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The Meager Attempt by Turkagent (a.k.a. Rob)
Well before I begin...if you read this Koopabrat sorry about the RP. But I was kinda challenged and I can’t pass up a good challenge.
First I will start off by talking about Neoseeker and general and go down and refine each of its positive and negative points (lets not hide anything here). Neoseeker, as stated quite eloquently by Slacker, is more then just a site for hardware and supplies(although you should not demean this aspect of it). It is also a community where people get together and social with each other and get to know each other. As some of us are aware, Neoseeker has gone through good times, and bad times. We have gone through the Auctions, Neo awards and a lot of intriguing things but this is more about Neoseeker as an whole, and not just the little day to week threads that pass through Neoseeker with hardly more then half of the populations attention. There are so many aspects to Neoseeker, which the general population doesn’t give a damn about much less, know about.
Neoseeker is not only a group of forums made solely for the amusement and safety of the general masses (meaning those of you whom read this post). It is that and more. It also gives review for hardware and helps you find to buy anything from computer hardware to DVDs. If you have some free time I suggest you go do that immediately. Neoseeker has some very interesting aspects that, unless you actually take time to explore, you will never find and enjoy. It has so many great opportunities to save you money, you are basically throwing money out of the window if you don’t visit that portion of the website. But enough of it as, most of you, probably want to here my opinion(or don’t want to, whichever works) of the actual forum features of this great site so here I go.
First off is the forum search function. Most people don’t use this but there is a search function called forum search in which you can look for specific forums that you wish to look at. You just go to the appropriate place and type in the words that you believe are in the title and press search. Pressing it will jump you to the searching screen. Here, the forums that are available will start to pop up underneath and you can find what you are looking for. While this may seem to a few a longeited process, it makes things ten times easier. I have used it countless times and it has helped me a lot. I have found a lot of help, tips, and reviews for games I was wondering about, merely because I decided to use the seldom-used function. The other search function that comes to mind is the thread search function. While it is important and useful, the other search function of Neoseeker is…. well to say it bluntly………messed up. While you can occasionally find a good thread or two, most of the time you find yourself searching for a thread and trying to remember how long ago that thread was made. This would probably be the majority of the bad points of Neoseeker all in all. I will admit however that recently I found a thread I was looking for in Loungin, using the search function just today. Several of my neofreinds have also found a few threads. However the majority of the search attempts end in failure, which has angered quite a few people at times, myself included.
So there we have discussed the search features. Lets now talk about the “terrible” attack of killer pop-ups. Everyone complains about the constant rate of these pop-ups on Neoseeker, yet I see little to no problem with these “annoyances”. As I travel around Neoseeker (which is a lot of the time) I seldom get these “pests” that I hear complaints about. I might get one a day or so at the absolute most. When you compare one a day to the other message boards, you should feel damn lucky that Neoseeker is here. Other boards I have visited get about 5 pop-ups every time you click on an new thread. Cheery thought that would be, getting maybe 100+ pop-ups a day just going through your usual neo-routine. Think about that next time you feel like complaining about pop-ups. Also I think it is much, much, MUCH better then spending five to ten dollars a month for Neoseeker. Don’t get me wrong, I love Neoseeker so much I would pay for it, but I really don’t want to go to the point of paying for it if a few pesky pop-ups will make it possible for no monthly fee.
