Feedback Official Elvenar Discord server

[Yavimaya]

@Mykan There's a Forum change coming, we need to coordinate copying Guides over to Elvenar's Discord server.

Thank you to both of you and everybody else that does all this hard work for us all.

 

[Yavimaya]

I DO NOT DO SOCIAL MEDIA! This forum is the closest to social media as I’m going to get. I resent that it appears that I either have to join or will miss out on updates on upcoming events and new features. I will miss the forum, the people and the knowledge here when Inno shuts it down.

I highly recommend finding someone in your fs or in your world at all that does get on so you can continue to get good updates and more in depth info that can mail you in game at least or find someone you have chatted with long enough that you are comfortable trading emails with. Before it gets too late. I wish they would keep the forums even with the discord added. I hate knowing this will get lost. Most people don't even know they can edit their name in different groups in discord to show up as their game name when they are talking in certain game groups. Hopefully people catch on and I will be able to still see some more familiar people in there.

 

[Yavimaya]

I am happy for a Discord server. I like using Discord with full functionality. Not sure how this one will work but that is to be determined. If the people who want a forum really desire it, create one. I have started several forums in the last 20 years. It's not hard and is free (last time I used one), if you don't mind banner ads. I am mostly worried about the Elvenar guide that has been made by the hundreds of great users here and hope we have a way to access this information.

This is actually a super good idea. I wish I was more smart enough to be able to do it myself and know how to work all that stuff. Even if I did I'm limited in time. :/ This is a really great suggestion though! We have a few months to see if it's possible or find people able to before it's gone.

 

[Yavimaya]

In September 2020 MTG (Modern Times Group) made Maria Redin became President and CEO. She has an entertainment and finance background and since MTG is a publicly traded company, you only have to look at their performance in comparison to other large entertainment enterprises. The thing is, most, and I include Ms. Redin in the mix, finance officers focus on streamlining to raise profitability. They are not visionaries and do not look at the companies they control as doing this or that (their production focus), but as entities within the mix of things the holding company does. MTG is a holding company and one of the companies they hold, is Inno. Over 34% of MTG is held by 4 investment groups and they demand a certain return on investment (ROI) or better or they pull their capital (sell their shares) out. Capital is the life blood of a business and that would be bad. Very, very bad. So in all likelihood Ms. Redin took the job by presenting to the stock holders a plan by which she would raise the profitability of MTG. No doubt every candidate presented some plan and of all the plans Ms. Redin's was probably the one that seemed to those 4 investors the one most likely to succeed and thus, she got the job. She's doing her job to keep her job, no doubt. In the end, then, we are seeing a top-down management of Inno Games. Gone are the days where the company is seen by the owners as a visionary company focused and compassionate about their customer base. Now their attention has turned to the true customers of the company, the stockholders. And stockholders care about profit and share value only. The introduction of so many new features over the last few months reveals, I believe, the understanding at some level of Inno that cuts were coming and thus they had to move quickly to finish projects that may have been introduced at a slower pace but which, once introduced, couldn't be easily pulled back. I expect there to be few to no further features added to Elvenar for a long, long time.

Now, to the general question of why the move to Discord and why the closing of the forums.

On this subject there is a whole lot to like in the comments here. The distinction between a traditional forum like this one and a more "robust" messaging service/social media site is something I'll have to ferret out for myself. Right now, it looks like a big mountain to climb full of rocks and ruts over which I may stumble and tumble back down. And I do believe a lot of forum users feel that way. We've mastered getting around here, which is relatively easy but doesn't have all the confusion of the unmapped terrain we face, and thus, we would rather be here.

On the other hand, we aren't getting any younger. So, while the demographics of Elvenar players might make the climb up that mountain a bit harder for us than for a younger demographic tuned to all the white noise of social media, the average birth year of Elvenar users is always going up... which means more and more of the players are and will be perfectly fine with the short, pithy, and often rapid fire "conversations" that take place in chat fashion.

Finally, there's the economics of the thing. No doubt Discord has a marketing department, and, no doubt, they want to sell their services to somebody. Why not to Inno? Perhaps they've managed to price below whatever service is currently managing the forum? And why pay for two services when one will do, no matter how badly that "it will do" might be?

Does Inno care? Of course, they do. They care enough to calculate just how many users will be gone (or stop spending) if they do X or if they do Y. Do they listen to their customers? Of course, they do. They listen to the sound of their customers opening their wallets. The sweet sound of a credit card sliding down, in our out, or passing over their credit card machine, is the sound they want to hear. Everything else is secondary to those sounds, and that, as a business, is exactly how it should be. The only vote we get in how a business does it's business is the choice to make a purchase or not and if you continue spending, you vote for whatever Inno gives us. In the end, customers come and go based on how they feel, and the younger crowd is used to a Discord type of interaction, they will not leave but see the move as more in tune with how they use the Internet. So, it's just economics in the end, as it should be.

