im rapidly working upto despise, that goes beyond simple hate. a good number of issues are still active, bigest one is that i have to dance around a number of links to get to the unified forum.
the other day i couldnt even view these forums properly. now i can so its better, but far from useful. not even a mention from the people who run the forum or website to even acknowledge its being looked at.
frankly this vanilla forum should of spent more time in testing and working on streamlining the whole thing to a tigher package rather than what it is right now. still yes, working upto despise.
The kind of thing where they would have done a test migration to another URL - gone through testing things afterword...work out the kinks...then moved forward with the actual migration, yeah? Kind of like a Tribble/Redshirt sort of thing instead of just dropping stuff straight out to Holodeck.
yeah, why not? but it didnt happen like that. so speculating on stuff like that. all we can do is scratch our heads and just watch it turn into something... ooo thunderstorms outside just now.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
It's not that I don't care one way or the other...it's that I have both found features that make my experience a lot easier (the Bookmarking system over here is way more convenient for me than vBulletin's), and some that are very bad (the PM debacle). Over time it might balance out for me, but I will have to see fixes for the PM situation and will want to get a group of non-PWE testers to work on that once they make a claim that there's been a fix on the PM thing.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Oh god no! I hate it! and i can't unsee what i just saw it's horrible make it stop!!!
While I don't "hate" them, I don't like them half as much as the old ones. It's not just be because they are different though.
Lots of dead space at the sides.
Too much grey/black so everything blends together and looks dull and boring.
The start page for STO is quite difficult to find the sub-forum you want as they are just a long list of text links rather than being physically separated like the old forums.
Animated signatures are really starting to do my head in, especially as the size limit on them seems larger than the old forum so they take up a load of space.
The forum is essentially unusable on a mobile due to massive lag getting it to load (even over WiFi) and terrible formatting.
On the other hand there are some nice features. I like the ability to hide sigs (although I actually prefer them visible as it helps to identify other posters easily.
Also I noticed that when typing a post it saves a draft every so often which is really nice in case the forum messes up and you lose your post. Lost track on the number of times I lost a really great post on other forums because it threw a hissy fit at the exact time I posted.
I hate it. It's ugly as h.e.l.l., dull and full of bugs. Oh and I can't hide all those uninteresting games I don't give a flying f*ck about, because the hide function doesn't work. Great work as always...
It's working for me...
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
The only nice thing is being fancy with images, something the old boards were terrible for.
That actually falls into the bad for me.
The only nice thing, imho, is the ability to hide signatures/including sig images. Would be awesome if there was an option to turn all of the inline images, videos, Twitter, et al into bare links.
As for the deadspace on the side, well, I'm not looking at the side and I'm not sure how the text in the middle is cramped together. Since the forums are generally over on an older 1024x768 monitor, there is very little deadspace anyway. Course, the main is 1440x900...so for somebody with another 240 on either side - it might look a bit off. Girlfriend's watching TV or I'd switch over to see what it looks like there at 1920x1080. Would it be a case of stretching the post area out? Would just have a bunch of deadspace there then. Should the clutter the page up with wallpapers and that kind of nonsense so the deadspace is still deadspace but loaded with some crappy background?
As for the text options,I'm not having a problem doing anything like that myself.It's the same code that was used previously, and these are three of the common colors that I used.And I guess I should include this as a common fourth I used.
As for the full-screen edit...yep, looks just like it would following that Google link - like it would in Word, Write, Scrivener, Notepad++, etc, etc, etc...standard white background.
Now, none of that's to argue against your likes/dislikes, cause folks like what they like...just to point out how much of it is standard out there and how much of it is still possible.
Now, if we were talking about something like search...that's not really subject to likes/dislikes nor perhaps having to type some quick manual code. It simply doesn't function anywhere near how it did. Came up in another thread recently, I wanted to hunt down something where on the previous forums I would have pulled up the search, selected the poster, and put in the keyword - wham, bam, there was what I was looking for. Now? Yeah, no, that can't happen now.
Any bookmarks to the previous threads/posts are useless, so even if one managed to find a post where the post had been linked - can't get to it.
Then there are the various bugs, etc, etc, etc...privacy/security concerns, etc, etc, etc...
It's been annoying how since it was first announced about the migration to Vanilla (the first one), how all the complaints about the actual losses of functionality, the bugs, the privacy/security concerns, and so forth - have all pretty much been ignored...while the focus has been on the fluff of how pretty something might look (where some folks consider a cat that ate a box of crayons throwing up on the monitor to be pretty).
