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[Groundsplitter]

Time to update the chart again. No changes in the ranks this time.

You know, Joona, maybe you should put together a chart of posting frequencies instead, and ask people why the hell they don't post more!


Nowadays the only topics you see people post in are "Latest acquisitions" and the like. There's no discussion on the War For Cybertron game, no discussions about future NordCons, no discussions on the comics, no reviews, no nothing! Sometimes I wonder what the hell is wrong with you people?! Are you people even interested in Transformers anymore??

Two months ago we started up a NordCon page on Facebook since it was suggested that we might reach more potential attendees that way. I agreed to it even though I worried that it would result in even more discussion being diverted from the board to the Facebook page. I hadn't needed to worry. There's no discussion about NordCon there either!

Right now I don't see how the hell a NordCon 2011 could become a reality. We had aimed for at least 50-60 people at NordCon 2010. Simon Furman's presence alone should have resulted in bringing in another 15 attendees we thought. Yeah, sure! We had 23 people!! Pretty much everyone who was there said that the convention was expertly organized, and that they would love to see a repeat. Great. But how? When you don't help spreading the word? When you don't participate in the one existing community for Nordic Transformers fans? How do you expect us to expand beyond 23 people when there's no damned activity on the board?! We can't do another convention with just 23 people. No chance whatsoever. We need 60 people or more! But with people engaging less and less, I don't see that happening.

[Thunderclash]

Time to update the chart again. No changes in the ranks this time.

You know, Joona, maybe you should put together a chart of posting frequencies instead, and ask people why the hell they don't post more!


Nowadays the only topics you see people post in are "Latest acquisitions" and the like. There's no discussion on the War For Cybertron game, no discussions about future NordCons, no discussions on the comics, no reviews, no nothing! Sometimes I wonder what the hell is wrong with you people?! Are you people even interested in Transformers anymore??

Two months ago we started up a NordCon page on Facebook since it was suggested that we might reach more potential attendees that way. I agreed to it even though I worried that it would result in even more discussion being diverted from the board to the Facebook page. I hadn't needed to worry. There's no discussion about NordCon there either!

Right now I don't see how the hell a NordCon 2011 could become a reality. We had aimed for at least 50-60 people at NordCon 2010. Simon Furman's presence alone should have resulted in bringing in another 15 attendees we thought. Yeah, sure! We had 23 people!! Pretty much everyone who was there said that the convention was expertly organized, and that they would love to see a repeat. Great. But how? When you don't help spreading the word? When you don't participate in the one existing community for Nordic Transformers fans? How do you expect us to expand beyond 23 people when there's no damned activity on the board?! We can't do another convention with just 23 people. No chance whatsoever. We need 60 people or more! But with people engaging less and less, I don't see that happening.

Hm. This is very much true, I guess. There has been a slide in activity on the board and it's a bit strange to see members logging on, having a peek and then logging off again without exchanging any word or information. We do have to remember that we are catering to different age groups with different interests and that's perhaps where the problem lies. Where someone is strongly passionate about the hobby, another one may be just thinking "meh...". I would love to contribute more, but with a fulltime job and other (conflicting?) interests as well there is precious little time spent on this forum. Not every topic is one that I feel the need to reply to and I "fear" this has much to do with my age. But how can we bring in new blood and at the same time inspire the existing members to spill their guts (on Transformers, politics, movies, music, whatever) should they want to? Is Facebook taking over and replacing message boards/forums like these? Can we get a discussion going on why there is no discussion or minimal activity on this board? People must have their reasons. Is it perhaps that people are growing up and they want to sever their connections with their old hobby because other people out there deem it "uncool" and childish? Are we hardcore Transfans a dying breed, slowly being replaced by people who just collect action figures without no clear focus and in the end don't really care about the brand? I hope not. But kids today are blown away by "simple" toys like Ben10, Bakugan and Pokemon and with Transformers Animated currently just airing in Denmark, how then can you build a new fanbase? I have a hard time understanding at all why "robots turning into vehicles" and other stuff isn't rolling over and flattening the competition; the concept is still as fresh and cool as it was in the mid '80s. When I started collecting, Transformers was considered expensive and to me it didn't look like they were selling by the bucketloads. It was "special interest" only. Parents bought the cheaper and simpler stuff, which was both logical and natural (more bang for your buck, to borrow an American expression). This is pretty much mirrored today and the introduction of cheap pirated knock-off/bootleg Transformers being sold officially in stores alongside genuine Transformers isn't helping. There were of course exceptions and I guess we have those parents to thank for bringing in the more "vintage" ( ) people that are currently active on this board, whether it's people who have rediscovered some of their childhood, someone completely new to the phenomenon or someone who's gone all out and simply refuses to let go, no matter what. I'm wearing Transformers t-shirts on a daily basis and at work and all I get are some strange looks, but no one coming over and saying "Hello!" and reminiscing about the past. You would have to go to a specialist store to get noticed and then you probably get to hear the usual story of "G1 rules! Everything else after that sucks!" and then you ignore that person because he's acting somewhat immature and isn't really into it anyway. Ooookay, enough about that . Where was I? Yes, we need to activate people, to get them to participate more on this forum. I know I can do much more to contribute, so I urge everyone else to give it their best shot as well.

[vmv-81]

Time to update the chart again. No changes in the ranks this time.

You know, Joona, maybe you should put together a chart of posting frequencies instead, and ask people why the hell they don't post more!


Nowadays the only topics you see people post in are "Latest acquisitions" and the like. There's no discussion on the War For Cybertron game, no discussions about future NordCons, no discussions on the comics, no reviews, no nothing! Sometimes I wonder what the hell is wrong with you people?! Are you people even interested in Transformers anymore??

Two months ago we started up a NordCon page on Facebook since it was suggested that we might reach more potential attendees that way. I agreed to it even though I worried that it would result in even more discussion being diverted from the board to the Facebook page. I hadn't needed to worry. There's no discussion about NordCon there either!

Right now I don't see how the hell a NordCon 2011 could become a reality. We had aimed for at least 50-60 people at NordCon 2010. Simon Furman's presence alone should have resulted in bringing in another 15 attendees we thought. Yeah, sure! We had 23 people!! Pretty much everyone who was there said that the convention was expertly organized, and that they would love to see a repeat. Great. But how? When you don't help spreading the word? When you don't participate in the one existing community for Nordic Transformers fans? How do you expect us to expand beyond 23 people when there's no damned activity on the board?! We can't do another convention with just 23 people. No chance whatsoever. We need 60 people or more! But with people engaging less and less, I don't see that happening.

Well, I can only blame my general shyness and lazyness. It's just not easy for me to be socially active.

And...

And I just can't think of anything to say. That's why this reply is so short.

[Lucar-tron]

Time to update the chart again. No changes in the ranks this time.

You know, Joona, maybe you should put together a chart of posting frequencies instead, and ask people why the hell they don't post more!


Nowadays the only topics you see people post in are "Latest acquisitions" and the like. There's no discussion on the War For Cybertron game, no discussions about future NordCons, no discussions on the comics, no reviews, no nothing! Sometimes I wonder what the hell is wrong with you people?! Are you people even interested in Transformers anymore??

Two months ago we started up a NordCon page on Facebook since it was suggested that we might reach more potential attendees that way. I agreed to it even though I worried that it would result in even more discussion being diverted from the board to the Facebook page. I hadn't needed to worry. There's no discussion about NordCon there either!

Right now I don't see how the hell a NordCon 2011 could become a reality. We had aimed for at least 50-60 people at NordCon 2010. Simon Furman's presence alone should have resulted in bringing in another 15 attendees we thought. Yeah, sure! We had 23 people!! Pretty much everyone who was there said that the convention was expertly organized, and that they would love to see a repeat. Great. But how? When you don't help spreading the word? When you don't participate in the one existing community for Nordic Transformers fans? How do you expect us to expand beyond 23 people when there's no damned activity on the board?! We can't do another convention with just 23 people. No chance whatsoever. We need 60 people or more! But with people engaging less and less, I don't see that happening.

I can only blame myself for not being so active and all that, one of the reasons is that I can't come up with anything interesting to say (but I hope that I will after I get to play WFC), which can be due to me being a bit shy.
But, after rreading what you and Thunderclash said so will I try to be a more active member.

Though it was bad that there weren't as much attendees as you all wanted. I weren't there for economical reasons, because I was in an another convent, but if everything will work out fine, then I will be able to be at the Nordcon 2011 (if it will happen that is), and hopefully so will I try to make friends of mine join. So I will somehow spread words about it when it's officially announced.

[Inkku]

i can only say, at it has been really long and tiring 11months by now.. because i have been so long without the job, i have to cut down my purchases, what comes to Transformers collecting.. i'm slowly gathering everything up now.. but it will take some time.. because i could not go to NordCon2010 my spirit did get kicked down really good.. now, when everything seems to start go well again, i might be able to get some of my TF projects in gear again..

last summer, i did get spotted while i was carrying around Energon Unicron and one boy told me, at he has been collecting some Transformers, but he have been thinking to quit, because his friends are not collecting and he feels, like he's all alone with the hobby, so i told him to look via internet and i did give him our forum name and told him to try it.. i dont know did he try it

(but now i have to flee, something is cooking up in kitchen and i think it is burning right now )


Edit: no smoke, no fire, no charred up stuff.. the blueberry pie is okay.. nom nom nom..uh.. was okay

edit: tiny spelling check.. done..

