About the Forum...

[Nester the Lark]

This may not matter much since there's so little activity on the forum anyway, but I thought I'd bring it up just to see if you guys had any thoughts about it.

So, currently, the forum has categories for both "Contemporary Nintendo" and "Classic Nintendo," with the "contemporary" board covering everything going back to the original Nintendo DS (2004). That's going back quite a ways, and we're on the verge of a new console launch, so calling it "contemporary" isn't really accurate anymore. Still, shoving everything into the "classic" board doesn't seem quite right either. The current setup seems nice and tidy, but perhaps it could use a little bit of an update of some kind.

One thing I could do is rename the Contemporary board to something like "Wii/DS Era," for all systems with that branding (Wii, Wii U, DS, 3DS), and then create a new Contemporary board for Switch discussion and everything else going forward.

Of course, there's so little discussion here anyway that the Switch doesn't exactly need a whole new board of its own (so far), and it's not like things are messy anyway, so it might be just as well if I leave everything exactly as it is.

Thoughts? Ideas?

[Johans Nidorino]

Jan 20, 2017 15:44:32 GMT -5 Nester the Lark said:

One thing I could do is rename the Contemporary board to something like "Wii/DS Era," for all systems with that branding (Wii, Wii U, DS, 3DS), and then create a new Contemporary board for Switch discussion and everything else going forward.

I support this idea

[nocturnal YL]

I don't think the classic/contemporary designation makes sense now for the reasons stated. And any dedicated Switch board (horrible pun definitely intended) is going to look dead. So I think the only thing that needs to be changed is the naming, although I have no idea what it should be called. The Wii and DS don't really share anthing special in common, and the best thing I can think of is "DS, Wii and beyond", which sounds really old-fashioned in 2017.

I have an even more dead forum with only two active members. At this point it's more like an idea dump area than a functional message board. I can kind of see this forum going to that direction, actually.

[Shrikeswind]

Here's my suggestion: We divide everything based on gaming eras, as we are, but make sure they're defined clearly and not just "Everything older than Year X is 'Classic' and everything newer than Year X is 'Contemporary'." The names I picked are basically placeholders, but the timeframe is divided where it is intentionally.

So, first one to mention is the Classic Era. This...kinda does exactly what I just suggested?...but hear me out. Everything from the Super Nintendo back is Classic Era. This is when a lot of the really big franchises got started; Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Country, Mega Man, Metroid, Pac-Man, Final Fantasy, Sonic the Hedgehog, Doom, Tetris...you get my point. In a lot of ways this was a defining time for gaming as a whole, and to the point of the forums for Nintendo, and was when a lot of the most influential games in - well, gaming - were developed.

After that comes the 3D Era, when, well, 3D games were invented, developed, and refined. This is the N64 and Gamecube days, when gaming was going through a sea change because of the introduction of modern-styled 3D games, with games as influential as Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, and Ocarina of Time, as well as when gaming as a social activity started becoming a bigger deal, with the development of games like Pokemon, the absolute beginning of Internet connectivity in gaming with the creation of Xbox Live, the development of the modern Internet allowing communities to develop around games, etc.

After that we come to the Wii Era, which is, well, the Wii and DS. This is kinda standalone to be honest, because the Wii and to a lesser extent the DS were so revolutionary, while the Wii U and 3DS...weren't. If the Switch ends up being as revolutionary as the Wii was, the Wii U and 3DS might find themselves fitting more neatly with the Wii era, but for now, I would say Wii/DS should be standalone. Either way, the Wii Era is when we were introduced to motion- and touch-controls, but more importantly this was when the Internet started getting seriously incorporated into gaming.

And finally, the Modern Era. Immediately, this is Wii U, 3DS, Switch, and mobile games, but time will tell where everything slots in from here. It could be that these are going to be the consoles for this timeframe, but it could also be that the Switch is so revolutionary that the Wii U and 3DS need to get kicked back an Era. What's definite is that, so far, this has been a bit of an ebb in terms of really revolutionary ideas in gaming, which is why I'm so tentative with the Switch.

Finally, whatever we do, we need to wait out the Switch anyways so a dedicated Switch board won't be barren and we get to see what the Switch'll be like. Until then, we need to recognize that, any hope and hype we may have for it disregarded, the Switch is as yet an unknown - we haven't played it yet, after all - and so if it should go on to earn its own board when we have the luxury of hindsight is an unanswerable question right now.

[nocturnal YL]

I'm concerned not with the popularity of a console that you can't even preorder anymore due to sheer demand. Rather, it's this forum that has this declining popularity issue.

With the current level of activity, any regular or even semi-regular visitor can sort out what's going on here easily. Even for those who only come here once per month. And I don't think a list like (say) "DS/Wii, 900 threads; 3DS/Wii U, 50 threads; Switch, 20 threads" is going to look good for complete newcomers (although I believe anyone interested in joining even now is probably interested in stuff like Nintendo history and obscure Nintendo, as opposed to the latest stuff).

