Feedback: Official Forums

[Donari.5237]

> @omica.6548 said:

> Firefox does not work to access the forums. Had to switch to IE to login. Was using Firefox ver 53(32bit), would not recognize user name and password. Noted, after switching that the accept rules check box did not appear on login screen with Firefox.

 

I'm viewing these forums on Firefox right now, not sure what version though. My system is 64 bit. It didn't ask for name/password -- just popped me right in (I was already logged in on the old forums).

 

Feedback: I think there are good things here (that Saved Draft popup is a good sign, eg), but will comment on the things I'd like changed thus far.

1) A duller background color. Parchment rather than blinding white. While I do not like white text on black backgrounds, I still need something a bit less glaring, so long as the text is still dark on pale.

 

2) A return to top of page button. It's less vital since there is a navigation button at the bottom to move to other parts of the forums; still, it's helpful to have that. I suppose pressing "Home" will do it, however.

 

3) More avatar choice. If we are to have avatars, expand the options enough to allow individuality. As I noted in the specific thread on this, just giving access to all the in-game icons would expand things dramatically. As others have commented, finding a way to get a dedicated character face snapshot would be awesome. Perhaps an in game location we can go to with minimal pose/expression control that then takes a picture for the forum account? That gives ANet control while giving players options.

 

4) I understand that the hardware for the old forums is dying. But there are years of information there, including ANet policy statements and very helpful how-tos for achieves, for example. I wonder if anyone is able to set up a mirror site for archival purposes? Knowing all that history is going to be yanked in a month is heartbreaking.

 

5) I've seen people write that there is not an image embed feature. I hope your coding is flexible enough to add this asap. Pictures are often worth a thousand words. Whatever the flaws of the old forums, the ability to easily load in images direct from one's hard drive to illustrate bugs, humor, character looks, and the like was _wonderful_. Miles ahead of any other forum I frequent where one has to first go to an image hosting site, save, then copypaste the url. Please bring that back.

[Ashamir.9574]

It looks a lot more modern than the old forum. The layout is totally different and a prefernce thing: some people may like it, some won't.

 

The focus in this new forum feels removed from the posts – the actual content – however, and put on shiny new gaphics, like avatars. To me it feels a lot like a pinboard and less like a forum where actual conversation is supposed to happen. It's harder now to skim over a thread because there is lots of blank space between posts.

Also, personally, I don't like the upvote/downvote feature. I already got downvoted by people that didn't take part at all in the conversations that were happening. I don't mind downvoting itself, but it seems to replace debate rather than add to it; also I can see and already have seen abuse of this feature happen(ing).

 

I would have liked a focus on conversation, but this new forum feels like the exacte opposite to me. Like I'm discouraged from actually debating and arguing and instead should just drop a thumbs up/down and be gone.

[Dreanor.4329]

It is a good step into a better direction compared to the old forums, but I really don't like the profile pic clutter on thumbs up/down.

[Hevoskuuri.3891]

It'll take some time getting used to, but everything seems good so far. It'd be perfect if we could choose a darker theme, this whiteness hurts my eyes a bit.

[TheUndefined.1720]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> First, I want to say that I agree with feedback that the avatars are a wee bit too large. I've put in a lower-priority request for us to revisit them. I'm not sure if it's possible to redo that aspect, but I want us to take a look.

>

> Second, let's give this "visibility" a little time, and see how it goes. There are positives: No stealth "thumbs down" sprees. There may be negatives: a clutter of icons and possible social implications. I'd like to revisit this in a week or so and see where we stand, from both a forum member and administrator perspective.

>

> Thanks for the input. You are more than welcome to also share your thoughts in the official feedback thread: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/269

 

It looks like they'll be wanting to keep the thumbs down for at least a week. Between the time limited edit and this really backwards non-communicative system, I'll be avoiding posts on the forums unless I feel the posts are absolutely necessary.

 

Just my feedback, these are forum features that were totally done away with years ago and shouldn't be reinvested by these forums. A vote-system destroys thoughtful discussion and introduces lazy popularity contests as well as possible forms of harassment. Time limited edits removes the poster's ability to change their mind and adjust their post in any meaningful way.

 

Please reconsider these points.

[Orpheal.8263]

Can only say - lets use this thread now to brainstorm over things which Anet could/should use to make the new fresh forum now the best they possibly can do.

Now they have a fresh coded running system which allows them to make improvements on the forum.

