Feedback Official Elvenar Discord server

[crackie]

But otherwise, you hit the nail on the head. Even with the recent QoL improvements (many of which have been asked for years, some way back in 2016/17!), there's this "one step forward, two steps back" with Inno.

That flat view on browser change was very much welcomed and appreciated. Yet, it didn’t help wash the bad taste from the discord announcement, which made me realize, yay, thanks management for inserting yourselves into player’s user satisfaction and taking away from the game. I’m sure the devs appreciate it.

Let’s look at the current state of the forum:
1.) Announcements - torched by discord
2.) Release Notes - torched by discord
3.) Ideas & Suggestions - torched by management
4.) Found a Bug? - torched by discord
5.) Artist Corner - torched by Reign of Terror
6.) Contests - torched by Reign of Terror, finished off by discord
7.) Game Worlds - probably torched by discord bc who are we recruiting if they keep diverting traffic away

Who made those decisions? Staff
Do they improve or decrease favorable user experience? Decrease
Have they been building a community or destroying one? Destroying

That’s seven sections they’ve torched! Does this help spell out why people have had it? And yet, despite their best efforts to burn the community to the ground, we are still here because everyone knows this is still the best place to get quality answers quickly without having to clear your cache. That’s how important the forum is and cannot be replaced by Discord! So put the reports down. By the time you guys figure out a trend looking at numbers, you’ll already be behind another user dissatisfaction trend. You. Guys. Are. Killing. The. Community. Stop doing more harm! Way more have been taken away than you’re giving us with Discord. So pardon me if I’m not giving anyone a pat on the back and a standing ovation for this kind of community leadership across the board. Please do better. The good news is the people are angry, but at least angry still mean they care. If they’re not angry anymore, then they already left and you’ve lost more players, which is always good for the bottom line everyone is so concerned about, right?

 

[BrinDarby]

Closing the forums and creating a Discord server seems to be Inno looking to save pennies, and a woeful misunderstanding of what people were requesting: In Game World Chat, not an external service that they need to sign up for.

As you can see I mock'd up an example, for space I cut size of box.

the D , would detach a seperate window/tab containing the chatbox.
the F , is for Fellowship Chat
the W , is for the World you're in like Harandar
The S , is for Server ( global ) like US

We all know the current chatbox is woefully too small, so this instantly
fixes that. As you can see, "where" you are is also displayed and is
color coded to the buttons. Sure there would be a Icon for two that
I'm missing ( World/Server ) so it all looks professional. As this is basically
the browser version. I'm sure there's a mobile solution, again in a seperate
window/tab. As I have, usually, all 4 worlds open @ the same time, its
not a stretch to have a world open in Tab1, chatbox open in tab2, and
the forum open in tab3. We could easily discuss a specific thread in
realtime, and posts would be more on point/relevant because simple
misunderstandings wouldn't clog up the threads because we could just
use the global server chat while on the forum.

This is what we ask'd for, NOT Discord.

 

[Henroo]

@crackie what is the Reign of Terror?

 

[TimeMachine]

Discord hasn’t reached critical mass yet for people to want to sign up en masse and now forum people are pissed and leaving so we are bleeding on both ends.

That is exactly what it seems like to me too. I am honestly wondering if all this happend / is happening by accident or on purpose?

But since Inno is determined to destroy the game and move on to newer and bigger bags of silver, I am seriously thinking about stepping down as archmage and eventually leaving.

Me too!

Or rather, Inno's changed. They've been bought out by venture capitalists, who always drill into the heart of a business, hollow out its shell and then throw it away.

In my opion this is the one and only reason for all them "bad" changes to the spire, to the MA, to the game in general and at last to the forum.
To me it seems like that Elvenar is run by a competely new team although I know it isn't really like that.

 

[BrinDarby]

To me it seems like that Elvenar is run by a competely new team although I know it isn't like that.

Do you ?? there was that big shakeup couple months back...

The switch to Discord, erases 8 years of baggage that may
or may not be flattering to Inno. Scaring away the longtimers
allows newbs to be groom'd to accept a different game. So if
a sanitized game/forum is whats wanted, then recent chgs
make perfect sence..... otherwise nuke'n the game and the
forum makes no sence whatsoever. Leading me to believe
there is a new mgmt team, that has no clue how to run a
sucessfull online game. (edit) or someone's telling them
to do stupid stuff.