This post has been edited by Inkku: 18 August 2010, 18:09

[Alpha Prime]

Well, I can only blame my general shyness and lazyness. It's just not easy for me to be socially active.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Well, actually, I myself have just been a bit too busy with leftover homework from university to get any more engaged in discussions.

But with all that almost done, I'll get more time for my interests.

[SureShot]

This isn't exactly new "news", I my point of view activity decreased rapidly on the boards a couple of months after the TF2 release, and even before that there were some very VERY quiet periods. But again the same 20 persons can't keep a forum running and make it a "hot" place... I think the there's simply not a big enough fanbase in Scandinavia to carry this through.

As you probably know I've ditched TransFormers and stopped collecting and is selling out. Being a TransFan is simply no fun for me any longer and I feel no "attachment" towards the characters anymore.

[predaking]

Nobody is to blame, the transformers brand is in a rut world wide at the moment.

I think the movie mythology alienated a lot of the older fans, and the animated series did not help for the people more interested in toys than mythology. That's what happened to me personally anyway. I thought the armada/energon/cybertron thing started off as a refreshing relaunch. But as always with transformers, the plug goes out of the bathtub after a couple of years with the constant need to rewrite the Bible. It happened with G1 after three years, with beast wars after three years and then again with ArmEnCy. And I'll be surprised to see the third movie to be a hit with the kids.

I still get a little excited every time I see a G1 remake (menasor.... ) but as of know my collecting is on hiatus because real life is in the way.

I'll always be a transfan, but the fans are not the reason the community is not as alive as it was a short time ago. Hasbro and TOMY are.

So I'm sticking to reading the comics for now (they're still allright, but not as good as when dreamwave entered the scene).

And dropping in here every now and then!

[Protek]

I do drop in on daily basis although I don't necessarily post every day. I've also made notice that the activity on the board has declined, especially after the latest movie. The movie is what it is and the toyline more or less a bit of a letdown. I mean, Transformers toy cars that do not transform! What were they thinking? Classics/Universe2.0/Generations rocks but that really needed an animated series to support it. Transformers: Prime is coming but from what I've seen so far it hasn't really convinced me. And as we speak, there is no toyline to support it.

And we still haven't seen anything from the 2010 lineup here in Finland. Hasbro Nordic really should make new toys available so that there would be something to discuss here.

Me? A transfan to the bitter end. My rate of collecting has declined somewhat during the last year. I pretty much have every figure I've ever wanted, give or take a figure or two from G1. I'll probably be picking some of the more interesting figures from the new lines and stashing them away as I still don't have proper cabinets to display them. Having become a father, I have had to get my priorities straight and my family is the definite #1.

[Fighbird]

It's a tough one, this one...

Like SureShot says, it's basically the same 20 people posting regularly, and generally in the same few topics. Real life takes its toll on activity here as well, as I am prone to "disappear" for a while now and then; happens to everyone. We've tried to make some buzz by making competitions and stuff online before, but that never really brought that many new members in.

Like Lars said, we had really really hoped that NordCon would spawn some discussions and some buzz, but if it is, we can't see it here. We need some sort of proof, that a NordCon 2011 will not be a complete failure, hoping for 50+ attendants again and getting only 20... Heck, no one has even reviewed Mixcoatl, nor wondered about his backstory (which Lars and I went through several times to make it really interesting on a lot of levels). That especially was a little bit disappointing to me, as I did a lot of work and money even getting hold of these fellas and getting the card art done etc. etc. Stuff like that makes me think twice about whether there should be a convention toy for 2011.

I love the thought of people wanting to chime in with ideas for the 'Con - and please, feel free to do so! It would give us organizers an idea about what y'all would like to see/do, and maybe even pulling some voluteers out to help with the precedings.

Hasbro Nordic has no immediate commercial interest in what we are doing, BTW - I think they know that their product is expensive, and as such they are doing what they can to even get the product out into the stores. Add to that all the fighting with bootleggers and the need to market other toylines as well, and they really haven't done much to promote TFs (not since the 2007 movie, that is). I think they would love to contribute prizes and stuff to us in some way again, but there is no way they will actively help with anything. No pack-in flyers, no stickers on the toys with advertisiement for NordCon, no mention on their webpage, nothing. So we're pretty much left to our own devices.

[Seaspray]

It's a tough one, this one...

Like SureShot says, it's basically the same 20 people posting regularly, and generally in the same few topics. Real life takes its toll on activity here as well, as I am prone to "disappear" for a while now and then; happens to everyone. We've tried to make some buzz by making competitions and stuff online before, but that never really brought that many new members in.

