For a number of years I've appreciated Wyrom's focus on improving communications and honestly thought that communications about what was happening (events and dev changes) were getting noticeably better year over year. 2022 is definitely a huge (pronounced "Yuge") step backwards with the transition to Discord and abandonment of these forums. This morning I finally removed the Simu website as one of my default browser pages and replaced it with https://gstowncrier.com/.
Kudos to the TownCrier for keeping the (one way) communication lines open. Hoping (but not optimistic) that Simutronics will take a greater interest in effectively communicating with their player base in the coming year.
-- Robert
From the pitch of the vibration you determine that the purpose of the shield is as a shield.
PEREGRINEFALCON
LUXELLE
Re: General communications about the game
11/18/2022 05:29 PM CST
Awww, thanks Mister Robert for that shout out. <3
If you have any more ideas how we can keep news in busy people's hands, please let me know.
~Luxie
--
ESP TUNE TOWNCRIER or ;tune towncrier
Web: http://gstowncrier.com/
Daily Email: gstowncrier.com/subscribe/
gstowncrier.com/where-to-find-the-towncrier/
Send in news: https://bit.ly/2ISsz2l
P.S. Help Wanted, Inquire Within
If you have any more ideas how we can keep news in busy people's hands, please let me know.
~Luxie
--
ESP TUNE TOWNCRIER or ;tune towncrier
Web: http://gstowncrier.com/
Daily Email: gstowncrier.com/subscribe/
gstowncrier.com/where-to-find-the-towncrier/
Send in news: https://bit.ly/2ISsz2l
P.S. Help Wanted, Inquire Within
WELCHA
Re: General communications about the game
11/22/2022 11:03 AM CST
>>For a number of years I've appreciated Wyrom's focus on improving communications and honestly thought that communications about what was happening (events and dev changes) were getting noticeably better year over year. 2022 is definitely a huge (pronounced "Yuge") step backwards with the transition to Discord and abandonment of these forums. This morning I finally removed the Simu website as one of my default browser pages and replaced it with https://gstowncrier.com/.
All of this. Though I feel it's even an understatement how much of a wrong and bad turn the level and quality of communication has taken.
Discord is great for chats, it's crap as an official communications medium for asynchronous communications and information sharing.
What actually makes me sad is that it seems nobody at Simutronics, or their big brother squeeze all the cash you can out of everything owners, care that there's this dissatisfaction or even anger. I suspect that as long as the microtransactions stay high, player dissatisfaction will be ignored. GemStone is turning into a cash cow to be milked until it's dry. I tempered my annoyance at that by saying at least development was getting done, with profession and spell circle reviews and such, but even those seem to have disappeared. Or maybe they're just not communicated, who knows...
- Andreas
All of this. Though I feel it's even an understatement how much of a wrong and bad turn the level and quality of communication has taken.
Discord is great for chats, it's crap as an official communications medium for asynchronous communications and information sharing.
What actually makes me sad is that it seems nobody at Simutronics, or their big brother squeeze all the cash you can out of everything owners, care that there's this dissatisfaction or even anger. I suspect that as long as the microtransactions stay high, player dissatisfaction will be ignored. GemStone is turning into a cash cow to be milked until it's dry. I tempered my annoyance at that by saying at least development was getting done, with profession and spell circle reviews and such, but even those seem to have disappeared. Or maybe they're just not communicated, who knows...
- Andreas
BBRODRIGUEZ
Re: General communications about the game
11/22/2022 05:16 PM CST
>What actually makes me sad is that it seems nobody at Simutronics, or their big brother squeeze all the cash you can out of everything owners, care that there's this dissatisfaction or even anger. I suspect that as long as the microtransactions stay high, player dissatisfaction will be ignored. GemStone is turning into a cash cow to be milked until it's dry. I tempered my annoyance at that by saying at least development was getting done, with profession and spell circle reviews and such, but even those seem to have disappeared. Or maybe they're just not communicated, who knows...
I'm still wondering what happened with Ascension. Is it just a half baked system that'll never be finished? Or will it take a decade or more, much like the mail system did?
Last I heard it was supposed to be following PSM3 and as far as I know, PSM3 was finished off almost 1.5 years ago now (sometime June or July of 2021). The general tier of current available Ascension skills was officially released into Prime on 9/15/20. The last reply in the Ascension folder from a NIR was 9/19/20 (4 days after the system released). There hasn't been a response from NIR since, even though folks had been posting ideas and asking questions.
Ever since they announcement that the forums are going to be going bye-bye, NIR has pretty much abandoned the forums aside from a couple names that pop up from time to time.
I think it's just futile to even post here anymore. Even up to about 8 months ago, I used to visit the forums once a day and come across 1-2 dozen posts to read through, comment on and so on. Now I check the forums once, sometimes twice a week and most days there aren't any new posts from players or NIR.
