Feedback: Official Forums

[Pegaasus.3280]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> Welcome to our new official forums! We're glad you're here, and hope you enjoy all the improvements these forums offer you.

>

> Please post your input about the forums here. If you encounter a forum bug, please share the details in this thread. If you find a graphical or visual bug, please host a screenshot on a photo-sharing site and provide a link.

>

> We will be gathering your input and will address issues as soon as we are able to do so.

>

>

>

 

It' s working very well !! I like hat you did with this.

Keeo going on this way !!

 

Thank you

[smitske.4912]

The devtracker does not point to posts any more but to complete threads, making it harder to find new posts or even find out if a dev answered or not.

[Dydra.8796]

Edit: I found the Profession forums. Just maybe put some icons in front of them and make easier to find :)

 

Otherwise, I love the white and clean design.

[Bast Bow.2958]

> @smitske.4912 said:

> The devtracker does not point to posts any more but to complete threads, making it harder to find new posts or even find out if a dev answered or not.

 

Yes this! Sorry for only quoting and agreeing, just wanted to emphasize.

 

Also, still no word on how to send a private message? I asked it earlier, as did more fellow forum-members.

 

 

And I like the new layout Anet, maybe still some (minor) bugs. Of course it's prone to taste, and maybe it will become apparent that majority of forum-members and readers like a different colour or setting, but that's something I think you can't all foresee and will become visible when you release and can adjust then, as I'm sure you will when the right time comes to start shifting things. And it seems more urgent flaws are being adjusted already, which is nice.

[Frostfang.5109]

I LOVE the search- function! I have been missing that for years. I also like the Vote-system and that u earn little neat rewards for being helpful! I think that helps ppl stay more - helpful!

[Ildrid Ildhjertet.2489]

The new forum is nice :) I think the space between each post in the previous forum was a tad better, because it made it more "readable", but I love all the new features!

 

I would like to see a dev-post about how to Level up on the forums, and what Levels that are obtainable. (Preferably in a sticky).

[leviathan.2148]

In case this hasn't been requested yet, can we have again an option to get to the next dev post from the previous dev post if there are multiple in one thread?

[Chadramar.8156]

Timeout needs to change. Don't sign me out _while I'm typing a reply_ and don't redirect my open tabs to the signout page with no option to get back to the actual threads I wanted to look at.

[BrotherBelial.3094]

This looks nice and all, but it's not user friendly, I can't seem to find any sub groups forums. So far, not a fan.

[cephiroth.6182]

The old forum had an rss feed for the dev tracker (https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/devtracker.rss). I can't seem to find it on the new forum. If it's not there yet please add it.

[Wanze.8410]

One reason why I spent alot of time on the forums in the early months/years were the crafting and BLTC subforums. A couple of years ago they, along with a couple of other subforums, got merged into general discussions.

 

Is there are possibility to reintroduce these old subforums (and maybe others that I didnt mentioned), if not as their own forum then as a child category?

[saye.9304]

there is no code redeem in my account section and it wont show which expansion you own/active, to redeem my path of fire expansion code i had to go back to old forum to do so because the new one misses this feature.

[Winderly.2718]

> @Winderly.2718 said:

> Yesterday i hated the auto sign out for inactivity feature. i signed back in and was sent to the forum index. Who wants that ? Seriously ?

> That's just Grawl wrongdoing...

> So now to work around this issue, i have to keep an extra useless tab of the forum open.

> When i get auto signed out, i use said useless tab to sign back in.

> And after that i refresh the pages i was using.

>

> Nobody should have to do all this to use a forum.

 

i was doing it all wrong (maybe).

All i had to do was sign back in, and hit the browser page back button.

i said maybe because it seems to work only if being inside a thread.

While not inside a thread, it kicks me back to the forum index. Which is pointless and annoying. It was working fine in the old forum, please fix this as soon as possible.

[Phoebe Ascension.8437]

The new forum is a huge dissapointment. I would rank old gw2 forums as my nr 5 most readable forum, and my best design forum (especially among mmo's). Even when almost falling asleep, it could be read, the new forum is such a mess for the eyes that is simply not possible. In fact I hated reddit, now just 'dislike it', but if this forum in current state keeps on existing, Reddit is much better place. Especially to read stuff.

 

First of all to much white in two ways. The white 'dead zones' between text is way to big creating way to much scrolling required to red a page of a topic (in old forums you could read much faster and easier for the eyes). Secondly cause of the text/red being VERY FLAT, the white is very obtrusive on a bright screen (wich almost all are these days, especially smartphone). Look at reddit for example of how to tune down the white invasion.

 

Way to huge empty spaces creating, a non stop feeling of 'floating' text, that is way to far from each other, making it very hard to read response, after response.

