244 replies to this topic

[Roadbeer]

MentalPatient, on 01 May 2013 - 01:11 AM, said:

My suggestion? Stop changing ****, I can't find where anything is here anymore, the forum structure seems to change daily. We need a regular stable place to converse about the game and we need to know where it all is.

One change since OB and...erm...

[Riogar Daylighter]

Roadbeer, on 01 May 2013 - 06:57 AM, said:

One change since OB and...erm...

People like thier make believe facts and stone cold half truths give them a break.

[Purplefluffybunny]

You know I read that meme as someone thinking 'hey that is not the case' but then all of a sudden, like a bolt of lightening, they realise that yeah, the other person is right! It is ironic that Niko dropped that one on me in a particualr thread.

[Roadbeer]

Purplefluffybunny, on 01 May 2013 - 12:06 PM, said:

You know I read that meme as someone thinking 'hey that is not the case' but then all of a sudden, like a bolt of lightening, they realise that yeah, the other person is right! It is ironic that Niko dropped that one on me in a particualr thread.

Or, you can read it as the statement is so baffling that you really don't know where to begin

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 30 April 2013 - 07:46 AM, said:

And no, I don't think you have the power to turn off GenDisc. I have bigger fish to fry.

Yeah, thats apparently Vassago Rain and me.

[blinkin]

der langsamere, on 01 May 2013 - 09:45 PM, said:

funny how the White Knights get a pass on trolling but they put everyone else on moderator approved posting for it

oh oh! am i a white knight too? sounds freakin awesome!

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

blinkin, on 01 May 2013 - 10:12 PM, said:

oh oh! am i a white knight too? sounds freakin awesome!

no, the term is bohica. You can google it.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

You know what's annoying to me.

After all this crap, nothing has changed from PGI's side. The communication is still basically nill.

Our last real command chair (depending on how you feel about them) was almost 2 months ago.

We still have AtD's that answer about 1% of the questions properly.

There has been no real uptick in dev activity in threads in the subforums.

Their twitters basically have no information (I follow everyone); and I refuse to check facebook.

What was all this for exactly?

[Nicholas Carlyle]

AND it's during a time when we are technically skipping an opportunity to patch. Seems like it would've been a good time to open up.

[Dishevel]

They are actively ignoring this and just hoping we will either got off the subject, get ourselves banned, or die in a fire.
They just want it to go away.

[TheMadTypist]

Having taken some time off of the forums, I have determined some suggestions for those forums, specifically in regards to the recent changes, with an eye to future changes.

these are less subforum suggestions than generalized suggestions-

1). Give users more warning before major forum changes and redesigns.

Much of the frustration and blame that came out of the recent changes came from the suddenness of the change, and the lack of community interaction on something that so directly impacted the community. If a simple announcement thread had gone up perhaps a week or even two weeks in advance, in the specific subforum that was going to be affected, telling people what was going to happen, and why, it would have been a much more tolerable change. The change was only announced the day of, resulting in many users not seeing the announcement beforehand and being blindsided by that change.

2). Solicit community feedback on changes before you make them

This thread is good, because you've both solicited feedback from the community and acted on it. Your desire to treat the redesign as an ongoing process of interaction between yourselves and the community is laudable, however, you should really have started asking for feedback on the design before you implemented it.

As in the first bit, if your 2-week-lead-time announcement had said: "While it is certain at this point that we will make these changes, we would like you to help us create the future of the MWO forums. These are the specific subforums that will be replacing general discussion, we are open to suggestions for adjustments to this lineup, or additions to it. Please remember this will be an ongoing process even after the change, and we be examining your feedback and continuing to implement tweaks to the design even after it goes live." you would have had a much easier time of it.

Wouldn't it have been more painless to see the desire for the Metagame subforum beforehand, or the merging of Mechs and Loadouts? While I understand some of the subforums had to be tested to determine their viability, like the first implementation of the Barracks, some of the suggested-and-since-implemented changes could have been foreseen had you asked for feedback earlier.

It still feels to me that you fumbled the initial change, but you all do appear to have been making an effort to recover since. I still believe some of the subforums are silly, when there will always be a few hotspots to which I suspect most will gravitate, but it is better now than it was immediately after the change.

