This has got to be one of the longest lasting fan sites on the web

[darkchrono]

But it looks like even EOFF is dying off. On a lot of the game forum pages you can go back six months to a year just on page one. The only forum page that seems to be that active is General (never looked at EOEO site) but you can still go back several weeks on page one on the general forum page.

This site has been around for over ten years but it looks like new final fantasy fans aren't coming in at the same rate that the old veterans of the site are either losing interest in the forum or games in general (or perhaps both).

I used to post a lot during the days of the original playstation (and parts of the ps2 era) but don't play games hardly at all anymore. Back in the day of ff7-10 though this was a hip and happening place and there were tons of active posters.

[Phoenix Rising]

We still have what, 20+ members on a day?

I'm not too sure this is one of the longest lasting fan sites though, I think the Emperor's Hammer has you beat, 1994 to present. And I think there is a Blade Runner fan site from the late 1980s that is still around, but I'm not entirely sure.

[darkchrono]

We still have what, 20+ members on a day?

I'm not too sure this is one of the longest lasting fan sites though, I think the Emperor's Hammer has you beat, 1994 to present. And I think there is a Blade Runner fan site from the late 1980s that is still around, but I'm not entirely sure.

Didn't think the world wide web even started until the early 90's.

[Phoenix Rising]

We still have what, 20+ members on a day?

I'm not too sure this is one of the longest lasting fan sites though, I think the Emperor's Hammer has you beat, 1994 to present. And I think there is a Blade Runner fan site from the late 1980s that is still around, but I'm not entirely sure.

Didn't think the world wide web even started until the early 90's.

The World Wide Web started in 1989, actually.

[Pike]

We've reached a point where a lot of people stick around for the community we've built up rather than for the games. Despite that, I'd still wager that we're one of the largest and most active FF forums on the internet (if not the largest; BoB probably knows all the stats and can confirm or deny this :p )

[Freya]

Not our fault the FF games aren't the powerhouses they use to be! We can't bring new fans into the series, that's Square-Enixs job. We just keep on being awesome and this place will survive.

[darkchrono]

Was there a point in which everyone had to re-register for some reason. For instance my register date says 2001 yet I clearly remember posting before that under the same name. This board was started around the time FF8 came out (which is why it is called Eyes on Final Fantasy).

[escobert]

yeah 2001 we all had to re-register once it switched from EZboard to VB

[Chris]

Like Freya said, we cannot be expected to do Square's job. Stop making crap games! It's as simple as that.

Also, I think the FF forums are fairly active. I can recall several good threads in the past month alone.

[Rostum]

I think it's more to do with the lack of Final Fantasy releases. Remember back in the PS1 and somewhat the PS2 era they had Final Fantasy games coming out the wazoo - I remember seeing FF9, 10 and 11 shown or announced at the same E3! Where's Versus? FFXIV was a let down, FFXIII-2 wasn't much of a big deal, and the FFVII spinoffs didn't make much of an impact.

If Square could get their reputation up, release more Final Fantasy games in shorter amounts of time, then you might possibly see more activity around here. Though, that's just my guess and from what I've heard that's what they plan on doing.

There's also the fact that social media has taking over from the forum-era of the Internet. I still consider EoFF to be active, but a lot of other forums I used to frequent are all but dead. Kind of makes me sad.

[Bubba]

Stop with all the negativity, maaaan!!

I've only been on this forum for nine months and it's no exaggeration to say that it's quite a big part of my life. While I'm sure there was a bigger following in the 7-10 heyday, it's still full of life in my opinion. Plenty of great newbies as well like shion, Trollhunter, Fierytempest and myself, of course!

Dying off Schmying off. EOFF forever!

[Parker]

This place was great until that shithead Parker showed up

[Hollycat]

We seem to get most of our members from people playing ff8.

[darkchrono]

I think it's more to do with the lack of Final Fantasy releases. Remember back in the PS1 and somewhat the PS2 era they had Final Fantasy games coming out the wazoo - I remember seeing FF9, 10 and 11 shown or announced at the same E3! Where's Versus? FFXIV was a let down, FFXIII-2 wasn't much of a big deal, and the FFVII spinoffs didn't make much of an impact.

If Square could get their reputation up, release more Final Fantasy games in shorter amounts of time, then you might possibly see more activity around here. Though, that's just my guess and from what I've heard that's what they plan on doing.

There's also the fact that social media has taking over from the forum-era of the Internet. I still consider EoFF to be active, but a lot of other forums I used to frequent are all but dead. Kind of makes me sad.

