[COLOR=#ff99cc]Introduction[/COLOR]
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In my first thread I will admit that the research was flawed, lacking and set unrealistic goals because we are no longer in “the golden era”, I did not consider that MapleStory animations lost relevance along with the self-destructive behavior of some members within the community, those were the things I could have never considered at first. On the other hand, the quality in the content has seen an enormous increase, It has given many people the chance to profit off their hobby, let us meet people from all around the world and, in general, has opened many doors in people's lives, myself included.
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With this said, I invite you to read our survey report (Click) made by @StayFrosty
"Graph Comparison"
Active New Members: People with less than 100 posts, presumed "active" until June 16th.
Active Members: People with more than 100 posts, presumed "active" until June 27th.
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[COLOR=#ff99cc]In short...[/COLOR]
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Based on the data, new members affirm that the community is welcoming and helpful towards them, They also consider the forum's content to be entertaining, just as regular members do. However, regular members have disagreed and stated that the community is not what it appears to be, holding opposing views towards the content's originality, Yet both sides agree that the forum does not offer enough resources to new members.
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[COLOR=#ff99cc]More Data[/COLOR]
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In the last question, we asked them directly why they think new members become inactive; I made my own analysis between the results, going from the most popular to least popular answer, my reasoning is based on the information we gathered. Feel free to share your own thoughts and conclusions.
"7 Reasons why new members become inactive (July 2016)"
PA: People Answered
1. Loss of interest (31 PA – 80%)
Now this is evidence is contradictory on the new members’ side, if the content is entertaining and original, how is it not interesting? In my opinion the loss of interest, at least on the animation side is because of the "make a fight/smash animation" meta is growing stale and repetitive, What's the cause? I think there are not enough creative characters; think of the maple animators you admire, they have some sort of unique style and character design right?
As animators, we should make content that differentiates us one from another. We should also be open minded and look for other things to animate that might also be fun.
2. Real life priorities (20 PA– 50%)
This shouldn’t be a surprise, most of us will go through this at some point or have already been through it and It’s always going to be there; strangely enough it’s only the second cause of why people think new members become inactive.
3. They feel intimidated by big animators (18 PA – 45%)
I'm gonna speak from a personal standpoint.
There's nothing to be afraid of, we all have our own insecurities but really, what's the worst that could happen? Why would you feel intimidated? The way you accept CNC depends of what kind of person you are. How i see it is that you are going to find people who are better than you, through their comments and critics these people are actually helping you become good as they are, and it will depend on the way you choose to see it.
Every animator you've felt intimidated by has gone through that "phase", nowadays you have many tutorials that will let you learn everything you need faster than they did so don’t be discouraged if your animations don't look like you wanted them to; remember that it's still goingt to take a lot of time, effort, resources and knowledge about the programs.
4. Other (12 PA – 30%)
According to some members, these are other reasons of why they think new members become inactive:
- CNC that discourages them, lack of activity in the forum, drama and lack of originality in animations.
Some other members emphasized on the following:
- Not enough resources for new animators, lack of originality in animations, number of required posts to access resources, hostility towards some new members, lack of guidance, negative rumors about the forum and an increase of pessimism during the last couple years that resulted in unfavorable behaviors.
5. They don’t receive enough resources (11 PA – 28%)
Resources, resources, resources... While other communities share their resources without the need of even registering, in Maplemation they are used as an incentive to create an active community and to prevent certain members from "leeching" and does this still work? Personally, I don't think so, I will talk about this point again in the next section.
The team and I spoke about this and we reached some conclusions and made our suggestions:
Can we offer limited resources?
Yes, in fact I did this, and I noticed some of the new members I gave the resources to did in fact, make new animations.
Can we change the comment/like system to acess resources?
Us as a team, no, but what if instead of "working" your way up to 100 post through spam, why don't we reward content creation? This system would focus on the likes the member has recieved, we agreed 20 likes and being in the forum for one month is enough to let them access the complete resources, if not, a "tier" system should suffice, say you get x amount of resources for reaching 10 posts, 20 likes, 25 posts, 50 likes and so on... Personally I've seen some new members get over 20 likes within two to three animation/sprites, it would only make it better for them if they had more resources.
Can we do something about the "leaked" version that's on YouTube?
Would you download something claiming to have maplemation resources from a video with 22 dislikes, in a single link, by FkYu Trow? If I was new I sure wouldn't. What does this say about the forum? At this point we think resources should be public, nothing guarantees that they will stay after having these outdated resources or by that matter, that some of the links of the actual thread still work; from my perspective, I could only see myself using only like 5 threads from the resource section; we can only think positively and that if we give them good resources they MIGHT stay for longer.
6. There’s no middle ground between being a “newbie” and a “pro animator” (9 PA – 23%)
In my opinion, this is a consequence of a mix of the problems listed above; there’s no middle ground because new animators lack proper guidance (I personally don’t think that: “yeah, go listen to Derek ramble for three hours is proper guidance”), they don’t have good resources, they feel intimidated by the big animators and most can’t compare themselves with other members because there’s little activity in the forum, unless they bring a friend or join a group and thus, they leave.
