Shenmue Dojo

Come to think of it though is this place really active enough to warrant an expansion? The dojo feels less active than when I joined honestly, maybe because regulars aren't as active anymore.

Being completely up front, I've spoken with 2 relatively new members recently who said they were put off being active here. One was put off by its reputation, and the other did join and post, but had a heated debate with a couple of members and basically didn't want to post here anymore.

Heated debates are just a part of forum life though. Seems to me he was just being overly sensitive.

That's more or less what I thought. I couldn't really offer any advice. Internet forums allow for long posts and multi opinions. People these days seem to like a 1/2 sentence comment, followed by a thumbs up from everyone who agrees with the comment.

This place has always been that way. It's either for you or not for you. But forums in general seem more for an older generation who enjoy a chat and debate, rather than a flash comment or link, which is certainly what's more popular in this day and age. Also more for people out of habit also. On that note, even though it may not be a possibility, id love a "select skin" option, where in a click, you could have the proper old Dojo look back. Just for complete nostalgia purposes.

Listening all opinions made... I realized that maybe all this "Shenmue love" shit I said is just in my own head and a bunch of others. Being honest... I wanted a "brazillian space" here to try to gather some more fans in a place without haters, where most non-dedicated forums have a huge amount of them. The dojo is being a place where I shared all my hopes, opinions and passion for Shenmue for more than 10 years I guess... and where I learned so much about Shenmue history. I've never see a brazillian dedicated forum of Shenmue... but with the event of the third installment being a reality, I saw a lot of fans in my country "rising from the ashes", without an appropriate place to talk about and that sittuation started to bother me.

I don't have the knowledge to build my own Shenmue brazillian dedicated site, so an international sub-forum should be perfect, but once again... from what I heard here, that's just an improvement "I" thought should be good.

i know social media/etc ate into forums, a lotta classic gaming ones i patronize have taken hits over the recent years...despite, you know, renewed interest in classic gaming, haha. i'm sure mark from CGR would attribute this to YT & the like, but i'm always happy to see this place grow!

Peter wrote: Being completely up front, I've spoken with 2 relatively new members recently who said they were put off being active here. One was put off by its reputation, and the other did join and post, but had a heated debate with a couple of members and basically didn't want to post here anymore.

Unfortunately we have a few argumentative idiots that like to stir the pot around here. One thing that has decreased my personal activity around this place, comments and responses around here often turn into the similarity and intelligence level of a youtube comments section. I feel a complete lack of respect from certain members towards other members, at this point I just pick who I choose to respond to, just the fact that i have to have a few people on ignore around here because they are just legitimately scum bag filth that love to bang on a keyboard to put down people online for kicks while placing themselves on some kind of superior pedestal "im right you're wrong, here is why, now gtfo idiot" kind of attitude could make me see why new members, on top of almost non existant activity, are so put off from sticking around. the negative vibes get a little too real around here some times.

Despite being relatively new here, I enjoy the discussions and have learned tons of things about Shenmue.

My only gripe would be that surprisingly, although I'm convinced this is the place to be if you are a Shenmue fan, it's pretty quiet.

It's probably meant to change with the growth of Shenmue 3 news and hopefully if and when SEGA will announce Shenmue HD, but anyway, it would not be a bad idea to make the "Dojo" more confy in the meanwhile.
New skins, language subsections, (I would not be against moderation task in a french or italian subforum for example) etc...

AnimeGamer183 wrote:I feel a complete lack of respect from certain members towards other members

Love means growing to a complete lack of respect for one another.

The priority should be the site rather the forum.

Shenmuedojo.net is the 4th most referenced site on Google for "Shenmue" keyword and the 7th on duckduckgo.com but the site itself really feels outdated.
Another problem is that the site is not community friendly at all with the news and the real comments section (the forum one, not the news) not being directly related. I think it's a potential slowdown to the community growth.

The other slowdown is Shenmue itself. You cannot do miracles with a non-existing solo game having a such poor actuality.

The community is the priority.

The real issues with perceived and real non-participation here are two: 1) that forums are no longer the main locus of communication on da interwebz -- social media is. Forums are like BBS to younglings now, and 2) until Shenmue 1 & 2 are remade and released, the Shenmue saga will remain a mystery to casuals, except what they know about Shenmue 3 in the news. Keeping in mind perspective, I can remember the first time I played Shenmue. I can also pretend by means of shifting the timeline in my imagination how much I would have cared in 1999 about the long-awaited third game of a 16 year old series being released to much fanfare; to wit, I wouldn't care at all about a game series that came out in 1983. So, let's get real. Shenmue is nothing more than a myth from the ancient past to the vast majority of modern gamers. When Shenmue HD is released (and it will be because digital remakes are profitable and Shenmue will stay in the news and HD Shenmue saga practically means tripling Shenmue 3 profits), these forums will probably see more regulars and more enthusiasm. I don't expect today's 14 year olds or their millennial parents to buy 16 year old hardware to play one old game. We're all waiting Sega management out. Nothing more to it. There's nothing wrong with MiTT's personality. He is a pillar of this community, one we should all sit on.