Ok, not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but I do have a few problems with the current forums
1) The lack of user definable pages for threads/topics
Yes, I know that once a thread hits 91 posts, it will then do a new page, but that is an *exceedingly* large number of posts to read. Most (if not all) other forums give the option for the user to choose how many posts per page (for example, 10/20/30/40/50 posts per page). Here, I don't have that option.
The option for "number of topics per page" is less of a problem, and I feel that the 25 topics per page is about right (although, I feel that some people might want to be able to tweak that setting, if it was possible)
2) The lack of "red name" identification
This is a problem, because the only identification that there is on the forums for the developers is the signature block. Anyone can make themselves look like a developer. I have brought this up previously.
3) This is probably a layout oversight / personal preference, but I find it offputting have the *username* of a post on the left of the page, and then their avatar on the *right* of the page. This is a break from the norm for 99% of all forum software that I am aware of, and for me at least, offputting.
Those are the problems that I have so far with the forum software that is currently being used. There are other board software choices out there (free as well), that dont have this problem (SMF forums for example, have pretty much *all* of the above fixed, or included as *standard*)
((And if you want to do "closed beta boards" like City of Heroes did, I know that SMF forums have the option to assign people to groups, and so as a result, can make certain sections of the forums viewable/invisible according to the user group you are in... just using that as an example)).
*edit*
4) There are too many sections already up for the forum, and I am sure that right now, these forums are going to hit problems when it goes live. I believe that Drupal forums do *not* easily allow integration with a "payment paid" to restrict users into users posting rights (ie assign them to certain groups according to "payment paid" status). I know that other forums can allow this more easily though.
5) Lack of a "read all" option on the forums.
6) Icons not rendering properly for "Quote"/"Reply"/"Delete": It seems hit and miss if the icon will appear. Sometimes they are there, othertimes they arent, and the text replacement gets partially mixed up with the other words/partially obscured by the icons that DO appear. Not sure what is happening with the rendering here.
1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.
In case it hasn't been mentioned before, in the "Active Topics" tabs posts show up from boards to which I have no access. In this particular case, a board I expect is restricted to the developers.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Ok, fair enough... part of a worry that I had is at least answered.
Which surprises me, because it was something that I thought would have been overlooked, especially considering that there other features that I thought the boards would have, but dont....
If it hasn't been mentioned, the (img)(/img) code (with greaterthanlesserthan) does not show the image, but a hyperlink instead.
Not really worth mentioning, as it's probably noted, but what the hey.
[ img] [ /img] tags are what you are looking for (and put the image url inbetween the URL. It doesn't resize the image though (so if the image is too large, it can break the forum look)
The answer to just about every complaint about the forums winds up being for now...
[i]"Thank you for letting us know. Believe us, we share your concern. For now, all our techies are very involved with game construction and can't be spared for web fixes unless they are hugely problematic issues that need immediate redress.The boards are in their infancy and we are recruiting volunteer web designers for our volunteer project."[/i]
So, that being said, let me address some specifics....
It's because the forums can not handle jumping to the correct post on the second or further page that I set this rather high. I use "what's new" all the time to read everything new since my last visit and I find it much more useful (to me, at least) to be able to jump immediately to the new posts than to have smaller web pages.
Sorry, gangrel, gotta flag you on this one. Just because something is 'brought up' doesn't mean it gets addressed or 'fixed.' We're a limited volunteer staff here (and even the big MMOs with huge staffs don't address all voiced concerns on their forums). Please don't expect *everything* to be addressed.
That being said, let me address this. :)
I've been watching carefully for anyone who wants to be cute and try to pretend to be 'a dev'. They will be dealt with accordingly. [i]{stokes fire for branding irons}[/i]
fixt!
This is something Drupal can do rather easily... create a group, add people to it, restrict that group to certain forums, or give them access to forums only they can see.
If you're referring to *the names* of threads in restricted forums showing up for all to see... that's a Drupal bug we're hunting down.
It's less sections than the old CoH board had. Drupal can handle it since it's basically a db management software. It's about server resources when you get big. I've seen commercial 'professional' boards choke on moderate loads simply because the server resources weren't in place.
Our techies told me that Drupal was chosen precisely because it can handle that authentication, and more securely than other forum software. On top of that, it can integrate authentication for access to the game with authentication to a cash store with authentication to forum access.
See standard forum complaint response at the top of this post. :)
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Thanks for at least replying to my concerns.
This happened to a friend of mine earlier on.
When you set up your account, you get the one time link to set up your password emailed out to you.
You click the link
You then (for some reason) fail to set the password before you close the window down...
Congratulations, you can *no longer* set a password.
You cannot login to the account because you dont have a password set
You cannot request a new password, because there wasn't one set up
You cannot sign up using the same email address, because it is taken
You cannot sign up using the same account name because it is taken
Oh, and there is no "Help, i screwed up and cannot do anything about it" link.
Just a word of warning here... make sure you *do* set your password before you log out (or even start browsing the forums), because you are screwed otherwise.
I just got 3 separate 'Server Too Busy' messages already even at this early stage of the project.
Played CoH from early beta to shutdown, with a single 5 month break.
http://www.youtube.com/Energyone - gaming channel with plenty of CoH vids and current games I make vids for.
There is a 'set all as read' for individual forms, just not for all forums en masse.
When in a forum, go down to the Forum Tools dropdown and choose 'Mark all threads as read'.
