How to convince people that FF7 is still hip and totally not lame. (Split out of secrets discussion thrad)

[Tifabelle]

Serious question, does anyone here frequent any other FF based forums? Are they all as jaded as we are? I feel like somewhere out there there is still a pocket of fans who still have hope....maybe we should find them and kidnapp them?

I actually do have hope And occasionally even express it

Not to be a nag but shouldnt this stuff go in like, a community projects thread?

yeah, someone'll come along and split it out.

 

[Octo]

Yeah, it occured to me that this should be split off into a separate thread but I plum forgot to mention it

 

[looneymoon]

Split thread title: "How to convince people that FF7 is still hip and totally not lame."

TLS new site tagline: are you ready to get JIGGY WITH IT???

does anyone still have that gif of cloud in hammer pants because that could be the banner

 

[Octo]

Split thread title: "How to convince people that FF7 is still hip and totally not lame."

TLS new site tagline: are you ready to get JIGGY WITH IT???

does anyone still have that gif of cloud in hammer pants because that could be the banner

I see where you're going with this, we could reignite late 90's nostalgia yes? I think we should just go ahead and geocities the shit out of the whole site

 

[looneymoon]

stop

magic hammer time

I HAD TO GO THROUGH THE VERY FIRST LTD THREAD TO FIND THIS
but it was worth it
i even retroactively thanked the post
god bless you hito

 

[Carlie]

You Rishi have made my day.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

To everyone who expressed the sentiments of "FFVII is an old game and I'm not really interested/there's not much more to talk about", I totally understand that. But there's other stuff we could do. General FF coverage, translating stuff (which honestly we could become mega big on our translations alone), whatever it may be. The burden on site growth isn't on any of you individually, but the problem is, whenever I used to go "HEY GUYS I'M REALLY INTO HELPING THE SITE GROW HOW ABOUT YOU????" *crickets chirp*

I quickly got the impression that nobody gave a shit. It really started sucking when the bickering and fighting happens instead of you know, something cool. It's not a bad atmosphere in general around here or anything, but it could be much better.

 

[Deleted member 546]

Ah, serious shit is serious. I would like to contribute to the site moar, but RL and other commitments kinda put paid to that. I don't even get on SO and FFOF any more these days, although I really should. Having said that, it's knowing other members that keep me coming back, not FFVII.

Having just caught up on five days worth of postings, I'd also like to add that if I get slated on tumblr/TLS secrets, I'd like them to be posted, I could do with the lulz.

 

[Shademp]

Spoiler: Too long to read rant

Final Fantasy VII is my hobby. TLS should be a collection of people who have the game and the Compilation as 'their hobby'. This will always be restricted to very few but I will do my best to get more like-minded people here. There are individuals I want to contact and features I want made, but I'm postponing most of it for until after the site redesign. A professional-looking site increases the odds of newcomers thinking "Hey, this site is worth contributing to!"

While FFVII is my hobby, I do not always enjoy it. I can't for example join the Let's Play FFVII thread because I've reached the point where playing the game is painful to me. I've picked it apart too much already.
All I can do (as I have already done) is commend Flintlock on his determination to lead this community event. We are very lucky to have him on this site and I hope that if he ever considers to leave I can provide him with ample reason to stay. Same with Fangu really. She is a true godsend too.

So my hobby is usually not about enjoying the titles themselves, but instead cataloguing information about them. This is why I do not shy away from the Compilation; I just want to report and catalogue, I don't care how much a title raped the original continuity or not.
Truth of the matter is that I've detached myself from most heavy emotions regarding "what a disappointment the Compilation is". It leads nowhere to almost create a religion around how much we hate Before Crisis or Dirge of Cerberus. Opinions are good but it gets to a point where people just care too much; over a decade of whining about the Star Wars prequels has led nowhere and the same applies to FFVII.
I can't change the past nor should I desire to. It is just a franchise.
I repeat. IT IS JUST A FRANCHISE.

A perspective like this makes me enjoy analysing how FFVII came to be; both the good and the bad parts of it. It is interesting to see how complicated the video game industry can be and how, as a natural consequence, the creation of both the original canon and the expansion of it is such a messy affair. It teaches us how the medium so far works and how it needs to be improved.


If I take away anything from my FFVII hobby, it is an extra detailed commentary on the creation of all the titles and an extended homage to how keeping track of the canon is only possible via franchise-compendium sites (which I will always aim TLS to become more akin to).

Spoiler: Recommended commentary on exaggerated fandom responses

MovieBob's "The Phantom Menace 13 Years Later"

So in short, I don't think the task is to convince people that FFVII is still hip. That will never work because for most people FFVII is just a footnote in their gaming library and not a full-blown hobby.
The task is to find the devoted fans out there, spread across YouTube and FFVII fan sites, and get them to come HERE and contribute. The sub-task is to not spend hours complaining about the Compilation (because this will only serve to demotivate the entire community), but instead work on cataloguing it.

 

[Sprites]

Shademp: Understandable you wouldn't wanna play through VII again after picking it apart, I don't think I could either. I agree convincing people that FFVII is still hip isn't the task or they way to go and I don't think complaining constantly about the compilation I guess is the way either now that you've mentioned it.

I love your work on this site Shademp and the amount of work you go through on finding new stuff out about FFVII, it's incredibly interesting and I get a little bit excited everytime you show us something new. I still find it amazing that after 15 years you're still finding hidden scenes and ripping content from the game that was hidden to us.

Fangu I know you work hard on this sight, the amount of skype and IRC conversations we've had were you've mentioned trying to get things to work and your frustration when they don't pretty much says it all so yeah I'll definitely make sure to comment on your work when you put the prototype up.

