I hate Discord

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

No way to just go over there and lurk from what I can see.  You have to have an account.

How lame is that?

 

(Now get off my lawn!)

 

Don't mind me... Just carping.

Read: https://kotaku.com/please-stop-closing-forums-and-moving-people-to-discord-1847684851

Edited March 10, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[The Aziz]

Well okay.

But your hatred towards a certain platform has nothing to do with KSP2.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Just now, The Aziz said:

Well okay.

But your hatred towards a certain platform has nothing to do with KSP2.

Oh but it did... I just edited that out.

[LameLefty]

I agree. Discord is just AIM, MSN Messenger and hell even late 90’s IRC with fancier emojis and a slick UI. Chat services are terrible for a long-term game/community like KSP. Discord is all about the instant hit of dopamine as you watch the posts blur by … Forums serve as a long-term repository of information and give time for thoughtful, reasonably crafted posts. I’m a member of a couple very long-term forms that have each existed for over 20 years. You can go back and  search those ancient posts for answers to common issues and problem people have been having forever and the answers are just THERE to be found for all.  The very idea that you take a few minutes to search, think, consider and THEN write is the antithesis of the digital  vomit that is Discord. 

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by LameLefty

[regex]

23 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

No way to just go over there and lurk from what I can see. 

Why would you want to lurk in a chat channel? It's all the same old doomposting and copium sniffing we have here and on Reddit only at frantic speed.

[The Aziz]

1 minute ago, LameLefty said:

Chat services are terrible for a long-term game/community like KSP. Discord is all about the instant hit of dopamine as you watch the posts blur by …

Then why are they so successful?

Forum isn't suited for quick chat, rapid picture sharing without using 3rd party hosts or anything of the sort, so anyone wanting such interaction with the community was left with nothing. There are people who don't like the slow, and frankly ancient form of communication, but are still part of the fanbase. Discord is for them.

[Starhawk]

Moved from KSP2 Discussion.

[mcwaffles2003]

9 hours ago, LameLefty said:

Discord is just AIM, MSN Messenger and hell even late 90’s IRC with fancier emojis and a slick UI.

I saw that as a good thing, I had a great time with those services

9 hours ago, LameLefty said:

Chat services are terrible for a long-term game/community like KSP. Discord is all about the instant hit of dopamine as you watch the posts blur by …

Some people just want to have a chat and a quick discourse in a less stoic and long winded place. I like the forums because it gives time and space to lay out bigger thoughts and discuss in depth certain facets of the game. But I can't really have a long back and forth in here, and that's something, personally, I would like. Just to chill with some people with a common interest and shoot the excrements. I just don't see how having such a thing is detrimental to a community instead of helpful in fostering more people.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

18 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I just don't see how having such a thing is detrimental to a community

It would not be if all systems were go and the team was pushing content and challenges to a community of happy gamers.  Discord may be perfect for the light Fluffy stuff. 

Instead we are in a situation where regular long-form communications (especially with the community here that has been established for upwards of ten years) is practically required to help allay the valid concerns of purchasers. 

Yet what we've been treated to is an uncomfortably long silence after an unexpectedly buggy release and word of layoffs - the latter of which seems to be the only prod towards communication. 

4.8% of the purchasers are regularly testing.  There are very few indicators of what bugs are being worked on (like an updated 'known bugs and priorities' post). 

The major disconnect is that the game seems to be an Alpha / Beta hybrid - with some EA features... And yet the communication strategy is that of a fully functional EA that is working and only awaiting content before 1.0.  Fact is they should be communicating with us like most companies do with Alpha teams or Open Beta communities... And they are not. 

So - maybe the first patch rolls out and all these concerns are moot.  But if not - and they continue the policy of silence and 'hey all is nominal'... The reputation damage is going to drive interested people away for a long time. 

[mcwaffles2003]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

And yet the communication strategy is that of a fully functional EA that is working and only awaiting content before 1.0.  Fact is they should be communicating with us like most companies do with Alpha teams or Open Beta communities... And they are not. 

We were all openly shown that the game was very buggy well before release though, if there was communication alluding to what you are stating, I genuinely do not recall it.

Also, what is this land of fully functional EA games you speak of as that is a foreign land to me.

Finally, I still don't get where any of this means discord is bad for the game. You talked about it once in your reply then continued about the state of the game as if that was the subject of the conversation...