Here some of my thoughts what I would like to see gettign improved (or better explained if it already exists in the forum system, but doesn't give the player an explanation yet on Log in.

 

**Forum Skins**

Add in the Forum Options multiple chooseable Forum Skins - this being the Default One, but adding also a Dark Theme which isn't so bright and pure eye cancer.

Then another one, which looks maybe more like medieval Papyrus in regard of colors and Design which is neither too bright, nor too dakr, but some kind of golden middle basically.

 

**Forum Avatars**

Please make the Forum Avatars slightly bigger, they are partwise so small, that they are badly pixeled and unsharp.

 

**Forum Smileys/Emojis**

Could you add maybe some nice funny looking Emoji Smileys, instead of these boring 0815 standard yellow round smileys you find in every generic forum there is??

Something like these would be very awesome:

http://yoursmiles.org/k-tuzki.php

 

[Example](http://yoursmiles.org/ksmile/tuzki/k5411.gif "yoursmiles.org/ksmile/tuzki/k5411.gif")

 

**Pictures & Videos**

Please make it possible to add into Postings Pictures in a way, that they are embedded into the Posting so, that we actually SEE the Picture, not just the hyperlink of it, still needing to get relinked to it just to see it. This includes also embedding into Postings Videos from example Youtube/Twitch ect., so that the readers of the Posting can actually watch the Video in a resized downscaled way in the posting, without needing to get relinked to the site, unless you want to watch it in its original bigger size, then you have to get relinked to the original site of the video.

 

**Signatures & Other Old Features**

Whats with Signatures and other "Key Elements" of the old Forum. How do these thinks functionize here now. You get the impression here, that certain things need to get "unlocked" by the people by making all kinds of forum activities, like writing posts, upvoting posts, quotign people and so on and so forth, to raise basically this way your "Forum Rank"... am I right with this mechanic being used here to unlock certain Forum Features, like Signatures, or own personal Forum Avatars?

Cause personality is somethign very important in forums - no one wants to be that generic forum member, which has just the same avatar like million other people, which has no Signature to show others their personality ect. pp. These Features are important and it would be nice to know, how these things work her now in the new forums.

 

**Badge Explanation/ Forum Achievements?**

Whats that Stuff with the "Badges"? is there some kind of deep hidden sense behind their existance, cause by design they look like some form of "Forum Achievements".

If I got this impression right, do they also kind of affect maybe in some kind of way the Ingame "Community" Achievements that earning here in the Forum all kinds of badges could possible end up in Community Achievements in the Game? If these Badges have actually no meaning, then I suggest its better to remove these from the forum, cause when these Badges are of no use at all, then why have them even here?

 

**Thumbnail Avatar icon Removal**

Please remove these Thumbnail Icons of the Posters avatars, they are unnecceesary there. Just show the number of people how many have upvoted a Posting.

But there is no need to spam the reader full with avatar icons for every single person who has upvoted a posting.... such a kind of obsolete mechanism won't be able to ever show everybody due to a limit, because otherwise the forum would be quickly full of them everywhere, if we ever get postings, that are upvoted by hundreds of people.

 

**Forum Nicknames**

Can you please add the peature of Nicknames, which replace the Accountname "name.9999" in the Posting. If we want to actually know someones accountname, we just need to hover our mouses over the Forum Avatar and it pops up automatically, so it would be nice to have also an option of showing for our postings instead of the account name a nickname. Fir me for exampel now I could choose to have the Nickname of simply "Orpheal" No need to show also the numbers.

A Nickname would people also the chance to be shown here under a different name, instead of the accountname, which could be also a safety measurement.

Players coudl then decide for themself, if they want to show other readers their accountname as well if they hover their mouses over their forum avatars

 

Just some ideas for now. am pretty sur others will have also some nice ideas here.

[Ellwynd.7480]

With the reaction icons, at least on my tablet, they seem a bit too big especially on posts with a lot of them. Maybe scale them down once it would go onto another line? Also the icons showing how the person reacted (thumbs up/down etc) on their portrait need to be made a bit more visable.

[Esplen.3940]

I keep getting auto logged out. On the old forum it would happen once a day (usually). On this one, it's once every few minutes...

[Girbilcannon.8259]

Will there be a fix to the "image" button? All it does right now is post a link to images with no thumbnail and very lengthy process to view the images linked.