[Nester the Lark]

The idea here is not to micro-categorize everything on the forum. All that would do is clutter things up.

Is it a little arbitrary to say that everything from GameCube back is "Classic Nintendo?" Yeah, but it's fine. No one is confused about it, and no one is posting in there, anyway.

It would also not be helpful to start going through the "Contemporary" board and figuring out what else to dump into the Classic board.

So, leaving the Wii/Wii U/DS/3DS as its own forum category seems best, especially since we'll likely keep using it for now. It just needs to be relabeled at such.

Obviously, Switch could live in there quite comfortably for the time being, but I sort of feel with the transition to a new console, it's a good time to start a fresh board for a new era of Nintendo.

Would it be sparse compared to the other boards? Of course, but I think that would be the case even if there were more activity on the forum. One-hundered threads about the Switch (or mobile games) aren't simply going to pop up overnight, but looking ahead, things will eventually build up over time. And whether or not the Switch is successful has little to do with that. This is a Nintendo forum, and we're going to talk about their latest games and hardware anyway.

I guess what I'm saying is, I think what we have is working, but I just want to tweak it a little. And if it doesn't work out, it could be easily undone.

I should also mention that after looking through my admin menu, it doesn't look like I actually have the ability to create or rename boards anyway, so I'll have to drag Fry in here to do it himself when we decided what we want.

[nocturnal YL]

I'll go make 100 Switch topics then Let's see, Odyssey speculation, Breath of the Wild discussions, Nintendo wishlist, third-party wishlist, possible hardware expansions, even 1-2-Switch and Arms... Hey, 100 actually sounds feasible!

Well, it's not much reason for worry about the balance between the boards. Categories don't have to hold the same amount of discussions. And yeah, split boards can merge, so it's not a big issue. I'm still more supportive of keeping just Classic and Contemporary (with name changes, discussion below), but I won't complain either way.

If anything, it's the General board that's holding too many threads.



Let me think of some name ideas. I'm fine with any reasonable names, but I do not wish to see "Yamauchi Nintendo" and "Iwata Nintendo" (or similar). "2004-2016" is also weird and too arbitrary. "Wii/DS era" is better, but doesn't sound perfect to me when the Wii feels more like GameCube than Wii U (besides branding); but without any better contender, this might be the best choice.

Is there anything the DS, Wii, 3DS and Wii U share but not the other systems? Besides New Super Mario Bros.?

[Johans Nidorino]

Jan 22, 2017 17:02:15 GMT -5 Nester the Lark said:

I should also mention that after looking through my admin menu, it doesn't look like I actually have the ability to create or rename boards anyway, so I'll have to drag Fry in here to do it himself when we decided what we want.

xD Please do. (Hi, Fry!)

Jan 23, 2017 9:01:10 GMT -5 nocturnal YL said:

Is there anything the DS, Wii, 3DS and Wii U share but not the other systems? Besides New Super Mario Bros.?

3 of them share... Miis! And they are the first systems with Wi-Fi local and online connectivity. Also with an online shop (if you count DSi Shop) and their consequent rise of indie games.


Also, in case the category url is an issue (currently: contemporary-nintendo), I believe the threads can be moved in batches to a new category.

[Da Robot]

The only issue I could see with separating the Switch and 3DS boards is that we still don't know how many years the 3DS even has left (is Nintendo really supporting it to 2018 or even further?) or if it will even get a successor system (which I will assume depends on how well the Switch sells).

It might just be a wait and see issue in terms of how much demand there is for a new sub board dedicated to Switch (and future software/hardware?).

[Nester the Lark]

In case you haven't noticed, I've finally done a bit of housekeeping (with a little help from Fry giving me the abilities to do so).

So, the, uh, "Switch board" will also be for discussing Nintendo's mobile games and plug & play devices (SNES mini, etc.).

I never came up with a good name for the Wii/DS era board. I'm still open to ideas on that one. (Under the hood, it's still called "Contemporary Nintendo," so that's what will show up in the URL and navigation menu until I change it.)

Love it? Hate it? Other thoughts and opinions?

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I wonder if the plug & play devices should fall under Classic Nintendo. Seems like that would be more fitting. Thoughts?

[nocturnal YL]

Star Fox 2 is a 2017 game. Makes sense for it to be in the Switch board. (Is this what you're thinking about?)

Okay, more serious opinion: I actually think the mini systems should go to the classic board, because it was ruled (much) earlier that VC belongs to there as well, if I'm not mistaken. The mini systems do more or less the same thing: play games from 2017 the 1980s and 1990s.

I think the decision back then was partly made to make it look less like an archive, but given today's very low traffic here…

[Nester the Lark]

Yeah, the plug & plays really belong in Classic Nintendo. It just makes sense.