Let's bring the forums back to life!

Suggestions and Contributions
1

There are many reasons why the forums lost their popularity. I know i say this much, but since coming back i see a lot of changes in PMU, this includes the game as well as the forums.

While the game, in my opinion, has improved a lot, the forums are nearly dead. Why is this happening? Because, beside forums games, there is nothing to look for. Sad, but true.

Before listing possible solutions to this problem, I believe we should first see what are the reasons of this unfortunate situation:

1. The staff doesn’t answer to key threads in forums such as Suggestions. As we already discussed, it would be great if the staff could give their opinion to these suggestions or at least let users know if they are going to be looked into, if they are going to be implemented or not. Nowadays people prefer to make suggestions in-game, what is everything but productive since these suggestions end up being lost.

2. Nothing is going on: Just click “View new posts” and you will realize what I mean.

Now, I’ve thought of possible solutions to this matter:

1. This is obvious, in my opinion the staff should inform players about the state of their suggestions, and be a bit more participative in this section and in every forum.

2. Well, let’s make something happen!

  • Use the forums to INFORM. Have you released a new dungeon? Perfect! Add it to the MOTD, but also use the News Section! You could give players certain hints about these new released dungeon, or certain information that they won’t get in-game. You haven’t released a dungeon, but is it coming? Let people know! Let them know what it is going to be about, but keep certain information to yourself.

Daily news are always welcome! Has any sprite being fixed? New Pokémon released? New sprites?, let us know through forums! But update this DAILY or at least FREQUENTLY.

  • Make FORUM EVENTS. This may be a bit hard to be implemented, but not impossible. Basically, there should be events hosted on the forums. If you win these events, then you are rewarded in-game. The only thing I can think of is a Poke-Bingo, but i’m certain there are a lot of other possibilities. Also, use the forums to reward people, remember when we reached 100 players in-game and we got an experience boost? What if we reach 100 players online on the forums?

-PROMOTE the forums in-game, allow to paste of forum links in the chat, add a “Help” section that redirects you to the Game Guides section, make a “Forum” button in the main GUI that redirects you to the main board.

-REVIVE the old ways! Bring events back such as mapping contests, official tournaments, Holiday cave, etc. And announce all of this through the forums!

I would like to clarify some of these ideas have been discussed with Erica, and even if I’ve already thought of some, i’d like to give her the credit she deserves.

I Hope you find this helpful and luckily, we will be able to work together to make the forums a second home once again. It’s no need to say that any feedback-suggestion is fully welcome.

Thanks for reading.

2

Sounds reasonable. I"ve noticed that the forums are a little ghost town… O.O

Wonder how many people will actually see this though. o-o

3

Many will see it, but few will comment.

Still, you bring up some good suggestions to help make the forums more popular! Forum events are pretty difficult to create, but not impossible, as you said. In fact, you could participate in a forum event and get Event Tokens added to your item list while offline. I’ve seen it happen before, so it truly isn’t impossible. Hopefully more people will put in their word of what could be done as a forum activity.

I do know that a lot of people participate in BGO in PMU (set up by ArtMax most of the time), so why not have a small weekly gaming event revolving around games outside of PMU? Of course, maybe that’s a bit too much to ask for. >.>

4
  1. The staff doesn’t answer to key threads in forums such as Suggestions. As we already discussed, it would be great if the staff could give their opinion to these suggestions or at least let users know if they are going to be looked into, if they are going to be implemented or not. Nowadays people prefer to make suggestions in-game, what is everything but productive since these suggestions end up being lost.

One may think staff dont put attention to suggestion forums, but if you see older posts in the forum the staff really put atention to this, the problem is the staff is “mysterious” with this, if the idea likes it, the staff put in the game, and if they think the idea is not good or cant/dont know how implements/they fail to implement, nothing happens, no people dissapointed for telling yes and then no implemented, or pressed for implement something that staff said will be put in game, these are the things why i think staff do not answer suggestion forums.

Daily news are always welcome! Has any sprite being fixed? New Pokémon released? New sprites?, let us know through forums! But update this DAILY or at least FREQUENTLY.

Usualy andy and kirk update this every month (in lastest updates forum), but seems they have been busy lately to post there.

and about events here… the “forum games” counts? and other is events hosting in pmu and posted here (like the last event in arena…) they are more common in vacations…

5

Making suggestions and talking about them in-game while telling them to look up to the full suggest in the forums is a good way.

Making surveys and asking people to answer them in the forums, so we have proof of stuff they want or what they believe. Rewarding the contributors in the forums with in-game prizes is a great idea, but if the staff is not up to it, some richer fellas can always help. We’re a pokemon community after all, we are all friendly and willing to help each other… Right?

Posting guides is a great idea and it Works to make people come to the forums, even as guests and lurkers. Making contests and lotteries. Is it possible to have in-game trades between players? Having them connect here is a great idea not just because it’s more organized, but because you have a hard, true proof of every deal. Thus making it impossible to fake deals.

The forums are good as they are. It’s not the forum’s fault, it’s the people who are not coming, since it serves the same purpose it has always served. But if you want to make it more active, people need to speak more and play less. But you can’t “force” a community to use the forum, the staff has to have the inititative. Ever seen Blizzard forums? Their staff use it to communicate news and talk ideas. And that’s why they’re so active, because there is feedback, there is a reason to post, since you’ll be sure someone will read it.