Miiverse

Miiverse was a social networking service run by Nintendo on Wii U and 3DS, from November 18, 2012 to November 8, 2017. It was where the members of the ZNG originally met each other. The service was frequented by a terrific, rad community of other Nintendo and Zelda fans, and its screenshot-capturing capability for games was very handy. It was a perfect dwelling place for any Zelda nerd! Some members may even have considered it as worthy a hobbit-hole as the Zol Nesting Grounds!
Now, the ZNG has largely migrated to Twitter and Discord as successors, but nothing will ever quite be able to recreate the experience of Miiverse itself. And of course, many friends and perhaps even some members of the ZNG have not been sighted since Miiverse was switched off in 2017.
== Types of ZNG Activity ==
The ZNG was active in a variety of ways on Miiverse. This is a small sampling of what took place on the service:
=== Discussions ===
The ZNG loved to have discussions on Miiverse. These discussions sometimes took place on specific posts, or they sometimes came into being on an already-existing post about a game. Discussions typically revolved around lore and theories about Zelda and other titles (truly a nerdy enough pastime for the group). Upcoming news frequently found itself a topic as well. Often, when there was a Nintendo Direct or other important announcement, there would be multiple reaction posts running simultaneously. 
=== Logging Playthroughs ===
When a ZNG member played through a new game or attempted a challenge run of a game, they would often make a post logging their experiences and reactions for the group and others to enjoy. This activity has spread widely among the ZNG; many different members have made a log or two of a game at some point or another. Nintendoer and Stagger's logs in particular were known to draw large crowds, partially because the challenges they attempted were more absurdly difficult than what most Zelda Nerd Galoshes would dare to perform (e.g. an A Link to the Past full minimalist run, a Zelda II: The Adventure of Link  minimum life run, and a linked Oracle of Seasons/Ages run with four hearts and the Cursed Ring equipped).
Besides the logging itself, naturally, reading and commenting along with others' logs was also a fun way the ZNG made use of Miiverse. Notifications morphing often took place as a more fun way of ensuring a reader would receive notifications than just saying "Notifs," as on Miiverse the only way to get notified of new comments on a post was to comment on that post yourself at least once.
=== Memes ===
Memes, not in the sense of how the wider internet might have used them, but as little in-jokes and such that would be repeated over and over and spread between members of the group, were certainly a part of the Miiverse experience for every ZNGer. Even so, there were some ZNGers who just couldn’t stop making more of these, or reviving them from some long-lost post made months previously. Certain ZNG memes could be found confined within Ed™'s chat posts and nowhere else. A few of the ZNG’s favorite memes included:
* The "NoFaceFred/YesFaceEd" meme
* The "Blake is part fish" meme
* The "Nintendoer is an android" meme
* The "Simon" meme
* Matthew and “Skyward Sword!”
* The "Straggler" meme
* The "Elzonire's eyes" meme
* The "Noeloren," or "ノエロレン" meme
* Noelle's muffins
* “ Noelle tells the best stories!”
* The "Elzonire is Elmo" meme
* The Bread meme
* The Captain Abrollica meme
* Megan's squirrels
* Paedric's mech
=== Chat Posts ===
Ed™ was especially well known for these. He hosted a quite impressively large chat thread, which was even how some of the ZNG's finest Galooglers came to meet the group. It consisted of 241 posts over the course of roughly two years, ending just one month before Miiverse came to a close. Ed™'s chat posts covered a myriad of topics, from deep philisophical subjects, to music preferences, to dreaming, to such simple folly as shipping. Many humorous or memorable quotes were made during these chats.
There was often an extremely heated competition to get the last comment on chat posts. Elzonire was a frequent last-commenter.
Some creative interpretation was taken with the name of the chat thread, such as dubbing it a chat rope instead, due to its longevity and continued strong participation. Other trends surfaced, first calling it a 'cat rope,' then a 'dog chain,' then an 'Echo Chain,' and, in its final form, a 'Charcho Chain.' However! None of these alternate titles were approved by the Grand High Council of the ZNG, therefore one should use them with a tinge of caution. For simplicity and to cover the chat thread over its entire history, this wiki uses the term "Ed™'s chat posts."