 

There is at no point BOLD text used. this is annoying with the already low contrast setting. Thinks like report, quote, helpful, at normal viewing distance are already hard to pinpoint, and need heavy focus to read.

 

The line between posts is very bad. Because of the insane low contrast setting of it's grey, the white, and text, your eyes are drawn to it, but then because of all the white in it, your eyes are not immediately led to the next spot, making intuitive reading a very hard thing. It should be a full line (i can have drawings of higher/lower line, but the line must always be at least 1 pixel high. Also it must be high in the scale of grey colour or black, to improve contrast, if you are sleepy, you will only see white, and the line will not be seen. This line is very important to filter trought posts quickly, as at the moment, with nothing 'this leads the post', it's the only identification to quickly analize/filter posts. But because this line is so vague/distracting, reading forums is now a chore.

 

Text is to small and/or has not enough Black levels. It feels like grey text, on super white background, wich is very hard to continuously read.

 

'Post box'-identification is very hard. The box of a post means, everything that is related to one player responding, until it goes over in next player. That is 'his' 'post-box'. Because the line (wich already mentioned is to vague) starts UNDER the poster and not above, you again have an identification problem to start reading a post. You keep thinking hmmm is this the next spot? Did i skip some? Am I reading same again? Crucial for reading forums quickly and efficiently is a post-box that is detectable withing a 0,1 seconds. Here it takes more like 2-5 seconds. For extended amount of forum reading, this is an insane time punishment.

 

Giving the name of who down/upvotes you, will cause more toxicity, rather then 'love' between players. Seen enough forums with various methods. Up/downvoting can work, but not if one can see each others downvotes. This is something probably underrated. But say you have never met someone, and that person downvotes a post, that you think is very relevant. You then recognize him in game. What would happen then? A good first time meeting of each other? I don't think so. But what if his/her downvote was Anonymous? We just play along, and toxicity would take a backseat.

 

The pixel 'width' of letters 'lines' is to low. Like T and U are hard to indentify at a further screen distance. Add again the super low contrast to it, and it's a chore to read.

 

Some people suggest a 'night'-mode. That would work quite well. I totally hate the day-version of most sites, but love the nightversion. Though a full black page would be very weird for guild wars. I think just 'copy' pasting, more elements from old forum would greatly improve current version. USe the Grey (background) of Reddit, use the font of old gw2 forum, use the FULL unbroken line (though with some extensions for art) of forum 1.0 and post the line BEFORE the name of a poster, not after it, to clearly create a box effect. Remove the intrusive giant white space between posts/titles.

 

Page numbers are very small, forum 1.0 had it down perfectly.

 

It's very sad some old topics will be permanent removed. Like the topic about mounts (2000 posts) will be silently gone, and now all the mount lovers will be able to lie that nobody dislikes mounts. The past has a meaning. Removing the past usually means, that you are trying to hide something. If the past is beautiful it should not be hidden. You just gave all the forums before 2017 september, a permanent infraction. Sad Arenanet. A read only version should be permanent available. For instance 'post a picture of your mix and match' has so much nice posts. Suggestion forums have so much nice suggestions, that now need to be repeated/spammed again to be relevant. Dev tracker has a nice insight into how things go/Devs think process. For instance I think Benjamin of Fractal team posts, are invaluable and should somehow be 'stickied'. But the fact is, with removing the old forums all that goodness will be gone. Not a good thing Arenanet. Shutting down the past, is denying yourself.

 

Oh and the most annoying feature: No editting after 15 min! See this post? IT will be full of text errors (wich i fix in multiple re-readings of it). That will be impossible from now on, I found one mistake 'or' should have been 'are', but i'm sure there's many left, but NO TIME TO FIX, end of story. Grammar mistake wall probably up now.

 

I hope desktop readers are not forgotten! Reading on desktop should be easier then on smartphone because of the giant screen, but with more and more site, it feels the opposite. Smartphone is not the new holy 'read forums' grail. Support desktop/laptop too.

 

To end with two positive notes: the Auto draft save is a good improvement for long posts. Wich I tend to type often. The profession specific Icons are neat, and give a more guilds wars themed customization feel to the forums.

[Gudy.3607]

# Design

 

The separators between posts, and between the headline and the body of each post, aren't nearly helpful enough. The custom css posted in the first few pages helps a lot here.

Avatars are too loud. I wish there were an option to hide all avatars (outside of custom css).

I generally wish the design were more compact. I know that "airy" with lots of white space is the _in_ thing these days, but I feel like I'm scrolling way more than strictly necessary.

 

# Functionality

Gating features like signature and editing timeouts behind reputation limits seems like a really bad idea to me.

