There was an INVOLVED discussion in the chat the other day which most of you missed but that is still relevant. Basically a few of us (Rolken, yoshifan, Mike as well I believe, SJ, p discussed the future of TSC, and it went PLACES. I lost the log, but retained the main points.
Basically the main Sonic games, not spinoffs like SRA, aren't very good so it's attracting an ignorant fanbase to the site. Because of this we are not gaining respectable members since nobody in their right mind would enjoy these abominations; most of our new users are either morons or under 12.
As such we need to either merge subsites with the main games and branch out to new trackables, or expand to the online games scene. The issue with the former is that most reputable series have established competitive scenes, and there are very few new franchises around, let alone good new franchises that are competition-worthy. We also run the risk of become Cyberscore Jr, overextending ourselves so the mods are uninformed about the games being tracked and mostly apathetic towards their competition developments. We're allready there, I'd say; none of the 'respected' members play Rivals, and when Rivals2 eventually goes up (it will) they really won't care. This is only going to continue as Sega churns out game after game, most of which won't be given a fair shake because of the major letdown that was Sonic 06.
If we do decide to track more games, we must be selective in what we choose to track. Quality should be a factor here; nobody wants to compete in bad games. Obviously there are a few undesirable games we track now (Rivals, Heroes, 06, Shadow, more, more, more); were we to attempt to broaden the site's focus we would need to consider more carefully what players would want to...play. Obviously we can't very well undo game additions, since someone is going to get shafted from that many rankings removed from the site and it just isn't fair for whoever competed, but in the future we must be more careful.
For the latter suggestion, we would attempt to act as a hub for people who enjoy online games, only in a more general fashion than the lobbies usually present. Think of something along the lines of, say, rankings for Toulose, Magic, AWBW, and all these other fads compounded to show who is just generally good at online games; in conjunction with rankings for single-player games, I believe this would be a first.
Every now and then traditional tournaments (player vs. player and not something like our current situation with challenges) would be held for certain ranked games; from that players would either gain or lose placing overall. Not enough to entirely shift the tides of rankings, but still with sufficient weight to boost status in that game. I imagine there would also be a matchmaking service of sorts for players looking to play in certain games. A matchmaking service not called 'the chatroom'.
Here I see many issues, though. We'll definitely be stretching ourselves thin; fads are by nature shortlived. Nobody plays, say, Pokemon anymore because they found something better, so you'll have a small pool of people interested in a fad at once, making it almost impossible for new users to get a foothold in the rankings. And even if they continue playing, there will be such a large gap from the top dogs to the newbies that most will be discouraged from even playing; after all, it would take an age to reach the top spot, as progress is so slow with your only chance to improve dependant on the schedule of others. There's also the problem of an honor code...if one person reports a false outcome, what would happen? We would side with the more respected member by default...which would definitely increase tensions between players. In the event of two unknowns we wouldn't care which would also spark conflict.
Of the two ideas I am more fond of the first; in either case I think a name change is imperative. The name 'The Sonic Center' isn't even fitting now with subsites...it will be especially irrelevant with the advent of change.
Just a few things to think about where we're going...as for where we are, I see a niche community getting bored of what it has and wanting more, which Sonic Team sadly does not seem able to supply.
