Discord vs Forums

[Sir.]

WTF is happening? Forums are becoming obsolete to Discord is what. I just found out that most of my officers have never even made a forum account, but are very active in Discord. Lately, the forums have been getting less and less attention based on my observation throughout the past year and a half and Discord seems to be the main way of getting attention.

Ok, so we're experiencing a period of transitional evolution in terms of technology that compliments UO (and many other games). The issue I am noticing, however, is that in Discord, you have to spam to be heard or noticed if you are trying to "reach other players"... This could be a detrimental fallout of community if means of securing an archive or long-term post can't be made. People will inevitably spam out anyone less active than them.

Thoughts? Solutions? Real talk.. Halp!

 

[Ludwig]

We had IRC in 1999...

 

[MadNezz]

yeah, as to that, I always look at it as a plus for a buyer/seller. You can list it here and link it on discord. Discord is definitely the easiest way to meet up with people.

And this idea works for almost all channels, for events, etc. So I think if you don't have both your def missing out.

As for the late 90s and most of 2000s, We had irc/icq and multiple trade sites, but having these forums + discord = win. Just have to use em both or you are def limiting yourself.

 

[tankian]

When selling and asking questions, you get faster responses from people online, but i do know what you mean, some things are better left to the forums

 

[tankian]

Also discord is real time chat

 

[Zog'orium]

I love the discord channel. But I would love to see the forum's busier again. I think that a new player interested in trying out UOF may look at the forums and be deceived into thinking the population is not as active as it is.

 

[SidX]

I just came back to UO:F after probably 1.5 years away, and one thing I was worried about was the activity on the forums and how it seemed a little less lively. I do remember in the days when we had the IRC channel the forums were a huge hotbed of activity. Now with Discord, I feel the majority of incoming players will just make a chat account and run that client in the background for quick sales / discussion and get desktop notifications when someone says something. When I joined Discord, I realized much of the activity just shifted there and didn't go away at all.

The bottom line is the community hasn't gone away but I can see it being an issue for new players who look at the forums and want more activity. But hey, we are still by far the most active UO forum on the web. Whenever I check there are hundreds of people browsing. I'm not at all familiar with managing a Discord channel, but if there is any customization to it maybe more of an emphasis can be put on drawing attention to the forums. The forums are better IMO since if you're away from Discord for a few hours, you miss everything..

 

[Messremb]

they lost 50%+ of forums users when they disabled tapatalk. i dont have access to forums on my work computer, and im not going to bother navigating there in a browser on my phone. when they disabled tapatalk i stopped watching forums and caring.

 

[So Bad So Sad]

FORUMS ARE BETTER BECAUSE

PVP TRASHTALK

LAWL

 

[Shane]

they lost 50%+ of forums users when they disabled tapatalk. i dont have access to forums on my work computer, and im not going to bother navigating there in a browser on my phone. when they disabled tapatalk i stopped watching forums and caring.

Well this isn't true.

I wouldn't of removed it if 50% of the users used it.

I've been noticing people migrating to discord as well also people barely are using Skype anymore and are instead using discord since its an all in one which i get.

What do you guys think we should look at keeping just to the forums? I was thinking the buy-sell but that might piss some people off.

 

[Sir.]

Aye, thanks all fer commenting. My major concerns are:

1. New and prospective players may get the wrong impression on activity here if forums are too quiet when everyone is in discord.

2. Discord is hard to keep up with if yer a part of an active group/guild and casual players are left in the dark about a lot there as they utilize forums better for periodic checks/chat vs chatting live for enough hrs in a day to keep up with it all as conversations blossom in Discord but they wait for replies in forums.

3. Forums are archives - if people stop recording history/events there history and civilization is lost! Lol

Truly i feel there will be changes from this that we may see an impact in soon. Could yield good ones too, never know... Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

 

[Sir.]

