[Unknown Target]

I was just wondering to myself, what must HLP be like to new people? What do you think of this place when you come here? How does it compare to other forums that you have visited/emigrated from? Are we close-knit? Hard to get into? Easy to get into? Intimidating? Welcoming?


Just a little thing to see how the influx of new members feels about our favorite forum Personally, I feel we are very close knit and have several (more than average, at least) personalities on the forum - it would be impossible to do a forum movie like the one stickied at the top of the forum unless we were as close knit as we are, imo. (semi-opinion/plug)

[Taristin]

Methinks we're all a bunch of hardasses to the n00bars.

[Unknown Target]

Well, to some, yes, to others, no. I was also looking for a general impression of this community, you know, how we seem to others when they first come, or when they get inundated better.

[Rictor]

We should start charging for the privilege of our presence, like the SA forums.

Yarrr.

[Tieowbeijas]

I've been reading the forums for about as long as I've been registered, but I seldom post, but anyways...

I see this community as pretty well-knit and welcoming, and that no-one is unnecesarily (please don't expect me to type perfect english at 02:15) flamed/attacked/whatever for being a newbie (something that for some reason is very frequent in larger communities).

[Taristin]

Except Cobra...but he does spam

[WeatherOp]

Originally posted by Raa
Except Cobra...but he does spam

Spam? Trust me if that is a one can of spam, Gamefaqs is the Creator, Owner, and the ones who sell it. If you want a good laugh, go there and rumage thru the forums, exept in the FS2 one, where it's about the same as here, cause some of us visit there.


Compared to most other communites, we are close knit. And, I'm talking about the all the FS communites(HLP,GW,SG, ect.)

[Kosh]

Originally posted by Raa
Except Cobra...but he does spam

Not as much as he used to. But he replaced that with making personal attacks against people. Personally I think the admins would be doing us all a favor if they banned him. I have never said that about anyone else here before.

And I say that as one of his victims.

[Fenrir]

Originally posted by WeatherOp



Spam? Trust me if that is a one can of spam, Gamefaqs is the Creator, Owner, and the ones who sell it.

XD

Quite true. Except, as a GFer, I obviously think it's worse on GameSpot. <_<

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Kosh



Not as much as he used to. But he replaced that with making personal attacks against people. Personally I think the admins would be doing us all a favor if they banned him. I have never said that about anyone else here before.

And I say that as one of his victims.

[color=66ff00]We keep an eye on all of the incendiary personalities that wander in here and although cobra is a bit of a twit at times he's easily ignored most of the time.
[/color]

[Unknown Target]

I'd prefer if this stayed away from personal attacks as much as possible, please

[Liquid Fire]

I suppose I'm qualified to answer the question, even though I've been here for awhile.

Compared to other forums, coming here is a breath of fresh air. Getting blown to smithereens with the welcome beams and being warned about steak floods and hungry shivans is a...different...experience. I'll tell you this: It's more interesting than joining other forums. Most forums i've been to will acnowledge your presence if you're lucky. compared to other communities, it's pretty accepting. Though it also seems very close knit and it's hard for a newbie to get a grip on all the inside jokes flying around. It took me 4 months to figure out what the "headz" thing was. However, the community is also so large, that sometimes it seems like the newbies are just a dime a dozen. Some people need to remember what a necessary thing newbies really are...

Although it's difficult to get into the really close-knit groups, the hlp is much more accepting. I immigrated over from the descent community (you know, freespace's half-cousin twice removed) and over there, while the newbies are treated like gods (depends which site you go to) due to the dwindling level of players, it's even harder to penetrate the inner circle of veterans.

[KappaWing]

I've been to many other forums, and so far this is my favorite. Some forums, like many band forums, are completley unmoderated, and people can get away with ANYTHING, like spamming rediculously (post 30 times in a row in the same thread with one certain four letter word that starts with F,) or even peddling illegal pr0n. Some forums, (DS's forums, for example), are over-moderated to the point that you will get banned for using a comma to join two sentences when it would be more grammatically correct to seperate them and make two seperate sentences with periods at the end.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that HLP has the perfect balance of moderation without crossing into either extreme, and the moderators here walk the fine line quite well IMO.

