[Laura Simmonds]

After Fallout 3 and NV were released, if you left their official forum for more than a day you'd never be able to read all of the new topics, much less the replies to older ones. In comparison this forum is meh for traffic.

Is there another Fallout 4 forum svcking all the oxygen out of the players?

Thanks

[Tessa Mullins]

F4 has less bugs than the typical Beth game...so...less traffic.

[jeremey wisor]

Oh Hello there XD

[Kelli Wolfe]

I think the title is in most ways more generic than the previous two, not terrible by any means but definitely a step down and not as remarkable. So yes, less traffic.

[m Gardner]

Most traffic is generated by a tiny fraction of the player base anyway.

Forums now have to compete with youtube and a host of digital destinations...

[bonita mathews]

That's my theory. It's a dying form of dialog.

[Marcin Tomkow]

that's something you see on the most games nowadays

the FIFA forums have way less traffic, than they had a few years ago, despite the player numbers rising and rising

people rather use Twitch and Youtube to discuss games :/

[Adrian Powers]

Speaking of which, try getting to these forums in the first place from the perspective of someone who's never been here before and doesn't know where to look. Without googleing "fallout 4 forums".

That might have something to do with the noticeable lack of traffic around here.

[Charleigh Anderson]

You guys sound like the BGS board members trying to make up answers for ZeniMax as to why the forums are so dead with the release of their new AAA title.

You only have to visit the GOTY's website to see forums are alive and well.

[Isaac Saetern]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm so old, I don't know what a twitch is. As for youtube, I cannot think of a worse forum for discussions, anywhere.

Best regards, everyone.

[Stephy Beck]

been here since before FO4, and it still has lots of activity.

[Mimi BC]

I'm waiting for mods and DLC to add more side content to Fallout 4.

In the meantime, I'm playing Oblivion.

[Smokey]

Less traffic doesn't mean less forum readers. Maybe the regular ones are much more better to post info so less peoples have to ask. The beta forum is kind of hot now. We will see when dlc(s) will be released together with game editor. We do have Nexus, Wiki and youtube that also "steal" forum readers. I haven't seen so many who are old members (from days of Morrowind).

Cheers,

-Klevs

[Genocidal Cry]

Yes there is another one, but not only one. I simply won't tell you because I don't want the obsidian fans contaminate those too.

[xxLindsAffec]

Most of the forum traffic were replaced with Synths, and now they just sit there reading and passing along intell to the Institute. Be careful or the Institute will get you.

[tiffany Royal]

well gameFAQs have the Xbox One,ps,pc sub forums and they are booming. Then you have reddit and YT. It's just devided.

[sharon]

it has quietened down in the last 2 weeks,suspect DLC news will liven the forum up

[Alex [AK]]

There are 20,433 topics on Fallout 4. Witcher 3 has 20,236 topics.

Witcher 3 released on May 19 and has had one DLC. Fallout 4 released five months later and the first DLC has not released yet.

Where is this great disparity you mention?

[George PUluse]

oh you mean the witcher 3? there's only like 100 people watching TW3 on twitch and 1000 watching fallout 4, its not a more popular game, not as well selling, not nearly as many playing it on steam, way less talking about it on youtube compared to fallout 4.

[Emma Parkinson]

I think a lot of this is just the changing nature of the internet. Forums in general have far less traffic today than they did 5-10 years ago. Social media is still a relatively new thing, which is easy to forget. As far as the full-on social media storm that has taken over the internet, I think it's really mostly within the last 5-6 years.

There are a TON of Fallout groups on Facebook that get a ton of traffic. I'm in several that have 10,000+ people with tons of activity. They definitely have more traffic than the forums here do. However, the quality of here vs. there can't even really be compared. I post a thought provoking topic pertaining to the game or a strategy to accomplish something in a Facebook group and it'll get a handful of likes and comments. I post it here and it can result in a long and further thought-provoking discussion. If I were to post a stupid meme about Preston Garvey on a Facebook group, it'd get 100+ likes and tons of comments...whereas if I were to post it here (I wouldn't anyway) it would get a handful of comments and several people telling me that it's basically a waste of bandwidth.

The quality of the discussion here (and on forums in general) tends to be much higher, but the quantity has gone over to social media. I can't even tell you how many times I've seen pictures posted with the caption "finally got a full suit of X-01" with yet another screenshot of the suit of X-01 on the 35 Court roof. I've seen it hundreds of times...and yet people still feel compelled to share it in the Fallout groups as if it's some kind of unique or difficult accomplishment. This is the case for basically any topic. I'm a big fan of The Walking Dead. I'm on the official Walking Dead forums, and I'm in a number of Walking Dead groups on Facebook. In the Facebook groups the comments are brief, lacking much in the way of real thought, and pretty basic in the thoughtfulness of their execution. On the forums, people will post detailed anolyses and reviews of the episodes, including potential interpretations of symbolism that can provoke a lot of thought and discussion, detailed anolyses of the motivations of characters, predictions for future plot points indicated by elements within episodes and so on.

Social media seems to inspire stupid questions. I can't count the number of times I've seen incredibly simple questions like "Where to buy shipments of wood?" posted verbatim just like that. I mean...come on. For starters, you could literally just type that into Google to get your answer. Putting that aside, at least form a complete thought. Give me something to read. Something like..."I'm building at x settlement and I keep running out of wood in the middle of my project. Where can I find a good supply of wood? Which vendors sell shipments of wood?" At least the second version contains some kind of thought and carries some kind of potential for conversation. Answering the first question usually brings a response like 'thx bro' and that's it. Granted I'll see an occasional thread posted here with a similarly simplistic form, but it's far less common here. Questions like that are a constant thing in Facebook groups.

I grew up in the 90s and early 00s, which was really the heyday of the forum format. I'll always prefer them, and that's not likely to change. But these days you basically need to have a blend of both.

[mike]

I thought they were getting rid of these forums and starting a new one for some inexplicable reason.


If they do I think we should just go start or own forums . . . with robotic prosttutes, and caravan.

[Javier Borjas]

...And blackjack. And hokers.

[LijLuva]

When you say "traffic", are you talking about actual numbers of visitors? Or are you referring to numbers of threads and replies? From what I've seen, having only recently returned to these specific forums, the boards may not move particularly quickly, but most of the threads seem to be of a decent quality. They are well constructed, generally cordial in nature and are visually appealing. From what I've seen, most starting topics are thoughtfully presented, as are the replies. I find that very pleasing.

As others have pointed out, it could be that folks are waiting for DLC or something. Maybe folks have just run out of new and different things to say .

[Gen Daley]

There is just an abundance of different environments for discussion these days compared to a few years ago, official game forums just aren't as popular as yesteryear. With Youtube, Imgur, Twitch, Wikias, and especially Reddit being the most trendy, most just browse and post there.

[Angel Torres]

A lot of stuff is getting dominated by Facebook.....and the web is DUMBER for it!