Where have all the fansites gone?

[Dr Unne]

I was a bit out of touch for about a decade, but http://ffonline.com is gone and http://www.ffwa.org/ is a shambles. Those sites used to rival or dwarf EoFF. What happened to them?

Is EoFF the largest current FF fansite because the others are all dead? Or is there a big alternative that I haven't chanced upon?

[blackmage_nuke]

https://www.facebook.com/FFOnline:

Just to remind some people that might have been missed. Due to the hacking death of FFO, we've moved over to Gaming and RPG News Community | Final Fantasy Society (http://www.ffsociety.com/)

Though its still looks behind eoff

[Aulayna]

The Final Fantasy is still going. :)

NovaCrystallis is the biggest one in terms of pure news at the moment.

[Elskidor]

I would not be surprised if we were the largest, but EoFF has always been the best that I can remember. Back when I lurked around different forums and sites trying to find a home, there was little competition. Weather it has been the posters or how the forums were set up, all of them were weak in comparison to here. I did like a number of smaller sites that were based mainly around one or two titles, but they definitely were never designed to support fans of the complete series.

[Forsaken Lover]

Back in the day i probably joined around five or six FF forums, this one included and also counting a site called RPGDreamers which I think is still around. I joined here after FFShrine, which is still around although it seems this is probbly due to their excellent music pirating.

Fansites in general seem to have gone out of fashion. When I first became an FF fan and was obsessed with FFVII about 11 years ago, all I ever visited was fansites. There were Sephiroth shrines and sites to get MIDIs and all that cool stuff. But with the popularity of wikia and YouTube, I think a lot of fansites are unnecessary now because you can get all the cool stuff you want from there. Unless your series isn't lucky enough to have a good wiki. Star Ocean needs one for example. I had to use a fansite just yesterday to look up the names of the voice-actors in SO2 and it's remake.

Shinji is the dub voice of the SO2 main guy in the PSP remake. That's cool.

[Freya]

Yeah lococolt's is still going and has a decent community but most fansites have moved from being a community and have become more of a online news resource.

[The Man]

I admin The Lifestream, which is still in pretty good shape considering there hasn't been any Compilation-related news in literally years. On the other hand I went back to FFWA a few years ago and found it pretty much completely unpostable.

I think KH Insider may still be doing fairly well, and I'm pretty sure they have Final Fantasy coverage.

[Forsaken Lover]

FinalFantasyForums is still around too.

But The Lifestream people have all been around and together for like eight years or so. I remember back when there were separate sites for DoC, AC and etc.. I doubt they will be going anywhere any time soon simply because it's run by a small, dedicated group of friends who have all been doing this crap forever.

[escobert]

This was the first FF forums I found.. and the last :p

[Shorty]

I would agree that fansites themselves seem on the decline, and that we are the number one fansite purely because there are few others to compete with.

Even so, if both Final Fantasy and their fansites were still all going strong, I think we'd be in a top number with some other competitors. Despite the constant "we're dying as a site" mentality that I think people compare to whatever they claim as their Golden Age, I think the site is doing incredibly well, and that we'd be doing even better if we had a number of top competitors to rival with.

[Mahad]

I'm also of the opinion that fansites in general seemed to be in a decline. I joined a few other sites years ago and they are either completely gone or pretty much at an end (and so you have me here!). I also remember a site I never joined called Final Fantasy Republic and years ago it was really crowded, I actually went looking for a smaller community to join; don't know how that is going now. I don't know, and I don't think, there are any other places as big as this one as of now.

[Pumpkin]

I miss FFOnline. I was never on the forums, but that site was what actually got me in to Final Fantasy.

[The Man]

FF Republic still exists, but the owner unceremoniously removed everyone else from staff which pretty much eliminated any chance of the place ever being revived since there's no one to clean up spambot crap now. I'm not even sure why they're keeping the place up if they're not going to do anything with it; they're certainly not cleaning up spambot posts themselves.

[Aulayna]

Oh man, Edman owns FFR now? That is hilarious.

[The Man]

No, he hasn't owned it for years. The person who bought it from him took over his account and didn't change the name. Edman has owned it on two separate occasions, though.

[Aulayna]

It's still hilarious that he ended up owning it after the amount of drama he caused, either directly or indirectly.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

Some would say the rise of social media has contribute to the decay of forums.

[Elskidor]

And some would be right. That I do agree with.

[Jiro]

There's something ~special~ about this kind of format though. It's a little bit warmer.

[Yamaneko]

I ate them all.

[noxious.sunshine]

yeah TFF is still alive and kicking, but barely, I would say. It was a lot more active when I first joined, though.. Activity there died a lot since then..

EnixOrigins is pretty poppin' but I don't post or lurk around there anymore.. I think I stayed a member for like a day, some stuff happened, and I quit going there.

I think TLS, KHInsider, & EnixOrigins are about as active as EoFF... I'm a member at KHInsider as well, but I rarely log in and post.. Everyone's really nice there even though I don't really know anyone personally enough to gauge their personalities. And TLS I genuinely like a lot too... There's no swear filters. XD And everyone's really nice as well. I think I'm still in the "newbie" stage there though.. I haven't been there as long as I've been here or TFF.

UltimateFinalFantasy (UFF) is still around, but they moved their forums to a different site/server.. It seemed to have picked up after the move, but it's been ages since I've logged in there.. I just always forget about it and I'm too lazy to log in there. I have one of the members on my FB though.

