The Forum Problem

[WJLIII3]

This is just a snapshot, of course, just a random cut of noontime on a Monday. But the numbers are still telling. 69 users online, 12 of them registered, 57 guests. At the same time, 900 people are active on Discord, including 10 devs, 7 DMs, and all three admins.

A lot of people just don't use the forums, period. I barely use them, and when I do its only for bug reports. I only express my opinions on the forum when its something extremely meaningful to me. I once tried to actually keep an eye on the forum topics, but dropped it within a week or so.

So here's the problem, as I see it: Since Feedback is discouraged on Discord and encouraged to be taken to the forum, and because the devs and Irongron rely on the forum, what they're essentially getting is a skewed set of feedback. They are getting the feedback opinions OF ARELITH FORUM USERS, not of Arelith players, which is a much, much larger set, and one perhaps not demographically aligned with forum users.

I think this may be what happened with Skal- I think its what has happened with a lot of things over the years. A dedicated group with one viewpoint can make a great noise on the forums even when they (and their opinion) represent what is actually a vanishing minority of the population, even opposed to the overall desires of the population.

It is almost as if you were running a website, and basing your design choices of that website only on people's feedback by paper mail. Or- like you're holding a sport game, and only asking the people who hang out on the team's online forums for feedback, not the people who were in the stadium that night. Many of those people were in the stadium, of course, but they're a very specific set of the people who were at the game.

In our case, I fear the invisible set might very well be "people who are old enough to register for a BBCode forum" because that's really not something people do anymore.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I'm curious to hear some examples of issues you think are decided on the forums that don't reflect the discord majority.


But also, forums are just better for feedback if you are actually interested in reading what people have to say. I couldn't imagine any of these conversations having any sort of merit in real time on discord, where everyone is just talking over each other. Hell, they hardly have any merit here as a good amount of folks obviously don't read the entire thread before posting once it gets to about a half a page long.

And finally, most forum conversations don't change minds. People see things as they do, mostly because no one thinks things out with logic and reason anymore. Discord isn't fixing that. When it comes to mechanical decisions it's down to the dev team and the admins, and when it comes to rule's I think it's down to the dms and admins, though interpretations can be all over the place there. For better or worse, and it can be pretty meh when it's the worse end, that is your powerful minority and honestly it wouldn't work any other way. Someone has to make the decisions after all, because even here on the forums opinions are all over the place. Open that up to discord and things would literally be changing back and forth and back again every other day.

[Shadowy Reality]

What's the alternative?

Discord just isn't the right tool to discuss changes and provide feedback, it gets lost between all the other chatter. Forums are much better suited. Although I do believe feedback is taken from both currently. I have seen multiple contributors talking about changes in discord likewise.

[magistrasa]

While it's definitely good to keep a finger on the pulse of the community at large, I think discord is a poor format to accept and encourage feedback in; not just because of how much gets lost in the endless scroll of text without a dedicated archivist, but also because of how people have adapted to communicate using it. You're more likely to get feedback in the form of underdeveloped "hot takes" that are founded on feelings rather than fact - which isn't to say that doesn't happen on the forums, but at least you're more likely to sit down and think a bit harder about what you're wanting to say. The dumb ideas have to sit in the oven a little longer. Anecdotally, my drafts folder is full of silly nonsense like "Arcane Archer needs a buff actually" and "here's 3758 ways shadow mage could and should be unstoppable murder machines (unbiased)" that, rightfully, will never see the light of day.

I'm also not exactly sure what the alternative would be. If discord becomes accepted as a place to provide feedback, that doesn't mean everyone on the forums is going to move their discussion there. The segregation would remain. Do you want everyone to adapt to using discord as the primary form of communication? God, I cannot overstate how much I would personally dislike that. If it weren't for the 20th anniversary events, I wouldn't have rejoined the official discord myself.

It's not as if signing up to the forums is hard. You can literally do it from the game. For all the obscure knowledge and hidden mechanics we deal with in Arelith, the chat command to make a forum account is among the least complicated to figure out. I mean, I figured out, and I'm a bona-fide medically diagnosed moron. I'm confident that the kinds of people who would endure this 20 year old game can figure out a forum sign-up page.

That said, I do see your point, and agree with the assessment that forum users aren't necessarily indicative of the demographic sprawl of the server at large. Again, I'm just not sure what to do about that though. Everyone's allowed and encouraged to post on the forums, and it's just a very accessible format to host discussion compared to Discord's meandering and haphazard chat windows. Maybe it's just an issue with its marketing? I don't know.

