Hi,

I am usually very moderate in my judgements and try to be open to new things. I never been rude and try to respect the netiquette as much as I can. I think that for the first time I'll have to break this vow because of what I have to say about these forums (3rd generation now...). I thought they would improve, but unfortunately they have not.

Firstly, they lag enormously. Opening threads or posting/editing may take ages, when they don't simply get stuck.

Secondly, the layout hurts eyes. Of course, it may be artful, but a forum like this one should be useful before being beautiful. Quoted text is dark grey on dark grey WTF ? Moreover, each post in a thread is heavily spaced, signatures are too long and therefore threads are difficult to read.

Thirdly, edition is awful. Simple operations like copy/paste or hyperlink inserting now use a pop-up. Of course pop-up blockers interfer, and paste using the central button on Linux/Mac does not work.

Fourth: FFG does not listen to their customers. We have been asking for a Wiki for ages, where we could put community work (collected rule answers from game authors, support material, variants, etc...)

FFG: please listen to your fans for Cthulhu sake! Look how the previous forums (1st and 2nd generations) were popular and dynamic. Now it is far better to post on boardgamegeek forums.

Don't get me wrong: I love FFG games and community, and this is bevause of what the forum has become that I am so angry. I hate posting here because each time I fire up Firefox I am wondering how long this will take, how painful it will be to read threads and to answer them. Please fix this FFG! I believe this hurts your business as much as it hurts my eyes!

zeb said:

True man, IE is just as slow and I have a pretty fast connect..whether things will change or not will have to wait and see. But it's gotten to the point where I just link my trades to a different site so I can edit quickly

With this new UPGRADE, the forums are even WORSE now. The text is very very small now and all the formatting is gone.

If this is suppose to be an upgrade, I would recommend going back to the old forums. The speed/lag issues still remain as well and now it seems every upgrade goes backward and not forward. I'm using Firefox browser. I would recommend you folks test your upgrades before you implment them since it seems the last few upgrades are not doing the trick.

I have to agree. There are several utility functions that are available in 99.9% of forum software on the Internet, that I miss terribly here:

• Thread subscription. I like to know when threads that I have taken part in or are of interest to me are updated.
• The ability to edit your own posts. I'm sure I haven't missed this in the confusing, difficult to read, new interface.
• Spell checking. For some reason the Firefox Auto check is disabled by this editing software. If you are going to turn mine off, please add one of your own.
• Private messaging. I know it's been mentioned, but it bears repeating.
• Optional colour schemes. I find the default colour scheme VERY difficult to read.

These are the first things that spring to mind. I'm sure there are others, but I'll have to add them to another post, as I know I won't be able to edit this one...

As a side note while the text may hurt your eyes the way it is its been proven that dark background with light text over is easier on your eyes than light background with dark text over.

Luftwaffe Flak said:

For me, it's not the almost-white on dark-grey that I don't like. It's the dark-grey on the even-darker-grey that bugs me, and is hard on the eyes.

Heck, even as I type this, and I go down to look at the posts at the bottom of the page, the text is darker on this page than when you are just in "read" mode - making it hard to see.

But even on the "read mode" pages, there is a lot of the dark-grey on darker-grey text, in tiny font. Blech.

I am having issues with entering the forum and half the time, new posts are marked as already read.

It would also be nice to have some way to tell which posts in a thread have already been viewed.

I agree. Escpecially the ability to edit posts. I can't edit my trade thread because this poor excuse of an upgrade won't let me since I didn't post there for a long time.

For me, the worst is the lack of a decent search function. Basic things like filtering by subforum, using AND/OR keywords and exact expressions are lacking, which makes searching these unconvenient.

Are there some plans to remedy this? It is very annoying, and makes these forums pretty useless.

i have had none of these problems (and i have a pretty crappy computer) and ive been on the new forums ever since they started and i use to be on the first version and the second version of the forums and i have to say that these are the best forums i have ever been on. heck this is the best forum on the internet nothing beats it

keep up the good work FFG

derros87 said:

If this is the best forum you've ever been on, you and I have very different tastes on what makes a "good" forum.

Most of the features that don't work have nothing to do with the client computer (IE, your "pretty crappy computer" wouldn't change how things work versus someone elses computer). It's all in the forum SOFTWARE, the server-side stuff that runs this.

Can you send PM's to other players? Can you edit a post after more then 5 minutes? Can you upload a custom Avatar? Can you quickly navigate from one forum to another with only one or two clicks? Can you copy/paste using the editor without having to go through the horrendously stupid popup box?

