The State of the Community

[Matthew]

Even with the Hall of fame opening and other good additions to the NLSC, I have to say I'm a bit worried. But whats even more worrying is I don't know what the problem is specifically.

The main issues with me are the following:
EA's lack of involvment with the community, and
The steady influx of idiots we seem to draw into these forums.

Let me start with the latter. There has always been spammers and general retards since ive been here in 1998. But never to the scale that we have reached now. Sure we get great posting numbers, but seriously it all seems to be self served. One word/emoticon posts, shoutout threads where the response is to the actual shoutout a person recieves rather than giving credit to the person who has achieved the milestone, it just shows the mentality of todays poster: its all about me.

To continue this a bit further, I see people trying with certain threads, and they recieve backlash. Take for example the 2k sports petition thread. The idea was simple, and yet it was quite clear it was just a petition to get 2k sports to relelase on the pc. Yet the negative spam came through asking why he would make such a thread in NLSC? Maybe its that kind of blind following to live that has hurt us and also held us back in relation to other non nba live gaming communities.

Which leads me to my second query: Why has EA turned their back on this community? We get a wishlist that James Basore and News reporter James would be proud of. We scracth EA's back by not allowing game cracks and hacks to be posted here, and yet what do they do for us exactly? Andrew has done a much better job as webmaster and as a patchmaker for NLSC than Tim ever was, and yet why hasn't he been offered any type of thanks from EA? The same could be said for Andrea's, Tony, David, Ben, and other (loyal) people of interest to this community. EA definately has to have a look at the "progress" of the series, and also acknowledge that their involvment within this community is hurting the series.

But here's the disturbing part: What can we do? I'm at a lost for what we are doing wrong. Should there be some changes? Should we begin to focus ourselves as a basketball games resource and not strictly nba live? Feel free to post suggestions, but there has to be somthing we're doing wrong for our community to be stuck in quicksand in a similar state to the series of nba live.

[Drex]

I don't think that the problem is exactly in the NLSC. I think it's got to do with the rest of the internet. In a MSN conversation "lolomg wtf, lookz at that b1tch!one!11" post are funny all the time, but are not useful in a forum. Nowadays, everytime a retard goes, 2 others show up. I went away, and we got Laker Socks
About the EA part, well, there's nothing I can't say about it. Maybe they think that since the community has grew up so much, we expect too much of Live, and they can't live up to the expectations

[peaches]

For the first part, i dont think theres much we can do about EA.
Do people from EA even visit these forums? I only know of one type of communication the NLSC has with them and thats the wishlist.
It's either they dont go here or they just dont care.

The second part, i guess we should hope people might catch on and become a better poster?
Other than that, i guess theres no other choice then to ban them. Which is quite sad.

I think i know where your coming from and its great to see people passionate about it. But i guess this is where we are at at the moment.

Edit: Drex, i think Laker Socks might be powerhoward.

[Drex]

And who the hell is powerhoward?

[J@3]

It's not powerhoward it's The Game, Matthew and I made the decision to un-ban him on a parole period.

Let me start with the latter. There has always been spammers and general retards since ive been here in 1998. But never to the scale that we have reached now. Sure we get great posting numbers, but seriously it all seems to be self served. One word/emoticon posts, shoutout threads where the response is to the actual shoutout a person recieves rather than giving credit to the person who has achieved the milestone, it just shows the mentality of todays poster: its all about me.

Drex is right, the problem isn't the NLSC it's the rest of the internet. I have to admit the shoutout threads are really beginning to drive me insane, even the worst poster making the worst thread, we'll call him tripplemrox for now, still gets 20 "Congrats, thanks for the shoutout " replies. It's ridiculous.

The way I would put it is that the patching attitude is starting to spread to the rest of the forum. People want "credit" for absolutely everything they do, people are constantly PM'ing Andrew asking if he could sticky their threads. I mean what the fuck, it's an internet forum... who gives a shit if you made a useful thread or a sig for someone else to use if you want recognition paint yourself red and go walk around the streets naked.

The amount of retards coming in isn't the problem, it's the fact that some retards are staying far too long and amassing enormous post counts to the point where they become integrated into the community to a point and people seem to accept their spam.

