Survey Results and Feedback

[Primarch]

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

First off, the negative feedback:
ToD

it sometimes seems like the atmosphere here can be (to put it very mildly) pretty negative.

Mea Culpa. I am fairly negative about GW, especially their pricing, decision making and game design, though I think I have generally good things to say about their models. I shall endeavour to be more positive or at least to keep my thoughts on the above matters to myself.

Jus

Stabs at GW over pricing.

As above, I shall try to keep my big mouth shut.

wolf wolf wolf/blood blood blood

While I do feel that certain rules writers could stand to use a thesaurus from time to time, point taken.

fractured community over interests/games

40K has made a big comeback of late after the poor showings of 6th and 7th ed. Between 8th ed, Kill Team and Blackstone, the setting is probably more popular now than it was for the previous 3-4 years. Certainly some form of 40K is at every gaming day, whereas other games/settings are seeing less and less playtime. The differing tastes within our community are probably never going to go away, but aside from me posting odd bits and pieces here and there 40K is still (or at least has returned as) the dominant setting.

Summary:
So as the person who posts the most, I guess I have the greatest responsibility. I'll try harder.

Positives:
Jus

Chicken pot pie!

That would be a service I would love to offer through the forum, but I can't cook and I have no way to deliver. I will make a note for future reference.

More discussion about the rich lore behind the 40k universe.

Feel free. Despite my infamous opinions on GW, I do love the 40K and 30K settings, they are rich in details and open to all sorts of speculation and variation. I enjoyed the Black Library books I read and I think that the Imperial Armour and FW Horus Heresy series are some of the best books they have written. (The fact that they seem more like military history books rather than novels really helps I think).

how about a 40k Forum RPG

If that's what you want to do. It's not like there is a shortage of space. [checks the forum size limt], Yup, you're all good.

More people/new members who are excited and willing to pay the price for new (GW) miniatures

GW seem to be pushing really heavily in Japan. I have seen their minis in Yellow Submarine, Joshin, Yodobashi and even Tokyu Hands. ToD has a group that he attends in Ichinomiya and there seem to be more Kill Teamers at the gaming days. Now, all of these guys have one thing in common. They're locals, not expats. The forum has Japanese capability and I don't mind what language users post in. Nudging new players over here to encourage posting their minis, discussing their plans etc would be great. It would probably help if people with more skill than I posted some Japanese only threads, to give non-English speakers a place to feel comfortable.

M_i_J

More general chat about how folks are doing. Life stuff and things.

We have a section for that, but it does seem very quiet. As is the site in general. See below.



----------------------------

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.

[me_in_japan]

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.

I think your comments are all fair, but I want to look at the above point as it struck me as interesting. When I read that in your post there my initial response was "really? When? I didnt see that." I like to think that I try to comment on stuff if there's anything relevant I can add to it. However, I have no memory whatsoever of seeing the aforementioned post (and I do check in most every day.) A quick forum search, however, most certainly brought said post to light (this one, yes?)

So, what conclusions can I draw from this?

Either my memory serves me correctly (questionable) and the post, for whatever glitchy reason, did not appear two days ago when I clicked "view new posts".

or

it did appear, amongst a list of other posts, and I, in my facebook induced speed-scroll frenzy, zipped past it.

I think the latter is more likely. I get most of my social media/gaming info/general net-based time-wasting from facebook, and the deluge of information you get there positively forces you to develop a set of internal triggers that cause you to either click on something for further info or just scroll on by to the next nugget. These decisions are made subconsciously (I suppose), albeit based on a set of requirements that can be reasoned out consciously. Essentially: "is it relevant to me?" = click, if not, zip on. While this system works fine for facebook and its anonymous info-vomit, it's not appropriate for a community (yes, I called us a community) like Naghammer. So, in response to this I hereby resolve to take my time to actually REEEEEAAAAD the list of topics, and endeavour to write something for every topic (with the possible exception of posts organising games for the Nagoya games days, as that'd just be jamma.)

[The Other Dave]

On the other hand, I don't know. We're a small community to start with, and the nature of online spaces like this has always meant having high percentages of people who are just there to read and not contribute - the "1% rule" is pretty famous, suggesting that for every single "content creator" there are 10 "contributors" and 90 "lurkers". Honestly, considering how many people are in our real-life group of gaming buddies, the amount of traffic and discussion on here feels about right to me. (Whether you, Prim, feel that the amount of traffic we get is worth the trouble of maintaining the site is, of course, for you and you alone to decide! You're paying real money for this as I understand, and I can definitely see how it might feel like you're not getting a good return on your investment.)

Like, on the FB group we have 50-odd members, and I start probably 75% of the threads, see regular comments from maybe three or four others, and get "post engagement" (likes or whatever) from only another dozen or so more.

The main thing I think this site provides that FB can't really (well, aside from an important connection to Luddites who refuse to make an anonymous throwaway FB account, he said in friendly jest ) is space for longer posts (like I'm planning right now) detailing rules and expectations for big events like NagoyaHammer.

[The Other Dave]

Also, I feel like (after some cheeky REDACTING ) I should maybe clarify my stance re negativity.