=== Drawings ===
:See Gallery of Miiverse Drawings.
These were a fun way to share one’s enthusiasm about a game, series or characters. Drawings were mostly produced using the built-in drawing functionality on the Wii U and 3DS versions of Miiverse, though occasionally Art Academy was used, for more complicated drawings that incorporated color and higher detail. Naturally, the Zelda series was a popular subject of the ZNG's drawings, though other series were represented as well.
== The Wyoming Club ==
Blake started using the Wyoming Club as a substitute for the activity feed after the Miiverse redesign, and quite a few other ZNG members would post there on occasion as well, when they wanted to post a message to the rest of the ZNG or just their Miiverse friends in general.
For instance, exchanges of Play Styles, when needed, took place on posts by Stagger's alt, Straggler, in the Wyoming Club.
In February of 2016, many ZNGers shared their 3DS play times on the community. Nintendoer started the trend (after Matt had on another community), then followed by Sciz, Elzonire, Matthew (who decided to post his Wii and Wii U times), Ray, Blake, Justin86, and Brandon.
The Wyoming Club was also inhabited by some other Miiverse users using it as their own activity feed, such as Space Bear. They were sometimes to have ZNG members post there. However, the ZNG was peacefully able to coexist with other occupants of the Wyoming Club through to the very end, lending the community a unique flavor. Somewhat amusingly, around one person every few weeks (and fewer as time went on) who was actually from Wyoming and playing Wii Sports Club would post in the community. In later 2016 and 2017, however, this had become a very rare sight indeed.
== History ==
:This section is about Miiverse as a whole. For the history of the ZNG, see ZNG §History.
Miiverse started its life as a small community of Wii U early adopters, who had suffered through their day-one update and were excited to share about New Super Mario Bros. U. As its userbase grew, a number of modifications and rules were set into place. The web version of Miiverse, launched in April 2013, was a great expansion, allowing for all kinds of convenience in accessing the service while away from one’s console. The 3DS version came later that same year, in December 2013. Following a series of updates in 2014–2015 that attempted to combat spam posting, such as by limiting posting frequency to once every three minutes, the infamous Miiverse redesign was born. The Miiverse Redesign on July 29, 2015 nearly razed Miiverse to the ground, sparking controversy across the once-happy Mii-inhabited globe. "Comment limits!?" people exclaimed. "What!?" The ability to post to activity feed was also removed (a very sad day, indeed). Additionally, the previously open-flow communities were segmented into Play Journal, Drawings, and Discussions sections, making it harder to check in on the pulse of communities than it had been previously. One positive aspect of the July 2015 redesign was the addition of the Screenshot Album, which allowed one to save up to 100 screenshots to Miiverse to use in posts later. There were various other smaller updates to Miiverse following the redesign, such as an overhaul to the web version that displayed ads.
Miiverse's future was uncertain once the Nintendo Switch launched. The Switch was not compatible with Miiverse, which immediately made clear that Miiverse was not part of Nintendo's vision for the future of its game platforms. Temporary downtime for maintenance was fairly common throughout Miiverse's lifespan, but there was a decreasing amount of feature updates added during these periods of downtime as the Wii U's lifespan drew to a close, another sign that the service was falling out of Nintendo's favor.
=== Closure ===
On August 29, 2017, Nintendo officially announced that Miiverse would be ending on November 8th that year, for the Wii U, 3DS, and web versions and in all regions. The shuttering of the service could have been due to server costs, difficulty in regulating the community, general difficulty to get the Miiverse community to grow, or any number of reasons which may only ever be fully known by Nintendo. There was also the simple fact that the Wii U underperformed in sales, which may have motivated Nintendo to end Miiverse as a way to shut the door on the misfortunes of the console it was inextricably tied to.
== Pertinent Miiverse Posts ==
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*Wyoming Club play time posts:
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Category:Social Media / Forums