So why did NESing die?

[Terrance888]

Did we really lose (flow of potential recruits browsing forums into) NESing to instant communication and voice chat?

Overall, yes. Part 1) flow of recruits is lower due to more interaction options Part 2) draw is lower because the public facing forum appears a lot less active due to more interaction options


I’d argue CFC forum NESing is primarily laid low by a mixture of demographic collapse (older NESers having less energy and fewer younger recruits picking up the base of interaction) and increasing expectations (both on the mods and on prospective players who might stumble in and see all the cool relics of an age past.)

 

[Jehoshua]

Pretty much Terrance: as you say a lack of consistent recruitment, mixed with the existing player base becoming increasingly occupied with the demands of reality has resulted in the present state of lethargy, with the slow decay metastasizing into a longstanding coma with the end of various longstanding games (EoE for instance) that basically kept the can rolling when new games were few and far between and usually ended quickly, exacerbated by the "migration" incident.

That said the community per se is not dead and buried just yet, and it is heartening to see on the discord the likes TMGs game proceeding fairly steadily, together with the nascent ideas for a ThlayliNES and NorthKings impending game which is at the point of imminent initialization (although who knows if he will put a thread on the forum for that, or restrict it to the discord).

 

[Danwar]

I was unaware of an NESing Discord so much as existing. Could someone perhaps provide an invite to it?

 

[Daftpanzer]

I was unaware of an NESing Discord so much as existing. Could someone perhaps provide an invite to it?

The Discord is here: https://discord.gg/XjXXWqqc (7 day linkj)

 

[Angst]

Not it might ad some new information, but what does Discord offer that a Forum does not besides, perhaps, being able to connect to a microphone and chat live? The whole idea besides NESing is that it is a silent, read and write activity. Much like the foruming in general. It can never exist in a messenger format of a DnD campaign because whatever we were playing was meant to last for months with creative tools that you can't use on a phone (to my knowledge).

Did we really loose NESing to instant communication and voice chat?

Instant communication is not necessary for the NES format. Infact I've repeatedly tried to convert my amazing experiences of NESing into a tabletop system (ie an instant one) and it just doesn't do. Instant communication is not convertable into what NESing is. If I am to translate the concept I have to do it from stage 1 and it's incredibly difficult. Because I want to tabletop NESing. But it be impossible.

NES works in a specific way. Setting post. Presenting entities with which to change the setting through. Moderator interprets change attempts. THIS TAKES A GOD DAMN LONG TIME. Outcome; setting post. Rinse and repeat. There is a specific rhythm to this, that discord isn't really conductive to. You can do it in channels but it's not good.

Forums ain't good for it either ofc. The format is horrible. But point is that it's not a system superceded by voice and such. Voice simply can't do the process NESing does. It's not feasible. Updating takes hours, are the players just gonna talk over it

To me NESing had other problems. As you'd maybe seen, I'm active in NESes present on the forum today, if applicable. But it's because of what I perceive as a change of perspective. It was to most people a high school hobby, where a lot of people were smarter than a lot of other people in their high school. I'm going to just say that outright. People were. (I weren't.) Post-high school; people got smarter. Problem is that, to me, the community back then combined this smartness with a (admittedly reasonably earned) big dose of arrogance. Every single f*ing thing crumbled to minute discussions about realism when it was basically pseudo-worldhis D&D. It's a forum game. It's good to be well-founded, but it's a forum game. It did not help that the whole community bailed to another forum with no natural lifeblood.

I know there's the Tiberian Sun Esque Crazy Detailed Westwood NES going on in Discord, but the point is that people don't punish NESes for not being that at this point.

