Is it all dead?
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Sorry, have just re-read my post and feel it comes across too strongly.
I do not wish to criticise the efforts of any of those concerned with keeping KM alive (Eyeshield, I still enjoy your fanzine!)
However I do feel that the drop off in activity is a worrying sign...
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Glad to hear it. I only mentioned it because I read your profile and saw your e-mail address and realised you were one of my regulars and wondered whether the lack of frontpage updates may have put you off reading Issues 55 and 56. I'm thankful that my fears were unfounded.
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In truth, that slump in activity started about four or five years ago when KMVR was shelved. It was deflating news for a lot of people.
But in the end, at the risk of sounding overly blunt, people who want more activity here will have to be more active themselves, rather than waiting for the 'veterans' (for want of a better term) to lead the way all the time. As Jake says, TES is still very much alive, there's more material on the way from the Audio Play team in the near future, and there are still several seasons of the RPG awaiting release. But these are all big jobs that can't be offered up at the drop of a hat. and so it really does fall to others to keep things going in between times.
Come up with ideas for new threads, search through old threads to see if you can offer new ideas for some of them to revive them, write fanfics, draw pictures, think up puzzles or jokes, and put them up for discussion. The reason activity on here has been so low for the last few years has been precisely because those who used to take the initiative are now feeling lethargic and no longer bother with the forun, and not enough newcomers are prepared to take up the initiative in their stead. Harsh, perhaps, but true.
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I've updated the main page of Knightmare.com with a generic message saying TES is still updated.
As I've mentioned on here before, after 10 years of updating this site, things have moved on my end and I'm no-longer have the time to update the site. We've covered so much ground in that time anyway that even if there were updates they would be minimal.
However the site and forum will remain online. As I've said before, if anyone is willing to take over responsibility for the whole site and update/re-design it (ownership will still remain with me) then I'd be happy to hear from you. There have been several offers of help but no-one willing to take over the whole site.
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Can I be the first to thank you for keep this website updated for over a decade! Millions, even billions of others can't make that claim and it's grown into easily the internet's best resource for the show by absolute miles. It's a shame that you're moving on but what you've left us with will continue to be loved by absolutely thousands of people, and thank you also for putting up with my picky website corrections which started a never-ending thread!!
I wiah you all the best with your life and may it bring as much happiness to you as this website has to all of us.
On the inactivity issue I sadly have to admit that in the last couple of years, my postings here and my chatroom appearances have divebombed to a handful. It is however worth noting that before late 2002 when the Challenge repeats/KMVR development started, there was a similar lack of busy-ness but not as much as now, but those two things kicked it off into overdrive, leading to possibly the entire community's peak in 2004 when Challenge were showing all 8 series regularly and the KMVR pilot was released!
But then when KMVR was shelved things quietened down a bit, and then when Challenge stopped showing KM in March 2007 that was it really. With hope of a new series mostly faded away, and in my case, having reviewed every single episode of the show ever made, there wasn't really much left. Starting college and getting work also meant I haven't been as madly active as I used to be.
Remember that it's now been 15 years since the show went off the air. When I started posting here in 2000 it was only 6 years - that's the equivalent now to talking about a show from 2003. I know Doctor Who came back after a long absence but that has an even bigger fanbase than us and even that hadn't been off the TV for as long as 15 years! I'm still hopeful it'll return but you have to admit that things aren't as optimistic as they were.
So to cut a perhaps overlong post short, I do wish the community was as exciting and busy as the glory days of five years ago, but there's still things going on - there's the brilliant Eye Shield fanzine I still read all the time and extreme credit to Jake for keeping that going all these years, there's new audio plays in development which are worth a listen, and occasionally we get a few people in the chatroom, like tonight right now!
So although it may seem empty, the community still lives on! Just not as much as it did...
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For e it is a question of time I have No time at weekends as i am away adn opften dont egt bck till alte sunday adn i am working in school monyda to friday. I will then in summer have no if any net access until i relocate whereever that is. So i would never abandonhere it's just personal reasosn at ther moment. soon it will all be goood tho:)
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There are a few projects going on which should refresh things.
For a start, the site is currently in the process of getting a complete overhaul.
