That’s a strong assumption they’ll at like that though.
If anyone on SRK hasn’t already bothered to look into the SkullGirls subforum, they probably won’t start now.
And if they actually did that, then they weren’t that interested to start with.
Im with Vulpes on this one. I don’t check SRK for BB / GG stuff often and I basically come here for Skullgirls and general FGC news. Skullgirls lore site /w art etc: would be pretty sweet though.
I say this out of exp. I was with a group of forum guys for Armored Core years ago and Coredump was the hub at the time, it died ACO became the only place to go but when ACU came out years later, community split REALLY bad into noobs on one forum and vets on the other, naturally that really hurt the game and gave us the abortion which is ACV because the company listened to fractured input. Now I know Mike and crew are smarter than that but its still a bad move to split your community. From PS2 era to current gen the game also went dual console 360 vs PS3 didn’t do it any favors since X Platform wasn’t available. Seen that happen way to often and SG doesn’t need that kind of fractured community or difficulty for helpful people who are on SRK all the time. Divide their time and your likely to hurt everyone.
Can we just wait for official word?
First of all, having the only hub of SG info, tech and everything else on SRK is a bad idea, because for example people like Ciscokid who are active online didn’t even have an SRK account until others pointed it out.
For new players, is it REALLY common knowledge that for every fighting game ever you should make an account at SRK? Because if so, I can’t seem to find the BattleFantasia subforum we obviously must have.
Having Skullgirls info on Skullgirls.com is OBVIOUS, and pretty much everyone who starts to play the game can figure out the website name. So let’s just wait for official word.
Outside of Japan, you guys are basically in the same boat as VF, and we have had a dedicated and stable forum for over a decade.
Your move.
An official board may seem like a real good idea, but I have personal experience how shit can go south on that end. The original soulcalibur.com was my home from 2003-2008 when 8Wayrun was created and became the new central SoulCalibur hub. For SC, it was Namco wanted to use the domain for SC4’s official site also, because it was under Namco’s control and they, really didn’t care about us. The forum was never updated to newer versions, server crashed all the time in the later years of the site, and even though we had ways to fix it(well, Jaxel did) not having the permissions to do so lead to seeking ways to speed up the site (including a bright idea of deleting all the old SC2 and 3 data without backing it up first) which ultimately was for not when Namco took the domain for SC4’s official site and threw the old site and forums in the garbage completely.
Not saying LZ would have these same issues. But considering the past/current money troubles…how confident are we the lights will stay on?
I personally think a site dedicated to LZ…games. Would be a smarter idea than one simply for SG. So long as great care is taken to ensure any future games they release get the same star treatment on the site as SG. I think it could work. There’s quite of bit of work involved with this, but I could see it working if implemented correctly And LZ/SG sites could link to us if they wanted to (like what Sega does with PSO-World on their official NA site)
But SRK isn’t a bad place either. It kinda sucks we’re hidden(kind of). But we do have our own spot and a wiki spot with information all up in it. So it’s not like we’re a thread in FGD getting buried everyday by “Should I use stick or pad?” threads. We do have our own hole in the wall, right in with a pretty big(overcrowded) part of the FGC. (We can wave at them.)
IMO. I’d be for a dedicated LZ site(obviously a huge focus on SG) so we could also support their future titles in one central hub.
Advantages:
- More open to beginning or casual players.
- It could organize the fan art world.
- Brings artists, cosplayers, casual fans, and tournament players under one roof to be better coordinated.
- VAs would be more likely to participate.
Disadvantages:
- Have to double post to reach everyone, especially if you are running an event.
- SRK could turn into more of a ghost town reinforcing the belief of some that the game is dead.
- I’m already on SRK for everything else, now I have to track two boards?
The way I would see it working is I go to SRK if I want to watch match vids, talk about setups and resets, and have 2 page long conversations using nothing but combo notations.
People would go to the SG forum to get feedback on their robo-fortune drawing, find out which convention is having SG people or a tournament, learn how to make a giant shark head for their cosplay, and ask people how to beat the end boss because she’s so cheap: all things that SRK isn’t really built for.
In any event, I’m sure Mike’s a little busy and tired right now after we’ve kept him from sleeping for a few weeks, berated him with questions he’s not allowed to answer about xbox patches, shaved his head, and sent him hundreds of e-mails to go through. Let’s give the guy a few days to rest, catch up, and get back to us. Then, we can talk the whole thing out.
At the very least we could experiment with this idea and see how it would turn out within 4-6 month trial. We won’t truly know what will happen if we simply discuss theories all day without making a move.
At our current state, I see this low risk and high reward depending how this plays out. The payoff is we could expand our size very efficiently from the fighting gaming aspect to the FanArt and not be overshadowed at SRK as a subforum. The risk would be a split the community even more and hurt the current status of our current size at SRK and end up slightly worse off in the end.
However, the “risk” should not be a likely factor depending on how serious we want this to happen. If this is gonna be half-assed effort then we might as well play it safe being content with the current status quo and stay at SRK while praying for the “official” forum to eventually open.
The month of January was very beneficial for SG with alot of exposure and Updates. This is the kind of momentum we could use to spread awareness about this possible website/forum. If its gonna happen, better sooner rather then later.
I said in the other thread I can help pitch in for some of the necessary expenses if we are serious about this as a community.
Should we stay being small fish in a big lake? Or large fish in a smaller yet respectable lake? Thats honestly the real question here
I kinda feel like it’s a bad idea to splinter ourselves further from the rest of the FGC and potentially push our game further into obscurity.
