The future of PPT

[Blake]

I bring to you this paste.
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In total there are 9 users online :: 1 registered, 1 hidden and 7 guests (based on users active over the past 15 minutes)
Most users ever online was 378 on Fri Mar 21, 2008 9:56 pm

Registered users: Blake
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This place is becoming dead. For how long, I don't know. I haven't been here in a while. We, the loyal users of PPT, need to find some way to kick this place back into gear.

[Siouxper]

I agree. Is there something we can do to bring in new members?

[Zero!]

As long as Neopets keeps being perpetually made of suck and fail, this place is more or less doomed.

WE MUST EXPAND OUR HORIZONS. But how? That's the real question, methinks.

[Siniri]

How about instead of bringing in new members, just get the current ones active again. Otherwise, the new members aren't going to stay very long. Even though this was/is predominantly a Neopets forum, there had always been a lot of other things going on -- site events, forum games, chat about all sorts of things. But no one's talking about anything nowadays, and I bet many members don't even bother to check the forum anymore. It seems like even the admins and mods hardly come here -- or at least they're hardly posting.

I think we need a site event to kick things off again and get people back here -- maybe send PMs announcing it so people will get e-mails and remember this place even exists (that's assuming the e-mail notification of PMs problem has been fixed -- I haven't gotten a PM since the problem was mentioned, so I've no idea whether it has or not). By having a site event, we might be able to get new members more cozy, old members checking again, and enough people posting that dialogue starts to happen again across the subforums.

[Blue]

I'm usually here every day, but admittedly don't post every day. It is difficult to come up with a new topic frequently - especially Neopets related, as Neopets has not been overly new lately either (Chef Bonju excepted). When looking at who's online, I generally see the same 5 people at different times (you know who you are).

Getting PPT active again has actually been a topic of discussion, but no solutions have yet been found. One idea is to expand to include "Meteor Games", as they are Adam & Donna, which would be somewhat Neopets related. Sadly, Vikings Pirates Ninjas appears to have bitten the dust, as did TwinSkies. I was playing both when they imploded. I do not intend on getting a FaceBook account to bother with "Island Paradise", which IMHO doesn't really look all that great at the moment. I wish them the best. That said, if PPT had adopted TS or VPN, we'd be looking again.

With Neopets stagnant, PPT follows. A MAJOR plot at Neopets would really do a lot for PPT. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that many of the registered PPTers joined during a Plot. During the LDP, this place was crazy with posts, splitting posts, and new members. All areas were very active.

If *anyone* has suggestions on how to jump start PPT, please feel free to PM me, any moderator, or Kym. We're all ears

In total there are 14 users online :: 2 registered, 0 hidden and 12 guests (based on users active over the past 15 minutes)
Most users ever online was 378 on Fri Mar 21, 2008 8:56 pm

Registered users: Blue, Siniri

[Blake]

Like most others said, this was much more than just a Neopets forum. Honestly, I'm here for more of the community, and the discussion. Is it time to move on from the Neopets niche and focus on something else?


Adding something here...

In total there are 12 users online :: 2 registered, 1 hidden and 9 guests (based on users active over the past 15 minutes)
Most users ever online was 378 on Fri Mar 21, 2008 9:56 pm

Registered users: Blake, Blue

[lemonade]

In my summer holidays when I would come on, there would be hardly any people on. The topics would move slow which would annoy me.

[Siouxper]

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Most users ever online was 378 on Fri Mar 21, 2008 10:56 pm

Registered users: Siniri, Siouxper

Anyway, I can't remember the last time we had a real plot on Neopets, and the inactivity transfers over to PPT (as said by a few other people). I don't want to give out too much, but there are plans for a few activities to start in the near future.

[Blake]

In total there are 15 users online :: 4 registered, 1 hidden and 10 guests (based on users active over the past 15 minutes)
Most users ever online was 378 on Fri Mar 21, 2008 9:56 pm

Registered users: Blake, Cyanna, Hunter Lupe, Siouxper

It shouldn't just be the few active mods and admins left pitching in to help, it should be the barely left userbase as a whole.

