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View Poll Results: Should the Arena be closed?

Voters
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  • Yes, put it out of its misery.

    12 35.29%
  • No, it'll crank back up again soon.

    7 20.59%
  • I'll battle any comers... BRING IT ON!

    10 29.41%
  • No comment.

    5 14.71%
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Thread: Commentary: Arena is dead.

  1. #21
    Senior Member realMakc's Avatar
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    on the west, probably yes. as I said everybody is too money-oriented. not as in "I want to battle for cash prizes" but as in "I need time to make cash so cant play with you kids". I had quick email exchange with mash (wonderfl site creator) about wonderfl dominated by japs, and almost no foreigners. he thinks this is site visibility problem, but I think this is just new (ok, maybe not so new) western ideology. when I tried to introduce wonderfl on some russian blog, the very 1st response was "why would I code in browser online, other people will steal my code" - well that's the goddamn point... should I also mention flashscene.org stagnation? demoscene spirit just not being accepted by flash people.
    who is this? a word of friendly advice: FFS stop using AS2

  2. #22
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    If you all have time to B*tch and whine, you have time to pimp a camel.
    GET TO IT!

  3. #23
    Senior Member realMakc's Avatar
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    ha ha you have a point
    who is this? a word of friendly advice: FFS stop using AS2

  4. #24
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    Fking sweet shop job on yours btw. Do another XD

  5. #25
    Chaos silverx2's Avatar
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    i hate to be a ****er and a piece of ****, but the last thing the arena needs is an open battle where people are 'lasso tooling' a camels head, or doing simple overlays. Pimp a Camel is in a nutshell what is wrong with the arena as a whole. Too many people taking minimal time and effort to put out C- quality images an expecting praise for it.

    The arena needs to toughen up, or it needs to die. We have coddled it for to long.

    ****ing, go back and look at my first battle **** look at my first battle with lefteye. Now go look at more recent things i've done. Thats growth. You dont grow by playing in open battles. You grow by learning and doing whatever the **** it takes to beat the person you are battling. Competition is what drives us as humans, and if you disagree with that statement you are lying to yourself.

    Expect my camel shop tonight.
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  6. #26
    anyone else hear that? flashpipe1's Avatar
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    I spent my first 6 years here watching battles and threads in the arena before feeling like I had a firm enough grasp of PS to get in and start mucking around in the arena myself this year.

    Feb.-April were great fun for me between the Dr. Moreau (Jafocock) thread and this year's March madness, both of which were fabulous learning and inspirational experiences for me graphically and have certainly broadened my PS skillset.

    Having said that, I haven't had time to get back into the arena since then, but, also, I haven't seen any "invitations" to get in there either.

    I know the March madness didn't have the consistent participation that we all initially hoped after all the people that expressed interest, but, there WERE lots of people who seemed to want to do it.

    Maybe there needs to be some sort of monthly "open" arena contest with some sort of feedback/input/bashing rules. Of course, silver may not have time every month to come up with something. I know he ended up managing the March madness and put some good time in on that one...

    My 2 cents...
    Love like you've never been hurt, live like there's no tomorrow and dance like nobody's watching.

  7. #27
    OGC creativeinsomnia's Avatar
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    I remember really looking forward to march madness, but hell, I havent even participated in it in 2 years.

    Not to beat a dead horse, but somewhere along the lines, the Arena just stalled out and lost the "community" feel that Rollcanvas and MM brought. I imagine it has something to do with people *****ing and whining or getting too competitive. It's just not the same anymore, nor do I think it will ever be.

    Before I contributed in the Arena, I didnt know a lick about design. Through my years of participating, I've actually gained enough design sense to actually make a living doing it. Granted, I rarely do any design work for clients, but I have and it's because I learned how in the Arena.

    While I dont think it will every build up to where we had it a few years ago, I could only hope that someone would stumble in and be inspired by all the great work that's been done...if they manage to find it.

  8. #28
    Senior Member Planet's Avatar
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    For years the Arena was my favorite Flash Kit forum to visit. Then came the Photography forum and that became my go-to source of entertainment when I have a few minutes to kill and of course I still visit the Arena every week hoping for a killer update. Some of that stuff is totally over the top and out of this world. I would love to see the concept continue. I think that every now and then one of the really talented members gets an itch to pimp their skills and I would hate for there not to be a place for them to do that. And its still a resource for the new members to see if they have what it takes.

  9. #29
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    hey Gerbick... when and how will u decide to open/close the arena?

  10. #30
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    Well silver, you seem to really want this place to go. So kill it.

    How about you and I have a battle for old times sake, before this "dying dog" is put down?
    I would LOVE to see how much you've improved from your MS paint tools.

  11. #31
    Senior Member WannaBe_80z's Avatar
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    oooh challenge! BRING IT ON!
    "Let us declare nature to be legitimate. All plants should be declared legal, and all animals for that matter. The notion of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous."- T. McKenna

  12. #32
    anyone else hear that? flashpipe1's Avatar
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    FIGHT! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!!
    (and the crowd begins to gather...)
    Love like you've never been hurt, live like there's no tomorrow and dance like nobody's watching.