That's true. Back in the day of the ps1 they were releasing about a new game every year. Now it takes them three or four years to release a new game.

Add to that a lot of the teenagers these days (which always seems to have been the primary rpg age group) probably never played the original playstation so they aren't as aware of the past history of final fantasy.

[Psychotic]

Apparently EoFF's been dying for the last 10 years. Somehow it's still here though :confused:

[Madame Adequate]

Apparently EoFF's been dying for the last 10 years. Somehow it's still here though :confused:

Clearly we are a shambling rotten corpse that must be put out of our misery!

[Sephex]

This forum is unsent!!

[Hollycat]

The soul reapers are coming

[Parker]

yuna.


send. teh forum


send it

[Roto13]

The community isn't as active as it used to be, but that's not a huge deal. Fewer worthwhile Final Fantasy games means fewer new members.

The real pain is that the site itself is kind of shit now. It takes forever for anything to load, if it loads at all, and IIRC, without an ad blocker, it's a hideous mess of ads and crap, including one right in the middle of the banner. If I was new to the community, I certainly wouldn't stick around. Hell, I disappeared for like five years. :monster:

[Jinx]

Stop with all the negativity, maaaan!!

I've only been on this forum for nine months and it's no exaggeration to say that it's quite a big part of my life. While I'm sure there was a bigger following in the 7-10 heyday, it's still full of life in my opinion. Plenty of great newbies as well like shion, Trollhunter, Fierytempest and myself, of course!

Dying off Schmying off. EOFF forever!

Alright! :)

[I Don't Need A Name]

Hell, I was banned for like five years. :monster:

Fix'd! :monster:

[Shlup]

This is our slow time of year. It'll pick up when summer hits.

[Roto13]

Hell, I was banned for like five years. :monster:

Fix'd! :monster:

I was banned for two. The rest was just disinterest.

[KentaRawr!]

I like this site lots. :3 I don't post much, but that doesn't matter!

No one talks about FF, but I'm okay with that. I don't play FF anymore. :-| Maybe we could do an FF month thing, where everyone plays a particular FF game. ... Oh wait, we did that. :kakapo: We should do that again.

And then we could do a Dragon Quest one! Whooper!

[Chris]

I was banned for four years for posting inappropriate Grace Jones pictures. Try that one on for size. :doublecolbert:

[Agent Proto]

EoFF does deserve the title as longest lasting FF fansite, in my opinion. I used to check out the other FF sites that were "prettier" than EoFF, but they aren't around anymore due to problems within. (Like inner staff disputes, failure to pay server, etc.) I can't even imagine that I've stuck around for most of EoFF's life.

[KentaRawr!]

I've posted some of the stupidest things on this board, but I have never been banned. ... Am I weird? D:

[Roto13]

I've posted some of the stupidest things on this board, but I have never been banned. ... Am I weird? D:

You're harmless.

[Elskidor]

I hunted around for a long time before finding this place. Most of the other FF forums I didn't like, and when I did start posting here some scrub started something with me and some silly mod deleted half the conversation so it looked like one of us were arguing with ourselves. Left a bad first impression, but I've never forgotten my password so will lurk now and again, but if Final Fantasy ever starts to thrive again I bet a lot more people would be hanging about. Modern day Final Fantasy has made some wacky decisions and I'm not so sure they'll ever return to their 90's prime.

[escobert]

I've posted some of the stupidest things on this board, but I have never been banned. ... Am I weird? D:

I may have had you beat ;)

[Hollycat]

People constantly tell me how insensitive and annoying I am, yet I haven't been banned either. Bert has me beat by nine years though, so more power to him.

[Freya]

You don't get banned for being annoying, if that was the case PG would have been banned ages ago.

[Pike]

I was actually a member of another FF forum before this one. It was called "Final Fantasy Addicts", I hung around there in 2002/2003 or so and they had the most strict posting rules I have ever seen on a forum, to the point where a member who posted maybe twice a day was considered a high-volume poster. Everything had to be AMAZING AND FILLED WITH CONTENT OR YOU WERE REPORTED FOR SPAM.

Anyways they aren't around anymore, needless to say, but it was a decent enough group of folks back in the day.

[Baloki]

I'm still trying to fathom out if we've (baotw) have finally outnumbered the spam brigade on staff...

I think we might be there?

[Parker]

how am i still a member here, tbh

[Peegee]

Stop with all the negativity, maaaan!!

I've only been on this forum for nine months and it's no exaggeration to say that it's quite a big part of my life. While I'm sure there was a bigger following in the 7-10 heyday, it's still full of life in my opinion. Plenty of great newbies as well like shion, Trollhunter, Fierytempest and myself, of course!

