Thread Background Coming from a long-time lurker born in 2008, I have noticed that Armor Games is facing a recent "slump" of activity. In other terms, Armor Games is becoming inactive. In my quest for answers, I've contacted several Armor Games users, ranging from new users to veterans. Thinking that I gave people something to think about for the day, Ernie15 gave me a bold idea to convert these ideas into a thread where one can give his/her ideas on the matter instead of letting this issue be small-talk. In many's minds, this is an issue that needs to be addressed to immediately. There have been threads like this, but this is the central HUB of what we view of Armor Games today.
Armor Games, I give you The User's View.
Armor Games Background AG3, a major update to the Armor Games world, has been in development for around 2 years. There are tons of beta testers for the website. Prior to and starting at the development of AG3, Armor Games was once a bustling "city," if you will, of ideas traveling by means of public forum posting to comments to one another, or "small talk." Many of these users have left for reasons we will discuss and are being replaced by users we will later discuss.
Staff Changes Late 2011, Cormyn, a very popular admin, resigned from his duties and became a regular user. He was somewhat replaced with Justin Royster, aka username jroyster22.
Part 1: Cormyn Cormyn was undoubtedly known for his ability to be publicly active within the community and was often described as strict. As strict as he was, he kept the trash out and helped shape our modern-day Armor Games. He wrote code for the community, laid down a lot of the rules, appointed moderators alongside the moderation team, and, short and sweet, held Armor Games together. In many people's opinions, he was the administrator's community face of Armor Games. Once Cormyn left, jroyster22, alongside his duties with AG3, became the one to contact if you needed help. Justin Royster had big shoes to fill, and so far, he's done a moderate job. He prefers to contact via email, taking away from that on-site communication charm. In my opinion, Justin Royster has been a little vague with his duties. I and others have complained that Armor Games needs a new head, and if Justin Royster was a little more open, we'd have that strong, great leader. I am not criticizing his work- I understand he's busy. I'm just asking that he showed a little more of his face.
Part 2: Inactivity Sadly, many of Armor Games' moderators have been caught up with daily life to successfully fulfill their duties on a daily basis. Similarly, admins are busy preparing AG3 for its release and have a lot to do. I understand they have lives as well. Many other new members have complained that it is impossible to get in touch with anyone on the staff team. Cormyn had written moderator-selection software, and many are thinking, if it is still available after Cormyn's resignation, perhaps it could be used to find another addition to the moderator team. Freakenstein has been a fantastic addition, but I feel as though we need more. I'm not going to name names because I respect what our moderators do; I feel as though we need more. Maybe it's time we eliminated the "small staff team" tradition for the time being until we recover. As for admins, we don't need a lot, but just one public face to get contact with would be fantastic.
Migration I know AG3 is going to be very different. I know forum activity has sunk. I know your friends have left. Because of multiple things, many users, newbies and veterans alike, have moved on to different websites. This is not going to help our inactivity problem. It will only make it worse. I am not only asking you all to stay, but I am asking you to help out. We can't sit around and let our users leave. Part of it is our problem; we can make things interesting again. We can make people want to spend all of their time here. We can show people Armor Games is the best darn website out there!
Generation Transition Jeol brought this to my attention and it struck me. What if the reason so many people are leaving is because they are older? Now, some people will never change, but others will grow and move on. And, who replaces them?
Part 1: Veterans It's summer. You've finished school and want to enjoy the outdoors. You've finished school and have to work. You've finished school and want to try something new. Whatever it is, whether you've gotten too old for Armor Games, or have something else taking up your time, you can't visit your favorite website in the world. You know what? That's quite OK. Just remember to drop by once in a while and talk to your old friends. Many users are finding that they are having difficulties connecting with new people if they leave right away. Sadly, this leaves many users bored and craving for a good conversation.
Part 2: New Users The size of Armor Games' user list is rising exponentially- it's skyrocketing! Most would think this would create more activity, wouldn't it? Frankly, no. Many games require an account for online saving to work, and the new generation replacing the previous one seems to be filled with people who join, stay active for a day, and quit dealing with the forums, leaving a large gap to be filled by no one.
Armor Games v3 As mentioned earlier, AG3 is being developed. By my count, there are currently 5 admins developing it. Unfortunately, users are complaining because there is little or no status updates on what's going on. Not to sound demanding, but more frequent updates could make the waiting all the easier. Also, the new achievement system may scare veterans who are used to and have gained recognition by the current AP system. AG3 will also result in a clean slate for the forums... By deleting all of the material there. Of course, much of the material is repeatable, but many veterans have good memories of posting here.
Conclusion We've lost the face of the admins, Cormyn, and would like to have another public face again. Many moderators are busy with their lives and some more help would be fantastic. A lot of people have given up on Armor Games and have outright quit. Old faces are being replaced with people who aren't as devoted the site. AG3 is coming with big changes, but has gone very quiet recently.
~Salvidian
Those who contributed to this information in some way, shape, or form -jeol -Ernie15 -daleks -Skeleton_Pilot -Cenere -GhostOfMatrix -MrDayCee -johnmerz
Then the responsibility is left to the users who have getsatisfaction accounts or are willing to make them to contact the admins until they finally decide to find someone who will take charge of the community.
Well, people who make GetSat accounts are usually people who are more into the welfare of AG. Before even GetSat participation slumped, back in the early AG3 development days, GetSat was crowded with great ideas, and relevant questions/problems/bug fixes/announcements. It was better than the AG forums, and the admins actually responded. Now they're pretty much the same, except (of course) there's less posts in GetSat.
