CorbieKitaal

Join Date 12/2005

Stardock: Two requests for the Forums

I have two requests, and one question, about the forums here.

Requests:

1. Can we create a seperate forum for the "unimportant" sticky threads? I imagine there are certain ones we would want to leave here to make sure people see them and read them before reporting things/asking questions... but the Sticky's are now taking up the entire first page before you hit the "more" button.. and it would be alot easier to see if there are any new posts if at least half of the first page were visible on the opening screen.

2. Can we make it compatible with Firefox? I have to open the page in IE, otherwise it wont recognize me as logged in, and wont let me log in.

Question:

I know WHY there isnt a search feature right now.. I was wondering when it might be put in? ... this actually leads to another question...

1. As much traffic as the forum is getting right now, it is really hard to keep track of my posts and go back to see if anyone has replied.. i had to go back 7 pages this morning to see all of the posts I made last night. Even if there isnt a search feature, would it at least be possible to put in a way for the user to track his posts so he could easily find them? Maybe a "show last ten posts" button in my profile?

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Requests:

1. I hear that... the stickys are useful but getting a bit out of control.

2. What do your cookie and refresh settings look like? The forums work fine in Opera, and usually if something actually works for Opera it works for Firefox.

Questions:

Um... There *is* a forum search function. It's sitting on the left side of the screen in between the "Recent Posts" box and the "Reviews" box. It works very nicely. This is the second post I've seen asking about it... am I missing something? (Or should that be... is everyone else missing something?

)

1. I'd like to see some sort of "Last post in thread" links myself at some point.

Peace & Luv, Liz

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

Some of your points:

2. It already is--probably a setting on your end causing the problem (javascript/cookies/etc). I use FF with the forum here no problem, aside from the quote and font buttons not working when making a new post (but then it uses the same codes as most forums so it's not a problem).

3. There IS a search feature, added last week, right below the Recent Posts sidebar. Be sure you're vieweing from forums.galciv2.com, not www.galciv2.com/Forums.aspx (the old address) as the old one doesn't have this and some other latest updates.

4. Hit the 'my posts' button in the top left just beside the navigation links. That will show all the posts you started. Unfortunately there's nothing to show all posts you replied to.

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Is anyone else having a problem with the "Watch" function? I tried it all day yesterday on a few and this morning and I always get a "timed out" message or something so I am not able to add any threads to my watch list...(I'm using Firefox by the way)

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Would it be possible to open an "After Action Report" forum? It would be great to group all player stories in it !

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just a Site request/suggestion, as it stands it is very hard to navigate the onslaught of posts, and I would imagine very hard for the devs as well to read through all this.
Helpful potential forum categories:

-GalCiv2 News-
-General Discussion-
-Scenario Strategies-
-Campaign Strategies-
-Metaverse-
-Modding-
-Technical Support-
-Bug Reports-
-Off-Topic-

Thanks, Respectfully

the Watch function does not work for me either

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Second that. The forum needs a total overhaul to be easily accessible

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I have problems with firefox as well. I can only log in from the front page it seems. If I read threads first without logging in, and then find a thread to respond to, I want to login at that point. The login/password display lets me enter text, but the actual "Login" button to complete the transaction is not clickable.

Occassionally while browsing the forum posts while logged in, the login/password display will overlay itself above the "Welcome (your name)" box. I'm using firefox 1.5.0.1

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Rhadman: Yeah, I have the "Login button not clickable" problem as well (although TBH I just use Opera's Wand anyway). However, if you type in your username and password and then hit the enter button, it should still submit anyway, AFAIK.

Peace & Luv, Liz

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Stardock does many thing right, but the forum interface definitely isn't one of them. It perplexes me, there are so many free forum frameworks out there that are far superior in terms of: searching, viewing, customizing, look-n-feel, usability, etc. For goodness sakes, put a junior developer on the job. Or, better yet, bring in a college intern (who will work for experience, rather than much pay).

But there is too much information about this game that is only captured in this crummy forum. Trying to find something you know is there is hard enough. If a thread contains information that may be helpful, but you aren't aware of it, there is just no chance to discover it.

Another annoyance: the stickies need to be pruned from time-to-time. If there is a thread about "current bugs", that list need to occasionally consolidate the hundreds of responses into a single post so that users don't have to read every post to see what's what. Further, if a sticky thread contains outdated information, it should be archived, and a new thread with the same title be started that only carries over the pertinent information.

