Your 2013 Arbiter nominees

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Your 2013 Arbiter nominees

PostPosted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 7:15 pm

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Messiah
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The nomination process for Arbiter was especially active and exciting this year. Four members have been nominated and are now asked to highlight their distinct qualifications that recommend them to the position. I invite myself, MS, SL33PY and Anubis to say a few words here before we move to a vote.

Thanks, Gentlemen.
"All I was trying to do was get people to want to make their own new ring of light so that it is forever a name with meaning and substance ...." - BlackDove the Beneficent

Re: Your 2013 Arbiter nominees

PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 1:36 am

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M.Steiner
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I did have a much longer version of this already written and ready to post up for this and I did debate whether to even post this at all, I have decided to go ahead with it though so I'll try keep it as short as I can.
Everyone here should know me well enough by now or at least have seen me around long enough to have formed their own opinion as to whether they would want to vote for me as Arbiter or not. I'm not gonna use this to necessarily tell you why you should or you shouldn't do that as such as chances are you'll have a better idea of that than I would, but I am going to share some thoughts towards the latter which I think is only fair since I have been nominated.

Every other year I've always seen high activity levels as a positive addition towards a person running for Arbiter, and whilst not required for the position I do think it's a good thing for one to be seen to be present and participating often. The fact here is that I am by far the most active person here these days and you just have to look at the index most of the time to see that. I don't see myself as being any more active here than I have been in the past though, just that so many others aren't anymore or just rarely post even if they visit (and some didn't to begin with). We do still have a bunch of regular posters here too who frequently contribute to the forum and help keep this place active as well (you'll know who you are and thanks go to you guys <3), which I think is important especially when some people are inbetween games and we haven't had an influx of new members for quite some time. How else will we keep this place going?. But even then and when those guys aren't around I have become increasingly aware of feeling like I am talking to myself on more than one occasion and this does get depressing to tell you the truth. I won't go making this post longer by listing off examples but there are many to pick from and I'm betting this years voting numbers will similarly reflect peoples interests too.

I've been thinking that rather than taking on a responsibility such as Arbiter it may be best for me to start pulling myself back from this place a bit instead if things don't start to improve, and in this case I would rather see the position go to one of the other guys personally. Trying to do both would be difficult for me as I'll basically be forcibly changing my habits here of nearly a decade if I do that. My only worry there is the forum activity will suffer more which is what I have tried to help towards and encourage with people in the first place, but then I ask myself why I should make this my concern if it's (possibly) not for so many others?
If on the chance I am nominated however I will ofc give it my all and do the best job that I can. I'm not declining the position here or anything either just to be clear, I just think it's fair to put these feelings out in the open if anyone is expected to vote for me in the first place.

Apologies if any of this sounds like a whine or rant btw, I don't mean it to come across that way or put a downer on things. This place and the people here have always meant the world to me but besides the few other more active posters still around and kicking as I say, I do often feel like I'm fighting the battle alone sometimes.
I wouldn't want to see this place die to inactivity or anything and I hope nobody else does either but I do worry that this could happen if we don't do something about it, it can't be left up to just a few of us. I have already reached a point where I've decided not to bother with my usual anime posting for this autumn season (which is next week for one of my shows would you believe), I don't want to get to the point where I feel like there's no point in posting at all.
It's not that I expect anyone to match my level of activity here like others have done in the past either but this is something all of us can help towards as little or as much as we can. It won't do it itself. I did think topics such as the top 10 video games one I posted last year would be something everyone here could engage in and share with but even that pretty much bombed iirc, I even tried a giveaway for the new year which didn't exactly receive the response I was hoping for heh...

