Forum Bug Reports and Feature Requests

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Welcome to RPGWatch. You can post your suggestions in this thread. Answers can take a couple of days.
 
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I was very active on one foreign forum. I made events there, some interesting things, I created topics to discuss, so I have a little experience with this. My thoughts:
1. General off-topic thread to just talk about games with no topic regulations. Like chat, but a little bit more official and maybe even with some role-play element, if people are gonna be interested. I can create and moderate that thread.
2. Contacts exchange thread. Just simple thread, where people are gonna name their PSN, Xbox Live, Steam and Twitter accounts to find some new followers or game companions. I can do it, too.
3. Role-playing games category. I know about many role-playing forum games and they can be very interesting, if there will be correct regulation. It's working like this: moderator creates some game, writes the story, situations. Then he opens thread and starting to take people. Players are creating one character that fits the story made by moderator and if m. accepted them, they join the game. And after people are chosen, in special thread moderator creates special situations for each player and they should answer on them with some decisions or just by continuing the story.
It is very interesting. Apologies if you didn't catch something, I can explain more detailed.
3. Mafia category. Mafia forum games are very interesting. What about doing them here? We all love RPGs, right?
4. Clan system. Clans is a little communities of people, who make sure, that forum is alive and well breathing. They create events, support activities and etc.. It can help forum, I believe. And they are easy to create. I can help with that, too.
5. Reputation system. VBulletin allows to add them. That is not necessary, but it would be nice to say "Thank you" to someone just by adding points to their reputation.
6. Non-RPG category needs to be more organized. Why not to create sub-categories for popular genres?

I'm gonna continue, if I will remember something, that I didn't say.
 
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7. Category of creativity. If someone writes novels or poetry, or if someone makes nice pictures or fan-fiction, they will be able to post them there. Can help with that, too.
8. Game recommendations thread. All is simple here, I think.
9. Regulations in some of the popular threads to make them more interesting to view.
 
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Will comment a little something about your suggestions:

1. General off-topic thread to just talk about games with no topic regulations. Like chat, but a little bit more official and maybe even with some role-play element, if people are gonna be interested. I can create and moderate that thread.
I think it's basically covered by having the following forums:
Indie RPG, General RPG, JRPG, General Non-RPG. There you can make a thread dependent what kind of game it is.
There is also a off topic forum with topics like "Last game you bought" and "last game you finished". Of course nothing is stopping you from creating something like a "game you are currently playing" thread. ^^

2. Contacts exchange thread. Just simple thread, where people are gonna name their PSN, Xbox Live, Steam and Twitter accounts to find some new followers or game companions. I can do it, too.
Don't think I have seen a thread like this here. I am not particularly a fan of this, but why not?

3. Role-playing games category. I know about many role-playing forum games and they can be very interesting, if there will be correct regulation. It's working like this: moderator creates some game, writes the story, situations. Then he opens thread and starting to take people. Players are creating one character that fits the story made by moderator and if m. accepted them, they join the game. And after people are chosen, in special thread moderator creates special situations for each player and they should answer on them with some decisions or just by continuing the story.
It is very interesting. Apologies if you didn't catch something, I can explain more detailed.
I have seen these, but it's rather complicated. They might work well in a forum which has a very "narrow" type of userbase and a rather strict moderation.
RPGwatch however has a big range of types of users, and this includes trolls and a rather lose moderation. So I think any attempt there would be futile.

3. Mafia category. Mafia forum games are very interesting. What about doing them here? We all love RPGs, right?
Actually never heard of that one.

4. Clan system. Clans is a little communities of people, who make sure, that forum is alive and well breathing. They create events, support activities and etc.. It can help forum, I believe. And they are easy to create. I can help with that, too.
I am not exactly sure what their point is. Maybe you can explain further how it works and what the benefits are?

5. Reputation system. VBulletin allows to add them. That is not necessary, but it would be nice to say "Thank you" to someone just by adding points to their reputation.
Yeah. They added a "like" system recently and I think a reputation system would be cool as well.

6. Non-RPG category needs to be more organized. Why not to create sub-categories for popular genres?
This is a RPG page after all. ^^
That said, Forums only make sense if they are actually used. A forum with none or just one active thread in it isn't worth existing. And when I take a look into the "General Non-RPG"-Forum there seem to be just the right amount of active threads. I don't think that splitting it would be beneficial.

