Alternative Gaming forums…

ST Dragon · Post by **ST Dragon** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:26 am

So, what other Gaming forums do you guys hang around, for all your retro/vintage & modern gaming worries, queries & needs?

Thanks.

Post by **system11** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 7:57 am

I dabbled with a few others, but they usually just remind me how comparatively good this one is.

I do still visit the official xbox.com forums, to see if anyone is saying anything interesting about new releases. Usually they aren't.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:29 am

Mine (sig), and Assembler. When I have time, Digital Press, but there's far too much crap to sift through there. Can't be helped though -- so many posters.

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:19 pm

the fanitsu forums can be a good time, maybe pa will speak up with a link. or just find a post of his (the link is in his sig).

and while its mostly just for hi-scores and such, team cowboy run a tight and extremely hilarious ship over at cowboy.ikaruga.co.uk. note that posts there can be few and far between.

icycalm · Post by **icycalm** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:45 pm

I posted at insertcredit for almost a year, until I was banned. Then DonMarco, a friend of mine from IC, started his own site and forums, dontpressstart, and I started posting there (not for the faint of heart).

In the meantime, the IC guys changed their minds (not all of them) and decided to unban me. So I started posting back there again. But the forum had changed perceptibly towards the worse, and the drawn-out fights and arguments were getting to be a daily experience. So one day when I was feeling really... spiteful, I gave this kid 20 bucks to hack in and delete their forums. Hey I am sorry--I was drunk and didn't know she was underage!

Anyways, they launched their forums again from scratch, and I re-registered, but the old magic was long gone. Most of the old, respected forum members had left, presumably because of the intense moderhation that was going on right before I deleted the forums. Anyways, I had made my mind that I hated the place, but I couldn't keep myself from visiting and making fun of (almost) everyone. Eventually, Brandon (one of the owners of the site) brought in the SS (i.e. jiji) who proceeded to ban everyone whose jokes went over his head (i.e. me and a bunch of my friends). At that point, we all said goodbye to IC for good and went back to DPS.

During that whole period, I kept posting at a couple of other forums:

rllmuk: huge british forum, well-run and full of interesting people

japanese gaming (now gamengai): GP's forum, small, interesting and bullshit-free

I only posted once or twice a week at the above places though. That's because, for reasons that would take me at least a page to explain, none of them exactly match my ideal of what a video game forum should be (IC did that, but only for a little while).

And just a couple of days ago I launched my own forums, which have a grand total of 9 members, as I write this. God bless every one of them. Needless to say, it's a quiet place. Hopefully it will get a bit busier in the weeks and months to come.

As for shmups, the place rocks overall, and it's the first forum I visit when I start up my web browser. There are a couple of things I would change--if it was mine--and a couple of people I would lightly scold, but, hey, nothing's perfect. The major drawback for me is that it's dedicated to a single genre.

RoninBuddha · Post by **RoninBuddha** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:46 pm

a lot actually...
neo-geo.com
gamengai (gaijinpunch's site)
snk-capcom.com
gamesmastermag.com.ph/forums (a gaming magazine from my country)

as usual, im spreading the word on unconventional games.. on all forums.. hehe

extrarice · Post by **extrarice** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 5:24 pm

Well, there's SuperPlay, a form that used to be hosted on ikaruga.co.uk. Mostly talk about improving scores and time attacks.
Then there's Sega-16, a form about good old Genesis schtuff.
I also go to Digital Press' Retrogaming Roundtable, but mainly just cruise the "for-sale" threads. Very busy forum.

PaCrappa · Post by **PaCrappa** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 6:39 pm

See sig. We are in our third generation now and things are slowly but surely picking up. Much was lost when Gamers.com shut down their message boards and TFP2 with them. It will no doubt take a little time and much effort to build TFP3 into a forum that resembles the greatness of TFP2 (Recap scaring away the good people doesn't help), but I'm certainly in for the long haul.

Pa

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 8:08 pm

PaCrappa wrote:...(Recap scaring away the good people doesn't help)...

aww, you guy's have recap now. i'm sincerely sorry to hear that Pa.

edit: negative 26 karma is sort of impressive in it's own way though.

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 8:32 pm

neo-geo.com (arcade forum)
stgfan.com (swedish stg site)
listmygames.net (swedish videogame collectors community)
arkadtorget.net (swedish arcadecollectors community)

umm yeah those are it, anyone know of other international arcadegaming forums that are any good? (i hate byoac

)

ed: i dont post on any "regular" gaming forums.. since argueing with teenagers about which xbox game sucks the most doesnt interest me at all..

zinger · Post by **zinger** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 9:01 pm

http://www.stgfan.com/ - Swedish counterpart to shmups.com, very nice!
http://www.gamengai.com/ - GP's site & forum, intimate and friendly.

Plus a bunch of random (mainly swedish) forums, every now and then...

A few years ago, I was fairly active at the assembler forums (ezboard days), but there's far too many users and far too much tech-talk for me to bother these days.

Bloodreign · Post by **Bloodreign** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 10:02 pm

Gradius Homeworld to talk a little Gradius with the guys there.

Castlevania Dungeon, to talk Castlevania (and I mod there, so going there is a necessity), there's also a section for other gaming called Hardcore Gaming (perhaps HCG101 is named after the section, perhaps the other way around too).

Digital Press, mainly for the classic gaming discussion, but as was said above it is cluttered and crowded, but nice anyway.

I also go to this little place called Shmups.com forums.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:25 pm

That's because, for reasons that would take me at least a page to explain, none of them exactly match my ideal of what a video game forum should be

I'm under the impression that this place doesn't exist. I enjoy my forums b/c I can post whatever I want, and so can anyone else. The only way I would ban someone is if they spammed the board w/ obvious crap. I'll never delete someone's post b/c I don't believe in their joke or opinion. There are even some posts on there that directly insult me.