You may not need to ask anyone's permission to change anything about your own site, but when courting an online community you should be keeping up at least the appearance of two-way communication, and treating them as more than feedback and post-database-filling spambots who'll stick around regardless of what you do. "Deal with it" makes a nice catchphase, and you get to wear cool shades, but it tends to upset consumers who would like to believe they aren't just fleshy bags of money. Just continue smiling and keep the waltz going, as you've been doing thus far, and we may forget you stepped on our toes a few times.

[blinkin]

TheMadTypist, on 02 May 2013 - 08:42 PM, said:

Having taken some time off of the forums, I have determined some suggestions for those forums, specifically in regards to the recent changes, with an eye to future changes.

these are less subforum suggestions than generalized suggestions-

1). Give users more warning before major forum changes and redesigns.

Much of the frustration and blame that came out of the recent changes came from the suddenness of the change, and the lack of community interaction on something that so directly impacted the community. If a simple announcement thread had gone up perhaps a week or even two weeks in advance, in the specific subforum that was going to be affected, telling people what was going to happen, and why, it would have been a much more tolerable change. The change was only announced the day of, resulting in many users not seeing the announcement beforehand and being blindsided by that change.

2). Solicit community feedback on changes before you make them

This thread is good, because you've both solicited feedback from the community and acted on it. Your desire to treat the redesign as an ongoing process of interaction between yourselves and the community is laudable, however, you should really have started asking for feedback on the design before you implemented it.

As in the first bit, if your 2-week-lead-time announcement had said: "While it is certain at this point that we will make these changes, we would like you to help us create the future of the MWO forums. These are the specific subforums that will be replacing general discussion, we are open to suggestions for adjustments to this lineup, or additions to it. Please remember this will be an ongoing process even after the change, and we be examining your feedback and continuing to implement tweaks to the design even after it goes live." you would have had a much easier time of it.

Wouldn't it have been more painless to see the desire for the Metagame subforum beforehand, or the merging of Mechs and Loadouts? While I understand some of the subforums had to be tested to determine their viability, like the first implementation of the Barracks, some of the suggested-and-since-implemented changes could have been foreseen had you asked for feedback earlier.

It still feels to me that you fumbled the initial change, but you all do appear to have been making an effort to recover since. I still believe some of the subforums are silly, when there will always be a few hotspots to which I suspect most will gravitate, but it is better now than it was immediately after the change.

You may not need to ask anyone's permission to change anything about your own site, but when courting an online community you should be keeping up at least the appearance of two-way communication, and treating them as more than feedback and post-database-filling spambots who'll stick around regardless of what you do. "Deal with it" makes a nice catchphase, and you get to wear cool shades, but it tends to upset consumers who would like to believe they aren't just fleshy bags of money. Just continue smiling and keep the waltz going, as you've been doing thus far, and we may forget you stepped on our toes a few times.

makes sense.

[Dishevel]

TheMadTypist, on 02 May 2013 - 08:42 PM, said:

It still feels to me that you fumbled the initial change, but you all do appear to have been making an effort to recover since.

Umm?

By that you mean the referendum which had many questions to us about the changes they would allow us to vote on that did not have the one question we wanted to vote on?
I understand that it was more manipulative. It looked good if you never read the questions.
Other than that ... The community was very vocal and clear. They wanted GD back.
What they got was a collection of sub forums called GD and the ability to vote on anything other than getting GD back.

[Roadbeer]

Dishevel, on 03 May 2013 - 06:08 AM, said:

Umm?

By that you mean the referendum which had many questions to us about the changes they would allow us to vote on that did not have the one question we wanted to vote on?
I understand that it was more manipulative. It looked good if you never read the questions.
Other than that ... The community was very vocal and clear. They wanted GD back.
What they got was a collection of sub forums called GD and the ability to vote on anything other than getting GD back.

Again, the question wasn't relevant because it wasn't on the table.
It would have read like "Do you want a General Discussion forum? Even knowing we have no intention of bringing it back"
At which point, it gives you ammunition to continuously scream "PGI doesn't listen to us!"

And by "Community was very vocal and clear",Do you mean a couple dozen who have been vocal, a handful who have mocked them for it, and the rest who have just adapted and gone on doing what they've always done?

[blinkin]

Roadbeer, on 03 May 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

Again, the question wasn't relevant because it wasn't on the table.
It would have read like "Do you want a General Discussion forum? Even knowing we have no intention of bringing it back"
At which point, it gives you ammunition to continuously scream "PGI doesn't listen to us!"

