Forum [Suggestion] + 1 in game Suggestion

Incubus1121

I really like the forums, but why not update it for more activity. I suggest:

* More forums/topics to better increase activity. * More features like: - Reputation - Credits - Usergroups * Gold, Silver, and Bronze membership. - Note that this would have to be bought via paypal or some kind of subscription. * Forum admin/mod's who are experienced with VB Forums. * Tournament Mod's... Special Mods that setup tournaments. People love Tournaments.

Some people like to forum more than game, so I think increasing Forum activity can increase game activity.

My in game suggestion:

* Tournament Server - This would require a lot of work, like editing profiles for who sign up in a tournament, also maybe the Tournament server could split into groups according to date. If you don't understand I could provide a Screenshot.

My suggestions.

-Sno

Saidin

To address some of your suggestions.

Vbulletin experience has nothing to do with what might be seen as a lack of forum features. We are not a forum in a traditional sense of going to a website and posting. The forums are piggy-backed on a portal website. The login for the forums doesn't come from logging in to vbulletin in that traditional sense. You are logging into the PORTAL and then that logs you into the forums.

This requires extra steps to implement new features to the boards. And unfortunately that will be all that I can say about that because the rest of the explanation is a security risk to release publicly. Suffice to say that we're experienced with the boards and know what we can and can't do and the time frames it takes to get things done.


Now, to features like reputation and groups, calendars etc.
In the new year we intend on working to improve the boards. This will probably mean the inclusion of new features.

Features are limited on purpose, not because we couldn't do them. The community here is widespread and as a wide variety of personalities and individuals. As such giving things like pictures on signatures, or allowing reputation or user groups would just cause too many problems. One user can ruin the experience for everyone else as soon as someone posts an inappropriate picture for their signature, or creates a racist anti-country vbulletin group. Or if someone creates an alternate account for the sole purpose of bumping reputation to their main account.

All these things are easily abuseable and the problem becomes that people would abuse them simply because they can.

Until we can control those situations those functions will be harder to implement.

The reputation system is something that we would like to bring in. But Vbulletin works slightly different than the Karma system of old. And we need to make sure that there are limits to what people can do.

Lastly, your note about more topics/forums. We create forums and sub forums and stickies and rules and directions and everything we can to make navigating the boards easier. But every day there are hundreds of posts that have to be moved because no one has read the stickies, or see's what forum they are actually posting in.

Sub-forums and sub-topics is a sensitive subject because if no one bothers to follow the rules why bother creating the extra work for us. It has to be balanced and we've created a decent balance thus far. We are always looking to improve things, but for now this will suffice.

Lastly, Tournament Mods are a real possibility. We want to do more tournaments in the new year (as we've said plenty of times). And adding more help to get the tournaments off the ground might be a possibility. We have plenty of capable mods at this moment. If we need to look for more help, we will make sure everyone on the forums knows!

I hope that addresses a few of your concerns/suggestions.

DeathB0dy

i am not reading this LoL xD

AkProWar

Perhaps a Personal PM with the basic rules and suggestions b4 posting such as the search button, for those users who are just starting out in the board, instead of redirecting them to the Rules and Conduct thread. Also issue more warnings?

[Rory]

GearThird wrote: »

Perhaps a Personal PM with the basic rules and suggestions b4 posting such as the search button, for those users who are just starting out in the board, instead of redirecting them to the Rules and Conduct thread. Also issue more warnings?

yes but then if they did they would be issuing hundreds of warnings a day for petty things.

FastBrownGuy

Wow Gm wrote so much.

Incubus1121

[GM]Saidin wrote: »

To address some of your suggestions.

Vbulletin experience has nothing to do with what might be seen as a lack of forum features. We are not a forum in a traditional sense of going to a website and posting. The forums are piggy-backed on a portal website. The login for the forums doesn't come from logging in to vbulletin in that traditional sense. You are logging into the PORTAL and then that logs you into the forums.

I know that, but that is what I was saying. Why not make it into a forum to increase activity? The more activity the more that google bots will pick up. That's like free advertisement here. The more that google pics up the higher you are on searches, then more member = more members = more game downloads. I've run plenty of websites, the logic is basic and works.