Dying off Schmying off. EOFF forever!

who are those people o_O

[Laddy]

I've noticed out of the "main cast" of EoFFers, I'm the youngest at 18. Interesting enough, I've been here longer than most.

[Hollycat]

Laddy, I'm 18 too. Am I not main?

[Laddy]

Laddy, I'm 18 too. Am I not main?
You're older than me by several months. I'm not even out of high school yet. xD

[Hollycat]

Wait, so you've been a member since you were 12? wow.

I thought I was the youngest, I figured someone who tried out for survivor was older.

Yep, almost 3 months older, well what do you know?

[Laddy]

Wait, so you've been a member since you were 12? wow.

I thought I was the youngest, I figured someone who tried out for survivor was older.

Yep, almost 3 months older, well what do you know?
Speaking of which, tryouts start this month! :D

[Hollycat]

Maybe I'll tryout to be the guy who has an immense and immensely useless knowledge of history and the forging of blades.

[Raistlin]

yeah 2001 we all had to re-register once it switched from EZboard to VB

There were a number of occasions from 2001-2002 or so when everyone had to re-register. I don't remember all of the reasons, but they were probably Shlup's fault.

EoFF has its period of ups-and-downs in activity every year, and this is probably a down time. The overall activity has gone down from several years ago, but there's still a fairly dedicated group of regulars that will make sure it keeps kicking a while longer.

[Old Manus]

Message boards are very late 90s/early 00s. They're only used for software dev now.

[Baloki]

I've noticed out of the "main cast" of EoFFers, I'm the youngest at 18. Interesting enough, I've been here longer than most.

You call 2006 a join date ;p?

[Parker]

yea we need a shiny web 3.0 interface where we sorta connect via our brains

[Baloki]

yea we need a shiny web 3.0 interface where we sorta connect via our brains

I was pushing for matrix style head jacks but BoB thought they were to much :(

[Loony BoB]

We still get over 100 users online every day. While that's only a quarter of what used to get back in 2005-2006, it's not shabby by any means considering the circumstances (lower popularity of the FF series, slower releases, etc).

We aren't the oldest Final Fantasy website, nor are we the oldest community, but I would say we have a strong claim to being the most consistently active staff/community/website of those that have been around as long as we have. The others, in case you're wondering, are FFOnline, FF Worlds Apart and thefinalfantasy.net - of those, the former two stopped updating a long time ago and while the other has been consistent by comparison, I am fairly certain that it has had a consistently lower activity level than we have had throughout that time.

Other websites, and perhaps this includes these three sites (I'm not 100% certain) can get much more activity through illegal hosting of files etc. which I know is done on various FF fansites throughout the web at the moment. We're a little more respectful of Square Enix. We did once host such files, a very, very long time ago, however we were asked to remove them and did so immediately. The upside of that is Square Enix actually communicate with us sometimes (although this is a much more recent thing).

As for the new site, I personally preferred the older (blue, not brown) site as it was faster to load and we had much more control over how it was displayed, but I understand web 2.0 is all the rage right now and apparently that's what is required for us to keep up with things. There are a lot of advantages, though, so once the owners can find a way to improve the speed the site runs at, I'm sure things will begin to improve in other areas.

[darkchrono]

We still get over 100 users online every day. While that's only a quarter of what used to get back in 2005-2006, it's not shabby by any means considering the circumstances (lower popularity of the FF series, slower releases, etc).

We aren't the oldest Final Fantasy website, nor are we the oldest community, but I would say we have a strong claim to being the most consistently active staff/community/website of those that have been around as long as we have. The others, in case you're wondering, are FFOnline, FF Worlds Apart and thefinalfantasy.net - of those, the former two stopped updating a long time ago and while the other has been consistent by comparison, I am fairly certain that it has had a consistently lower activity level than we have had throughout that time.

Other websites, and perhaps this includes these three sites (I'm not 100% certain) can get much more activity through illegal hosting of files etc. which I know is done on various FF fansites throughout the web at the moment. We're a little more respectful of Square Enix. We did once host such files, a very, very long time ago, however we were asked to remove them and did so immediately. The upside of that is Square Enix actually communicate with us sometimes (although this is a much more recent thing).

As for the new site, I personally preferred the older (blue, not brown) site as it was faster to load and we had much more control over how it was displayed, but I understand web 2.0 is all the rage right now and apparently that's what is required for us to keep up with things. There are a lot of advantages, though, so once the owners can find a way to improve the speed the site runs at, I'm sure things will begin to improve in other areas.

