Open letter to the Dreamcast scene (attention: 100% emo)

[Max]

I start this kind of topic because I am a bit uncomfortable with the current situation within the scene and see that the single websites and supporters, such as DCEmulation, DCEmu.co.uk, Consolevision, Dreamcast-Scene and others drift slowly apart and it seems to me that the scene becomes smaller and smaller.

I feel this way because Dreamcast-Scene was founded as a database where everyone can submit and edit articles which are Dreamcast related. We put a lot of energy in this project, participated at games conventions and demoscene events in the past and present (we're going to be at the DemoZone demoparty in the Netherlands this month and -maybe- have a booth at the Games Convention this year again) and even opened a bureau in Munich this month (see our press release and photos (http://www.dreamcast-scene.com/index.php/Main/Annoucements#relocation)) to centralize our energies.

Still I have the feeling that nobody really cares from outside. 90% of the articles on DCS are done by me (which doesn't mean that I want to stick a knife in the back of DCS' forum members and supporters; you all are great and I thank you a lot!) and it seems that we can't motivate people to participate in this idea like on Wikipedia for example.

So what's the thing I want to say? I'd like to see people more active in what they are doing and because of that I want to help out on DCEmulation, DCEmu.co.uk and others as well, to get the scene back together the way it was and everyone helps others out.

So what are your opinions on this case?

[Darksaviour69]

i actually forget about dreamcast-scene some times, but i do post there and i have added a few (very few)things to the data base... i been meaning to add more, but i keep forgetting.

really now DCemulation and dcemu.co.uk are the 2 biggest, consolevision (great site) forum wise is dead. don't forget Dcevo, there a good we group there. Boob.co.uk is dead.

when i get broadband a home (soon) i will most likly will be adding more to dreamcast-scene. i have always been a supporter of u Max/freeze

[Max]

Thanks a lot for your words here. :)

The main cause is not that I am sad with not having enought visitors on DCS; it goes beyond it, has to do more with the scene itself, and it would be very sad to see to break apart. The downfall of Consolevision and Boob is a pity and unfortunately also a sign that something is going wrong in the overall view.

[curt_grymala]

Max - I can't really disagree with you. The biggest problem I see right now - and it has been a problem on and off for the life of the scene, as far as I can tell - is that there are too many big egos among the people running the sites. The greatest thing about this scene is the relatively small size of the coders'/devvers' egos. However, they are eclipsed by the people working as admins, webmasters, etc. of a lot of the sites.

At the moment, the biggest problem appears to be DCEmulation (although, it, I believe, is still also the biggest site). There is a lot of dissention among the staff, and there is a lot of discontent toward other sites among the staff. It is causing a schism in the scene similar to the original schism between CV and DCEmu.

The smaller sites still seem to be going strong, and doing well, though, so don't lose hope. DCEvo is doing better right now than it has ever done in the past. We have more active participation than ever before, we have more visitors than ever before, and our downloads are through the roof. DCHelp (a part of the DC Evo network), is also bigger and more popular than ever before (although, it's still a fairly small site with only a handful of visitors each day - that's still a whole lot more than we used to get). Consolevision, although the forums are dead, is still doing quite well.

The problem I see, which once again sort of goes back to egos, is that everyone seems to want to start their own sites, rather than contributing to existing sites. When I started DCHelp (it began as DCStuff), I did so because DCEmulation and CV weren't really ever being updated, and their tutorials were hopelessly out of date (which, in a lot of cases, they still are). I couldn't really get through to the webmasters (I didn't really know MetaFox at the time, so I can't blame CV, but DCEmulation was a blackhole), and I wanted to get that stuff out there. Once I started to get friendlier with the scene, I joined ranks with DCEvolution, and we tried to bring the two sites (plus the DCKB) together as one unit.

Unfortunately, I don't see a feasible way to bring the bigger sites together (MetaFox tried a while ago, by suggesting a single set of forums for all of the big sites, and was pretty well shot down). However, the smaller sites (if there are any of us left, besides DC-Scene and the DCEvo network) can bond together and work toward achieving the sense of community that's been lacking in this scene for so long.

[SiZiOUS]

is that everyone seems to want to start their own sites
You absoluty right.

I agree to everybody here.