It was nifty, imho, being able to hide all the other sections of the forums so that Recent Discussions shows just the STO stuff - cause frankly, those folks talking about everything they wanted to turn the forums into a brutal technicolor assault on the eyes would have gotten me in trouble with the mods pretty quickly.
Yep, different folks like/dislike different stuff...not going to argue that in the least. Will argue about any changes that I would not like...which should be expected, yeah? Folks that like something, will argue for it. Folks that dislike something, will argue against it. Yeah?
Text color options are not part of the tools in the forum itself. If I have to rely on external means to get that done, that's a failure.
Text color options are not part of the tools in the forum itself. If I have to rely on external means to get that done, that's a failure.
No external tools used. Just like I did on the old forums, I did the same here.
I typed [color=somecolor]text[/color]
I used SandyBrown, YellowGreen, and RoyalBlue (as well as Yellow) so often that it was generally faster just to type it than to reach for the mouse to go through the selection of things. I used to do a bunch of colored text for things...was just easier to type it. /shrug
Not sure the extent that these forums support BBCode, but as it says down there under the edit window: "You can use BBCode in your post."
Do I believe that PWE should provide some standard form of CSS for link, visitedlink, etc? Definitely...it's a usability thing - things should be clear.
In the interim though...wham, bam, well...it's covered. No external means required...I'm not typing anything that the forums wouldn't have typed for me from clicking a button.
edit: Though, wtf is up with what they did to the Code /Code blocks there? /facepalm So folks have to highlight what's in the codeblock to see it? That's just /facepalm.
The forums look as if the real CSS expert and usability engineer has yet to visit the premises and do his job.
Have to wonder if it was a conscious decision to limit the selection of options on the editing toolbar because of looking at mobile users and their space requirements. Most of the commands are available, even if the choices aren't there on the toolbar. Still think it trippy that Bold, Italic, and...nope, no Underline - goes to Strikethrough next...heh, oh well.
Ît's not really that. The choice of colors is just poor. You can barely distinguish a quote from regular text and stuff like that. That's not something that a mobile user benefits from either.
And it's pretty much all changeable with CSS, it doesn't require new forum features. The software at least in that regard is sound.
(And I suspect the PM debacle simply happened because the data transfer/conversion screwed something up, most likely not something inherent to the board software.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I can't say I love or hate them. They are what they are. Once I got everything I did not wish to see set to hidden, it was easier to find things. For the most part, the forums are not too drastically different, from my perspective, but I rarely post and just adapt to the changes.
I will say that I agree with others here that the screen should adapt to whatever device/resolution the user has. However, I suspect that changes will come that will rectify that and use more of the real estate on the screen. I can wait.
I also agree that the avatars should be at least twice their current size. I often use them to recognize forum posters and being so small makes that more difficult.
Probably the thing I miss most is the mouse-over preview for thread titles. As a reader, I use this constantly to determine if a thread is worth reading, or (more often) if the thread is even about what the title suggests. Not having this feature will make it difficult to determine if "OMG, X IS SO AWESOME!1!" is really a 20 paragraph diatribe about how User doesn't like X.
Given that, I guess I'll have to go with the "Meh" option, as it doesn't rank in my List of Things To Get Upset About.
Have to wonder if it was a conscious decision to limit the selection of options on the editing toolbar because of looking at mobile users and their space requirements. Most of the commands are available, even if the choices aren't there on the toolbar. Still think it trippy that Bold, Italic, and...nope, no Underline - goes to Strikethrough next...heh, oh well.
Ît's not really that. The choice of colors is just poor. You can barely distinguish a quote from regular text and stuff like that. That's not something that a mobile user benefits from either.
And it's pretty much all changeable with CSS, it doesn't require new forum features. The software at least in that regard is sound.
(And I suspect the PM debacle simply happened because the data transfer/conversion screwed something up, most likely not something inherent to the board software.)
With Vanilla, how much is actually Vanilla and how much is a bunch of various plug-ins/addons to do things? It's one of those group things, yeah? Yeah, from their page: http://vanillaforums.org/addons
So it would get into not only what Vanilla offers but also whatever addons PWE's running, eh?
But yeah, a bunch of the stuff is just basic CSS stuff one would expect them to have access to...
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
How does one get a gif to show up in a post? (not sig, I figured that one out)
Never mind... I got it.
