My gaming community

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I have a gaming forum. The only problem is, whenever somebody registers, they never come back after their first day. This happens whenever I invite people. I've even got an advertising campaign (which is why there's ads on my site. I don't have to have them on there. My hosting is free.) I wish that I had at least ONE member who was active every day and would spread the word.

Anyway, My forum is about nintendo games and the games I develop on my own time.

It's called Ratio Games, but it's not an educational site. Not anywhere close!

I need members (ones who will come on every day) and moderators.

And I also need people to spread the word. My site has been newly renovated, the rules have also been renovated. The forum is visually pleasing (At least to me) If it's not, it doesn't really matter. Graphics aren't the thing that matters in a good forum.

Here's a link: http://ratio-games.forumotion.net/forum.htm

ONLY come on if you will be active every day. It's not very satisfying to update my site when no one is ever active.

Nintendo-based gaming is a very narrow niche interest.

But I know what you may be going through. I've started a few Traveller-based, play-by-post RPGs on other websites. Most people would register, and then never log in again. Those who did log in regularly spent most of their efforts arguing with me over settings (Star Wars v. the Third Imperium v. Star Trek v. Stargate v. et cetera), or the decisions that I had made.

It's never worth the effort.

Why should people go and stay on your forum? What is it that your forum offers that an existing, more established forum doesn't?

Most people are very whimsical and as Fnord said, they'll either register and leave, or just b***h the entire time they're in there. Once in a while you'll get the rare loyal regular. It's like that with any new organization.

My forum offers great trustable administration, unlike many gaming communities I have been in.

Could you all give me ways to help me get members? I'm desperate. I just want to provide a good alternative place where members can fearlessly post without mean comments from others. My rules are very strict, stricter for admins/mods. they may be SOUND strict, but the rules I have will provide a safe environment for gamers to just chill, and not be bothered by misbehaving members/mods. Some members/mods at sites I've been to have offered nothing but flaming, spam, and trolling. I just recently left DS Ultimate, a large forum with mean mods and an inept admin. They say it's "where gamers come together" but how can they with all the flaming, trollng, and misbehaving of the other members?

My forum promises great administration, and I will ONLY hire ones who have proved themselves WORTHY of modship. I wil read ANY PM members send to me, and if a mod/member misbehaves, I will deal with it. A healthy forum is maintained by, not only admins/mods, but the members as a whole. I've even got a poll in my forum rules topic asking if the rules are fair! That's excellent administration to me!

How do you feel? do you agree with what I just said? If you don't, that's fine.

And, in the future, I will add opportunities for members to discuss other franchises, systems, brands, and companies.

I'd join, but the orange hurts my eyes. :/
The fact that it's virtually empty doesn't really look very tempting either.

My personal veiw:

The orange skin is rather bright. You might want to go for a calmer grey or slate blue.

The boards are too big and too seperate. USe smaller icons so you don't enlarge them too much.

The boards are too wide. Try finding a code to make them smaller

There are too many empty boards. Only have a few up until the site starts to get more active.

If a website isn't aesthetically pleasing to its members I doubt they would stay very long.

While admirable, your rule on no disputes is doomed to be broken over and over again once your site gets going, you can't expect hundreds of gamers to crowd on one forum and there not be any argument on who is better (E.G. Mario vs Sonic threads), what you should encourage is civil debate when these thread do appear, and they will, if the thread appears to be turning into just a fanboy rant or flamewar, that is when you lock the thread and put people on probation (or give them warnings), but trying to stop them altogether is rather foolhardy.

That's the problem with starting a forum - people see there's no one there so they don't join...which means there's no one there.

I want to start a heraldry forum for general heraldry discussion that *doesn't* exclude people without their own coats of arms. I know it's not going to happen though.

Thanks for the tips. By the way, I don't code much, so it's a forumotion forum. I was very careful to avoid hurting people's eyes. I do think the bright colors need to be toned down a bit. I'm a fan of brightness, that's why I've got a DS lite! The backgound colors are okay, but the gradient sprites I will fade slightly as to not hurt people's eyes. The text is pretty visible, so I will keep that the way it is.

I will make civil debate a right, I didn't say it wasn't allowed, I just meant NEGATIVE disputes between people, disputes involving flaming, spamming, trolling and other misconduct like strong language. I've experienced this kind of crap from many forums and I did not want to let members wipe that crap on my squeaky clean forum, as well. (that was pretty clever! I do think I am a good writer. I can write very good stories.)

My company logo is a bright orange, so I won't change the color scheme drasically, just enough to make it easier on the eyes.

as for the emptiness, I wanted to get a lot of forums ready for anyone who wished to come, so that is why it looks so deserted. You see, I don't like the fact that people only come if other people are there. yeah, I know it's empty! So WHAT? Just because it's empty doesn't mean it's not good!