GetSat is essentially pointless. Invisible guardian angels isn't anything in comparison to what a community manager could do.
Not to mention that it makes absolutely no sense for employees of one site to only communicate through a different site while working on yet another site.
Seriously, where is the logic behind that? You'd think someone like John or joey would have enough sense to question how poorly planned that idea was rather than just go along with it as though it made any sense whatsoever. No, it's clear they did this on purpose so we couldn't contact them easily. That's the only explanation for how such an inconvenient and ridiculous communication scheme could be used by an entire team of geniuses without one of them questioning it.
Could you explain the significance of the title change? I don't see why it makes a difference one way or the other.
I thought it would be nice for a breath of fresh air, but I wanted to keep "Pickle" in it somewhere to avoid confusion. I mainly did it out of a random spur.
Almost forgot, about the title; keep it or change it back? Totally a democratic decision.
It would be easier on my eyes if it was the older name.
It appears that this thread has turned into a sort of place to mention "updates" that AG has had recently, at least for Patrick.
Also I think the reason they can't just appoint a mod as community manager is that the responsibility added to the mod would be very tough, and they wouldn't even be getting paid for it. Not to mention that the community would get into rant mode if they are inactive for periods of time. What Ernie said too.
Maybe because they don't have many choices or that the four semi-active/active mods aren't good enough or active enough for those powers.
Gantic seems to be on everyday and has been here for several years, but I'm not sure if he'd be willing to take this role. There are also other things admins have access to, like business related stuff. I don't think the admins would trust someone who doesn't go to the office to be able to access this stuff.
The thing is, we still aren't getting any answers. I mean, take our new friend mmorrison for example. Doesn't he work in the same room as Dan? And heyitsleo admits to being in the same room as John and Joey. Surely they're all in the same building at some point or another.
Those people are there for coding. You can even see it on their abouts. They don't worry about things that don't involve coding... even though Cormyn did, we can't expect others to. Cormyn mentioned in thesetwo videos how the admins work and that it's actually Justin's job to be a community manager.
Not to mention that it makes absolutely no sense for employees of one site to only communicate through a different site while working on yet another site.
Thaboss thinks it was better than communicating through Get Satisfaction than the AG3 subforum because usually the ideas on there are better than here. Here there are a bunch of users spamming out whatever's on the top of their heads. There, there's well thought out ideas that actually made sense. But, pertaining to NOW, having admins communicate directly through the AG forums is just what everyone needs.
I don't require anything further from anyone, but I will accept any answers from these people: Jefferysinspiration Darktroop07 XVERB Those guys haven't responded yet.
OK! I'm going to continue these segment things for a little while. I have two projects in mind for my 2nd and 3rd ones. One will deal with a communicative gathering of ideas, and the other will deal with a type of usable string. I'll leave it at that. If I want your help on these next two projects I will contact you via messenger. I will keep subtle hints at what's going on in my about. It'll be very similar to the first project, but this time I won't tell you if you ask me.
No, it's clear they did this on purpose so we couldn't contact them easily.
But why would they intentionally make it hard for the users to contact them?
Again, so only users with good ideas and good motives and good initiative contact them. It's like a filter, so they don't get the usual wash of stupid ideas/questions that come up on these forums. They don't need or want to deal with that.
Again, so only users with good ideas and good motives and good initiative contact them.
Thing is, the stuff on GetSatisfaction isn't different from ArmorGames. The same amount of good and bad ideas are on both sites. It's just an excuse for them to not use this forum, and they don't even respond to most of the stuff on there.
Thing is, the stuff on GetSatisfaction isn't different from ArmorGames. The same amount of good and bad ideas are on both sites. It's just an excuse for them to not use this forum, and they don't even respond to most of the stuff on there.
That's true. But. They used to. And there used to be more good ideas there. Thaboss remembers that he would post an idea there to see how the staff liked it, then post it in the AG3 subforum to see how the users liked it, and to see if they had any ideas to offer. The AG forums are more like a wild beast, and you have to search a lot to find good ideas. On GetSat, the good ideas were the ones that had the most stars, and were at the top of the list. Alright. That didn't make much sense. Let's try again.
When AG3 was a closed beta, the feedback bar made sense, because only people who had access to it could get to it, and share their ideas there, instead of somewhere on the forums, where it would confuse new users and users who weren't in the beta. (Question. Did the AG3 subforum come before or after the GetSat page?) When the AG3 subforum came around, it DID confuse people, but since most people already knew about the beta, or where in it, they posted there a lot, and got good user response. And responses from Cormyn. On GetSat, there were responses from most of the staff, and usually a better breed of ideas and such. There was still useless blether, but not as much. So it worked for the most part. Now, it DOESN'T.
You're right. Putting a feedback bar on a site with a working forum already in place makes no sense. Especially if they're not going to respond. They've shown time and time again that the only way to contact them is through email, and even that is hit-and-miss. Perhaps this new feedback bar will work. Thaboss thinks it won't. The 'AG Forums Falling Apart?' has been at the top for quite a while, and they haven't even seen it yet (or have, and have ignored it) EVEN THOUGH Justin went on GetSat to respond to the problem of the forums not working, which, to even get him to realize they weren't working required multiple emails. Whatever 'system' they think they have in place to 'interact' with the users isn't working. Which is annoying.
