New Sidebar Dev Tracker

[Dakota]

Hi all!

Over the past few months, we've had quite a few forum-only users feel a bit out-of-the-loop because they're not involved in the day-to-day.

On 3/1/2023 at 9:40 AM, Dakota said:

We've seen a tremendous increase in discussion, requests, and players demanding our attention on other platforms - so we're figuring out the best way to make sure we have enough time in the day to respond to everyone on every platform. It's also just to figure out ways to make sure any information that comes out, for example the fact that the patch is not coming this week (something that was communicated on Discord on Saturday) is mirrored here in a simple way. But that isn't an announcement, it was just someone asking a question and we responded. All major announcements like patch notes and such are already planned to be mirrored, right now there's just a lot of small tidbits of information that have been shared on Twitter and Discord that haven't been mirrored here.

We agree with this - although I do think the Discord allows for a more immediate and human connection, which is why generally you'll see us just hanging out in there (plus the levity). That doesn't make the Forums any less important, in fact I do like the communication style here on the forums for the reasons above. It provides more in-depth conversations/feedback and generally steers away from the memery the Discord is known for.

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On 3/1/2023 at 10:47 AM, Dakota said:

Yes. The Discord currently gets about around 10x the amount of daily active users that the Forums do - and there is not a significant overlap between the two platforms. There are plenty of people over there who are uncomfortable with this platform, just like how some of you are uncomfortable with Discord.

We're meeting people where they're at - and Discord has become a major part of gaming community culture over the past 10 years. It's been incredibly valuable for our team thus far, and I know the dev team has really enjoyed the relaxed nature of it as well. 

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Following up on a promise I made to improve this with something new to the forums. I've embedded the #dev_tracker channel into the sidebar. I do my best to keep that channel updated whenever I sent a communication that I feel like lots of users would be interested in hearing.

You can also click on the links to jump straight into Discord and see the context the message was sent in. I'll take a look to see if I can theme it a bit better, but it's working right now so I thought I'd get it out there!

If you have any feedback about this new feature, let me know!

[PDCWolf]

I like it a lot, it's a good solution, however I'm of the opinion that topics like "there will not be a dev update this friday" need a more "official" announcement.

Now, regarding one of the messages that shows in the image, and looking to clarify the notion at least from my side: I'm not "old" or from a "past generation", I don't dislike discord itself as a platform. I'm in fact part of many servers, even moderating a couple big ones. What I do dislike is the corporate usage of discord, taking advantage of the real-time, fast nature of it to sweep stuff under the rug in a myriad of ways: from small bits of information that are only ever viewed by whoever managed to see them (and thus unquotable), to not providing a proper platform for long-term discussion of issues (case in point: discord users having to come here to present well thought out suggestions so they don't get lost in the river).

The divide is not generational, it is functional.

[Royalswissarmyknife]

10 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

The divide is not generational, it is functional.

100% the truth.

I also find the people there a lot less "welcoming" then the forums

Edited July 14, 2023 by Royalswissarmyknife

[The Aziz]

Your point is valid but:

On 7/14/2023 at 4:02 AM, PDCWolf said:

from small bits of information that are only ever viewed by whoever managed to see them (and thus unquotable)

Searching by user exists there.

And tbh the same applies here, I missed quite a few important-ish messages which were in threads I wasn't paying attention to, the only way to dig them out was to search through the dev's posts.

Still, both platforms serve different purposes and can coexist.

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

Your point is valid but:

Searching by user exists there.

And tbh the same applies here, I missed quite a few important-ish messages which were in threads I wasn't paying attention to, the only way to dig them out was to search through the dev's posts.

Still, both platforms serve different purposes and can coexist.

My point is you only know about those quotes because someone happened to see them and quote them to you. It happened during the sales with people missing Dakota's quote, for example. The only other way to make sure you didn't miss an official statement happened outside your hours is user-searching every day.