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

[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 I just wish DCEmulation.com wouldn't look that embarrasing outdated and abandoned.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

[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/commu...hp?p=3720#3720


peace,

King.