The truth of the matter is, a forums growth and it's amount of fanboyish bullshit are directly proportionate. Assembler is still a fun place, but has some pretty useless posts and posters as well. On that note, I sometimes wish I had some more traffic (I post quite a bit of news bits I find there and nowhere else), but it will ruin the place in the long run.

icycalm · Post by **icycalm** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:42 pm

Yeah, I have been thinking about the size issue for a long time now. What is the ideal size for a video game forum? How to keep the forum at that size when you actually reach it?

Old members stop posting, there has to be a way to accept new members, but not too many.

I've been toying with the idea of asking prospective members to email me an essay on their gaming history. That way you would weed out all the trolls and functionally illiterates. Unfortunately, you would also weed out many people whose native language is not English.

It's a challenging issue. I have some ideas... We'll see.

it290 · Post by **it290** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:45 pm

SegaXtreme is the only other board I really post on, but I also browse neo-geo.com, SRK, and yes, even gamefaqs (mostly the Genesis board -- I enjoy telling people that the game they remember is in fact Haunting Starring Poulterguy). I used to post on digitalpress a bit, but I find that board has too much of a collector's mentality sometimes.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 12:25 am

I only post around here and a tiny bit at bemanistyle. I'm still a newbie there so I don't want to do too much to piss people off (some people there seem to be a bit higher strung..)

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 1:31 am

icycalm wrote:Yeah, I have been thinking about the size issue for a long time now. What is the ideal size for a video game forum? How to keep the forum at that size when you actually reach it?

It's a no win. It's just like 98% of all music groups. They get too big for their own good, and then turn to shit. It's just the way it goes, and can be applied to gaming in general if you ask me (too many people buy tripe, so people make tripe).

It's really unavoidable. If you want action in your forum you have to make registration easy and painless. Too easy, and you get trolls. I try not to worry about it. I don't need people telling me what games are good to enjoy them. I know what I like, and I play those games.

elvis · Post by **elvis** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 2:38 am

Aussie Arcade forums:
http://www.aussiearcade.com.au/

Overclockers Australia Forums
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/

OCAU is getting pretty big. 75,000 members makes it AU's biggest forums, and ironically overclocking is probaly the least frequent topic these days. Most of the discussion is totally off-topic stuff, including gaming.

AussieArcade is the best Australian-focussed arcade forum IMHO. Although the average age of the resident collectors is a touch older than most, so dicussions of newschool shmups and fighting games often get slapped down with rants such as the famous "I had to walk 50 miles in the snow and we had no goddamn bullethell shmups!" and so on, ad nauseum.

Regulus · Post by **Regulus** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 6:17 am

I don't know if anyone's heard of http://www.starmen.net, but I'm a mod there. It's pretty much the biggest EarthBound website there is. I've seen a member or two that I know from there on these boards before, actually.

Other than that, I go to these Mega Man boards that I really hate (dunno why I go there... the attitudes of some of the people in power there tick me off).

And I log on here daily, but I don't post that often.

subcons · Post by **subcons** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 6:41 am

I post at NG.com the most. Those people over there just make me laugh.

I'm more of a lurker here.

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 12:14 pm

I am somewhat active on the Dreamcast-Scene forum and the Dreamcast History forum and lurk on a lot of others.

But the shmups forum is the one I post most at as it's by far my favourite place on the web.

Regulus wrote:I don't know if anyone's heard of http://www.starmen.net

Yeah, I've got that one bookmarked ever since I first played Earthbound and went looking for info on it. I remember registering an even making a post or two but that was about it for contributing to the forum. Now I visit about once or twice a month, mostly looking at fanart (great section) and for the news on Mother 3. Defenitely a great site you have there!

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 1:26 pm

This is it for me and i actually don't post here half as much as i read.

I love all kinds of video games, but everything someone can say about them will certainly be said - but not a shmup game. Shmups are for us real gamers

.

Strangely enough i post more in Off-Topic here than i do in the Shmups section, but that is because i don't like to post in there unless i have something truly worthwhile to talk about - but i read through nearly every thread.

I guess that's lurking, right?

I also am constantly on Vampire Freaks.com - but all i do there is play with HTML, exchange compliments with people, and make fun of people who get caught doing something stupid like stealing people's pictures to claim as thier own

. The whole site is kind of like one huge forum where the focus is the user's profile instead of thier posts. The people there are generally idiots though - even in the gaming forum and gaming cults. I really don't think any of the 499,999 other users even know what a shmup is, except for my girlfriend who loves Ikaruga.

I've tried alot of different forums in the past, like EmuParadise, which is allright but Shmups.com has in my opinion the best forum in existence. I don't find as much stupidity here as in other places - it's amazing actually. I can't believe you people know how to spell... it's awesome. The look of the forum is also ever so chic'.

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 2:46 pm

circuitface wrote:. The look of the forum is also ever so chic'.

you LIKE the dandruff-in-outer-space look?

Super Laydock · Post by **Super Laydock** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 3:25 pm

sven666 wrote:
circuitface wrote:. The look of the forum is also ever so chic'.
you LIKE the dandruff-in-outer-space look?

Hey, I swear on my head AND shoulders that I like it!

Being shaved and bald makes my appreciation of the chance of seeing dandruff a little higher than with most people I guess.

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 10:47 pm

It doesn't look so much like dandruff behind the blue. Maybe a different hue should be given to the stars...

KBZ · Post by **KBZ** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 3:03 pm

http://www.dreamcast-scene.com obviously.

sometimes at shoryuken.com to check out people's custom sticks, and online-consoles.com for pso.