MWO sites and forums other than Mechspecs?

Well........

Being one of the oldest and foremost contributors to the content and culture of this website on and off over the years, I've given this situation much consideration.

I've thought about things for almost a week now.

And.........

My reaction is basically the equivalent of Picard in this video

 

Sooo....

~IF~ we can get everything moved over in the right way... and ~IF~ we can maintain the community feel (that will be up to us) and ~IF~ we can get properly set expectations and goals from the folks and a commitment to do their best at keeping the forum and community together as we are, with the bonus goal of working to move the bulk of our archive over intact the best way possible...

What do you guys think about moving to NGNG forums?

I know the instant reaction, and some of it may be fair, but I do think that, in the end, if we all give them a fair stance, they do what they do for the best of BattleTech as a whole.

The benefits:
+ Experienced mods and community managers
+ Lots of traffic and new folks
+ Friendly and inviting atmosphere
+ Constantly working towards the benefit of BT Franchise
+ Willingness to keep community alive and kicking

Possible Detractors
- Get lost in the shuffle of a busy site (we lose our identity)
- Some folks believe they are shills for PGI (I do not necessarily think they are)
What am I missing?

FWIW, I have floated the idea by Phil and he seems interested.

Thoughts?

 

Riiiiiiiiiight! No thanks.

If I'm going to participate in a hard core builder style site I don't want to have to deal with Phil, Bombadil and the other members of Sycophant Online but thanks anyways.That place is a fanboi environment where it is mostly fluff and propaganda. I can deal with pro-PGI discourse, when it is warranted, but having it rammed down my throat by supposedly impartial people, who incidentally are employees (contracted or otherwise) seems to be a little counter productive.

If they ever bought this site off Grimm I would instantly stop coming here and I know many others would. The reason this site is so successful is because you can say what you want, about what you want (within reason) without fear of being overly censored. Have you ever been to a town hall hosted by those clowns? *giggles* it's like being in a commercial for PGI. All the "hard questions" that "get to the heart of the matter" are reviewed and approved ahead of time.

Despite my grievances with Grimm I can respect the fact that he ran an open shop and allowed even negative comments to be discussed without jumping on them. The one thing you can always count on those No Guts guys to do is to censor and edit everything. The truth will only come out if it doesn't impact their potential monthly income.

All this talk about "moving this" and "migrating that" is giving me a headache. Grimm, just take your domain and either sell it or forward it somewhere and have done with it. We are all too cheap to come up with $2k for your hard work, PGI can't purchase it from you because then they would be seen as having paid for yet another piece of the community and No Guts No Jobs can't afford to purchase it from you nor should you sell it to them.

Sell it on the open market in November or December and until then let us have our fun!

 

IIRC the Hawken guys were interested 2 about years ago?

 

OMG, this search thingy does work:

https://www.mechspecs.com/threads/back-in-top-10-mmofps.7176/#post-51364

 

I agree, someone else could start a forum in with a similar feel once Mechspecs is gone. Personally I would love to get the forum database and migrate it to a site I could maintain, however I couldn't pay the asking price. I would also be happy to foot the hosting bill (I already host two other sites) but if someone wants to buy Mechspecs then that would be the best. Anyway, lets all enjoy it while it lasts and hopefully we can all still be doing this in the new year.

 

Redacted? Really?

I can honestly say I am more than disappointed in the childish responses... I expected a little more from the folks here.

You'd rather it die than live over at NGNG?

 

It's an automatic filter because of some of the actions of [REDACTED]. No idea the story behind it but I'm sure someone can remember.

If someone takes over that would be cool. I haven't really seen the NGNG forums to make a judgement but if they want it I think it's better than the site dying.

 

Yeah Jacob, that is kind of harsh. You can poke fun at me but let's leave external hate at the door m'kay?

 

Just to clarify... I wish this site would never go away and the thought that it is breaks my heart....

I do get how tough it is to run one of these and understand the cost/time sink. I totally understand and hold no hardships against Michael at all. I am just really looking for a way we don't lose all the sharing we've put into this site over the years. This is still the #1 site I go to for mech stuff..

 

I feel with you Bro. We have to look for another way instead waiting for PGI or Redacted to take over. They just don't want it, so nothing to discuss about it.

 

Blagg can you take it?
I can support it if you would do that. I will even do some mod work and $$$ work.

 

I could chime in on some mod work too if anyone were to take over the ship,...

 

I have been playing around with Drupal which allows for making custom content types. I've tested out one which incorporates the Smurfy's mech link as an iframe which is under the forum post.

Another good option might be a wiki style format which can have discussion on the Talk page or similar.

Just some more options.

 

yay. put it this way, I can be sure that the yearly functional fee is msotly paid for. now, someone come up with leanding and helping to fund the huge 3k or so euro to buy this site.

I need someone to do and be the face of the whole thing, I can push in some tim, skills, mod works, and $$.

 

Easiest would be us old regulars come together and buy mechspecs, then no data migration needed.
someone just need to "buy" it and I will "donate" some as support.

 

Um, just an idea, but

Do we really need licensing and special forum and all this shit?

I don't understand, I brought this up a long time ago when the idea of donating first came up to "improve" the site. Which, btw, didn't improve a single fucking thing, but I don't wanna be a pessimistic, and that's another topic, so.

I dunno, the way I see it, this shit could be hosted for 10 bucks a month.

