28 replies to this topic

[pulletman]

Well, the mods are getting old. I mean piney freaking has kids, and a whole lot of our major nerfers are almost finished with college. What is going to happen when our major nerfers are 40? Hell I'm sure someone on this site is in their thirties. What will happen when the mods turn 50? I mean mods or other respected members usually leave for reasons such as: college, wanting to do other things, or plain getting board... what will happen when we all get to old for this? When the time comes that all the current mods are dead and we are in our 70s, will we stop nerfing? How can this sport survive past its years of our respected members? Yes nerf's (hasbro's) stock price may be doing a 747 (going up in big numbers) but less people (and especially less respected members) are interested in modifying guns. It has gotten to the point that soon, no one will be on. When all the mods leave then all the other members leave.

So my question is, what do you think will happen in this site's longterm future?

[CaptainSlug]

The "Old" Nerfers have been doing this mainly since 2001, and only a tiny select few started in 1997. The community has gone through different hands and different groups of people a few times since then. The list of people that have been participating actively for more than 5 years is extremely short.
Even the ownership of this site just changed hands a few months ago. NerfOnline too is changing ownership as of last year after being offline for a few years.

I mean mods or other respected members usually leave for reasons such as: college, wanting to do other things, or plain getting board...

When the time comes that all the current mods are dead and we are in our 70s, will we stop nerfing?

You do realize most of us are in college or have already graduated right?

People in any hobby will enter or leave active participation when they feel like it. There's no point in trying to predict the future.
This hobby has grown massively in the past 2-1/2 years so you really have no idea what you're talking about when you start painting pictures of gloom and doom for the future of Nerf.

Edited by CaptainSlug, 13 April 2008 - 02:48 AM.

[pulletman]

People in any hobby will enter or leave active participation when they feel like it. There's no point in trying to predict the future.
This hobby has grown massively in the past 2-1/2 years so you really have no idea what you're talking about when you start painting pictures of gloom and doom for the future of Nerf.

Hmm, this may just be my miss perception but I remember when we would have huge wars in my town. Now we don't, it really seems like everything has slowed down. And I meant we are lacking in growth of more respectful less-noobish members (people not like me )

[doubleshot]

People in any hobby will enter or leave active participation when they feel like it. There's no point in trying to predict the future.
This hobby has grown massively in the past 2-1/2 years so you really have no idea what you're talking about when you start painting pictures of gloom and doom for the future of Nerf.

Hmm, this may just be my miss perception but I remember when we would have huge wars in my town. Now we don't, it really seems like everything has slowed down. And I meant we are lacking in growth of more respectful less-noobish members (people not like me )

QUOTE(pulletman @ Apr 13 2008, 12:13 AM) *

Dude, your mom is hot.

You were saying?

Edited by doubleshot, 13 April 2008 - 04:20 AM.

[CaptainSlug]

pulletman, you have 32 posts. By all possible trains of logic you are still in the noob category.

And I had frequent "Nerf wars" in my neighborhood in 1994. But I was around age 10 and all of us had Nerf guns, and siblings, and lived near each other. That's not really the same thing as an organized Nerf War.

Edited by CaptainSlug, 13 April 2008 - 06:24 AM.

[xNFx 37]

This sport is similar to Airsoft. You have wars with your "guns" and can modify them. We have around 12-13 thousand members on this site. True, half of them never posted, but whatever.We have had many contributers leave in the years. Rags has been gone for awhile, but it's not likely he'll stay. Since then many new members came along and made great contributions such as Sluggy, Angel, Carbon, just to name a few.

Anyways, when Airsoft was created, the first generation didn't die off, did they? Airsoftforums.com has like 50,000 members. I'm sure 1,000,000+ people airsoft, but when a few of their mods left, they were fine.

My point being, we're fine.

[keef]

Yeah, as long as any mods don't try to close the site down for 3 days, redirecting it to a youtube video or 3 that is about politics in the Middle East, we'll be fine.
Yeah, admin on airsoftforums.com did that. Everyone left and made a shitty forum.

By the way, I'll still be nerfing when in 60!

[Captain]

I would think that if the mods were too old and didn't want to go on this site, or nerf anymore, they would give a few respected members their places to run the site. On top of that, lots and lots of people are getting into nerf, the hobby won't die anytime soon, we will make sure of that.