The only thing i can say now's a small idea : What do you think about a central website, like the french DC-Top (http://dctop.free.fr/) but for the whole scene ? With a language classement, for example ?

Because - don't be hurt, Max - I didn't know DCS very well. I'll add to my bookmarks right now.

[josemci]

I agree too. The efforts must be concentrated in one or two sites that can handle a lot of activity, without egos, only good people and sceners.

[Darksaviour69]

i think dreamcast-scene could be (should be? ) the center of the the scene, it already has a multi language database of info

[SiZiOUS]

i think dreamcast-scene could be (should be? ) the center of the the scene, it already has a multi language database of info
You right, and the website title is adapted :)

[72da9]

I concur that the Dreamcast-Scene website should be the hub location due to it's already set up for multinationalism website viewing capabilites in the language department.

It would be nice to have a site that links to and from gamefaqs.com and gamespot.com and devcast.dcemulation.com plus the other forums and bor mod sites and dreamcast supplier sites. All things relating Dreamcast linked together as a happy family. Kind of nudge the different communities together, which might insight a riot or actually do some good by inspiring others to contribute the scene. The larger the scene grows the more viable it becomes to produce for. As an end result giving stronger showings in new games and software utilites to run on a dreamcast. Which is a win for me... I suck it all up in the vacum of cyber space and spit it out onto my consol, for some good old fashion fun...

[kingbuzzo]

the smaller sites (if there are any of us left, besides DC-Scene and the DCEvo network) can bond together and work toward achieving the sense of community that's been lacking in this scene for so long.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't having wet dreams about this for a long time!

[Christuserloeser]

Yeah, that would be sexy :)

I love the sites as they are but maybe we should at least merge the forums ;)

All we gotta do is to find a way we can port over the existing posts to our then new forums, decide which subforums should be kept seperate and which to merge together and also to set a layout that goes well with DCS' current site layout (which I like btw)...
If there's a way to automate the process of porting the posts, our merger could be a good example for the other sites :)

I still would love to see the ConsoleVision.com and DCEmulation.com forums to be merged with DCEmu UKs like Meta suggested some time ago.
There has to be a way without loosing any post, not to mess up the forums' internal links and also without the need to do it manually :P I wonder if that'd be possible at all...

[quzar]

i concur that dcs should insorb some of the smaller sites, as it would be a positive move foward. as it is I only visit dcemulation and dcemu because it's rare that something isn't originally posted on one of them. i used to visit talfi as well but it's dc scene has been absorbed by dciberia, which also barely moves as all the developers there simply talk to each other over msn (since there are only like 3 or 4).

if dcscene and dcevolution were to merge, i think that would fantastic.

I don't see dcemulation and dcemu ever merging, comon, think about it. same thing with consolevision, they were both born from feud.

if ANYTHING it would be dcemu.co merging into dcemulation. it has been there longer, has more stuff relevant to dc, and is a dc specific site/forums. as opposed to dcemu.

iirc the way metafox proposed it would be to have one shared forums system then also host all the old forums from sites at the same place, and simply have them locked. so going to dcemu.co dcemu or cv forums would all take you to the same unified DC forums, and also to the archived old forums of all three.

[beetroot bertie]

I think merging the forums would be a great idea. A lot of the topics are similar accross the various sites (and have much the same members) and from a casual peruser's point of view, going to one place would make things much easier and hopefully create a larger community without the need to flit about so much.

Personally, I wouldn't like to see DCEmu get absorbed by DC Emulation. I think this place is much quicker off the mark with news and it appears to me that more effort goes into everything generally too with site redesigns etc. I love DC Emulation too - it was the first site that I found regarding homebrew games etc and has opened up a much wider DC view for me, but a unified forum would be ace.

[Skyhawk]

Seeing how scattered the DC Scene is and how less and lesser people are still updating their sites, I think it would be very good to have a one stop site. Unfortanly I don't see this ever to happen, for various reasons.

What could be done is indeed have just one forum for the whole community and keep the seperate sites. Those sites will link to the one big community forum. That way every DC fan is united and everything is discussed with everyone with no double topics.

