forum/game registration

[Babylon Horuv]

currently the game and the forum require separate registration. I imagine this is far less of a hassle for Gobb than if they were one registration. However the ToS don't say that one is registering for the forum, and as I have been registered with the game for about a year or more it kind of confused me.

Changing the title of the board from Paradox he musical to paradox the musical forum, or board, or something, would clear this up and seems like the easiest way to me, although I have not modded a forum in a long time so i may be talking out my arse.

[jimmyBUFFET]

You know what I think about you finally joining the forum?

It's about time.

-jB

[Babylon Horuv]

You know what I think about you finally joining the forum?

It's about time.

-jB

But...there's people here, and they might

*gasp*

talk to me!

[stroby]

we promise we won't

[commandermack]

A lot of the online turn based games have a forum on their website, so you dont need a seperate log-in. Even gaiaonline has a freakin' forum on their website, i mean, ok, i can see the downside to that for a game like this... Cus say the game crashes or at rollover something important happens... then we dont get to know. This is probably best seen through the white Wednesday fiasco on kol.

[[NOT MEANT FOR ANYTIME BEFORE BETA]]
[[NOT MEANT FOR ANYTIME BEFORE A DEDICATED SERVER]]
Ok, so i was wondering if there might be any way where we can do both... like integrate the forums onto the website so we could have an automatic log in with an embedded page or something on the site. So the forum is seperate and not seperate at the same time. The major perk of this would be a lot more people using the forums. Yeah, it probably would be a lot of hassle, but i think it would lead to a lot more feedback and helpfulness amongst the game community. Just something to think about... doesn't have to be done anywhere close to anything i just said, i am just speculating, i dont even know if you can do this, i just thought it would be a nice way to get forum signups with game signups so more people used the forums.

[stroby]

or could the game sign up form just also submit the login details to the sign up form in the fourms with a check box if you dont want a forum account and of course it would have to tell you that you now had a fourm account.

[mastechno]

a duel ingame/out of game forums would get a LOT more people to be active in the forums...that's why ToG integrated an ingame forum(the redo in 2008ish maybe 7) those are used quite extensively for some clans, more so than an out of game forums. If there was somehow a way to get the game and an "offsite" forum to talk and be updated "in real time" couple min delay no biggie. would be freaking fantastic I think there would be lots of logistics involved but if were to be figured out that would be a HUGE plus that this game had and others didn't!

just my two cents

[Gobberwart]

PHPBB is designed to run forums and it does it well.
Paradox is designed to be a game, and does it well.

While there may be some positives (single username/password combination, no need to go to a different site) I'm not sure the benefits outweigh the problems (and huge amounts of work) involved in screwing around with PHPBB to make it work inside Paradox or, worse, having to write a brand new integrated forum system from scratch.

There are also a few good reasons NOT to integrate forums into the game:

1. If the game's down, so are the forums, so there's no way we can communicate. Currently, the forums run on a completely different server, so will stay up even if the game server has issues.
2. Browsing the forums would require logging into the game. Sometimes (often) I don't log in to the game to use the forums and I don't want to have to start doing that.
3. If we modify PHPBB to work inside Paradox, then our ability to upgrade to future versions of PHPBB might be seriously limited by those modifications.
4. Keeping them separate makes sense (to me). The game's a game, while the forums are for discussion about the game, just like the wiki is for information about the game - it's not part of the game itself and probably shouldn't be.

KoL did introduce a fairly limited, simple clan forum system a couple of years ago. Was that useful? I don't know, I only used it a couple of times and didn't think much of it, but then we had our own established forums already, so the integrated forum seemed like going backwards. I think bigger clans prefer to have their own websites/forums, while smaller clans probably don't have any need for their own forums. We MAY look at something similar at some point if there's enough demand for it.

Mas, it may well get "a LOT more people to be active in the forums". It may also not, or the activity may not be of the desirable kind. I'm really not at all convinced that it WOULD be "a big plus", or that most people would even care.

As always, that's just my opinion. Feel free to discuss it further.

Oh and Babs, I'll change the title to "Paradox! The Musical - Forums" in a sec. I assumed everyone just knew what a forum was and what it looked like but I guess not.

[SportGuy]

How about in game "discussion boards"...they're sort of forums except i used the word "discussion boards"...and you also keep the forums...and then there is still a "backup" place. Many people wouldn't mind having a "discussion board" in game to talk about many things I'm sure. Many people also prefer "discussion boards" as a way to communicate over say real time things like chat. Hell, I'd probably even use the "discussion boards" occasionally. Just my 2 dimes.

P.S. I was trying to see how many times I could use "discussion boards" in a few sentences. Go me.

