What was the personality of Gamespot OT before Armageddon?

I can't quite put my finger on it. I use to love seeing all the zany stuff people said here, the broken quotes, overuse of the :P emoticon, Xaos completely mesmerizing my mind with science... What is it that GS lost?

Can it ever return, or was the site overhaul the last breathe of air before full-on drowning?

Also...

- what point in time do you think we should declare as the beginning of OT/GS Armageddon?

Traffic.

These are my thoughts on whoever is in charge of GS changes the last couple of years:

meh, the layout change was the straw that broke the camels back. OT was slowly rotting before that and the layout just sped up the process. The whole community has changed and gotten smaller; and people seem to be dicks to each other more often. For comparison, in the 'good' days I could post about a concert and talk music, and in the 'shit times' (lack of a better word) I get a bunch of pricks saying that the bands I saw sucked and the topic was locked for being to 'bloggy'....keep in mind this was with the 'relaxed' TOU as well.

I'm sure there are still some old guys around, and not everyone is an ass....but OT is a shadow of itself and it sucks.

Now lets wait for this to become an 'America sucks' thread as par for course.

there's literally no one here except OOOOOLLD people with no... oomph. This site is going to tank. Attempts to mobilize/esocialize are futile.

to sorta quote MGS2, this site will die, not with a bang, but with a whimper. ;P

I still like what community is left. I remember things seemed much more....upbeat Idk how to describe it. You still had the fights and shit. But for the most part it was all good fun, and the site actually moved! None of these topics would be on the first page for long.

Happier people instead of the bitter ones we have now

this^^

This place is like a world gone sterile i.e., there are no new faces and the population that is left is being slowly whittled down.

I noticed more activity than these forums is in the news articles and videos comments sections. You can post from Facebook there.

Busy....

OT is too tamed

You're provoking such remorseful and nostalgic feelings lol

I remember when this place was so active that you had to search for a very recent topic you posted in in the second or third page. I recall how it was so challenging to try and keep up with a discussion because of the intense level of activity OT had. There were times when users who frequented this forum were so diverse and interesting, whether in a good or a bad way. The strict ToU were a bitch sure, but it was always fun and tricky to try and insult someone without violating them. This definitely added some zing to the whole OT experience and the substantial prospect of getting banned was strangely exciting. Now everybody gets to say whatever they want and we through insults and derogatories rather haphazardly. I miss those HTML errors that sometimes made posting nearly impossible. I miss how you could disagree with some users so profoundly and how they would rage at and botcher you for something you said, and the next day it all becomes water under the bridge, instead of the inane and stalkesh behavior a considerable number of users exhibit now. Back in the heyday of OT, following someone actually meant something. You would constantly exchange PMs with them and read and comment on their blog posts. Those were the days indeed.

In any case, GS had it coming. GS as a gaming website has always sucked, period. The forums and the community were the only excellent thing about the site. The community kept for years exhorting and imploring the site's staff to do something about the abysmal technical problems that have plagued the site for as long as I can remember. The community was unequivocally dissatisfied with the ToU of then. For some strange reason, the staff decided to give the users the finger and effectively chase them away of the site. I hope they now sleep better at night.

The really good users were never raw or xaos. Were some really funny guys on here sometimes.

@GazaAli: I agree with almost everything you said here, but hold up with the "GS always sucked as a gaming site" business! There was in fact a time - the time of Kasavin, Gerstmann, Navarro and Davis (and a few others) - when this place was as unpretentious and great as any gaming website on the internet.

That time is long past though, and since maybe 2006 I've only periodically (once or twice a year, for two or three months at a time) returned to this place to see what's up and post a bit. The new layout is terrible though, and this is as dead as I've ever seen the forums.

I wish they would bring back OTAH

This place was always dying ever since the rules update that allowed users more "flexibility", the overhaul just simply was the one that was the final straw for many of the users. System wars also died down in traffic and there really is not much reason for any new user to join here as opposed to other sites.

I agree. That was something that was pretty bold and unique.

The introduction of the new TOU. As Gaza said the old one was strict, but it was fun trying to work around it. But when the new TOU came, a lot of people were just insulting each other for no reason and trolls started appearing all over the place. That was when a lot of users started to leave.

Actually you're paraphrasing a TS Eliot quote. Culture yourself, folks!

TS Eliot - The Hollow Men

Mistah Kurtz-he dead

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats' feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us - if at all - not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

In death's dream kingdom

These do not appear:

There, the eyes are

Sunlight on a broken column

There, is a tree swinging

And voices are

In the wind's singing

More distant and more solemn

Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer

In death's dream kingdom

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field

Behaving as the wind behaves

No nearer -

Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land

This is cactus land

Here the stone images

Are raised, here they receive

The supplication of a dead man's hand

Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this

In death's other kingdom

Waking alone

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness

Lips that would kiss

Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here

There are no eyes here

In this valley of dying stars

In this hollow valley

This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear

As the perpetual star

Multifoliate rose

Of death's twilight kingdom

The hope only

Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear

Prickly pear prickly pear

Here we go round the prickly pear

At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception

And the creation

Between the emotion

And the response

Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire

And the spasm

Between the potency

And the existence

Between the essence

And the descent

Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is

Life is

For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

Well I've only been around since 2007 so I might have missed out on that alleged period of unpretentiousness.

In any case, I can't believe how pretentious this site has become. I mean seriously, I find it disturbing that the commentators and reviewers on this site are possibly unaware of how much they suck.

@br0kenrabbit: Very cool! I didn't realise it was lifted from another source. I'll probably give that another read tomorrow when i'm not as tired to soak it all in:P