Had a new one crop up...
Due to how busy the server is getting, i am getting on a regular occurance the "server too busy to respond" message.
If you have clicked the "view new post" link and this happens... you end up at the *top* of the page, and have to manually scroll down to the last few posts (or however many it that is new).
And refreshing the page leaves me at the top of the page...
This is *really* annoying when you start having pages with more than 50 replies in....
New one here!
Some of the threads in the forums might be returning posts in the wrong order.
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6644498/date%20mess%20up.jpg[/img]
One thing I noticed is that avatars end up being broken links after a while.
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
[img]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/5.jpg[/img]
This may be too minor to deal with, but it's weird to me that I LOG IN somewhere other than the forums -- when I go to the forums and discover that I'm logged out, I have to go to the home page to log in, then back to the forums. Could there please be a log-in option on the forum index?
Captain of Phoenix Rising
Whenever this forum receives a new post it shows up twice in the 'New & updated topics' tab.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
This thread crops up twice, because it was originally in a different forum section, and was moved here.
This has the added side effect of *both* threads (the original which redirects to this one) being updated when you update this one.
Yep, lost my avatar & I didn't save it on my hard drive x_x
Item #3 in the FAQ should be updated now. Thank God.
OK, seriously, the forum software Twitterized #3? The hashmark / pound sign waaaay predates Twitter, software folks.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
@sailboat Yep, its called "keeping up with the joneses" (aka easy links to social networking), and to be fair, is something that in my mind *should* be disabled (personal opinion, but I can see more false positives cropping up via this than anything else.
@ (username) will link to the twitter account page as well... which is annoying when you use @ as the abbreviation for "at"
I am getting those a lot, but it seems like it's not really true, since a refresh always instantly works properly.
I agree in principle, but on the thread I'm following that has a second page, it is VERY annoying, for two reasons:
1. Clicking "X new" doesn't take me to the actual new post.
2. The buttons to go to the second page are only located at the very bottom, not the top (or both, ideally). This means wasting time going to the bottom of the thread to click to go to the second page.
Speaking of twitter auto-links, I clicked #3 and got an error message that the API was out of date:
Since I'm quoting things, it looks like the quotes aren't clickable - I always prefer when a forum allows me to click on a quote to take me directly to the original quoted post.
Edit: there doesn't appear to be a way to search the forums. I wanted to see if a topic I was starting a thread on had already been started, but there wasn't a way to do that without looking at each thread title in a forum section.
----- This line indicates where my signature begins, because the forums don't do it themselves -----
No signature yet!
clicking on the "view new" on the thread *should* take you to the start of the new posts on that thread. It works for me on the forum games word association thread (which is now on page 5).
There is a problem here though. If you get the "server too busy" message when you click the "view new posts" link, you will instead find yourself at the top of the thread/page instead.
On the quotes thing, I agree with you on the problem, even though I rarely use this feature myself.
There is no option to "stay logged in". Every time I access this website, I have to answer a basic math question and log in again.
Edit: I can not find a way to track threads without replying in them.
----- This line indicates where my signature begins, because the forums don't do it themselves -----
No signature yet!
The 1st part is *apparently* to stop bots from signing into the forums... (and they have to answer the math question to sign up as well.
The 2nd part... no idea
I don't understand. I haven't been logged out since I started a couple weeks ago. Some setting in your preferences, maybe?
___
"Listen, and understand. City of Titans is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely [i]will not stop, ever,[/i] until we are live!"
Warcabbit
I have no idea.. but i have been logged out occasionally... there is no rhyme or reason as to why it happens.
But i have *have* to remember to not just click "login" when i see the login box...
Getting a bizarre message that my IP address at work has been blocked and I'm not able to log in or access forums. I have this issue with no other set of forums anywhere. Our security here is getting a bit over the top guys. (Sending this from my Phone... Which ironically can connect via a proxy from Verizon.)
If you're blocked... how did you post?!
GUARDS!!!
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
I know this is the second time this has happened, but whenever I try to post or quote to this thread,
http://cityoftitans.com/forum/game-sounds-you-lovehate
I get a 404 error.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
I have been getting a metric crap-ton of "server busy" and 404 error messages today. I tried responding to the Sounds thread as well, and the forums go all wonky and I either get those errors or things appear as strictly text only with no formatting, graphics, etc.
(insert pithy comment here)
Hasn't just been today... it has been happening more and more.
Which makes the "view new posts" link useless for the threads that are getting longer and longer...
I get the server busy, but 95% of the time a single refresh fixes it and I'm into the thread. The 404 has only been on one thread that I have tried to respond to. The main reason I mentioned it was the same poster had the same problem last time he posted it and I think everyone was getting a 404 when trying to post.
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I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
How very interesting - I got a 404 as well when I clicked on the "reply" button. The view url is: http://cityoftitans.com/forum/game-sounds-you-lovehate The 404'd reply url is: http://cityoftitans.com/comment/reply/1968/23447
----- This line indicates where my signature begins, because the forums don't do it themselves -----
No signature yet!
Well, this thread is a year old, today. Therefore...
[url=http://it-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/10/15/2048218/drupal-fixes-highly-critical-sql-injection-flaw]Drupal Fixes Highly Critical SQL Injection Flaw[/url]
Woo!
/ Who da necromancer?
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I saw this and was going to post about it, but you beat me to the punch.