Maybe tomorrow's Q&A might shed some light on the
trajectory Inno's going, or wth is going on..... but we
wont be there, and my faith that any Q&A resulting
in actual truthfull answers, is a pipe dream.

 

[Darielle]

Do you ?? there was that big shakeup couple months back...

The switch to Discord, erases 8 years of baggage that may
or may not be flattering to Inno. Scaring away the longtimers
allows newbs to be groom'd to accept a different game. So if
a sanitized game/forum is whats wanted, then recent chgs
make perfect sence..... otherwise nuke'n the game and the
forum makes no sence whatsoever. Leading me to believe
there is a new mgmt team, that has no clue how to run a
sucessfull online game. (edit) or someone's telling them
to do stupid stuff.

Maybe tomorrow's Q&A might shed some light on the
trajectory Inno's going, or wth is going on..... but we
wont be there, and my faith that any Q&A resulting
in actual truthfull answers, is a pipe dream.

I agree about erasing baggage. Hiding their mistakes, like erasing the entire contest forum and replacing it with one that can't be seen, seems to be the way they are going lately.

 

[Silver Lady]

Looks like we’re slowly being dissolved. (tears falling……)

 

[TimeMachine]

Do you ?? there was that big shakeup couple months back...

Yes I know about that shakeup which was annouced on April 14th, exactly two weeks after I was released from Team DE.
These "undertaking comprehensive strategics and organisational realignments," in order to remain competitive, reach more players and work more efficiently were and are of course meaning a big loss of game quality.

I don't want to get myself into trouble again that's why I cannot write what I would like to write but after all I've seen and all I know, I guess it was the best to fire me because I couldn't really identify anymore with in what direction Elvenar was and is going, looking at several changes to the game that I would simply describe as unfair.

It is kind of hard when you keep telling people that they are running in the wrong direction but nobody is interested in what you are saying or recommending and nobody else seems to realize or to care.
Although very sad to see how the community is decreasing and breaking into many pieces that will and probably should never really be able to reunite again.

I don't know how much of the Elvenar-Team was left after that shakeup but I do know that there are a few guys who were able to stay.
It is of course difficult to impossible to be able to ensure the used quality after this big loss.
That's why players shouldn't blame the devs in general too much - I guess those who are left have had and will have a very hard time in the future
On the other hand, because of some of some kinds of bugs, it was pretty obvious to me that there had to be some new devs around too.

Some of the best Elvenar-Devs left long before that shakedown because they saw it coming I guess.
From that point onwards to me it seemed that it all went constantly down and I fear that the lowest point isn't reached yet.

 

[TimeMachine]

Hiding their mistakes, like erasing the entire contest forum and replacing it with one that can't be seen, seems to be the way they are going lately.

One reason for hiding mistakes can be that they are either not willing or even not able to solve them anymore.

The way it all happend speaks for a very unpeaceful separation and maybe just because of this there was no (good) training possible for all them "new" employees who should continue work after the big shakeup but this is just my guess.

 

[Sathiru]

For those not on Discord, the Ask a Dev has been and gone. Here is someone asking about the forums:

Spoiler: Any updates or thoughts on forums remaining open?

With the recent announcement that the forums will be closing, can you please give us any updates or thoughts on whether or not any of our beloved forums will remain open?
(There are currently several petitions running on multiple Elvenar forums asking to please keep the forums open)
What will happen with each forums once they "close"?
Will they still be accessible in a view-only form once closed, or will they be removed entirely? Thanks for any answers!

Here is the response from Ligario:

Spoiler: Current situation of forums

Hello

Thx for this question!

First, some context. Looking at how little the forum were used, it was evident we had to try new platforms and community channels. The forums have the goal to be an engagement channel and they were unfortunately not be fulfilling that scope anymore. Only very few people are actively using it. That's why it was necessary to explore something different and why we have now also this official space here on Discord.

When we shared the intention to also be active here on Discord, we wanted to be transparent and clearly say to you that our focus as a community team would shift to this channel.

