Question: Not seeing much activity in this community

[GeekyRaptor]

So I might be just imagining it but it seems like the ROM hacking forum is usually pretty inactive, I got a warm welcome initially, but since then almost been like no one's ever on there and I have no one to discuss ROM hacking with as well as the game development forum was pretty dead too, "been trying to get ahold of the creator of a 2d RPG engine for around two weeks now"
Is there a place somewhere else I can get more interaction or is there no hope for consistent help in the poke' community forums?

 

[mgriffin]

I can't speak for ROM hacking, but in my mind it's absurd to complain to the community about the absence of a particular member (they have not logged on since June 2018) who you want to talk to about their project. What could we possibly do to help with that?

I dunno, maybe try Discord?

 

[GeekyRaptor]

Well, i didn't really expect anyone to really do anything about it, I feel sad that the community is inactive for the most part. I was hoping for some more activity on the forum, but it looks like hardly anyone is ever on here. Even if noone will help me I at least would like people to chat with. It's depressing that I can post a question and not get a response for several days if I get a response at all. Anyways thanks for the input. I'll keep discord in mind.

 

[gimmepie]

Activity depends entirely on the forum you visit. Some sections have quite a lot of activity some have less and there's often ebb and flow. The Discord is usually very active though.

 

[professor plum]

With the rise of Discord, Reddit, and other various Social Media outlets, Forums as a whole are just not as popular like they were back in the day. There are some who try to keep things going, but it's hard to compete with aforementioned platforms.

The Fan Game channels on our discord server are all relatively active. You might have luck there, as well. As far as the specific questions being asked in that "RpgDev - An RPG development toolkit" thread - if people don't know the answer, they might not post. Sorry ):

 

[GeekyRaptor]

Thank you guys for the wonderful feedback, I got the contact info for the guy working on that RPG engine and I have sent him an e-mail, we'll just have to see if he responds to it, as for the lack of activity, I think Eric has a point, forums aren't as popular as when I was a teen, which is kind of sad, considering they had so many dedicated people behind them...
Thank you everyone for the wonderful input you have given for my question. It's more important to me than you realize.

 

[mgriffin]

I appreciate you've reached a satisfying conclusion in this thread but I just wanted to pick you up on this point:

It's depressing that I can post a question and not get a response for several days if I get a response at all.

The trouble with specific questions is that people—including myself—won't post unless they have an answer. But to be honest, I agree with your general frustrations that it is hard to have a genuine, thoughtful discussion on the forums at their level of activity, and sadly Discord does not come even close to providing the environment for such discussions either because it encourages quick, low-effort messages and points get very quickly lost in the noise.

I can only say that my approach to these problems has been to watch for people who are active here or on Discord that I think communicate interesting ideas, or at least clearly, and reach out to those people privately. I would love to see a more exclusive community that bridges the gap between what PC is, and what you might get on a small team with a common vision. But having said all that, even as a person who speaks a lot (and probably too much!) I find it hard to clearly write all my ideas out, and resort to quick DMs to people I know personally rather than properly presenting all the things I'd like to discuss with a wider audience.