Hey Guys, Gals and Others,
Can you post links to alternative forums here.
I'm aware of a Reddit thread , but it would be useful to see all the places to get X-wing discussions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/XWingTMG/
Alternative forums
These groups are pretty good replacements:
1) XwingTMG reddit
2) Fly Better podcast facebook group as well as its discord
3) Gold Squadron Podcast facebook group as well as its discord
They don't capture exactly what a forum does, although reddit comes closest. Reddit, if you're not familiar, has ways of promoting a combination of newest and most engaging posts in a way that's a bit smarter than a forum where any reply to an arbitrarily old thread will bring it flatly to the top. As for fb groups, it depends on your own activity elsewhere; those groups might compete for a small slice of your attention if you do a lot of stuff elsewhere. Discord is a good midway solution between the first two but it tends to be tiring to sift through heavy activity - this leads to short term memory about topics, which tend to not be as powerfully explored as a good ol' forum thread. But hey, at least you'll catch the important news and topics if you expose yourself to it.
Dakkadakka was actually good I found this forum on the first place.
X-Wing Wiki has forums , as well as comments under each article (e.g. if you want to talk about Boba Fett pilot, you can do so on his page instead of separately in the forums)
I expect I'll use BGG's forums for most of my other FFG games and I'll likely look there for info on this game as well. Facebook and Reddit feel more like hybrid blog sites / chat rooms and Discord is just a chat room. I prefer the classic online forum to those formats.
I’m also partial to the forum format and BGG. Here is the X-Wing forum for those unfamiliar: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/252328/star-wars-x-wing-second-edition/forums/0?pageid=1&sort=recent .
BoardGameGeek looks like best place.
We might pick up new blood.
I like the BoardGameGeek idea as well.
More reviews will also help bump up its rankings there, which matter a lot in the eyes of some.
I really dislike the layout of BGG. It seems really clunky and counterintuitive to me. Oh well. This is the hand were delt...
BBG IMHO is not too bad, but sadly subforums are missing.
I'm old gen, I don't like FB.
I came from the old BBS and I appreciate the immediacy of IRC.
Now a day I still collect hardware, old computers, and software.
We really need a new place, and definitely a backup, if it will be possible.
Anyone with competence? Some technical solutions? Crowdfunding?
Yes, the BGG forum software feels ... aged. At least, it delivers a compact listing of topics, and there are some bells and whistles.
(For true Star Wars OT style, I may consider switching to Usenet, to be read on a CRT monitor.)
What's the engine under these ones ?
3 minutes ago, dinobaldi said:What's the engine under these ones ?
vbulletin. I don't think it's free, and hosting anyway needs a subscription to some cloud service (or ads).
Have a look at this:
Maybe ads could be acceptable, or a contribution of a few bucks. vbulletin offers cloud solutions too.
Problem of starting a forum from scratch is getting traffic and engagement. Im sure this had a big community but is already dispersing. Many will not move to the new one.
Moving to an established forum helps to gain new participation and new people onboard. No one needs to take hosting obligations and costs.
Facebook is absolutely full of adds, so a few adds on a board would be not a problem.
But FB has been caught trying to spy on your other applications (despite switching preferences to "it should not"), and is remembering everything you have done. And personally I find it a pain trying to find anything in discussions esp older ones, on FB.
Then have both the podcats a special audience. Maybe it is better on their FB presence, I have seldomly been there. I listen to a lot of different pods (I can do it when working on routine tasks), and those two do also lean heavily towards the competitive side of things. Granted both occasionally name alternative formats, but oftentimes leaning towards a view of "those are not the REAL format", sometimes from some of the pod participants even in a derogatory tone. They also lean heavily towards the US part of the scene (partly this forum does as well, granted), and are in a way "inbred" (lots of people knowing each other) (which occasionally got very ugly between different podcasts). Often leading to a restricted view and an opinion bubble. E.g. Fly better for a look time saying inquisitor TIE is trash, where our local club already had seen that they were actually pretty good, Fly better first switched sides first with the first mayor wins of inqui TIEs.
The positive side of this forum was it was relativley neutral and it was a place everyone could thrive on. The competititors, the casual, the people painting and modding, the EPIC people, the rules brainers... Everyone could find the personal niche or niches, and you could have a look over the horizon, while still being on same place. Now this probably is going to splinter. And I suspect Asmodee is not aware or does not care, that this might loose them players (esp in these Covid19 times without physical meeting) and also attraction to potential new players.
On 12/21/2020 at 11:49 PM, ForceSensitive said:Dakkadakka was actually good I found this forum on the first place.
Would love it if people would migrate to Dakka, we used to have a really active scene there but it kind of dried up after the shift to second edition. For those people who are into repainting and sharing, we have a free image hosting service (only for wargaming pics) and great painting and modelling subforums that see loads of use.
FWIW, another thing I like about BGG is the image galleries and the fact that they host images (personal gallery per user and categorized galleries per game). It means most images shared in threads don’t require a separate site be working and they continue to be visible/working when visited much later. It also means there is a way to browse/view shared images which is sometimes nice.
I'm going to give the board game geek forum a go and see how it works out I guess.
6 hours ago, LUZ_TAK said:Problem of starting a forum from scratch is getting traffic and engagement. Im sure this had a big community but is already dispersing. Many will not move to the new one.
Moving to an established forum helps to gain new participation and new people onboard. No one needs to take hosting obligations and costs.
Yea, if you want a meeting place where people will congregate, then somewhere established like BGG or the Wiki will work best. Both sites also have a lot of other utility to them, so people are more likely to have an account already, or create one.
I've posted a thread on TheForce.Net's forums (I'm DE) seeing if it's possible they can add a subforum for tabletop games and take us in. Waiting to hear back from admin right now, just if anyone is interested in that being an option.
Edited by VOEBlueFor what it is worth, I have messaged AMG. Basically I just asked two things:
1. I asked that if they could communicate anything with us. Presumably, taking over three games lines is hectic, and they may have some NDAs or need to keep some things confidential. But I simply asked that they communicate anything really, even as small as letting us now when the expect to start making announcements.
2. I asked for them to consider a forum as a way to foster community.
I have no expectations, good or bad, on how they will respond, but I figured that it would not hurt to ask.
What I can see from AMG is that they do communicate fairly regularly via facebook, twitter, and on their own page which will be nice once they start communicating about our product line.
Hey y'all.
If you need to hit me up on Discord to keep talking to me, DM me. I'm gonna' miss these forums. They've been a part of my life since late 2013. Just over six years. Through all the ups and downs it was my main place to go for any and all Star Wars content.
I hope we can maintain contact.
See y'all at BGG ...