"Oh but Soy, it'll not have this feature and that feature" You know what? I don't fucking care. Can it host text and a smurfy link? Ok Einstein, guess what, we're in mechspeccin business.

I also don't fucking buy (figuratively speaking) $2500 for a website that's lost four-fold traffic, thus decreased hosting/bandwidth needs, for an old game, that doesn't need to be security certified and all this BS that costs money.

So I'll offer Mike $100 for the domain, and he can dump everything else, and I'll notepad html up a shtty bulletin board. Problem solved.

Seriously I don't get the thousands of dollars for a website. What is the logic. Can someone actually explain to me the logic. Here's how I see it.

1) Website dies or stays or gets trimmed or whatever
2) Someone pays thousands of dollars for this website?
3) Game is more and more unpopular
4) What exactly is so difficult about posting text and a link to smurfy, you do not need plugins or forum software. YOU NEED FUCKING TEXT AND A LINK TO SMURFY BUILD. HELLO. NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. If I can copy and paste the actual content of threads on this site into an IRC chat, newsflash - you don't need to be paying for forum software and BS like that. Stop that nonsense defense of the cost.

If you put a huge platinum spoiler on the back of your BMW and then sold it by saying "well the titanium spoiler adds like, a million to the value" I'd say..................... motherfucker I don't want a huge platinum spoiler on the back of my car, hello, are you retarded.

Therefor, I stand by my revealed offer of $100.

This all seems odd coming on the backs of shipspecs, on the back of Michael posting a new gaming channel and trying to hype it, etc.

If you don't care about the game, you should not give a shit about 'certs' and 'licences' for 'website forums' therefore, dump all that shit, and tell me how much the domain costs per year. $100? Yeah I'll give $100.

This is not an attack or anything, I've just thought about this for 2 weeks and had to let it out. This is straight up fucking bullshit. If I walked up to you with a ham sandwich for sale, $200, and all of you laughed, and my response was "ok i'm throwin it in the trash" fine throw it in the trash. But Tommy over there is hungry, he'll give you five bucks for that footlong. Not enough? Dude it's a god damn Subway sandwich, not the golden sandwich of invincibility.

Tell me the god damn cost of a years worth of domain registration, period. That's what I'll pay. That's all anyone should pay.

Any of you talking about actually paying several thousand for this website, if I knew you IRL, I would literally slap the fucking stupidity off your face.

PS - and don't give me that "you dont care about the site" BS, I been here longer than all of you, even when I wasn't playin I still posted here a bit............. if anything it's the other way around, the owner clearly gives no fucks, but wants money. What is that. This isn't a car for sale, you can't use it, what's the point. Either let it die, or cut all the BS off, and give a real price for the only thing with any intrinsic value, the domain.

It's like if I picked up random shit in my apartment and stood on the balcony and shouted, "THIS IS FOR SALE. IF YOU DON'T BUY IT, I'M THROWING IT AWAY." People would think I'm a weirdo [RACIST COMMENT REMOVED]. What's so different about this.

I have no problem with 'recouping'. Really, I don't. If someone offered me, say, a five dollar footlong from Subway for my MWO account, I'd consider it. Heavily. But I suspect Michael has not invested $2500 in this website. Why? Cuz if he has done so, he'd be a fucking moron.

 

Well if I had more freetime to do serious maintenance job, then yes. But i don't (not even enough time to play MWO atm). On the other hand I'm not sure if I would invest the Money for the Price for Zero ROI. I would continue to donate some cash to support paying the maintenance costs, and do free Mod Tasks. That's all i can do atm.

 

I guess that makes me a moron.

I've owned this domain for over four years. I've put money into this site over that four year time frame, as have each and every Benefactor and person who has contributed time or money. I would go so far as to say that for the first two or so years I was the sole person maintaining the site. Then slowly I released my iron grip and released I needed a team to make this site function and several people offered to help due to their passion for the game and the community.

The hard costs aside; you ignore many other key factors in your valuation of property you have no vested interest in. You may not like that term but that is exactly what it is. Your analogy about a BWM or a sandwich? If price bothers you that much go look at another car or another sandwich. Plain and simple; swim in the waters you can afford to swim in.

YOU may not think the site is worth more than $100 but then again you are the guy who has a finite number of mech bays and was attempting to get by on not having to spend more than you already have. Frugal, Savvy, Cheap, whatever you want to call it. It is what it is. To you my time isn't worth anything. To me, it is worth everything.

As for ShipSpecs? Why should that even remotely concern you? I don't get it. You bring that up a every chance you get, or my own personal game channel unrelated to MWO. I've moved on to other games. MWO is what it is, a deathmatch that I enjoyed while I played it. I may come back when they get it right, I may not. Who knows. For now, I'm doing other things in other universes and projects.

Still, I digress in my thoughts as I attempt to justify myself to you and I forget that I needn't do such things. However, if the site is worth so little to you then perhaps that might be a good key indicator for you spending your time here (or not).

In fact, now that I've re-read your message a couple of times, especially the racist comment, I will make the choice for you. Thank you for your contributions during your time here.

In other news I have some interested parties that are in discussions for the site; lock stock and barrel (site, domain, database, youtube, twitter etc). There are no particular details to share right now other than that I will know something very soon; middle of the week for one, end of the week for the other and sometime soon for the third party LOL.