I'd like to add this though one huge problem is everytime we try to ban someone like this who has 2,000+ posts but is an outright spammer, we have to put up with people whinging and complaining about us doing it. For fuck sakes, this isn't open court for the community to decide who goes and who stays. We're not playing Survivor.

Someone like Dweaver or COOLmac (and the forum is a better place without them) gets banned and people complain, threaten to leave, think it's unfair etc but those same people will turn around and scream for another poster to get banned if they don't like them. It's retarded.

[Andrew]

I think you're selling Tim a bit short there, there's plenty he's done for the community during his tenure that I cannot match. EA Sports can't exactly support an unofficial fansite but I too wish we could have some more interaction with the production team.

As far as that goes, I think all we can do is extend the invitation again. For anyone on the team that might be lurking, we'd love to hear from you and be able to have that interaction that other communities have with game developers. I know some people have been petty and make the Forum seem hostile territory but if anyone gets out of line, they will be dealt with. Get in touch with me via email if you want to talk about it.

I think part of the problem is there isn't as much goodwill these days, especially with patching. As Jae said, a lot of people seem to be doing it for recognition. It used to be about modding your own game for your own enjoyment and benefit and sharing that work with other people. Perhaps the fact not as many people are as enthused about the games these days has something to do with that, or it could be just a matter of times/people/attitudes changing. I know that seems like a cop out but there's some things we just can't control.

I still believe a small part of the problem is the "things aren't the way they used to be" mindset that seems to exist in other communities (not just video game websites either), sometimes it feels like more energy is being put into being negative than doing something constructive, and I'm not talking about you here Matthew because you do raise valid points.

Years ago if you weren't interested in the topics on a message board, you would start a discussion of interest to you. Nowadays people tend to say "Ugh, this place isn't as good as it used to be" and spend more time lamenting that point of view than doing something about it.

But again, looking at other forums on the web a lot of the issues we face aren't very different to other sites. Consider the fact the NLSC Forum has a higher profile on the site that it used to and has been indexed on search engines along with pages from the main site so it's getting a lot more exposure and a larger influx of members in general. The percentage of spammers/trolls could be quite similar to before but appears much larger because the number of total members itself is larger.

Perhaps there's some things we could be doing, banning spammers earlier, actively encouraging members of the production team to post here and encouraging good debates and discussions, but I'd agree when it comes to some issues we're just another victim of a trend that's affecting communities across the Internet.

[Matthew]

Drex is right, the problem isn't the NLSC it's the rest of the internet. I have to admit the shoutout threads are really beginning to drive me insane, even the worst poster making the worst thread, we'll call him tripplemrox for now, still gets 20 "Congrats, thanks for the shoutout Thumbs Up" replies. It's ridiculous.

But if thats the case, why are sites like operation sports and ign leaps ahead of us in terms of recognition from EA?They are still websites too, and yet with years gone by they have recieved alot more attention than us. Is it becuase they are much more popular sites? If thats the case... maybe we shouldnt sit our hands so to speak, maybe we should try to compete with them, somehow, someway.

The amount of retards coming in isn't the problem, it's the fact that some retards are staying far too long and amassing enormous post counts to the point where they become integrated into the community to a point and people seem to accept their spam.

I agree that is part of the problem. I wonder if two different forums would be a possible solution?

I think you're selling Tim a bit short there, there's plenty he's done for the community during his tenure that I cannot match.

Sure he co founded the site and with it the community, but what has he done for the site in the last 3 years? It's just been disheartining to see him completely leave the site becuase people questioned him about his work? Sure he was important to the site and the community, but he isnt god and should never be treated as such.

EA Sports can't exactly support an unofficial fansite but I too wish we could have some more interaction with the production team.

They cant support us, yet they expect us to support them? Not just financially but also from a standpoint of protecting their game on the forum. Respect is a two way street and I just dont see anything from EA that shows respect to us, nbalive.org or other members of this community.

I still believe a small part of the problem is the "things aren't the way they used to be" mindset that seems to exist in other communities (not just video game websites either), sometimes it feels like more energy is being put into being negative than doing something constructive, and I'm not talking about you here Matthew because you do raise valid points.

