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so i've been here for 11 years between a few accounts, i've seen the highs and the lows and i've even spent some time away from the website when my life got busier. since the switch to the new forums I've been gradually coming on less and less with new problems appearing every so often but through it all I still get the same feelings from coming here that I did when I was younger. Have a laugh, catch up on the news, read polidicks so my anxiety can get worse, make fun of a ridiculous poster or two - at it's heart, the core facepunch experience still feels the same way it did and there's something valuable in that
that said
the main reason that you likely struggle with maintaining this place, garry, is that you want to maintain this place without actually maintaining it.
You want to make changes, however you do not want to inform anyone of these changes or gather feedback about changes before making them.
You don't want anyone to see behind the scenes, but then you get frustrated that people are greeting you with hostility because they don't see what you see.
for what it's worth, you have an immense skill at game development and the evolution and gradual improvement of Gmod shows that. Sure there were ups and downs, but the game objectively got better and better as the years went on, and you showed immense dedication to providing updates and writing posts on the old blog about changes that were forthcoming, stuff that was planned for the further future, and minute changes that were being made on a server-side basis.
The core issue is you are treating the response to forum changes as something people have direct access to, as something people should understand but don't because they're just never happy with anything you do. However, you cannot justify making changes in a vacuum and then paint at as if you have been working in an open process the entire time. The fact of the matter is that you are not being transparent enough with forum changes and while I commend you for writing this entire place essentially from scratch as well as everything else, the same pattern that shows itself in your game development bares itself forth: you get tired of a project, don't see it worth it to continue maintaining, and eventually get the desire to shut it down entirely.
Now, this is all well and good when you're working on unreleased games, but this forum does not only have 10 or so people on it. It's not a testbed or a side project, it's an active forum that has been running for well over a decade with many many active users. Were these things not true, making unannounced changes would be fine and probably the norm, but the reality is you are actively changing the user experience for a website that by your own admission, you do not participate in or use frequently.
If you were an active participant and were communicative with users, it would be completely understandable for you to feel the way you feel towards the website and its users, because you would be responding to changes requested by the users, listening to the overarching community opinion, and making decisions for the future of the forums based on that. But that isn't what you're doing. You're driving blindfolded in a 1990s Camry with tons of home-made modifications that hasn't had an oil change or an engine check in years, and you are getting frustrated and banging on the steering wheel whenever the car starts to act up and you have to take it to the shop again for a band-aid fix that will only keep it running for so long, and may even negatively impact the rest of the functions of the car.
My suggestion is hire someone to be the head of forum development that is allowed to make changes independently of your approval so you do not have to worry about it anymore.
Failing that, make an active effort to actually listen to feedback and resist the urge to make changes that you decide are best, because once again, by your own admission, you do not use this forum so you can't possibly know what is actually wanted and what changes are necessary other than what Hezzy can suggest to you. That's not how development works, you have to be actively involved in your own product and the community for the product to evolve and get better.
and failing THAT, just shut this place down because it's unsustainable in this format for more than a year at best.
If you can't admit you were ever wrong, you will never learn and improve.
it's weird how this all comes about when newpunch has barely settled in. :/
it hasn't made that much of a difference, it's just a new format, the people are still the same.
When I hit 10 years last october, I was considering how I ended up spending so much time in a community I honestly didn't engage with THAT much. Sure, 6k posts is fairly high engagement but I would also sporadically jump around the forum according to my interests. I've seen subforums as user-made things, to managed by the mod team/garry, to not being around and then back again. Early on I was stuck in the GMod screenshot community, having fun with the for me new game and tool, learning photoshop and all manner of nice things. This interest passed, and I mostly hung around in the games seciton for a while, discussing on whatever was relevant. Shortly I hung around the developer corners, with a wish to learn some gamedev (in the industry now, woo!). For a short while i joined the TES part to help with the big ambitious mod project started by a user here (Finnish, I believe!). Later on, I let my interest in historical fencing culminate in the HEMA thread, which now lies abandoned, sadly.
I don't think I ever stuck around in any part long enough to make a lasting impression, but I hopy my presence there helped you as yours helped me. If nothing else, my avatar that I've used (made by Daijitsu) since I joined will hopefully make me recognisable to some. Silly as it sounds, the interactions I've had here are ultimately a fairly significant part of my life, and currently I usually get all my big news from here (the current news system is very good, with a mixture of bot posts and user contributions, I always found that the most helpful). Should it shut down it would really create a sort of hole, but I can only hope that someone picks up the torch. In 4 days I will have been here for 11 years! Back when I joined, I never really thought of myself as one of these long-standing members.
