Statement of intention: RMXPU/GDU/RMU to live on

[Marked 197]

Hey guys,

Welcome to the eye of the storm - possibly one of the lowest points in the site's history, which will be hitting 7 years this year.



This topic is about my future plans for this site. Hopefully you guys haven't lost faith in it :)

The original concepts that I made for GDU are well on track. The systems I had envisioned have not died or become impossible because of the move to change GDU to RMU. Remember, this was a mere rebranding for our new visitors and promote what we are mainly about.

The GDU started at the beginning of 2011 - more than 2 years. Clearly taking my sweet time with it, but it's not quite that simple. I think

(That is, the programming as opposed to the designing). So I started GDU before I was capable of making it.

So, what next?

Next up is the big clean up. Biiiig cleanup. We have 2 new sections + the gallery. The Scripts and Tuts sections were written by me, boom, and we'll stick with the 3rd party gallery for now (even though it's kinda shit). So what we're gona do is shift that content into their respective sections, out of the forums. RMU forums are for the individual to get help, not authored content that's regularly searched for.

The end result on the forums is something like

Forums = discussions + individual help.

The clean up will see all the tutorials and scripts forum gone and the content moved into their proper sections. This is a particularly big task for RMXP topics.

If you want to find that awesome stuff, there's plenty to links to get you there. These are the new places where our authors will author.

These have all the functions of a topic (obviously) but a heck of a lot more.Especially the editors, which are made to make authoring anything REALLY easy


Then there's the gallery... All you guys created your own albums for your resources. Thanks for that. I'm gona dump all that content into their proper categories in the Game Dev Resources (you can remove your content anytime if there's an issue with that). The albums arn't used any longer and its essentially hidden content. They will get used much more this way.

So what happens after the cleanup?

Game section :D

And I will then have enough custom systems in place to come out with some really cool custom profiles. These will be aimed to show off the user as a game dev, not so much a social profile. Sort of like a resume of game a dev, something along those lines.

And of course I hope to evolve the site into other game types of game makers.

I hope that gives some of you hope that we're not closing down and I'm still working towards those original GDU goals. We may have to weather the storm for a while, but we're definitely going to be on the rise soon :)
 

[isaacsol 10]

And as much as I don't seem active, I am generally keeping tabs on this site, so it's nice that it is still alive and kicking :)

[dolarmak 23]

As i said before to you Marked I'm really looking forward to what you have planned. I know I don't do a lot of scripting or anything but I try to help people with the knowledge I have and am glad to see that focus for the site, to help people.

 

Overall I think this will grow to be a great site filled with people helping build projects that otherwise couldn't be done. Thanks Marked for keeping up the good work despite the hard times.

[ShinGamix 1]

There is just not too many reasons for me to be here much anymore. I still love the sites design though. Best of luck.

[Polraudio 122]

I personally cant wait for the custom profiles :thumbsup: . Been something i been waiting for a long time.

[Wyzrd 12]

Sorry I haven't been active much. Work really been wearing me out lately. But I'm glad to see you're still working on it Mark. I can't wait to see everything fall into place.

[ShinGamix 1]

RMU-GDU-RMXPU starting to look like a serial number hahah!

Nice to see Wyzrd again and i know how you feel man (I put in a 17 hr day yesterday) 

 

Marked no matter what you call it or the site is called I will always be supportive!

[Marked 197]

Interestingly, I do track "active" users. I shouldn't read too much into my graphs, but..

 

 

Since that 2 week downtime, the number of visits by our active users haven't really been the same.

 

It's tempting to say there's a lack of loyalty. But I don't think that and I can understand that the most loyal of members, which we once had, have left. I consider the site incomplete and messy and as I stated above, I do plan to fix it. Furthermore the most loyal members have been here for AGES; they've got to retire sometime. We have a big lack of in-betweeners, members who stay here for several months. Right now its members who've been here for years, and members who have been here for

 

Regardless of the state of the community, the site is getting as healthy numbers of visitors as ever. If I were a blog owner, I'd be pretty happy. That may be reaching a bit far though, of course I'm not happy. The community is obviously very important and its important we get knowledgeable, skilled game devs on the staff with expertise over a number of engines.

 

 

I think the days of RMXP are coming to an end, and I say that because of the numbers. I guess a lot of members here were always against anything VX and that's the site we became after VX. But the numbers are saying, even for a site with a ton of XP content compared to anything else, that Ace is beating XP on the numbers; that's just how the market is.

 

Either which way, there's plenty of ways to make games. I find making websites fun, and I strongly believe we'll have the best features of any game dev site out there.

 

(eventually :P)

 

I'm really wanting to try out a color changer in terms of skin. So you've got the green, imagine blue, red, orange, etc. one click away. I always get nice ideas when my most important assessments are right around the corner >.

[Wyzrd 12]

Blue Mark. Bluuuue

 

I would say yea sometimes I do disappear for a while but I always come back. And this is the only video game development site I go to. So all my loyalty is here haha.

[Marked 197]

I said a lot of things in that post lol I was mad procrastinating. But yeah, I'm not questioning your loyalty and when I say loyalty I don't mean it in the sense of going to competing websites, but just sticking around and being active. Like retaining members.

 

Of course your loyalty is here. If it weren't... I'd find you...

[Wyzrd 12]

Yea, I knew what you meant. I just go through phases with everything. I go days without turning on my PC and spend it on my PS3, then I do the exact opposite. Depends on my mood I guess.

[ShinGamix 1]

yea the downtime really did fudge a lot of cht up

 

maybe loyaty could be reward with a month subscription when a member has been active for 30 days straight (since the subscription doesnt really mean too much anyways)

 

That would reward members for being loyal.

Edited March 24, 2013 by ShinGamix

[Bigace360 38]

I personally cant wait for the custom profiles :thumbsup: . Been something i been waiting for a long time.

Same, I thought this was a very interesting ideal when Marked first presented it. Hopefully someday it will come to life.

[dolarmak 23]

I personally cant wait for the custom profiles :thumbsup: . Been something i been waiting for a long time.

Yeah that sounds awesome. Can't wait for something unique like that :D

[Marked 197]

Cool but not overly useful. It would be a bit of waste of time to do it before the activity boost.