I love that Stardock is so communicative with its community. But since that fact is such a big selling point for Stardock and its games, Stardock should make sure that the interface for its communications is superior. As it stands now, it's not even adequate.

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To all with the firefox clicking issues; It's being looked at.

Now onto the forum comments...

One of the main reasons we chose not to go with a 'free' or 'premade' forum system is that our forum system is SO much more than just forums. If that doesnt really make much sense, then no worries. There's alot going on in the backend that most users will never see, nor care about. Our forum system spans a total of 11 websites right now, count em - 11, and each forum is interchangable between sites, extensible and has the ability to expand to any website we may happen to create in the future and wish to throw a forum on.

Free systems also come with a disadvantage - maintanance and customization. The customization required for each website, between websites, means that heavy code editing must occur. This means that with each 'standard' update that a free forum system makes, we must manually merge our changes.

When your business is nothing but maintaining a forum system, you can afford to pack tons and tons of features into a forum. Additionally, many of the now-popular forum systems were in their infancy (or simply not around yet) and lacked the robust capabilities of the code we now use.

Now while you all may have a rebuttle to these arguments (and those are just the tip of the iceberg), the fact remains that on the business end of the stick right now, it makes more sense for us to continue on with what we already have in place than ditch it for something else. I would like to reccomend that you take your ideas/wishes/wants and post them in a congenial request - designed more as a request and less as a complaint. If we have the time and agree that your suggestion would be a valued asset to the forums, I'm sure it will be added.

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Again, I am thoroughly impressed by Stardock's presence on these forums! But with respect, Andrew, as customers we shouldn't be told how to ask Stardock for improvements. (Within reason, of course. Insults are clearly unacceptable.) Many people have created threads or added posts to voice their frustration with the current forums. That alone should be a clue to Stardock that there is something amiss. Just use the current forum tools to see what issues these people have - a new, congenial post should be unnecessary.

I completely understand that Stardock is not in the business of maintaining forums. I would much rather know that you guys are spending time making your products better rather than futzing around with the website(s). But that said, the Stardock forums suck. Maybe it's time to bite the bullet and put in a good framework - hand coding where necessary to accommodate your system's peculiarities. The alternatives are to do nothing or patch your existing code base to limp along a little longer. Neither of those options are likely to solve the inherent problems with the current forum.

Bottom line:
I love the game. I love Stardock's involvement with the community. I hate the forums. Two out of three ain't bad!

(And of those three, the forum - by far - is the area I'd rather have suffer than the others.)

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Andrew,

Thanks for the post. I wish I could give you some concrete suggestions...right now I just find it very hard to peruse the forums at all, it just seems very hard to know where to start. Here's what I can come up with:

1) All the spiffy graphics make it harder to focus on the text of the posts, and probably contribute a lot to the overall sense of confusion. An optional display style which was more spartan would be great!

2) Display the username of the last person to post to each thread.

3) Have a "recent posts across all GalCiv2 boards" display, so people can see what topics are being discussed actively.

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1) All the spiffy graphics make it harder to focus on the text of the posts, and probably contribute a lot to the overall sense of confusion. An optional display style which was more spartan would be great!

That's branding and not a bad thing. Just not your thing.

2) Display the username of the last person to post to each thread.

Not a bad idea. But it adds clutter to the page and another DB call

3) Have a "recent posts across all GalCiv2 boards" display, so people can see what topics are being discussed actively.

If you are looking at forums.galciv2.com there is such a thing. Although, as active as this forum is . . . they would have very limited effect.

I use the Watch function heavily. It allows me to flag what I want to keep track of and because of the use of cookies, when I select an article it takes me to the last post I read. My only request would be to alert me on that watch list *IF* it had updated.

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This is a "congenial request", not a complaint, simply a Respectful request, as above:

the Watch function does not work for me either

Thanks, Stardock for an Excellent Game

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Running Firefox 1.5.0.1 and Watch doesn't work :/... I've seen a few posts of other people having the same problem (error message says something about a time out). With watch working it would clearly help a lot

Edit : "Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to obtaining a connection from the pool. This may have occurred because all pooled connections were in use and max pool size was reached. "

That's the message. Tried Watch under IE and I have the same problem. I also noticed IE scrolls down to the last posts in a thread automatically. Doesn't work with Firefox.

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*bump*
if it will take too long to make separate categories.. is it possible to at least track all the posts one has made instead of just the posts one has started?

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Hmm. One forum quirk I've noticed... viewing posts with no replies doesn't mark them as read.

Peace & Luv, Liz

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