At the same time, in the short/medium term, we said the forums are still open and this will be the case for now. This is confirmed. For the future, we'll look at how the activity will be there in the coming months, how forums are used, how welcoming that space is for players and move from there. There isn't at the moment any precise date or specific timeline because it will depend on the data we'll get.

We just started here on Discord less than 2 months ago, so far it has been great, and more time is needed.

Keep it positive and we'll share more updates on this when we'll have additional details

Have to say, reading this after Crackie's excellent post on how they torched the forums really does highlight the disconnect between the community and Devs.

 

[theuser]

Here is the response from Ligario:

Hello

Thx for this question!

First, some context. Looking at how little the forum were used, it was evident we had to try new platforms and community channels. The forums have the goal to be an engagement channel and they were unfortunately not be fulfilling that scope anymore. Only very few people are actively using it. That's why it was necessary to explore something different and why we have now also this official space here on Discord.

Have to say, reading this after Crackie's excellent post on how they torched the forums really does highlight the disconnect between the community and Devs.

To elaborate on the nature of the disconnect:

By "engagement" they probably have some marketing-derived notion of interaction measuring views, clicks and time on their site.

The forum style of web application is designed in part to not waste users' time asking and answering repeated questions. Over time a well-moderated forum becomes a repository of information. Long-form content is well supported (some things are complicated). There is a built-in search system. The forum content is publicly visible allowing external search engines to work also.

Forum operators should expect that new posts and clicks will decline over time. There is no need to rehash common topics. Users only need to sign up or sign in if they need to post.

The social media style of web application is designed in part to encourage more posts, more clicks, create an impression of immediacy. By design there is no practical way to find old content. No internal search function, no serious organization, and the login-wall blocks external search engines. There is minimal to no support for long-form content. Users must constantly re-ask and discuss things that a decent forum would have archived and available.
Further, the login-wall means every user has an identity and history even if they never post, no anonymous lurkers.

Thus, social media interaction data will "look better" on marketing reports.
Innogames (Ligario) knows all of this, and apparently want that kind of steady interaction data pretty badly.

Thank you @Sathiru for reposting that from Discord.

 

[BrinDarby]

uhhh , WoW ......
I'm gonna have to let that sink in a bit......

 

[Silver Lady]

Further, the login-wall means every user has an identity and history even if they never post

And this is why I avoid social media like the plague that it is.

 

[crackie]

@crackie what is the Reign of Terror?

When we got a cadre of substitute teachers after helya left that started squeezing any signs of joy out of this place.

First, some context. Looking at how little the forum were used, it was evident we had to try new platforms and community channels. The forums have the goal to be an engagement channel and they were unfortunately not be fulfilling that scope anymore. Only very few people are actively using it. That's why it was necessary to explore something different and why we have now also this official space here on Discord.

Here's some context back. Yes, it is a true statement that some forums are "not fulfilling that scope". I see you Norway and your 170 registered members and 461 total messages. But I've checked the numbers and the U.S. is the biggest forum, larger than DE, EN, or beta. Perhaps it needs to be stated that treating a market with a forum almost 600x Norway's scope the same as Norway could be problematic and not ideal.

For the future, we'll look at how the activity will be there in the coming months, how forums are used, how welcoming that space is for players and move from there. There isn't at the moment any precise date or specific timeline because it will depend on the data we'll get.

Erm. Does this problem solving approach/decision making flowchart sound backwards to anyone else? A year ago, this place was vibrant. It was a FUN and HAPPY place! Then they neglected us, which was followed by a bunch of user unfriendly decisions that eroded and eroded at user experience until wave after wave of players left. Most of those decisions had nothing to do with company restructuring/downsizing, but were just isolated bad decisions that were unfavorable to user experience. They can't hide behind the layoffs for everything and forever. If they genuinely want to reverse the damage and build a community instead of ruining one, then they have to admit that perhaps sometimes staff had been more part of the problem than they had been part of the solution. They keep using the word "engagement", but the single biggest factor driving regular users away had been...staff! And now they're saying the onus is up to the players to save this place? So the people in charge can just go slicing up major arteries, but it's up to players to stop our own bleeding AND not just rebuild this place, but to an acceptable level of engagement before they'll decide if the treasure trove of information that is the forum, almost all user-generated, is worthy of saving. And Inno's part in this community building endeavor is...? Oh, review reports. I don't know. Most places hire community specialists to do this level of community building and don't expect the players to do all the heavy lifting. This is the first time I've heard the scenario is flipped and players labor away while community specialists make it as hard for them to thrive. They've clipped our wings at every turn and expect us to fly.

