To All NagoyaHammer Users - A Few Moments Please

[Primarch]

I have split the survey and discussion threads up to help keep things focussed. The discuss thread is here.

Dear NagoyaHammer Users,
I would like to ask you for a few minutes of your time (more if you'd like) to ask you to give some feedback about this forum and about your hobby habits in general. It would be very much appreciated if you could take the time to post a brief response to the questions below.

1. Would you consider wargaming to be your primary hobby/pastime?

2. How much time on average per week do you spend on wargaming? (Including painting, modelling, playing etc).

3. How much time do you spend online per week on wargaming related websites (Including social media, forums, blogs, stores etc).

4. How often do you visit NagoyaHammer?

5. When you visit NagoyaHammer, what would you say is your main purpose?

6. How often do you post on NagoyaHammer except for organizing games?

7. What, if anything, would encourage you to visit NagoyaHammer more often?

8. Is there anything that discourages you from posting comments/content to NagoyaHammer?

9. Which site/app do you spend the most time on for wargaming related purposes?

Thank you for your time. I look forward to reading your responses.
Regards,
Prim.

[The Other Dave]

Dear NagoyaHammer Users,
I would like to ask you for a few minutes of your time (more if you'd like) to ask you to give some feedback about this forum and about your hobby habits in general. It would be very much appreciated if you could take the time to post a brief response to the questions below.

1. Would you consider wargaming to be your primary hobby/pastime?

Definitely!

2. How much time on average per week do you spend on wargaming? (Including painting, modelling, playing etc).

Depends, but probably no more than an hour or so a day in a typical week.

3. How much time do you spend online per week on wargaming related websites (Including social media, forums, blogs, stores etc).

Hard to say - I check on on the Warhammer Community site a few times a week, but most of my "hobby interface" is probably through Twitter (at vivanagoya, hit me up!), which (Twitter being what it is) I check in less-than-one-minute doses many times a day.

4. How often do you visit NagoyaHammer?

The site's one of my auto-load sites in Chrome, so it's basically always open if I have a browser up, and I check in a number of times throughout the a typical day.

5. When you visit NagoyaHammer, what would you say is your main purpose?

I think I use it mostly for game-organizing these days, although when I'm painting actively I'll also post in the painting thread a few times per week.

6. How often do you post on NagoyaHammer except for organizing games?

Oops, just answered that! Three or four times a week, roughly?

7. What, if anything, would encourage you to visit NagoyaHammer more often?

I visit a lot, but...

8. Is there anything that discourages you from posting comments/content to NagoyaHammer?

Here's where I drop some Serious. A few months ago, I felt I had to make an active decision to step away from NH, which I am just now getting over. I know I'm really not one to talk sometimes (but my wanting to work on it is one of the problems), but it sometimes seems like the atmosphere here can be (to put it very mildly) pretty negative. The actual tipping point was my "hey here's some cool stuff previewed at NOVA open" thread, which got, well, basically only one meaningful response, which was blisteringly negative about things that the thread wasn't really about and made me not want to touch the thread any more. And I didn't, and it died. Another illustrative example might be the responses to my "hey, let's try Age of Sigmar" thread, which were also, on the whole, kinda snarky, draining, and negative. And it sometimes seems like that's a good part of our "NagoyaHammer culture," talking about how things we don't like suck, and I just kind of want to talk about games and models I think are cool without feeling I have to defend them, you know? Again, I know that I myself have that instinct, to say "well, it's OK, BUT" but I've really been trying to engage with my hobby more positively these days and not having to deal is part of what made that easier for me.

And, to be fair, it seems to be better as I'm coming back, so maybe either it was in my head or other people are also trying to be more positive, so who knows?

9. Which site/app do you spend the most time on for wargaming related purposes?

As I said above, it's Twitter by a long shot, followed by Facebook and then here.

[jus]

1. Would you consider wargaming to be your primary hobby/pastime?
Once, I think it may have been, but has since been relegated to tertiary past time behind board gaming (secondary) and pc gaming (primary)

2. How much time on average per week do you spend on wargaming? (Including painting, modelling, playing etc).
In the past six months, I haven't really been doing anything war gaming per se, except painting miniatures for Arcadia Quest (a board game, quite good)

3. How much time do you spend online per week on wargaming related websites (Including social media, forums, blogs, stores etc).
Oh, on average maybe 30 minutes all told. Just to see what news there is about new (GW) releases, and if there is any mention of plastic aspect warriors.
There isn't.

