Recently, I've been reconnecting with some of the staff behind the scenes and I wanted to open the door for you to be part of this conversation too.
We all know the forum world isn't what it used to be.
Socials are fast, chaotic, and everywhere and yet some of us still come back here.
Why is that?
I'm not here to make big promises or launch a full rebrand today.
But we are here to listen.
So tell us, what keeps you checking in?
What would make you want to post more?
What kind of content, features, or vibes would make AB fun again?
Are there things you miss (like RP, AMVs, SotW, GFX, theory threads)?
Or the good old Social Groups?
We're also looking at some small structural changes (like reorganizing the forum layout) and want your input on that too.
Even if you're just lurking feel free to drop a comment.
This place was always built by the people who showed up.
Let's see what's still possible, together.
First off, I love this site, it has been a part of my life for almost 13 years, and originally I was sad to see the slow decay of the site. I would love to see a form of revival of the site if possible.
I still find myself checking in, mainly i used to do that because of the RPG, and previously felt like a fun, chaotic community.
Personally, I would love to see the Naruto RP section return to form. It was a huge part of what kept me and others engaged, even when other parts of the forum was not active. However for it to live again it needs a revamp, either a soft or hard reboot.
That would include:
- Retiring inactive staff (retiring old staff, no exceptions).
- Appointing a new team of people to revive the RP.
- Simplifying the rules, characters, abilities, restrictions etc.
- Shifting focus from power hoarding to story and roleplay focused progression.
- Perhaps use a season or arc model to introduce new plotlines and world events.
- Make a form of launch event.
On top of that, Id love to see the writing contests to be revived, fun, motivating and i used to love writing there or reading peoples content.
Ihave also seen other forums implement a live chat box, or real-time chat feed. It would give people the feel of chatting live and faster than posting.
My final thought is the reorganizing the forum layout, definitely priorities active or returning sections, like the RP, writing, gfx. Remove clutter, make it easier to navigate.
More activity, more people. I find it difficult to go ahead and make a thread with effort to only get a couple of responses.
I wish we have a big banner like the old days to sort of give us some identity. The old ones were pure eye candy and welcoming. It's now too simplistic and small you can't even see the artwork.
I would love more reacts. I think we can be really creative here.
Also, reputation! I feel like some people just dropped out after losing years worth of rep grinding.
More REWARDS! (I want a colorful name as well!)
Maybe some quality of life features as well. Perhaps a faster way to quote members' posts section by section by simply starting a new line instead of spamming .
I MISS customizing my profile page! I'm not sure it's possible to make it as complex and deep as it used to be in NB, though...
And definitely groups! but that can wait until we gain more traction.
I joined in 2017, so by default I would love some inspiration to be taken from that era of NB!
To conclude, looking at how popular Narutoforums (Fanverse) still is, I think we can still bring this place back to life. People still enjoy forums.
I remember customizing my profile back in the day, and I think members would love to be able to do that, or customize their "looks" when they are posting.
Also of course we want more people on the site, I dont know if we can advertise? or do something about the fact that the site is blacklisted?
EDIT: Oh one thing I really missed when I was super active was the fact id love more fonts, and more ways to customize my posts to make them look better, more interesting etc.
Seriously, ONE. SINGLE. POST. in the Naruto subreddit informing them that this place is back and under renovation will bring back past members as well as some new curious youngsters. A popular Naruto content creator from Twitter/YouTube could also help. They ain't doing it for free, though...
Or maybe we just open an ACTIVE official page in Twitter to reach out to people.
To keep it simple, it’s the friendships and bonds I made along the way that keep me coming back. It’s also the consistency of checking in to see what’s been happening, even if it isn’t much, and who else pops up after being gone awhile. …and also fighting to keep it from being over-run by bots.
I know there are other RolePlays out there including Naruto but they are not even close to the complexities and size that the one on this site used to be.
I really like that you proposed solutions along with your feedback. That was always desirable in Questions & Suggestions because it was easy for people to point out problems/criticize without offering any solution. Particularly when issues were due to site/forum limitations.
Personally, what initially brought me to NB all those years ago was A. Naruto theme/focus and B. The non-structured RP (people creating threads of places/locations and members just RPing however they felt).
Example: Konoha Park - members would chat/RP as if they were at the park.
I know there are other RolePlays out there including Naruto but they are not even close to the complexities and size that the one on this site used to be.
Exactly. If they made a Naruto site and it had a Naruto Roleplay at the top, it would be decently active. Most of the current active members and returning members are roleplayers or former roleplayers.
Post automatically merged:
Most of the roleplay material will be original, and there will be no copyright issues either, which might lead to blacklisting from search engines.
Recently, I've been reconnecting with some of the staff behind the scenes and I wanted to open the door for you to be part of this conversation too.
We all know the forum world isn't what it used to be.
Socials are fast, chaotic, and everywhere and yet some of us still come back here.
Why is that?
I'm not here to make big promises or launch a full rebrand today.
But we are here to listen.
So tell us, what keeps you checking in?
What would make you want to post more?
What kind of content, features, or vibes would make AB fun again?
Are there things you miss (like RP, AMVs, SotW, GFX, theory threads)?
Or the good old Social Groups?
We're also looking at some small structural changes (like reorganizing the forum layout) and want your input on that too.
Even if you're just lurking feel free to drop a comment.
This place was always built by the people who showed up.
Let's see what's still possible, together.
The things that keep me coming back is partly nostalgia, as I am sure it is for many people. I was deeply involved in the theory discussions when Naruto was ongoing, I was deeply involved in the RP and had my hands in a few different areas and made some good friends here.
The RP was a massive reason I kept returning, It was fun, engaging and it was interesting, although it had its issues as does everything, I truly believe the RP became much more refined and completed only a few years ago now but was let down by its lack of members at the time.
