Why does it feel like Habbox is dying out?

[-:Undertaker:-]

I repeat this isn't an attack on older members without whom, including yourself, we'd be at a loss over the many years. It's a strength of Habbox that so many of us older members and us who have served in management throughout a decade stick around. When departments or Habbox have fallen on hard times, we've dutifully stepped back in and volunteered.

But just because we were running it back in 2006 doesn't mean we're suited to still be running it in 2017.

i'm a little confused how people who barely go on habbo are able to make a justification on who plays the game or not???

If you're working full time and busy with a house... as you've said in your very own words throughout this thread. If you've got time to run the forum and play the game then I stand corrected - but can't then turn around when fundamental things aren't being done and questions are being asked why and claim you haven't got the time or are too busy with real life. It's one or the other.

That's why I said - as much as older users such as yourself, myself in the past and others hanging around and helping is very kind and loyal, it is time to hand over day-to-day running and all staff appointments to younger players: that's both for our own benefit and that of the website. When basic things other websites don't struggle with (new skins, new users) are taking us years to not achieve then there's something very wrong somewhere isn't there.

I offered to pay for new skins and even then it couldn't be organised.

I actually enjoy playing Habbo - might not be interested so much in hosting events or DJing but I'm often reading around forums there, doing little builds in diff rooms, I'm on almost every day even though I do see myself as more of a "figurehead" and general manager than getting into the nitty gritty, but loads of our managers and seniors play habbo properly on a regular basis? We also have quite a few younger people in staff who are pretty active as well but just don't post on the forum cos I will always maintain that utilising a forum is something that has gone out of fashion as technology gets more advanced and the new users don't bother with the older stuff!

Other forums seem to have plenty of posts from younger users.

When you say they're active, I wonder what active actually means. Does active mean coming on for the job? Does active mean coming on and chatting in a quiet room to other older members? If so, then I guess you could say I am sometimes 'active' when I come on. But the reality is, compared to myself in the past when I owned a popular trading room, had numerous contacts throughout the hotel and was a community figure - I am no longer active in the slightest. And it's them kind of people you need to run places like this.

One reason I have always thought that Habbox seizes up and is so slow or unable to do basic things is because by the time people got into Management and especially General Management they had lost interest or were too old. Truly active, younger members should be doing all of this and the rest of us wise elder folk should be the ornaments on the forum.

[FlyingJesus]

utilising a forum is something that has gone out of fashion as technology gets more advanced and the new users don't bother with the older stuff!

This is definitely a major issue - one of the criterion for gaining points in my payment system is for X amount of posts and I've only had to add points on for that like 5 times in however many months I've been in charge. We try to push for the "community" to gel together but there's a huge huge huge divide because we not only have so many younger/newer folk who use the hotel but don't use the forum (and so don't always know what's what) but because we also have a split between the forum and our own homepage, which confuses things massively for new users. I know it's not something that can be done at the flick of a switch but integration of forum and site accounts as well as having the forum run through the homepage as a few other sites do would make it a lot smoother in the long run

[lawrawrrr]

I repeat this isn't an attack on older members without whom, including yourself, we'd be at a loss over the many years. It's a strength of Habbox that so many of us older members and us who have served in management throughout a decade stick around. When departments or Habbox have fallen on hard times, we've dutifully stepped back in and volunteered.

But just because we were running it back in 2006 doesn't mean we're suited to still be running it in 2017.



If you're working full time and busy with a house... as you've said in your very own words throughout this thread. If you've got time to run the forum and play the game then I stand corrected - but can't then turn around when fundamental things aren't being done and questions are being asked why and claim you haven't got the time or are too busy with real life. It's one or the other.

That's why I said - as much as older users such as yourself, myself in the past and others hanging around and helping is very kind and loyal, it is time to hand over day-to-day running and all staff appointments to younger players: that's both for our own benefit and that of the website. When basic things other websites don't struggle with (new skins, new users) are taking us years to not achieve then there's something very wrong somewhere isn't there.

I offered to pay for new skins and even then it couldn't be organised.



Other forums seem to have plenty of posts from younger users.

When you say they're active, I wonder what active actually means. Does active mean coming on for the job? Does active mean coming on and chatting in a quiet room to other older members? If so, then I guess you could say I am sometimes 'active' when I come on. But the reality is, compared to myself in the past when I owned a popular trading room, had numerous contacts throughout the hotel and was a community figure - I am no longer active in the slightest. And it's them kind of people you need to run places like this.

One reason I have always thought that Habbox seizes up and is so slow or unable to do basic things is because by the time people got into Management and especially General Management they had lost interest or were too old. Truly active, younger members should be doing all of this and the rest of us wise elder folk should be the ornaments on the forum.