4. How often do you visit NagoyaHammer?
Occasionally.

5. When you visit NagoyaHammer, what would you say is your main purpose?
To lurk, mostly... and to see what everyone else is up to.

6. How often do you post on NagoyaHammer except for organizing games?
Rarely. Tod told me to chime in, otherwise I wouldn't have known there was a questionnaire at all.

7. What, if anything, would encourage you to visit NagoyaHammer more often?
-Chicken pot pie!
-More discussion about the rich lore behind the 40k universe. (It's really good, my favorite actually. But you all knew that already.) You might not be too interested in playing the game, fair enough. But the background can still be talked about right? fan theories, speculation, e.t.c
-how about a 40k Forum RPG? (maybe something like a pick-a -path adventure, I dunno I just came up with the idea)

-More people/new members who are excited and willing to pay the price for new (GW) miniatures. I know, you have too many minis as it and don't need any
more...I know. But expanding your collection is only fun when everyone else is doing it and not just you and one and a half other guy(s).

8. Is there anything that discourages you from posting comments/content to NagoyaHammer?
-Stabs at GW over pricing. Negative opinions come across as cold, discouraging, univiting and doesn't inspire consumer confidence. What if someone
was starting a new project and really wanted to make a purchase?
-any mention of space wolves or blood angels, be it about the minis or lore is universally followed up by the "wolf wolf wolf wolf wolf and Blood blood blood
blood blood" joke making any meaningful discussion, meaningless...It's getting old. It really is.
-fractured community over interests/games. Too many posts about things unrelated to what you are passionate about will, unfortunately, in time make you less inclined to post. (unfortunate)

9. Which site/app do you spend the most time on for wargaming related purposes?
spikey bits. They are always very excited AND don't complain!

[me_in_japan]

1. Would you consider wargaming to be your primary hobby/pastime?
This is a really tricky question. It definitely was a year ago, but MtG has really taken over for me recently. It could flip back the other way very quickly, though. I think it has a lot to do with how the time is invested. Painting requires a block of, say, an hour to be worth doing. I can play a game of MtG in 10mins online. So it's much easier to accrue a lot of time spent on the latter. It's also very easy to read up on MtG stuff while I do other things like cook dinner or whatever. I find podcasts and youtube vids about deckbuilding really helpful, as there's still a lot of stuff I don't know about MtG techy things, whereas 40k/mini gaming in general has never really been about min/maxing my lists for me, so I don't really care for watching/listening to others' views in that regard. I did quite enjoy the GW voxcast thingy with Jes Goodwin and Jervis though.

2. How much time on average per week do you spend on wargaming? (Including painting, modelling, playing etc).
it'll either be none or lots, but not in between, depending on whether or not I'm engaged with a project.

3. How much time do you spend online per week on wargaming related websites (Including social media, forums, blogs, stores etc).
a couple hours, but that's on facebook in very small increments.

4. How often do you visit NagoyaHammer?
a couple times a week, maybe 3 or 4 if I remember to.

5. When you visit NagoyaHammer, what would you say is your main purpose?
See what everybody else is up to. Occasionaly to post stuff I've painted.

6. How often do you post on NagoyaHammer except for organizing games?
once in a blue moon.

7. What, if anything, would encourage you to visit NagoyaHammer more often?
More general chat about how folks are doing. Life stuff and things.

8. Is there anything that discourages you from posting comments/content to NagoyaHammer?
Not exactly, but then I rarely post anything anywhere. It's not as if I'm over on facebook with twenty posts a day.

9. Which site/app do you spend the most time on for wargaming related purposes?
Facebook, but only because that's the only social media I have. And that's mostly for info about what sales are on and looking at pretty pictures of whatever people are posting on Eavier Metal.