This requires extra steps to implement new features to the boards. And unfortunately that will be all that I can say about that because the rest of the explanation is a security risk to release publicly. Suffice to say that we're experienced with the boards and know what we can and can't do and the time frames it takes to get things done.

Security risks? Extra steps means work. That's your guys job is to work and help the site.

Now, to features like reputation and groups, calendars etc.
In the new year we intend on working to improve the boards. This will probably mean the inclusion of new features.

That sounds great. I'm looking forward to seeing them. Also, if you need help (which I highly doubt) I know lots about VB, coding, graphic work, just about anything you need with a website. So feel free to contact me.

Features are limited on purpose, not because we couldn't do them. The community here is widespread and as a wide variety of personalities and individuals. As such giving things like pictures on signatures, or allowing reputation or user groups would just cause too many problems. One user can ruin the experience for everyone else as soon as someone posts an inappropriate picture for their signature, or creates a racist anti-country vbulletin group. Or if someone creates an alternate account for the sole purpose of bumping reputation to their main account.

How do you think other sites handle these problems? Forum moderators. Have someone moderate the forum. Things can be done, infractions, bans, perma bans, IP Bans. Etc... And if it gets too out of hand all you have to do is threaten to IP Ban them from both forum and game. But again, I don't think we should let 1 person ruin something that could be great for tons of people. It can be handled. Just like in game, you have people saying obscure stuff like calling African American's Insert the bad word for black people here.* or saying to Jewish people "All hail hitler or nazi's rule"*. Why not handle it on a forum just like in a game?

All these things are easily abuseable and the problem becomes that people would abuse them simply because they can.

Until we can control those situations those functions will be harder to implement.

And again, we** can control that abuse.

The reputation system is something that we would like to bring in. But Vbulletin works slightly different than the Karma system of old. And we need to make sure that there are limits to what people can do.

Vbulliten does limit it, also moderators can view reps to watch for abuse. And I think the default set, is that you can not even effect rep until 50 posts. After that you get 1 rep power per 100 posts, and also you gain rep power by being repped. So say you have 12,843 rep power. you would rep for 128 rep + the amount of posts divided by 100.

So say here is a profile:



See the 724 Posts? That means 1 rep power for each 100 posts. That would be 7 points.
Then you add the point(s) total = 2464 and multiply that by .1 which would be 24.64.
Take 7 + 24.64 = How much that person rep for. And when someone leaves negative rep, then it is your rep power divided by two, and that's how much you neg rep for. So see, there is a controlled limit.

Lastly, your note about more topics/forums. We create forums and sub forums and stickies and rules and directions and everything we can to make navigating the boards easier. But every day there are hundreds of posts that have to be moved because no one has read the stickies, or see's what forum they are actually posting in.

I see all the stickies and stuff, but I myself as a well forumer find it hard to navigate on this website. =S To make this simple. It is NOT user friendly. But after this post I will make a guide for the new forumers.

Sub-forums and sub-topics is a sensitive subject because if no one bothers to follow the rules why bother creating the extra work for us. It has to be balanced and we've created a decent balance thus far. We are always looking to improve things, but for now this will suffice.

Again, suggest Forum Moderators. It would cut your jobs in half. Even less.

Lastly, Tournament Mods are a real possibility. We want to do more tournaments in the new year (as we've said plenty of times). And adding more help to get the tournaments off the ground might be a possibility. We have plenty of capable mods at this moment. If we need to look for more help, we will make sure everyone on the forums knows!

Again, can't wait. What about the Tournament Server Idea? No answer lol.

I hope that addresses a few of your concerns/suggestions.

Yes, it has, and as you see I'm not an easy person, so I have made my response.

DeathB0dy wrote: »

i am not reading this LoL xD

Then why post, see it's posts and threads like this that keep them from wanting to increase the forum.

GearThird wrote: »

Perhaps a Personal PM with the basic rules and suggestions b4 posting such as the search button, for those users who are just starting out in the board, instead of redirecting them to the Rules and Conduct thread. Also issue more warnings?

I agree with this wholeheartedly.

-Sno

Edit: I forgot my notes

*Note - I hope I have not offended anyone. If I am really sorry, and will remove it on request.
**Note - I say we, meaning the moderators.