Want to stress something here. The whole moderator debacle was natural and fair. People should apply to games with something competent and not automatically get let in. Equivalent to base expectations when you D&D. I get that you want to play a catgirl with six boobs, it's just not really in the tone for this game unless you make arguments for it. This is not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is expectations for people to somehow authentically simulate world history on a god damn Civilization forum. Not even Paradox (ie an incomplete simulation) but a CIVILIZATION FORUM. This game, as of now (and no, 4 was not any better):


Like, sure you can expect that. It can be said in the OP, it can be a prerequisite for joining. Be realistic. But I think somewhere in the process people forgot to have fun. It's completely fine to expect total realism from your game. It's not completely fine to absolutely tear a new player apart for suggesting ballista elephants, belittling the person and cursing them to leave. I remember how it was (and no, to those that may think this was about them, it really wasn't. Everyone picked up Symphony D.'s attitude, basically until he left and returned and was apparently a pretty chill guy.)

Today, the NES Discord is completely different. Just wanted to say that. Crowd is completely different, and just wanna play. This is a good thing. The Discord is really bountiful with such cool things.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

NESing died, because CFC died. ciV was a flop, and people are less and less drawn to forums. Without regular new blood being added, there simply isn't enough warm bodies to keep it going. The "elders" grew up and got busy, there's no school and college kids here now taking up the slack.

I recall the heyday where you had to make difficult choices to which NES you would be in, given that there were so many being run at once. 200+ active members, dozens of huge fantastic NES. So much excitement. Aah those were the days.

 

[North King]

You could also make an argument that internet forums in general are pretty dead, with most of their functions subsumed by Discord servers, subreddits, and social media. It was a very specific thing to the early days of the internet.

 

[Angst]

I've considered trying it in a Reddit format for a while. Problem is I don't know how exactly to format the thing.

Discord should be doable.

 

[BananaLee]

Necroing threads because why not?

With Discord's channels and threads, I think it would work similarly to a forum. The problem is of course that in a forum format, I assume we don't get random people wandering around anymore, so there isn't really a flow of new folks.

Did someone up top say there actually is a Discord floating about? Is it active at all?

 

[Angst]

reasonably active. the nes that thlayli and terrance are working on (big project which is why it takes time) will afaik partly be resolved there (battles)

 

[BananaLee]

reasonably active. the nes that thlayli and terrance are working on (big project which is why it takes time) will afaik partly be resolved there (battles)

May I get an invite link? I only see the IRC thread stickiee

 

[Thlayli]

Wow - great to see you Bananalee!! #nes IRC is still straggling along with its last few regulars, and I still host D&D on it, but I remember you were a hop waaaaay back in the day.

As far back as 2008, we had IRC as a supplement to our forum, and it was mostly a social gathering spot rather than an enhancement to our traditional, forum-based activity. But I think that Discord (if properly moderated) can serve as a supplement to the public posting of an internet forum. SysNES used IRC to resolve space battles, and Sun's Torment did much the same for its battles more recently. I intend to bring that to Discord with Terrance's help.

Providing inter-turn content for players on Discord could be an interesting way to make a game stick between the massive doorstopper updates that mods are required to write (which in turn requires a near-autistic level of consistency, focus and drive, as well as the charisma to marshal 10-20 players to keep participating.) When I traveled to Ethiopia in 2018, I noticed my NESing productivity went up because my internet was basically busted back 15 years in speed and I had nothing else that I could do but write. So there is something to that 'early internet' theory I think.

I believe there is still a market for NESing, much as there are still people who want to go into monastic life, or make their own clothes, or whatever niche activity - there are just as many people interested in history, worldbuilding, strategy, and narrative as there were. The growing market for Paradox games shows that alternate history simulators have a fierce and active following.

But at times, it does feel much like an old village where the last artisans making that particular thing are all 80+ years old, and people nowadays are drawn to a different way of life. I might apologize for the tone (we were all passionate, and sometimes harsh, in our younger days) - but what nobody should apologize for was the perpetual drive to self-improvement, innovation, and depth that enhanced the fun. It is providing a deeper experience in mechanics and narrative that makes NESing more than a casual game, but a true hobby and a community.

For my part, I continue to have new ideas, and I will keep trying to run successful NESes as long as there's breath in my body.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Very well put @Thlayli

The lack of a successor Civ game, driving new recruits sure does make me feel like an 80 year old fool in a hilltop village. Forums still exist but certainly are niche nowadays.