I had this idea for a very long time and I praise Metafox for actually trying to bring everyone together and opting this idea to the various webmasters. At that time I tried to help and convince the webmasters, but with no luck. At the time the scene was more active than now and that was a great time to do it. It feels that doing it now is a bit too late, but waiting even longer makes the community smaller and more scattered.

My idea to get this to work is to take the DC Emulation forum (the biggest and oldest one) as the base. Create seperate forums in there for the sites who participate, where only site specific stuff is discussed. Ofcourse those sites will drop there own forums what they where using. Metafox already should have a good base for this, but maybe he better can comment on this than I can.

Than for the site dcemulation.com. It is so outdated now, wich is a shame because it is still high in the search machines and bookmarks. I think we should ask 007Cheetah (webmaster) to give dcemulation.com to the community and use that url as the mainpage of the new forum. But I think 007 is only triggered to do that if we give him a big bag of money...

[Darksaviour69]

well, the forum at boob.co.uk is gone and CV forum is on life support (why do that good one dies so young! )

so really that just leaves DCemu.co.uk, dcemulation.com, dreamcast scene and of course dcevo ;)

i really don't see any of them merging any time soon, DCemulation has the biggest dc users base, but dcemu.co.uk has the most traffic. + it will be hard to get anything done dcemulation as it has been stuck in time, nothing changes there, its slowly dieing. on the other hand, dcemu.co.uk has been growing since it opened (and i mean dc users not just psp) i see it getting bigger. i do see dcemu.co.uk replaceing dcemulation as the flagship site (hopefully), dcemulation is too messed up now, i think starting fresh is the best idea, and dcemu.co.uk has proven itself worthy... i'm a little biased ;)

so you really just have dcevo and dcscene, i could see those forums merging, and it would benfit both those smaller sites. dcevo is not really a news site, when dcscene is, i think it would work well!

[quzar]

what about dchomebrew though. dcemu hasn't even really been thriving since the whole psp stuff started happening. anyone notice how the 'newest released' stuff hasn't changed in over a month? dchomebrew doesnt have anything done in the past few years.

007 tried to do something about dcemulation by passing it on to darc and ace, but they havn't done anything about it. these two forums will never merge, although i'm sure wraggy would jump at the chance to insorb any other forum. that's why i think the best chance would be for the smaller sites to merge into a single site. boob, cv, dcevo, dchelp, and dcs. if they were all to share a single set of forums they could become something to rival dcemulation. ESPECIALLY if somehow old forums were imported there to be viewed and searched. if not it wouldn't be too hard to distill a lot of info about stuff into consolodated topics with everything you could ask for.

[Darksaviour69]

well i agree that the psp stuff took over the forum for a while, but the psp scene is really slowing down now. the site is still being updated with new releases http://www.dcemu.co.uk/dreamcastgames.php

i think wraggs run dchomebrew, and dcemu.co.uk will be doing any new releases

really only dcemu.co.uk, CV and dreamcast-scene posts up todate news

[Skyhawk]

that's why i think the best chance would be for the smaller sites to merge into a single site. boob, cv, dcevo, dchelp, and dcs. if they were all to share a single set of forums they could become something to rival dcemulation.
That could be a start. But infact that means that only the smaller sites will unite. Boob.co.uk is almost dead (so sad...), CV forums are almost inactive and DC Help and DC Evo already share the same forum. That leaves us (DC Evo) with DCS and that is still a small user base. I don't think that merging some very small forums (userbase wise) into one small forum can make the difference. But maybe something small as that could be the start of other (bigger) sites joining and eventually becoming the one stop forum.

If we finally could have one big forum for all sites, we can also do much more as a scene and a community. We show others that the DC fans are here, united at one place. I gonna see if I at least can make a start, I hope others will follow.

[Darksaviour69]

boobs forums have been down for months, the sites dead.

if CV, DC evo and DCS merge, that would be a great start, and easiest (well cv is multi console so...)

3 main forums would be better than 4-5, then maybe down the line there could be futher merges.

[quzar]

the idea would be to have boob link to the same forums. anyways, what i was saying wouldn't create one forum to rule them all or anything, it would just allow for the smaller sites fo enjoy more successfull forums. the sum of the parts will be greater than all of them seperated, because people will see the wealth of stuff availible in one place.