[mystefansdontflystraight]

Where people like Piney and Shindig dissapear, someone will come up to take their place. Im sure that they wouldn't just abbandon this site that they have put so much work into without first securing it's future. If they left, I would expect people like FA_24, Carbon, CS to come up and take their place.
EDIT: IF they wanted to of course, it's a big job.

Edited by mystefansdontflystraight, 13 April 2008 - 08:45 AM.

[ompa]

I wouldn't worry about it, in all honesty. At least not this site. In the time I've been here, I've seen new people come and go, but there has always been an influx (albeit slow) of great contributors that come to the site. I can say with some confidence that I'll be nerfing for a few more years at the least, mainly because I have yet to find anything else that satisfies my desires/need to build and tinker with things.

Oh, and anyone who is worried about that kind of thing probably won't be around long enough for those kind of worries to actually take effect. You're talking about being on NH for 10-14 years. Do you really see yourself on this site for another 10-14 years? You've been here for under a year. Once you've been here for long enough, you realize it's not really a huge concern. Things will take care of themselves.

~ompa

[pulletman]

pulletman, you have 32 posts. By all possible trains of logic you are still in the noob category.

And I had frequent "Nerf wars" in my neighborhood in 1994. But I was around age 10 and all of us had Nerf guns, and siblings, and lived near each other. That's not really the same thing as an organized Nerf War.

I had about 100 but then piney restarted it because I got into some deep flames.

[Bomberman]

Also, I mean, think about it. This is not the only Nerf Website. There's NHQ, Foam fighters, and a bunch of other shitty forums. But a lot of people have "Getting out of nerf sales", but then another 10 noobs take their places. I swear, on this site, an admin kills one noob, and 10 more appear. Their like dandelions! But if I was going to look into my crystal dart, I see that nerf would die off when hasbro quits producing nerf toys. That is when nerf is really going to die off.

~Bomberman

[Pineapple]

I see that nerf would die off when hasbro quits producing nerf toys. That is when nerf is really going to die off.

~Bomberman

You get it, Bomberman.


C'mon, it's not like Hasbro is dependent on us for Nerf to go on. Nerf wars will always happen; in the back yards and basements of homes, and in offices across our great nation and all points abroad.

For the record, I don't think I've EVER contributed anything significant as far as radical modifications, amazing homemades, or even hosted a war bigger than a dozen or so people. I was asked to become a moderator of the forums, for the sake of the FORUMS. My absence would simply mean a whole lot less Pineapple posts, plain and simple.

I'm a lot older than most new members know. I bring a parent's perspective to Nerf and all of it's idiosyncrasies. My son is now 11 (he was 6 when I first joined NH), and is working on his own mods for his Longshot and Recon. A whole lot has happened, evolved, if you will. But the hobby of modified Nerf will never end just because an online forum changes hands a couple times.

Nerf is what you make of it. You'll either enjoy it for what it is, or you'll take it so seriously and become so emotionally attached to it that most of the fun just gets sucked out of the thing and you'll quit, take up Airsoft or Paintball, and come back to tell everyone here what wussies we are for not playing a "real" shooting sport. We must've seen a dozen come and go like that.

Just enjoy it for what it is without worrying about it's future. I quit actively PBing quite a while ago, but it's still going on just fine.


-Piney-

[Green-Buckshot]

A lot of new members have been presenting a few issues, I'll admit, but a lot of the new members are well on their way to being amazing NERFers. Look at OfAllTheNerf. He's been here since what, April? How many mods has he posted? I've been here since 06 and I haven't posted anything significant...

[Eboreg]

But if I was going to look into my crystal dart, I see that nerf would die off when hasbro quits producing nerf toys. That is when nerf is really going to die off.

No, then we'll start making our own nerf guns. I mean, look at all the great stuff out there, SNAP-1, SCAR-N, GNS, NTS, ARR, etc.

[Shrub]

I kinda go with what Eboreg said we could make our own company if hasbro stops we start then we could know all the guns before they come out.

CS Would most likely be our designer.

Edited by Longshot Wielder, 13 April 2008 - 05:26 PM.

[pulletman]

I kinda go with what Eboreg said we could make our own company if hasbro stops we start then we could know all the guns before they come out.

CS Would most likely be our designer.

Dude... THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!!! In fact, why the hell has nobody done that? I would do it, but I do not have any machining machines.

