At 12/29/17 08:56 PM, Saminat wrote: Also @phantomarcade I'm really proud of the contributions and hard work you've shown this year, keep it up buddy, and thank you!

We're on our way to a bigger and better Newgrounds than ever before! So enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts, because once NG takes off again it's gonna go higher than ever before.

Though technically we're already on a bigger and better NG since new stuff is being added constantly both in features and content, so YEAH. NEO-GROUNDS IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE

At 12/29/17 11:02 AM, Djjaner wrote: First

this website is old

I hope Newgrounds never dies, it’s always refreshing to see new artists and their content flourish. I’m hoping that the numbers will increase of users and supporters rather than lurkers. I know the website is already mobile user friendly but is there any plan for a solid mobile app in the future? Or is there no need for that?

Can’t wait to see what lies ahead in 2018!

At 12/29/17 11:07 AM, DoctorStrongbad wrote:

At 12/29/17 11:02 AM, Djjaner wrote: First

Anybody could be first. lol

2017 was a rough year for me, but I made it.

Brothers in arms, dude. 2017 was some brutal shit for me too.

Happy New Year y'all

Refresh my memory: what's better, the one-time $25 for a yearly membership or the recurring PayPal donation? Also, do I still get the supporter privileges with the latter?

At 12/30/17 12:18 AM, Wardsmith wrote:

At 12/29/17 11:07 AM, DoctorStrongbad wrote:
2017 was a rough year for me, but I made it.

Brothers in arms, dude. 2017 was some brutal shit for me too.

What brutal things happened to you in 2017?

To Kill Any THOTS

https://youtu.be/UJfnB_OLyy4

Yea, the 2017 was difficult for me, but future seems even more unstable for now. However, NG is always giving me a real dose of good emotions, so - once again happy holidays to everyone and long live NG!

I could not agree more. What bad things happened to you in 2017?

Most of the time, my ears bleeded.

4 major terror attacks where I live.

My sister got mugged. (it was here phone she lost, and her purse)

The party I voted for this year in the general election lost.

Mother is in a financial crisis.

I joined Newgrounds. (just kidding)

one can only hope for less shitty year.
I like the unique look of the frontpage, it's compact without being over clutter.
The more i need to pagedown the less attractive it is.

limit total audio sumbit per year or period might prevent spam.
Having auto playlist button on frontpage for feature movies and pbot-daily would be nice. Rarely click on recommend vid afterward.
Timestamp on thumbnail, vid player play nicer w/ keyboard during playback, double click to fullscreen would be nice.
i doubt being on cartoon related podcast like rebeltaxi's would gain some traction, most reaction viewed 'NG is still a thing?'
Collab is fun and beginner friendly. Seems more popular in hyun dojo, and often posted on their yt channel and quiet popular too for its niche community.
W/ the transition to mostly mp4 movies, I hope storage won't become a burden.

Used to play games, but stopped.
land of lustrous 10/10, reddit is interesting, and wish newgrounds stays afloat.

It's over already? It feels like 2017 barely started for me.

At 12/29/17 10:14 PM, MagniusGaia wrote: I hope Newgrounds never dies, it’s always refreshing to see new artists and their content flourish. I’m hoping that the numbers will increase of users and supporters rather than lurkers. I know the website is already mobile user friendly but is there any plan for a solid mobile app in the future? Or is there no need for that?

The plan has been to tackle an app once the layout has completed the transition to being mobile friendly, although in an ideal world people wouldn't need walled gardens (app stores) to access their favorite stuff and could just do it all in a web browser. Have also been eyeballing progressive web apps and wondering what NG could pull off in that space.

At 12/30/17 01:07 AM, RydiaLockheart wrote: Refresh my memory: what's better, the one-time $25 for a yearly membership or the recurring PayPal donation? Also, do I still get the supporter privileges with the latter?

I like the monthly $3 commitment because it gives us a consistent budget and people will hopefully stick around long-term. You still get all the same supporter perks but with monthly you don't get the annual badge until you've been a supporter for 12 months.

At 12/29/17 03:34 PM, IvanAlmighty wrote:

Hopeful for more screenings, just gotta decide how big of an event it should be and if there could be enough for people to make the trip for beyond a theater screening. Could just keep it low key for now though. We need to grab a drink soon too.

if only the newgrounds office had like a large downstairs space that nobody uses for anything and play movies on a giant screen.

At 12/30/17 10:21 AM, Luis wrote:

At 12/29/17 03:34 PM, IvanAlmighty wrote:

Hopeful for more screenings, just gotta decide how big of an event it should be and if there could be enough for people to make the trip for beyond a theater screening. Could just keep it low key for now though. We need to grab a drink soon too.

if only the newgrounds office had like a large downstairs space that nobody uses for anything and play movies on a giant screen.

The Jazza meet up was done like that and it never spread upstairs or had leftovers, plus there’s the bonus of streaming it.

Really awesome year. And I finally found a reason to jump in on creator action again (20th Anniversary Audio Drama).

I think NG could do with a Graphic/Web comics section as an off-shoot of the Art-Portal or something. Right now, I don't think the thumbnail system really pimps webcomics the way they could but the bigger point I want to make is that especially with NG's atmosphere of collaboration, I think it would be super interesting to eventually see panel-by-panel webcomic collabs happening on the BBS. I bet you guys have considered this idea well before my bringing it up, but still....
One of the big parts of Newgrounds' system is the evolution of viewer to creator (that's how it happened for me), and comics are a great stepping stone to animation/video (while of course being its own thing).

What if instead of a front page, y'all just had a crossbar of "interests", which would then in frame load a category like movies of games with the thumbnails of featured content? However, I always think artist and website news should be in view.

I think the angle I'm going for here is minimizing scrolling because... I just don't like doing it.

Mm ... every year seems like a missed opportunity.

And I say the same thing every year. Newgrounds doesn't have any way to monetize content in a significant way.

This is the biggest problem, but it seems to get the least amount of attention.

I know Google ads doesn't like NG and whatever. I think that paying people for referring NG subscriptions is an okay idea, but it would be easier to just get more creators subscribing if they had more money from their creations hosted on NG.

Having a NG membership doesn't have significant benefits and is a hard sell for outsiders. This has to be fixed in order to get new users and covert current users besides the early adopters.

NG could sell downloadable games as an affiliate through BMT Micro or something else. Ask people to put their games on there and all NG would have to do is post the affiliate links. I made a lot of money doing that until Steam was flooded by Greenlight. Afterwards, I couldn't compete. Nobody would buy a game from me. Selling stuff is the best way to make money -- not ads. Make sure it's stuff people want because SWAG is hard to sell.

Encourage exclusivity on Newgrounds. Encourage people to post content more often and blog. Allow creators to pay money to get front page access. I'm sure a lot of people would pay decent money for that.

You could even wrap all of the videos that come in with NG ads asking viewers for subscriptions and pay creators based on how many new subscribers their pages generate, but nobody will subscribe with dollar vote(s) if there's not a really good reason ...

i got into Newgrounds this very year and i am really liking the site until now, i have found great pieces of art and learned about incredible creators.

I am really hopeful about my future and the future of this site, let's make great art for ourselves :)

At 12/30/17 09:20 AM, TomFulp wrote: I like the monthly $3 commitment because it gives us a consistent budget and people will hopefully stick around long-term. You still get all the same supporter perks but with monthly you don't get the annual badge until you've been a supporter for 12 months.

Seems that instant gratification + lesser pricing really makes the yearly badge an immediate choice though, from a user perspective. How about at least rewarding the badge right away, yet having it automatically disappear if monthly donations are cancelled? Could make it a more appealing/less confusing option.

Either way though I like the option to pay for something one-time rather than reoccurring. Automatic payments feel like a lack of control, and an insecurity. What if that money gets spent on other things and the account lacks the funds when a new month comes. What if the economy changes. What if my financial situation changes. What if a lot of things, whereas yearly subscription = peace of mind. Buy one and it's done. Wouldn't mind if yearly price was a bit higher to match the monthly price instead, so whichever option I choose it'll be a tribute of equal value.

As for the argument on the monthly option giving a consistent budget: wouldn't just an internal budget with yearly pledges seen as a 12 part payment have the same effect, so all payments are split up on 12 months regardless? Doesn't really seem like a thing where which option a user chooses should make a difference, just how you decide to handle that money, seems the bigger issue is getting more of it, regardless of subscription model...

Curious about what's happened with the 'new custom storage solution to cut costs while doubling our storage capacity' btw - when you went back to regular server-hall hosting? Is that solution somehow still used with those new servers?

As for the bigger thing though: the New Year now looming, I'm really looking forward to seeing what great things it might bring! Big plans, and big realizations this year too! Hope the next is just as productive, and the community keeps growing and expanding in new and creative/lucrative/inspiring/endearing ways! Thanks for all your hard work; commitment on this one - this place just keeps becoming a better and better place to be!

Happy New Year all! A few few hours in advance...

Yeeeee. Still need to find a place to use my NG pin

At 12/30/17 08:32 AM, Orange-Swirl wrote: It's over already? It feels like 2017 barely started for me.

Did you sleep all year and just wake up? lol

At 12/29/17 10:49 AM, TomFulp wrote:

As we wrap up layout updates, we'll be spending time to focus on UI / UX. This is a great time to give us suggestions and to share stories about when the NG user experience has caused confusion for you. We want to improve the initial sign-up process so people are more likely to engage with the site and artists. We want to be sure people are following artists they like because our feed will keep becoming more useful.

I dont know if this is in your abilities but I've always wanted to see submissions that won awards on specific days (i.e. Who got frontpaged today in the past or who won a daily award). I thought this was a feature in the past but I'm not sure.

At 12/30/17 12:54 PM, Soupcat wrote: I dont know if this is in your abilities but I've always wanted to see submissions that won awards on specific days (i.e. Who got frontpaged today in the past or who won a daily award). I thought this was a feature in the past but I'm not sure.

The frontpage archive does exist. :) https://www.newgrounds.com/fpa/movies

As for the other ones there are the P-Bot posts, though indeed not really an index that's easy to browse...

At 12/30/17 05:14 AM, Xenoryt wrote:

I could not agree more. What bad things happened to you in 2017?

I almost did not see this, since you did not put my name in the reply.

Most of the time, my ears bleeded.

4 major terror attacks where I live.

My sister got mugged. (it was here phone she lost, and her purse)

The party I voted for this year in the general election lost.

Mother is in a financial crisis.

I joined Newgrounds. (just kidding)

Wow, that is some crazy stuff. Why do your ears bleed? Where do you live that has so many terror attacks? Did your sister get her phone and purse back?

At 12/30/17 12:45 PM, Cyberdevil wrote: Seems that instant gratification + lesser pricing really makes the yearly badge an immediate choice though, from a user perspective. How about at least rewarding the badge right away, yet having it automatically disappear if monthly donations are cancelled? Could make it a more appealing/less confusing option.

I like that idea a lot, since I do think not giving the badge immediately causes confusion. Would be cool to grant it immediately and if the user ever goes to cancel, the page could remind them "only three months left to make your 2017 support badge permanent!"

Either way though I like the option to pay for something one-time rather than reoccurring. Automatic payments feel like a lack of control, and an insecurity. What if that money gets spent on other things and the account lacks the funds when a new month comes. What if the economy changes. What if my financial situation changes. What if a lot of things, whereas yearly subscription = peace of mind. Buy one and it's done. Wouldn't mind if yearly price was a bit higher to match the monthly price instead, so whichever option I choose it'll be a tribute of equal value.

Have been tempted to raise the annual rate, if we do I've been thinking $29.99 (or just avoid the psychology and make it a flat $30). Ever since we added the single month option for $3, a lot of people do that and I'd like to remove that option completely, so you either pay one time for the year or get the subscription. You could still get a subscription and immediately cancel it but from a sales page standpoint I think it would get better results and it's in line with what just about every other website is doing with similar systems now.

As for the argument on the monthly option giving a consistent budget: wouldn't just an internal budget with yearly pledges seen as a 12 part payment have the same effect, so all payments are split up on 12 months regardless? Doesn't really seem like a thing where which option a user chooses should make a difference, just how you decide to handle that money, seems the bigger issue is getting more of it, regardless of subscription model...

The hope with subscriptions is that people would stick around for years, where when people make a one time purchase the odds of them renewing aren't as likely. But yeah if people were consistent we could also just depend on a ton of annual purchases each year.

Curious about what's happened with the 'new custom storage solution to cut costs while doubling our storage capacity' btw - when you went back to regular server-hall hosting? Is that solution somehow still used with those new servers?

We are still at a managed hosting facility now vs racking our own hardware but we control what servers we are renting and building a custom system was more economical than the ready-to-go file hosting solution on offer.

As for the bigger thing though: the New Year now looming, I'm really looking forward to seeing what great things it might bring! Big plans, and big realizations this year too! Hope the next is just as productive, and the community keeps growing and expanding in new and creative/lucrative/inspiring/endearing ways! Thanks for all your hard work; commitment on this one - this place just keeps becoming a better and better place to be!

Happy New Year all! A few few hours in advance...

Happy New Year!

At 12/30/17 12:54 PM, Soupcat wrote: I dont know if this is in your abilities but I've always wanted to see submissions that won awards on specific days (i.e. Who got frontpaged today in the past or who won a daily award). I thought this was a feature in the past but I'm not sure.

You can find that by browsing the P-Bot Posts archive but we do intend to have a much easier system to track awards. We were part way done with a whole awards overhaul that would have included event awards but the system get put on hold and probably needs a total redo now. When the system finally does get updated, you should be able to browse winners for any trophy and do stuff like click a trophy to see what else won trophies that day. When I see something awesome with a 2nd place trophy, I always wonder "What was so good it got #1?" but right now it's time consuming to track it down.

The whole trophy overhaul is another thing I hope we get out in 2018, including Audio and Art trophies.

2017 was a terrible year for DoubleDenial. Seriously, my last upload was in February!

At 12/29/17 10:49 AM, TomFulp wrote: The new year will kick off with the launch of new user pages and a new site header. Heads up, the tank logo isn't currently planned to appear in the new header because we could never get it to feel right without taking up a lot of space.

try this