AJ

This is the reality right here of it and you did nail it. I just wish they would do like some other games that have both their forum and their discord. Just like games have both their Facebook and their YouTube. Elvenar actually already has many different things they are on now. I just find this the quickest way. We do have to all come to the choice as we cannot control other people of how bad do we want to attempt to be on the in. In that case better reach out in worlds to find the people that can use discord and get their hands on stuff and relay the info in game mail or trade emails if they want it bad enough and are dead set on no discord. Thankfully I've got several people already to do that with me.

 

[Yavimaya]

Many, many games have reddit as their biggest pool of forum-like discussion. Maybe time to revive it

Great idea!!!!!!!! I use reddit! And it is more organized! There is actually already an Elvenar Reddit group that I'm in on there that someone made!!!!! Just very few participate lately in it! Let's all join it! Way more organized with separate threads for each separate conversation and more similar to the forum than discord can ever be!!!!!! THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THIS UP!

 

[Yavimaya]

One thing has been touched on that I'd like to highlight: the various guides, FAQs, etc. should be updated, transferred to Discord (including pictures and links), separated out into clearly-marked sections, and permissions managed so that they stay both updated and clear of frivolous comments.

This will be so important because, unlike the forums, Discord threads do not come up as Google search results. Right now, when I have a question, I can Google it and find previous discussions. Discord will allow me to get more live feedback, although screenshots may be necessary for understanding, but detailed breakdowns are better suited to thoughtful guides that need to be easy to find and well organized when you can't Google them.

Also, the server currently does not allow links and screenshots. These, especially the screenshots, will be (imo) critical to fostering helpful game discussion, as it can be much harder without a visual aid. I recognize that allowing them requires extra moderation, but that should be part of the plan for running a good Discord server. Without these abilities, I fear the quality of the conversation will be lower, regardless of its quantity.

Yes, most game discord I'm on does allow links and photos.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Great idea!!!!!!!! I use reddit! And it is more organized! There is actually already an Elvenar Reddit group that I'm in on there that someone made!!!!! Just very few participate lately in it! Let's all join it! Way more organized with separate threads for each separate conversation and more similar to the forum than discord can ever be!!!!!! THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THIS UP!

I already started the discussion there about all this so that their mods would be ready for a rush of new members.

 

[Yavimaya]

I already started the discussion there about all this so that their mods would be ready for a rush of new members.

Thanks! I just created a thread in the General Discussion area on here.

 

[Yavimaya]

"Someone brought up Reddit! Guess what? There is actually already an Elvenar group on Reddit that a regular player made. Reddit is way more similar to these forums than discord is because you actually have separated threads for every single different conversation and can just go through the titles or create your own. When people respond or comment it allows links and photos!!!!" https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/reddit.38156/#:~:text=Someone%20brought%20up,links%20and%20photos!!!!

 

[Kadhrin]

Specific implementation weirdness:
1. Channels vs threads.
* There's a "us-worlds" channel, with individual threads for each server.
* There are individual channels for "en-winyandor-chat", "en-felyndral-chat", etc., each of which could have multiple threads therein.
Why the different approaches for that?
2. Why have different channels for us-bug-reports vs en-bug-reports?


I find it kind of hilarious that Discord is considered a "more modern" option than forums, when Discord looks so much more like an ooooold school chat room in each of its channels. Right now, Discord reminds me a LOT of Usenet in the 90s. It's like a bunch of chats that is gradually adding features to be more like forum software.
The main problem with Discord or any other chat room software is the signal to noise ratio, because the signal gets lost in the dozens of replies. If someone goes to a channel and sees that there are 20 new messages, someone is fairly likely to at least scan through them. But if there are 50 or 100 new messages, the likelihood is to skip it entirely. In forum software like this, I can read two pages, then skip to the last page, and know what page number I left off on. Discord doesn't have that kind of option, so it's more likely that the skipped pages will stay skipped.

 

[mucksterme]

I find it kind of hilarious that Discord is considered a "more modern" option than forums, when Discord looks so much more like an ooooold school chat room in each of its channels.

Funny thing. I just now gave it another look and had the same thought.

@Yavimaya
I'm sure if you asked someone they would be glad to teach you how to multi-quote.

 

[sputnik9009]

Dear Humans and Elves,

Please use this thread to discuss the official Discord server!

We're looking forward to your feedback!

Kind regards,
Your Elvenar Team

i use the forum as a resource to play the game. what is inno doing?............. how to pea off dedicated, long time, serious players!

 

[C-Nymph]

I find it kind of hilarious that Discord is considered a "more modern" option than forums, when Discord looks so much more like an ooooold school chat room in each of its channels. Right now, Discord reminds me a LOT of Usenet in the 90s.

Or IRC with a modern jacket.

 

[Yavimaya]

Funny thing. I just now gave it another look and had the same thought.

@Yavimaya
I'm sure if you asked someone they would be glad to teach you how to multi-quote.