I would return and support the RP as well as discussion sections for Anime/manga and Light Novels! Light Novel discussions on other sites give me the same feeling as when NB was in its prime.
Lets also not forget how fun some of the forum games were! We truly had a great community here.
I believe there is still appeal to forum based content. Its slower than Discord servers and instant messaging which is seen as a negative, but I see it as a positive, In a RP context, Finding and organising things on a forum is much easier and it gives me the time I need during busy periods and I can return when I am ready. It feels tidier.
I have been here for a long time now and I know this was another big issue. Mods. There were many mods back in the day that abused there power and many mods who were inactive. This would need to stop and inactive mods should be promptly rotated out if the need arises in order to keep the site flowing properly in all areas.
As you know we have spoke about this extensively! So we mostly agree on everything so I am mostly quoting this post not for your sake but for others!
Stalled Customs/Tests - Lets face it, the mods had faaar too much to do in the RP, we need to steer towards a self-sufficient RP system where Mods have little input to stop burn out. The Kumi system we currently had in the RP is a great way to do this AND gears the RP towards a story based style by rewarding Kumi for Mission stories people come up with. This was a fantastic addition and I had a lot of fun making missions. Tests should be removed. Imo there serve no purpose, act as a gate for little reason, the RP is meant to be for fun and should a person reach the Kumi they need for a skill then it should be fair game. The old excuse was some things were test only so people would know how a skill works. Removing Tests means removing another section that mods need to check.
Tournaments Toxicity - Everyone enjoys a tournament because its a chance to compete. That is one reason why people build there characters. However, it shouldn't be the only thing much like Gutsy has said already, events should be geared towards various peoples preferences. A lot of people would only join Tourneys as it was the only way to get anything special for a loooong time.
Power Creep - Quite possibly the hardest to deal with. By limiting people you stifle their efforts. on the other hand if events are geared towards higher and longer term players it excludes a majority and story telling geared towards them becomes difficult. An idea I was playing with was a [Story Mode] where people join the RP world starting a character from scratch. Everything that takes place in this [Story Mode] such as events/missions/etc. go towards making that story character stronger such as advancing through the ranks (Genin, Chuunin, Jonin). [Story Mode] could last for a year or less and could involve multiple different Arcs or events during this time to make it exciting, it would stop the power creep by constantly soft resetting a world and would allow people to try several different builds and not over commit to a particular style if they want to try different things, and it would allow for more variety in story telling.
Of course people can still have access to everything they gained outside of [Story Mode] RP such as the battle arena, possible tourney events etc so people don't feel they have worked towards nothing, but it allows both veterans to enjoy creating characters and building them and allow new players to keep up and not feel completely like they are late to the RP which I know put a lot of potential RPers off.
Overall a forum geared towards RP, Community, and Discussion on multiple topics should be the focal point of the site.
Yeah I'm going to need my laptop for this. Hold my thoughts. Most of them are RP and active-mod related. I have plenty of warm and fun ideas I would like to share. I also feel like since we are much older now (as far as active users like me go), this site can run smoothly and generate amazing wonders we can all enjoy and even newer users can enjoy instead of some of the degeneracy that even I was sometimes involved in that it once thrived off of and even toxic times before I was even around. I am excited most of the admins are back. At bare minimum this place can be kept up to be a hobby site for us all, even without new users and I am looking forward to that. But it would also be great to generate more traffic!
Yeah I'm going to need my laptop for this. Hold my thoughts. Most of them are RP and active-mod related. I have plenty of warm and fun ideas I would like to share. I also feel like since we are much older now (as far as active users like me go), this site can run smoothly and generate amazing wonders we can all enjoy and even newer users can enjoy instead of some of the degeneracy that even I was sometimes involved in that it once thrived off of and even toxic times before I was even around. I am excited most of the admins are back. At bare minimum this place can be kept up to be a hobby site for us all, even without new users and I am looking forward to that. But it would also be great to generate more traffic!
What keeps you checking in?
Casual chatting with other members, that notification pop-up dopamine boost. What gathered us together was Naruto (the manga/anime), but it was never really about that. It was mostly about interacting with people who had a common "initial" interest, and then branch out from there. You know, a common topic to break the ice with. It's like being in a sports club and then figure out some other hobbies you could do with some members after the club.
What would make you want to post more?
I just post less as a person tbh. Less active but I keep checking in out of habit. People where incentivised to post 10+ years ago so they could rank up and be able to attain access to abilities in the RP (Not sure what they were called, but it was stuff like Jounin, Sanin, etc).
What kind of content, features, or vibes would make AB fun again?
I think people love cosmetics and like to show it off. I'm thinking about how people would customize their profiles during the vBulletin4 phase of AB/NB and have their RP custom abilities approve and traded, among other things. You can think of it in comparison to clothing styles IRL or to cosmetics in Video Games (ex: LoL skins). People always like to look/feel good about themselves or just look at some eye-candy. Also more active people tbh.
Are there things you miss (like RP, AMVs, SotW, GFX, theory threads)?
Although I didn't partake too much in it, I still think the NBRP was a great point of tension and interaction between forum members.
Or the good old Social Groups?
- If you're speaking of village group, then they used to create some sort of mystique about what was being said behind closed doors. Ofc that was mostly related to RP stuff.
- If it's the social groups members could create on their own, then I haven't seen them being used that actively. They were mostly there for you to associate yourself with one group or another and for it to be known when people viewed your profile.
Some questions I would encourage admins and mods to discuss among themselves are:
- Should this forum even be about anime in the first place? How about gaming?
- How would it stand out compared to a Discord server or a subreddit group?
Versuvio