Anyway, everyone...Here's for another 10 years!
I started looking at this site for the breaking TF2 update news. It's pretty great, sad to see it potentially go.
Tudd was from SomethingAwful btw, lol
I'll be honest, even though I'm more of a lurker, and nobody knows me or cares who I am here, I'm gonna miss the lot of you. Almost 10 years here, and there's no place quite like it.
Thanks for being cool you guys
Absolutely appalled and disappointed. Facepunch made me who I was, shaped my sense of humor, and allowed me to form standards. Facepunch and all of the users here were here for me when I really felt alone. I wouldn’t have continued my YouTube channel if it weren’t for you guys. I wouldn’t have done it at all if not for the people giving me auch kind words and constructive criticism. Goddamn it. In the worst case scenario, I know I would make a video for Facepunch, somehow. You guys are in my heart always.
Garry isn't going to read through hundreds of replies. He's just going to assume we're all complaining about nothing, because if he doesn't care, why would anyone else. If this forum dies, it's been a good ~13-14 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIscL-Bjsq4
i joined FP when someone on steam linked me the DAAS thread
it was the only place i posted in before i realized there more to this site then that
300 x 150
Nobody's reached it, and maybe nobody ever will!
I believe the cost to get there is ~65K coins.
lol you joined Facepunch for the DAAS thread? Your first impressions on this site involved laughter, bewilderment and a sense of existential dread at all the disgusting and perverted things that got posted here.
And then you clicked on the DAAS thread and was like "oh, this is far less disgusting than the rest of Facepunch"
not really i just stop posting in DAAS because some guy went and quit bitching and moaning about reaction images it kinda lost it's magic after that
I can't believe that Garry is weighing whether or not to keep FP based on its personal benefit to him at this moment, even though Facepunch's community is literally what he owes his success, his business, everything to.
Every time I dare go there, my face gets tired from all the expressions I end up making unconsciously
i can believe it and i'd even go as far as to say it doesn't come as a surprise
Please no bully, I know Scott personally
IIRC he has long work hours and cannot access FP on the go due to him using iOS
imagine if garry said that just to make people reflect and appreciate what we have instead of whining incessantly about every little change and issue
clearly, it didn't work for some people...
I really hope that just scrolling through ten pages of sincere love for the community can at least change his mind a little. Maybe that's all he needs to feel appreciated.
I’ll be honest, if this place ups and goes as fast as it went to NewPunch I’ll be pretty sad.
Give us some warning at least. Give us a chance to save a place we call home.
I'm terrified he's going to get up and just skip to the latest page instead.
I might sound overdramatic, but being part of FP has helped me so much with my mental health. I had a really rough period in my life between 2013-2016 and I posted a shit ton of stuff in the depression thread to cope. It helped me to formulate my thoughts, understand myself and my own behaviors, and most importantly, just let off steam when things weren't looking up. I didn't feel alone with all my problems, there were so many like me with their own problems in life that were just as lost as me. Through these folks, even if I never directly communicated with most of them, I was able to learn a lot about myself through their thoughts and feelings. I honestly don't know where I'd be in life if I never found FP. Sharing my thoughts and feelings here has made it much easier to understand myself today.
I'm happy I found this place. There is no other place quite like this and it'd be a shame to see it go. So even if it doesn't go down today, or the next few weeks, or months, I still want to say; thanks for the ride folks. I'm glad I could be part of this community
Would it be a good idea to add this to my custom CSS in my preferences?
body { display: none; }
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d7EbtLb8ok
Here you all enjoy some angsty teenage bullcrap that was played at my highschool graduation for some reason that I think is appropriate
is this the preview build of 2019 facepunch?
Wait so Garry's thinking of closing the forums? Good. He should. The TF2 section has always been a shithole full of egotists and failing mod projects that people get their hopes up way too much for, and this forum in general has had a history of treating people like shit for the stupidest reasons. There are two big names that come to my mind at the moment but I won't say them.
Someone was mean to me, so we need to destroy this 14 year old forum with 300,000 active users.
Man, this place is really special to me. It's the only community I ever really got involved in.
Joined here for the TF2 subofrum way back in 2012 when I was just starting as a freshman in high school. This place really helped shape me into the person I am today, because hoo boy was I an annoying little shitter prior to coming here. Honestly, I kinda wince when I think about the kinda guy I would've grown into had I not come here.
This is also one of the few places to get news from and not have the majority of the users give me a migraine.
Wasn't talking about myself. Don't know how you made that mistake.
@TheMrFailz drew it based on my warped reflection in a picture of my truck
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