[commandermack]

Yeah, I just say scrap the idea all together because of the hassle and potential, OH FUCKS, that could arise. Things work fine. Only thing I would consider is maybe adding a page to the sign-up set that asks if you would like to sign-up for the forums at this time, so people are fully aware they are there and have chosen not to use them. Yes... The forums link is right by the wiki, Yes... Most people are smart enough to figure it out on there own, Yes... people will probably still fail at signing up without it. Fail rate is high, real high. lol.

Example, look at KoL... there forums link is on their main page, rollover page, and at the top with all the link the whole time you are playing... always visible, and still... they only have about 1/10th of the user-base using the forums. I barely used the KoL forums myself... Kinda thought it was a complete waste of time.

[trogdorable]

is it really that hard to log in over here that we would need to have discussion boards in game? I know back in the days of STC/KoL, there were the boards in game, and we'd refer someone to the forums and they'd get confused: Kol forums, STC forums, or clan message board/forums whatever the f it was called. Yeah ok they have a different name, but to a lot of people it's interchangable. It seems to me that they would be MORE confusing and not less confusing.

Also, our forums are linked on the main page and in game already. I think if people are too slow to be able to figure it out from there, maybe we don't want or need them posting on here?

Its no secret the main page needs a redesign. Maybe when someone does redesign it, we can make the forum link bigger. Maybe we should also make it flash and sparkle, and add arrows, and one of those annoying popups that says "You are about to log in to Paradox: The Musical (Game) Would you also like to check out our forums? Click yes to open in a new window. (click continue/no) "are you sure? you really should. Click yes to open a new window." etc etc...

yeah, no.

[Gobberwart]

Also, our forums are linked on the main page and in game already. I think if people are too slow to be able to figure it out from there, maybe we don't want or need them posting on here?

I wasn't going to say it but now that you have... Exactly. Do we REALLY want the forums full of posts from people who can't figure out how to use a separate forum, or find it all just too hard? I can just imagine it *shudder*

Its no secret the main page needs a redesign. Maybe when someone does redesign it, we can make the forum link bigger. Maybe we should also make it flash and sparkle, and add arrows, and one of those annoying popups that says "You are about to log in to Paradox: The Musical (Game) Would you also like to check out our forums? Click yes to open in a new window. (click continue/no) "are you sure? you really should. Click yes to open a new window." etc etc...

Ijit

[SportGuy]

I was just making the point that it is fairly common to see in-game discussion boards as well as an out of game forum when insisted upon. I play a lot of different games so I notice these things. Not that they're a necessity but they are another way to have communication. So if no one wants to do them or they can't be done, it's not the end of the world. Basically it's yeah, whatever. Another place to communicate isn't necessarily a horrible thing and why not communicate in game versus opening a new tab if such a thing were possible? A lot of people playing a casual game don't even want to screw with another forum or whatever.

It took me well over a year into playing kol before I could be bothered to sign up to the forums. I'm a very capable user of the internet, but if I'm playing a game why not have it streamlined? When I used ti okay this game more seriously I had a tab opened to the wiki, a tab opened to the game, a tab opened to the forums and a tab opened for chat. Not everyone wants to be bothered. That's all a preference. Maybe it's just me but I always thought choices were a good thing.

[trogdorable]

I could see this being more of a discussion once the game was more populated, but with so few active players already, I just don't see the point in giving more ways to split everyone up. Once clans or guilds or whatever are implemented, maybe a discussion board there might be something cool.

We have to keep in mind that right now our playerbase is still pretty small, so while comparing Paradox to KoL seems to be a fairly common thing, the two games are not on the same level for this kind of comparison right now.

[Gobberwart]

Maybe it's just me but I always thought choices were a good thing.

You make it seem as though I'm refusing to do something really simple to prevent people having choice, which is not the case. If it was a simple matter of me clicking a button to give you in-game forums, I'd probably go ahead and do it, but it's actually incredibly complex to do it properly, and I have to weigh up what's a good use of my time. Right now, I don't think there's any reason at all for me to spend the time on this, but the suggestion's been noted and we can always look at it again later if there's a need for it.

[Cowboy]

I don't really think it's necessary. If people really have something to say, they'll take the 5 minutes to register on the forums.

[SportGuy]

This post needs deletion...I double posted...n00b

[SportGuy]

Maybe it's just me but I always thought choices were a good thing.

You make it seem as though I'm refusing to do something really simple to prevent people having choice, which is not the case. If it was a simple matter of me clicking a button to give you in-game forums, I'd probably go ahead and do it, but it's actually incredibly complex to do it properly, and I have to weigh up what's a good use of my time. Right now, I don't think there's any reason at all for me to spend the time on this, but the suggestion's been noted and we can always look at it again later if there's a need for it.

That wasn't directed at you, and it really wasn't directed at anyone, but if it had been directed at someone it would've been directed at someone who made a sarcastic remark at what I posted, so not you, ok? I was simply explaining the other side of the coin. It's always best to understand both viewpoints of a situation, or so I think. But yeah, that's fine.