That is exactly what it seems like to me too. I am honestly wondering if all this happend / is happening by accident or on purpose?

This. If people have the perception they are intentionally sabotaging the community, then what does that say about people's perception of the job they've been doing? I mean, I never loaded this place up and wondered if helya was here to break something else. Did any of you? Obviously we hope it can't be true, but...actions. Show us we're wrong then! Do better.

 

[Sathiru]

I particularly like this line: "We just started here on Discord less than 2 months ago, so far it has been great, and more time is needed."

We've already been told that Discord has more members and activity than the forums, so what do they need more time for? At this point it's obvious the backlash announcing the closure of the forums took them by surprise, nor have people migrated en masse to Discord as expected.

I'll be doing a post later compiling the Q&A from the Ask the Devs!, because some of their responses talk about future plans/features/well-known issues.

 

[crackie]

We've already been told that Discord has more members and activity than the forums, so what do they need more time for? At this point it's obvious the backlash announcing the closure of the forums took them by surprise, nor have people migrated en masse to Discord as expected.

If you strip away Announcements, Release Notes, Contests, and Bug Reports from the forum, the forum is still more important to players than Discord. If you strip away Announcements, Release Notes, Contests, and Bug Reports from Discord, it’s dead.

 

[BrinDarby]

First, some context. Looking at how little the forum were used, it was evident we had to try new platforms and community channels. The forums have the goal to be an engagement channel and they were unfortunately not be fulfilling that scope anymore. Only very few people are actively using it. That's why it was necessary to explore something different and why we have now also this official space here on Discord.

But I've checked the numbers and the U.S. is the biggest forum, larger than DE, EN, or beta.

Context ??? from what angle ???
Does this even include the plausability that this is a dodge ?
The forum is/was never designed to be a "how ya doing, how's
your day going" kinda place. Inno has had 8 years to either come
up with a clone of FS chat for the forum, or add global/server
chat to an already exsisting UI in the game. This reakes of cost
saving measures, or even small profits from the chg.

"Community" : The Elvenar community is made up of many things.
Inno's sites, 3rd party fan sites, The Forum, Social media fan sites
like Facebook, even FSs themselves.

When the Mods and the CMs don't actively engage better with
the forum, then the inmates start running the prison. Its not our
fault that this "richness" you desire is not fostered by your crew.
This statement is a microcausm of whats wrong..... Inno causes a
problem ( for whatever reason ), then blames the playerbase for
reacting to it, complaining about it, or finding a dongle around it.

Engagement ?? : Are you kidd'n me, we beg for engagement from
both the devs and Inno. What do we get.... a Q&A where the Devs
are told.... Ya can't say this, this, this, this or this... ohh and that...
they reply What can we say then... and are told Not much, but go
have a Q&A with the forums. Inno just ports the same corporate
dbbl-speak.... and here we sit. We ask for a simple global chat in
some way and are shot down everytime...... This is not an either-or,
both the forum and global chat ( or discord ), hopefully run in
tandem are the way forward.

I harken back to when Walmart didn't have an online site, and
Amazon was eat'n them for breakfast. Warmart used the ploy,
only put specials online, then report all the traffic as customers
like'n thier online site, thus more and more moving the bulk
of thier sales to online not retail. ( an artificial market, represented
as something else..... go figure ) remind ya of anything ?

I chose not to get myself in trouble with a more, well.......
sharpened point of view, but reading that response reminded
me of Charlie Brown's teacher..... waa wa waaa wa waa, wa .......
or even the Sienfeld way..... Yada yada yada Discord's here, yada
yada yada behave/say nice things about us, or we'll close the forum.