[Carl the Llama]

My first ever final fantasy forum was the FFVII Cove, after completing the game I went nuts after its secrets, saving every single secret and doing everything I could to completely complete the game, I remember they had midi music played in the background and I always loved that, they had so much to offer. It was imo (though I may be remembering through rose tinted glasses) the best FFVII experience via a website I have ever encountered. It also had some excellent fan fiction.

After it got shut down I drifted for a few years till I encountered EoFF and have never looked back since.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I keep reading the thread title as where have all the fantasies gone.

Anyways, EoFF is the only fansite forum I've ever joined, at least for final fantasy. I joined the Legendary Frog forum when I was in like sixth grade or something, but I never posted or anything I don't think. And then after that I joined a roleplaying forum that a few of my friends were a part of. I was never concerned with finding any other forums.

I did get on FF VII Citadel a lot as a kid, back when I first started playing FF 7. I don't know if they had any forums, but the website was something I found a lot of fun to look at. That's where I heard about most all of the rumors for the game. I'm pretty sure it's still around, but I don't know if they update it or anything.

[Ashi]

Now that you mention it, I used to (many MANY years ago) go to a few other FF sites / forums. But none of them seem to exist anymore! Wonder what happened?!

[Mahad]

I think social media does take the spotlight from fansites, but I personally prefer fansites. It feels to me like any one can join/jump in social media related to the series, but only dedicated fans would take the time to join a fansite and those are fans I like to get to meet.

[Ayen]

Only one I recognized that has been mentioned here is the Final Fantasy Forums. Eventually lost interest and became inactive, never felt very welcomed there to begin with. Not like here. I remember one guy who were always blaming Western gamers for the fall of Final Fantasy.

[The Man]

Final Fantasy Forums was started and/or originally run by some dude who was notorious for sending PM advertisements to literally hundreds of people on other forums. There was a ton of drama around that place back in the day. I think I have an account there but I'm pretty sure I never posted.

[noxious.sunshine]

omg You -were- over there~! I thought I recognized your name, I just couldn't put my finger on it though!

[Ayen]

In my ignorance I made a Tifa/Aerith poll in the VII board there asking people which one they liked better and that went about as well as you'd expect.

[Forsaken Lover]

yeah I remember when FFF took on new management or whatever you want to call it. I was never super active on there but I'd periodically post when my interest iNn FF was peaked.

I posted my Seifer/Squall analysis on there, FFShrine, FFOnline, here and I think FFRepublic. Everyone liked it. I was so proud.

God even now I am ashamed of myself from only a few years ago. I bet come 2018 I will be cringing over my posts from this year.

[The Man]

Wait some of you guys are talking about The Final Fantasy and I guess others are talking about Final Fantasy Forums, aren't you? That's confusing.

I don't know much about TFF but I know Tedius Zanarukando was complaining about getting banned from there several years ago. Of course, he complained about getting banned from a bunch of different sites, including here.

[Loony BoB]

One of the first and best Final Fantasy fansites I stumbled across was dedicated to FFVII & FFVIII and, while not a forum, had extremely well displayed (for the time) content detailing everything from character profiles to locations and all the shops within the locations and everything like that. It was fantastic for when I was playing FFVII (the first FF I'd played). I think FF Citadel and that site were the two I used the most at that point, and it wasn't until later when I was trying out other FF's that I discovered EoFF.

[Jiro]

I remember there was one site that was based around the Gold Saucer and had mini games and shit.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

I remember there was one site that was based around the Gold Saucer and had mini games and trout.

I feel like I vaguely remember that and want to know what that place was called. Maybe it'll come back to me.

[Jessweeee♪]

https://www.facebook.com/FFOnline:

Just to remind some people that might have been missed. Due to the hacking death of FFO, we've moved over to Gaming and RPG News Community | Final Fantasy Society (http://www.ffsociety.com/)

Though its still looks behind eoff

Hacking death? What happened o.o

[black orb]

Where have all the fansites gone?
>>> All of them mutated into a Final Fantasy Wikia..:luca:

[maybee]

I used to post at a place called The Caves of Narshe a few years back ( 2010-2012 ), but members just stopped posting, so just hopped on to this place.


Everybody there used to love and adore FF VI which was like " yay " but the hatedom for FF VIII there was like massive. ;_;

[Jowy]

ctrl + F "legend"

i'm so glad you'll never find anything I posted online when i was fourteen. :)

[Heath]

One of the first and best Final Fantasy fansites I stumbled across was dedicated to FFVII & FFVIII and, while not a forum, had extremely well displayed (for the time) content detailing everything from character profiles to locations and all the shops within the locations and everything like that. It was fantastic for when I was playing FFVII (the first FF I'd played). I think FF Citadel and that site were the two I used the most at that point, and it wasn't until later when I was trying out other FF's that I discovered EoFF.

I'm glad you reminded me of FF Citadel. I remember that was one of the sites I was genuinely quite impressed by many moons ago, as it was excellent for FFVII.

Quite sad to see FFOnline suffer from hacking and whatnot. It had a very good front site around the time FFX was released, both in terms of it's quality of info and appearance. I think 'FF Society' is a bit lame as far as name's go, but if I had a tenner for every different 'FF Something' site that has been around at one point or another I'd be very rich.

From a forum perspective, aside from EoFF - which is the only FF one I've bothered with so consistently long or actively - I used to post at Squally Leonharty's FFL, FF Mages, FF Web (the latter two I modded). I think I probably had accounts at numerous others (FFWA certainly), though I never frequented them.

[Christmas]

So is the question still valid?

[Madonna]

I think it is a variation on the question of whether people do personal websites nowadays, and I think the big thing is that everyone signs up to big media websites and have their communities there. The internet is a very different beast than it was ten, twenty years ago.