I realise that most of the people reading this will be the guys who do still give a shit and are probably those few I speak of who still regularly contribute so I could be wasting my breath here perhaps, but I felt this was a good opportunity to air my thoughts and have this post serve two purposes. Don't want to derail the thread and open this up as a discussion or anything mind but thanks for reading and good luck to to the other nominees. Just some food for thought to take away with you :)
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Re: Your 2013 Arbiter nominees

PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 7:28 am

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SL33PY
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My nomination speech more or less will be the same as last year. As far as online gaming I still play Eve Online, with some pauses. WinBrian is the constant of our corp, Ozany was seen again (yey!) and we have a new addition that is currently suffering from a burn out :sweat: Khizune, who has been a fun guy to be around. Occasionally Stracius decides to boot up Eve too, though I suspect mostly to set his training queue.

So to the arbiter job, you guys know me for years already, if you want me to take the reign, I'll take them gladly.


To the issues MS posted:
For some reason other MMO's do not capture my interest and I'm mainly focused on Single Player campaigns. The reason behind that is that I can always pause a sp game when one of my kids decides to cry or get sick, or my wife calling out.

I think that SSX needs to evolve a bit. Activity on the forum has decreased with the popularity of other social platforms rise to the top (facebook I'm looking at you). Most of us know each other for years and sometimes even a decade already.

I feel that we need to try to pull in more fresh blood and maybe we need to think to transition ourselves to Facebook and other social networks. It's a path worth thinking of.

Maybe we need to set up a weekly or monthly multi-player evening

Re: Your 2013 Arbiter nominees

PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 3:35 pm

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M.Steiner
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I am mostly the same with MMOs tbh with you. Other than a couple of weekends spent with the FFXIV beta and a little bit of Firefall during a time that nobody else was playing, Guild Wars 2 was the last one I properly played which is just over a year ago now. I haven't ruled FF out for when a sub is worth me paying for and there aren't so many other releases I'm wanting to play like now though and WildStar is something I'm still greatly interested in as well. Still hoping that will start to interest some folk here when it gets closer to release despite the original thread being another example of the above heh.
I expect to be playing lots of Battlefield 4 multiplayer though (I don't usually touch hardcore mode mind) so I'll be looking forward to hopefully playing that with a few people here again like we did with BF3 for a little while ^^

Fresh blood is something we could do with to keep us thriving, yep, but since this isn't always possible when some of us aren't playing an MMO like the above to actually help recruit in and some games are more appropriate for it than others, keeping the place active outside of those and people interested inbetween has always seemed just as important to me if we want this place to survive, how else is it going to?. I have always tried to encourage forum use with people I've played games with or recruited (haven't done the latter myself in a while admittedly) but recruiting someone and then introducing them to the rest of the community here isn't going to have a great effect on new folk if forum activity drops really low, it will only make things harder. You can't sell the wider community idea if there's nothing to show for it.

I think there's a few things that can be done to improve things off the top of my head. First and foremost some of our existing members should consider visiting and posting more often, the lurkers being more of the latter. As I say again, as little or as much as people can depending on their time. Every little helps at the end of the day and I'm sure it won't go unnoticed.. Those who don't visit or post at all should also be encouraged to come join us on here every now and then, but not forced ofc. Any new members recruited by our existing groups should be pointed here and encouraged as well.

The general forum can cover almost anything really and should be a place where everyone can join in. We've already got SP game talk in there with both mini reviews/recommendations, following upcoming releases, gaming deals, tv talk, music etc, and the anime forum for that which I know people still watch. Or even the lifestyles forum for sharing stuff like Khizune has been doing recently which was great. Plus there's no stopping others from creating other topics for stuff they'd like to chat to people about either. Stuff like the top video games thread I mentioned above should be topics everyone can share with and with little effort too just as one example. Or tv talk if people aren't gaming much at a given time since I'm sure most people do that to some degree. Most of the world has been talking about Breaking Bad these past weeks, just not here unfortunately lol.