Oh God, people, just contact Ravidrath already and ask if there’ll be official forum anytime soon. And better catch him on the NeoGAF. Looks like he’s posting there frequently.
What a great idea, if the SG base is going to collaborate with the Smash scene, who have their own circlejerk community distanced far off from the real fighting game community - thank God for that - the SG community should do the same. Nobody plays SG anyway so you won’t be missed either.
I haven’t contacted Ravidrath myself, but in the previous thread Chibi was able to find out that the forum was initially supposed to be released after the 360 patch, but not only does that not have a solid release date but with the PC port and DLC it could be pushed back even further now. Nicknyte then contacted MikeZ on facebook and he said to go ahead, because “I doubt SG.com will do anything”.
Also, @Vulpes, etc.: We’re not going to force people to move to the new forums, and you won’t need an account just to read the info posted in the threads. So if you want to keep using the SRK sub-forum (as I’m sure some) will, then feel free.
I also can’t agree with Number 13’s post more. This thread is like theoryfighting - it’s valuable, but there’s no real way of telling until you try putting the ideas to use. Personally I think that the Skullgirls community is strong enough to withstand the change and that the site will prove to be a positive thing, but there’s really no knock-out argument that either side can give right now.
No.
No no no, sorry.
Fact of the matter is that unless we think that we as a community can ignore evo srk and do our own thing, which means running our own events like smash does… No we shouldnt fracture from srk. We already have it good here. Our own forums, it isnt slow as balls anymore, enough room to grow.
Now if we cant get more forums for sgs expanding roster… Like for squiggly and brella, big band etc or if srk starts crawling at a snails pace again… Then yes we should look for other opportunities if for no other reason than necessity. But until that time, being in the biggest fighting game forum in the world, cant be a bad thing.
Plus many if not most of us play different capcom games that are represented here, at srk. I like the one stop shop thatis srk and i dont want to have multiple windows open just to stay abreast of sg and other fighting games.
Having our own forum wont legitmize us anymore than we currently are… Only numbers will do that…
However it will ostracize us from the fgc as well as alienate us… That ticker that is at the top of this forum that goes into EVERY FORUM HERE is a very awesome way to constantly market ourselves to the rest of srk… Which is a bunch of like minded gamers.
The only thing i think we should do is make an official site named skullgirls.com and have it just link directly to here… Nothing else justa link straight here… Problem solved about people not being able to find sg forums that have never heard of srk.
Srk is the best place to concentrate on if the community is mostly hardcore fighting game players looking for strategy and information.
The truth is that a large portion of the fanbase are people who like squeeing at cute characters like squigly, and they don’t get very much out of this forum compared tumblr (let’s not mention what they get out of pixiv).
If the goal is to grow the competitive scene, we can cannibalise from already competitive communities by being involved at locals, travelling to play at majors, and recommending the game to fighting game players. We can also bring in new people to the competitive scene by helping casual fans get started, and getting them interested in higher level play but that will only work if we have somewhere to talk to them. Some stuff benefits from having a strong presence on srk but it’s not strictly necessary with the news feed and guides we already have here.
If the goal is to grow the skullgirls fanbase, the main untapped market is the anime scene (in my opinion anyway). Getting them interested in skullgirls enough to play it means creating media that appeals to people beyond the tutorial or gameplay videos (stuff that leverages the character design, lore, or music), representing the game at conventions and on websites like ANN. However, if people google ‘skullgirls’ and only see:
Then they’re not going to be very impressed. A fansite at number 2 or 3 would be a hell of a lot better look.
The in danger of distancing ourselves from the greater FGC makes 0 sense.
Virtua Fighter
Mortal Kombat
Tekken
Blazblue
P4A
KoF
all have sub forums here (some w/ character sub forums) and their own hub and they have wikis located in both sites’ wikis. Smash/Melee is the odd one out (even though you have Smash at FG events or local meetups so it’s really just a minority on SRK thing to claim Smash is an outcast).
Cross posting is not a problem either, MK, VF and KoF players do it. You’ll still need to check SRK for events and they still put up news articles about your game if you have your own forum because this is a fighting game hub nowadays even though still mostly dedicated to Capcom fighters (except Dustloop being home to Vampire Savior). An SRK account is important for more than just posting in your game’s forum, this site is like Grand Central Station or an important airport hub, you’ll need to pass through here sometimes.
So if you think it’s a bad idea because of some we’ll be forgotten or banished, you’re silly.
I don’t think it’s a good idea and already said why in the other thread. This doesn’t mean I wouldn’t help, I’m behind it 100%, just chiming in.
@Age_of_Fools: That is exactly why I think that SRK and the new forums would have complimentary role in the community. It’s not that the new forums won’t focus on the gameplay, but that it can also go into other areas that SRK just won’t touch.
@Mr.X: Your last line confuses me. You don’t think it’s a good idea, but are behind it 100%?
We can’t abandon the community if community does something we’re not approve. Otherwise we’ll be pretty shitty community members, won’t we?
What’s confusing? You never disagreed with someone but were willing to help and supportive regardless?
I just wasn’t sure what you meant, but I completely support the sentiment.
I personally think we should wait on official word. Also Melty Blood really wouldn’t be where it is without MeltyBread. It was extremely vital in helping us grow as a community.
I would love to put fanart and the like on my blog to help at least that portion of the fandom, though discussing it would still be a problem.