Ash 244 Posted December 17, 2019 NCM (nearly) a Year On I think I speak for everyone in saying that it’s certainly been an interesting year, from what feels like unending down time to what now feels like a new lease of life, communities are born and bred by people alone and you can’t force something to stick together when the cracks have already shown, and I think we’ve showcased that now more than ever, you’ll just continue to stick things back together as best you can in hopes that it will remain but, sometimes in life you need to move on and build something new up and that’s OK, nothing lasts forever but everything worthwhile only lasts for a period of time, and whenever this comes to an end I can only hope it inspires someone to pick up the mantle where it left off. That got a little… philosophical didn’t it? My fault, apologies, I just wanted to open a document and write down my thoughts and feelings with you all – bare bones you know how that stuff goes anyhow I think it’s important to reflect on how we’re doing and where we can go from here. So, how are we doing? That’s a great question and thanks for asking Torm! Fundamentally the site is stable, and activity is at an appropriate level, people are posting, RPs are… RPing? I guess you do roleplay in a roleplay so… ANYWAY things are good! There are some sections that have very little to no activity and I guess that’s something for me and the staff team to figure out together. I imagine it’ll be along the lines of consolidating “deader” sections together and making posts simpler to post but we’ll work on that. In fact, at the time of writing this we are roughly averaging 20 registrations per month, which are healthy numbers! It’s also probably a little more but I’m terrible at Math so… 20 sounds like a good enough number. There has been some considerable content committed to the site by many of our great users. I won’t go through all of them because honestly, I’ll be here all day and I think a couple of the staff team have ideas on events of their own accord for celebrating good content but stuff like .:Alive:. by Dad in the creative writing section, the NeoCardMaker Holy Grail War by Yui (whilst young, is a very creative take on the forum game genre) and RPs like Fire Emblem Curse of the Goddess which is so intrinsically Fire Emblem it’s great. So where can we go from here? Well personally I think I need to take on the leadership role a bit more, I just need to understand where the line is drawn with that and the like as we have a nice status quo going on and rocking the boat too much might cause us to get water on board when it isn’t necessary but I have ideas and thoughts for the site that I think will be healthy for the place. I would like to see a member of staff or two added to team at some point to help develop certain areas of the site, and perhaps cultivate new life and ideas into parts of the site but again it’s all about balance and that’s down to me to find that middle of the line, so please bear with me and provide criticism as and where it’s needed. I’ve yet to explore these ideas with Yemachu but getting the card maker more built into the site rather than relying on GitHub might allow for us to provide a better user experience for those of us who use the card maker on the regular, of course again I’m just vocalizing my internal thoughts so don’t take this as a “IT’S HAPPENING” (Yui please insert the appropriate gif in a reply thank you). It also seems the site is still struggling to send activation emails to gmail accounts… It’s something for me to look at as we are potentially missing out on active users, I’d rather publicly state this is an issue than it not be forgotten about (although I have mentioned it in the past). As for you guys? Keep doing what you’re doing. Maybe revive showcase for me I don’t have anything negative to say about the lot of you really, you’re all cute – except Cow, he’s a cow I mean they ain’t that cute maybe calves but like they don’t last very long in that state. So, thank you, for making this place what it is, and I wish you a fantastic Christmas, here’s to 2020 (we all legally have perfect vision now) ? @Members @VIP Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
radio414 944 Posted December 17, 2019 not yui but Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ash 244 Posted December 17, 2019 Thank you, you're now officially Yui's gif king replacement. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Thar 502 Posted December 17, 2019 NEO is the best, most-well designed, efficient, responsive, and aesthetically pleasing yugioh card maker on the planet. In all seriousness, though... this has become a nice alternative hub for most active members of the community, and I commend your willingness and dedication to maintaining it as our beloved and reliable admin. ❤️ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ash 244 Posted December 17, 2019 I am only as good as the user base but thank you. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Blake 316 Posted December 17, 2019 There haven’t been as many events as I would have liked, but “Year of Rebirth” still seems fitting for both the site and many of its members, myself absolutely included. Might make a thread about my year later, but not here. It is sad that we’ve lost people, but I honestly think we lost more to people simply moving on with their life than anything else, and what better way to part with people? To our, let’s say, “alumni”, I wish the best. The past year has been a pleasantly wild ride, and I’m proud to be a part of this community. This place is a bit sleepy, but that’s okay. It’s a place that can be called home, without any sort of trepidation. I hope we thrive, moving forward, and thanks to everyone who had faith in us to take a leap. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