Actually I sometimes think we don't always give those who put all this work into the site no matter how big or small the credit they deserve

I want to contribute more on here too. I always have free time during the week so if there's anything I can do to help I'll do my best with it, my own problem is I'm awful with computers so I wouldn't be able to do anything tech related but I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff I could help out with instead

 

[Ghost X]

@Octo: I don't go to any other forums, but I used to, and they all bitched about "the good old days" of each respective forum's existence and FF's glory days. Those forums then died . I don't think there is a logical connection between the two happenings though. As long as the community spirit (for lack of better word) is alive, and someone maintains the forums (admin etc), I don't see why we can't enjoy a nice plateau of existence. There's still plenty of material that hasn't been discussed, even if it is the little things, and I think although FF may be the drawing card for new members, the older members activity is statistically outside that section of the forum (am I right? ). Stupid Syria, WTF happened in Prometheus, "ooo, pretty colours" at E3, etc.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

No matter how much you try and make people get back into final fantasy, square enix will shit on the franchise more n more.

 

[Octo]

Probably but I guess if people are still managing to glean some enjoyment out of the franchise we can capitalise on it.

One thing I was thinking, Mog, when you talk about TLS 'shining' and stuff how do you mean? Like are you imagining we'd have a larger member base or what? (Like ACF did in its heyday?) Or do you mean it could manifest itself in some other way?

Like I've said before, we have some awesome people working on stuff here yet I don't feel like the amount of active members reflects that. Maybe I'm biased because I haven't really spent that much time on other FF fourms but I think TLS is the number 1 resource for stuff, and I'd like to see it getting more credit for it. Don't really know how to achieve that.

Also, if what Ghost said is true across the board then we have a problem, if people in general just arent as juiced up about FF then maybe we should think about branching out to being a more general gaming/entertainment site?

 

[Carlie]

What about streaming playthroughs of other games that aren't FFVII or FF in general related. Maybe that could bring new people that perhaps don't know much about FF.

 

[Cthulhu]

What about streaming playthroughs of other games that aren't FFVII or FF in general related. Maybe that could bring new people that perhaps don't know much about FF.

We do actually have a twitch.tv channel, . We should get some programming or something going. If there's anyone that wants to do something on there, get in touch or start a thread. Ideally, we get random people streaming random stuff randomly at random times.

 

[Ryushikaze]

I could do a, well, not Marathon run, but sequential run of the oldschool FF games.

There's the Dirge LP I plan on doing once FFU is over with, though that's probably better as an after the fact commentary unless I can do a stream and record at the same time.

 

[Masamune]

Upload FFVII videos presented by a hawt "gamer girl" from TLS (there's enough to choose from). Seems to work for most other gaming sites.

 

[Geostigma]

"HEY GUYS I'M REALLY INTO HELPING THE SITE GROW HOW ABOUT YOU????" *crickets chirp*

ect.

But what can really be done at this point?
We have had this discussion so many times over the last decade across multiple websites (mostly on FCF though). Granted the other sites had a big issue of CBA trumping our efforts I still wonder... If we really do everything we talk about will we see the hits we are looking for?


We have 2 issues to deal with.

1: Forums are for the most part a dead medium for communication. They continually get 1 upped by facebook groups and pages. Any other forums that are still active and thriving today are either IGN/Gamefaqs or are a staple Internet site (something awful, ect).
Social networking is totally kicking our ass, honestly the only thing that will save forums/vBulletin is the fall of Facebook.

2: As said earlier, FF7 is dead.
Obviously this has been talked about earlier so I wont beat a dead horse here, and honestly its the issue that is most easily fixed.


Back to social networking. The big deal is that its easily accessible and you can easily share what ever you want with absolutely everybody. I know this has been brought up before we really need to get into this, because if we dont join them we will lose to them.

Every single day I get on facebook and I see some retarded friend clicked "like" on some ridiculous image (those hit like if heaven ignore if you like hell retarded images/pages) and see that literally thousands of other idiots clicked like on that crap too all over the world.

Im not saying lets hop in and post up retarded images, but we should definitely be on there and actively getting the TLS name and logo out there. Its not that hard

We cant exactly refit TLS to be the next Facebook but I feel like the Lets plays, commentaries, Twitch.tv thing are definitely going in the right direction we just need to keep at it and we need to keep putting our name out there.

 

[Tetsujin]

the fall of Facebook

Gentlemen,

we have our mission.

 

[Max Payne]

someone should put together trivia games for the front page that people can play in their freetime

you can develop one for each game

 

[Splintered]

I always wanted to try and contribute, but yeah, life and laziness gets in the way. I have a skeleton of an essay on why Barret deserves more respect than he gets sitting on my computer for over a year.

I'm just here to say that I really enjoy what effort people bring up with the projects, whether it is write ups or lp's. yeah. I wouldn't mind if there was regular podcast or video debate put up or something because the people on this forum are fascinating.

 

[Max Payne]

I always wanted to try and contribute, but yeah, life and laziness gets in the way. I have a skeleton of an essay on why Barret deserves more respect than he gets sitting on my computer for over a year.

This is relevant to my interests.

 

[looneymoon]

I have had an outline for an analysis of mothers/the use of maternity in FF7 sitting on my old computer somewhere.

Never actually started it, but I would like to actually write it someday.

 

[Splintered]

I have had an outline for an analysis of mothers/the use of maternity in FF7 sitting on my old computer somewhere.

Never actually started it, but I would like to actually write it someday.

One day we should get together and almost write an essay with each other.

 

[Fangu]

someone should put together trivia games for the front page that people can play in their freetime

you can develop one for each game

ooooo! That is a wonderful idea indeed! There could be top scores boards and stuff.

Now if we got that damn vB/WP bridge almost working, we might even be able to connect the results to their forum profile. There are several obstacles I see here already, but I'll definitely put it on the 'great ideas we REALLY have to look at' list.