There are certainly many.... Interesting.... personalities here, much moreso then in most other forums, and when they show up in certain discussions... well let's just say there is rarely a dull moment.

It's quite easy to get into if you lurk for a bit, sometimes the older members can be ornery to newbs, but it occurs much less frequently than in other forums.

I'd say that this is an EXTREMELY close knit community. There are many threads where people express their joy and sorrow, and they arent met with "OMG wat do I care! It doesnt matter so f off" responses, like in SOOO many other forums I visit, but instead, everyone feels a certian attatchment to each other and cares that there is actually a living, breathing, person with a life and emotion behind that forum name, and I think that's what makes HLP special.

[TopAce]

When I was a newbie, I often had a bad impression about this community. Times have changed now, but I am still not always happy here.

[Nuclear1]

I agree with everything KappaWing just said. I joined HLP when the VBB went down, and I must say that I'm still very impressed and attached to the community here. It's basically been the one forum where more than one righteous person steps up and gives constructive advice and/or constructive criticisms, rather than whole page of "u n00b stfu" with one person answering all the questions.

[Japong]

Yeah, the HLP is one of the best places I've found on the net so far for getting questions answered - usually accurate and full length replies that come a few minutes after asking any question at all.  

I think it's good that amongst all the new people (like me, kinda) there are also a bunch of veterans around, who add a lot of personality to the boards and do a lot of the policing around here as well.

When I first joined, Anon scared the **** out of me.  Actually, he still does.  And Cobra came in the week after me, and so asked a  ton of noobish questions that I otherwise would have blundered into:

"Who is Derek Smart? Is there going to be a FS3? How come my cap ships won't fire? Why can't I see videos with the SCP? Which VPs do I need? HOW DO I GET A CUSTOM TITLE!?!" etc.

[General Freak]

This place is all right. I visit 2 other forums regularly as well, and I'm equally active on all of them. I didn't have much of a first impression, because I don't post that much and I don't read anything that doesn't interest me. I have gotten some seriously fast replies in my threads before and that's the best thing I can say about HLP. Oh, and of course some of the replies were useful, heheh.

[Col. Fishguts]

My first visit here was via alink to the SCP subforum, that someone posted on the VWBB. I bookmarked the forum, since I thought this might be a cool project (the SCP was in its early stages back then)

I remember clicking the on the "Hard Light Production Forums" link (so you can see all forums) and thinking "What the hell is all that ?". Back then I thought that HLP was more of a general forum for render artists and stuff, mainly because of the "Hard Light Art" forum.
I thought that FS modding was just a part of this forum, especially the "Hosted Projects" made absolutely no sense to me at first sight, neither did the "Hard Light" forum (still doesn't sometimes even now )

After a year of lurking I registered to give some feedback/bug reports on the FS2_open builds, and started to spend more time in the "FS Modding" and "Campaigns" forums ....and from there on got sucked into the whole twisitn vortex of no-time (as taylor put it so fitting).

I'd say, with a bit of lurking the HLP community is quite welcoming. For me, it really stands out on the internet, I feel at home here.

[CP5670]

I would say this place is above average but not among the best. I have been to several other forums in the past, although this is the only forum I visit quite often at the moment (but only recently started doing so again after a longish break). I'll probably keep coming here just because I know most of the people well. It's a fairly closed community with all the inside jokes but that's to be expected of any forum dedicated to a game series that's six years old.

Newbies actually used to be quite unwelcome here, getting bashed for asking simple questions all the time about a year ago, but it has gotten much better now.  Innocuous threads still sometimes get locked for no reason and this main forum was definitely a friendlier place four years ago when I joined, especially compared to the chaos on the VBB at that time. The FS forum and to a lesser degree the SCP forum are now much friendlier places.

The only other place I go to fairly regularly these days is the Anandtech video forum, which is a popular but volatile place packed with flamewars (which is why I go there, to watch).

[TopAce]

I think it's worth mentioning from my part that initially I only wanted to ask a question about modding and did not decide to stay any longer.

Look at me now.