[YellowStreak]

1. Would you consider wargaming to be your primary hobby/pastime?
Yes, although it is recently eclipsed by this thing called parenthood

2. How much time on average per week do you spend on wargaming? (Including painting, modelling, playing etc).
Recently (before my visit back in japan) probably 10-15 hours per week, mostly painting. Gaming (generally speaking) about once per week.

3. How much time do you spend online per week on wargaming related websites (Including social media, forums, blogs, stores etc).
Hard to say. When there's interesting stuff on youtube it goes up, but it's usually short bursts of different groups on Facebook. Probably more time than i should.

4. How often do you visit NagoyaHammer?
Periodically, at least once a week on average I'd say.

5. When you visit NagoyaHammer, what would you say is your main purpose?
To catch up on what every over here is doing.

6. How often do you post on NagoyaHammer except for organizing games?
Occasionally, mostly in the "what did you do today" thread i think.

7. What, if anything, would encourage you to visit NagoyaHammer more often?
As i'm now living the the US, I'm probably not the right audience for this question.

8. Is there anything that discourages you from posting comments/content to NagoyaHammer?
Not really. Time and real life. No longer being based in Japan.
I saw some of the other replies about negativity, but i haven't ever really felt NH is particularly negative, but I don't read all the posts...

9. Which site/app do you spend the most time on for wargaming related purposes?
Facebook. I'm a member of multiple 40K, Necromunda, Bolt Action etc. groups (although largely lurking). I do have a instagram account for posting pics of minis I've painted.

[Primarch]

And my own responses to the survey. (Is it bad manners to answer your own survey? Probably ).

1. Would you consider wargaming to be your primary hobby/pastime?
Yes. Of course.

2. How much time on average per week do you spend on wargaming? (Including painting, modelling, playing etc).
Depending on how much real life gets in the way, roughly 10 hours per week.

3. How much time do you spend online per week on wargaming related websites (Including social media, forums, blogs, stores etc).
At least 5 hours a week, not including NagoyaHammer.

4. How often do you visit NagoyaHammer?
I check in numerous times per day. This site is the default for my PC and Phone browsers, so I always come here first when switching on chrome.

5. When you visit NagoyaHammer, what would you say is your main purpose?
To see what people have posted and to share news.

6. How often do you post on NagoyaHammer except for organizing games?
Probably a few times a week. I always try to respond to other posts if I can.

7. What, if anything, would encourage you to visit NagoyaHammer more often?
More hours in a day would help. Seriously though, I'm here as much as I can be.

8. Is there anything that discourages you from posting comments/content to NagoyaHammer?
Yes, so much so that I have considered just shutting the site down and giving up on it altogether.
People don't comment on other people's posts, especially in the What Did You Do Today thread.
For example.
In the last 50 Posts, there are 13 posts of painted/WIP models. How many of them did YOU comment on? In the majority of cases the answer would be zero.
People seem very happy to post pictures of what they have been doing, but seem unwilling to offer any sort of comment on others' work. Now maybe I am wrong, but I think it is only polite to acknowledge that you at least looked at something, otherwise what is the point? Maybe you didn't look, you just opened the thread, dropped your post at the end of it and never looked at what had been posted since the last time you dropped a picture and ran?
Similarly, this survey has been up since Jan 1st. In that time 17 different members of this forum have logged in, including myself. We have had 4 responses, again including myself. (Admittedly, 1 of the users may not have the language skills to express himself well enough, but the majority could).
On Jan 3rd I posted up pictures of some new minis that were being released that I thought were A) cool and B) something that hadn't been seen before. 14 users except myself logged in since then. 0 Posts were made and only 7 page views, which were probably the search engine bots that index the site for google/yahoo etc.

If this forum were indicative of the state of our hobby, a typical games day would see a handful of people playing solo games with our backs to each other while the majority of our group stood outside looking in through the windows.

This site is to let us communicate with one another, to share our passion for the hobby and to show what we have been doing and what we enjoy. For those asking for more positive responses, how much time do you spend responding positively to things which fall outside of your immediate interests? This isn't a social media site where you can service your narcissism with selfies and occasionally click on a LIKE button as something scrolls through your feed. This is a group forum where we have to interact with each other or there is no point to being here and there is little sense in keeping the forum open.

forum
/ˈfɔːrəm/
noun
1.
a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.

