I agree. But there is the other side, maybe a minority, but some of us have limited time to play Forza and it’s not predictable enough to schedule gaming events.
Me, I think it was either FM2 or 3, the versions blur together at this point for me. Whenever I had some free time, I’d just go into a lobby with 7 AI, race around with my worst tunes, trying to figure stuff out. A player would jump in, quiet, but race along. I upgrade my car. We start competing. 2 more guys come in chatting together. We agree to go down a class. 1st guy is now chatting. Another guy comes in…
etc, suddenly the sun is coming up, a full 8 player lobby is discussing everything but racing and Forza. People from everywhere across the world.
Whatever “community” is…, I just want that aspect of Forza back in my life.
I too was very active in FM2 and will cherish those memories, LE’s and Auction Wars, getting on the forums and finding the newest releases, photo comps for LE’s or CR. But those days are gone, I disliked FM5 the most as far as how the community generated content was pushed and distrubuted. Having to get in a car to see what paints were available for that model was a pain and an inconvenience. Many of us go to the same tuners or painters for new content because we like there style or work, I would like to see a system put in place to where if you follow a painter/tuner that anytime they put up new content you get a notification and then you can go to there storefront like in FM4 and find that new content. Having to be in a certain vehicle to see what paints or tunes are available is rediculous, and time consuming I want to get the most out of my time I have to play and not waste it searching for content that I like.
A lot of what you’ve highlighted relates to selling, storefront and AH. These have gone but if that was all that kept the community together it was ever a shallow and fragile thing. For those that want more interaction and involvement then start a thread and kick some ideas around. Personally I’m a dysfunctional recluse so I’m reasonably content with things as they are
Going by that picture at a rough guess it looks like for every 1000 views you got about 1 response, the FM5 TM forum looks slightly better on that front.
If you want to skew the conversation that way, sure, lets play.
Would you like to assert the arguement that we currently have a “far smaller, but better quantity” of players in the TM now, or,
Would you like to assert the arguement that there are so many less posters frequenting the forums that the majority of replies, and views are the same people repeated.
We are nearing the 2 year period and the FM5 TM, even if we included the legacy forum before the switch is still 100K posts give or take [probably less] without checking.
There was over 1 million threads from livery and TM combined [FM2]. FM5 is nowhere close to attaining that level of community participation.
Its not that I want to skew anything, I just think its wrong to paint the picture that the community was so much better back then. Loads of the posts that were made on those forums were made on a select few threads or a select few garages threads. I think things have changed, not all for the better and not all down to one or two reasons but a mixture of lots of them and some of those were probably brought about by the community themselves.
I never said it was better. I even said it wasnt perfect, just as you did.
It did have a lot more community than FM5 does, which was my main point in the first ss. It clearly shows the decline on the forums of community participation.
Right on. Even if I completely remove history from the equation and had this forum been born with the release of Forza Motorsport 5, I would regard it less as a “community” and more of a place for peer-to-peer troubleshooting … nothing too spectacular.
Don’t get me wrong; I am grateful we have an official place to congregate, unlike Sony’s signature racing title; but, even the advantages of that appear to be becoming far less apparent than before.
And Im not disagreeing with the fact theres a decline, i just think the community has a habit of blaming that decline on the developers. Yes, I believe the developers have played a part in that but I also think the way the community has acted and social media etc are responsible too.
Personally I would rather everything was here in one place and it was a bustling hive of activity with everyone getting on, following the rules and playing nice. What todays community could be doing with is some imagination and making the way things are, work for them.
In FM4 it was possible for people to make a lot of credits legitimately via painting and tuning and even racing. Because gifting and the auction house existed it was possible to put on comps and give prizes measured in millions or painted cars or tuned cars as prizes.
I even put on a comp to paint my car and paid out millions to the paints I liked.
That is not possible now.
The community can still do stuff but what stuff is there to do? Certainly not as much elaborate stuff as in the past.
Sorry but I have seen a couple of defeatist discussions recently. This is one and another is nothing should be done about wallriders and crashers.
We should not let the devs off the hook but push them to provide better tools in the game to encourage wider community activities and involvement.
The only two I can think of additionally are:
-People that returned to FM4 because FM5 bored them.
