Davideo7 : I guess it's easy to sum my thoughts up as just one of the crowd?? Interesting. I disagree. But then again maybe that's part of the bigger issue.

Another thing that hurt the site big time is all the times where you had serious issues with the site being offline for long periods of time. Even if it's happening a few times a day for an hour or so, people notice that and word spreads. Not to mention the times where the site had SERIOUS issues and was down for way longer than that. In my opinion that is one of the things that hurt the site the most.

Regarding the guides. I'm sure you get some traffic from the game guides, but my point was that it's not enough to stem the losses from other areas. Due to a number of different reasons.

theweapon2 : Nintendo's first party games have already been removed so there's no longer a worry from them.


Jordanv78 : I had already responded to everyone else and I was already running short on time. I don't view you as just part of the crowd (you've always been a valuable contributor to the site and I've cherished the few times that we've been able to netplay together), I was just really short on time and had less and less time as I was getting to the end of my response. Sorry

The site hasn't been offline for a long time in a while. The site's up time I think is better than a lot of sites of this size, especially considering I'm the only developer of the site. Those things probably did hurt the site a little though, I wont argue that at all.

Just to give my two cents worth... I believe a huge issue is that very few newbies go over to the board. Many older members have decided to move on, people like Singelli posted hundreds of times in a month, creating huge amounts of content, while most people barely make 30-60 posts a month. I have to admit, that since becoming a mod, I have noticed more than before, that few people are posting in threads... people stick to the same threads, few make new ones, and even fewer are quality.

I believe decreased Vizzed activity has to do with 4 things:
1) Forced removal of 1st Party Nintendo games. This dramatically decreased the amount of traffic that the site gets, as now that traffic goes to Play.Rom.Online, which is fine for those who want to play the games, but not for those who are making reviews, screenshots, and videos, as the system sometimes glitches, as I've experienced with Pokémon Trading Card Game for Game Boy Color. I've tried taking screenshots for the character competition, and they just won't show up when I go to retrieve them.
2) A lack of very active Staff. This makes it hard to get problems solved, such as with the Minecraft server, as with not very many people to help with problem solving, it makes it all fall on David. This also has caused a disconnect between the staff and the regular users like me on the site. I'd be willing to help solve this problem by investing 10+ hours a week into this site, even outside of summer, but that's your choice David.
3) A lack of original content making Newbies want to come back for more. People would most likely come back if the Battle Arena had finished development, as we're just a community of people who like games, so if we're going to make people come here to talk about games, we need them to stay, and giving them some fun content to play will keep their attention for a longer period of time on the site. This also goes toward the shop function, as the current Steam games are nothing that people want to play, though games that people have at least heard of sell like wildfire. If we offered more of those games, and rewarded people in competitions with those as opposed to Viz that has seen massive inflation, or Raffle Tickets that can't buy that many good games.
4) A Fight Club!... wait, no, that can't work digitally Competitions not having as good of prizes. This is last because this can't be fixed until traffic in increased, which in turn causes a few more donations, allowing for competitions for us to win real money again. I remember that being a very big grab for me, especially as I was young and didn't have a job, so it was a lucky source of income for me to buy a game. They don't have to be high like the previous Character competitions ($200 was a pretty big 1st Place), but  somewhere between $30 and $50 would be a nice sweet spot.

Not trying to roast the site, but these are problems that I've seen and would like fixed.
Davideo7 : Lastly, I know I keep bugging you about this, but I sent you 22,000 Viz for one of the Minecraft rental accounts, but with the server not functioning properly, could I get that Viz back please? Thanks.

If you want more people to come on Vizzed and bring activity back, could you advertise it in some way?

Of course, people have pointed out that barely any newbies stay. Why don't you just advertise the site in some way, so newbies can come and hopefully stay?

Yes, adding and changing things in the site helps, but advertising in some way helps too.

I have to agree with the many people who stated the obvious. With many of the Vizzed vets gone, and the Ninendo "embargo" to put it quaintly, (thanks big corporations) not many feel the need to post actively. Side note, props to Leggy for being one of the few, if not the only one who was honest enough about the "it's a secret to everyone" discord chat. I too was told about it, but I tend to stay loyal to my VC even if it's a ghost town. I mean, come on. Kind of lame some certain people deem it necessary to leech people off this site just so they can go spam elsewhere. Yet, oddly, if it rids this site of trolls, did we really lose anything?

legacyme3 :
manicman66 :

"There's never anybody in the sanctioned Vizzed chat, and they are all in a sketchy Discord that is invite only (I've been invited to join by several people, but I view this as an elitist thing that again, locks out newbies)"

" honest enough about the "it's a secret to everyone" discord chat."

Um... this? https://www.vizzed.com/boards/thread.php?id=97869

It's not a secret if a thread about it was made fyi. 

vizzed discord is pretty lit tho, just sayin

manicman66 : It was actually started by Van when Flashchat died and the site was without a chatroom for several days. It died off for a little while, but then people just kinduh came back. It was more a side development or a temporary thing that grew legs than something that splintered off.

My apologies. I didn't know a thread was made about a Vizzed chatroom offsite. The possibility of a private, secondary one existing could of course, never happen, and I was never told about it (Man sarcasm IS hard to pull off in text). Now to go back on topic, I tend to lean toward a formatting of all posts. Of course, not the very important ones, such as the treasure bin, the ask anythings, and the like, but maybe a clean slate would be a good, if not great, theory. Edit-Also, said Discord chat seems to be run by Vanelan, however, Aria, as well as Mossberg, are very mysteriously taking a very high offense to the allegations of a secret chat. Probably not a coincidence but I've been wrong before. On a further sidenote, at least try to use proper spelling and grammar when posting, good grief. "Fyi". "kinduh",(from a local no less), and a lack of punctuation tends to steer away possible newcomers I'm sure.

Firstly are the post numbers still as low as when this thread was first made. That would be good information to know. 

I am pretty sure that everything i may say may have been stated before, If it hasn't in this thread it has in at least 10 other threads on the same subject.

Firstly forums are just not that popular anymore.. Technology has moved on and there is far more immersive and interesting ways to act with a variety of people and communities. There really is nothing that can be said about this except for hoping that the people that do come to this site, do indeed stay... but obviously we all know that isn't the case. 

Secondly. A lot of the major gaming companies are releasing a lot of their old stuff and marketing it as retro and such. Which might increase your numbers slightly.. but most people would much rather have something physical or new, or you know something that the company actually gets money for. Without being too rude to any newcomers here, most are probably just desperate to play a game from their childhood and once they settle that urge to revisit the past, they are never to be seen again. 

Lastly I think the most recent event for me that had a large scale impact on this site is the fact that the chat room became unavailable... It was the place for people to go when they didn't know what to post.. it was the place tor the community to share ideas with other users or to vent their frustrations.... It kept people wanting to use this site. And to be blunt i felt this was just tossed aside as unnecessary because it didn't make money on it's own..... Now you have a discord server that is brimming with activity... and a website that is not. 

manicman66 : It does, i feel however the bigger cat in the room so to speak would be the fact there's a thread that says "where did the activity go" 

Sonicmcmuffin : I wonder if there is some kind of way to incorporate the Discord server into the site? 

I will try to stay longer on this site this time around. My personal life caught up on me. Vizzed made me feel better about my self and see a light in the end of the tunnel. Glad I thought "hey let's check out vizzed again" since it lifts up my mood to post to the good people on the site.

But on the problem on low post activity. People will come and go. Maybe in the next months people will return. Maybe people just take a break from the site. Let's hope its so easy

1. Just kinda lost interest in games in general.
2. I'll visit the chat room and nobody will be on, and every time I visit the chat room it's different and I can't adjust to it.
3. I've gotten used to being more... inappropriate due to the kind of communities I hang around outside of Vizzed, so I'm afraid of accidentally breaking every rule in the book.
4. I struggle to find anything to post about, even looking in the New Posts there's barely anything that even slightly concerns me.
5. Activity getting lower has made me struggle to become active as well.

There's probably some more but can't think of a lot off the top of my head :

One thing that I think needs to be addressed outside of the forums, is the RGR itself.

The RGR plugin REALLY needs updating and features added. These emulators that the RGR uses have tons of features/settings that users aren't able to take advantage of. Open up some of these settings/features to the users. Make it more user friendly. I know I've also brought this up a ton, but trying to fix up the N64 emulation would be a big boost to the site as well. I know that N64 emulation will never really be "perfect" but fixing some of the current bugs/issues with it would be HUGE.

 Davideo7:
    I think what really killed Vizzed activity was the loss of the nintendo games from the RGR, granted you can still play them thru the site using another associated site it still took away from the appeal/aspect of vizzed which you could have all the games you want to play all on one site. But another reason on what I think killed vizzed is most of us( like myself) grew up playing the retro games offered here from our childhood and knew about the existence of the games offered here, while most of the 2000's babies don't even know half the games or systems here and in all honesty aren't interested in playing outdated "retro" games because the nostalgia isn't there for them they have no found memories of them simply because it's before there time. Also what's wrong with the activity is you have alot of old members but no new members, and the only way I can see vizzed drawing in the new generation is by adding the new systems but adding the new systems could mean dealing with more incidents like what happened with Nintendo. And finally you can't look at the site from the stand point of what's wrong with Vizzed, you have to view it from the point of what can i do to draw in new memebers and what can I do to make the site more appealing to the demographic I'm trying to reach.

Just a thought.

Like others were saying up there, the chat room was fun for the regulars that were in there, which in turn kept them adding to the board, which gave the members who didn't use the chat more to do.

Maybe compare what mods and what rules were in place when the board and room was active together vs now.

Another thing that I thought of is that I don't often see users bringing their friends to vizzed anymore. If more users convinced their friends to register and post, that could help. Their friends might be motivated to stay if they like social media because once they get used to the rules, forums are better than social media. I'm sure that's the case with my close friend Joseph (PokeGO+MarioFan, who parodied my username, making it obvious I referred him here). Now he's here as much as he's on Facebook and Instagram.

Some users could become well-known quickly because they're referred by a well-known user (again, that's what I hope is my situation XD)

I agree with geo, I'm currently using my mobile for everything right now. Plus, I believe that the majority of regulars are just starting off on the stable life path, finding full time work, getting babies, work and college.