- This topic has 68 replies, 21 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 3 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Hey Guys,
I’ve been spending a lot of time getting VPUniverse upgraded. Right now we are working on adding some major changes that will make downloading files a simple task. I’m just curious… What do you guys have against VPUniverse? Both VPU and this site have been shunned by VPF and have a very common interest. Why do we need to fragment our communities even further? I’m just confused and want to know what VPU is doing wrong? What can we do better to encourage a more active community and get more people involved?
I love the VPinball site and what it brings, but I just wish we could combine our efforts to make a great open community to really give VPF a run.
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
I love all the sites and think vpu is looking very nice with the new theme! Very nice! But I know I wanted to create a site that showcases the authors/contributors more so then any commercial product or membership fees. Vpinball is still new but really is all about the great contributors in this hobby as that’s what it’s all about!
********************************************************
Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
********************************************************
Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Not sure. I still check VPUniverse regularly.
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
I love all the sites and think vpu is looking very nice with the new theme! Very nice! But I know I wanted to create a site that showcases the authors/contributors more so then any commercial product or membership fees. Vpinball is still new but really is all about the great contributors in this hobby as that’s what it’s all about!
/\This is what brought me here.
Also I got really turned off of VPU when I had to wait a minute just to do another search….that’s just bullshit sorry, I understand people want to make money but when you can barely navigate a website without having to pay I have to call shennanigans. VPU has less regular news and uploads, I guess you could say the same for here which is what keeps VPF #1 sadly I guess. You want people to use your site but want them to pay to use it effectively, VPF is bullshit for the same reason but I think it’s become even worse at VPU. Honestly, this may sound harsh but I think if Wildman jumped ship and came here with all his B2S’s there wouldn’t be any reason to visit VPU any more (for me at least). I can understand why you’d like to “give VPF a run” but malicious intent is not a good platform for a community based site. I think that’s in part one of the reasons that attracts authors here, is the absence of drama. Putting out VPU was a good first step towards taking down Paul’s monopoly on virtual pinball but in the end I feel it’s not much better than VPF after all these ‘pay to use’ features have been added. Take it as you will, but I’m calling it as I see it.
I like randr personally, and I like his ideals, he has a good platform for this site which I can get behind, like he said (paraphrasing) it’s a site with the focus on contributors and collaboration, not making money. There’s just a generally good vibe here and increasingly more/better ways to showcase work, I think that has a lot to do with more and more authors/contributors starting to congregate here.
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Well said dark, I have no ill feelings toward any sites! I like them all! I feel same way that sites profiting off others work is wrong. Charging to download a file is wrong when file was uploaded for free! This site will always be free and always changing to make it better….ok sometimes worse :) but I truly want to make the community better not worse that’s for sure
********************************************************
Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
********************************************************
Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
I love all the sites and think vpu is looking very nice with the new theme! Very nice! But I know I wanted to create a site that showcases the authors/contributors more so then any commercial product or membership fees. Vpinball is still new but really is all about the great contributors in this hobby as that’s what it’s all about!
I know exactly where you are coming from. You guys created VPinball shortly after VPU was opened. VPU was created with the same exact interest in showcasing authors/contributors. It was only recently when we had to start recouping costs and added paid benefits. Commercially, I’ve tried to stay away from. The ads that you see on VPU are those from contributing members, I’ve not accepted payment or anything in return for advertising from community members. The only paid ad that is on VPU is the Google ad, and even then I’m lucky to see $100 from Google every 6 months…
Honestly, I’m not sure how VPinball showcases authors/contributors any different than VPU or even VPF for that matter… Sure, you show 5 table images on the front page, but how is that “showcasing”? If anything VPU did it a little differently with enabling authors/contributors to accept donations directly from the community when downloading, aka Beer Me. None of the sites have done this before and VPU is the only one. I know this turned off some people, but I’ve received way more positive feedback on that than negative. Unfortunately, our Beer Me is currently turned off right now as the mod has to be completely re-written and customized for the new Invision software. Contributors/Authors can still enable the option and it will show on their posts until I am able to get the new downloads section completed. Any new tables/submissions are immediately visible on home site, featured in downloads and on Facebook/Twitter. With my our new downloads area coming, tables will definitely be showcased differently and in a very prominent way and authors/contributors will have their own showcase section. Even now authors can modify and customize their profiles to include a head image of their creations. I’ve searched and looked around here on VPinball, I really don’t see where any showcasing is really being done. Even on the individual file contributors feed/filter it is simply text link.
