Skjold

In hell.

Now just 8841 to go.

I stayed on the forums cause of the community but now the community has gone to shit too.
So now I only occasionally come on to complain about the weather or some shit.

I was thinking of shovel puns while the page was loading. Looks like you beat me to it.

@-StickyMations-
That profile pic was just copying Rubin's style.
Plus my current one has blown way more newbies' minds.
Man anyone remember rubin?

Man, that pic was created in 2015.

@JjCinemas Ah good times. I remember that. The day of the change I even offered to make peoples profile pics round.

@-StickyMations-
That profile pic was just copying Rubin's style.
Plus my current one has blown way more newbies' minds.
Man anyone remember rubin?

Man, that pic was created in 2015.

You're welcome.

@EnderSculptor One problem is that we almost have too many amazing creators. Back then we had Skibbz and a few others. That's it. If you go around handing gold medals to everyone, it'll lose its meaning. That's why expectations rose as people tried one-upping each other.

How fitting for this to be the top status of my semi-weekly visit to the forums.
My 'dead' we mean it lacks passion.
It's just not as close-knit of a community as it used to be.
A bit contributor to it is all the new kids that spam fad topics and rigs.
 
If you use the wayback machine you can go back and see how the forums were back then.
As @Holy Knight pointed out, I think a big contributor to it is also that the colossal forumers have left. 
I remember a time where there were 30-odd people in the mineimator chat at once.
I remember back when there would be posted 5 new topics an hour instead of 5 per day.
Now that is probably my best description of the forums feeling 'dead.'
It's as if its lost its core and is now moving on as an empty husk of what used to be.
Oh how I miss the 2013-2015 golden days.

I took "vet" as veterinarian at first.

Thank you @Emunator .

Yeah, I agree with you people. 
when I first joined the forums when I posted my first topic, people were motivating and wouldn’t just say “bad lighting, bad rigs, bad animation” they would help motivate me to make more stuff, I would feel an urge to make more content because of the support I would get, but don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with giving tips and things, but back about 2 years ago, people would be kind about it instead of just saying stuff like “this sucks”. 
What I am trying to say is the problem is whenever new members come to the forums, people just pelt them down and demotivate them until they give up and leave.
well I probably sound crazy

Oh man. This status reminds of how I used to just watch a YouTube video and refresh the forums every ~10 mins when I was bored. There were usually some new topics to go through in that time too. This account was made almost 5 years ago when I was 12. I'm 17 now and I kinda miss those times. Nothing to stress over, everything was nice and calm. And also there was no fad sooooooooo

Many of the previously active users who have grown close and accustomed to each other and also those who have the most experience in animation or creating quality content have left, or are at least inactive. Because the forums have gotten bigger, it's become less close-knit, and most of the people I see posting on the forums (how infrequently I check it) I've never seen before.
It's a mixture of who you call "veterans" not wanting to put in the effort to get to know new users, and those veterans not being present in the first place.

@-StickyMations- I already have sent David a few messages regarding this status and the replies in it about two hours ago. (He is AFK/Asleep/Busy/offline though atm)
I sent this discussion to him almost immediately after viewing it.
It's always good when people collectively list their opinions in a constructive way, especially when it can be used to improve things.
So you can be sure, one way or another, he'll be viewing it.

I feel like tagging @david in here for some reason, I'd say he could take a quick look at what the people really think by taking a small read, mostly the upper replies. I just wouldn't really like if he missed this discussion, it seems that a lot of interesting opinions are in here.
(unless he already saw this status)

Granted, now I'm not on the forums too much anymore. I mostly just check in to see how it's doing. It's a bit nostalgic almost.
Like just checking up on somewhere you used to go or a group you used to be in just to see if it's still around and doing okay.
 
I, like the countless other vets, have mostly left the forums and grown up to focus on real life stuff. Now the titans have moved on with jobs and further education with minimal time for browsing an old mineimator forum website. Including me, really. I'm a game developer now. In fact, I have to teach a class in game and website design tomorrow and with the exams coming up ever so closely, there simply put isn't any time left. It's really sad to see the titans leave one by one. But then again, that has been happening for the last 5 years.
I almost feel like this status should be pinned or something somehow. It's just so important to the way the forums were.

Granted, now I'm not on the forums too much anymore. I mostly just check in to see how it's doing. It's a bit nostalgic almost.
Like just checking up on somewhere you used to go or a group you used to be in just to see if it's still around and doing okay.
 
I, like the countless other vets, have mostly left the forums and grown up to focus on real life stuff. Now the titans have moved on with jobs and further education with minimal time for browsing an old mineimator forum website. Including me, really. I'm a game developer now. In fact, I have to teach a class in game and website design tomorrow and with the exams coming up ever so closely, there simply put isn't any time left. It's really sad to see the titans leave one by one. But then again, that has been happening for the last 5 years.
I almost feel like this status should be pinned or something somehow. It's just so important to the way the forums were.

Granted, now I'm not on the forums too much anymore. I mostly just check in to see how it's doing. It's a bit nostalgic almost.
Like just checking up on somewhere you used to go or a group you used to be in just to see if it's still around and doing okay.
 
I, like the countless other vets, have mostly left the forums and grown up to focus on real life stuff. Now the titans have moved on with jobs and further education with minimal time for browsing an old mineimator forum website. Including me, really. I'm a game developer now. In fact, I have to teach a class in game and website design tomorrow and with the exams coming up ever so closely, there simply put isn't any time left. It's really sad to see the titans leave one by one. But then again, that has been happening for the last 5 years.
I almost feel like this status should be pinned or something somehow. It's just so important to the way the forums were.

Damnit bois, this whole status feels like a bunch of 60 year olds complaining about kids these days with their complex IPad technology.
But I do see your points @Skjold and @Colonel Muffin, maybe we could be a part of the change sometime... someday... maybe it's just a different way the new members see stuff in here. Maybe somewhere over the life span of the forums, It'll spark up again like when I first joined 3 years ago. Let's just wait and see how it goes.

Another thing is that with the forums getting older, the median rep count has inflated. Before it was impressive to have 200. Now its 1500+ or you're a stranger.
This makes it SO much more difficult for newbies to get as well known as us vets.
I swear. I'll guess that at least 80% of the people on this list are vets that joined before 2014.
https://www.mineimatorforums.com/?app=core&module=system&controller=ajax&do=topContributors&time=all&limit=25&orientation=vertical
Welp. I'm headed off. Have a good week guys. See ya later perhaps.

The most important thing to take away from this conversation is probably that the forum got way bigger and with that less inviting, and the expectations increased over the years.

@-StickyMations- I think the forums just need lower expectations, more mature people, and most importantly of all be less professional and more 'just do it for fun.'
I know that I (along with 50% of the forum) made short mineimator animations for fun during the school breaks or in our free time. Wasnt meant to be impressive in any way.
Now people expect something that looks like a professional made it in order to get any rep at all.
This is partly why so many riggers nowadays are furious over why they aren't getting more than 5 likes on rigs that might very well be as good or even better than one made in 2014 with 40 likes.

@-StickyMations- I think the forums just need lower expectations, more mature people, and most importantly of all be less professional and more 'just do it for fun.'
I know that I (along with 50% of the forum) made short mineimator animations for fun during the school breaks or in our free time. Wasnt meant to be impressive in any way.
Now people expect something that looks like a professional made it in order to get any rep at all.
This is partly why so many riggers nowadays are furious over why they aren't getting more than 5 likes on rigs that might very well be as good or even better than one made in 2014 with 40 likes.