  13. #33
    Chaos silverx2's Avatar
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    Set the rules, start the thread
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  14. #34
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    I'll start my volley and have it up tomorrow.

  15. #35
    Senior Member zakp0's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jujumon View Post
    i think ppl have too high expectations of what arena should be for them. There arent really newcomers to the arena and regulars are bitter about their past experiences further downgrade the arena even more.

    ppl shouldnt be too serious about it and should post pictures for the love of it.
    I agree with the above person. I'm too afraid to post anything in the Arena, always thought you'd get judged too damn hard for it.

  16. #36
    Senior Member zakp0's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jujumon View Post
    haha.. i sneaked around to ultrashock and their battle forum is suffering the same fate. im beginning to think maybe it's just the economy...

    Those pricks don't deserve a minute of your log-in time.

    I'm already missing the quality work people like ctranter used to post in here. That guy's got helluva lot of talent.

  17. #37
    disco monkey monkeysquid's Avatar
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    Speaking from my own experiences...

    This is the place I learnt Photoshop; it's because of this place that I work in the industry I’m in. I spent 2 years or so here learning everything I could off the masters.

    The reason I came here was because it was an incredible fast paced environment to learn, see incredible work and get great crit.

    I don't think thats gone from the forum, just diluted a bit because theres not that many peeps here. i think that these are the main strengths of this place. mainly the masters part of it. the reason theres not so many peeps here in my opinion is that there are loads of sites out there that offer tutorial on how to do incredible Photoshop manipulations and effects. I think that the arena needs to change its game a bit to something new to attract the peeps. Like bringing new ideas into the mix. focusing the battles on learning and developing.

    The other main reason peeps are not around is because of facebook and myspace and other social networking sites, people used this place socially aswell as creatively, now the social side is taken up by social networking... use this. create a flashkit photoshop battle page where people can show off their work to friends. allow the work to go onto other channels of communication than a webforum.


    At risk of sounding like an advertising cock... These are just a few ideas that come to mind, some of them will be dribble but humour me, something may come out of them thats worth doing. I’m trying to think of ways to publicise aswell as create new battle types.

    Old masters battles, get the people that were the real masters in this place and others to have highly publicised battles, like get 6 or 7 forums to each have a photoshop battle, one forum per week rotation. get them to hype them up on each forum, hype them up on facebook, myspace, etc.

    partner with a tutorial website and get peeps to do a monthly battle based on the teqniques in a specific tutorial

    partner with a creative writting forum and have an illustrative competition to illustrate a story that someone written

    utilise the web 2.0 stuff, create battles on twitter. even just post each volley up on twitter.

    have myspace template battles, maybe try do some sort of partnership with myspace to have them advertise it on the homepage.

    team up designers and coders to have battles simulating a work environment.

    have battles where people start up agencies and are given a product to advertise. try to run the battles like a client/studio relationship. this is a bit daft at face value but could give peeps not in the industry an idea of what lies ahead and how they can prepare themselves for it.

    Theres loads more things you could do but IMO the most important thing is to allow it to be publicised on outwith the board. put it in other places where the people are.

  18. #38
    Official FK Vampire nightwish's Avatar
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    Its sad to see this place dying. I was part of the people that asked to have an arena section on flashkit, since we used to battle in other areas of the forum. The graphic design one if Im not mistaken.
    But I have to agree with what gerbick said, some people moved out, some others moved in (not saying anything wrong bout the people that came later) and for some reason, that fun place it was just died. Threads became like, 1 image per page, the rest, just ego fights, nasty comments et al.
    Dunno what happened to the mere joy of posting something and expecting a cool return that would really make you say DAMN! now what do I do to improve this, and just have FUN.

    Anyway, not saying lets revive it or lets just let it die, I just wanted to express my thoughts.
    |"Silence teaches you how to sing"

  19. #39
    Bearded (M|G)od MyFriendIsATaco's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zakp0 View Post
    I agree with the above person. I'm too afraid to post anything in the Arena, always thought you'd get judged too damn hard for it.
    I agree. I like poking around in Photoshop every once in a while, but when it comes down to it, I'm just not creative. Creativity comes in random spurts for me, so either my work can be really good, or just really terrible.

    Maybe that's because I'm a programmer and not a designer. But hell, if someone wants to go for a volley, I'll take them on!

  20. #40
    Senior Member nepzap2's Avatar
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    I agree with creativeinsomnia

    Maybe I was one of the whiners, complainers, competitors... etc.

    Anyways, I owe a lot to this place. Where I've gotten in terms of skill I would not have gotten there had it not been for the crazy inspirations I got from here.

    I suggest: if I may...

    Not closing this place but rather have moderators be more engaging. Maybe create threads that attract and inspire if time permits. I know we have busy schedules.

    Peace!

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