yui 601 Posted December 17, 2019 4 hours ago, Tormented said: Thank you, you're now officially Yui's gif king replacement. @radio414 The HGW thread is hardly a creative take on forum games. It's the same as any old text adventure, but with seven PCs running around trying to kill each other instead of one PC doing... whatever it is the plot and players would demand. In fact, part of it existing at all was to see how well this site could work with a text adventure type of game, and in that respect it's been a resounding success. Anyway. It's been a quiet but overall successful year for NCM to get started on. Site was made, things happened, everything was nice, good job all 'round, everyone. Here's to another good one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Summer Darj 292 Posted December 17, 2019 Dat pizza icon at the end of the opening post. I wonder if it's... falling :v I like how NCM shaped up during this year and is still shaping up so far. My top sections on interest, CC and YGO Discussion, are sluggish but I still find them enjoyable, and I trust that activity will pick up... eventually. Besides, this gives me opportunities to explore and participate in other sections, although I have not taken these opportunities as of late. I do wish at the very least there were 4 consistent card makers who also review others' works in CC, but that's beyond my control, unless I kickstart some sort of PR campaign on my own to motivate new card makers to move into here, but I don't want to dedicate my time to such antics. I would be more motivated if I was a CC mod, though :v But even then, more experienced card reviewers around would be ideal to support any newcomer card makers. My sincere thanks specially Tormented, but also the mod team, other staff and as well the NCM community, for all the efforts and activity done for and in this site. also, Yui and Krow 4 mod plz, thx Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LordCowCow 883 Posted December 18, 2019 While we don't have "section" mods I'd like to think of myself as RP and Polls. Those are my main areas and I'm happy that both have done very well this year. ? I truly enjoy this site. It's also much easier to mod which is pretty nice as well lol Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nyx 261 Posted December 18, 2019 Thank you, Tormented. And a bunch of you guys for keeping this place alive. You've been a chill dude who still keeps presence on his forum. I really like some of the suggestions you took. Pretty open. You gave us a variety of themes, a good place to use Yemachu's cool card maker, avatars, ect. Keep up the good work. You the man. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sethera 299 Posted December 18, 2019 Gonna add my thanks to you as well, Tormented, for being so active. Every time I see a new update on the changelog, or see the site come back up after at most a day of being down, it makes me smile because I know we have an admin that cares. And I'm happy to hear that one of the stuffs I made is a good stuff. I don't do too much stuff, mainly cuz I'm not really active outside of the couple places I'm active. So I'm really grateful to the people that are a lot more active than me, and keep this site alive. I think getting the cardmaker more built into the site sounds like a great idea. It'll make it feel like it's part of the site more. Not so sure if we really need more mods, but I suppose if it's to help make new stuff or breathe new life into existing stuff that could be a good reason. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ash 244 Posted December 18, 2019 5 hours ago, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd said: Not so sure if we really need more mods, but I suppose if it's to help make new stuff or breathe new life into existing stuff that could be a good reason. Yeah, this is one that I've brought up a couple times this year with the mod team and certainly I think it's something that needs to be trod carefully. I think my goal really is ensuring that we have the best people in the best places to support and develop sections of the site, fundamentally I don't think we should be afraid of adding too many members of staff, In my opinion if a staff member is there, and they are providing a benefit to the site them having a title makes no difference to things but again I want people to voice their concerns and I'll take everything on board. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yemachu 49 Posted December 18, 2019 Better incorporating the card maker into this site would indeed be very cool, but I'd also like to have it still stand alone. Either way, some discussion is needed about how to incorporate it. Having buttons and text fields follow the theme the user has selected would go a long way. The layout would probably also need a rework, but that was already the case because of the different features I have been working on. Other than some card maker related stuff, I haven't really been all that active on the forum. Aside from Duel Links, I don't really play the game all that much anymore, so my knowledge about cards and combos is limited. Which means I have little to add ro the card discussion, and card creation topics. In any case, it is nice to see how the site has evolved. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sethera 299 Posted December 18, 2019 I guess I got too used to the idea of people only appointing moderators to handle flooded areas or work as damage control. Since we're not really experiencing problems of either sort, I figured we didn't really need more. Though, as a newer site, that comes with a different set of problems, so I can see why expansion might be a good thing there. I don't use the card maker myself really, so take this with a grain of salt, but yeah, that's the main thing I noticed. That the background and style were always that one shade of dark gray, so it always seemed a little detached from the main site. I don't have any ideas on how to fix that though. Again, I'm super happy with this place and how it keeps moving forward. Hopefully the good stuffs continue. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ash 244 Posted December 19, 2019 13 hours ago, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd said: I guess I got too used to the idea of people only appointing moderators to handle flooded areas or work as damage control. Since we're not really experiencing problems of either sort, I figured we didn't really need more. Though, as a newer site, that comes with a different set of problems, so I can see why expansion might be a good thing there. I don't use the card maker myself really, so take this with a grain of salt, but yeah, that's the main thing I noticed. That the background and style were always that one shade of dark gray, so it always seemed a little detached from the main site. I don't have any ideas on how to fix that though. Again, I'm super happy with this place and how it keeps moving forward. Hopefully the good stuffs continue. It's because it is detached from the website, it's just an embedded web page of the card maker itself. I'm glad you're happy, and that makes me happy ? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mido9 51 Posted December 20, 2019 Almost all the people that I liked seeing are here and still being nice to see and the site isn't down as often, so it's pretty good. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites