Ye Olde Inn

Hey folks, I joined three facebook groups devoted to HeroQuest (including the Inn's own), but after a day or so, I was immediately tired of it. So here's my personal soapbox for a second.

Yes, FB is filled with people who are just learning about the game (or just remembering it existed because of the Remake or whatever) and that's cool, but I don't like the "feed" style. I don't like the barrage of pictures. I don't like the memes (animated gifs) some people post instead of responses. Call me old fashioned and a curmudgeon, but I don't have a smart phone, and I never wanted one. I never signed up for twitter and never will (I never trusted Klingons either). The scroll-load thing is annoying, not my style.

Overall it's just too much. This is a hobby for fun, not my life. I don't care about people's personal politics, and frankly I'm not interested in their private lives either (if you become my friend, then I will). I joined FB way back in the day because I wanted to share photos with certain family and friends. Lots of people use it to waste time at work or seek affirmation for their personal beliefs, I understand this.

Those of you who like it, I say more power to you. But I like these forums better. I like forums in general because you can go back as far as you want to find stuff. Facebook seems like it is trying to compete with twitter (a real toxic cesspool if there ever was one) that relies on obsessive clicking (tapping) and scrolling. It's a highly artificial environment based around data mining, advertising, and drama, and I play games to avoid that stuff, not dive into it. Since time is limited, I'd rather spend it here.

Forums aren't perfect, but compared to social media, here you can do whatever you want, you don't have to tell people your real name and show them your real face (why is that necessary to talk about a board game?). You don't have to worry about censorship from a big soulless corporation. It's easier to find stuff you want through the clutter and it doesn't overwhelm you if you take a break for awhile.

I just prefer this so I left those groups, I won't be coming back and I'll support the Inn here instead. That's all.

Well put there, have to agree. I wasn’t overly keen when we started on FB, I mostly scan the group trying to point out to people the Inn exists, many seem unaware of that. So I nudge them in this direction. I think FB is great for painting though, so many painted minis!

But here is where the Inn really is.

*like*

* Posts Meme from The Office * j/k

All those painting pics belong in the galleries!

I agree with Kurgan, the FB pages are very dispersive but there are a lot of interesting posts about painted miniatures.
Anyway the Ye Olde Inn FB page is now the n.1 HQ group on FB for number of members (and content also). Good!

Work on them.. direct them to the forums. Show them how cool it is to be here and see all the content we have that FB has no control over. More the merrier, I say, and if they still want to post memes over there every hour, that won't stop them, but they might find more conversations and painting tips here as well. Everybody wins!

I will admit there were also people advertising bootleg cards (for sale on ebay) on there too at one point (not in the Inn group, obviously), which didn't sit well with me.

For a very brief period I did have a smart phone (only used its wifi feature, didn't have a contract) and before it blew up, I was able to view the forums here, so it's not like they're hard to read on a phone, quite the opposite.

Post links when you're over there... there's exclusive content here on the forums that you can't get on FB.

I agree about FB. I stopped going to that site a few years ago and I don't regret it. I much prefer this forum. This is the closest I get to social media.

I don't use Facebook or other forms of social media (after certain... incidents). I prefer Forums simply because it's more like writing than speaking, even if you do get a lot of TL;DR comments on certain boards.

Like all things, different tools for different purposes, and most tools are developed to specialise in one area over another.

I don't think I could be as productive on Facebook as I am posting here, and that is a bonus in my opinion. You certainly couldn't host the rules materials and keep HQ going for over 30 years on a Facebook page!

For those that like Facebook, keep doing what you do, and I'll keep posting here as I can, keeping the game(s) that started me gaming on this day 30 years ago alive and kicking, Hasbro or No...

Facebook is built around two principles now: rechecking feeds, and hiding existing data to encourage more posts. Neither of these is congruous with discussion of mainly static data, it's all about what's currently popular and how many times they can serve you adverts while you hunt for something new or something you saw a short while ago. When the Hasbro version gets delivered you'll have to get ready for the massive repetition of the same few types of Facebook posts: People showing off the game, people angry at something in the game, people asking the same rules questions that were asked the day before. And there is no way to avoid subjects you aren't interested in.

On Facebook, I have blocked every game, every meme site, every group. My feed is only posts made by friends and family (and more recently it is filling with "suggested" posts from elsewhere that Facebook wants me to join). The adverts are nearly all for boardgames (because I used to be signed up to groups related to them), so at least it is stuff I am interested in. I only visit it in a browser that I only use for Facebook so they don't get any more tracking data about me from elsewhere on the internet.

Reminds of imdb forums... at one time I was on there for a certain popular movie and they deleted the threads that were more than 21 days old. Made for a lot of repetition. I think in all the time I spent there I only clicked on one ad (and immediately regretted it). Back in the day!

All in all, fan sites like the Inn are best for anything that needs archival and/or referencing.

Which got me thinking - following the stuff I have done for the HQ Combined English Rulebook (under Rando-Quest), it might be quite nice if we could get a wiki on here. I already have most of the text, so only a few formatting changes would be needed to wikify it - and that's assuming that there isn't already a Wiki out there for HQ from Fandoms or Wikia or something...