[Byakuya San]

Here's my two cents:

I, too am said to see the state PPT has fallen into. Much of this is brought on by Neopets and Viacom, as has been mentioned: while there's nothing we can do to change the fact that all of our members are continually getting older, Viacom is progressively making Neopets more and more kid-oriented. The result? The older members of PPT lost interest in the core subject of the forums. Since the big exodus a while ago left us bereft of many such members, who were also some of our most active and contributing members, it has been hard for the remaining members to fill their shoes. I agree that Neopets' plots did much to bring everyone together as a community here, but without a plot to do that, we are left with a forum for all sorts of different niches and whatnot.

I think that one of the problems PPT has is that it is such a far-reaching community outside of the subject of Neopets. While other forums may be limited to Neopets boards with a few random other boards, PPT has always covered a wide variety, even though Neopets remained it's sole focus. Even though this may have been a good thing in the past, the fact that Neopets has fallen out of fashion means that we aren't getting a steady flow of new members, while old members are leaving faster than ever. Perhaps this could have been solved if PPT had started to shift/add focus to a longer-lasting topic--video games in general, graphics, etc. I hardly believe that broadening our horizons to include one or two other virtual pet or gaming sites would do much to help at this point, as they too would eventually fall into the same state as Neopets. Conversely, we cannot tackle a larger fanbase such as World of Warcraft, as it would attract an entirely different group of members and transform PPT into a much different forum.

At this point I'm just saying whatever comes to mind without worrying about coherence...
So where am I going with this? Since the heart and sould of PPT seem to lay in the community and it's ability to interact productively, as opposed to the content, I think that the best way to keep PPT alive is to keep our current members interested and attract back older members so that the forums aren't so empty. I felt I've done my part by keeping the graphics area of the site alive with my request board--granted, there is more I could be doing, but do my hectic schedule, it's the most I can do. Anyway, I'd like our admins to step up to the plate and do a bit more communicating with the community if possible.

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So. Sorry to go on and rant, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there, regardless of how pointless or incoherent some of them may have been.

[Blake]

In total there are 24 users online :: 3 registered, 0 hidden and 21 guests (based on users active over the past 15 minutes)
Most users ever online was 378 on Fri Mar 21, 2008 9:56 pm

Registered users: Blake, Forte, shapu

Someone needs to find all the old members somehow, track them down, and contact them. Kidnap them, make sure it's a burlap sack, and bring them over here.

[May]

Someone needs to find all the old members somehow, track them down, and contact them. Kidnap them, make sure it's a burlap sack, and bring them over here.

Most of us old members have moved on and honestly have no desire to come back in any major capacity. I'm only here once in a while to advertise my own forum (which is really the only reason I'm here now) and contact a few people about odd things now and then when I need to.

I could go on quite a bit, but I won't. PPT will never be what it was. Perhaps it can be made into something new, but don't hold out hope for the "good old days".

[Zero!]

Well, in my opinion, the good ol' days have been gone and dead for a long while now. Only hope is to totally move onto something new. But what is there to move onto? General gaming or graphics might work, as those are the two things I fondly remember when I think of this forum... but then what do we do with our big chunk of Neopets sections? We can't exactly have subforums for every single gaming thing we add...

What can we do?

[DM was on fire!]

The problem is the people that used sites like PPT have long left Neopets; and the current crop of people on Neopets would never think to use a site like PPT.
NeoLodge was having the same problem until SubetaLodge came out in February. The forum is definitely more active now that they've branched in Subeta.

Most of the old members that were incredibly left...for reasons I can't nor won't be bothered to talk about.

EDIT --

In total there are 6 users online :: 1 registered, 0 hidden and 5 guests (based on users active over the past 15 minutes)
Most users ever online was 378 on Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:56 pm

Registered users: DM was on fire!

And when I was on at this time; there were atleast seven people on...logged in, I should add.

[Helena]

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Most users ever online was 378 on Sat Mar 22, 2008 4:56 am

Registered users: Helena

Well, since I've long since lost interest in Neopets, I just hang around and lurk, mostly. I remember when there used to be about three pages of unread posts per day, now there's about half. So, yeah, the place is dying.