Moving right on along, lets move to the format of Neoseeker. Personally I love the way Neoseeker presents itself. I mean out of all the all sites similar to Neoseeker, not one of them has presented itself in such a great demeanor. You start from the home page at www.neoseeker.com. I mean when you go there you automatically understand what Neoseeker is all about. The front page is covered in their abilities and what they do. Very professional, in my opinion. And they even show you a little feature at the top called Forums. I mean, I love it. Once you click there they show you a list of forums categories based on gaming groups/categories. Very nice and neat all stacked up, and they even show you the users browsing. Nice feature there. Then when you click on of the platforms they take you to even more categories. If you go to a game platform, they take you to the major divisions within the system. Usually they are RPG/Adventure, Action/Shooters, Stragedy, and Simulation. They can be different however so these are not entirely accurate. When you go there you find the individual forums for each game that is out. And while many people have thought of this site as being an American/Canada organization based solely on games and hardware that is not true at all. Because this site not only has games realized in the US/Canada, they also have imports from other countries that have never tasted English verbage or other nuisances. So in these categories (such as RPG for instance) you will find games such as Inyuyasha RPG. On it you will find the tag, Import on the end of it. This means it never game to America. There are several places where this is the case. Now on to the individual form format of each forum. It is very nicely organized in my opinion. If the particular forum has an moderator(or moderators) then near the top right you will see a neo-screen name in blue indicating there name, which you can click on for immediate help. Somewhere near the name(s) of the moderator(s) you will see a box. If the game is already out in some country then the box will be filled with some symbolism of the certain game. If it is not yet released then instead of a figurehead of the game, instead you will see a box with the words, “No Product Image”. This does not mean that Neoseeker is a bit slow in getting the image up. It does however mean that they don’t have the image up because no one else does. So don’t come to the conclusion that Neoseeker is slow or incompetent. Now lets move onto the thread format. The threads are each organized according to whether or not they are sticky. Each thread can be made sticky by some form of an moderator. They make it “sticky” and basically cause it to rise to the top of the screen. This is usually reserved for important threads, but it is up to the discretion and good judgment of the moderators whether or not to sticky them. Other then date each thread is organized according to the last reply. When you reply to it, this causes it to be bumped up to the top, letting others know that someone has replied. Now lets go in depth to the threads. Inside each thread there is a multitude of options for each individual thread. First off there is start a new thread, which is used to start a new topic of discussion within the given forum. Next there is reply to the post, which is located right next to start new thread. With this option you are replying to the thread and giving you input, opinion, or knowledge. When you are posting you can also chose to press the quote of someone and it lets you go automatically to replying to the given thread. The subtle difference between the two of them is that when pressing quote, on a person post, it will make it so that when you post their text is highlighted in a white box. This helps indicate that you are talking about what they said. Very useful tool that some message boards don’t include. . Also there is another tool which some terrible message boards do not have. Edit. When you mess up your post due to meaningless garage, grammar issues, or misunderstandings you really want to edit your post. With Neoseeker you can easily do this. You just go to your post with mistakes and press the edit button. Then you just fix the mistakes and voila. All people will see is a tag saying you had made an edit. Very beautiful technique to use. Never leave neo without it. On to the other format features of Neoseeker. Near the top of the forum you will see several links. They are Pro Reviews, User Reviews, Cheats, FAQ/Guides, Profile, and Screens. These are all quick refrences for very important features of each game. The profile, as the word means, is a overall description of the game. It shows a screenshot usually, recent updates submitted by users, and it gives it ranks and its given categories. Screens of coarse means screenshots, which are usually submitted by various users. They are photos of the game. FAQ/Guides are self-explanatory. They give you help on the game. These can range anywhere from Frequently Asked Questions, to descriptions on how to beat the final boss, to a description on how to be the entire game start to finish. These are often submitted by Neoseekers (the people who make up the Neoseeker community), although non-members submit some occasionally. Next there are pro reviews. Those are reviews that are made by offical sites and that Neoseeker has permission to use. This is another beautiful feature because members whom are looking for very detailed information can go there and find out all the information they would want to think about before buying this game. Finally there is the user reviews. These are reviews that are submitted by the users of Neoseeker and they are usually not as detailed as the other official sites. However, it is very good for people looking to buy a game. They just go to a review and they can get the summary from someone who has played the game. Its really cool, in my opinion. I’ve seen many people buy games, and participate in forums merely because this option was available. This nice feature, that looks cool, has enriched many forums with members overtime and is one major benefit of Neoseeker.
Phew there is my thoughts about the look of Neoseeker. Now lets move onto other things. I hear a lot of bull about the bad connection from people. But personally I don’t really find it that bad. I mean I can usally surf Neoseeker with relative ease. And the occasional breakdown of Neoseeker is bearable to me. I just talk with other Neoseekers on MSN/AIM. I mean really, the administrators do their best and the occasional bump along the road is bearable. In effect what I am saying is that while you may whine about the occasional slow down, there is no way on earth that its worth leaving Neoseeker over. Sometimes you may get an occasional database error but that is most often when the administration is trying to update Neoseeker or fix some error of Neoseeker so it’s not too bad. Also I’ve talked to plenty of people with poor connections(I have cable personally) and they have little errors so I think mostly people are complaining to complain.
Now lets talk about the actual forums themselves. I’ve talked about the features of the forums but not about the multitude of uses these wonderful boards have. While this site is mostly about games and hardware it has so many other uses that you almost get mindboggled. We have an anime forum for those who love anime such as DBZ, Cowboy Bebop, Gundam, and other great anime. We even have a few sub forums for a few great anime. We have a TV/Movies forum to talk about movies, televisions shows, sitcoms, and even the Simpson’s. But the list continues on and on. We have a graphics and animation forum so that we can discuss how to make banners and graphics of all types. People here actually show the level of commitment that we should all have on Neoseeker by making banners and avatars. We also have a writer’s lounge. Here we can talk about our own writing and discuss ways to become better. There are poems, whose authors such as Aprilakitty, Lord of Shadows, and even me, attempt to show their self in their art. And also we have stories that are so very long and detailed their that it surprised even me. Yet the diversity of Neoseeker doesn’t even start to stop there. We also have role playing forum(which is a very nice forum). There we can well…….role play. . It very fun to do and many people enjoy this option. Here we write many stories with other people that appear as long as this post sometimes. And there is more. Misc games, classic Games, even computer help forums. This list is always expanding creatly. I mean even now we are putting forth a suggestion for a Food/Cooking forum so that people can discuss that sort of stuff. I mean with the Neoseeker community growing and evolving so much this site has endless possibilities and ideas. The site of Neoseeker can never actually die.
Ah there we go. Now we are on to another long part. The actual individuals of Neoseeker which provide both a negative and positive effect on this site. The effort they put in the site and my opinion on the community we have. Neoseeker forums is in essence and interracial community of people ideas clashing, combing, and intertwine to make one of the most wonderful diverse sites I have every seen. This isn’t a flatter attempt to make me look better in the eyes of higher ups. In every site I have gone to, never before have I seen people from Europe, America, Canada, and Japan mix and mingle. It has always been maybe one or two country thing but yet we here are racially mixed bring our own societies views, beliefs, ideals, and ideas. As we talk with each other we share our beliefs causing each others culture to change and gradually we let our self’s become aware of the fact that our differences our not as great as we think. With that deep thought in mind I will move on to the pros and cons of our community. Our community is always tempered with bad, good, and in-between members. The bad members are known as spammers, flamers, hypocrites and other such delightful names. The good members are known as helpful people, members, a nice person and so on. But what really defines our communities ideals of good and bad members? We have members who daily do nothing but spam the forums like to frequent and come on Neoseeker solely to harass the moderators of this forum and provide themselves entertainment. However to judge the majority based on the few is a mistake which non of us should make. For there are many whom come on Neoseeker to help others with their needs in gaming, or the feeling of belonging. Some of us actually go around the forums and try to look for threads to help out members who are in need of help and go around trying to solve peoples problems. Also there are those who go around and start meaningful discussions that intrest people and make Neoseekers stay aboard. They make meanful conversation and that helps people further in their devlopment. There is unforuntaley the spammers that I mentioned earlier. They find joy in their deliberations of spam and flame. They bother other postive members of our society and are often making some leave Neoseeker for good. While this may be true, this is where our other great benifiters of Neoseeker come in. They are moderators of all sorts. They moderate forums for two purposes in my mind. One is to manage the forum so spamming doesn’t burst out of control and ruin the forum and cause it to make other members leave. The other reason is to control those heathens whom want to take their time out of their day to harass the good members of Neoseeker. Many moderators are flamed themselves for this and this causes backlash of flamers being banned oftentimes. To summarize this up I would say that the more helpful members are those who go around and help other people with their problems and concerns. And then there is more of the helpfulness of members. Before I mentioned how their were user reviews(still is by the way). Well these user reviews were surprisingly made by the users of Neoseeker! They play the games they like and often times go and submit semi-detailed user reviews of their opinions of what is good and bad about the game. This way people can see whether or not they want to buy the game so those of you who say user reviews are for idiots guess again! It really helps so please summit your good user reviews for games. Also we have a great number of helpful members actually spending their daily time and effort trying to make guides. To all these members I say good job spending a great deal of your time making guides. They are the truly committed and deserve applause for their effort. Finally we have the members who help out moderators. They go around and when someone flames a forum they don’t automatically post and say don’t do that again. They actually take the time to PM the moderator or at least report the post. That is helpful.
