State of the Southperry - 2012

[Eos]

I noticed she was gone but why did she leave?

I suppose one would have to ask her, or if she'd wanted us to know she'd have left a reason.

[Link]

She got sick of my face, obviously. I don't blame her.


On a serious note, it's always sad to see a member of a family leave.

[street]

That's an odd repeated claim. We get over 400 unique registered members visiting per day, so we don't really seem to be lacking people.

What should the members be doing to be more entertaining and engaging to each other?

If you want to bring entertainment to the table we should have daily activities. It will bring them in everyday and tally up their points at the end of the month and give them a forum feature or some sort of prize.

For example:
Daily Maple Question
Each day have a maple related question. It could be about extractions,skills,monsters, etc Questions that will require them to search for the info on southperry and nowhere else.

Daily Guess that pic:
Alter a picture it could be from maple or someone forum avatar

Scavenger Hunt:
Come up with some clues that are related to maple or southperry members. Can implement the southperry database so people could use it more often.
Ex:I'm the past tense of what should be closed everynight. Who am i?

Just shooting out ideas.

[Eos]

Not a single one of those encourages interaction with each other.

For more than one person to participate in any of that they'd have to be answering privately which seems counter productive. They're already here and reading and not talking to each other, we don't need more ways for them to ignore one another, do we?


I specified entertaining and engaging to each other.

[JoeTang]

I don't browse the Maple forums as much but from what I've seen (compared to when I used to post there actively) it seems rather dry. Though it could be because I stopped caring about the game that most things from it seem like that. I don't see others posting as much too, like Joe and Stereo. It just feels different than it did.

What do you want me to post about?

I specified entertaining and engaging to each other.

Some of us prefer entertaining and engaging walls.

[Jedward]

What should the members be doing to be more entertaining and engaging to each other?

That is a very interesting question, the obvious funny answer to which I won't say out loud.
But seriously.. um, posting?
I for one have just ended up posting less and less, and viewing even less. Just business of life I suppose, but I can't understand why the inactivity just ramped up this year.

[Mandalay]

There is - Tap-A-Talk.

Oh pineapple. I forgot all about that app. Guess not then.

I'm not really sure if it's "engaging" but I've always liked seeing polls and who voted what. I realize there's dedicated sub-forums for all kinds of things. I guess if it's engaging or not depends on what the poll topic is but the poll doesn't have to necessarily be Maple or site-related. Could be a current event or some other hot topic possibly.

Edit: Or maybe more forum events like that Halloween avatar contest. Personally, I'm pretty excited to see that later on and I'd love to see more things like that in the future.

[Connor]

I blocked all the maple subforums so I can't comment on that but otherwise I'm happy with how things are. We still have a nice community feeling especially in the social sections and I like how people can freely vent about their daily lives and receive support from others and stuff.

We also received a subforum for League players which was a nice addition as well.

And miscellaneous things overall I like the changes that came this year like pineapples and pomegranates for posts.

I do wish Sarah hadn't disappeared without a word though. I miss her gaming rants oh so much.

[street]

I specified entertaining and engaging to each other.

Their is a set amount of cliques in sp that already "engage" with each other. Irc group that has inside jokes only they will know, the maple brains that know every possible maple equation, nexon bashers/haters, funhouse/social/angry dome junkies, and maplers. These groups dont have anything in common, they will not interact with anyone that is outside their set status quo.

Perfect example is above poster he only posts in the social section and ignores all maple related section. People have already isolated themselves in their groups and the only time we all "engage" together is when their is a mandatory poll

If you want to force interaction then i suggest using some of the ideas i suggest and make them group themed. Randomly generate groups of those willing to participate

[Locked]

What do you want me to post about?

ANYTHING.

GOSH.

[Soph]

As an old mod from sleepy, I can say the only thing I wished we had here was more activity. I don't know, even though quite a few people visit daily the maple sections aren't too active compared to what I was used to xD

Apart from that though out of all of the other sites to pick from I think this one is the best, the posts that do happen are normally high quality and that's always going to be better than a lot of junk.

[Curtiss]

As an old mod from sleepy, I can say the only thing I wished we had here was more activity. I don't know, even though quite a few people visit daily the maple sections aren't too active compared to what I was used to xD

Apart from that though out of all of the other sites to pick from I think this one is the best, the posts that do happen are normally high quality and that's always going to be better than a lot of junk.

Agreed. I think that the lack of activity isn't necessarily a bad thing as I have frequented pretty much all of the big Maple Story websites and I'd say that a lot of what appears to be content is actually just the same topic rehashed and I think another reason why this forum seems less active than other Maple Story forums is also because some people still stay and post here even after they've quit Maple, so they might not have a lot to talk about.

