Forum Discussion

Maxxgold's avatar
Maxxgold
Rising Star
2 years ago

These new Forums seem to have killed the community?

I've been away for a while, so forgive me if this has been discussed ad nauseam. I really dislike these forums, and looking at the daily use and numbers of replies to posts, these new forums feel more like a blog and don't make me want to continue posting or giving feedback like the old forums. 

The old forums had 100's of replies daily with a lot of topics created daily and on some days even more than that. This place looks like a ghost town compared to the level of participation we had in the old forums. 

It seems like since you have to scroll down the page so far to get to different topics that people just look at the first couple of topics and then move on. The first topic just racks up views and replies, not because people are interested in it, but just because that's the only option you have without putting in effort to find something to discuss with anyone.

Forums need to show you a good number of topics and let you choose which ones you are interested in. Here, you can only see 3 at a time, and then you have to scroll down to maybe find something you are interested in. The search function here is almost a necessity, and we all know that people don't use the search feature to begin with. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, and would definitely welcome some advice to make this experience better, but in the mean time, I will probably not be back on any consistent level because Reddit offers a better experience than this, and like I said, and the regulars here know, these Forums used to be hopping, and now I can see tumbleweeds blowing through town 🙂

4 Replies

  • Ryanality's avatar
    Ryanality
    Retired Support
    2 years ago

    Hi Maxxgold, thanks for sharing! If you're referring to the old forums platform 3+ years ago, there definitely have been some changes since then. The amount of regular posters and topics tends to be a bit cyclical, and we're likely about to hit an upswing at the end of this month with Connect and the launch of new products just around the corner.

    Thriving communities are all about the people that make them, and I'm all in on building this one up. I'd love to chat if you have suggestions or want to get more involved. We need people who are interested in VR and getting involved! That's why we just launched our MVP program where we can connect directly with community leaders who want to help the community grow. If you're interested, PM me, let's chat!

    Design wise, the only place we've changed up the style recently is in the Announcement board, where we're now using a blog format so we can share what's happening on the official blog. That way folks on the forums can see what's new there without having to jump over there. We hope that'll make it easier to find what might interest you, not make it harder.  

    All the other boards are still using the same format as they have for several years. If you're only interested in browsing posts about VR devices you can always go into the Talk VR and scroll through all the conversation. There's also the VR experiences board to talk about games and app. And if you feel like helping others out, there's the Get Help board.

    You may be interested in setting up a RSS feed where you could just scroll through the titles or previews to find what discussions you might want to join in a simple text format.

  • Maxxgold's avatar
    Maxxgold
    Rising Star
    2 years ago

    Yeah, I agree that whenever a new product is getting ready for release, that there will be an upswing in topics and posters, but having been a regular poster and visitor to the Oculus Forums, this place was hoping 24/7 regardless of product releases. I myself am returning because of the impending release of the Quest 3. I'm not going to say "Meta," because it's just bad. They should have stuck with Oculus because it sounds so much better. 

    I would love to help the community, and I believe my post is something that is trying to do that. I just visited CNN, NBC, FOX, and ABC, and you know what they all have in common? There are around 20+ stories to choose from on the home page. I log in and I can barely see 3 topics, none of which I'm interested in, and I'm a pretty voracious reader and poster. So, if the limited topics is an issue for me, then the mass of visitors to this site are going to be less inclined to get involved. Go visit a gaming website and you will see another 20+ topics to grab your attention. This place is nothing more than a shell of itself and unless the format is changed, it's just going to be a landing spot for people with technical issues and light subject discussions, and like you said, it will be slightly busy for new product releases. To be fair, it seems like that was the intent of changing the format to a blog. 

    The only reason for my post was that I was just shocked at how dead it was in here, and the format just struck me as a big reason why. Especially since the user base for Quest has to be huge compared to what it used to be. Even more startling to me is that there is barely any discussion about the Quest 3. I think I've mentioned it more times in the few days that I have dropped in, than anyone else discussing it.

  • RuneSR2's avatar
    RuneSR2
    Grand Champion
    2 years ago

    It's relatively simple in my perspective - when Meta cut off the high-end VR enthusiasts and dropped PCVR (=Rifts), and went for the lowest-end (Quest standalone), they lost the majority of enthusiastic people loving to discuss VR.

    Clearly, Oculus was providing games for the top 1% of gamers in 2016-2019, and did not make much money - and the adoption was poor. 

    Now the adoption is much better, but the age group has changed due to the cheap hmds, which kids are able to afford. Standalone games look like cartoons for kids too - very few polygons, even-colored surfaces etc. Probably quite a lot of kids and teenagers are among the main Quest users - and they don't post in here. 

    As my 15 year-old son said, only old dudes post in forums 🙂 The dudes with high-end PCVR gpus have - apart from at few oldtimers like me - abandoned Meta. That's also why Quest Pros do not sell - high-end users have been burnt too much, and the users able to afford the low-end hmds do not have big wallets, but very small ones. 

    Meta has not supported new PCVR gpus since 2020/2021 - currently your RTX 4060, 4070, 4080 and 4090 gpus will give you an error message when starting the Oculus Desktop App. Meta also killed all PCVR homes a few months ago - if you are a vocal high-end enthusiast, few are going to listen to you in here.

    The forum now feels only for support. I wonder if that's ever going to change. The great old days seem gone. 

    Places to meet for high-end enthusiasts today may primarily be:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/virtualreality/

    https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/