Our existing members could also consider guilding up together more often in games too or starting an SSX guild for themselves instead if a bunch of people want to play elsewhere or as a different faction or whatever, otherwise it's a missed opportunity for recruiting for the community. I experienced this myself with GW2. We had a good few people playing that and an SSX group would have been nice but there was only one other person who rolled on the same server as me at release and was interested in playing together and that was Andy. If I remember right everyone else went there seperate ways and played with other people/groups. I'm not making an issues of this btw and that's fine if people want to do that but I do see it as one of those missed opportunities. Time zones can be a problem ofc but I see no reason why both EU & US players couldn't team up in a guild together and recruit people from that server for the time that they all play, providing the game and that particilar server is active enough to make it a viable option. Or if people have some other friends outside of the group they'd like to play with as well, why not have them join us and all play together, or start an SSX guild for us themselves? All the better I say. Failing that a guild for both EU & US sides like the WoW days. Both of these were actually suggested to those playing FFXIV but we've proved that multi-region groups can work in the past with groups like Neocron so we know it's possible when everything falls into place. No harm in trying again.

The weekly/monthly multiplayer suggestion you make is also a good idea I think, Sl33py. I wasn't that keen on the game myself (mostly cos I was playing alone and didn't really know wtf I was doing, a guide would really be useful for it tbh) but Firefall could be a possibility for this since there was already an interest with some folk plus it's free to play. I'd be up for that. Or maybe more people here could think about buying Battlefield 4 for the multiplayer and get a few more of us playing together? Premium is not required so there's no subscription cost, easy enough learning curve and would be even easier for people to jump in and out of than an MMO. Speaking of which, BF4 will be having an open beta next week so why don't a few of you give that a try if you weren't going to?. Oct 4th for the general public but it starts on the 1st for people like me who have early access (BF3 premium members, BF4 deluxe pre-orders).

Our existing groups & other members could also think about posting news across the site as well if/when there is anything worth sharing. I am the only person here to have posted any news on the website itself in over a year. Or perhaps we could transition our front page somewhat and use it for posting stuff like the gaming deals and release date announcements for stuff as well and link those back to the forum for discussion?. Maybe those of you who use Facebook could do something similar over there to help promote and forward people back to the forum too if you don't already? I dunno.. just brainstorming really hehe.

Anyway will leave it at that so I don't derail the thread too much but I think there's plenty of things we can all work together on to make sure this place doesn't fall off the map, but it can't be left to just a few of us.

It will be our 10th anniversary this time next year too, pre-SSX aside. I don't know if this has crossed anyone else's mind too but I had been thinking it would be nice to mark it somehow. I did enjoy setting up the pvp competition I did in TOR a while back with the prizes and everything so something like that might be good to do again on a bigger scale with more people involved perhaps, or something similar which we could do on the forum itself to involve everyone. Maybe I can work on a few banner graphic changes like we have for Christmas too.. That's another discussion for another day though, but it will be sad to reach that and have our activity and peoples presence here have gone down even further :)
Last edited by Whizbang on Fri Sep 27, 2013 4:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: To help break up walls of text for ease of reading
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Re: Your 2013 Arbiter nominees

PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 8:22 pm

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Anubis
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Here we are again then!

I'm an old timer who is around whenever he can be (though that's no longer as permanent a presence as it once was, as I have less time to spend online), and checks in here religiously as well as frequenting IRC whenever my PC is turned on.

Whilst I plan to be joining QD and a few others in FF14 in the near future, I am also mainly an SP gamer these days, and I'm also your main administrator! I do tend to feel that these factors make me less of a prime candidate for the post, but ultimately it's not my decision on the matter that is important here. As always, I would give my absolute all if elected once again to the position of Arbiter - it is an honour to even be considered.

I'd also like to take a moment to touch on MS' points. Yes, it has been obvious for quite some time that activity has been declining. The fact is that so many of us are getting older now, and for a lot of us that means less time available to spend here. It's only this last year that I've really started to move forward in life - and by that I don't mean "move on from the SSX" or anything similar, I just mean not spending every night in front of the PC any more. Just doing other things, as people tend to do when they get older. Through families of our own, or even just work into the mix too, and that leaves drastically reduced time. I only have time to spend maybe 2 days a week gaming these days, when I used to spend a minimum of 4 hours a day seven days a week as little as eighteen months ago. That doesn't mean I'm going away or deliberately pulling back, but it DOES mean I'm not as omni-present as I have been in the past - I expect the same is true for many of us.

