(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); I posted this in the premium forum in response to some posts in a thread about Premium section .
Not everyone goes there and I wanted to make sure that some others got a chance to see how I feel about my time on NGU and the changes over the last 30 days and years for that matter.
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I've been here for 4 yrs now, The first 2 it was small community and still a growing site, most of the 300 to 500 senior members were all about helping the community grow and messing around with gaming glitches and fun videos on how to glitch. It was a smaller and friendlier place and we can never go back to it.
Staff had an easier time then, it was small and friendly and easy to manage. Most knew each other and frankly there was little to do.

In 2010, when the hacking scene got big, we had a massive influx of members looking for ways to hack and mod. It was no longer video based on ways to glitch, but tutorial based and the guys that could code became the important members on site.
Staff had a much more difficult time because of the number of reports that were done and managing the forums, keeping the CL requests down was a full time job. and there was little time to spend on managing personalities.
Rep was given out to those that had the best hacks and the rep game began in earnest during that period, as some at the top became so powerful.
The premium sections existed through both of these periods and was somewhat the same as it is today, somewhat inactive, because rep was gained in the main forums, so people did not post there much.

By early 2011 and into mid 2011 the hacking scene was dying and glitching was long gone and NGU was left with an vastly increased membership with no single driving interest to keep most of it occupied. It started focusing on each other instead of gaming in general, rep was a game, but it started to be used more as a moderation tool, or to move up the rep leaderboard and become a "respected" NGU member.
There was lot of staff turnover, in part because they were exhausted by a yr of dealing with the hacking scene and the number of reports and forum moderation it required.

So here we are in mid 2012 and everyone looks back at the good old days, but many are looking back at different periods of time and from different perspectives.
The ex staff looks back on a period when everyone was busting their ass doing moderating, and remember the "In the trenches mentality of that time" with fondness. They look at NGU now and can only see what is wrong with current staff or the site itself and how it is different, not what is the same things that had them committing so much of their time
Many non staff that I see commenting, came here in the Hack boom period, got some recognition since then and don't know where to direct their attention now, except at the site and what is wrong with it and why isn't it as busy anymore.

The NGU issues today are not that much different then they were in any periods of its past. There is just not a major gaming interest to occupy the communities attention now. So we are all focused on each other to occupy our time here.

NGU and its staff has done more additions/improvements to the site in the last 6 months, than in any similar period in its history.
DO not forget that a minor revolution was held in early 2011 over Outie's activity, the home page, and other site improvements, and most of that has been addressed without notice.

There have been too many generalizations by everyone, too much focus on what is wrong with someone else's efforts, too much negativity directed at each other and mainly because there is no big gaming activity to pull us together.
With Glitching gone for good, and hacking too it seems, are we dependant on new games releases to pull us together?

Premium section was pronounced dead by premiums for years now, Now that there is a new section, premiums are going to do threads about it?

There are over 16K premiums and at least 3K actives, but 350 Elites are going to diminish their role here?
Where was the defense of the Non Prems before elite? They still exist on the site today.
What of the hundreds of posts by Premiums before claiming that it was not worth it and they would never do it again.

If you are a premium and do not like the Elite concept, Then make the Premium section the desired place to go on NGU.

The truth is that recognition on the site will continue to be gained in the regular forums, that having a different user color is not going to gain someone respect or recognition just for having a different color name.
That the Elite system's content will be the driving factor in its success over the coming months, and if it fails they will all have the same color as premium does.

The site has changed, not so much because of current staff vs previous staff, but because of it's membership growth and the current lack of a unifying gaming desire to attract interest.
Other sites are experiencing similar issues and this site is dealing with them the best we can.

NGU can never please all of its current membership with change, even when that membership has demanded change at times in the past.

But it is up to all of us, especially current and ex staff to keep open positive lines of communication on what can help the site to continue and grow in the future.

Positive communication coming from current site management and openly discussing what the plans are for the future is a key aspect in the continued success of the site, but we need to have an equal effort by ex staff and senior members to keep us all on the same path.
We all need to get away from focusing on the personalities of the site and focus on the Big Picture.

That is to make sure that NGU continues to be the desired place to come to, by us and others that haven't met us yet.

Agree with everything you said Needa :p There's a lot of negativity going around NGU right now, and I feel there always will be, unfortunately. I think the only thing that brings back people is the shoutbox. NGU is one of the biggest gaming forums out there, and the shoutbox really brings in the community, other big forums don't seem to have the sense of unity that NGU has. Yes there is a lot of negativity but at least people are talking about NGU in some way.
I think for NGU to expand we/you need to do something out of the box, some new feature that no other site has, so people have to come on NGU to use that feature. Maybe something even, something fun in the shoutbox, daily and weekly challenges that people have to complete etc..

yea elite is just like private premium but we get more features and the regular premium was dead when private premium was active

if you are prem check the prem discussion and go to my thread i hope for less trolling and more helping the community now

Neeeda!!

I think with elite there should be more postive feedback because its cheaper and from what I seen you get more cool stuff. To me it seems like mostly all elite users are active in every forum especially elite forums. No matter what any one else says I like elite and plan on keeping it for the features it provides.

Hopefully ngu can made fun again were we can respect and treat member equally and all of us get on because if we all get on we can make every forum run and the whole site fun and were in this together guys so come on kick the trollers out and lets rebuild the ngu community because ngu is a great site there's just some twats that wreck it or shouldn't be on here.

this site isnt shit without hacks or mods. the only thing i see on here now is gay ass name colors for a lame ass promotional stunt and lame ass threads and outdated mods and people juicing threads to get rep. this site has no hope anymore unless we get cfw or somethin