempts to make the current community friendlier to newcomers, once they were given the chance to know the site and the games pertaining to the community. While under the prerrogative that most of these members are younger/less experienced than the average Runouw veteran - not only in terms of placing terrain and objects over a grid, but also being part of a solid community whatsoever - they would be simply overwhelmed by the sheer amount of activity accumulated over the years.

Well, why not give them the chance to build their own family? 'Cause if we end up with a bunch of followers who are unable to take part in our story, and thus only remaining for the sole purpose of individual gaming, we'll become a Runouw-sized version of McLeodGaming. That being said, I want to propose the creation of a whole new subforum, in which these rookies, under the guidance of either veterans or mods who are able to volunteer, would be gradually introduced to this world.

As the newcomers rarely have the time or the patience to carefully read through (and perhaps even understand) a chunk of well structured sentences, we'd need a considerable amount of pictures (maybe even drawings) on the construction of the overall imagery regarding the forum's layout, over a considerable amount of threads, in which the content would be gradually introuced accordingly to the user's capabilities. These tutorials would cover basic and efficient usage of BBCode, along with concepts regarding storytelling and graphics, maybe even an introductory space to practice and develop art. Once these newcomers were given the basics, they might take part in duels inside the forum, or even a junior LDC.

For this new community to consistently work, however, its members would need to be more thorougly connected than just through SM63 and LL. Our current forums already cover a wide variety of interests, but whenever these activities boil down to competition, the select members already within it are given a massive advantage. It is probably unnecessary to completely recreate all of these spaces. The welcome threads, on the other way, always fade into the darkness. Well, what if each and every newcomer was given the chance to create their own personal thread? Once these rookies manage to interact using other references (even school subjects, who knows?), they will have made it all the way to the chat, at the very least. Then, it will be easier to leap into Off-Topic, Gaming, the major community and its competitions, maybe even take part of the Art and Serious Discussion forums.

Were this hypothetical scenario able to become true, it still wouldn't change the fact that all of us grow up, are given responsibilities and our priorities are eventually led another way. The turning point would be the moment in which we would have to trust our legacy to the new generation, just as Amp was promoted to a galactic empress global moderator by MoD. No matter how many members we are able to recruit with this or any other means, by the time these new people are compelled to lead the community onward, we will have succeeded in this dire quest.

Tutorials on BBCode could be interesting. I honestly have no idea what BBCode is in the first place, but sure.

BBCode is the stuff in brackets, like [quote], [img], [url], etc.

Ok, ok. First off, I see a good amount of support for YouTube stuff, including from Runouw, so anyone who wants to do that, is good to go. I would personally LOVE to see my WITBLO entry review by Amp, but that's just because I'm an Amp fanboy. *hides* My only suggestion in that regard is to make sure to have links to this website in the description, and possibly in some - what do you call it when you put a comment on top of the video, gods I feel dumb right now - in your video.

Secondly, yes, there is a certain level of maturity that the forum as a whole has gotten, which is a good thing, but we also need to remember where we came from. Everyone was a n00b once, and had no idea how to work a forum, how to register, how to post, how to read the rules, much less follow them, etc. There will always be new members at that level, and we need to be able to handle that too. I like the idea of a mentoring program, but we would need to talk about how that would work. In all honesty, I kinda saw that as the UR position, but maybe we could make an even lower position for people who are just there for welcoming/mentoring, in addition to making a new "Mentoring" subforum under "Welcome", or something. Or maybe we could get URs to do that. Let's discuss. And, as for the lack of drama (good gods, some people like drama?!?), it will come with fresh faces, don't you worry.

We are getting new members, though it isn't the tidal wave we were seeing before, and they have been mainstreamed for the most part. I remember when Amp was new, much less anyone here from after her. And as for us oldbies growing up, you will notice that Blab, MoY, and a number of others are still hanging around because we love this place, much less the fact that once a gamer, always a gamer. I'm never going to stop playing video games permanently, and I don't see anyone else suddenly thinking this is all childish and unnecessary.

Finally, I agree with Runouw that a lot of SM63's popularity was just market saturation. I did not come from Newgrounds personally. I actually found out about NG from here. I came here from OfficeGameSpot of all places, and it is because SM63 was uploaded and re-uploaded EVERYWHERE that it got as much attention as it did. Perhaps a search of flash games (in order to find the overall hosting sites) would bring a load of places to submit LL to, and would get it some better visibility. We could at least hit the other two major Flash hosting sites: Armor Games, and Kongregate. I don't think Flash is really dying as a platform, it's just maturing into it's own niche. No, it isn't the new hotness any more, but Casual Gaming will never go away, and Flash is the home for those players. Newgrounds isn't dying, so I don't think we really have anything to worry about until they do. There's still plenty of attention being put into frameworks for anyone to make flash stuff. Look for game maker stuff, and you will find plenty of flash frameworks. That's not a problem. I think just uploading both LL Chapters to a bunch of other sites would get it the attention we are all hoping to see. LL deserves the recognition. I believe Runouw has another winner here, and I am sure you all agree.

P.S. @Harmless If you don't want your posts to be just text, then you use BBCode. All the tags recognized by this board are here.

EDIT: I was just rereading some stuff, and I think LordFalcon has a good idea about letting people have their own space. To that end, perhaps we could remove the restriction on continuing a welcome thread past the first week. That would give them a personal space to hang out, and a number of friendly Runouwians already hang out there...

Well, flash games are my kind of games as I don't get video games. Don't have any consoles or the money for them. Its funny that I found SM63 the first time when it was incomplete with my best friend in the ICT rooms at school 5 years ago now.. lol.

I agree with trying to get LL onto the main flash sites, after all it will have an audience and its certainly one of the better flash games out there.