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In my opinion, the current state of the internet Knightmare community can be represented graphically:
Its halcyon days are long gone; and whatever new projects 'hit the stage', a large and appreciative audience cannot be guaranteed; but it's by no means lifeless.
I do feel that the drop off in activity is a worrying sign...
The key word for me is individuals. They are what make a community, or break one. Ultimately, I would attribute the inactivity of this forum largely to individual after individual reaching a state (perhaps unconsciously) where they have nothing more they want to give to the KM community, and where the KM community has nothing more they want to take. As Dave explains in his post, there are some members who are more willing than they are able, but I believe that for the majority of lapsed posters, it's vice versa. To quote a remark made publicly by a KM fan elsewhere online a few years ago, 'as KMers move into university, start jobs, find love, get married, have kids, etc, they're not gonna have time for a stupid website anymore. In 1999 the average online KM age must have been, ooh, about 16...but as it gets older, real life invades more.' I wouldn't have expressed it so bluntly, but it's along the same lines as my perspective.
In my view: the question, then, is not 'Is it all dead?' but one for individuals to quietly ask themselves: "Is my passion for Knightmare dead?" Followed by: "In that case, what do I want to do about it?"
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You might be interested to know that according to our forum software, there's been an average of 15.79 posts per day made on the forum since it started in 2002.
I would say that I read an average of two new posts per day now.
So based on that, there's been a significant drop off.
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And if that didn't make you wishful for the good old days.....
I made a very nice chart showing the posts per month over time.
Knightmare forum usage.png
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The spikes occur around June 2003, January 2004 and May/June 2004.
In the first case, there was a Knightmare DVD petition, some preliminaries of KMVR and series 4 was being shown on Challenge.
I would suspect that the spikes coincide with KMVR information releases.
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That's a fascinating graph! I'd say the Jan 04 one was possibly due to events like Treguard on Dick and Dom in da Bungalow, the clips of the French/Spanish versions, and more Challenge series being announced. May/June 04 was during a massive influx of episode reviews as part of the new Challenge episodes.
Note also a tiny spike in early 2006...I think I'm partly responsible for that I wrote a MASSIVE load of episode reviews during this time as I recorded the final few Challenge repeats, by which time it was on at about 7am or something silly, so that may have a bit to do with it. Quite scary about how dead things suddenly go in late 2004 though, I still think of the 'golden age' lasting up to about the summer of 2006 but it's clear that it happened even earlier.
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It's a real shame that the forums aren't as popular as they were, I think we have a responsibility to post here as much as we can. I'll try to do my best in posting, unfortunately there isn't a lot of us left now, and we have to respect that people are moving on and possibly even forgetting Knightmare. I predict in the next five years, they'll be very few of us here at all.
We do however need to keep ourselves focused! We all love Knightmare, and as long as we do, and we chat about it and keep the fire burning, then perhaps will come back. Remember, people will only be coming back if there is actual activity.
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Interesting stats. I do remember the first time I started lurking around here was about 2002... but there seemed to be a lot of people and sites reliving their childhoods with lots of programmes back then. Still no reason why Knightmare can't live and breath again, we just need to find that table with some food...
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Just to offer my personal perspective, I was never a prolific poster for various reasons - other things got in the way like trying to live in the UK and work in another country and the crapper parts of life that although inevitable, unfortunately will come to some sooner rather than later I did pop in occasionally as a guest to read the forums on an irregular basis though. Since I first posted back in 2003 a lot has changed - the Challenge repeats have come and gone, KMVR the same and the future very uncertain. My life has changed a lot - I'm 30 now and I've got a job closer to home but I'm also married with two children under two therefore I have little time for much outside of family at the moment - note my posting times! I'm sure I'm not the only Knightmare fan with these circumstances...
So why did I pop back? Well, I guess I wanted closure on a couple of things:
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New Knightmare
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DVD/download release of the original episodes
Since Tim Child has gone to ground I did my own research and from what I found (see previous posts) point one will never happen in my opinion. Fair play to Tim, he's tried but it never got any backing. Risk adverse broadcasters and the recession have not helped matters but there is also the fact that TC is in his sixties now and may well have had enough and be ready for retirement. I'll share any new information that I find out here. As for point two, I'm not sure if the support is there - I'm not seeing the numbers on this forum or Facebook. It would be great to get a definitive yes or no answer (preferably yes). Here's hoping.