Nobody mentioned the "good ol times", but when you do think back to how they just rang up tim and offered him a job, and are yet to show you Andrew any kind of similar respect, it does show how EA has changed in terms of how they approach the community. EA in my opinion definately has to look at themselves in the mirror, and for whatever reason they have decided to seperate themselves from the community here, has not been for their or the games benefit. The game seems to be in quicksand, the more they try to improve it the worse it gets. That to me shows they are way out of touch with what the fans of the game actually want, and that spells disaster in the long run becuase 2k sports is outselling them on the console market, and thats without the marketing of EA.

Thats why I created this psot, so people within our community are aware of how I see things. I may not be right, but until someone proves it to me this is how I feel. I think there's a definate gap between us and EA, and if its becuase we aren't popular enough (like IGN or OS), I dont know. I know we have not done anything to sour the relationship. If its becuase of a few bad comments, all i can say is thats a crock. Do major countries cut of all ties becuase of a few select memebrs of the population think about them?

Perhaps there's some things we could be doing, banning spammers earlier, actively encouraging members of the production team to post here and encouraging good debates and discussions, but I'd agree when it comes to some issues we're just another victim of a trend that's affecting communities across the Internet.

I'm not sure if thats the major problem here.

[Andrew]

Sure he co founded the site and with it the community, but what has he done for the site in the last 3 years? It's just been disheartining to see him completely leave the site becuase people questioned him about his work? Sure he was important to the site and the community, but he isnt god and should never be treated as such.

I see where you're coming from, but he can't really do anything for the NLSC per se. His first priority has to be his own life and his own job.

They cant support us, yet they expect us to support them? Not just financially but also from a standpoint of protecting their game on the forum. Respect is a two way street and I just dont see anything from EA that shows respect to us, nbalive.org or other members of this community.

Again, I can see where you're coming from but in reality they don't have any obligation to support us, just as we don't have any obligation to support them. It's all done out of enthusiasm/concern for the game.

As far supporting them as far as protecting their game by outlawing support and discussions on cracks, hacks and illegal copies, it's also abiding by international copyright law and hosting policy. While it's also done out of respect, it's a measure to avoid any legal problems ourselves.

Nobody mentioned the "good ol times", but when you do think back to how they just rang up tim and offered him a job, and are yet to show you Andrew any kind of similar respect, it does show how EA has changed in terms of how they approach the community.

I guess so, but I'm not a programmer so I probably don't stand out as an appealing candidate. I'd settle for more participation through interviews and Q&As though.

EA in my opinion definately has to look at themselves in the mirror, and for whatever reason they have decided to seperate themselves from the community here, has not been for their or the games benefit. The game seems to be in quicksand, the more they try to improve it the worse it gets. That to me shows they are way out of touch with what the fans of the game actually want, and that spells disaster in the long run becuase 2k sports is outselling them on the console market, and thats without the marketing of EA.

No question, I don't think it's a good decision because I think we have people in the community who can put forth really good ideas that are feasible.

The relationship has obviously soured, I don't think we as a community are completely to blame but perhaps we have at times taken the relationship for granted. I'm not saying we need to sugarcoat everything but if people from EA don't think we're going to bother listening to what they say (think of the "Lies. All lies." posts in days gone by) and would just use their appearance as an excuse to insult them, why bother? Who would bother to go where they seemingly aren't wanted?

The other thing is, we messed up on a chance to be involved a couple of years ago which was very disappointing. When they were working on the bug fix for NBA Live 2004, they needed some technical info from people who were experiencing some errors so to help out, I posted a thread in Announcements specifying the information they needed which was primarily everyone's system specs so they could make sure some of the technical issues could be resolved for various hardware.

There were a couple of pages of replies and about four or five people gave the information that was required. Most posted the same fix/addition requests over and over or scoffed at EA. Then when the patch came out and didn't work for everyone, people complained and EA was criticised for not designing a fix that was compatible with some hardware. I was very disappointed when that happened, because we had a chance to not only help EA but help ourselves there, we blew it and then people jumped up and down and blamed it on EA.

I'm not saying that's justification for the relationship souring but it sure didn't help and didn't make us look good.

Thats why I created this psot, so people within our community are aware of how I see things. I may not be right, but until someone proves it to me this is how I feel. I think there's a definate gap between us and EA, and if its becuase we aren't popular enough (like IGN or OS), I dont know. I know we have not done anything to sour the relationship. If its becuase of a few bad comments, all i can say is thats a crock. Do major countries cut of all ties becuase of a few select memebrs of the population think about them?

I agree, it's very disappointing and I wish we could do something about it. But I too am at a loss how we can remedy the situation. I do believe it will have to be us that takes the first step though. A video game developer can't really concern itself with the welfare of unofficial fansites, sad but true. Whatever we can do to encourage more interaction should be done...once we work out what's to be done.

I'm not sure if thats the major problem here.

I know, but since I can't think of anything as far as the first problem is concerned, I thought I'd take a stab at the second.

[BIG GREEN]

EA deserves a tiny bit of credit. They seemed to be turning the tide a few years ago with their webmaster's convention that Andrew was invited to..and subsequently..myself. I've also recieved emails from them in the past about my suggestions for improving the nba live series. With that said, that was two years ago. What happened since then EA?

In regards to the retards (lol)...im not too worried. We have a bunch of mods here, including myself. :wink:

[Cable]

I'm not sure on this, but I'd be willing to guess that the average age of a poster now is younger than it was, which could be the reason for the retard wave.

[Ruff Ryder]

I'm not sure on this, but I'd be willing to guess that the average age of a poster now is younger than it was, which could be the reason for the retard wave.

I don't know about that exactly though because remember that 5 years ago Andrew was a teenager too. But maybe we're younger in general because we have so many members here. But every forum has retards, it's inevitable.

But yea, I've wondered the same about EAs lack of involvement with us. As Yohance said, they did have that community summit for Live 05 that Shane went to. But that was probably the only thing they did for us then. Heck, their official forum is twice as bad as this one. There leading poster in all forums has only 3000+ posts.

Not to mention that this place is stock full of "technicians." Guys that know how to fix different problems. Graphics, DBFs, hardware issues-everything. Even if EA decided to "hook up" with us, it's not like they'd be forced to answer everyone's questions and solve everyone's problems.

[Dramacydal]

i totally agree with Matthew. i don't really know how others feel so i can only talk about how i see things. i've already mentioned it in one of my posts a couple of months ago (when asked why i don't post as often as i used to) that it just isn't as much fun to participate in conversations as it used to be. and the problem is i can't really point out the exact reason for this. of course it's obvious that the current amount of spammming is more than just annoying. it sickens me when people reach the 1000 post mark in like 6 months or so. and what makes it even worse is that they seem to be proud of it.
it also seems to me that the variety of threads was bigger 1 or 2 years ago and the topics we had discussions about were more interesting. if anyone disagrees you have to admit that we could at least call it discussions back then. these days it's more like somebody posts something and the responses are always either "i agree", " lol " or something utterly inappropriate that has nothing to do with what has been posted before.
the change of the conversations we have around here is most definetely due to the huge amount of idiotic/new/spamming members (not trying to say that there is always a connection between 'new' and the other 2 adjectives). i can't really put my finger on it but it is somewhat weird when i see a post by a guy who has like 1000 posts but whose name i've never seen/heard before. it's no longer the close community that it used to be where you knew almost everyone and you knew at least a couple of things about them like what music they like, what they stand for politically, etc. and you could really have discussions with them. i remember when i saw a new topic title that sounded kind of promising my first thoughts were like "i wonder what 'this guy' and 'that guy' think about this". these days i check the first post of the topic, scroll down past the long line of one-line-answers and head right back to the main section.

anyways, i just felt like posting this and since i didn't include any suggestions to help the situation (because i don't have any) this post probably isn't too valuable. so just skip this here, because about 90% of the time i skip your posts.

[Jackal]

I agree with the more fun part. I don't know if it was more fun because I was beginning to be a part of something instead of like now, where I'm already part of it.
I'm not sure if that made complete sense. When I had just started posting, I thought it was so fun, I'd hear stories from Tales, Shane and a few others. I looked up to guys like Andrew, Matthew & Yohance. I still do. Very very much, Jae is another one. I realise they are pillars of this community. The community itself says they recognise it, but in my opinion, they don't.

Let me see if I can get this right without bringing myself over like a complete jerkoff.

I really look up to the veterans around the NLSC. I did so way back when and I still do now. I say this and I can back this up by saying I've improved as a poster due to them. I've modelled my online posting persona according to the influences by the vets of the NLSC. Right from the spamming/silly Tales to the firm but brilliant Matthew. Every single of them influenced me, and it is due to them that I am the poster that I am today.

Guys now days, they shout out the NLSC veterans and that's where it stops. People shout them out because everyone else is doing it, not because they feel the need to do it. It stops at that shoutout. No one tries to model their posts like Andrew's or Andreas'. No one tries to be a good debater like Air Gordon or Ernest. No, everyone's being the funny man, everyone's looking to pick a fight. I partly blame that on myself and Jae. (Jae-kal anyone?) We've had an influx of people "imitating", just look at Old School Fool. He almost threw a fit when Jae won the NLSC Pineapple award. That's what's wrong with the community.

Carve your own niche, by God, no one is stopping you. But people, try to better yourselves as posters. I'm not saying these NLSC veterans are immune from making spam or silly posts, nor am I, but know your place, know your seniors, respect your seniors.

People place me in the same category as someone like Jae or Matthew, honestly, what the fuck is the matter with you folks? You guys leave out Yohance or Nick? Why? Nick especially, he's been around and he's a vet. Recognise that. Don't look at post counts (Dweaver), look at the respect someone has garnered around the community, look at that, model yourself according to great posters such as Air Gordon, Matthew, Andrew & Andreas. Then, then I think we'll get somewhere.

My 2 bytes.

[Drex]

Don't look at post counts (Dweaver)

Like...Sit in the HoF?

I'm not sure on this, but I'd be willing to guess that the average age of a poster now is younger than it was, which could be the reason for the retard wave.

You can be 10 and still write like a normal people would. Or you can be 20+, have a wife, kids and a job and be a complete bitch, like Dweaver. Age is not the issue

[Jackal]

Like...Sit in the HoF?

Not to sound like Dweaver, but I rest my case.

[Ruff Ryder]

Well this seems to be turning into an NLSC flashback thread, so I actually went back and looked up some of the guys that were staples in the community when I first joined. Some of the guys I looked up to when I was "younger". Most of the guys on this list don't post near as much and alot of people that post alot now a days I forgot and left off the list, but anyway:

Stevan
Tales
Tuomas
Robby
Colin
EG
Ahmad
Rens
Psychopaticola
cocobee
Clinton
Yohance
Filip
Andrew
Dahl
Matt(Stack42)
PoliceLineDoNotCross
N0thin
Mitch
air gordon
kobe4mvp
Nick
Magius
wangster
Shane
Laddas
GloveGuy
Repole
Jackal
Amphatoast
Jason Duncan
Mike D. (Paul_Pierce_The_Truth)
Benji
Andrew
Matthew
Vins15
scubilete
alexboom
Tony
Drex
Jackal
CK
David


This list was compiled from the general talk and NBA talk section, the main places where debates happen in this forum. Don't get me wrong, there were retards on the list too. But even then imo the retards seemed more intelligent than retards these days. Mike D. for instance. He was like the most biased Paul Pierce fan ever. Then we had ShAuN 2 years later who presents no reasonable knowledge of why Paul Pierce is the best player in the league.

I remember originally I thought that 2003 was the best patching year we've had, but it wasn't the patches now that I think of it. It was the people. The thing that makes the forum seem cluttered with retards is that there's an imbalance now. Now I think Peachy is probably the best poster we've had this year, and the problem with that is there's no real debate about it. We haven't had anybody seem good enough to rival him. We've lost more quality guys than we've received and that's where the imbalance lies. That's probably why the "state of the community" isn't quite where it used to be. I think we probably only have 10-15 legit posters on this forum now.

Which brings me to where Jackal was talking about "imitating" how people post. When I came here first and started looking around, my first goal was to get 1000 posts lol. But as I got to know the forum and the people in this forum better, I totally forgot about it. So I made goals for my posting. To make a good impression first of all. Make interactive threads and unbiased posts. Stay away from flame wars and arguements until I got to where I was self-confident in my reputation around here. I never wanted to post like I was 14-15 years old. I thought I was doing a pretty good job until me and Jackal started "arguing"(in Filip's case) in one of his shoutout threads where I told him to guess my age and he was spot on lol. But still, it wasn't an arguement or even heated discussion. And now I feel pretty comfortable around here, like this is my family away from family.

And the declining state in the forums can be told alot by just looking into a thread. Most threads are like 15 comments, 14 of those with 1-2 sentences. A thread like this is a rarity. "OMG multiple paragraphs with over 3 sentences like 10 times in one thread!!"

We need more people that can fill in the void that some of these guys left but unfortunately the influx of crappy posters outweights the number of decent posters.

[Jackal]

Me & you fought? I don't even remember that. I tend to remember the people that I fight with, my bad for being a dick back then.

[Colin]

Robby
Ahmad
Rens
Psychopaticola
PoliceLineDoNotCross
N0thin
Mitch
Repole
Vins15
scubilete

Haven't seen those names for a while. And they were all great. I completely agree on the Mike Davis-Shaun comparison. Mike Davis actually had his points that he could argue which made a little bit of sense. A lot of the same roles are taken, just without intelligence. I mean as far as annoying spammers go I'd rather have Dert than any of these new guys.

One thing I figure contributed to the general decline of forums all over the place is high-speed internet. Posters who previously couldn't be bothered loading pages now just post in every thread they're brain functioned in.

[Ruff Ryder]

Me & you fought? I don't even remember that. I tend to remember the people that I fight with, my bad for being a dick back then.

It wasn't a fight lol. Filip said it's a fight but we both denied it. Remember, Filip said it was a fight.

[J@3]

I don't really think the average posting age is younger, I was about 14 when I first started posting ... same age as melo15boy basically, and there's no way in hell I was anything like that. Matthew, Andrew, Stevan, Shane, Dmit, Ben etc.... we were all in our mid-teens and you guys can see the discussions and whatever we had back then. I think one difference is the new forum style, we didn't have pictures or anything fancy... back then, if someone used italics (Yohance), bold font (Ben) or ugly font with yellow text (Steve-o) that was considered "fancy". I think it drove alot of idiots away because it wasn't the most attractive forum in the World.

Either way, the problem isn't that things "aren't how they used to be" it's that they've been in a steady decline since Live 06 came out. We knew the influx of idiots was going to come, it happens every single year, but this time was worse than ever and alot of them kind of snuck under the radar. There's been a few morons posting where people have replied "Stay in the Live 06 General section " which pretty much explains that they're filtering down.

Jackal and TBD are right, people come here and tend to imitate other posters but the problem is that these days they're imitating a large majority of people who offer absolutely nothing. Be honest, how many times have you loaded a thread where the last post is by tripplemrox or Pera and seen that it offers absolutely nothing to the conversation? That's about 60% of the posts here these days, not just those two but alot of people in general. Which is why most of us spend our time replying by complaining that the above has offered nothing to the convo at hand.

Another issue is that people get too defensive in debates... or they start a debate with an insult and it just degenerates from there. I'm guilty of this aswell obviously, but it is really hard to have a debate when you're talking to someone who's acting like you've just stabbed their mother. I have no idea what the solutions could be, I'm guessing over time things will change yet again.

No, everyone's being the funny man, everyone's looking to pick a fight. I partly blame that on myself and Jae. (Jae-kal anyone?)

I think you're right. Remember when LankyMan said his goal was to be the funniest guy here? Or all of the "joke" posts we get from people who aren't funny in the slightest. I still think the #1 goal amongst new posters is post count, it seems vastly important to them for some reason.

[Andrew]

As I said before we might not be able to do much about the first problem because ultimately the ball is in EA's court as to whether they want to get involved with us in terms of feedback, Q&A sessions and the like. For now, all we can do is extend the invitation and show that we're willing to have them around.

I think we can perhaps reverse the trend as far as the Forum is concerned. It does tie in to what I was saying before. If the variety of topics doesn't interest you, trying starting some that do. I'm guilty of that as well and I'm the admin and I post a lot so I'm not trying to throw around blame here. One of the problems is a lot of the "classic discussions" like greatest player, greatest championship team and all that have been done to death. They don't invite the same kind of enthusiastic participation they once did.