The effect that's had on the forums etc could well be, as is suggested, in part to do with the fact that we haven't evolved. Like it or not, activity and involvement is far easier to generate these days through social media than it is through old forum based solutions (I know that I am far more active in some communities on social media than I am on their forums, for example, simply due to the convenience factor). Maybe we need to up our game in these areas - integrate our Facebook more into the website, try to generate content and discussion there, even set-up a Twitter account? Generating attention and discussion there could well bleed back to the forum itself, so perhaps some attention needs focusing there.

I also think that Sl33py hits the nail on the head with regards to SP content. I think that it almost goes hand in hand with the above that less time available means more difficulty playing MMO or even MP games. I almost exclusively play SP games these days due to this (the fact that we STILL haven't had our next SR4 session MS is evidence of this - just not finding the time :(), and whilst it's nice to chat about them with others SP games generally don't lend themselves to communities as well. It's certainly a lot harder to recruit through them!

I would also like to note that I would support the idea of an MP evening, even something we do regularly, very strongly. Something that I could pencil in an evening for and make sure I'll be available for. I've been doing that with console games a lot recently (with friends), and it's definitely a workable model for those of us who are lacking in time generally. We should definitely do this.
"Perhaps this is what I have always wished for since that day. The loss and destruction of all. That's right, one must destroy before creating. In that case, if my conscience becomes a hindrance to me, then I will simply erase it. I have no other choice but to move forward....therefore!" - Lelouch vi Britannia/Zero, Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Forever an eXile and proud of it!

Re: Your 2013 Arbiter nominees

PostPosted: Sat Sep 28, 2013 1:08 am

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Messiah
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I am Messiah. I have been around here a long time. I am not very active, due primarily to the real world, three kids and two dogs. I check into the forums regularly, but you aren't likely to find me on irc unless I am looking for someone. I am your current arbiter, a job which has been very taxing (actually, there has been nothing to do as arbiter all year). I am a good mediator, and good at crisis management and conflict resolution. We don't have a lot of that around here, which is the way it should be, but I am a good person to call in the event that there is need.

Social media, responsibility, and the general aging of our members have all led to lower levels of activity around here. As has been said, we have, perhaps, failed to respond to changes in the way people are virtually gathering and communicating. Social media has fragmented the ways in which we interact. It is no longer enough for us to rely upon web based forums to organize ourselves and communicate. We have a centralized model which is barely surviving in a world of constantly connected and decentralized communications. We were using forums like these before text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, and online console gaming. The forums are struggling to remain a relevant avenue for us.

Most of us aren't kids anymore. Many of us have jobs, kids, and other responsibilities that keep us from living online as much as we would like. I miss the days when I could devote my time to an MMO, but I don't have that kind of time anymore. When I do find the time, it is online on a console with a first person shooter. I can play for thirty minutes and walk away, gratified and not worried about finding the time to raid, grind, etc. I would love to team up with some SSX members in the PS3, but it wouldn't be like it was when I would play an MMO for 6 hours straight.

Communication has changed, the net has changed, and we have all changed. The great thing is that most of us stay in touch with this place on a regular basis. The kids have grown up and added other things to their lives, but they still check in with "home" on a regular basis. It is inevitable, I suspect.

Honestly, though, this conversation should be started in a new thread. We should all do some brainstorming on both how to increase activity and how to access, as a community, the current networking avenues that we are all using.

I am Messiah. I am your current arbiter. Vote for me. ;)
"All I was trying to do was get people to want to make their own new ring of light so that it is forever a name with meaning and substance ...." - BlackDove the Beneficent

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