Well, a thread like this, and a discussion like this, was bound to occur eventually.

I'm as guilty as anyone else of not visiting or posting here often enough.  Times change and life changes.

The point was made that many people joined up with this when they were teenagers and a little older, but now, 10+ years down the road, a lot of the originals have just simply "aged out" in terms of having time in life to focus so consistenly on something like this.  I'm not an orignal, but my life has certainly changed a lot since I joined up with this forum.

Are the discussions at Nintendo Age really any different?  Or anywhere else for that matter?  Or is it just another generation "re-discovering" all this information about the NES?  Is it a "referesh" without really changing anything?

I don't think NA or anywhere else is really "stealing" that many members from NESWorld.  It's just a generational thing, IMHO.

I don't know what that means for NESWorld.  Personally, I would like to see it keep going.  Martin has done a hell of a job all these years and it would be a shame to close it all just because the board is slowing down.  It's an incredible resource and a great starting point for collectors, techies, and general knowledge.

I think that NESWorld is a noble enterprise dedicated to the historical preservation of one of the most influential gaming machines of all time.

This includes collecting cartridges. However, I agree with those who say collecting just to "have" something is shameful.  If you're going to spend 500 bucks to buy a proto, do a writeup about it or something that advances the community a little bit.  Don't just buy to have.

It's about learning.  That's what it has always been about and what's made NESWorld so great for so many years. 

Turn a research effort that is NES discussion into baseball card collecting and you'll watch it fail before your eyes.  If you think I might be implying something, yes ALL sites should reconsider encouraging game hoarding.

I think JC said it best when he said that we're somehow losing the spirit of discovery.  The field has been cheapened a little bit, somehow.

Don't know how to get it back or if it can be gotten back.  But I'll visit this site as long as it exists. 

Spirit of Discovery, forever.

I still stop in here from time to time.  The main reason my posting has gone down is I've been focusing my collecting and so forth on the SMS.  I like both systems, but the history of the SMS doesn't get as much attention as the NES, so I've been doing a bunch of interviews as well as learning how to program for it (writing a tutorial, by the way), which takes forever because, strangely, the system has very little support in this regard.  I've also found the community there is a lot cooler.  I like NA and all, but I feel certain aspects of it have somewhat ruined what the community used to be.  I mainly post there to annoy people, get stuff I need (like maps, etc.) and to promote my comic.  They let me do it for the magazine so that's cool.  There are good people there, but yeah, there is something about it that's hard to explain unless you've been around awhile.

The obvious thing though, is that, like it or not, NA took most of the members from here.  Martin makes the point when he says it 'happened over night.'  Yeah, let's figure that one out.  If forum usage slows down, it doesn't happen that fast.  Any of us who frequent forums or spend time helping as moderators/administrators know that.  I've had a lot to do, granted, but I prefer here now because it seems most of the bullshit has gone over there.  I will say, for some strange reason, buying items from other users over there seems better.  I noticed a surge of more items over there and took advantage of that, but then again I'm still just playing for fun, not collecting really though I do like that.

One complaint that I do have with this site is that there isn't enough updating.  Martin writes awesome articles, and sadly they're overlooked a lot, but the site itself could use some work.  I, in fact, suggested to him in PM a user review of games section but he never responded.  I even offered to help with the code writing.  I see it looks like a section was added, unless I missed it before, but there's nothing there yet.  I think the main problem is that Martin is doing all the work, but he doesn't seem to ask or want anyone else to help.  Just a thought.  I know one of the reasons SMStributes gets so much activity is we have like 4-5 people who can access the admin section and update the site with whatever they want and fix things whenever they can.  If we left Andy to do it little would get done because he's been REALLY busy recently.

What is the coding done in, PHP?  I can navigate around that easy if you need any help.  I've been doing it for awhile now.  And with assembly slowly kicking in, my brain has become computerized...