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

We were all openly shown that the game was very buggy well before release though, if there was communication alluding to what you are stating, I genuinely do not recall it.

Also, what is this land of fully functional EA games you speak of as that is a foreign land to me.

Finally, I still don't get where any of this means discord is bad for the game. You talked about it once in your reply then continued about the state of the game as if that was the subject of the conversation...

My subject is exactly communication.  My comment on the state of the game is to showcase that for different experiences, different communication strategies should be employed. 

 

[AtomicTech]

On 3/8/2023 at 10:00 AM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

No way to just go over there and lurk from what I can see.  You have to have an account.

How lame is that?

 

(Now get off my lawn!)

 

Don't mind me... Just carping.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

what is this land of fully functional EA games

To follow up... One might nod in the direction of Satisfactory.  Link

Quote

Within three months of its early-access release, over 500,000 copies had been sold.^[6] By July 2020, more than 1.3 million copies had been sold.^[7] Based on data collected by Simon Carless in mid-2021, Satisfactory had made at least US$11.5 million in revenue

 

Such was my hope for the EA experience with KSP2.

1 hour ago, AtomicTech said:

Or...

Edited March 10, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[mcwaffles2003]

4 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

My subject is exactly communication.  My comment on the state of the game is to showcase that for different experiences, different communication strategies should be employed. 

So why is discord bad? This is still unanswered.

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

To follow up... One might nod in the direction of Satisfactory.  Link

That's a fair point, I played it and it wasn't my thing (just doesnt scratch the itch like factorio does), but it was certainly well made at debut as I recall

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 minute ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

So why is discord bad? This is still unanswered.

Vis the KSP2 VeryPublic Alpha/Beta?

• Discord is the wrong place to be for where the game is. - It's a bad fit.  Here: Read this - more detail
• Discord is walled off; you have to be a member to see what's going on.

...

In general?

• Discord is fine, if you're into what it does
• I'm not.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

https://kotaku.com/please-stop-closing-forums-and-moving-people-to-discord-1847684851

Forums create a record, an archive we can search through, so that whenever we want to revisit issues, or find help with a problem, or see what was happening during a certain time, we can do that. There’s a paper trail, and while sometimes that leads to embarrassing takes on tv shows and game reveals, other times it’s providing an enormous help with technical issues or parts of a game you’re stuck on.

 

Discord simply can’t provide that. It’s a river running in real-time, and while it does have search functions, the way the whole app is structured means you’re simply never going to get the same levels of detailed discussion or archived information as we can get from forums. If places want to open a Discord and run that as something else, then cool, but using it as a replacement for forums is a disaster.

https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3451

Hot take after a year or so of trying to build a developer community. If you can pick only one, use forum software rather than synchronous chat software for community building around a developer platform.

 

While there are tradeoffs in terms of convenience and closeness, for most developer communities a public, managed forum is better than a private, unsearchable Slack.

 

There are a few key differences between forum software (which includes packages like nodebb, forem, discourse, and others) and chat software (like Slack, Facebook groups, or Discord

... 

When you are in a chat system, the information is ephemeral. This means that valuable comments can be lost if there is a flurry of other messages.

... 

This means when you use a chat for a developer community, you don’t get compounding benefits when someone, either a team member or a community member, answers a question well or has an insightful comment that would be worth reading. Very few folks ever benefit in the future.

 

With chat, people who aren’t present at message posting or soon thereafter never learn from that knowledge 

... 

 

But for developer communities, friendly chat is important, but so is sharing knowledge; the memory hole actively thwarts the latter.

Forums, on the other hand, are optimized for reading. nodebb even suggests related posts as you begin a topic, actively directing people to older posts that may solve their issue without them ever posting.

And if published on the internet, forums are searched via Google

 

[Stoup]

There's no need to only pick one, though. These forums still have plenty of relevance, hell, they're stated to be the preferred method for things like bug reports etc.

Doesn't mean people can't enjoy both formats!

[Lisias]

On 3/8/2023 at 1:32 PM, The Aziz said:

Then why are they so successful?

They really are?

Do you have the slightest idea of how many discord channels are dead, dragging into the oblivion tons and tons of content?

When people have a problem, they reach me here - and more than often after being royally screwed by being "helped" on discord. This trend persists, Discord will be a wasteland of shouting people and lack of relevant content in a few months.

People nowadays can't tell content creators from content consumers - it's suicidal to create a platform full of consumers but lacking creators - it will dove into boredom in a snap.

