Like it says, post away on your feelings regarding other online gaming forum sites.
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Like it says, post away on your feelings regarding other online gaming forum sites.
What other video game forums?
Why would you even make something up like that?!
The good: AtariAge
The bad: Neo-Geo.com
The Ugly: NintendoAge
Is that the correct answer? :p
I think it's a pretty good answer.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Guntz
What I am looking for is realistic ratings based on actual experiences. Comprende?
Nintendo Age and Sega Age aren't that bad. I wish SA was more active though. Also digipress and neoseeker are decent.
I spend a lot of time over at the Digital Press forums, and while I'm not active Atari Age is cool too.
Nintendo Age sucks, and they full-out hate Sega-16. Elitist bastards.
I participate on the following gaming forums (some more than others) and here is what I think of them based on my usage (some of these places I have not been around for long so I may not have an entirely accurate view of the community):
Sega-16 - Obviously great site with a great forum and this is probably the most populate forum I visit, a ton of active members here. Many members are crazy smart and fun to read. But this forum is also the most annoying because it requires the most babysitting of the members.
Magic Box - The Magic Box is a fairly tight-knit community with a lot of cool (and some odd) folks. Most discussion revolves around current-generation happenings as it is a news site. But the folks here are cool and generally well behaved. Probably the most behaved forum I visit even though some outright strange shit is posted from time to time.
PC Engine FX - This place revolves around the TurboGrafx-16/Turbo Duo and shit like that. This is a very small forum with about 10 total members (or at least it feels like). Lots of good stuff here, especially for the PC Engine aficionado. Not much out of the ordinary happens here but when drama comes around, you'd better watch out. This place LOVES drama. This has decreased significantly since some members have left, but the administrator of the site only pops in for about 3 minutes once every 2 years or so.
Screw Attack - I started posting blogs on the site to help promote Game Sack. I thought I'd poke around in the forums for a bit. Pretty vapid, nothing special. Not a whole lot of active members. I was told that these people clamor for anything to do with games, but I don't really find that to be the case. The main portion of the site outside of the forums is run like shit (the way their web site is built sucks... they keep promising upgrades but it never happens). They spend all of their money on AVGN episodes and none on the site itself.
Digital Press - I haven't visited this place since Sega-16's forums came back up. I don't really have anything bad to say about anyone over there, but there are very few members there and conversations are hard to start or get involved in. I did not return due to "lack of interest".
Racket Boy - This forum is neat because of the focus on retro stuff mainly. Not very many interesting topics to discuss, but more than Digital Press. I'll hang around for a bit longer and see if the place grows a personality.
Neo-Geo.com - This place is just vile and full of hatred. I haven't been the recipient of it, but damn, this place really needs to get laid.
I like how you linked the Sega 16 forums there Joe.
I think Nintendo Age is fine, I think on this forum and on NA you get a lot of people who are still fan boys so they run their mouths, but the truth is both of these forums are pretty good with lots of good info and helpful people. Of course we have aholes on both sides so it really just depends. Sega Age is pretty low key as is isn't very old, so the activity level is lacking, but where it shines is its info on Sega CD, thanks to members I know are Sega Age as well as Sega-16. http://www.satakore.com/forum/index.php is a new forum, or an old forum now in english I am not really sure dedicated to Saturn for the most part, it's new and needs member so if you love Saturn join up. Digitpress has great forums, but it is a little to unfocused for me. Hope this helps.
Fine, I'll put up some legitimate opinions...
Sega-16 - In the soon to be 2 years I've spent here, this is by far the best forum I've ever been on. The large majority of the members are intelligent, nice and probably trustworthy too. There's tons of useful information scattered among the forums, some of which has found it's way into surrounding communities (like good and bad Genesis systems). The mod squad may be small, but at least they aren't egotistical assholes. Even the trolls are some of the tamest I've come across. Just as an example, 17Days was a pretty nice guy, but had a serious anger problem. The site is well maintained and updated and the Melf takes pride in seeing that continue.