Post edited by daveyny on
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Oh god no! I hate it! and i can't unsee what i just saw it's horrible make it stop!!!
two things i want returned, the sample quote when you hover your mouse over a thread title and the second is the mods, community officers and devs having colored names to make sure its easier to identify who and what to avoid confusion.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
1. Profile pictures made larger.
2. Since we can now have animated sigs, can we have animated profile pics.
From what I heard, the animated avatars are possible by uploading them to your Arc profile. A roundabout way of doing it, I know, but everything around here seems to be roundabout now.
I can see a large amount of people leaving the forums and game due to this. All of which means a drop in money.
Good. The type of person that would quit playing a game because he or she doesn't like the forum software is the type of player that's a complete PITA in game with their constant complaining. Add to the fact that most players never use any games forum any losses will be insignificant.
Best of all is the fact that people who threaten to leave a game because of [minor thing here] rarely actually follow through with their promise.
Oh god no! I hate it! and i can't unsee what i just saw it's horrible make it stop!!!
Can't take credit for the steps there, but without a functional search feature I can't hunt down the folks that gave most of the steps. It wasn't working for me initially cause I'm viewing the forums via perfectworld.vanillaforums.com without the Arc "header"/URL bit. frtoaster had me looking at something else which took me there and voila...it forced the sync. But yeah, meh, other folks deserve the thanks for that...just can't search to find who they were...meh.
Some features of the new forum are pretty nice, if they could just add some Navigational items it would be an improvement in pretty much every area over the old boards.
Thank you! This sync failure is what was apparently tripping me up when I tried before. Pity the animation looks so...unremarkable as a gif--especially in 40x40.
Oh god no! I hate it! and i can't unsee what i just saw it's horrible make it stop!!!
Organization is odd for one. Not a fan of the wasted space, the quote system, or the inline pics/video or animated gifs for another. Most significantly though, the Search function is god awful, showing post by post rather than by thread, searching all games, and having no filtering system (that I've found yet). I can live with the aesthetic annoyances, but the lack of a functional search engine is something that needs correcting, or else we're gonna see a LOT of thread necromancy and redundant questions when people can't effectively look up answers that have already been posted.
Why are there no navigation options at the bottom of the page?
After reading a page, I have to scroll back up to the top to move to the next page.
This is daft. Please fix it.
If they haven't already, someone is going to tell you to use the Home key or PgUp, like they told me. I find that unsatisfactory, so yes, I'm with you: links to the pages of the thread should be at the bottom and the top, as they are in most forum schemes. It's just counterintuitive and frustrating to have to go back to the top in order to move to the next page. And telling us to use PgUp or Home is not a solution, but a copout (or that's what it would be if Staff/Mods told us to do that; in this case, I was told that by another player, which is more of a simper than anything else).
two things i want returned, the sample quote when you hover your mouse over a thread title and the second is the mods, community officers and devs having colored names to make sure its easier to identify who and what to avoid confusion.
So it is working on my tablet now but I can only view it properly in landscape mode. if I hold the tablet vertically the right side of the forum and half of everyone's posts are chopped off. and that is using a 7 inch tablet, I don't believe there's enough screen real estate you the forums on a phone, so mobile interaction still has a ways to go, but its working better than it was yesterday.like I said on the previous page, this is basically a live beta.
Thanks for the Advanced Light Cruiser, Allied Escort Bundles, Jem-Hadar Light Battlecruiser, and Mek'leth
New Content Wishlist
T6 updates for the Kamarag & Vor'Cha
Heavy Cruiser & a Movie Era Style AoY Utility Cruiser
two things i want returned, the sample quote when you hover your mouse over a thread title and the second is the mods, community officers and devs having colored names to make sure its easier to identify who and what to avoid confusion.
Both available as standard IF they had use the self hosted version, however they would have to request an add-on which is a pain in the back side to achieve when it's hosted by vanillaforums, yet another reason they should avoid using hosting companies.
Comments
yeah, why not? but it didnt happen like that. so speculating on stuff like that. all we can do is scratch our heads and just watch it turn into something... ooo thunderstorms outside just now.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
On the other hand there are some nice features. I like the ability to hide sigs (although I actually prefer them visible as it helps to identify other posters easily.
Also I noticed that when typing a post it saves a draft every so often which is really nice in case the forum messes up and you lose your post. Lost track on the number of times I lost a really great post on other forums because it threw a hissy fit at the exact time I posted.
It's working for me...
