Lately, I've seen that really the only people that make levels are Teo and Sup_mus. It may just be the schoolyear or something, but it seems like the user-created content part of the Interguild is dying down.  I feel slightly ashamed for not trying to do anything, anyone else feel like this?

staff members have felt like this since forever.

I'm sure most of us are just not inspired, but I'm always using work around the site as an excuse. It's weird b/c I really enjoy making levels and yet the idea of actually making a level makes me feel like I have better things to do.

In fact, I've noticed that sometimes I don't even come to the interguild b/c I feel like I'll ultimately end up working on something rather than playing levels or making them. A few months ago I tried the ingenious idea of getting myself to start using the Interguild itself in order to procrastinate from my work on the Interguild, b/c at least then I would contribute to the community. But that seems to not have worked well, and it could be connected to the fact that there aren't too many interesting new levels to play anymore. And lately, I've found that I'm actually excited to work on stuff now b/c I stopped caring about how I prioritized projects so that I could work on what I wanted when I felt like, but that means that there's even less incentive for me to play or make levels.

But this probably has nothing to do with the way anyone else feels about their lack of new levels.

To be honest, my caves are so few and far between that I stopped feeling guilty about it quite a while ago. Although I do feel guilty about not spending much time as I'd like playing other members' new caves.

I feel a bit guilty. I'm still making the cave since december.  

Me too. I still haven't completed Imperio Reborn yet.

I've been making levels, but I don't feel they are good enough for the Interguild. Well, most of them.

Level makers have always been my favourite kind of game: They add additional dimensions and increases understanding of the game. Lately, I feel like HatPC is kinda...finished for me. Nothing new is discovered, traps feel like they're repeating themselves, and when I make levels, I rarely get comments or feedback, let alone ratings - the sole exception to this rule is The Metal Movement, which got loads of comments but only two rates and second to none feedback - in the end, all of this piles up and I don't feel very motivated creating levels anymore. It's all very ironic though, considering people keep PM'ing me asking me for help with their caves and saying they would want my advice on their latest work in progress, motivating their request by adding that I'm such a good level maker myself. (No offense to the ones that do ask me for help though, I really enjoy helping you guys out whenever I can and I'm flattered by your comments and requests.)

Anyway, I never felt ashamed for not producing enough levels. When I used to make levels more frequently - one every month or more - they didn't receive very much attention, which kills the special thing about making a level - it's not only about feeling satisfied with creating a good level, it's also very much about getting positive feedback on your levels. Except for my first two levels, I've never felt I've gotten enough feedback on a level, which has steadily decreased my will to create a new level. At times, I get in "the mood" and create some traps and link them together. If I'm happy enough with them the day after, I don't delete the trap(s). I got one level I started working on just before New Years, and every other day I added a new trap to it. I haven't done that in a while now though, my most recent change in the level was 11th Feb. It probably won't get finished, and I don't really mind - to me, it doesn't matter too much. I will continue to visit the Interguild and be as active as previously, the possibility of a successful cave is nothing I care about anymore, the chances are slim. As long as the community lives on I'll stay though.

I propose the following:

Help each other with your caves. Ask for help if you want to fill out a part but have no inspiration. Make co-lab caves, heck I'm sure we could create a co-lab competition! What matters is that you guys keep engaging each other, and keep your projects open to others. In the end, most of us wouldn't be here if we didn't enjoy making levels for our games - sure, playing levels is nice, but to me, this is a site focusing on level making, not level playing. Encourage each other in all ways you can think of. That is what keeps a community alive - the feeling that you're interacting with others. This community in particular focuses on that - a level isn't a good level until it's released to another person than yourself, hence, people need to find your level and you need to interact with them - and if we forget about that, we're lost.

Go spread the word.

Is it just me, or have I not posted anything for months?

Well, I just chcked and it isn't just me.

I haven't been playing because hatpc hasen't been working, and right before it did stop working, I sorta got a little bored of it. It gets boring seeing the same title screen, the same font, and the same crates every time.

From reading what Isa has said, it seems like we just need to get more members in general, which is why getting the new layout out is so important, b/c the current layout may be deterring members . I'm also hoping that the directory idea will attract more level players (and some level makers), which will hopefully increase commenting on levels.

I don't understand what the layout has to do with new members. They still need to actually click on this website to see it. And for what Isa said, it does feel like every trap in Hatpc has been used and all new caves are different variations of same traps, but I liked your caves Isa, because I could tell you gave a effort to think of new things. As for my future caving career, who knows? It may be like Sweating Bullets and not arrive for 3 monthes.

Livio, you're getting obsessed with the layout problem, which ISN'T A PROBLEM.

Remember interguild.domingo.org and the main link there? The start page was very ugly, yet during the time span of one year - choose any year it was active, at random - we got more active members than during  the whole 2009, where we got loads of members who never posted anything. We got a few returners, like DBK, but the only new semi-active members we got this year is sinpokman, Dekudude, Thomas, bang_jan and sup_mus. You can't say that the layout is worse here, on the contrary it's much better, but to be honest both the quantity and quality of our new members have decreased since the release of the New Interguild, and the layout is not the fault of this.

What we need is something even more unique, the layout isn't that factor. Aeon is - work on that.

i think that most people dont join because they dont know where to start and how to introduce themselves.  I mean, a lot of people visit the site that arent registered according to the People Viewing this Site thing, and we also have a lot of inactive members that didnt actually do anything.  Maybe we should have this introduce yourself thread appear automatically when someone registers...?

yeah, I probably am obsessing over the layout, and part of that may just be fueled by my ambition to give the Interguild the best design I can possibly come up with. But I do believe that the presentation of the site does have a significant impact in how many people actually become interested and join.

The way that it works on the Internet is that if you were to come across a site that looked confusing, cluttered, or with an unclear purpose, there's a high chance that you would leave the site with virtually no effort put into trying to figure it out, unless you have the motivation for it, such simply being interested in the fact that there's a HATPC community-- and this is what has helped us a lot when it comes to members. But now that we're trying to get fans of other games to come here, we're gonna have to capture their interest in as many ways as we can. Simply having the content may not be enough, especially with all of the competition out there.

But I also hope that I don't sound like the new layout will solve all of our problems. That's why along with the new layout, I want to add that directory idea, and put added emphasis on levels around the site. We also really need to start advertising much better, by getting members to pass around more links to the site and stuff.

I think the fact is that the caves have to be like SUPER AWESOME to be submitted to the interguild. And I don't make many of those.

Nope, they don't - everyone has to start somewhere. If you look at Krotomo's caves, at first they were (excuse me for saying this) quite bad. As time went by, we could notice how his caves were improving in quality. I don't think that he'd be a better cavemaker if he didn't submit his levels when he was an inexperienced cavemaker, I believe that he improved from it as we were able to give him constructive criticism and help him improve. Same goes for you.