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One Last Plea to Save the Forum!!!

FaunaWillow

Novice
Hey everyone.

I wanted to give one last, end of year (possible end of the forums) plea to the decision makers at Inno and Elvenar to
please consider keeping our Forums moving forward along with having Discord.

Here's why:
-People have very diverse preferences when it comes to technology and what they like to use and/or what they are able to use.

-In the past, the Forums have been fairly easy to access, with no log in required.
*Anyone could previously click on the forum link in-game to see news on release notes, announcements, discussions on events and new features.
*If a player wanted to join in the discussion, they could create a login pretty easily. If they had trouble creating an account because they didn’t verify their email or whatever, they could contact support for assistance.

-That is not the case with Discord. Elvenar mods are not Discord support. They are moderators for specific Elvenar channels, not for the site itself. They cannot efficiently support Elvenar players with anything to do with Discord technical issues.

-We now no longer have access to the forum in-game. You really have to dig around the internet to find the forum you want to view (if you haven't saved the web address).

*The pop up news in-game is only temporary and does not and cannot work for everyone.
(Meaning, you should only be using Discord on a saved browser or mobile app where you are already signed in)

*A lot of people using Safari on a tablet are out of luck. Good luck clicking that link on certain mobile devices.

*If you accidentally click on the invite link twice (in-game), the invite becomes invalid. Then what are you suppose to do? Wait around and hope it works later on?

*If you have an account on Discord already and accept the invite from the in-game invitation, it takes you to the Rules Page. It does not take you to whatever was announced in-game.

*It’s not possible to link to the announcement, so players are lost already, once they actually get into Discord, and now have the job to try and find what was announced in-game. With three English servers all shared together, good luck!

-Which brings me to the next problem. Now that the discussion have solely moved to Discord, nothing much is being discussed with new features like events or release notes.

-Bug reports are not being sent in as they used to. More and more bugs that haven’t even been reported are now just a part of the game until someone notices and decides to mention it. It's a pain to create a bug report on discord, IMO (in my opinion).

-If you have been on Elvenar Discord, you may have noticed the significant amount of spam/porn that is posted on both Beta and English channels at least once a week. I am not playing Elvenar to be a part of a community where I have to view inappropriate content that is posted on Discord. That is not what I signed up for.
*It is also not fair to the Moderators and staff to have to be ready at any moment to get in there and delete those spam posts.

-The feel of the Elvenar Community has dwindled significantly since the announcement to move to Discord.

-There are many (thousands) of players who have logged in at least once to Discord (some possibly accidentally created two or more accounts with the wonky sign in system).
However, of that number, there are still only a small handful of regulars interacting there... and the new players who come in to ask questions once or twice are never seen again.
*That is no different than what they used as an excuse to drop the forums. That same amount of players used the forums too, I’m sure.
Same amount of regulars on both platforms, same amount of viewers on both platforms (who prefer not to sign in and interact).
*The engagement is the same now with Discord and in some situations, worse because they are not productive with discussing new features.
*Discord is productive in that someone is always around to answer player questions. That has been nice to see.

*Discord is not a bad place for quick chats and questions. The contests seem to work well for tech-friendly folks on the US side.

*The EN side, Beta and many other server channels are not receiving the same kind of engagement because that group of players are simply not interested in using Discord for contests, discussions, etc.
***It’s very obvious and clear that there is a strong stance from many players on multiple servers that they simply will not use Discord. What are they suppose to do, should the forums close down? Be excluded because no one is willing to compromise with keeping both platforms? What's the point in that? Isn't it better/more productive and healthy to include every player in discussions and information?

*Contests and engagement can and should be available on the Forum and Discord.
*They are already on Instagram and Facebook so why not implement the idea of having two forum platforms moving forward? One for folks who use the regular forums and one for those who like to use a quick glance platform like Discord?

***Discord It is not the place for important things to be posted and left to the wind for many to not even see because they don’t use Discord. That doesn’t seem like a productive model for Elvenar engagement.

-Announcements, release notes, events and anything else that is new to the game should be kept on the Forums and also sent to Discord.
Important game news needs their own Forum space for permanent discussion access and archival (which is not really possible on Discord).


***Please consider using both platforms moving forward. What one likes or prefers does not overrule or outweigh what is good for everyone else. Let’s use both from now on! Players are willing to pass along information from each site and it really would be the best outcome for all parties: players, staff, mods, in-house and everyone else. It’s a win-win to cater to all parties in this situation and it will bring back that special community feeling that players treasure and miss. :diamond::diamond::diamond:

Happy New Year to all!
 
Last edited:

Herodite

Forum mod extraordinaire
Elvenar Team
@FaunaWillow Well Argued and Well Reasoned! All we can do is keep EVERYTHING crossed!!!
 

Silmaril

Community Manager
Elvenar Team
To confirm, we are still monitoring the Forum/s closely. This will continue over the coming weeks, as we assess the situation moving forward. We are doing this and extending beyond December, due to the amount of support that has been shown for some of the Forums.
Regarding Discord, this platform will continue to be our main focus, as per our original announcement.
 

Kazzandra

Alchemist
I will not use discord. EVER
Refusing to use discord includes not posting feedback on Season of Secrets, which I was doing, until I realized to do feedback was taking me to discord.

This is absolutely a conscious decision.

Bottom line is after playing 5 years, Inno lost leverage. This is the feedback. Too many times of ignoring the feedback. To many players who aren’t playing anymore.

The only time I know what is going on at discord is when someone brings it to my attention here, in the old fashioned threads.

Finally, for those of you who read this far, you know this feedback is being read by those few that matter who have made, and are making decisions, who think this is a good way of doing business. It’s not.

My feedback is you alienated the people who play the game
 

McBratty

Enchanter
An excellent arguement, well said! Absolutely my vote is with the forums as I will not use Discord. Im too old for that kind of headache. If the young ones want to use it to talk about the game, great, but leave the forums as the place to come for properly laid out information that is easy to find and get answers.
After all, the initial demand for Discord was as an alternative to the ingame chat box. Never was it ever asked that we get rid of the forums! Someone at Inno joined the dots and went off at a tangent!
 

McBratty

Enchanter
Not quite 'all we can do'. The forum postings have become very silent recently. More active postings from all forum members would help to demonstrate that the forum is a valued and well supported resource. Similar to what the health care industry says, 'Use it or lose it.'
Yes I have to admit you are correct, Sky. We were all gungho initially with our cause to save the forums and then it petered out as everyone went about their business. Xmas and New Year activities didnt help. We need to ramp this up again!!
 

Gytha

Dreamer
The trouble is that the forums have been so good because they are not that busy. We have had a core of people with a lot of knowledge and advice. One only needed to google and get sent here or to the US forum to find the answer. In and out - done. That just won't be possible with discord.
 
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