But I wonder what pineys kid will be like when he comes on the fourms... Maybe his username will be little pineapple!

[Galaxy613]

Yeah, we could make a prettier SNAP and then mass produce it. And with the profits from the SNAPs we can add +Bows and other new designs

Edited by Galaxy613, 13 April 2008 - 10:42 PM.

[Thom]

As COMPLETELY EXCELLENT as that would be, it's not economically practical. The market is basically the NIC, and making a homemade takes a ton of time. It wouldn't be like buying a NF for six bucks.

[The Infinite Shindig]

I think the longer I read posts here, the more accurate I am at guessing the age of some posters simply by the content of their posts.

As far as leaving goes...I ran the NHQ forums for 2.5 years until college, at which point I stepped down. I never intended to quit Nerf altogether. Six months later, I got a second wind and an admin job here. Three years later, I'm still here. I haven't had time to foster the Nerf bug during the school year, but during the summer I like kicking back and providing suppressive fire for the people I've been doing this crazy hobby with for the last 8 years.

If I can parlay any advice I've learned since I started this long (strange) trip, it's that speculation never substitutes for playing with foam blasters outside in the sun. Don't worry so much about the peripherals; just garner the knowledge you need to Nerf more, and pass along any knowledge you pick up to the next nerdy youth who stumbles upon this place.

[SHADOW HUNTER ALPHA]

Trying to predict the future of Nerf and subsequently the NIC really has no merit. Of course there are going to be members that come and go. Most of them will be the average nerfers that would post up, but never really contribute (myself included, but when summer vacation and some supplies/money roll around, I'm stomping that reputation into the dust), but some of them will be the contributors that we all respect and, in a sense, honor here. There are inevitably going to be some shifts in the positions of power.

However, you need to think about it. The people who run this site, both now and in the future, as well as the contributors will always be the mature overseers of our procedures here. The community won't let itself go down. Hasbro, Buzz Bee, etc. will keep pumping out their blasters, and nothing short of a marketing disaster will stop that. Until then, and well past it, we here will continue to make our own. We will continue to use both the mass-produced and the homemade in wars. As long as we Nerf, Nerf itself won't die. And as cliché as that sounds, it's true. That's what most new members, and some of the "older" ones don't realize. We can talk about it all we want, speculate to our hearts' content, but Nerf is about actually going out and shooting people with foam darts, balls, rockets, and everything else. When every last one of us stops doing that, then Nerf is dead. But since that point is either a long time in coming, or entirely nonexistent, the NIC will continue to grow and Nerf will continue to prosper.



P.S.: A word on the noobs. I should be one of the last people finishing this sentence, but post count is NOT a mark of seniority in any way. Once a person contributes to the forums, with a homemade, a modification, or just useful and helpful posting in general, then they are no longer a noob. Those are the people who actually deserve the word "Member" next to their name.

Edited by SHADOW HUNTER ALPHA, 14 April 2008 - 01:50 AM.

[taita cakes]

These days I just sit back and wait to sell the odd gun here and there to the next generation of young Australian nerfers.
Always daydreaming about my gun that I'll never make, but have pretty much mentally blueprinted over time.

[VACC]

I've been muting people on the NIC for more than a decade, and I find these threads exasperating. Let's say I quit. Let's just say I tell you all to fuck off and Groove and I go and pull the plug on all the admins, delete the archives and lock the forums. Would you just stop nerfing? This internet community is not the reason that this hobby exists. It's the other way around.

Just reading the boards and heavily modifying blasters is really nothing more than a stalling tactic. Until you get out to a war to shoot and get shot by some other akward teenager or twenty something wierdo, you haven't experienced the community in any meaningful way.

[CaptainSlug]

I kinda go with what Eboreg said we could make our own company if hasbro stops we start then we could know all the guns before they come out.

CS Would most likely be our designer.

Dude... THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!!! In fact, why the hell has nobody done that? I would do it, but I do not have any machining machines.

If you or anyone else wants to send me a minimum of $100,000 in venture capital then please do.

[pulletman]

I kinda go with what Eboreg said we could make our own company if hasbro stops we start then we could know all the guns before they come out.

CS Would most likely be our designer.

Dude... THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!!! In fact, why the hell has nobody done that? I would do it, but I do not have any machining machines.

If you or anyone else wants to send me a minimum of $100,000 in venture capital then please do.

You know, you could probably actually get that.