I was wondering. When I hit quote and then hit insert quote it isn't doing what I'm wanting it to or thinking it should lol.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The big problem with Discord is you cannot read anything there without making an account first, unlike the forums. A lot of social media is like that, though. For all of us not moving to Discord, we need a place to get all the news and updates being shared to Discord, that used to go to the forums. The announcement for the new Season starting on Beta this week was only posted to Discord and not on the forum at all. Fortunately, the people running the Platinum Leaf Facebook group also already use Discord, so they will be sharing things there. That was how I got to read the text for the new Season announcement. Being a member of that group and the official Elvenar group is about all I use Facebook for any more, as well. The loss of the Beta forum may even make me give up on my Beta city. What good is playing and testing the content first, if I have no way to give feedback on it or report bugs? So even moving to Reddit will not do much good if members of that group do not also use Discord and copy over all the announcements to the Elvenar sub. Okay, I feel like I am rambling here and some of these comment belong in other threads, but the forum will be gone in a few months, so who cares?

 

[Taikedo]

I honestly agree with some of the people here that forums should continue to be available, but the ones who have no discord knowledge need to seriously look into some of the other games who have utilized it for a long time and inno needs to do that as well on their organization of how it works. I used to play other games that had discord servers and some were done incredibly well. Previously i played Disgaea RPG that closed down their EN server back in May and that games discord server was done so well i could live on it. I met people all over the world and was able to talk about in game stuff and random things ( yes sometimes there are bad people usually called Trolls, hopefully we can deal with them on this games server because we do not want people like that around ) . The positives of having live chat with people who play the game a bunch is you can actively talk things out (with experts) and those of us who are helpful on discord can help new players solve problems quicker that may not be able to figure it out as easily as forums that may be difficult to dig through. *Just my 2 cents on this subject (name on discord is same as everywhere generally name myself after a character i made up in Everquest 1 back in the late 90s. Looking forward to get to know those who decided to join the discord

 

[Yogi Dave]

I'm sure if you asked someone they would be glad to teach you how to multi-quote.

Select something to quote, but don[t insert - yet.

I was wondering. When I hit quote and then hit insert quote it isn't doing what I'm wanting it to or thinking it should lol.

Select something else to quote or maybe more. Then press insert quote. You can then decide if you want to remove some of them. When inserted, there is a blank line between them which allows you to add whatever you wish.

 

[Yavimaya]

Select something to quote, but don[t insert - yet.

Select something else to quote or maybe more. Then press insert quote. You can then decide if you want to remove some of them. When inserted, there is a blank line between them which allows you to add whatever you wish.

Thank you very much!

 

[ajqtrz]

I went to Discord and finally got in. Then I tried to move our post here for The Consortium. Copy and paste. Simple, right? Nope! Discord has a very small limit on the size of the post. Sigh. Discord does not do tables. Sigh, Sigh. The only way to get it was to redo it and split it into 2 parts....while stripping as much as possible from the explanations. And that is, in my opinion, the core problem.

Forget that I can be "wordy." The key difference between a forum and a chat is the length of the messages allowed. Facebook is a prime example of a glorified chat service. I tried to have a discussion on facebook years ago and found that not only did I have to constantly break my msgs up into pieces, so did a lot of my friends. So we quit. A formum is not a place to just "chat." It's not a back and forth concept. A forum is a "post it on the wall, let people come by, read it, and then post their replies." A "chat" "sit down with a cup of coffee and let's talk with the rapid back and forth of two people." Now forums are slower, but, generally speaking, a bit deeper because they allow for thought development. You don't have to keep your thinking to 160 characters at a time. Chats are quicker, sharper, and move from topic to topic much faster. They are more easily derailed, but that's just their nature. (In RL a chat move from topic to topic every 30 seconds, on average).

So, in the end, if they kill the forum here, they kill anything that can actually function as a forum. Discord is just another social media chat. The only positive thing you might say about it is that it provides us with the much missed "universal chat."

Finally, I might remind others of the previous user started Discord channel. I don't believe it lasted long even though there were a lot of us who went over to check it out. It didn't meet our needs then, and I pretty much am sure it won't now.

AJ

 

[Yogi Dave]

Discord defaults to 2k messages, just like our in-game messages. You can pay and get your message size increased. Also, for free, you can have a longer message included as a text file, but I doubt that will be enabled.

Bottom line, Inno has announced what they are going to do and have started. So, it's a fait accompli. The only way that can change is someone getting fired for the stupid idea. I've always liked the line from somewhere about always keeping a scapegoat around because you never know when you'll need one.

I'm sure it's a cost cutting move. Possibly due to their layoffs and the people who can support this forum system are gone. I've seen that happen at a hospital no less. Well, the reasons are all speculation and don't matter.

No matter what anyone says, the 1st post in this thread said it all.

What is there to discuss? It sucks.

"He's dead, Jim."