Regarding fees… When VPU started and for a long time we didn’t have anything to be able to sustain/support the site financially. VPinball was created shortly after VPU and this was way before VPU started any kind of donations/paid benefits. VPU maintains roughly 1.5-2TB data per month in downloads alone. Financially, this wasn’t feasible to me to maintain, especially after being laid off from work. I didn’t want to have any fees or anything either, but as the site grew it really becomes a necessity. Most of the ads that you see on VPU are those from contributing members with the exception of a single Google ad at the bottom of the page. I try to support those that are active and supporting of the virtual pinball scene. Everything I have received via donations/membership has gone right back into the site for software licensing/modification development and sever. With membership, I get around 5 per month which bring in roughly $250-300 every 3 months which barely covers my part of the server. I’ve upgraded more members for contributions; than all paid memberships combined. The Google ad pays roughly $100 every 6 months if I’m lucky. Fees/Membership that I have received barely pay the bill. Unfortunately, unless you are made of money, it becomes a necessity to have some kind of income when running a large site that uses lots of bandwidth. If I could have continued to support the site, out of my own pocket, and without donations or anything then I definitely would have continued to do so.
Again, I’m just trying to figure out what we as a community isn’t doing or could be doing better. Most things I have control over on VPU and willing to work with the community so we can eventually push VPF’s owner out. Thanks for the feedback.
BTW – Are you aware that this site/server is really slow? Pages are taking anywhere from 10-15 seconds to be served. Downloads are pretty quick, but individual page serves are really slow. I’m not sure what chat you are using in the lower right hand corner, but that could be the culprit. I know Cometchat was causing havoc on our server for a while and I’ve been afraid to add it back.
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
I’m just curious… What do you guys have against VPUniverse? Both VPU and this site have been shunned by VPF and have a very common interest.
Hey Dazz… I think it’s great that you are interested in improving relations between sites and appreciate your post. From the perspective of a guy who hasn’t been around that long, one thing I can say is that most of the population that frequents these sites doesn’t know, or care, about the original politics of the sites and why they are fragmented. In fact, for the most part, I don’t think your site is shunned here at all.
This population is really interested in two things… content for, and information about, their hobby. They want pinball tables, and information about pinball tables. If the site is able to offer these things then it will get more traffic and grow.
Now, I don’t say this to sound mean, but your site has 23 VPX tables the last time I checked. About 20 of those are available for download at the other sites with no wait time. My main suggestions would be try to attract more table downloads so people will take more interest in the site. I also think it is unlikely that people will ever be very accepting of paying for quick access to this content. Your new site design looks great, but is arguably less navigable in some ways than your old design. I think you are already aware of, and working on, that, which should help you.
VPF, while it has, by far, the largest selection of content and information, is unorganized and the site itself is like something from the late 90’s… and there seems to be almost no interest in change or improvement there. It has dumb rules like not being able to link to other sites. Content uploads can sometimes take a week to get approved. The site makes it incredibly difficult to upload attachments without use of a third party file site. Any suggestions for improvement there are met with an argument from the administrator as to why it’s not a good idea. Probably other things… but the reason I mention these is that they are some areas that other sites can focus on if they are interested in some of that traffic.
Vpinball is my favorite site right now. It has a growing content selection and makes it easy for people to upload and get things approved. The site is navigable, and it constantly getting small improvements. A person can access the content here quickly and without any need for a paid membership. The general atmosphere is relaxed, fun, and not too much emphasis on drama and politics (hopefully, it stays that way). There is a great and useful chat system which is easy to use and helpful to table authors. Randr is actively involved in content development. I think it really helps when people see that the site admin is joining in with the table creation and having fun.
I offer all this as advice or things to consider. I stop by your site on a regular basis to see what’s new, and I wish you the best of luck with it.
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Drybonz your also correct and well stated.
I dont want to see anything happen to vpf! It’s a great site even as old as the theme is it’s the best resource for vp as devs post their update to that site.