The embers are still there, we simply don't have the fuel capacity.

 

[erez87]

I’m sure you ain’t the only one roaming around the forum waiting for an opportunity. I’m here too. Watching and reading what is going on.

 

[J.A.M.]

Necroing threads because why not?

With Discord's channels and threads, I think it would work similarly to a forum. The problem is of course that in a forum format, I assume we don't get random people wandering around anymore, so there isn't really a flow of new folks.

Did someone up top say there actually is a Discord floating about? Is it active at all?

Link in case you haven't been DMed it yet: https://discord.gg/fMX9sTXc9e

 

[Axis Kast]

You could also make an argument that internet forums in general are pretty dead, with most of their functions subsumed by Discord servers, subreddits, and social media. It was a very specific thing to the early days of the internet.

This.

Some additional observations. First, there are a number of still-active communities in various places. Second, the hobby has expanded to feature new formats. Third, the iron might be hot for striking. Fourth, Discord is more problematic than it is beneficial for recruiting, even if it might give ongoing games a longer lifespan. Fifth, the insular nature of any community, which must define itself vis-a-vis non-members, discourages recruiting that is not based on personal relationships.

There are still fairly active games in the NES style. These include fiction-driven games like After the Dance, hosted on Reddit, and the "Grand Strategy" games found on Space Battles, Sufficient Velocity, and alternatehistory.com. I think it's fair to say that the average player is an undergraduate. Certain topics are perenneally popular, including Warhammer 40K, Game of Thrones, and Star Wars.

The "Quest," which is basically participatory fiction, has now joined megagame-style games as a popular past time. I daresay one justifiably famous D&D/ASOAIF fusion quest on Sufficient Velocity features content as good as what George R.R. Martin himself has produced--and I'm a fan of his.

The explosive popularity of board and roleplaying games worldwide suggests potential recruits for forum-based games, but the same dynamic works in the other direction and I'm not exactly sure which is the stronger of the two poles.

I like Discord, and I think an allied Discord server is still an important part of building a community to support content creation for any project, but in my experience Discord servers inevitably become extensions of their owners' personalities. And if each game produces its own dedicated server, which I think many are wont to do, recruitment is possible only among people who want to play that game specifically.

Finally, recruiting is hard. Most communities won't let you just waltz in and start luring members away for other purposes. That's especially true on Discord, where the community is often as much a social venture as a gathering place to transact game business. Anyone who's spent time in online roleplaying communities will know the dynamic I'm describing. "Stay away. These are my friends. Go find your own!"

 

[Civinator]

May be a very big mistake you all are doing here, is that it seems, that there is no proper explanation at CFC what "NESing" really is. Where is the short understandable fixed at the top explanation what you are doing here ?? Are you playing civ games - and if yes, what version are you using, what is the difference to succession games and so on.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

May be a very big mistake you all are doing here, is that it seems, that there is no proper explanation at CFC what "NESing" really is. Where is the short understandable fixed at the top explanation what you are doing here ?? Are you playing civ games - and if yes, what version are you using, what is the difference to succession games and so on.

Oh no, this was all in our imagination, not a civ game. Its so long dead it doesn't really matter now though.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Also @Civinator , there is a stickied FAQ at the top of the (sub)forum https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/nes-notice-board-faq-thread-2.449738/

This thread is more about old heads occasionally lamenting the old times having passed.

 

[Civinator]

Thank you for your answers. The linked stickied post is at the bottom of the stickied posts and not at the top where it should belong and the title is somewhat misleading. It is not the short proper description I would need to understand what you are really doing. How do you win such a game - and in this case it is ending and not a "never ending story".

May be your "nesing" is the same as many games (so in German language) on the German civforum.de site that can be found here: https://www.civforum.de/forumdisplay.php?118-Forenspiele . May be you can find some players there for your games, too.

Unfortunately for this kind of games at present I don´t have enough time.