CV is supposed to be having major updates soon, and isn't exclusively DC, but if DCevo and DCS were to merge i think that would be a big step in the right direction.

Different sites are fine as long as they have a strong reason to exist, specialty or something, but having so many 'general' sites is just hurting more than helping.

[Christuserloeser]

i concur that dcs should insorb some of the smaller sites

I wouldn't exactly call DCEvo to be one "of the smaller sites" just because our forums do not seem to be very active... Don't underestimate the Evolution! ;)
Seriously, you should try some of our releases (I know you haven't cuz u told me) =P

The idea would be to do the DCEvo/DCS merger on an equal, emanzipated level. 1:1. We just have to take care of DCS' current layout. It's definitly not as flexible as DCEvo's.



I don't see dcemulation and dcemu ever merging, comon, think about it. same thing with consolevision, they were both born from feud.

if ANYTHING it would be dcemu.co merging into dcemulation. it has been there longer, has more stuff relevant to dc, and is a dc specific site/forums. as opposed to dcemu.

Erm, it's just some dream of mine. Also I am with Bertrude here. DCEmu UK is the Dreamcast news site. Fine layout plus lots of scene members from all over the world are regulars here. Sure nothing is perfect, but it's unfair to say Wraggster would not take care of the DC. In fact the opposite is the case. He's about the only one that still cares for updating his site(s) with anything DC related and hosting a complete archive of all the releases here at DCEmu UK and DCHB (which isn't updated as much as it could because DCEmu UK is meant to host all its content in the long run, which would have my vote anyway).
DCEmu still got a lot of potential with several people from different origins of the scene (boob, DCEvo, DCEmu, CV, etc) being staff/admins. It also introduces the DC to people that came here for DS/PSP/xBox/PS2/GC/etc.

What does DCEmulation.com have ? Other than a good name and a glorious past ? Don't get me wrong, I love beeing there because of the forums but it almost makes me feel guilty as I support a dead site! Take a view at DCEmulation.com's front page. Doesn't exactly represent the scene and leaves a pretty bad taste in your mouth... I mean the scene is as active as never before, releases are better than ever before, we see more homebrew releases with commercial quality/potential than ever before, and: more commercial releases of our scene's coders than ever before, but DCEmulation.com still looks like it did in early 2002 when I first visited it.

I don't have a problem with having more than one forums to visit. In fact I like it. I just wish DCEmulation.com wouldn't look that embarrasing outdated and abandoned.

However, some sites easily could merge to reduce the scene beeing scattered over a few dozen of forums. So let's concentrate on DCS/DCEvo at first. I still wonder if it's possible to automate the process of porting existing PHP posts to a YABB forum. I think LyingWake and Curt mentioned that they looked into something like that when DCEvo & DCHelp merged and DCEvo switched from PHP to YABB ... I wonder how far they got...

[Darksaviour69]

Christuserloeser, you stole my thoughts ;)

dcemulation has big problems, and meta has tried to update it but the people in power there just don't care! its been the default flagship site for too long.

i really like that idea of dcs and dcevo mergering (on some level), really i don't really care which site becomes the flagship site, along that site is worthy of the scene (which dcmulation is not at this current state)

btw i love dcevo, i send newbies there all the time!

[quzar]

i only count dcemul and dcemu being the big sites, all the other ones are small sites, the term is not meant to be derragatory.

what dcemu lacks is developer support. i can't speak for all developers, but i can't think of a single one that visits dcemu as their primary site. almost all information that is posted here is reposted from other sources. the ONLY problem that dcemulation has is it's frontpage and what I have been discussing are the forums, which in terms of dreamcast discussion, the dcemulation forums are #1.

like i said, what i have been discussing merging are forums, not sites.

[Max]

I like this topic because it reflects the true position of DC sceners and all site owners can make their own thoughts without their fanboy glasses. :)

quzar, just curious, why don't you see DCEvo and DCS as the big sites? What have both parties to do to become bigger in your opinion?

[Mental2k]

DCemul was the first DC site I visited, and did so until I found this one, truth be told I preferred this one, It seemed more friendly and homely, especially the forum. Personally I'd ahte to see the forums of the big 2 combined. I rarely visit DCemul anymore, it looks at bit naff, and on the whole I think Wraggs has done a much better job here than anyone.