And now for the proof of the good of Neoseeker. I will proof to all the doubters of this wonderful site that Neoseekers is indeed a benfinicial community of the world. When I came to this site I knew about nothing of computers. I could turn it on. I could install and play computer games. I knew how to hook up the internet. Other then that I knew nothing absolutely about computers. Yet after a year and about 2 or 3 months I know a crap load more then I did before. I know what happens when you set your settings to high or low in your internet options. I found out exactly what cookies were. I found out what a proxy was in whole. I even found out how computer hackers do their thing and certain safeguards against them. If not coming to Neoseeker I would of never been able to defend myself against the Trojan virus that seems to affect us all. In addition I also learned about hosting pictures on the internet. If I had never come to Neoseeker I would of never ever even thought about hosting and spent the rest of my life picking up the pieces of the computer I just broke because it wouldn’t load my image. That I am very thankful for learning. So many things I have benefited from this site in. My grammar improved three fold. If I hadn’t been posting so much I would of never learned how to spell so many words. This in essence actually will help me slightly when looking for a job, because how many people will hire you when you spell every other word wrong? Also this site has taught me to listen to other people and let them voice their opinions instead of drowning them out. That is very helpful when dealing with people. This site has been so very beneficial to my everyday life that it almost never ends. While I am not addicted as some it does help me. On to the all consuming neofreinds. Before coming to Neoseeker I had only friends in my school. Never with people living in the next state or country. Yet now I have made friends with people from Texas, Colorado, Minnesota, even California. Their opinions are important to me and I value them as friends. Like I said before now I only had friends in school….now I am basically on AIM/MSN alert 24/7 almost never getting a chance to do something if I let the computer take up my entire time. But that doesn’t bother me too much. This site is so very helpful for me that it cant help but help hundreds if not thousands of people. Finally last thing I will say in this paragraph is that with the Neoseeker experiment of Rob has worked out. It has in essence made me slightly more serious then I was before.
Now for the grand summary of Neoseeker. Neoseeker is a great site which has beniftied a lot of people in daily life, gaming life and hardware life. Each day it lives on it adds more reviews, guides, hardware reviews, and more members to its inventory. Currently it has a steady growth of members and it around 64,000 at my last count. The post count is nearing 2 million as this sites continues to grow and improve over time. This site is probally without a doubt my favorite site on the internet. When I joined Neoseeker on Feburary 15th, 2002 I never in my wildest dreams imagined that a year from then I would still be here posting, having fun talking with neofreinds and participating in this community. Nor did I have the slightest inclination that I would still be having fun here and would actually make a guide for it. In effect I would have to blame(or rather thank) Neoseeker for the guide I made for Dark Cloud 2(Dark Chronicle to some). If it were not for the continuous posting of help needs I would of never dreamed of taking weeks to make guide which only a few hundred people would actually ever read or use. Nor did I dream that I would do 30 or so reviews or have so many neofreinds. And never ever did I dream that I would stay long enough to post 2000 posts. I thought that slowly I would grow tired of this site, as I do of most message boards, and would leave this community. Never did I dream that I would stay long enough to be a moderator or even a helpful member of Neoseeker. Last thing to say here is that Neoseeker is without an doubt the most helpful, useful, and user friendly site on the internet. Even if I wasn’t a mod, I would still stay here just for the friendship and gamer information that flows through this website.
Phew, with that emotional spew out the way lets get down to the grade I give this monster of a website. It’s the most informative site for all the game systems being sold as of right now. New information flows freely in this site everyday from users 24/7 and this helps add to the appeal of this site. The friendship at this site is very nice to be here but I don’t think I will compute that in or we would have a score of 13 out 10. The game forums always have be striving to help people each and every day and few questions get unanswered by people. The more I talk about it makes me realize how dedicated to this site(or how addicted take your pick) I am truly am. Nothing beats this site really. If we were to only have an food and cooking forum this website would be even more unstoppable. It is such an intriguing, well formatted site. Barely any irrating pop-ups irate you unlike other sites. That alone puts its score way up there. Users constantly are submitting guides, faq’s, reviews…….i don’t know what else to say. Except this site gets very very high marks. I would have to give it an 9.90.
The reasoning I have described above. If it had a food/cooking forum everything would be perfect. But you cant have everything(I hope it will come into effect soon through). I would like to personally thank all the helpful members and moderators who made this a friendly enviroment as a newbie. You probally helped me stay by making sure this was a fun site to be at and stay. I will always be grateful for that. Neoseeker is probally never going to die besides those who constantly say you should have been here in 2001 and so on. It doesn’t matter. I’m here now and not going to leave(especially after writing this much just now). After all the time I spent on the site it would be like leaving something of me behind.
Special Considerations go out to all the moderators whom helped my along the way, all the members who make this site a good place to be, all the supers and U/C who police the forums doing their stuff. And lastly I would like to thank my friends on Neoseeker for being around to talk to and complain to. Oh wait one more person. Thank you Slacker for actually daring me to take up your challenge and beat your review. It took a while, and now hours and hours later I see what you mean. A lot of hard work but at least I gave a good honest review about this great site. Well in case anyone is wonder this post is approximately 7 ľ pages so I think its time to copy, paste and post. If anyone actually reads this…. congratulations…I didn’t think you would.
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