And by "Community was very vocal and clear",Do you mean a couple dozen who have been vocal, a handful who have mocked them for it, and the rest who have just adapted and gone on doing what they've always done?

see MWO forum definition everyone;

[Jestun]

Roadbeer, on 03 May 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

And by "Community was very vocal and clear",Do you mean a couple dozen who have been vocal, a handful who have mocked them for it, and the rest who have just adapted and gone on doing what they've always done?

The only way we would disprove your inaccurate claims that only a couple of dozen people complained is by either manually linking more than 24 posters in the various threads (minus the deleted ones) or actually having a poll.

The latter gets my vote because it doesn't require me to browse multiple sub-forums to find the various threads on the same subject.

:Edit:

The whole "only a handful of people dislike it!" doesn't work as an excuse not to find out how many people dislike it.

That's like saying "But [INSERT SPORTS TEAM] is the best!" instead of having a match in sports, or saying "But [INSERT POLITICAL PARTY] is going to win" instead of having an election.

Edited by Jestun, 03 May 2013 - 08:23 AM.

[Roadbeer]

Jestun, on 03 May 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

The only way we would disprove your inaccurate claims that only a couple of dozen people complained is by either manually linking more than 24 posters in the various threads (minus the deleted ones) or actually having a poll.

The latter gets my vote because it doesn't require me to browse multiple sub-forums to find the various threads on the same subject.

:Edit:

The whole "only a handful of people dislike it!" doesn't work as an excuse not to find out how many people dislike it.

That's like saying "But [INSERT SPORTS TEAM] is the best!" instead of having a match in sports, or saying "But [INSERT POLITICAL PARTY] is going to win" instead of having an election.

Didn't say a handful of people dislike it, I said a handful of people are QQing about it, everyone else just adapted and moved on to their regularly scheduled posting.

Oh, and my claims are about as inaccurate as yours are Just because you feel a certain way, or I do, doesn't necessarily make it true.

Edited by Roadbeer, 03 May 2013 - 08:26 AM.

[Jestun]

Roadbeer, on 03 May 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

Didn't say a handful of people dislike it, I said a handful of people are QQing about it, everyone else just adapted and moved on to their regularly scheduled posting.

Oh, and my claims are about as inaccurate as yours are Just because you feel a certain way, or I do, doesn't necessarily make it true.

Could you provide your source for this "fact"?

Something showing there is roughly the same level of activity would do nicely. Actual posts would be best as this shows both the level of feedback and the level of discussion. Views alone includes people like me who log on and check 2-3 forums for this subject and then leave the tab to time out and as such does not accurately reflect the state of the forums, but even that would be better than nothing.

I'll happily try to source anything that you think I have said which is inaccurate, although not as a deflection from your own source.

[Roadbeer]

Jestun, on 03 May 2013 - 08:31 AM, said:

Could you provide your source for this "fact"?

Something showing there is roughly the same level of activity would do nicely. Actual posts would be best as this shows both the level of feedback and the level of discussion. Views alone includes people like me who log on and check 2-3 forums for this subject and then leave the tab to time out and as such does not accurately reflect the state of the forums, but even that would be better than nothing.

I'll happily try to source anything that you think I have said which is inaccurate, although not as a deflection from your own source.

I've never stated a fact, which is why I gave broad estimates "couple dozen" and "handful" are not facts, they're generalizations. The only 'Fact' is i didn't use the word 'fact'. I leave that to you guys who live in the land of Hyperbole.

But feel free to give me some sources, I love statistics because I frequently can turn them around on those who use them. As was said before, "There are lies, Damn lies, and then there are statistics".

I used to use the analogy that I could look at 5 people in a bar, 3 are drinking Budweiser, 1 drinks Coors and 1 drinks Miller, 3 of them go outside for a cigarette (2 of the Bud drinkers and the Coors guy) but two of them don't have their own and borrow from the third.

From that, 3 out of 5 beer drinkers smoke, 66% of Budweiser drinkers smoke, 100% of Coors drinkers smoke, and 100% of them smoke Marlboro, and 100% of Miller drinkers don't smoke at all.

Statistics are fun.

[Jestun]

Then I apologise, I thought this quote was claiming that the level of activity has stayed roughly the same because all but a handful of people continued posting as they regularly did:

Roadbeer, on 03 May 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

a handful of people are QQing about it, everyone else just adapted and moved on to their regularly scheduled posting.

What did it actually mean?

Edited by Jestun, 03 May 2013 - 08:54 AM.