The front page has no longer any indicator for new, unread posts in a forum (except for bold/normal text of the Latest Post information, which is not visible enough - at least extend this to the forum title as well. Better yet - change the color from red to grey like in the old forums).

It is not possible to mark a forum as read from within that forum.

Marking a forum as read reloads the whole page and I have to scroll back down to where I was.

The forum timeout is bugged and doesn't take tabbed browsing into account: I was logged out by the tab displaying the front page while actively browsing a thread in a different tab.

[Winderly.2718]

> @Gudy.3607 said:

> # Functionality

> The forum timeout is bugged and doesn't take tabbed browsing into account: I was logged out by the tab displaying the front page while actively browsing a thread in a different tab.

 

i hadn't noticed that behavior. It's a big problem for me, as i tend to open many tabs and come back to it later.

[Daerian.6523]

Please give us option to turn off auto logout. Preferably please give us option to stay always logged in.

[Flatley.1620]

Are the old forums closed now? Can't post there atm

 

What will happen to all the old posts? Please don't tell me they will be erased! And where did the class forums go? Nm found em. Now to figure out editing.

[Flatley.1620]

Oh and what happened to signatures? Sorry, just found my way here and am having trouble working my way around from my phone!

[Flatley.1620]

Ok navigating the full site from my mobile is awful. My first log on took me to a more mobile "version" - how the heck do I get back to it?

 

/mourn old forums

 

EDIT: Dang - want to merge my three posts into one to stop spam but can't because of edit timeout. Using the PC to navigate the forums is much easier, thank Balthazar.

[Blue Hare.8612]

What is up with the "Draft saved at ..." that pops constantly on top of my text and distracts me from writing? And the funny thing is that it doesn't even do anything. I was trying to make a thread and that thing was popping up all the time, then the page crashed and I lost everything I had written down and there was no saved draft. So yeah, nice feature this is.

[GotchaNL.2953]

Love the clean design of the new forums. It'll takes some time to get used to, but that will come after some time :)

 

[Blue Hare.8612]

I have a dyslexia and I will not use the new forum until you do something about the usability. At the moment it is a total nightmare to use. It is very bloated and has lot of stuff distracting from the actual content, but I will complain only about the layout for now.

 

# Layout

When skimming through topics I want to be able to read topics only and not have to jump lines. Same goes with posts on a thread, the old forum did it right by separating the actual post and information about that post into separate columns. The new forum has everything mixed up in the same column. Information should be arranged such that you have different kind of info separated from others and not mixed up. I have illustrated this bellow:

 

# Bad layout

"Topic"

-Things about that topic

"Topic"

-Things about that topic

 

# Good layout

"Topic" -Things about that topic

"Topic" -Things about that topic

"Topic" -Things about that topic

 

As said, I simply cannot use this new forum with the current layout, sorry.

[Erhnam.5732]

I'm sure this has been posted already, but...

* Timeout is working at browser tab level, which is a pain.

* People names on Helpful/TD/TU should be removed, or it can lead to "wars"

* We need a night theme

* Player name takes a lot of space, should be placed under the avatar

* The Helpful/TD/TU need to show if you have already voted in a comment

* Please, please, please, do not link forum title to amount of posts. Quality > Quantity

[Flatley.1620]

My feedback - posted elsewhere but better suited here. Can't delete the other post so sorry for duplication:

 

* Don't like up and down votes. It will be abused, mark my words.

* No sig. until I get enough up votes? Is it 1995 all over again? See above point.

* Navigating the forums from a 'phone is a nightmare. The first time I got here, I was pushed to a more mobile-friendly "version" but I can't find that again now.

* Avatars: I can sort of see why they've limited them as there's potential for abuse here too. However, it wouldn't be that difficult for a mod to advise the user to change if found offensive. So, yeah, can we have our own avatars please? Although I wouldn't like to see massive ones so perhaps a pixel limit or auto-crop could come into play?

* Like the text formatting options - much better

* Can the old forums be archived and/or merged into these to save all the handy info contained therein?

* Edit timeout is awful - I sometime re-read my posts and correct them (particularly for grammar and clarity) after 15 mins - now I'll have to make another post to say want I want to correct. = SPAM. However, it will up my post count so does that come into account somewhere too? Like > 100 posts means I can have a sig?

* Posting and editing is much quicker - thumbs up! (see what I did there?)

* If post count matters, and up votes matter, what about all the posts we've already made on the old forums? Now we have to start from scratch?

 

Apart from this nitpicks, the forums do "feel" cleaner and are overall much more responsive. I also think some of the above may be knee-jerk as I'm still getting used to my new home.