It feels like they've given up on using a forum and just want people to trip and scream as they have to try and parse stuff out of the crap that scrolls around in Discord.
I'm still wondering what happened with Ascension. Is it just a half baked system that'll never be finished? Or will it take a decade or more, much like the mail system did?
Last I heard it was supposed to be following PSM3 and as far as I know, PSM3 was finished off almost 1.5 years ago now (sometime June or July of 2021). The general tier of current available Ascension skills was officially released into Prime on 9/15/20. The last reply in the Ascension folder from a NIR was 9/19/20 (4 days after the system released). There hasn't been a response from NIR since, even though folks had been posting ideas and asking questions.
Ever since they announcement that the forums are going to be going bye-bye, NIR has pretty much abandoned the forums aside from a couple names that pop up from time to time.
I think it's just futile to even post here anymore. Even up to about 8 months ago, I used to visit the forums once a day and come across 1-2 dozen posts to read through, comment on and so on. Now I check the forums once, sometimes twice a week and most days there aren't any new posts from players or NIR.
It feels like they've given up on using a forum and just want people to trip and scream as they have to try and parse stuff out of the crap that scrolls around in Discord.
ROBLAR
Re: General communications about the game
11/23/2022 01:43 PM CST
Not just a feeling, they've officially quit on this forum (some GMs still post like Kenstrom).
Discord now has a forums feature as well but I haven't used it.
Discord now has a forums feature as well but I haven't used it.
FIREPHOENIX
Re: General communications about the game
11/28/2022 11:05 PM CST
I rang the forum bell pretty hard. The Game had a lot of mechanic and development the past 3-7 years that is admirable and as a time period rather impressive. I'd not suspect a ton beyond tweaking that work now and new features or elite ascension and charms as opposed to revision though.
Time will tell.
Time will tell.
WINTERDAWN
Re: General communications about the game
11/29/2022 03:27 PM CST
Tivvy has been working on an announcements system on the wiki.
For back and forth communication the system going forward is Discord, for better or for worse.
Unfortunately, a lot of things will have to be in the hands of the players to update the TownCrier / wiki.
For back and forth communication the system going forward is Discord, for better or for worse.
Unfortunately, a lot of things will have to be in the hands of the players to update the TownCrier / wiki.
GS4-NETZ
Re: General communications about the game
11/29/2022 04:24 PM CST
The Discord forums are actually pretty good. Getting used to the new layout is probably the biggest difference. The main topics are in the narrow left hand bar like the chat channels. Once you are in a topic Tags are used rather than having sub-topic folders. After that it works the same with additional features such as being able to get audio notifications when a topic you watch has activity, SEARCH, and the ability to use emojis to name a few of my favorites.
One thing Discord forums do not have is tables. You can use CODE to format in monospace just like this one though. I suspect someone will code tables for Discord at some point.
FGM Netz
Events/World Team
Congress of Ghosts 5118
One thing Discord forums do not have is tables. You can use CODE to format in monospace just like this one though. I suspect someone will code tables for Discord at some point.
FGM Netz
Events/World Team
Congress of Ghosts 5118
KRAKII
Re: General communications about the game
11/29/2022 04:38 PM CST
So, "side-panel" is essentially our current "Category" folders?
Then we just look at Tags (for what it's about) and/or search--by author? content? search hits "all text"?--assuming some author some time managed to remember to Tag it?
Can a subsequent reader Tag something, if the original author forgets?
Or could they only Tag their own response, which would then pop the thread if searched upon?
Is there a similar "EndCode" to stop the monospace? Or are you stuck with it from there to the end of your post?
.
My previous hesitance to load up Discord at the office was due to "gaming", but since we have been looking more at ease of communicating with clients, Discord has been raised, so it's turning into a "maybe, yeah..." kind of thing.
Then we just look at Tags (for what it's about) and/or search--by author? content? search hits "all text"?--assuming some author some time managed to remember to Tag it?
Can a subsequent reader Tag something, if the original author forgets?
Or could they only Tag their own response, which would then pop the thread if searched upon?
Is there a similar "EndCode" to stop the monospace? Or are you stuck with it from there to the end of your post?
.
My previous hesitance to load up Discord at the office was due to "gaming", but since we have been looking more at ease of communicating with clients, Discord has been raised, so it's turning into a "maybe, yeah..." kind of thing.
GS4-NETZ
Re: General communications about the game
11/29/2022 05:18 PM CST
| So, "side-panel" is essentially our current "Category" folders? |
Correct.
| Then we just look at Tags (for what it's about) and/or search--by author? content? search hits "all text"?--assuming some author some time managed to remember to Tag it? |
| Can a subsequent reader Tag something, if the original author forgets? |
| Or could they only Tag their own response, which would then pop the thread if searched upon? |
Think of Tags as sub-topics. The author of the first post selects the tag or tags as you can add more than 1. That tag serves as the sub-topic. In any Category select a tag to see the posts associated with that tag.