And also, I gave users the oportunities to talk about systems other than nintendo, in new user groups and in a few new forums. (Yes, I sprited that space invader in the retro corner. it was easy. Just looked at a picture, made a very small sprite, pixel by pixel, then stretched it with low quality!)

And I will now make changes.

There. i've improved the color scheme and wideness. The forum now doesn't seem like a chore to post on. However, I don't think the rules are that bad. As long as people know that I mean NEGATIVE disputes rather than civil debate. Civil debate is fine.

Maybe I'll change it to blue.

Aspies have problems with stimulatinfg colors. When I look at it, it's a mix of beauty, or overstimulation that pierces the eye. I don't like the piercing part, so don't come until I change it to a more soothing blue.

My forum has changed to a more calming ( ) color rather that an ugly, startling, eyes peircing, upset stomach, diareah ( ) color.

The color? blue. ( )

Just follow the link in my sig.

I hope you like it. I was also more specific about the "No Dispute" rule allowing civil debate, and reduced the width of the forum a bit. Everything that was of an orange or tan color has been changed to a soothing blue.

Our new motto? "Where quality administration meets forum."

you should check out the voki character. Whenever I update the site, she is updated with a summary of what is different. I will work harder to make sure she states EVERYTHING the next few updates.

Ok I'm sorry if I seem particularly scrutinizing of your website, had some time to kill at lab, heh.

Any way to change the text color perhaps? The dark blue on the lighter blue background doesn't have enough contrast to make the text easily readable on my computer screen.

Also in your "Welcome to Ratio Games!" message, don't say so explicitly that "We need members..." It immediately draws attention to the fact that your forum is empty, even before a newcomer has time to scroll down and see that the forum is empty. You could say something like "Help promote the site by... (blah blah blah)!"

411 hello, see ya' -- I'd remove any mention about goodbyes and partings and any thought that remotely suggests people leaving. It also attracts attention towards the number of people using the forum (in this case... not many).

Looks like there's an awful lot of empty space up on the top of the main page. Any kind of graphic you can put up there other than that circle?

In the Gallery section, you should put in some pictures of your own, so that it won't be empty, people will get a sense of what kind of pics to put in there, and to add some color contrast on your otherwise very blue site.

And perhaps something that could be very interesting... I noticed in your FAQ (yeah I actually clicked on the links to see your answers) that you are a game developer and have a company called Ratio Games. Is that a real bonafide (as in incorporated, with license) company? I think that this forum could potentially be a huge asset towards promoting your company and the games you develop. I think that you should seriously consider putting in the links to the games you develop if they are downloadable games, or at least links to more information about them and of the game characters you have created. And in the games you are developing, add a link in those games so that if people are curious about the game developer, they will be transferred over to your forum site where they can get more info on games in the pipeline, etc.. This will help boost the traffic that your website gets. I know that this might go beyond the scope of the Nintendo-centric forum topics, but ultimately it's up to you to decide where you want to take this website.

Hope that helps with some stuff! I know some of the first comments may seem pretty superficial from an AS point of view, but part of advertising is to really amplify and promote strengths, and put a positive spin on weaknesses or (what I don't really like) stuff them under the rug...

You should probably provide a motto or subtitle that reflects what the forum is about, not what the administration/moderation is like.

About the colours, you can probably allow users to choose their preferred setting when they're logged in.

About color scheme choosing? Forumotion doesn't have a feature for that, but I will try some of your suggestions.

as for Ratio Games, It is not a licensed company. It's only run by one teen. (me.)

But I do plan, in the far future, to make my small "company" into a growing animation studio, where Dylan's Adventures comes to the big screen. I've also got a few more small ideas, like BALLS: THE MOVIE which takes you through the life of sports balls. These Ideas are only what I have now. I'm only in my freshman year of high school. I hope nobody steals my BALLS idea. That one seems to me like a laugh riot in the making (or thinking).

I'm working on a game when I'm not working on my site. It's called Dylan 64, a PC game where my Dylan's Adventures Characters jump into the third dimension for the first time. Problem is, I gotta wait until version 0.14 of Cre8or before I make it more complex. I'm using 0.09 right now, it's an old version, but it's the only one that's noob friendly and gives the best graphics performance.

I've got some of my old game maker games on yoyo games.com I don't plan on using game maker soon, so the graphics don't offer much. They're mostly glitchy, too. Characters get stuck to walls, and many more glitches.

I'll try some of the stuff you suggested. thank you.

Durfdo OUT!! !