Planning Ahead for a New Creatures Feature
Earlier this year, I posted the survey results for a series of questions about how Creatures players enjoy the games, and what events might encourage more activity. I’ve hinted at some ideas throughout the year, but ran into some trouble with planning out just how to put together a special feature. As I’ve continued to work out the details and make sure that it will function, I stumbled across a thought: The Creatures community doesn’t have many forums. Back in the day, there were all sorts of chats, groups, and message boards geared towards the games. Now, there are just a couple.
This isn’t to say that we absolutely need another channel of communication: It’s not like Creatures players can’t interact at all! Yet a forum would be a practically perfect way to implement this rather secretive feature I’ve had in mind. Another part of this could include a section specifically for answering Creatures questions, although I’m not looking to do too much with it. Is a new forum something that you would be interested in? This is still all in the planning stages, and I’m in no rush to release anything! It’s just a thought, particularly so that I can move forward with the idea of monthly Creatures events. Feel free to share your ideas for or against a new forum!
Images Credited to Gameware Europe
My first thought is, do we have enough people to make it active?
I’m half-thinking it would be nice to have a slightly more unfocused forum that is a bit like the old Virtual Life Forum, with room to talk about Petz, or the Neopets/Flight Rising type of games. But maybe this is just me wanting to be able to talk about Grandroids without people saying it’s off-topic because it doesn’t have norns. :P
Back to the topic, yeah, the main question is, do we have enough people and what could another forum offer that is different from CCaves? A bit of RPing focus is something I miss. Maybe a looser definition of what is “family friendly” these days, more relaxed moderation.
Overall, it seems like a worthwhile experiment. Though I do wish we could just resurrect Creaturetopia… <3
Thanks for the input! According to the survey results, over 25 people stated that they would be interested in participating in monthly events. Once I get around to planning things out all the way, I think it will be clear why the forum route would be the best idea! That’s mainly what it will be for, which is a unique feature in itself that’s not offered anywhere else. I also mentioned opening it up for Creatures help because I receive a lot of questions to answer personally. I definitely don’t mind, and encourage anyone to contact me! I’m just thinking that if there was a public place for them, it might be nice to get answers from a bunch of players.
Reviving Creaturetopic would be lovely! And if that happens, I hope that anything I do wouldn’t be seen as trying to compete with it. I remember the fun in checking multiple forums, since each one had something different to offer. Might not be a bad experiment just to see if this whole monthly Creatures event thing can take off utilizing a forum!
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
The problem with having only a single main forum is that if there’s people who don’t like that single main forum, they effectively vanish from the community unless they have a blog or something.
Going off that, I’d support the creation of a new forum.
Well said. If I do test this out, the main area of the forum would be something geared towards participating in a bunch of Creatures-related activities. I’m still working out the logistics, but it should include a wide variety of things. I do see what you’re saying, though! I think it might be worth it test out a new forum with this main feature, and then possibly explore expanding into other sub-forums to keep it enjoyable for everyone.
I’m still not 100% committing to it, yet it seems like it wouldn’t be a bad thing to at least test out! Thanks for the feedback!
I would love to see another forum, though I would have to second SSR’s comment about making it into a “Artificial Life/Pet”-game forum. I would also have to agree that more relaxed moderation would be healthier. That sort of setting just seems like it would invite more people into the discussion and encourage more people who might not have heard of the Creatures games to explore them. Anyway, you have my contact information, so if you need a hand with this kind of project you know I’ll be around to help. :)
Thanks, Kezune! I’m still thinking this through carefully, since a new forum involves a whole lot of planning. If I go ahead with it, it might be something a little more focused on Creatures. But I can stay open to expanding it little by little so that it incorporates a bunch of elements that others will enjoy. We’ll see what happens!
You don’t even need to relax the moderation, just actually moderate the forum in a mature and discrete way IE PMing people privately when they break rules rather than calling them out publicly. It isn’t the family-friendly rules that are ruining caves, it’s their juvenile ways of enforcing them that actually create a more hostile and unwelcoming atmosphere. The best mods are the ones that you can’t even tell they are mods just by looking at their posts. If this community would grow up and learn that they might stop driving people away.
Well said. I’m one who enjoys forums that don’t allow strong language, yet the way the rules are enforced speaks volumes. Sometimes a member accidentally does something, and having that pointed out in front of everyone else can be a surefire way to lose a fan! I rarely visit Creatures Caves, yet the practice you describe seems to be happening in the newer forum topics. Hopefully everyone will realize that we’re all just trying to enjoy Creatures, and that driving certain people away is detrimental to our entire community.