As for the future, what happens? I can't really see much to talk about bar new fan creations - nothing new is happening. That said, this site is fantastic and needs preserving, even if there is no new content. I was a big fan of Knightmare and it would be a huge shame for the memories to fade away.
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In answer to the Question "Is it all dead?" .
My answer is no, Knightmare still has a a lot going for it, they could repeat all those episodes again on CITV now and they would still be successful in my opinion. The show hasn't dated at all, (apart from some of the VR in series 7 and 8 and some of the Advisor's Haircuts) . And as Tim Child said on this site in Part 4 of The History of Knightmare, "Ironically, it is a time that is absolutely made for Knightmare, a gaming system that is now acknowledged as: ahead of its time."
I think the best thing to use as an example is "Doctor Who", after a Brief revival in interest in 1996 (just like we had with the Challenge Repeats and KMVR in 2002), TV Executives, fans and critics alike thought the show was Dead and Buried and that it would forever be residing in the BBC Archives as a Happy Memory of Sci-Fi Television gone by. But then the DVD's of the original episodes started being successful, and then in 2003 it was announced that the show would return, the impossible happened and it's now Bigger than ever.
I do believe that the same thing could happen to KM, maybe not now, maybe not in 5 years but someday. You've got to remember that a lot of TV Producer's, Writer's, Actor's, and Director's now, used to watch Knightmare when they were kids, and some member's of the original Teams who appeared on KM have since got into the TV Industry. Maybe this new generation might find it a good idea to revive the show. Russell T Davies was a lifelong Who fan and most of the DW crew now (Steven Moffatt, David Tennant, etc) are made up of fans of the original series.
We are currently going through something of a Revival craze with classic show's like Battlestar Galacticca, Blake's 7, Auf Wiedesehen Pet and Minder all returning to our screens, and even Kid's shows like Bagpuss, Rentaghost and Worzel Gummidge are rumoured to be making comeback's.
If nothing ever happen's then tiggy is right about this site, it does need preserving, it's something of a Time Capsule filled with Brilliant Memory's, and it would be a sad day indeed if this site was no longer on the Internet.
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Things have gone a bit quite around here lately, but there is a couple of things that I have been thinking of lately. One thing is I wish the Video clips of this site could be updated, as a lot of the clips are now badly out-of-date Real Media files from the Sci-Fi Channel repeats & quite poor quality. All these could now be changed to better quality clips or links to some ''YouTube'' videos. Also, maybe the ''Children's ITV'' section could be a bit updated too, now that's a bit more information about it's history available (thanks to the likes of ''Wikipedia'' etc). I have read on here that the webmaster wants to step down from running the site, which is a shame, but it would be good for someone else to take over & make a few improvements and minor tweaks here and there.
Also, what is happening re Tim Child's ''Something Stirs'' comment that he made on here last year? He said there would be something happening in either 2008 or 2009, but we're nearly at the end of 2009 now & we've heard nothing from him, so what was all that about? As for the DVD release, why not bypass that & go straight to Blu-Ray? There is far more room on a single Blu-Ray disc, so it wouldn't be as many discs for the full 8 series plus extras. Also, I would love a commentary or 2 from Tim Child & Hugo Myatt or any of the actors involved, or from any of the teams too. Or from the fans like what they do on the ''Red Dwarf'' fansite ''Ganymede & Titan''. Also, a nice few featurettes would be great too, with interviews from all the main people involved. Also archive footage, CITV appearances & trailers etc, behind-the-scenes footage & any other interesting stuff would be great to see too. So, I think Blu-Ray would be a good way to go for a retail release, and with the players coming down in price now rapidly (£100 in Asda now!), I think Blu-Ray will take off in the next year or 2. Also, it's great picture & sound quality too.
So, there's still plenty of stuff to discuss on here it seems!...
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Most of your questions have already been answered if you examine the individual threads.
In an effort to not move off-topic, I would suggest you re-post any other questions to the threads concerned.
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