Search is handled in the same Discord search field at the top in the main column. You can't specify in: forums (yet) but forum posts will come up in the results with a little word bubble icon. You can jump from the search to the post with a click.
| Is there a similar "EndCode" to stop the monospace? Or are you stuck with it from there to the end of your post? |
| KRAKII |
Yes. ``` to start and end it.
FGM Netz
Events/World Team
Congress of Ghosts 5118
ACMEGAMER
Re: General communications about the game
11/29/2022 08:42 PM CST
Don't let Netz fool ya, Robert. Discord is a PITA as is the concept of the sidebar forums. (shudder) Like Arianiss's player I no longer do Discord but I'm quite active in close to a score of tabletop rpg Discords a lot of them use the new forums deal that Discord released. I really dislike it. It's better than nothing but it's a long shot from actual forums.
WELCHA
Re: General communications about the game
11/30/2022 11:18 AM CST
>>Don't let Netz fool ya, Robert. Discord is a PITA as is the concept of the sidebar forums. (shudder) Like Arianiss's player I no longer do Discord but I'm quite active in close to a score of tabletop rpg Discords a lot of them use the new forums deal that Discord released. I really dislike it. It's better than nothing but it's a long shot from actual forums.
Discord is great at what it was designed to do....live interactive discussion. Anything else is a tack-on that's a hack at best.
- Andreas
Discord is great at what it was designed to do....live interactive discussion. Anything else is a tack-on that's a hack at best.
- Andreas
ACMEGAMER
Re: General communications about the game
11/30/2022 04:58 PM CST
| Discord is great at what it was designed to do....live interactive discussion. Anything else is a tack-on that's a hack at best. |
| - Andreas |
I view it as akin to standing in the middle of a convention full of people all talking at once. (shudder)
KRAKII
Re: General communications about the game
12/01/2022 01:54 PM CST
Yeah, but... actually, THAT is really fun! :)
BBRODRIGUEZ
Re: General communications about the game
12/01/2022 02:43 PM CST
>The Discord forums are actually pretty good. Getting used to the new layout is probably the biggest difference. The main topics are in the narrow left hand bar like the chat channels. Once you are in a topic Tags are used rather than having sub-topic folders. After that it works the same with additional features such as being able to get audio notifications when a topic you watch has activity, SEARCH, and the ability to use emojis to name a few of my favorites.
As trivial as it may seem to anyone else, I find discord to be downright f'ing awful. On top of it, you still need to interact with discord to get to the "new" forums....yeah, no thank you.
I know these forums are pretty much ignored by most players and it's fair to say that many staff don't frequent the forums either (or at least they never make themselves known). Once these forums officially get shut down, I'll have no form of contact with the staff (yeah, I know, my choice.....but discord is awful) and other players outside of the game. Honestly, I'll probably just fade away and leave the game at that point. It clearly won't be a loss for the game in any monetary means since I don't spend money on pay events and a couple of subs won't be noticed, either.
The only thing these forums are really missing is a search function. Outside of paying someone to integrate one or build a new, updated forums, Simu has taken the easy route of not paying anyone anything extra and slapping more junk into discord and forcing folks to use that as the official means of contact.
If you guys want to keep discord as a scream-fest for a chatting system, go for it. I just think it's poor taste to try and build a new forum to be used in discord. I didn't even know a new forum was being setup in discord, clearly because I don't use discord, but also nothing was even mentioned here.
As trivial as it may seem to anyone else, I find discord to be downright f'ing awful. On top of it, you still need to interact with discord to get to the "new" forums....yeah, no thank you.
I know these forums are pretty much ignored by most players and it's fair to say that many staff don't frequent the forums either (or at least they never make themselves known). Once these forums officially get shut down, I'll have no form of contact with the staff (yeah, I know, my choice.....but discord is awful) and other players outside of the game. Honestly, I'll probably just fade away and leave the game at that point. It clearly won't be a loss for the game in any monetary means since I don't spend money on pay events and a couple of subs won't be noticed, either.
The only thing these forums are really missing is a search function. Outside of paying someone to integrate one or build a new, updated forums, Simu has taken the easy route of not paying anyone anything extra and slapping more junk into discord and forcing folks to use that as the official means of contact.
If you guys want to keep discord as a scream-fest for a chatting system, go for it. I just think it's poor taste to try and build a new forum to be used in discord. I didn't even know a new forum was being setup in discord, clearly because I don't use discord, but also nothing was even mentioned here.