Haha wish i waited to see shanes post to reply

I think we need to keep both, but somehow encourage more people to keep using forums. Can it be given incentive if not encouraged somehow? Maybe higher likes/forum points = in game rewards but let it be known spamming for rewards is abuse?

Wish i had more time to put more ideas down - back to work for now tho!

 

[So Bad So Sad]

1 dono coin per post

 

[Shane]

I really am not a fan of rewarding everyone for absolutely everything, i think its a quick fix but not a real fix of the problem. I definitely have seen the difference, our discord has a constant near 500+ people in it at all times (530 almost right now). Whats happening is people are getting better service on discord, can talk with staff in real time, ask questions while they are learning the game that get answered immediately which otherwise might deter them from playing further while waiting on a response.

So it goes both ways definitely. Discord has been a huge part of everyone trying to be on one team/community as well in the last year+ I've seen it many times people who were fighting over the forums all of a sudden are friendly in discord then they end up in the same guild. It's as if people take on a different persona on the forums and i am no different. I come off as cold in my responses on the forums cause there's always things to handle on this platform where as discord i can talk in real time or better yet voice chat and most of the time people are pretty shocked how laid back/easy going i am.

So it's happened with players as well.
People are going to start using the forums for what they need, they will definitely want to use it to buy/sell and to keep up with patch notes, updates and events. Also the guild section will be used but really there's not much use for general these days since its all done in our discord. We could start more actively getting people into discord. I don't want peopel to JUST use discord though, being a part of the forums is a big thing. Maybe we can just start doing announcements and everything ONLY over the forums.

 

[Xiulan]

Forums are kinda becoming obsolete everywhere... it's just the direction the internet has been going in since social media and smartphones started changing the way people communicate online. Discord is easy to use from your phone and the forums are not, especially since Tapatalk was removed, so of course people are going to use it more.

Overall I don't think it's that big of a problem as long as links to the UOF discord are as easy to find as links to the forums and new players can see that the community is active. But it is true that discord convo is more ephemeral, also a lot of times the convo in #general is not even game-related.

Please don't make buy-sell forums-only! It's so much easier and faster to use the search function in discord to find what you're looking for than it is on the forums.

 

[So Bad So Sad]

Ive allways liked discord more until I got banned from it. Then I got used to forums and like it even more then discord.

 

[the_bubba]

Shane makes valid points comparing the two platforms. Discord is great for a quick chat or Q&A. The forums are more proficient at long conversations and planning, like the on-going thread about factions/militia system. It would be very hard to cover everything in that thread through a discord chat. Plus if you're not on discord actively watching it, you miss a lot of conversation. With forums it'll always be here waiting for you.

I'm new here and I didn't judge anything based off the activity level of the forums. I've had far better success selling merch through the forums than I have with discord as well. I believe they're two parallel platforms that serve different purposes.

 

[Xiulan]

I think we need to keep both, but somehow encourage more people to keep using forums. Can it be given incentive if not encouraged somehow? Maybe higher likes/forum points = in game rewards but let it be known spamming for rewards is abuse?

What if there were rewards not for just any post but for things like welcoming new players and answering questions about the game? Like an ambassador sort of thing.

 

[Shane]

Shane makes valid points comparing the two platforms. Discord is great for a quick chat or Q&A. The forums are more proficient at long conversations and planning, like the on-going thread about factions/militia system. It would be very hard to cover everything in that thread through a discord chat. Plus if you're not on discord actively watching it, you miss a lot of conversation. With forums it'll always be here waiting for you.

I'm new here and I didn't judge anything based off the activity level of the forums. I've had far better success selling merch through the forums than I have with discord as well. I believe they're two parallel platforms that serve different purposes.

Thank you for your input!

 

[tankian]

i think the forums should stay as they are, there is alot of helpful information here. ranging from macro and how to guides to skill training guides and buy sell trades.
i think just because you dont see people posting as much anymore doesnt mean they stopped using the forums. i think people still look up helpful information that discord doesnt have.
please leave the forums as is