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Text color options are not part of the tools in the forum itself. If I have to rely on external means to get that done, that's a failure.
The embedding of links in text is still a failure with the rest of these boards. <- Just like I did just now. Differentiation is indiscernable. It's an inherent "feature" of these boards.
For the Toggle Full Page option, going from the natural grey-black of the forums to a damn all-white, that's still pretty annoying.
No external tools used. Just like I did on the old forums, I did the same here.
I used SandyBrown, YellowGreen, and RoyalBlue (as well as Yellow) so often that it was generally faster just to type it than to reach for the mouse to go through the selection of things. I used to do a bunch of colored text for things...was just easier to type it. /shrug
Not sure the extent that these forums support BBCode, but as it says down there under the edit window: "You can use BBCode in your post."
Which gets into why does my inline link have underlined text while the link below the edit box isn't?
Cause I manually added the underline tags.
Say I wanted it to be underlined and Gold?
"You can use BBCode in your post."
I just type it.
Do I believe that PWE should provide some standard form of CSS for link, visitedlink, etc? Definitely...it's a usability thing - things should be clear.
In the interim though...wham, bam, well...it's covered. No external means required...I'm not typing anything that the forums wouldn't have typed for me from clicking a button.
edit: Though, wtf is up with what they did to the Code /Code blocks there? /facepalm So folks have to highlight what's in the codeblock to see it? That's just /facepalm.
And it's pretty much all changeable with CSS, it doesn't require new forum features. The software at least in that regard is sound.
(And I suspect the PM debacle simply happened because the data transfer/conversion screwed something up, most likely not something inherent to the board software.)
I will say that I agree with others here that the screen should adapt to whatever device/resolution the user has. However, I suspect that changes will come that will rectify that and use more of the real estate on the screen. I can wait.
I also agree that the avatars should be at least twice their current size. I often use them to recognize forum posters and being so small makes that more difficult.
Probably the thing I miss most is the mouse-over preview for thread titles. As a reader, I use this constantly to determine if a thread is worth reading, or (more often) if the thread is even about what the title suggests. Not having this feature will make it difficult to determine if "OMG, X IS SO AWESOME!1!" is really a 20 paragraph diatribe about how User doesn't like X.
Given that, I guess I'll have to go with the "Meh" option, as it doesn't rank in my List of Things To Get Upset About.
After reading a page, I have to scroll back up to the top to move to the next page.
This is daft. Please fix it.
With Vanilla, how much is actually Vanilla and how much is a bunch of various plug-ins/addons to do things? It's one of those group things, yeah? Yeah, from their page: http://vanillaforums.org/addons
So it would get into not only what Vanilla offers but also whatever addons PWE's running, eh?
But yeah, a bunch of the stuff is just basic CSS stuff one would expect them to have access to...
We come in peace, SHOOT TO KILL!
But I'll get used to them eventually.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Never mind... I got it.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
1) Go to http://perfectworld.vanillaforums.com/profile/picture
2) Click Remove Picture
3) Go to https://www.arcgames.com/en/my/account
4) Click the bit on the avatar where it says Upload a custom profile picture...
5) Select an animated avatar
6) Go to http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums#
7) Enjoy your animated avatar
Basically have to access the forums via that...
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums#
...link, to get it to force the sync of the Arc animated avatar with the Vanilla Forums avatar (which you removed in the second step).
Having https://www.arcgames.com/en/my/account open in one tab and http://perfectworld.vanillaforums.com/profile/picture in another won't force the sync. Have to hit up http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums# after having added the animated avatar to the Arc site (again, having removed the avatar from Vanilla first).
From what I heard, the animated avatars are possible by uploading them to your Arc profile. A roundabout way of doing it, I know, but everything around here seems to be roundabout now.
Works great, thanks!
If they haven't already, someone is going to tell you to use the Home key or PgUp, like they told me. I find that unsatisfactory, so yes, I'm with you: links to the pages of the thread should be at the bottom and the top, as they are in most forum schemes. It's just counterintuitive and frustrating to have to go back to the top in order to move to the next page. And telling us to use PgUp or Home is not a solution, but a copout (or that's what it would be if Staff/Mods told us to do that; in this case, I was told that by another player, which is more of a simper than anything else).
*puts my Joan Hancock under this*
Both available as standard IF they had use the self hosted version, however they would have to request an add-on which is a pain in the back side to achieve when it's hosted by vanillaforums, yet another reason they should avoid using hosting companies.