[icephoenix21]

Their is a set amount of cliques in sp that already "engage" with each other. Irc group that has inside jokes only they will know, the maple brains that know every possible maple equation, nexon bashers/haters, funhouse/social/angry dome junkies, and maplers. These groups dont have anything in common, they will not interact with anyone that is outside their set status quo.

Perfect example is above poster he only posts in the social section and ignores all maple related section. People have already isolated themselves in their groups and the only time we all "engage" together is when their is a mandatory poll

If you want to force interaction then i suggest using some of the ideas i suggest and make them group themed. Randomly generate groups of those willing to participate

Not everyone is like that. I'd like to think I post pretty equally within most of the categories, both Maple and social-related.

Shinku is math-smart and I'm the furthest thing from that, and we talk just fine, for an example.

[Eos]

Not everyone is like that.

Indeed; it's a very narrow view to believe that everyone falls neatly into some label and no one has overlapping interests outside those labels.

[Malthe]

I rarely venture outside of the social and gaming sections, but to me Southperry is still pretty great and i enjoy it a great deal.
It's one of my favourite communities online.

[Zerard]

That's an odd repeated claim. We get over 400 unique registered members visiting per day, so we don't really seem to be lacking people.

So I wasn't the only guy reading this thread and going 'what...?'

Anyways, back on topic, I think Southperry's alright. It's definitely better than more 'mainstream' forums like Basil. We gained some cool new features and the commute's generally likeable. No complaints here. Big, big kudos to the staff that makes it all happen!

And those who are striving for more in maple discussion, I think (or at the very least hope) things will be kicking off the winter when Tempest comes around.

[Curtiss]

So I wasn't the only guy reading this thread and going 'what...?'

Anyways, back on topic, I think Southperry's alright. It's definitely better than more 'mainstream' forums like Basil. We gained some cool new features and the commute's generally likeable. No complaints here. Big, big kudos to the staff that makes it all happen!

And those who are striving for more in maple discussion, I think (or at the very least hope) things will be kicking off the winter when Tempest comes around.

I'll be right there too, weeping because it'll be ages before my server gets Tempest. Let's hope the discussions kick off, yes? I think there's a lot that could be discussed!

[SaptaZapta]

My first Maple forum was Sleepywood, way back in 2008. When someone in-game recommended Southperry and I went to take a look, I immediately noticed two good differences:
1) Much lower traffic. One could keep up with this forum.
2) Much higher signal-to-noise ratio. Almost everything that was posted was worth reading.

Later I found out about Basil and Nexon's forums, but a quick look was enough to tell that they were even worse than SW in terms of high noisy traffic.
Later I also learned that (3) despite the low traffic, everything important gets posted here.

I am glad that we still keep these characteristics.

As for Maplestory-related discussions, they've moved from Maplestory Discussion to various other subfora. Q&A, Should I..., Extractions (almost everything to do with a new version is discussed right in the extraction thread, instead of a new thread being made for this feature or that), Game Mechanics and other technical sections when a whole new mechanism is introduced, JoeTang's damage threads, Locked's builds for new classes, Cinema and Scroll Lock... People still talk about Maplestory, they just do it all over the place. (Which doesn't contradict what people said above, about there not being all that much to say about Maple right now. Even when there's a new patch the talk dies down pretty fast, "ho hum another OP class / hyperskill / useless event / annoying boss")

Anyway, bottom line, I'm happy with the way Southperry is. And I think that as long as we do get all those people coming here and reading, we're doing fine. No need to coax them too hard to post, if they feel they have nothing to say.

[Derosis]

League of Legends/Angry Dome/Social/Arts & Entertainment section(s) keeps me here.

Stay snazzy @Eos;.

[Sephie]

I don't want to sound elitist but imo Southperry is probably the upper community of MapleStory and it is usually here that most things even get done. Extractions, damage charts, skill builds, and actual discussion of what goes on in the game: it's all happening in Southperry.

That said, I can think of no other fan site that truly loves the game their site is based on. We are definitely not a bunch of haters. Now, you could say that most users heavily criticize Nexon and some swear not to play Maple ever, but most of them still participate in Maple related discussion. The reality is that most have played Maple at some point and we loved it at some point. Southperry is a place for users of new and old, those who still care about Maple, to give ther opinion and participate in discussion usually about steps to making the game better.

Despite not playing, people are still interested in what's happening and what Nexon is up to. Idk... to me, that's pretty admirable. If I was Nexon, I would be humbled by the community here that still pays attention to them this much despite what they do and what they have done.

The thing I disliked about Basil was that the community is somewhat detached with their game and at times I find it pointless to go in the General section. Threads are usually maple related but they involve the player more so than the game. I may be overstepping a bit but that's somewhat my general feeling with basil.

In the one year I have been a member, Southperry has provided a place for me to flood my thoughts on the game and be met with meaningful discussion. What prompted me to join was the community and a few quality people I love to see posting. Quite happy with the community and I'm hoping it continues to thrive.