If there's a problem with the forums, it's that bad and naughty children caused us to no longer be allowed to have a meme thread. In this lone arena, discord reigns supreme.

[Frailman]

On discord you're online all the time. On the forum you show as online when actively browsing. You've also not compared the active poster count of both. Over all it's a bad comparison of numbers.

[Subtext]

I think there are excellent points on both sides.

Discord simply is the go to tool these days for conversations. There's no denying that. It's quick and works for actual conversations which also isn't necessarily bad for feedback - it allows to form and develop ideas with the input of others which you won't find to the same extent on the forum.
On the other hand you'll hardly see a longer written concept on Discord due to the length limitation which makes the quality of feedback naturally limited.

Also, I'd say that forums as a medium are a little...dated. I'd wager that the majority of people regularly posting here are veterans on Arelith and more invested players. That's naturally a fairly specific subset of the community.

My idea would be - given that it works - creating dedicated feedback threads in Discord about topics that are a expected to be more impactful or when mods/admins notice one topic to become particularly controversial. With one caveat - slowmode. Even something as short as five minutes would stem the flow of off topic banter and give an incentive to put in a bit of effort rather than one liner hot takes.
Ideally these threads would be in a channel where only mods/admins can create threads without any conversation going on in that channel itself apart from the threads.
Ideally a forum thread would be opened in parallel and linked to the thread.

I don't mean to have that for every little thing but bigger stuff. For example the introduction of a new class, wholesale changes to writs...

[WanderingPoet]

Simply put, if forum use is encouraged to share feedback, then use the forums? Not everyone uses discord contrary to the implied. No one is preventing anyone from using forums, they're open to everyone, so it's a conscious choice to not engage in the feedback by choosing to not use forums.

Now, you could make the reverse argument for discord, that those choosing to not take part in discord (a personal conscious choice) are choosing to not engage in the feedback too; but as other said above - forums are a nicer medium for long thoughtful posts than discord which is a chat program.

Discord simply is the go to tool these days for conversations. There's no denying that. It's quick and works for actual conversations which also isn't necessarily bad for feedback - it allows to form and develop ideas with the input of others which you won't find to the same extent on the forum.

Also, I'd say that forums as a medium are a little...dated. I'd wager that the majority of people regularly posting here are veterans on Arelith and more invested players. That's naturally a fairly specific subset of the community.

I would somewhat disagree, as 'conversations' is far too broad of a word. Yes, discord may be the most popular chat program on the market currently, but there are still a significant number of people that avoid channels and utilize it simply for private messaging. So while I would agree that discord is the most popular private messaging application, I wouldn't agree that it's replaced all forms of conversation.

Also forums are still very popular in the game industry as a whole, just look at the paradox forums for all their ongoing discussions across their games, and many other game devs. I'd argue that forums are just as popular now as years ago, just perhaps not in your personal experience.

My idea would be - given that it works - creating dedicated feedback threads in Discord about topics that are a expected to be more impactful or when mods/admins notice one topic to become particularly controversial. With one caveat - slowmode. Even something as short as five minutes would stem the flow of off topic banter and give an incentive to put in a bit of effort rather than one liner hot takes.
Ideally these threads would be in a channel where only mods/admins can create threads without any conversation going on in that channel itself apart from the threads.
Ideally a forum thread would be opened in parallel and linked to the thread.

I don't mean to have that for every little thing but bigger stuff. For example the introduction of a new class, wholesale changes to writs...

I do think the idea of a feedback thread with slowmode is a good one though, to help get more thoughts from people if they really don't want to use forums. Though at that point you're basically replicating a forum in discord and it seems a bit pointless - it would help for those that just really don't want to use forums though, and help people feel like they can give their feedback in their preferred medium.

[Xerah]

Discord only, from a developer's view, would be an awful move.

Forums are very useful for what they do and if someone doesn't want to engage on here, that's on them.

[Irongron]

I try to engage players on both, though they are very different. Discord is essentially a casual chat room, while the forums are far more structured.

I'm also always interested to read feedback both here and on Discord, but it would be a mistake I base all decisions on it. Arelith is not developed based upon majority consensus, but the creative vision of our staff, and ultimately myself. Some mahor changes in the past would never have happened if I looked only at feedback. There is nothing broken about that.

[Drowboy]

No matter what you use the conversation is always going to be dominated by the "extremely online" as it's currently being called. No way around it other than to trust the people running the show to understand what "vocal minority" means.

[Jan Skorvo]

The writ rework shows that the vocal minority takes precedence towards things, as most people generally thought writs were perfectly fine, yet all writs on the surface saw an xp reduction, including the ones that Irongron has stated were perfectly fine and difficult.

