Community (Re-)Building

[Andrew]

I've contacted him by other means and he does occasionally reply, but only when something is important to him.

Meh, I've come across lots of 'celebs' who are unwilling to engage with their fans for whatever reason. Some are just private people by nature, thrust into the limelight, and do not want to 'waste' their time on non-creative stuff that they don't deem important (even though it may seem vitally important to the eager fan). Anyway I'm not going to argue this further because I believe we have no clue as to Mechner's true motivations. Let's move on... I wish you all the best with your non-PoP game endeavors. Maybe one day you'll be tired of dealing with rabid fans of your game too.

[musa]

A little late but.....

Andrew is right. There many celebs out there who no longer care about their past work. That being said, I've met some people who at first show interest in my projects and then disappear without informing me. So consider yourself lucky that you didn't meet people like that!

[Norbert]

I think, all the hard tricks that many mods expect players to perform have been detrimental to our community's growth. Every time I personally decide to give a new mod a try, I end up being severely disappointed by the requirement to perform ultra-difficult tricks such as jumping through guards or doing the infamous "hard jump". We recently lost yet another community member, prince777, to mods being - frankly - unplayable. All those trick-filled mods are obscuring other, much more pleasantly playable mods. It really is a shame.

[atrueprincefanfrom18]

I think, all the hard tricks that many mods expect players to perform have been detrimental to our community's growth. Every time I personally decide to give a new mod a try, I end up being severely disappointed by the requirement to perform ultra-difficult tricks such as jumping through guards or doing the infamous "hard jump". We recently lost yet another community member, prince777, to mods being - frankly - unplayable. All those trick-filled mods are obscuring other, much more pleasantly playable mods. It really is a shame.

I never really thought about it. I think you can request (maybe drop a mail) to all the modders list you have on PoPOT and ask them to add an ultra-difficult tag to their mods which are really insane.

And maybe on mod page you can also add: "This mod contains ultra-difficult tricks such as [trick_numbers]. If you want to try beginner-friendly mods check this: [link_to_find_beginner_friendly_mods_searching_through_tags]".

[Norbert]

I never really thought about it. I think you can request (maybe drop a mail) to all the modders list you have on PoPOT and ask them to add an ultra-difficult tag to their mods which are really insane.

And maybe on mod page you can also add: "This mod contains ultra-difficult tricks such as [trick_numbers]. If you want to try beginner-friendly mods check this: [link_to_find_beginner_friendly_mods_searching_through_tags]".

A problem might be that not everyone agrees on what is "insane" and "ultra-difficult".
Perhaps the "beginner-friendly" tag will therefore prove to be most useful for this.
Maybe that'll be sufficient to provide newcomer-players with a nice place to start.

[Norbert]

This is my first mod. It features altered sprites, graphics, levels, sounds, music, intro and outro.

I don't get why teljesnegyzet is not getting more feedback.
For instance, to me, zero likes on Twitter seems ridiculous.
It is one of the most polished mods in years.

I guess what I wrote in 2014 still applies:

There aren't enough people on this forum to make making mods worth the effort.

A while back I added C64 support to leapop.
I got no reactions anywhere, unable to obtain even a single like for a tweet.
Even though there is a #c64 community out there.
Maybe if the whole thing was fake, nobody would have noticed.

I did see that apoplexy got some stars on GitHub, though.
And SDLPoP may reach 1000 stars next year.

[Norbert]

Kinda quiet, huh?

Indeed, most familiars have more or less left this forum. Not much of a community left, unfortunately.
Over at Popuw.com, there hasn't been an update since late 2021.
At Princed.org, the main page displays no information after 2017: we already lost Facebook, and Twitter now forces login. Additionally, the wiki has broken pages, the Files section is outdated, atrue cannot admin because poirot doesn't provide new credentials.
So, with the exception of Popot.org, the community also looks dead from the outside. In the past, I tried to bring some of the outside info inside. But as I don't login when I browse social media, I can no longer search PoP images on Instagram, and only see popular - not new - posts on Mechner's Twitter page.
Still, it was all fun while it lasted.

[fp]

Huh. I still read things on here from time to time, but I never ended up posting anything for a while. Sad to see things dissolve.

Still, I wouldn't mind just chillin and still working on stuff, even if it's just like... a dozen souls left. Small forums have always been superior to social media, in my eyes. That's why I hopped on, even so late to the party. But if its fallen from grace that bad, it's understandable that most people have moved on.

I'm willing to stick 'round and hang out with y'all for the time being, anyway. Not like there's much else to do on the internet, anyway