Again I don’t want to shut any site down but instead offer a site everyone can enjoy without always talking bad about I other site or blocking links. I hate that crap
********************************************************
Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
********************************************************
Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
I love all the sites and think vpu is looking very nice with the new theme! Very nice! But I know I wanted to create a site that showcases the authors/contributors more so then any commercial product or membership fees. Vpinball is still new but really is all about the great contributors in this hobby as that’s what it’s all about!
/\This is what brought me here. Also I got really turned off of VPU when I had to wait a minute just to do another search….that’s just bullshit sorry, I understand people want to make money but when you can barely navigate a website without having to pay I have to call shennanigans. VPU has less regular news and uploads, I guess you could say the same for here which is what keeps VPF #1 sadly I guess. You want people to use your site but want them to pay to use it effectively, VPF is bullshit for the same reason but I think it’s become even worse at VPU. Honestly, this may sound harsh but I think if Wildman jumped ship and came here with all his B2S’s there wouldn’t be any reason to visit VPU any more (for me at least). I can understand why you’d like to “give VPF a run” but malicious intent is not a good platform for a community based site. I think that’s in part one of the reasons that attracts authors here, is the absence of drama. Putting out VPU was a good first step towards taking down Paul’s monopoly on virtual pinball but in the end I feel it’s not much better than VPF after all these ‘pay to use’ features have been added. Take it as you will, but I’m calling it as I see it. I like randr personally, and I like his ideals, he has a good platform for this site which I can get behind, like he said (paraphrasing) it’s a site with the focus on contributors and collaboration, not making money. There’s just a generally good vibe here and increasingly more/better ways to showcase work, I think that has a lot to do with more and more authors/contributors starting to congregate here.
I have nothing against Randr or Fren at all. Worked with Randr on several things with HyperSpin in the past. Personally, both are great people and wonderful members of any community.
I completely understand… really I do. Regarding membership/paid benefits read my last post. Honestly, without something like it or without financial backing… I don’t see VPinball being able to sustain either. You’ll see that it’s something that may need to happen if you want it to or not. With VPU it was either take the site completely down and loose what we had, or find some way to help with the site financially. Like it or not as a site owner… I had no option and this happened with several hours of discussion with others in the community. Without timing searching and timed downloads people were ripping the site and maxing out bandwidth bringing the server to a crawl. Unfortunately, that’s probably what’s causing VPinball to take 10-15 seconds to load a page. Most people do not understand the resources and what really keeps communities like ours running.
Another thing, personally I find it funny that people build and sink hundreds/thousands of dollars into building a nice cabinet, but they can’t help support the people that make these communities. It’s like building a Ferrari, but tossing a Smart Car engine in it.
Dark, you are VIP on VPU so you shouldn’t have a wait for anything… Unless I looked at the wrong user. If you do have a wait then something isn’t working right and I have not been made aware of it. With this site upgrade many of the settings were changed and I’m still working on getting them back.
Speaking of drama, you mention Wildman and wanting him to bring his B2S here… Wildman is Wildman. Great guy, love him as a person and he is very good at what he does, but there is no such thing as taming the Wildman. He likes to voice his opinion and not being able to on VPF, he uses VPU as his speaking point.
If B2S moved there would be no reason for VPU?? That strikes me personally and I do take offence to that. Many of the advancements that we are seeing in this hobby are coming from VPU. B2S development was shunned from VPF when it come out and thrived on VPU. The DOF Configtool that everyone uses was born from VPU. Pin2DMD development was shunned from VPF and brought to life and thriving on VPU. Now we have DJRob furiously working on getting SAM LE games working and integrated with PinMAME. What get’s me… with the SAM LE additions, VPU isn’t going to see anything from that, but we push the development. Don’t see any of this going on anywhere else…
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
I dont want to see anything happen to vpf! It’s a great site even as old as the theme is it’s the best resource for vp as devs post their update to that site.
I don’t want anything to happen to VPF either… but I would like to see some improvements there. If they can’t happen there… well, I’m glad there are other sites.
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
I dont want to see anything happen to vpf! It’s a great site even as old as the theme is it’s the best resource for vp as devs post their update to that site.
I don’t want anything to happen to VPF either… but I would like to see some improvements there. If they can’t happen there… well, I’m glad there are other sites.