All things aside, this is almost the last answer, I think we should focus on the first couple of reasons.
7. The community is focused on “MapleStory” animations (2 PA – 5%)
I’m the guy who thought we needed to see variety regarding sprites, but now I see that this is the least concern regarding the matter, I admit I was wrong by trying to change MapleMation to something it isn’t and for that, I apologize.
1. Loss of interest (31 PA – 80%)
Now this is evidence is contradictory on the new members’ side, if the content is entertaining and original, how is it not interesting? In my opinion the loss of interest, at least on the animation side is because of the "make a fight/smash animation" meta is growing stale and repetitive, What's the cause? I think there are not enough creative characters; think of the maple animators you admire, they have some sort of unique style and character design right?
As animators, we should make content that differentiates us one from another. We should also be open minded and look for other things to animate that might also be fun.
2. Real life priorities (20 PA– 50%)
This shouldn’t be a surprise, most of us will go through this at some point or have already been through it and It’s always going to be there; strangely enough it’s only the second cause of why people think new members become inactive.
3. They feel intimidated by big animators (18 PA – 45%)
I'm gonna speak from a personal standpoint.
There's nothing to be afraid of, we all have our own insecurities but really, what's the worst that could happen? Why would you feel intimidated? The way you accept CNC depends of what kind of person you are. How i see it is that you are going to find people who are better than you, through their comments and critics these people are actually helping you become good as they are, and it will depend on the way you choose to see it.
Every animator you've felt intimidated by has gone through that "phase", nowadays you have many tutorials that will let you learn everything you need faster than they did so don’t be discouraged if your animations don't look like you wanted them to; remember that it's still goingt to take a lot of time, effort, resources and knowledge about the programs.
4. Other (12 PA – 30%)
According to some members, these are other reasons of why they think new members become inactive:
- CNC that discourages them, lack of activity in the forum, drama and lack of originality in animations.
Some other members emphasized on the following:
- Not enough resources for new animators, lack of originality in animations, number of required posts to access resources, hostility towards some new members, lack of guidance, negative rumors about the forum and an increase of pessimism during the last couple years that resulted in unfavorable behaviors.
5. They don’t receive enough resources (11 PA – 28%)
Resources, resources, resources... While other communities share their resources without the need of even registering, in Maplemation they are used as an incentive to create an active community and to prevent certain members from "leeching" and does this still work? Personally, I don't think so, I will talk about this point again in the next section.
The team and I spoke about this and we reached some conclusions and made our suggestions:
Can we offer limited resources?
Yes, in fact I did this, and I noticed some of the new members I gave the resources to did in fact, make new animations.
Can we change the comment/like system to acess resources?
Us as a team, no, but what if instead of "working" your way up to 100 post through spam, why don't we reward content creation? This system would focus on the likes the member has recieved, we agreed 20 likes and being in the forum for one month is enough to let them access the complete resources, if not, a "tier" system should suffice, say you get x amount of resources for reaching 10 posts, 20 likes, 25 posts, 50 likes and so on... Personally I've seen some new members get over 20 likes within two to three animation/sprites, it would only make it better for them if they had more resources.
Can we do something about the "leaked" version that's on YouTube?
Would you download something claiming to have maplemation resources from a video with 22 dislikes, in a single link, by FkYu Trow? If I was new I sure wouldn't. What does this say about the forum? At this point we think resources should be public, nothing guarantees that they will stay after having these outdated resources or by that matter, that some of the links of the actual thread still work; from my perspective, I could only see myself using only like 5 threads from the resource section; we can only think positively and that if we give them good resources they MIGHT stay for longer.
6. There’s no middle ground between being a “newbie” and a “pro animator” (9 PA – 23%)
In my opinion, this is a consequence of a mix of the problems listed above; there’s no middle ground because new animators lack proper guidance (I personally don’t think that: “yeah, go listen to Derek ramble for three hours is proper guidance”), they don’t have good resources, they feel intimidated by the big animators and most can’t compare themselves with other members because there’s little activity in the forum, unless they bring a friend or join a group and thus, they leave.
All things aside, this is almost the last answer, I think we should focus on the first couple of reasons.
7. The community is focused on “MapleStory” animations (2 PA – 5%)
I’m the guy who thought we needed to see variety regarding sprites, but now I see that this is the least concern regarding the matter, I admit I was wrong by trying to change MapleMation to something it isn’t and for that, I apologize.
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[COLOR=#ff99cc]Conclusion and Suggestions[/COLOR]
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The problem is clear, new members have a positive point of view towards MapleMation while a considerable amount of its own regular members think differently.
Although I whole heartedly agree with Frosty of why we ought to be and think in a more positive manner, I do think there’s something each one of us can do to enjoy our stay even more, however, It’s completely up to us and what we want to do:
"To the Forum"
[COLOR=#ff99cc]To the Forum[/COLOR]
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I don't think I'm asking for an arm and a leg this time, or making anyone's life harder...
We always speak of this “Golden era of Animations” that is never coming back, that sprite animation is on its downfall and that there’s no middle ground between being a completely inexperienced animator to being able to profit from it. While these are valid arguments in their own right; my question is why do we keep using the same rules from almost five years in the past? Are we on that same situation? Are we stuck on the "This is how we do it" kind of mentality?