-People that don’t have an Xbox One [yet].
I know neither of those are community-related, but still.
I would love to see the forums liven up [again]. I wasn’t around in the heyday of FM2 and FM3, so I don’t entirely know what I missed there; only posts from long-timers can tell me. It won’t return to FM2’s level of activity most likely ever again, but if you’ve been here for a while, you can definitely see a drastic decline in activity.
My question is, though, what could they do?
They still have photocomps.
They still have livery contests.
They still have dedicated forum sections to different branches.
They (to the best of my recollection) still have “For more helpful tips on tuning/painting, please visit forzamotorsport.net.” prompts on the dedicated screen.
AH, SF, CPLs have been talked about so much here that I’m getting tired of reading them, and I can’t help but wonder how they would really increase forum activity anyway.
AH - Okay. this one might, in the sense of people hosting AH sales again, as well as people popping in and saying “Hey I got a bunch of stuff on sale in the AH now 1000 CR start no buyouts.”
SF - What’s to stop people from posting what they have on their sharefront? As far as I can tell, people that still actively paint are still promoting their stuff the same way.
CPLs - Other than the proverbial “JDM cruise night bro” and “Muscle car cruise night bro” posts, and the return of dedicated race events/competitions, I don’t see a massive increase. More often than not, the people actively engaging in race events and competitions posts were already actively engaging in the forum anyway, not necessarily wholly consisting of new people that would have otherwise never posted.
Clubs could get more people in, but again, how many would be totally new, and how many would just be another place for regulars to post in?
I repeat my question: What could they do?*
*Question was more meant rhetorically as opposed to literally, as that would undoubtedly get wishlisty.
I think to get a full answer on why forum involvement declined, you have to look at the reasons why people left. It’s not that Forza isn’t popular anymore. I’d wager that with every release, more and more people play. What’s the LB total on Prague Full R-Class? Over six million?
Why did the majority of people who were on during the FM2 and FM3 days leave? Did they get bored of and/or quit the forums? Forget about them? Quit Forza altogether and moved on?
It’s not even just “FM5 happened” as the answer. It may be an answer, but not the only one. Look at some of the names on the FM2 section of the legacy forums (dig deep), and ask yourself, “Have I seen this person post anything in the last two years?”
So, effectively, its lack/erasing of community-oriented features equaled the lack of community? Albeit with some user-abuse in areas?
I saw all the information being thrown around on lack of involvement and lower post count, etc., I sort of just thought increased participation would have remedied/was the answer people were getting at. Never really thought of tools.
Apologies for the misinterpretation.
I do also know you’re not saying “growth is bad” or anything.
In your opinion (I say your but anyone else can chime in), would the return of some or all of those features help restore the community (not to FM2 levels, but certainly better than now), or has the damage been done?
Simply bringing in-game features back won’t necessarily restore the community alone; part of the issue, as described in other threads, is this forum’s interactivity with the Turn 10 Community Team staff … or, recent lack thereof. To help restore the community, there will need to be a combination of community-based gameplay features and a renewed, resolute initiative from both Turn 10 staff and us members to drive a level of interaction that will spur creative content, events, participation, and engaging discussions about the Forza product.
Both of these things are linked, its not what they did and still do, its what they have removed that has killed it. Why was FM2 so popular and competitive, a number of reason that break down as below.
#1. Career Leaderboards.
yes, career was competitive, cars tuned for such events, great place to test your skill in more than 1 lap time trials, with AI involved.
#2. Exhibition Leaderboards.
Exhibition mode was any car class you chose, any car built to the PI boundary, 3 laps around the track from a standing start.
#3. Normal Leaderboards.
no explaination needed.
#4. CPL’s.
This one is a contentious issue. Some loved it, others hated it. why.
It was never pick and play.
Each lobby had its own rules to abide by. It balanced the PI issues own its own. You either learnt, or didnt.
This was never perfect, far from it. It was abused, it was clique etc. The hoppers fixed that, but removed the ability for us to balance the classes. We still could, no one goes there though.
But there was tunes for all of those scenarios which arised. That gave the painters in the teams more to do. More tuned cars, more competitive boards, more places to be competitive basically.