Oh, don’t get me wrong.. I don’t want to see anything happen to VPF as a community. I want to see the owner completely out of the picture. I don’t see how people can support him when he is clearly abusing his community for pure financial gain.
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
I still check the site, now and then…. but after the downloading process was crippled, not so much
having a DL limit per-day is understandable, but the 60sec wait is silly, also that you can’t browse while you wait, also silly
VPU was my go to site at one time, laid back, great dudes (still great dudes)
but the crippling put a bad taste in my mouth… I know many VIP’s there… they also feel the crippling
as for the other stuff… i could care less if there are banners and product placement… that doesnt affect me in the least…on a side note… the new site looks really nice
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
I don’t want to bag on VPF too much, but that site seriously needs a full time administrator and major updates. Dazz, I liked your site because I don’t agree with Paul’s policies and I was glad you had a site going as another option. I understand your need add some monetary additions to keep it going, but it was a huge turn off for me. I do like that there is tech embracement on your site (active vpinmame w/SAM developement, pin2dmd, DOF, p-roc, etc). The updates look great. I agree that sometimes the pages here can be a little slow, but nobody beats the download speeds. Don’t know where those files are hosted, but but man… zippy!
-Mike
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
on the subject supporting
personally i don’t “support” anyone but myself… when I do any of this stuff, I do it for me, then if its worth sharing I put it out there…
some people wont share on other sites
some reasons are:
they dislike the owner
they dislike the ethics
they don’t like the local community
they have some allegiance to another site
and so on….I feel I have a personal connection here at Vpinball, first because of it mission statement and why it was started in the first place (and the best reason of all)
and again I love this community of vpinball weirdos
I also contribute here because of those same reasons
but i also contribute other places because, well fuck if i’m sharing why not share where most of the world gets their crap fromBUT im, WAY and I mean WAY to lazy to share on all the sites, JP said it best, who the hell would want to have to monitor EVERY upload at 5 different sites… not me
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
about the slowness?… its feels no slower than any other pin site… 10-15sec?…. is that a guesstimate? you know how long 10-15?.. thats long…
I would move on if any site took that long… maybe somehow Randr has me set to some super trunking stream so it loads faster… (thanks randr)
so… yeah… its not that slow.. stop it…lolalso no one here is trying to hurt peoples feeling… and no one could ever deny VPU’s major contributions to the hobby
but there will NEVER be one place that does it all, or has it all, each place has its function… there will NEVER be a one stop shop for all your VP needs
no super site, no costco of the VP world, no super walmart… its always going to be mom and pop shops… doling out what they do best, at the siteYou need to login in order to like this post: click here
Haunt is correct. wait did i say that? lol
like i said i love all the sites but vpf and vpu charge to download a free file and i just dont see how people can upload to a site charging for a file that is free.
********************************************************
Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
********************************************************
Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
hey if people want to charge a fee for upgraded services thats fine…
but to make the lowest tear (Free) so unappealing that even free isn’t worth it
thats going out of a sites way to say pay or get lostYou need to login in order to like this post: click here
I visit
allmost of the sites, readallmost of the stuffs, can’t get enough of VP (a little OCD here).
The one thing I really would like to see this community do is figure out how to get the VP development onto their own independent space. Doesn’t belong on vpf, doesn’t belong on vpu, doesn’t belong here, nor irpinball or roguepinball or monsterbashpincab or anywhere else. Needs it’s own space that isn’t trying to sell you something or push an agenda or anything else, just a place to talk about, add to, fix and continue to develop VP as the best damn pinball simulator out there!
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Borgdog thats correct! totally agree
********************************************************
Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
********************************************************
Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
I visit
allmost of the sites, readallmost of the stuffs, can’t get enough of VP (a little OCD here).
The one thing I really would like to see this community do is figure out how to get the VP development onto their own independent space. Doesn’t belong on vpf, doesn’t belong on vpu, doesn’t belong here, nor irpinball or roguepinball or monsterbashpincab or anywhere else. Needs it’s own space that isn’t trying to sell you something or push an agenda or anything else, just a place to talk about, add to, fix and continue to develop VP as the best damn pinball simulator out there!
I would like to expand on that thought….
VP VPM DOF B2S anything that has anything to do with the backbone on its own site…
and content everywhere elseYou need to login in order to like this post: click here
Forums are currently locked.