On my phone now so just replying to one bit - the skins - as I told you, we found someone to code but then we priortised a new site which I was initially under the impression would happen a lot quicker than it has done. Then I worked on RV, same story. I genuinely have been doing a lot of work on all those projects so I don't think it's fair to say oh you don't have time you're so busy irl etc cos I don't have much if any of a social life so I spend that time on Habbox - I've been trying hard to make things happen but I can't physically code, I can't host 24/7 events, I can't dj much, just a few examples so we are reliant on people working together and it just seems like we have so few people and struggle to get those people to work for things.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dbgtz]

I'll just chime in quickly as an RV defence. I'd say Laura does what she can (plus more tbh) but it's down to a combination of many things that's taking it as long as it has and I wouldn't really put it down to her. Tbh I haven't read it all apart from the big I was tagged in roughly.

[scottish]

Just skimmed the last few posts, what always seems to come about from posts like these is 'we need more younger people / give management to younger people, etc' but you realise we need younger people to give them management yeah?

You can't just promote younger people into manager roles or AGM etc if they don't exist and take part in the website lol

[lawrawrrr]

We actually do have some younger managers ATM (also tommy is around that age remember) who are doing fab work (@madison442; - articles manager sorry I can't remember your exact username!!! who is a great example). The younger people we get tend to leave much quicker though - for promotions elsewhere, cos of exams, cos of school stress, in my experiences!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[abc]

This thread has come up every few months for the last several years. Habbo is dying and so is Habbox with it. Several years ago when I was on here regularly, management were stubborn, felt powerful (pathetic considering it is just an online forum) and refused to listen to user ideas. For some reason, whatever the management did try, it failed. Habbox used to be popular back in the day due to Rare Values, help desks etc which are no longer required. These attracted people to the site, which led people to go on the forum.

[nat965]

This is definitely a major issue - one of the criterion for gaining points in my payment system is for X amount of posts and I've only had to add points on for that like 5 times in however many months I've been in charge. We try to push for the "community" to gel together but there's a huge huge huge divide because we not only have so many younger/newer folk who use the hotel but don't use the forum (and so don't always know what's what) but because we also have a split between the forum and our own homepage, which confuses things massively for new users.

A little off topic, but whatever.

I will use what I call the disco analogy here and think that it fits well.

Years ago, in the days of vinyl, a mate of my dad's ran a successful mobile disco, did wedding receptions, surprise birthday parties etc. He used to go and help with the equipment. He watched and learned how he would find the right song to get everyone on the dance floor. So the next thing was what? To keep them there, so he would need to find the next song and the next one and so on, to retain interest.

Same with forums. Once a member creates a first topic then the existing members must encourage that as best they can and once the other members do, they can be encouraged to think - 'hey, that wasn't so bad' and begin creating their own.

I think it's called the cold water syndrome - a new member might fear posting a first topic... "What if no-one pays any attention to it?" etc - scared to put their feet in the cold water.

But, in saying that I can see it being confusing to younger members with the modern technology like Facebook and the integration of the forum and site into one.

[Kyle]

There are 16 managers and it doesn't look at a glance like any are making much of an impact. The fact that u can't even name your articles manager is telling of how distant the departments are from one another and how little they must band together on the game itself. Everybody should know everybody in a small community like this.

stop pushing 'community' as being involved in the forum and build the community in the hotel first. People go to games like this because of its uniqueness and the opportunity to express themselves in a variety of ways and so if they don't sign up to the forum and get involved with discussions it's not a great loss - they will probably sign up eventually and ease into posting if they can but we're probably drawn here by something else. The majority of old members here identified with habbox originally because of the rare values, and most would chat in the help desk or events rather than on the forum until much later. Yes reward people for posting but offer much lower thresholds. I had a look at the new rewards system and people have to make 20 threads or 100 posts in a week to get a point? What the **** guys? Might be worth analysing and rethinking this one? An incentive or a reward is supposed to actually make people do things, not be a byproduct of an activity spike.

age of current members is not relevant if you create events that appeal to other demographics. This is not about current members falling away and is about the failure to attract newer ones. Prizes for events are not in line with current economy and as the former leader in that field this is really embarrassing for habbox. even the type of things you guys seem to still host is laughable. Giveaways for radio listeners? What year is it? Very young people go to giveaways and very young people do not play the game as frequently as teens so won't stick around. plumping up your stats is not indicative of any actual engagement.

use your staff members and pool your resources to get anybody active on the game helping out and making it a nice atmosphere. You do not need a recruitment specialist you need to offer entertainment for users and cater to them just a bit better. You need to listen when concerns are raised and take on negative feedback as constructive criticism.

Habbox is dated and management seemingly are out of touch with what works and who they're selling to. props to everyone that puts time into the site and it's community tho keep going and u might be able to fix this.

[Jurv]

Because I'm not active anymore