The Actual Steve Buscemi

Rotavele has made a large portion of new topics, if that answers your question.

Also, Knights111 is just some guy who thinks he has staying power.

Yes

I think you vastly overestimate the quality of topics in the past.

I agree with auctor and also agree that recently there has been some heavy proliferation of retard threads.

I think you forgot all of the useless microdrama from years past.

The OWF today seems to consist of Rotavele, Mogar, Knights, Neo Uruk, and Tywin, with a couple hundred other people as spectators.

Gopherbashi, genius as always. Summin' it up for us above.

Nobody is making topics which even come close to PC's retirement topic from GGA

I wouldn't say the quality of of topics has gone down, more-so stayed the same. The amount of topics has changed, so at least you'd be able to get the gem of a topic, or thread back a few years ago, even if it was surrounded by a lot of other threads. Now-a-days you just have them far and few in between, but you have the same amount of other topics, because that's what the OWF has always been.

The culture of the OWF has changed as well, you have less, and less people posting because everyone deigns the thread irrelevant, and unimportant, especially if they have no idea what is going on. The forums are for everyone to use, not just a select few, or just for a select few to make announcements. If you look at the other areas of the forums, they're alive, and well, though the (what we deem as the OWF) has slowly been dying.

The number of people using the OWF has declined, which naturally has had an effect on the signal to noise ratio. As to the gameplay side of it, well, that was !@#$ years ago and is simply a different kind of !@#$ now.

I wouldn't use the term quality exactly, as already stated OWF was always filled with colorful content.

What has dropped is the interest factor. OWF is boring as !@#$, which can be taken as a reflection of those most active there, those that avoid it and in game politics

OWF is lost, its just a wasteland. It lights up with some excitement during a big war, but that too is incomparable to previous and lasts for a short bit. There is no changing it, its just the way it is for couple of years now and it is settled in to this completely non engaging mode.

I think Gopher summed it up pretty well. I still perk up a bit when I see an announcement of actual importance (e.g., IRON-DBDC treaty). But I've come to accept that if it weren't for the same group of 10 or so attention seekers hashing out their personal drama in public, we wouldn't have much of an OWF anymore.

It's just different opinions/views. Maybe you should consider visiting other forums if this one doesn't match your tastes anymore .

At least its not just treaty announcements (Like it was while I was away )

I think Gopher summed it up pretty well. I still perk up a bit when I see an announcement of actual importance (e.g., IRON-DBDC treaty). But I've come to accept that if it weren't for the same group of 10 or so attention seekers hashing out their personal drama in public, we wouldn't have much of an OWF anymore.

I think it's more that because of those posters a lot of others have effectively given up posting on the owf. Most posts just degrade into a troll/look at me fest by page 2 and it has turned a lot of people off to actually commenting all together.

The most interesting people are not active, and the most active people are not interesting. Write that down.

Yea, what you guys have been saying makes a lot of sense, that far far less alliance leaders post in the OWF and thus the "signal to noise" ratio has changed. Backroom comms were always a reality of this game, but I think in the past you'd see more public posting by alliance leaders.

So would you like to see alliance leaders post more? Would you like your own alliance leader to post more?

I would, but people are to afraid of saying the wrong thing, and getting their alliance attacked, or allies to drop them.

I think I post enough, and fall into the category of people not liking when I post on the OWF, or people think i'm an attention whore. I don't think that at all, and use the OWF as it should be, to tell the world that doesn't know what's going on that they should.

shark week needs to come back

aww.. disappointed panda is disappointed? The OWF is unbearable right now, I miss the days of lurking and informative threads.

I miss the days when senior players werent such whiney little children.

I miss the days when senior players werent such whiney little children.

"Senior players" have done this since 2008; it's just who's considered senior now.

You're just mad because you're one of ~the filth~

Back in the day, watching two leaders of great alliances clash on the OWF was like watching wrestling of the gods. Erudite and tactical thinkers, they usually gave great debate or at least effective propaganda. So popcorn worthy. Not so much any more....

It's a feedback loop.

Far too many AAs put their membership and gov on OWF radio silence then never came back. Then they complain that the OWF is an echo chamber. More people leave. Then they complain that the OWF is boring. More people leave, then they complain that the only people posting on the OWF are loudmouth idiots.

It's also timidity. It's also the ascerbic attitude toward new people. It's also secrecy.

It's a feedback loop.

Far too many AAs put their membership and gov on OWF radio silence then never came back. Then they complain that the OWF is an echo chamber. More people leave. Then they complain that the OWF is boring. More people leave, then they complain that the only people posting on the OWF are loudmouth idiots.

It's also timidity. It's also the ascerbic attitude toward new people. It's also secrecy.

Timidity over secrecy, I think ..

Any long term leader, any player who's been around for more than 2 or 3 years, knows that what happens on the OWF is an act .. Not a single leader - from myself, to Brehon, to Bilrow, to Rotavele, to Impero, to whatever leader you want to name over the past umpteen years (I pick the one's that mean those most to the degree of my message that I have personal experience with and not just read-experience with) - acts the same as they are in alliance-to-alliance relationships or in real life .. OWF is OWF ... It's coincidingly part of the problem of it, as well as one of the better parts of it ..

In the scope of this, it's become too common to be afraid of who might be selling out your in-game secrecy in the name of an in-game friendship ..

I envy the lesser-named/lesser-known alliances for this .. Some of us have just been set too deep for the changes of the global scene regardless of whom we really are (mass-recruitment alliances; outside the one or two personalities making a global appearance - applies to many alliances, I'm not making a personal statement) ..

Be careful Steve.. I might start posting again.. then the forums will crash with the absurdity.