What made the forum so good?
from time to time I see a discussion reminiscing of the old times of the Pokémon forums and wanting times like those to come back and I’m curious why those times were so good what made those times more desirable than now what makes a peak feel like a peak is my main question and his when one falls from a peak get back right up how can we rejuvenate the forums to become peak
Best Answers
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I wonder the same thing, too. Unfortunately, I haven't been involved enough with the main forums to see exactly where it peaked or to see why it would have peaked there.
So all we have to do now is assemble the other professionals and contemplate our navels upon this driving question, together.
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I also showed up kinda late.
It will never be like it was before because time has passed, users have changed, and whatnot. However I never said it won't be as good as before, as it may return to being great again.1 -
Weren't these forums exclusively a Pokémon TCG Live beta forum initially? There are very few people around from those days.
I think most people joined during or after the "Reddit wave", when Pokémon started promoting these forums as a potential alternative to Reddit when there was a threatened shutdown over there. I know nothing of the Reddit side of things, but I did witness the cesspool these forums became, during which I think the majority of the Pokémon community wrote the site off and still believe we were shut down to this day.
From my own perspective, I think these forums' smaller community and niché appeal are to their benefit. Other than the odd normie blundering in to complain about some grievance with a game, in any forum but the one best suited for it, these forums are mostly functional and respectful.
Many other forums and social media groups focusing on Pokémon are regularly inundated with squabbling at best and outright vitriol at worst for anyone who does not agree with certain perspectives. But even when there has been disagreement here, discussion is at least respectful. The worst that generally happens is someone will flag your post for not liking a game they like or not agreeing how to address balancing in the TCG meta.
The site does have its own issues, but considering an official forum could easily have become a rigidly controlled corporate den of sycophants or a glorified consumer complaints department, I think we do pretty well here.
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I haven't been here long but I am reminded of an old saying: "People come and people go". In other words, the world moves on when something new has grabbed their attention and with Pokémon it's no exception. Activity tends to ebb and flow with the release of new titles but as time goes on and people grow older, their interests change and consequently Forums such as this dwindle in activity. Also, Forums are a rather antiquated means of communication these days given that they were a thing back in the late 90's/early 2000's when Instant Messengers were quite basic. They evolved into Skype, Ventrilo and now Discord which also conveniently "functions" as a "Forum" in some capacity and therefore Forums such as this are an old Dinosaur that, in time, will become extinct. I'll conclude by saying to enjoy it while it lasts since who knows how long this Forum will remain functional.
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As such, it's almost time we propose a virtual toast — to changing times and tastes, to the death and rebirth of trends, to seeing the forums through till the inevitable end.
Amen.
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Now I'm feeling bad…
I've been here since as soon as I could, and I've loved talking to yall and making friends. I haven't been on anymore, mainly because I forgot my password and it's saved on my computer, which I'm barely ever on.
But another thing has to do with the fact that Pokemon has slowed down as of late. Only things we have to hype up now are ZA, and there's seldom news about that. When these forums were first made, we had infinite ideas. Now we're losing steam. It's less of a "when will the good days come back" and more of a "when can we have a big chat again"!
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I feel like I joined right when the forums peak period started to end, which makes me really sad that I missed it, but for a short time after I joined, the forums still felt fun and alive. I think one of the biggest problems is that all the biggest posters on here, like @DoubleCure, @TheJeffers, @OlderAngel11, @MajorBrendan , @NoahLaprasForum , @Octowen , @Michael629303, @Tacolaser, @Hey_PIKMIN , @cpm1, @clasingla(I know this is your post but still), @UnovanZorua, and even @PokemiiAC and @Jadite , even thought those two are gone, arent very active anymore, leaving newcomers to themselves. My heart aches for the times when all these people were still here, and there were interesting posts. I also agree with what @Acornyo said, pokemon isnt making many games to hype us up anymore.
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Honestly, I think that's a big part of the reason, along with how long it's been since we got new games or content. That people are less active. I have tried to make new posts or comments more often a few times already but I've been busier lately and have also been running out of ideas.
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I think this perfectly captures why the forums have been going downhill. This and the newly released trading feature in pocket. Because of the trading feature, people come here to debate over trades, flooding the forums with bulk messages about what to trade. Pocket should have a built in feature that allows this so that the forum isn't swamped with these junk messages. Likewise, LIVE has so many bugs that people are reporting bugs and pushing the better, more interesting posts off of the main page before anyone gets a chance to reply to them.
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You could always do what I do. Post your fanfiction and leave hard questions.
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honestly a built in feature would definitely be better for this forums and pocket. more interesting engaged topics can be on first page instead of trade request (for the most part I wish everyone could just use @NoahLaprasForum if they wanted to do that instead of making their own individual post) maybe Pokémon could develop an app just for trading to get trading traffic off the forums
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See, this is a great idea that could seriously benefit the forums a lot, but the simple fact of the matter is that Pokemon is notoriously slow when it comes to making changes (cough how long it took to get a mute for emotes in LIVE) and these forums aren't big enough for Pokemon to take notice of us. They will probably add a built-in feature sometime in the next couple of years, but by then the forums will be too far gone.
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