Yeah when I made that comment about the site looking dead I was mainly referring to the amount of posts that were being made and not so much how many people looked at the site.

I looked at the game sites and you can now go back virtually six months to a year on a lot of the game forums first page and it seems the only place that really gets posted on much anymore is general forum and perhaps EOEO.

But like others have said a lot of the people who are still keeping this place going are long time members who were big gamers in the hey day but perhaps not so much anymore so they aren't going to post on the game forums much anymore.

Are rpg's in general losing popularity amongst young teenage gamers or is it just the final fantasy series? Because video games in general are still becoming more popular all the time.

[Jinx]

There are only so many R=U threads you can make.

[Rocket Edge]

I've posted some of the stupidest things on this board, but I have never been banned. ... Am I weird? D:

You're harmless.
Yeah it takes balls to be hard on the internet.

It's Square-Enix's fault that this site isn't as popular as it used to be because of the time between releases & the games themselves being total bollox since FFXII. I still regularly visit this site although I post not half as much as I used too.

[Loony BoB]

Yeah when I made that comment about the site looking dead I was mainly referring to the amount of posts that were being made and not so much how many people looked at the site.
Regarding posts, we are down to roughly a sixth or seventh of what we once had. We still, however, got 9,503 posts in March. Sadly, that shot down to 6,641 posts in April... which was the worst month we'd had for a while. Over the past six or so months, we have averaged around 8,000 or more posts per month. It's far from dead, that's for certain. But we do rely heavily on a target audience that is sadly in decline.

[fire_of_avalon]

April features final projects and exams. May features threads about how drunk the kids will get.

[NorthernChaosGod]

I promise I'll post more as soon as I'm done with school. I have my last final a week from today. :jess:

[Pike]

I have noticed that we're in a bit of a lull right now. Things will pick up again with summer and the Ciddies, I think.

[Dr. rydrum2112]

I agree with a number of thoughts on here, s-e slowing down in releasing FFs def. could lead to less people posting. Also the last few FFs have not been as highly rated by fans as the classics (6,7,10).

As far as finalfantasy sites, I check this one and finalfantasyforums.net regularly. I have found they are the best way to stay up on s-e news (and rpg news).

Someone mentioned that rpg's might not be as popular anymore- I think that is true of console rpgs but it seems like mmo's are all the rage.

Of-course console ones are much more plot, story & character driven and that leads to more discussion too.

[TrollHunter]

Stop with all the negativity, maaaan!!

I've only been on this forum for nine months and it's no exaggeration to say that it's quite a big part of my life. While I'm sure there was a bigger following in the 7-10 heyday, it's still full of life in my opinion. Plenty of great newbies as well like shion, Trollhunter, Fierytempest and myself, of course!

Dying off Schmying off. EOFF forever!

who are those people o_O

I will punch you in the face... with a chair.

I can barely even remember HOW I found about this forum. It was like really late at night and I BELIEVE I was doing some research on FFXII international and there was a thread on it. I can't remember the finer details, and I may be completely off, but oh well.
I'm not that active, and I don't shit wisdom and wit in my posts, but I do enjoy the community this forum has.
I used to bounce around forum to forum like a really hyper obnoxious small dog, and get banned from countless ones due to various reasons.
It seems that most forums are either way too uptight, or are just complete and total anarchy, this forum seems to have a decent balance. DECENT.
Regardless, even if I'm not the least bit memorable as a member of this forum, I do intend to stick around for a while.

[G13]

There are only so many R=U threads you can make.

You've never been to our VIII forum, have you? We don't limit ourselves to just R=U.

[Goldenboko]

This place has been "dying" as long as I can remember.

Don't worry everyone, EoFF won't be off the web until Paul and BoB are 80 year old men who've forgotten how to use a computer, until then it shall remain their personal circlejerk ground.

[Jiro]

Yeah when I made that comment about the site looking dead I was mainly referring to the amount of posts that were being made and not so much how many people looked at the site.

If it's just the post levels that you're concerned with then this "death" is merely because I'm on holidays. Once I get home things will pick up again.

If you're talking about posters then this has been the way it's been since post-06. I started being more active and things have been the same for me since then, so I don't know why we have to have an EoFF is Dying thread every goddamn year. Chill out and post more or something, fuck. Why're you all so fucking morbid?

[krissy]

i want to know what eoff tastes like
and the best way to taste all the parts
is to kill the whole

[black orb]

>>> This place has matured, like and old stinky cheedar.. Yep, this place is even better now :love:..:luca: