The Decline of AP.com

[ClownBaby]

Oh Captain, My Captain...

How many people do everything from their phone, I do, and I'll tell yah, posting anything of real size kinda blows.

Personally, I would love to see video content with people like Cruz, Junto, Jester, Jew, Phiz, McNair, really whoever, as long as they're smart, funny, and know what the hell their talking about. I think staying up on some gear reviews would be great, not just guns and PC's/rigs.

And I think it was Cruz that talked about reporting on games from the field, yes, do that. Is it airsoft obsessed that interviews players during the game? That shits hilarious! Noting that there's a time and place for such an interview, but none the less, live reports taken during games would be cool. Just please don't do it like the guys who rollplay reporters.

I liked the ones SPECDET did where they went to the shops. AONW's videos with Josh and Brian are always fun. Some vids of the arenas, upcoming arenas. And why isn't their video of the expos and swap meets.

For some of the older players, you might be like WTF for? Because the kiddies love it, and moreover it shows that we ARE a community, and that people SHOULD come and play, or that it's OK to send the kids to an event.

Hi Matt! You got any keymod on that cam yet?

And bring back the action hero photo contest thing. I wasn't around back then, but it's another thing you guys did that was obviously fun, and a good community builder.

[Nark]

So how many games have you been to where people were using them?
And have YOU been shot by one, were you over shot?

And yeah, snipers and LMG/HMG'S are fine.


I think anything that needs to be brought up, should be brought up on this thread.

In other words, have you ever played with Kaster/Zergling?

[Cruz FoxHound]

If I upgraded AP to a new version of the forum with better mobile phone support, would more of you guys use it?

Hey Matt, thank you so much for stepping in. It's awesome to see your thoughts here in addition to a lot of the other great feedback. Your idea of modernizing the site platform may be a good place to start. I haven't a clue what it would take to make AP.com responsive but it could only help. Giving it a newer skin may spark some new interest simply because it's refreshing on the eyes & will create some buzz.

Even if there are FB or Reddit pages for airsoft, AP.com is a regional cultural staple. I think there is value in the website's existence as it establishes itself as an authority. The advertisements on the page speak to the fact that there is enough traffic that it is worth money to post product links/photos on the home page. If businesses are willing to advertise on a website, that is an indicator of popularity & stability.

If you look at the Alexa.com report for AP.com ( http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/airsoftpacific.com), you'll find some interesting things. When I review the numbers, a pattern emerges: about 35% of people find AP.com via search engine (73% come from Google), most commonly searching for the words "evike" (29%) & "ansi z80.3" (11%). The new visitor spends on average less than two minutes here & exits the site (bounce rate, 84%) before looking at other pages. The high bounce rate is what stands out to me the most.

This leads me to speculate that perhaps if we had some exciting new content up, maybe we could keep people clicking around rather than bouncing from the main page. My original point was that the first thing a new visitor sees is an article from two years ago -- AP.com needs more interesting, relevant front-page content to get people digging into the site! Ultimately, I do not think the actual format of AP.com is an issue, mostly that some new content & direction may help modernize things. It would be easy to pull together a writing team or a video team to create content. There must be players in the community that are willing to contribute new content.

What do you think?

- Speaking of the site design, I was hoping to chat with you at some point regarding the code for this site. I have a music website in development for which I would like to utilize your design if possible. PM me to talk in greater detail. -

[Solid]

I still miss PLA.

I remember when events used to have the team forums and people would coordinate on what exactly is supposed to happen weeks in advance of an event. I guess people either don't want to put in that level of effort into pregaming anymore, or the new generation just wants their team deathmatch spoon fed to 'em now with their Adderall and Mountain Dew. You just can't do that shit on Facebook.

I feel like the airsoft community here is cranking along, but its not THRIVING like it was back in 2008-2010. I have no idea how to bring that back either, maybe a new good outdoor field or something with the right level of advertising and a few decent leaders to organize the masses. My first guess would be that we need that unifying element that AP used to be to pull everyone out of these little pocket communities. Airsoft government? To me, AP used to be something you felt a part of; at the end of the day whatever team you were on, we all were part of Airsoft Pacific, and that's what made it great. Now, its just a place where I can find the next events. What sucks is it takes effort and commitment for people to make that sense of community, and that's just not whats cool anymore.