Like Lars said, we had really really hoped that NordCon would spawn some discussions and some buzz, but if it is, we can't see it here. We need some sort of proof, that a NordCon 2011 will not be a complete failure, hoping for 50+ attendants again and getting only 20... Heck, no one has even reviewed Mixcoatl, nor wondered about his backstory (which Lars and I went through several times to make it really interesting on a lot of levels). That especially was a little bit disappointing to me, as I did a lot of work and money even getting hold of these fellas and getting the card art done etc. etc. Stuff like that makes me think twice about whether there should be a convention toy for 2011.

I love the thought of people wanting to chime in with ideas for the 'Con - and please, feel free to do so! It would give us organizers an idea about what y'all would like to see/do, and maybe even pulling some voluteers out to help with the precedings.

Hasbro Nordic has no immediate commercial interest in what we are doing, BTW - I think they know that their product is expensive, and as such they are doing what they can to even get the product out into the stores. Add to that all the fighting with bootleggers and the need to market other toylines as well, and they really haven't done much to promote TFs (not since the 2007 movie, that is). I think they would love to contribute prizes and stuff to us in some way again, but there is no way they will actively help with anything. No pack-in flyers, no stickers on the toys with advertisiement for NordCon, no mention on their webpage, nothing. So we're pretty much left to our own devices.

I just recently came back from my vacation and haven't had that much time for the forums since NordCon but I actually just did a review of Mixcoatl in a "NTFA special"-clip that will be on You tube this weekend.
I am trying to get some people that are not members of the NTFA to become interested this way, I am not that into writing reviews so I rather film them. But I will post the clip here on the forums of course.

Really hoping for a joint effort so that NordCon 2011 becomes a reality.

[gravebot]

All I can say about my activity is that I'm more of an listener than spoker. Recently I have tryed to be more active at the NTFA front especially regarding the NordCon toppc but life has its twists and no-one can predict them. Currently I tryeto palance between my personal life and internet life and I think I have found a good balance in that manner.

Not to worry, I ain't going anywhere in a while.

[Inkku]

i usually drop by everyday to see, if there is any new topics or something new on the old ones.. the forum have been big part of my life from 2005 summer to this day, and it will stay like that.. so many interesting persons in here and stuff to keep on eye.. heck, i would have never moved out from the old stuff without this forum and friend i have got from here.. i have tried to get some new persons here also, i don't know, have they dropped in or just stayed on the shadows..

and Mixcoatl looks great and the back story is also interesting i have to read it again at later, i'm re arranging my comics in the new keeper system (from plastic covers to pins, btw, does anyone need about..300plastic covers*+-100*.. )

[Fighbird]

I just recently came back from my vacation and haven't had that much time for the forums since NordCon but I actually just did a review of Mixcoatl in a "NTFA special"-clip that will be on You tube this weekend.
I am trying to get some people that are not members of the NTFA to become interested this way, I am not that into writing reviews so I rather film them. But I will post the clip here on the forums of course.

Hey, that sounds really good, Tobias - can't wait to see/hear it! Please be honest in your review

Besides posting it here, I think that many of the other fan boards would be interested in this.

Really hoping for a joint effort so that NordCon 2011 becomes a reality.

Yes, me too! A lot of people are already discussing potential ideas for 2011 (see my signature for the link).

[Taggenagger]

There is a general decrease of interest on the fandubs as well, but we haven't done anything for years, really. I've been away from it for 3 years and decided to finish what I've started, especially since I lost my Mother recently, and I know how proud she was over me fulfilling my dream of dubbing Transformers.

But as soon as we released the 25:th fandub episode of Transformers Victory, we gained three new fans who all show a good portion of interest in our work. We don't get many comments or feedback, but I don't think that's important anymore, we've had around 230 downloads of the episode, and are now going to launch a new version of the site (Wordpress) which will enable us to share our work via streaming. Internet evolves, and when we did our best in dubbing, Youtube hardly existed and people visited the Iaconhub as crazy.

Now, the Hub is no more, just a chat apparently. Torrents and Youtube made Iaconhub fall, and along with that we need to improve. We did when we offered full downloads of all our episodes, but today, people want to click play and see it.

The conclusion is that we need to adapt after today's technology, and our site (TFCog) looks like something from the Geocities world, and I can't design webpages. I've had this imagination of contacting other TF sites, which are small, and co-operate with a common discussion board for each of our projects and TF-interests.

At this moment, NTFA could not merge with TFCog seeing as *if* Hasbro/Tomy would ever disagree with what dubs we do, we'd have to shut down (along with NTFA). I've never been contacted by them and I've never sold any of our fandubs, which I will never do (hence why we mark the credits with "Not for sale").

I think there is a lot of potential here, especially since Lars is here. I can't think of anyone who is as great on Transformers knowledge while being a very kind and wise friend. I'm ashamed that I'm a "Root Admin" when I do nothing, but I'm trying to get back. I envy everyone who made it to the Nordcon, my hope is to get back on track here as well, but there's so much going on having a kid and a wonderful girlfriend while working 50 hours a week.