I'm not looking for a purely-positive hugbox from my forum experience here. If we're having a discussion about models, and a model is ugly, or we're having a discussion about rules, and a rule is bad, or even if we're having a discussion about business practices, and a business practice is bad, by all means, let's talk about that. I mean, I may look like the GW posterboy these days, and I do think GW is making some nice models and is doing a lot better as a company than they used to, but they do sculpt duds and they do still do some business things that make me go "ehhh".

The kind of negativity that gets to me is what you'd call threadcrapping - if the response to a thread asking "do you want to try Age of Sigmar" is "I'm still really interested in a game about maneuvering and rank-and-flank, sorry" or "I don't like how AoS has fixed to-hit and to-wound rolls, it's not great game design," or even "I liked the Old World and think the new game's setting is pretty lame," that's groovy, there's something to respond to. If the response is "Square bases or GTFO" or "GW charges too much for shipping," well, it's harder to make those into a discussion about whether you want to give a game a try, you know?

So, if GW makes a Legolas model that looks like a constipated Vladimir Putin, by all means, point it out.

I mean, Jiminy Christmas, look at this poor guy:

[Primarch]

On the other hand, I don't know. We're a small community to start with, and the nature of online spaces like this has always meant having high percentages of people who are just there to read and not contribute - the "1% rule" is pretty famous, suggesting that for every single "content creator" there are 10 "contributors" and 90 "lurkers". Honestly, considering how many people are in our real-life group of gaming buddies, the amount of traffic and discussion on here feels about right to me.

Yeah, I know lurkers will always be a thing. But for those of us who do post on a semi-regular basis, actually interacting with each other will increase not only the amount of (hopefully positive) content on the forum, but also how much we want to post on it.
For example, why do you post pictures here? Is it so that people can see them? Would you like people to make comments on your minis? Say nice things about them and what a wonderful human being you are for sharing your hard work? Because if you would, the same is also true for others. You don't have to comment on everything, but if everyone left one or two comments for every picture they posted themselves, it would encourage everyone to post more. At least, I think it would.
There are a lot of people who post pictures of their own models, respond to comments about their own posts and then totally ignore everything else that is posted.

Here is a challenge for everyone.
Go back through your posts on the WDYDT thread and see how many times you took the time to celebrate someone else's hard work.
http://www.nagoyahammer.com/forum/viewt ... start=8330

[The Other Dave]

To be honest? The only expectation I have when I post pictures of my models in the WDYDT thread here (or similar threads / interactions anywhere, really) is that people will look at them and think "neat!" and maybe feel motivated to pick up a brush and get painting themselves - I honestly couldn't give you the roughest of impressions about how many of my own pictures get responses beyond "Prim often does, now that you mention it". If a paint job or conversion is remarkable, or I have a question about technique, I'll post, but that's just how I interface with forums in general and internetty stuff about painting and WIPs in particular.

Which I'm not saying is a good thing! It's just a set of habits I've developed about panting discussions in particular online, and you're definitely right about interaction begetting interaction.

[me_in_japan]

I think the crux of the issue is that lots of us are developing social media habits then carrying them over to here. I think, given the people involved and our own personal long-term investment in the group, that Naghammer warrants a different behaviour. Speaking personally, a tad more effort wouldnt go amiss.

[The Other Dave]

I think the crux of the issue is that lots of us are developing social media habits then carrying them over to here. I think, given the people involved and our own personal long-term investment in the group, that Naghammer warrants a different behaviour. Speaking personally, a tad more effort wouldnt go amiss.

Yup, that's what I'm seeing as well as I take a good hard squinty look at my engagement here. Resolved: To be a better community member!

[me_in_japan]

I have a question: is it worth my time to write the odd bit about what's going on in MtG-land? I spend the bulk of my hobby time playing and reading up on that, and while I'd be more than happy to chat ad nauseum about the ins and outs of the current meta, would anyone else be bothered to read it?

[Primarch]

I have a question: is it worth my time to write the odd bit about what's going on in MtG-land? I spend the bulk of my hobby time playing and reading up on that, and while I'd be more than happy to chat ad nauseum about the ins and outs of the current meta, would anyone else be bothered to read it?

Well, at the risk of sounding negative, maybe not? I think most of us are aware of MtG and probably played at least once in our misspent youths, but an exploration of the current meta might be beyond our abilities to understand. I mean, I'd read it, but then I read every thread. Whether or not I would know what you meant is another thing.

Magic currently has a massive following in Nagoya, at least compared to wargaming. One of my former co-workers was a huge MtG player and he regularly attended tournaments with 100+ players in Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo. (He took top place one year and got tickets to the world finals in the US). Yellow Submarine and Big Magic in Nagoya host regular events, so if you are looking for real world opponents, they would be the best starting points if there are no card shops in Mie.

IF you wanted to try to encourage people here to play, maybe a better idea would be a series of primers for the game. What are the different formats? What is a good way to get started? What are the basic deck types? What are Planeswalkers? The last time I played MtG regularly (except for the ill fated MtG:Duels) was 15 odd years ago and no doubt the game is different. I guess others are probably in a similar position.

I am tempted to play MtG again, but then recovering alcoholics are always tempted to just have one glass.