There're a huge amount of people walking and chattering on Sao Paulo's Metro everyday:

How many of these people are engaging in meaningful conversations?

(Discardable) Notes:

• I was there on that day, but got luck, recognised the huge mess it was forming and decided to walk home instead.
• One of the soundtracks used on this video is from Akira!
• Moderation on Discord channels are like Security Officers trying to organise this huge mess.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 hours ago, Stoup said:

There's no need to only pick one, though. These forums still have plenty of relevance, hell, they're stated to be the preferred method for things like bug reports etc.

Doesn't mean people can't enjoy both formats!

I'm not saying "don't use both" - I'm saying the KSP Forums should be the Default/Primary method of comms.

Especially since we are in the state we're in.

Once all systems are go - sure, revert to the Discord for the fluffy stuff.

Edited March 10, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Cavscout74]

I hate the fact that a lot of small game developers use Discord as their primary means of contact.  Especially ones that sell on Steam, with it's built in forum that the dev often ignores in favor of discord.  

[Stoup]

Okay, just to run through the whole thought process, what makes you think the forums aren't regarded as the primary method of comms? Just about every time I've seen information posted in the discord, it's usually telling people to come to the forums for a more detailed breakdown.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

28 minutes ago, Stoup said:

Okay, just to run through the whole thought process, what makes you think the forums aren't regarded as the primary method of comms? Just about every time I've seen information posted in the discord, it's usually telling people to come to the forums for a more detailed breakdown.

Oh just stuff like This post and Dakota saying he's spending most of his efforts there because more people are there.

Also, This  compared to this

 

Edited March 10, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Stoup]

I mean, if we've determined that Discord is more of a platform for shortform communication, wouldn't it be more logical that there's just more messages going through that medium? Doesn't mean the forums are neglected. We get community challenges the same as the Discord, and major info is sourced HERE rather than there.

[Jacke]

I more or less agree with @JoeSchmuckatelli.

Discord works best with a small group of people well known to each other around a single theme with some off-topic channels, focused on immediate communication that can get by with a few pinned posts and some searching (which is hard to do).

Forums are just better for supporting a large number of people for a particular game.  They are much better for tracking many features and maintaining a history open to detail searching.

My best experiences are for games that use both.  On a Discord, I feel I have to keep track of nearly all channels and when I can't, I soon just don't visit that Discord very often.  On a forum, it's very easy to focus on what you want to track.  I am a member of a lot of Discords, most of which I haven't visited recently.  I am a member of a few active forums, most of which I visit every week or two or more often.

And far too many game companies have shut down their forums for a Discord.  Note that Discord is a private company that provides vital infrastructure including maintenance and upgrading of the client software.  It literally could disappear overnight, though that possibility is very low.

Example, for City of Heroes, a game I've played since 2005, i am a member of 3 forums and numerous Discords.  I keep track of all the forums and primarily 3 Discords, a forum and a Discord for my gaming guild Repeat Offenders and a forum and 2 Discords which focus on the development environment for City, which I often participate in.  The third forum is that for Homecoming City of Heroes which I mostly go to during Open Beta testing periods and to search for more information on game details.  My focus on both forums and Discord is more on the ones that have a smaller number of people.  I don't really follow the large population Discords at all except to check on announcements from time to time.

In the case of Kerbal Space Program, I don't really follow the Discord at all.  It's just too many people with little signal-to-noise.  I follow the KSP forums very often because I can easily track issues and people that give me the information I want.

The Intercept Games CMs like @Dakota need to cover both.

Edited March 10, 2023 by Jacke

[Cavscout74]

5 hours ago, Stoup said:

Okay, just to run through the whole thought process, what makes you think the forums aren't regarded as the primary method of comms? Just about every time I've seen information posted in the discord, it's usually telling people to come to the forums for a more detailed breakdown.

Just to be clear, I wasn't specifically referring to KSP.   But it seems pretty common among smaller games to be told "Just ask on Discord, the dev never comes on here" when you go on Steam forums to report a bug or ask a technical question.   And then it's much more difficult to find out if "bug x" is a known problem or something new or whatever.   The only Discords I've really used much have been for guilds in an MMO or two I used to play,  and it works fine for casual chatting with guild members, playing activities, or whatever.     The one Discord I did try to report a bug on, I apparently hurt the dev's feelings, which also doesn't encourage me to want to bother dealing with a Discord for large groups.