[Donari.5237]

A tiny bit more: I just checked the Gemstore Suggestions sticky ... and it's locked. That will make it hard to make it a continuing thread :) Will the gem store dev team still have access to the old thread? For a project I tried tabulating all the requests in that thread to see how many times each suggestion was made. Got to page 10 back when it was a 70+ page thread and gave up, intending to get back to it some time. Too late now!

 

I think it's going to take some time for these new forums to stop reinventing the wheel and start in on new ground. Hopefully posters (including me) will remember to be patient with all the "I just had this _totally original idea_ guys" threads.

[Penemue.6827]

Definetly an improvement.

[Pittcrew.6592]

Really would like to see a Feedback/Suggestions section (and perhaps another section/subsection for specifically Gem Store Feedback/Suggestions).

 

Also, if possible, maybe hide the icons and/or names of the Helpful/Thumbs until you hover over it, where it shows a popup that can itself be hovered to display the people. Just too much clutter.

 

I feel like the Poster's name, status, and badges could be put below their icon, and the post time could be at the far right of the bottom Ratings bar. That would free up a bunch of room to start each post directly beside the top of the poster's icon.

 

Also, would be nice if we could edit posts forever if it's the OP of a thread, just so we can address things and make updates if needed. (Not entirely sure why it's been taken away in the first place?)

[DirtyDan.4759]

Avatars on the side, avatars below every post. Avatar below started by, avatar below recent answer. Horrible.

[XenesisII.1540]

Everything looks too big, the post width is too big, the icons are too big.

I really hate it when a signature section of a post ends up being bigger than the actual post, and that's going to happen a lot with these icons.

There needs to be better separators between posts like the red band of the dev post, like grey background and white account names?.

[PookieDaWombat.6209]

Fine. Yet another "official feedback thread" to let info get lost into the noise/void.

 

Feedback:

Up Voting and down voting is simply bad. Full stop. It serves no purpose other than to play a ridiculous popularity contest game that can be easily manipulated to silence dissenting opinions. It is in no way helpful and for a game that supposedly promotes its community, this move is the forum equivalent of making the open world PvP.

However, if you must keep it because reddit is your god, then take a page from their book and stop putting people's names next to the up/down votes. I understand it takes the onus off of Anet as they can simply point to the others doing the act instead of owning the problems the system will bring, but there is a good reason for the anonymous nature of up votes and down votes that actually lessens toxic behavior which will already rise due to its existence here.

 

Visual design of the new forum is horrible. Way too much white space and high contrast that causes eye fatigue and makes reading things more difficult than necessary. Fine, I get wanting to mix up the layout, but this was just wrong. Things need to be more compact and friendlier to people with visual limitations. Seriously that's just website design 101.

 

Signatures. Mines gone. As is the case for many others. Whats worse is, we have to somehow win this ridiculous popularity contest to get that ability back??? The point of a forum is to get all the feedback you might need, good or bad. Decisions like this can kill your forums as well.

[Alatar.7364]

I'd like to suggest that:

* Can we have the contents of post (ergo: What you are reading right now) in colour Black?

Current Grey/Light Black colour doesn't seem fitting, is somehow 'harder' to read on a White background and, lets face it, makes one think that the text is not something of importance, just a psychologic thing.

Same goes for your Accounts tab of _Discussions_, took me about five minutes before I figured out that my Comments are actually there, only camouflaged with this colour like some sort of "greyed-out" option.

* Also, as was mentioned above my post, I have to back that up: Lots of (LOTS OF) empty Whitespaces between posts, looks too wide and takes too long to navigate in

* Avatar icons, including Avatar icons of the _Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down_ are way too big with low quality resolution. Lowering the size of the Avatar icons would solve both of thse problems.

* Options beneath post such as *Preview*, *Edit* and *Save draft* should not be greyed-out, as it is generaly used to indicated that such Tab can not be clicked on, while these ones can actually be clicked. This goes with an Exception for *Cancel*

* I am super Confused with the Bold text since the * example * does the same as _ example2 _ , is it really necessary to have ti remade in to annoying ** example3 ** ?

[cleaderwoo.3914]

I understand brand is important, but PLEASE move the forums away from the current text, and move towards a native font stack. Keeping the current brand for more important elements like headers instead.

 

` font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol";

`

 

[crosknight.3041]

15 minute to edit post is kinda dumb, i dont wanna reply to myself to fix a mistake i made

[Kreiri.9048]

The list of thumb-ups should be a simple counter instead of loooooong list of HUUUUUGE obtrusive icons that takes several times more screen space that post's content. If you want to list names, they should be in overlay that opens on counter's click, or something.

