Can you recommend a gaming forum?
July 19, 2007 4:06 AM   Subscribe

Can you recommend a good gaming forum?

I am looking for a forum about video games with the following characterics:
  • intelligent discussion
  • varied population (men, women, younger, older) and women friendly. I have no problem with an occassional "yay, boobies" post, but would prefer to join a place where that is not the standard commentary on every game that features women.
  • varied interests. From Gameboy to PS3 and from EA Playground to Manhunt II.
  • a place where people can ask simple questions about specific games ("I am stuck in level x in game y, what do I do?") as well as have general discussions about gaming and the gaming industry.
  • nice people.
  • active. I like lots of posts, as long as I can still feel part of the community if I skip lots of them.
posted by davar to Computers & Internet (17 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 


penny arcade forums was pretty good, at least a couple years ago
posted by kneelconqueso at 5:35 AM on July 19, 2007


The 1up.com forums are not so bad.
posted by DefendBrooklyn at 5:43 AM on July 19, 2007


I always thought that PlanetCrap looked like an interesting community, though it's not quite full-fledged gaming and does go very offtopic very quickly.

I think simple questions about games are better answered by fuddling through GameFaqs. At least, that keeps you from wading through bunch of useless crap posted by kids that have "signature" images twice as long as their posts.
posted by Muu at 6:06 AM on July 19, 2007


Evil Avatar may be what your looking for. A good bunch of people with a slightly higher maturity level then you get with the 1up and Gamefaqs of the world.
posted by Restlessavenger at 6:21 AM on July 19, 2007


The forums associated with Edge magazine are good. In fact, quotes from the forum appear in each edition of the magazine.
posted by nthdegx at 6:42 AM on July 19, 2007


Gamer forums tend to veer towards either illiterate fanboyism or mother's-basement pretentiousness. Probably the best thing to do is to find a gaming magazine that you can live with the style of, and then go on their forums.
posted by reklaw at 6:47 AM on July 19, 2007


Gamer Dad forums?
posted by eurasian at 7:12 AM on July 19, 2007


I don't know if it has any of that, but the granddaddy of video game forums is NeoGAF.
posted by lubujackson at 7:22 AM on July 19, 2007 [1 favorite]


I think the previously mentioned Octopus Overlords is probably what you want. Large, active, friendly community and a lot of people asking about games that are out.
posted by selfnoise at 7:55 AM on July 19, 2007


PlanetCrap is very poorly structured, it's design concept is right on but the execution is completely erratic. Imagine the way the MeFi front page functions, except in this instance for an FPP to be greenlit the majority of the users have to "vote" for it. This leads to the immediate jettison of topical relativity after about oh, two comments. The threads will then continue to be engorged with erroneous bullshit for the next 3,000-10,000 comments or until they actually organize themselves to create yet another empty vessel for their sandboxing activities. At its heart the core user base is a little boys club, but there are a few developers that post there (no idea why) and generally their thoughts are always interesting to some degree, although it fails to redeem the site as a whole.

QT3 is where all the PC regulars go when they actually remember they are supposed to be talking about games, somewhere and somehow. A lot of devs and industry people post there as well, and the community is generally more broad and receptive than the cesspools that are Gamespy/IGN/1UP/Etc. Like any gaming forum they puke all over themselves for about 2 weeks when a new title comes out, then they drop it and forget it ever existed - other than that I'd say it's the most mature place out there revolving around such a topic.
posted by prostyle at 8:28 AM on July 19, 2007


It doesn't meet your age variety requirement (minimum age is 25, I believe), but hits the rest of the critera:

www.2old2play.com
posted by de void at 12:57 PM on July 19, 2007


The Safehouse is a website I'm involved with which started from its forums. The Logged Out Forum covers any game under the sun but the games covered in general are largely MMORPG and roleplay centric.

Game devs read and post. Moderation is good (if I do say so myself). Member age range varies though the median age of most active posters is probably a little bit higher than most gaming boards. We have men & women posters (I'm a female Admin for instance) so while there are occasional "drool" posts they are done in jest. For featured games we have dedicated forums for "Stuck in X do Y" questions, for non featured games it's always worth a try to ask anyway in Logged Out.

So, take a peek if you like. We've been around for about 8 years now and have members who may jump game to game but still come and post regularly.
posted by Fricka at 1:02 PM on July 19, 2007


Sorry, left this out: direct link to the Safehouse forums. You can see stats on the bottom.
posted by Fricka at 1:18 PM on July 19, 2007


Response by poster: Thanks very much, I'll check everything out!
posted by davar at 4:14 PM on July 19, 2007


I'm a little late here, but I would also suggest Gamers with Jobs.
posted by gemmy at 5:09 PM on July 19, 2007


You may also be interested in the games forum at forums.somethingawful.com. Well moderated (the idiots are banned and probated very quickly), Reasonably high volume. Several sub-forums as well. The $10 membership fee tends to keep the posters in line a bit more than most free places.
posted by Four Flavors at 8:53 PM on July 19, 2007


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