I'm sure it "works" fine, as in "loads fine". But the problems (of which there are MANY) with the forums are fundamental flaws with the forum software itself. This is, hands down, the WORST forum software I've seen used for a company's official community/support. It lacks a lot of fundamental features, is hardly a "user-friendly" system, and is just a plain eyesore.

sigmazero13 said:

first off i never have PMed anybody so i dont care about that

second i make sure my spelling and everything is in order before i publish the post so i dont use the edit function and besides the other forums i post limt the time that you can edit

third i have not had any of the problems other people have

fourth i dont like custom avatars i prefer websites that have avatars that you can choose from. on other websites i simply dont have an avatar

and yes i can quickly navigate from this forum to any other page or forum very easily

and i dont copy or paste never have

I would like to once again laud FFG for their attempt to create more of a "community" feel with their website. Despite the phpBB soundbite, community is not just presented by a forum, though it is often aided by one. In that last sense, I must after due consideration agree with the original poster if I do not necessarily agree with the individual points that he made.

This is the worst forum that I have come across, and I include in that a base install of Drupal forums. No, I take that back. A base installation of Drupal installation is actually more flexible. Indeed, when everyone else was complaining about the quotation function, I didn't mind. After all, I could just go into the HTML system, copy paste some blockquote tags, and that sort of thing. Now even that useability is removed from me.

So, customer interface. The boards have certain stands, including UBB code or their equivalent, similar quotation functions, etc. They allow individuals to come together and interact without having to become mired in the specifics of a forum, nor have to deal with the custom quirks of one. This forum fails in every way. Rather than allowing "tags" to format text, clients are forced to use Javascript pop-ups. I have to spend time moving away from my dialogue to interact with the mouse just to put in a special character, and, now, even insert some basic text.

I think that the website team, or the people that are directing its implementation, need to wake up and smell the disenchantment of the user base.

The web design team has shown itself capable of good design and conceptualisation, so it beggars belief that they are causing, or being directed, to cause this much trouble.

I'm sorry if this sounds like a rant. I truly believe that the FFG "forums" - the community - was a step in the right direction, but it increasingly seems like a somewhat unusable forum to moderate a product push. Not only that, but it is becoming transparently so.

People are going to keep on using your forums, but is this the message that you want to be sending out?

Kage

derros87 - If you are happy with the forum as is, that's fine; I can't fault that. I still maintain that this forum is a piece of garbage compared to what the previous forum software was capable of. All flashy, yet completely useless as a real community builder, as it's more hassle than help to use. You may be one of the few who finds this forum suitable, but I'm guessing that means you never used the old software.

Many of the features you say you don't use are widely used by many of the forum members (or would be, if they were there). Especially, for instance, with Twilight Imperium. Without PM ability, for instance, PBeM games are pretty much impossible to play effectively. The old forum supported PBeM games quite well. This forum doesn't (as evidenced by the lack of any active games there). Without edit capability, it's too much of a chore to maintain heavy-duty customization threads (which the old forum had lots of). Again, people who used to do that stuff migrated to a better forum than this one.

I agree with Kage - this is hands down the absoulte WORST forum software I have ever seen. It's useless.

I disagree with him on one thing, though: if their goal was to foster a community, I consider it a huge failure, as I don't feel part of a community here anymore, I feel part of a crowd, a number. I feel like I am being ignored. I feel like I'm being used as a guniea pig for viewing their ads, and not like a part of the FFG community. If I was a NEW customer to FFG, I'd probably not even bother posting here at all, because this forum software is such a pain in the patush to use. I don't feel like FFG is trying to encourage users to come together - they are trying to promote their games. While that's not bad in itself (it's good, actually), it's done in a way that I feel like coming to this site is one gigantic infomercial-turned-forum-software.

im not trying to change your opinion or anything, because everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

and i did use the old forums but not very often cause they felt horrible to me and i just couldnt stand them

and they are doing a great job at promoting their games (since the new website launched i have been buying games i never thought i would play because i thought they were horrible games I.E descent arkham condottiere and call of cthuhlu.)

P.S i realize you never said that i was trying to change your opinion i just thought i would clarify

To each his own, I suppose.

I guess from certain perspectives, the extra promotion of their games is good. For me, it leaves a VERY sour taste in my mouth - this site feels like one big infomercial to me now.

In fact, I refuse to ever purchase the game Android specifically because of this - when this new site went live, there were so many problems with it that it seemed no matter what you did, you got kicked to the main page, where a full-page, obnoxiously loud ad for Android was displayed. I got so fed up with it that I've vowed to make a personal, permanent boycott of the game, and I don't intend to change my mind. Maybe it's a good game, but I'm not going to be giving my money for it.

That's not to say I won't buy other FFG products, but the games that are infomercialized on the site make me want to play them LESS, not more, and as such, the ads I see on the front page, my first reaction "Oh, what game do they want me to avoid now?" Why? Because this site just drives me insane, and it seems like they are spending more effort shoving their ads down our throats now, and less effort actually fixing the forums to make them a worthwhile community.

Again, to each his own. I'm sure neither of us are alone in our viewpoints (though I do know a LARGE portion of the veteran Twilight Imperium crowd utterly detests these forums due to their lack of functionality). I obviously can't change your mind either I just want to let you know where I'm coming from and why I feel so strongly the way I do.