[PaxTheGreatOne.9472]

My remarks:

1. No longer do we have acces to previous discussions

2. No longer can I add picturs

3. It's so white I illuminate my top floor with my screen now, cause i do not need another light. lowering bringhtness will not clear "the frostbite".

4. I am not allowed to place a personal picture if I wanted (yet?)

5. I seem to have lost my signature and rights to have one for now.

6. I do not see anything showing transfer of my posts or commitment to this forum carrying over. The 45 pages of 50 posts regarding my reactions and comments seem to have vanished. Including my former posts... I feel some may be outdated, but Some are still very relevant. Including reactions I made this morning.

7. I do not like a rank system It holds no value of ppl post a lot of empty posts gags and memes to "level up" in a forum I fear this will conflict with a constructive and clear forum. Having a small seperation between new posters and veterans might be ok I doubt I'd want ppl to Level up just to be gods and get more influence or a bigger voice.

8 Since http://www.reddit.com/r/guildwars has gotten a lot of influence lately... Should I consider this a signal there will be a shift back again to Guild Wars 2 forums??

9 I miss the clear and close knit view allowing to look over 50 topics without the need to scroll... I do NOT need avatars on a main page.

 

I need a clear list of topics and a notification of posts views and moderator comments, roughly like before.

 

The biggest problem with the old forum was:

1. it was getting slow in posts

2. it was buggy

3. due to the slow searches dozens of posts were brought in to cover exactly the same topic.

4. It tended to lose the draft if something went wrong with posts... (had this a lot on tablet and phone)

 

However the layout of the forum was pretty good and overseeable.(have no clue how to spell this) As such the readability was good.

[Calen.8596]

I really like the new mobile view but I miss a reply button on the top

 

And a function to jump to the top of the page would also be nice, to much scrolling is required now

[Elliyana.8936]

I'm just absolutely overwhelmed with how much empty space and visual clutter the new forum has, everything looks so spread apart. Is there a way to make things more compact?

[Pittcrew.6592]

> @PookieDaWombat.6209 said:

> Fine. Yet another "official feedback thread" to let info get lost into the noise/void.

>

> Feedback:

> Up Voting and down voting is simply bad. Full stop. It serves no purpose other than to play a ridiculous popularity contest game that can be easily manipulated to silence dissenting opinions. It is in no way helpful and for a game that supposedly promotes its community, this move is the forum equivalent of making the open world PvP.

> However, if you must keep it because reddit is your kitten, then take a page from their book and stop putting people's names next to the up/down votes. I understand it takes the onus off of Anet as they can simply point to the others doing the act instead of owning the problems the system will bring, but there is a good reason for the anonymous nature of up votes and down votes that actually lessens toxic behavior which will already rise due to its existence here.

>

> Visual design of the new forum is horrible. Way too much white space and high contrast that causes eye fatigue and makes reading things more difficult than necessary. Fine, I get wanting to mix up the layout, but this was just wrong. Things need to be more compact and friendlier to people with visual limitations. Seriously that's just website design 101.

>

> Signatures. Mines gone. As is the case for many others. Whats worse is, we have to somehow win this ridiculous popularity contest to get that ability back??? The point of a forum is to get all the feedback you might need, good or bad. Decisions like this can kill your forums as well.

 

I agree with most of this. I think they should get rid of the Down Vote, if not both Down and Up vote. Down vote, as you said, can silence dissenting opinions, but it can also just bury a post (especially suggestion posts) before it's had a fair chance to breathe and get fair attention and feedback (another, non-ideal choice could be to not display any Down votes for a few hours or something, but I just think it's generally toxic to have). Helpful is fine, but I'm not particularly sure what purpose it has... people can usually decide if something is helpful for themselves, so it'd only really be valuable if there's a thread for providing tips to new players or something. (

 

Maybe some better Impressions would be like: Agree, Helpful, Funny, Insightful, Impressive, Awesome, etc. All positive. If people don't want to be positive, they can just not provide a reaction (or can reply to the post, following the rules of the forums to do so).

[TexZero.7910]

I'd just like a native "nightmode" if possible. Not to come off as that guy, but these forums feel too bright. Might be the frameless post that do it but it causes some pretty weird eye wandering because everything just kinda starts with no stop.

[Ana.2415]

Please disable thumbs down/up on patch notes thread and comments, or at least make them to only be able to do it on the OP not on the rest of the comments. The avatars are so annoying, too big, showing only the numbers and make them anonymous would be the best.