[Christuserloeser]

Thanks DCS69 ;)

Quzar, of course I actually meant merging the forums too, not the sites. The sites are great and if I might add: incredibly successful!, but the (public) forums see little to none traffic one has to admit.


quzar, just curious, why don't you see DCEvo and DCS as the big sites? What have both parties to do to become bigger in your opinion?

Merging the forums :D

[quzar]

basically. while dcs holds a large repository of information, it may only be my use of it but i barely go there, so i just don't see it as 'major'. to me the two major sites are dcemulation and dcemu because they have in the thousands of forum members, and to me, unless a site is very well organized and hosts it's own information and files and whatnot, it is the forums that determine how major they are, in the light of being integral to the existance of this 'scene'. DCS i understand has a large population of non-english visitors, but from what i can tell, the forums are very small and lacking, and the wiki, with a few exceptions is maintained by a handfull of people.

I guess a way to measure the 'major'-ness of a site would be to give this example: I release a piece of software, but can only choose one site for it to be discussed on, hosted by and downloaded from. what site would allow it to reach the most people? i would venture to say that dcemu or dcemulation would get it to an audience in the amount of 5 times more than that of dcs or dcevo.

that is of course all just speculation, but i figured i'd elaborate on what i meant.

[Christuserloeser]

DCEvo isn't a news site.

[quzar]

you have a 'latest news' portion on your front page in which you talk about different releases and news informations relating to dcevo.

[kingbuzzo]

I think we should ask 007Cheetah (webmaster) to give dcemulation.com to the community and use that url as the mainpage of the new forum. But I think 007 is only triggered to do that if we give him a big bag of money...

DCS HAS been given to the community.
This is where DCS has more of an opportunity for longevity. Being a wiki site, ANYONE can edit and create pages at anytime as opposed too a few in power.

I update and create pages everyday for DCS either in english, french, or my limited japanese knowledge. While we have a good multilanguage team here at DCS who have been handling the database, it hasn't gotten to the point where we want it to. And that is, having developers post their own projects themselves. I can think of nothing more efficient than this, but like quzar said...most news ends up at dcemul or dcemu which, leaves us at DCS to make the page ourselves. This just makes it seem as though the wiki system just doesn't exist, and we're just a less popular version of dcemu/dchistory/dchomebrew/dcevo/dc section of gamefaqs.

Why are people still at dcemulation? who knows, maybe they can't abondon high post counts, or they wont leave until everyone else does.

I don't see anyone being able to overthrow DCEmulation to get their userbase, but we can set a good example by going through some well needed mergers that would provide miles beyond what the dcemu sites could ever offer, and that is:

- DC coverage of every nature
(Petitions, emu, homebrew, games, history, online, guides, naomi and more..)

- Great support for Conventions and demoparties
(since dcs seems to be the only site to be doing this, if not creating them)

- Frequent best of releases to appeal to the noob or casual gamer
(DCS has always been working on this but DCEVO really has the focus and library right now)

- Extensive help for newbies
(Expansion of DChelp to cover just about EVERYTHING DC, with wiki format if possible)

- Every every every spoken scene language
The scene is realy split up by languages before it is split up by different sites and egos, and currently DCS is the only one trying to resolve this. It's proving to be a tricky and long process, but it would do wonders for the scene.

A merger with DC-France and DCiberia (where'd it go?) of some kind would really go a long way as I see it.


finaly, I think this topic should be brought to the community at DCS

http://www.dreamcast-scene.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=3720#3720


peace,

King.

[Skyhawk]

finaly, I think this topic should be brought to the community at DCS

http://www.dreamcast-scene.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=3720#3720
Agreed.

[quzar]

It would be great to see the DCKB migrated to the DCS wiki format.

[timofonic]

I think this will be gone because everybody will have different opinions and not finding a common idea. A lot talking, but doing nothing...

DCemulation news are dead, why not merge with DCemu? Since it's by the same guy, wraggster? And the other websites must be merged into the same, maybe with a DIFFERENT name, but redirecting their domains to the same page with all content merged...

Merge the DC websites or DC will die with a lot of work repeated from different websites...

There are other communities in different languages like DCIberia, DC-France... Those are different, own stuff and different languages :)