We mods could also go a little tougher on spam and spammers. These last couple of years we've been a bit more lax and I still think that's for the best, rather than warning people for even the slightest hint of an infraction. Perhaps we could designate spamming as a greater offence, right now it's tolerated to a certain extent since behaviour such as flaming left and right and causing a huge fuss and disrupting discussions tends to demand more attention.

Also, I believe the issue mostly affects the general forums since the NBA Live sections continue to run fairly smoothly. People still help each other with the game and with patching, announce new patches and whatnot and generally the only problems there are around the release of a new title when the 2K trolls sign up only to bash NBA Live and people make the same "Have you got the game yet?" "What's it like?" and "When is the game coming out?" threads (to name just a few) over and over again.

[Cable]

Now I think Peachy is probably the best poster we've had this year, and the problem with that is there's no real debate about it. We haven't had anybody seem good enough to rival him.

I'd beg to differ. We've got Laxation, Axel, and myself who haven't been here a year as well as Peachy. I think the problem is the number of posters joining, there's just too many, and it's too easy to forget about people. I think that's what changed the most.

[Jugs]

When I joined here, I was a noob at posting. I had never really been in a forum community and of course I didn't know what I was doing. I managed to figure it out in my own way by the method of quantity posting, not quality posting. Which is why I have not established myself well in the community.

I barely contribute in the General Forums because I just don't try. I have the inabilty of trying to think and make intelligent posts, although I am smarter than the average, to be honest, I'm trying to be like Jackal said, "The funny poster."

I feel really bad reading this thread and about the influxion of retards, and I consider myself one of those retards who only spams for their post count. But I know post counts are misused and conceivable.

All I can say that I have improved my posting since I've started but that doesn't mean I am a good contributor or poster.

So I hereby apologise to the NLSC for my 5000+ posts of attrocity.

[Colin]

Apology accepted Jugs...

Are you kidding me? Those pictures of yourself you put up are infinitely better than anything these spammers have come up with. Just pat yourself on the back and move along.

[Tuomas]

I remember originally I thought that 2003 was the best patching year we've had, but it wasn't the patches now that I think of it. It was the people.

I agree. Those were the times the community was "the closest". 2003 was a great for patching and that brought up lots of great stuff. I remember Livedesign, nbalive.org at it's best. Then there was NBA Live Street that really was the pinnacle of NBA Live patching in my opinion. Almost everyone either did or wanted to do something for it.

There really isn't big "events" anymore. JCLive was like the last one. Oh I forgot 4th Quarter that is still bringing it. Good job and keep it going.
This community is for NBA Live and whatever General Talk is going to, we have to first and foremost continue to do and improve on covering NBA Live. Personally I enjoyed patching when it was easy and people really looked for new patches and stuff.

I can think of three reasons that have brought some changes to the community:

1. Competition against NBA Live
Since NBA Live isn't the ultimate basketball nor the video game for many out there, it has drawn people's attention elsewhere. I've been very disappointed with a few NBA Lives and it's clearly affected my participation in the community. There really is nothing you can do about that since it's still all about NBA Live.

2. Console gaming
Of course it affects. Console gaming is and has already gone past pc gaming, which leaves patching sites useless for a lot of people. I'm of course talking about those who look for patches, not for discussions about why Steve Nash shouldn't be the MVP for 2006.

3. People getting old
I was a bout 14-15 something when I first came here, so it's been a while. With a few weeks away of 20, I feel kind of old there's so much to do elsewhere so it's natural that older members tend to stop posting and newer younger members come along. But that doesn't mean the level of posting should drop down.

General Talk has become something a lot of you mentioned above (a link or something and 10+ posts of lol, that was funny etc. - like any other discussion board) and it pisses me off too. If people really don't have anything new to add, why click reply? I was probably one of the few people that didn't really like the custom titles idea simply because it makes another reason to raise your post count. Like post count is a status or a respect issue. When I logged in here for a long time after my military service there was about 10-20 guys who had passed the 1000 or 2000 mark in just six months. For me it seems forever to pass the 2000 marks but I don't really care about it anymore.

Well it seemed like a complain post, old guys bitching about today's youth. I think we should just continue to keep the site fresh and downloads functioning, get new ideas (HOF ) and keep our eyes and ears open. Also the best posters should lead by example. I also miss those deep convertation threads where there actually was a discussion, so why not make one? It's not like I posted there all the time but I did care.