9. Which site/app do you spend the most time on for wargaming related purposes?
Tabletop Fix for news and more recently The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

[Auxryn]

1. Maybe. I wargaming and D&D, I guess.

2. Perhaps 3 hours. More if you include podcasts. I have not been very productive painting in the last year.

3. Maybe half an hour.

4. I generally check in about once a week. I also check several times before a gaming event to arrange games.

5. Arranging games to play.

6. Rarely.

7. I used to post pictures of my painting projects pretty frequently. At some point I couldn't attach pictures to posts anymore, and also I wasn't painting much for a while. If I had an easy way to post pictures I would likely make a few more posts.

8. Too few hours in the day. Also, some of the sub-forums have too few people using them to really have a discussion. Combining the less-used ones under more general headings might work. I could also try marking everything as read and then actually looking when new posts show up.

9. Nagoyahammer. It's how I arrange games. After that ... maybe Facebook? GW has a channel where they talk about painting and I have watched maybe two of their videos ....

Aside from the forum, I would like to say that the wargaming community we have built in Nagoya is really special. I am fortunate to be playing games with such consistently quality people.

[Primarch]

7. I used to post pictures of my painting projects pretty frequently. At some point I couldn't attach pictures to posts anymore, and also I wasn't painting much for a while. If I had an easy way to post pictures I would likely make a few more posts.

8. Too few hours in the day. Also, some of the sub-forums have too few people using them to really have a discussion. Combining the less-used ones under more general headings might work. I could also try marking everything as read and then actually looking when new posts show up.

Responses to your points are over here:
http://www.nagoyahammer.com/forum/viewt ... =10#p58167

[The Underdweller]

1. Would you consider wargaming to be your primary hobby/pastime?\

No - probably Role-playing first, then Board Games, then Wargaming, especially the last year or so.

2. How much time on average per week do you spend on wargaming? (Including painting, modelling, playing etc).

About 3 hours playing Warmachine on Vassal, usually.

3. How much time do you spend online per week on wargaming related websites (Including social media, forums, blogs, stores etc).

About 30 minutes.

4. How often do you visit NagoyaHammer?

About once a week.

5. When you visit NagoyaHammer, what would you say is your main purpose?

Catching up with what people have been doing.

6. How often do you post on NagoyaHammer except for organizing games?

Pretty rarely. I mostly lurk.

7. What, if anything, would encourage you to visit NagoyaHammer more often?

If I played Wargames more, and if there were discussions about the rules and strategies of the games that I was playing.

8. Is there anything that discourages you from posting comments/content to NagoyaHammer?

I am just naturally reticent - I don't think I ever posted that much, and not having played much recently doesn't help. Also, most people are talking about stuff they have painted, which is something I don't really feel qualified to comment about (Other than: That looks great! But that would apply to almost all of the posts here, so I feel like it would get old quickly). I like looking at the miniatures other people have painted, though.

9. Which site/app do you spend the most time on for wargaming related purposes?

Warmachine University

Thank you for your time. I look forward to reading your responses.
Regards,
Prim.

[ashdevon]

1. Would you consider wargaming to be your primary hobby/pastime?
Along with video gaming and reading yes.

2. How much time on average per week do you spend on wargaming? (Including painting, modelling, playing etc).
30 minutes
3. How much time do you spend online per week on wargaming related websites (Including social media, forums, blogs, stores etc).
5 minutes
4. How often do you visit NagoyaHammer?
Quarterly. Whenever I paint.
5. When you visit NagoyaHammer, what would you say is your main purpose?
Uploads and social. Hobby log.
6. How often do you post on NagoyaHammer except for organizing games?
Quarterly
7. What, if anything, would encourage you to visit NagoyaHammer more often?
Sweets
8. Is there anything that discourages you from posting comments/content to NagoyaHammer?
Tbh. I switched off visiting regularly when there was a big splurge of anti GW postings and discouragement of the hows and how to of doing the hobby right. I found it a little heavy. It actually helped me to give up wargaming. This is a bit of a regret. Happier now as life is too short for that negative bickering. Still love painting though.
9. Which site/app do you spend the most time on for wargaming related purposes?
Nagoyahammer