 

[crackie]

This reakes of cost
saving measures, or even small profits from the chg.

Cost cutting is conjecture. We don’t actually know. We are assuming. They never actually said it, at least not out loud.

Again, some of their forums are under-utilized and nobody will likely miss it if it is scrapped, like the Norwegian one. But having one blanket policy to cover all markets of varying scale is simply a terrible approach. It should also be noted that for Scandanavian countries like Norway, and probably also other parts of Europe, they might even be using the English content anyway because they are fluent. I have played with many Scandanavians that I would never have thought they were non-native English speakers if they hadn’t admitted so because their English is probably more proficient than some Americans. But the reverse is less likely true, especially for those English speakers from North America. It’s very unlikely we would prefer to play in the smaller French market because we also speak French. So the U.S. market could be playing host to many international players already, by default of being biggest and most popular. Therefore, keeping the biggest forum could potentially serve as replacements for some of the smaller forums that got scrapped because they speak English.

From a cost perspective, XenForo sells lifetime licenses, which means they’d only need to pay the forum license once. They’d need to host the forum themselves and have less access to forum support from XenForo. However, if Inno already has an IT department, then they could run the servers themselves, in which case, the cost to running the forum is absorbed into IT and there really isn’t much more cost except the rare equipment break. They are already paying the IT guys. You pay up front and it’s done.

Alternatively, if you let XenForo take care of hosting, the “Business” plan is listed at $250/mo and Enterprise tier is unlisted. Let’s double down and say $500/mo for Enterprise tier and they paid for top tier premium service. But then that narrative falls apart too because it’s saying $500/mo is going to break the bank! If $500/mo breaks the bank for any market, then the finances are so dire and unsound that we might as well just close up shop and go home. If they are unwilling to pay that though, then it’s a different story.

As a forum community, we answer TONS of player questions for free that takes the burden off support (also unpaid volunteers) AND players prefer getting answers from the forum over the wiki. If they aren’t willing to invest $500/mo back to the community for all the money they aren’t paying support, not to mention, it should be self-sustaining anyway since forum players prob spend enough to foot the server bill, then it paints an even uglier picture. Therefore, the cost cutting narrative reduces down to they can’t or they won’t. Both reflects poorly on them. At this point, I give them the benefit of the doubt and don’t believe it’s true, but there is still time to prove me wrong!

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The problem with keeping the current forums, any of them, is they are tied to our game accounts. You must have a US account to register and post here, for example. They would have to create a brand-new forum that anyone can register for, with any game account from any set of servers. And then you have the problem that, for example, someone playing on the EN servers can make an account name identical to someone on the US or Beta or other servers and not be that person. Then you have a conflict when trying to register for one big forum.

 

[BrinDarby]

Looking @ the [members] [staff] , hmmm
So, CM - @Lelanya , co-CM - @Enevhar Aldarion
head Mod - @Henroo and can hire a couple more Mods.
( yes all volunteer )

Thats just an example, but other than hosting the forum,
there shouldn't be a cost really and having a Forum thats
for players, by players, overseen/owned by Inno seems
a plausable way to encorage the kind of forum, Inno
says they want and it isn't currently.

It says there's 2-3 game mods here on staff..... I've never
heard them speak, let alone come here on a semi-regular
basis and interact with us. So why are they listed as such ?
You'd be surprised how much more this place would be
snuggles and huggs, if the playerbase had a pipeline to
game mods/devs and one that was "trusted". This would
become the "in-place" to be, even better with integrated
chat here.

Discord is just another version of a chat client.... from AoL
to Yahoo, been there done that.... Forums or BBSs, traditionally
have been static message based. The two are not by any
stretch ... interchangable. They are though , complimentary.

Every other game site I've played on, had a chat component
that was global to that server. If an Alliance/FS chat was offered
that was a bonus, but your "community" was per server. I was
shocked to see Elvenar had a UI capable of it, yet not utilized.
I even miss the "global" aspect of having ppl from many countries
yet all spoke English, to hear fresh perspectives normally I would
not have come in contact with. All also had some form of a
message board, forum, or BBS.

So no..... Discord is not and cannot directly replace this Forum.
Inno is fooling themselves if they think it can or will.