AtariAge - Probably the second nicest forum I've been too. I don't often hang around that much, but I've bought some things off here and gotten to know the community. Perhaps the best part of AtariAge is how well it managed to encompass all of gaming, both vintage and modern, without all the chaos, idiots and hatred that normally comes along with that kind of environment. Like with Sega-16, most of the users are very nice and aren't morons. They know how to keep a community friendly and inviting, even though the average age is probably 40 years old (though that may explain why). The AtariAge Store is very nice as well. It's clearly given more attention than the main AtariAge site. It's a great place to get some NEW stuff for your Atari. In fact, I wish more sites would adopt this kind of system when it comes to homebrews (though RetroUSB comes pretty close, but not really affiliated with NintendoAge).
NintendoAge - Now this place is quite something else. It's not necessarily a good or bad community, it's just... Weird. Not to be mean, but the forum attracts a pretty exotic crowd. Not in an international sort of way as it is with Sega-16, but just in how the members are. To put my view in a nutshell, they have a Campout held every year, hosted by one of the members (no other forum I know of does this). They are pro-VGA (game grading company, perhaps the only community I know of that supports VGA), in general they have a hard-on for sealed collecting (again, I don't see this often elsewhere), also largely have a hard-on for prototypes and their homebrew scene is surprisingly active (at least they have NES programming tutorials!). Overall it's just a clearly "dare to be different" kind of forum. It's pretty inviting of new members, but at the same time, their way of doing things can turn new people off.
SegaAge - Pretty much identical to NintendoAge, except it's Sega themed and nowhere near as active.
Digital Press - Not that bad of a forum at all, but I haven't spent enough time there to really form an opinion.
Neo-Geo.com - This like an evil version of NintendoAge. To put it simply, this place seethes of pure hatred and loathing. It's almost if the hatred between England and France were personified in a game forum. They hate new users, hate themselves, STILL hate Neo-Geo Freak after a solid 10 years after the name ever meant something, hate other forums with this elitist mentality and they all hate each other. These people don't even talk about Neo-Geo most of the time, except when it's NGF bashing time like old farts. The only people not full of hate are a small band of hardened Neo fans who still keep the machine alive. In fact, despite the horrible reputation of the forum itself, Neo fans have done wonderful projects, like the NeoSaveMasta (new production memory card), the NeoBiosMasta (an easy way to UniBIOS mod soldered BIOS Neo MVS systems), fixes for the Pranslation and Phantom-1 to play more MVS games and I've also seen progress on a new production MVS coin LED thing. I can't remember the name, but it's still fantastic.
NG.com also has one other merit to it's otherwise sullied name. They have an iron-fisted, no tolerance "policy" on scammers. If someone is scammed (or if a lot of people are scammed), the NG.com horde will hunt down the scammer and rip his balls off, literally.
Haven't really been anywhere else on the net, Sega-16 is really all I visit these days...
The official Sega Forums are pretty funny to look into every now and then. Especially the Phantasy Star Sections. God has there been some hilarious drama there.
PSO-World is pretty similar in that sense too.
I don't frequent any other forums (gaming or otherwise) :)
The Good: I keep hearing great things about AtariAge, even though I've only lurked a few times. It does seem like a neat crowd. I also dig racketboy, despite their total lack of proof-reading; but I got pissed-off at them after the third spyware attack through their site. I haven't been around for over a month. I don't know if I'm the only one in that situation, but I sure know I'm not lying about it. They really need to increase their security.
The Bad: Any gaming forum that can't carry a thread conversation past two posts. You know which ones I'm talking about. It's lifeless, I tell 'ya!
The Ugly: CheapAssGamer. It's like it wanted to cater to so many at the same time, it lost track of it's niche (not that it had one, 'just an expression :?). I haven't been there for a long time now, but when I used to frequent it, the place felt like a saturday afternoon at the mall (and I don't mean that in a good way). I think the average (active) user age is 12 years old. And if not, then it sure feels like it.