[Frailman]

Or does it show that decisions are not made by majority consensus?
Mad how everybody is in the silent majority innit

[Xerah]

Consider this a warning to get off the topic of this "Forum User Cabal" who is dictating EXP gains. Any further mentions of this is unhelpful and not based on anything in reality.

[Paint]

Forum conversations move differently than discord conversations by the nature of the format. I enjoy using both, and I encourage anyone who wants to provide input and discuss mechanics or ideas do the same.

[Richrd]

If people cared enough about Arelith and wanted their opinion heard they could come to the forum and participate in the process.

Nothing is stopping them.

To me at least this does not seem like a "forum problem" but more of an issue on the players' side.

[Flower Power]

Discord is a great chat program.

It's not a great tool for managing project development.

Forums have clear logistical benefits in terms of allowing for a less hectic pace of conversation and easier archiving of conversations.

[Archnon]

On discord you're online all the time. On the forum you show as online when actively browsing. You've also not compared the active poster count of both. Over all it's a bad comparison of numbers.

This is dead on! You can consider discord as a "total population" of ooc engaged players. A snapshot of one moment of the forum just gets you a random sample from that total population. You would need to be able to cross check the usernames on both, an impossible feat.

On top of that, assuming that there is some secret consensus on the forum betrays a lack of participation forum. The conflicts here over build/class design, server functions and dynamics, pretty much everything related to the game are significant and contain roughly the same breadth as any conflicts on discord. We do not all agree and at times we don't even get along and a simple perusal of any feedback thread will reveal that.

[MissEvelyn]

If you think the forums are a secret cabal of people deciding things, you should see the Patreon forums

I'm absolutely, positively kidding! There is no cabal. The dev team listens to feedback, yes, but they also have the bigger picture with the numbers, so they know better how to apply feedback than any of us non-devs here.

If Irongron actually listened to this supposed cabal, we'd still be playing on 2007's Arelith. But thank goodness he doesn't let nostalgia and the good old days cloud his judgement. And I say this as someone who sometimes misses the good old days dearly.

[Sincra]

Taking a slice of forum activity and comparing it to Discord is fundamentally flawed.

One of these logs me out automatically while the other is up all the time I am at my PC or even my phone.

I check the forums atleast once every couple days, I may not login, but I don't sit with bated breath for some feedback or issue.

Discord is an instant messenger based on slack.
The forums are a forum based on PHPBB.
These serve two very different and fundamentally non-interchangeable services.

As others have pointed out if people want to be apart of forum discourse, nothing is stopping them.

It is worth noting that Discord has shown signs of experimenting with in-app Forum like areas, but so far since the vague announcement blog post nothing has come of it and unless that changes I won't be looking to use Discord for that.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

Discord just moves too quickly and there are too many conversations going at once. Without the forums nothing would get done.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

The writ rework shows that the vocal minority takes precedence towards things, as most people generally thought writs were perfectly fine, yet all writs on the surface saw an xp reduction, including the ones that Irongron has stated were perfectly fine and difficult.

This had little to do with vocal minority or forums versus discord. I do not see a bunch of forum people going "this was a great idea".

In fact most people have not even checked how much say cordor writs are because they seem a lot lower too than what I remember them. I just havent had the time to give feedback because I don't play enough to give accurate feedback. Many of us have been telling discord users to give feedback here, because not everyone is gathering relevant data and able to deliver. That doesnt mean everyone on the forums agreed with the writ nerfs.

There is a sticky thread where players are supposed to review writs, a literal sticky request for it. The amount of casual free energy talk saying 'all writs suck now' does not provide the details explanations said thread is requesting for each individual writ to be re-reviewed. This has nothing to do with forum minority versus discord. I am on both and would hate it if we were more discord focused actually, but I also completely disagree with the writ changes. I however can't give meaningful feedback because I don't have the numbers/experience to back up arguments and am hoping people more able to argue would step up to the plate on this matter.

[IanPatron]

I'm an old veteran player so I don't use discord. I like immersion in my gameplay, which means I spend very little time OOC when in game. If I need to say a couple things or address something ooc I do it.

I don't mind having discord AND forums, but I generally peruse the forums more than I ever would discord. I don't feel like looking at a scrawling wall of texts and conversations just popping up and disappearing under the weight of pop up chats.

But in all honesty I avoid OOC because that's not what I'm here for. I'm here for RP, so if I have my choice of spending 30 minutes RPing or 30 minutes chatting with my game friends... I avoid my friends, and choose the RP instead.

The forums are easier to look up while in game rather than keeping up with discord.