I'm specifically talking about the 100 post restriction to access resources, acknowledge the one video that keeps showing up when you search for “Maplemation” in Google, there's nothing we can do about this outdated leak; Why don't we just embrace it, numbers don't lie; please consider that it's not just me, there are about twenty five others who think the same way, most coming from the regular members (thirteen without me).
If you're a new member reading this, here:
[CS6] Elemental Skills V2 COMPLETE
[FL8] Fire Sprites
[Sprites] Marvel Vs Capcom VFX
[Sprites] Elemental Skills (PNG)
[SoundKit] Juan's Sound Kit
[SoundKit] Marvel Vs Capcom Character Voices
[SoundKit] Street Fighter SFX
These resources will help you a lot during your time here; sorry if I didn't send the first one to you privately but, it was something I was doing by myself for two months and a half (It's a CS6 file which I wasn't able to convert to the older versions so please download the .zip in mediafire to get the pngs).
Even with the evidence, I can’t ask of you to remove said restriction, I don’t feel at ease asking for half, so I consider a reduction to 60 posts to be a good number for now, what are we really hiding anyways?
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"To the Animators"
[COLOR=#ff99cc]To the Animators[/COLOR]
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I also agree that the content regarding animations is sometimes entertaining, but not very original; personally, I'm sick of making fight animations. I'd suggest you to try new styles, sprites or programs.
Some of you may know that I did a six-month animation course; our final project was to make two animated infographics about the architecture and culture of the city; that was my introduction to after effects (3D too) and adobe illustrator. So, lately I've been very interested in learning more about motion graphics and digital art.
I could show you the infographics, but they're on Spanish. I'll make subtitles and post them eventually; for now here's a WIP of Animated – Vector All Might, although it's nothing I'd be proud of yet.
Another thing I'd like to say is that there's a secret collab going on right now which is far from the smash/fight meta, and we already have four minutes; more information coming soon, maybe.
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"To the Community"
[COLOR=#ff99cc]To the Community[/COLOR]
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As a member of this community, I can only share the resources and knowledge I have as a five-year experienced maple-animator… Remember the 3rd reason of why we think new members become inactive? How can we make new members overcome their “fear”?
Now I don't consider myself to be on a top tier god level, but I do know some tricks that I take for granted given the time I've been making animations so if you are a new animator, or you're just interested on how I make stuff, keep an eye on the tutorial section, I promise I will make three tutorials about the things that haven't been explained well enough.
In fact, here's the first one:
http://maplemation.com/threads/flash-intermediate-visual-effects.33309/#post-326657
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"The Golden Era"
[COLOR=#ff99cc]The Golden Era VS New Era[/COLOR]
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I read this recently: as human beings, memories are greatly affected by our own perception, this means what happened in the past or how we remember it could be wrong. One of my colleagues suggested a comparison between the golden era and the new era, as the differences may contribute to identify more reasons of why new members tend to leave the forum in less than a month.
For we selected topics related to creativity, productive activities and idol figures which i personally rated from one to five. I reiterate that my opinions are not facts. Feel free to make your own comparison.
Creativity
Generally speaking, the forum is definitely doing more creative projects, at this point we've seen a couple of sprite collabs and even art collabs which i consider to be of high quality and very creative. In my opinion, animation collabs are the main force that bring new members into the forum, sadly, the concepts are unoriginal and repetitive, how many smash collabs do we have?
Which is why i repeat: Animators/Collab Hosts, we ought to make creative projects if we want to bring new members into the forum, make the ideas accesible for every member and offer better resources to motivate the participants.
Productive Activities
This is related to the activity in the forum regarding animation, sprites and art. I remember back in 2012 coming home from work and seeing at least three new animations every day and thinking to myself "Hell yeah, I'm gonna do this too" and we were very engaged in MBRs; today it seems this passion has disappeared due to various reasons, in my opinion some of them were already listed within this thread.
But... as animators, How can we make good content faster that would also motivate other members?
Short Action-Packed Collabs - Idea Suggested by @StayFrosty
These short collabs will be from one to two minutes long and will only require a couple of seconds from its participants, allowing more room for new collaborators and less chances for withdrawal.
We've seen this strategy be successful countless times, wheter if it's back to the BannedStory Collab 1 or to The Giant Foot Collab 2. The forum sees more activity during the months of january, february, june, july, november and december.
Idol Figures
From my point of view, in the past we had many people to look up to, starting from Dray to Derek; nowadays the animators I admire have had an amazing opportunity to profit off their hobbies, Sadly, MapleStory animations; which i can easily relate to; have decreased.
It could be the lack of Maple animation idols that also affected the productive activies. Based on my experience, if you are truly passionate about animations you would try different styles and programs to mimic what your favorite animators are doing. As consequence: you will broaden your horizons, start making more and better content, that way you can motivate others to do the same.
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Have a nice day!
What are your thoughts or suggestions about the matter?
new members, be sure to check "to the forum" for surprises wink wink nudge nudge ;)
new members, be sure to check "to the forum" for surprises wink wink nudge nudge ;)