[McNair]

I remember when events used to have the team forums and people would coordinate on what exactly is supposed to happen weeks in advance of an event. I guess people either don't want to put in that level of effort into pregaming anymore, or the new generation just wants their team deathmatch spoon fed to 'em now with their Adderall and Mountain Dew. You just can't do that shit on Facebook.

Uhm, that's exactly what happens with most games that have a reason to preplan. There are usually side specific facebook groups created for this.
We've been doing it with MSW games for years and the last two games Rick hosted at Rilea there were group pages for each team to help preplan.
If the kids don't bother joining them, well, that is their problem.

The level of pregaming is actually quite a lot more than I've seen before with people actually getting organized into squads/platoons, faction specific maps, etc...

[Solid]

Uhm, that's exactly what happens with most games that have a reason to preplan. There are usually side specific facebook groups created for this.
We've been doing it with MSW games for years and the last two games Rick hosted at Rilea there were group pages for each team to help preplan.
If the kids don't bother joining them, well, that is their problem.

The level of pregaming is actually quite a lot more than I've seen before with people actually getting organized into squads/platoons, faction specific maps, etc...

Maybe it's just personal preference on my part then, I liked everything having its own labeled thread and everything nice and neat, to me Facebook has that but not as clean cut since everything is sprawled out across whatever groups wall.

[Cruz FoxHound]

Stuff like THIS is what will help make AP.com a rallying point

This video & others like it need to be front-page news on AP.com after every game. This is excellent content that celebrates a local game coordinated by a local organizer (Warsport NW) & features real people in our actual community, not just virtual posts & theoretical chit chat. You want to focus on the duration of time someone has been affiliated with the website or the number of posts someone has accumulated over the years? Get REAL. This is REAL.

Shoutout to Vendetta for making this awesome montage! Thank you for sharing with us

[Junto]

Or, it could be used to bring life, attention, and vitality to some sort of airsoft organization that isn't already in it's 2nd or 3rd year of disuse and decline. I'm not sure that generating content here will be more effective than splashing a dixie cup of water on 300 dying fish. I'm not sure there's a fix or recovery. If people have generally outgrown the frequent use of BBS sites, then it's time for the format and presentation of the info to evolve. Maybe Airsoft C3 will grow into something other than a glorified google maps of airsoft teams, fields, and shops. Maybe they'll integrate it with Facebook somehow so people don't need a unique account and related discussions and content can be found there, but still be based on Facebook.

If people stop reading stone tablets in favor of papyrus, then it's not our job to get them to read stone carvings again. It's our job to transcribe those carvings to the new format, lest they be lost to time.

[G36 FTW]

What a sorry state of affairs. As a newbie who arrived perhaps in the middle of AP's heyday, it's sad to see it fade, and to see a number of the big players writing it off.

People on here were knowledgeable, and while salty, things seemed cool enough for me to stick around. My first few posts were crap, but I stuck around because the forum was alive, and people were nice enough, assuming you could form a coherent sentence. The community had some integrity, some anonymity, but also some color and sleeze (other forums, arnies airsoft for instance, wouldn't tolerate any sort of foul language, which gave a very sterile feeling).

The problem likely is that a lot of people didn't stick around, and when you drive off a large number of new players, you won't see a lot of users stick around to become active and give back to the community.

I can't even weigh in on local games, since I never partook. But since the forum activity is near zero, it'll be hard for AP to rebound. I'll fondly remember the Halloween costume contests.

[Nark]

What a sorry state of affairs. As a newbie who arrived perhaps in the middle of AP's heyday, it's sad to see it fade, and to see a number of the big players writing it off.

People on here were knowledgeable, and while salty, things seemed cool enough for me to stick around. My first few posts were crap, but I stuck around because the forum was alive, and people were nice enough, assuming you could form a coherent sentence. The community had some integrity, some anonymity, but also some color and sleeze (other forums, arnies airsoft for instance, wouldn't tolerate any sort of foul language, which gave a very sterile feeling).

The problem likely is that a lot of people didn't stick around, and when you drive off a large number of new players, you won't see a lot of users stick around to become active and give back to the community.

I can't even weigh in on local games, since I never partook. But since the forum activity is near zero, it'll be hard for AP to rebound. I'll fondly remember the Halloween costume contests.

Glad you saw through the crap slinging to stick around! We never set out with the intent to drive users away but we would like to know that they're adults if they're going to possibly be shooting little plastic BBs of death back at us.

I'm with FoxCruz. Videos like that and ones from MSW games should be the feature on the landing page as sort of a "This is what happens around here and who we are" so people can actually see that we're not a universal forum that we're all actually players here.

[Cruz FoxHound]

Videos like that and ones from MSW games should be the feature on the landing page as sort of a "This is what happens around here and who we are" so people can actually see that we're not a universal forum that we're all actually players here.

This is a simple starting point that is worth experimenting with. I am not calling for a total system overhaul, just some new sparkly things that are easy to achieve & will generate new interest. It would not be hard to add game videos like this to the front page as a review of what just happened on the field in the PNW.

Thanks for your support, Nark

[Beran]

I'll admit, it's kind of nice to see that some folks still give a shit. AP and airsoft in general was a huge part of my life for a long time, and it gives me warm fuzzies to see that people don't want it to die. I've made some of my closest friends from this place, people I still see and talk to regularly even if I haven't logged onto AP in forever. I can't make it out to games as often as I used to, but I still have all the gear (too much of the gear). I've been rolling with the truck guys lately, so I get out more than I normally would since I can sit on my a$$ in a heated truck most of the time.

I'd be interested in trying to do my part for AP. I can't be as active as I was, but I'll try to be more active on the forums.

[Agent orange.]

I'm still new to this site and community, but I think this site is the bees knees when you get right down to it.

When I first joined this site, and started making posts, I had horrible spelling and punctuation, and I tried going for a MILSIM kind of thing right off the bat.... Yeah, I took a little abuse, but I stuck it out, cause I knew ya'll knew what you were talking about and doing, so I listened, and just said to myself "just deal with it, no need to be a cry baby about it"

I haven't posted anything much on here lately, but I always come on here everyday to see what's new and out there.
But I agree with Cruz, just some tune ups, and some minor addons, is a great start, and then slowly but surely make our way up to making this site somewhat like it used to be (back in the day, I wasn't here then)

So there is my two cents worth on this discussion, hope I didn't waste no ones time.

[ClownBaby]

Awww, You guys are all so cool. Realz.

Question from left field time.

What would you guys think/say about AP doing a community service project a few times a year.
Less for trying to make outsiders think we're cool, more for Us, as a community builder.

Back when I found out that Phantom Fury was doing it, I thought it was pretty cool.

If people are interested, I have project ideas, and would like to hear anyone else's suggestions.



And as far as sprucing up the main page, what about a video loop you can click on of us all, in kit, Harlem shuffle? LOL

[Blackhawk]

I think some new content and perhaps an updated layout could be a big help. A more mobile friendly site would be huge since most people have their phones grafted onto their hands at this point. AP has always been my airsoft home. I would hate to see it disappear or stagnate. Working at Airsoft Outlet NW I always tell new players that come into the shop to check out this community. Yes they mostly just want to know the when and where of games but I try to encourage them to really take a look at what we've all built here. There is so much knowledge and experience shared here its amazing to me. But as people have pointed out there has been any new non-forum content in 18+ months. Thats a little sad considering whats happening with the technology of airsoft lately i.e. MOSFETs becoming commonplace, the burgeoning HPA scene, and so many manufacturers revamping their product lines. Heck this year we're seeing the rebirth of Classic Army in the USA. There is no lack of content to be had it's not like nothing is happening in the world of airsoft. I also rarely so moderators or admins offering up their own wisdom in the forums. Granted many of them have moved on from airsoft all together but that is why new ones need to be found.

Cruz I salute your efforts to revitalize AP thank you for starting this conversation here. I've heard it discussed many times on the fields and in the airsoft shops but its nice to see it happening where something might actually come of it.