The eerie silence of these forums

I was thinking that these forum boards are pretty quiet, as a general rule. At first I was a little surprised... after all, this is *THE* place on the internets to go for V:TES related discussion, is it not?

That other game... you know the one... they have like fifteen different forums that are all going like gangbusters, 24-7. Now I recognize that V:TES has not been, is not, and will never be as popular as a game as the game that shall not be named -- not even for forty-seven seconds back in 1995. But I was still a little taken aback by the quietude here.

But then I got to thinking.

It's not just that there are fewer of us. And it's not just that there aren't new cards coming out every 6 months. It's that I suspect we tend to skew a little older, and we've (most of us) been around long enough that we've had most of the interesting discussions about this game before. (The rec.games list was a hive of activity for a long time.)

Or perhaps I missing something... and there is some vast venue of vibrant, vital, vivacious VTES verbosity viewable elsewhere on the InterTubes?

The forums are frequented by a small portion of players, alomg with the people who, for vekn duties, are on alot.

I have like a stragnely high number of posts, and I far from the best player in my city, let alone country, let alone world. But, players i KNOW have so many amazing amd varied ideas on the game are on here less, or never.

Hell, you cant swing a dead kine in central ohio without hitting princes and or hall of famers, but none of them are on here as much as me. And im not just talkimg about folks just with 5 twds, i do mean Bell,Loughman, Cashdollar,Msesser, Jay, and a slew of others.

Im more apt to be on a forum like this than they are. Thats about all. I am on here, via my phone, alot. I have a busy life, and im sure people who play WAY more than me are on the forum way less.

This doesnt represent good players, good ideas, a good measure of the demographic.......

Just which portion of a group of a few thousand tops who still play even semi regularly happen to be forum frequenters. Just random dumb luck as to who posts or doesnt. If you base all of vtes off of my opinions, everyome should fearxcombat and only newbs and really drunk folks should play imbued, giovanni powerbleed, or malk 94.

But im just some dude, no credentials other than losing to the "best" players in the world several times and makingthem worry that a deck they couldnt guess at would get them. And im chatty on thr forums.

Ive suggested we have articles, written by blog-doers, on here, to keep things lively, or even a crazy game moments monthly story section.

All that can be said hasnt been, many local forums are now useless as facebook has replaced them, and players still talk. But busy lives, and sometimes isolated demographics and playgroups make the forum, the best non regionalized place to talk vtes, not suit everyone. New players can be intimidated, hell, they just seem to lurk alot. But even mad scientists like Darby, or notorious players like Cherryhomes are well known to comment for shits n giggles. I do, others do, but its hardly everyone.

19 year olds buyimg t2 mt$ tend to have time to argue with 43 year old parentsbasementdwellers over mtg in between classes at community college, and theres so many players of that game, theres bound to be more talk.

We just do less of that sort of thing.

But the forums have busy and down spurts, just varies.

Ashur wrote:

Legendre wrote:

Or perhaps I missing something... and there is some vast venue of vibrant, vital, vivacious VTES verbosity viewable elsewhere on the InterTubes?

I guess some discussion is now going in Facebook-groups.

I have found the Facebook posts to be more scheduling focused. The most interesting stuff is here as it should be.

What should be talked about?

There's only so much "I hate XYZ" worth going through, and, as you said, much of that has already been gone through.

Deck posts have often been the most common threads, but so much of deckbuilding is personal taste.

Rules changes don't seem to be coming.

Tournaments are happening but this is not the majors season and it has always been amazing how little came out of, say, NAC/WoN or the like in terms of discussion. Which brings something up - I've often found that the primary discussion forum for a niche CCG will lack much top player input. I have my thoughts on why, but it's unfortunate.

The main thing I'd expect to see is Danse Macabre discussion based on play experience and what a next official fan set would look like.

Overall, doesn't seem like much controversy, doesn't seem a deep investment in how to win more, not a lot of discovery to be done, so I'm hardly shocked at the low volume of discussion.

Well, I am currently playing Hearthstone, a purely virtual CCG with an attractive UI.

Give or take, 80 % of posts are "nerf this class, nerf that class" (please note that nothing is really broken in terms of card balance). I actually prefer that people here provide well-measured and in-depth responses when you ask for ideas and refrain from mindless chatter.