7. Category of creativity. If someone writes novels or poetry, or if someone makes nice pictures or fan-fiction, they will be able to post them there. Can help with that, too.
I think this is best on dedicated fan pages with a fixed topic (like a game) or an page covering a kind of art (like drawing). While I don't see harm in creating a forum or thread for it, I think it might become very lonely in there.

8. Game recommendations thread. All is simple here, I think.
I think that one is covered with the "last game you finished" thread. But as mentioned before, nothing is stopping you from creating an additional thread. ^^

9. Regulations in some of the popular threads to make them more interesting to view.
Not sure what you mean with that. If you mean stricter forum rules, I don't think that many people would be happy about them besides of being more administrative work.
 
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1 and 2. 0k, I will create them.
3 and 4. It is gonna be fun, but there is gotta be someone with perfect English. We can ask people, do they want that and would they join, if it was.
5. Yes.
6. No activity there, because no threads, but it can be covered with general thread that I'm gonna create.
7. Ok.
8. I will create.
9. No, some threads need to be tighten up and expanded. I will think about it later.
 
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RPGwatch however has a big range of types of users, and this includes trolls and a rather lose moderation.
[…]
If you mean stricter forum rules, I don't think that many people would be happy about them besides of being more administrative work.
Em… Forgive me if your words gave me the wrong impression….
You are aware that the TOS have changed recently? Trolling for instance is mentioned now explicitely and is not allowed.

The announcement of the changed Terms of Service and Privacy Statement

The long thread about the change in moderator policies in the RPGWatch forum
 
Sometimes it's hard to tell if people ARE actually "that way" or if they are trolling.
And it's pretty easy to break such an RP thread.
 
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Sometimes it's hard to tell if people ARE actually "that way" or if they are trolling.
And it's pretty easy to break such an RP thread.

Agreed. And the higher-level trolls like to ride that line, and play the system.
 
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@Kordanor.
Okay, I understand. Sorry for the interruption, Kordanor. I hesitated, wasn't sure... :)
Forgive me! ;)
 
Yes I do have an idea….
Yesterday evening, I made some changes, as the last week or so, someone tries to hack the forums using the comments form and SQL injection. I get an e-mail for every database query that fails, which resulted in me ending up with thousands of e-mails on a daily basis. Cleaning those up was becoming a chore, so I decided to detect the attack prior to a database action taking place, but was a bit to rigorous :)

Corrected a small part of those changes, so threads can be created again.
 
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So you've been hacked - by yourself! :p
 
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I enabled our GOG ads again. This is about as much ads as we are going to show on RPGWatch.
For those who donated to the site in the last 12 months, ads are disabled.
 
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I enabled our GOG ads again. This is about as much ads as we are going to show on RPGWatch.
For those who donated to the site in the last 12 months, ads are disabled.

Then when I see those ads, I'll know that it's time to donate again? Cool reminders :p

By the way… time to donate again :p
 
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:)

That is not why I put them up again though. I just figured it might be a nice bonus for those who have donated that they get to not see ads as an extra.
Some other extras those who donated have: Twice the amount of stored PMs, a larger avatar image, more characters allowed in your signature.
 
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:)

That is not why I put them up again though. I just figured it might be a nice bonus for those who have donated that they get to not see ads as an extra.
Some other extras those who donated have: Twice the amount of stored PMs, a larger avatar image, more characters allowed in your signature.

Of course I was kidding, Myrthos. And I didn't know about those extras.

You and the whole RPGWatch staff have been making a great job here. Keep up the good work :)
 
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While not a bug report or feature request, I do have a question.

What to the colored dots next to our screen name mean?
 
While not a bug report or feature request, I do have a question.

What to the colored dots next to our screen name mean?

I think it tells you if that person in online/offline based on accessing RPGWatch or based on the Skype or other addresses you may have put into your profile.
 
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It is green when a person is online and has not set theirself to be hidden.
It is red when a person is online and hidden, but you don't see that. I do :)
 
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Hello. I would suggest merging some of the older game forums which do not have new sequels coming up. Those forums are mostly dead anyway at the moment.

For example: I would combine Risen and Gothic and all their subforums into a Piranha Bytes Forum. And Expeditions could just go into Indie probably.

We seem to have a proliferation of forums going on.

I would like to sign the non-proliferation treaty of forums :p
 
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