Ok, firstly, the groundrules:

- Keep it constructive. It's all too easy to whinge and moan; this is the place to make the new forum the best it can be, not to have a *****.

- The staff are probably putting in a lot of work to make this change, so keep that in mind; at the end of the day, the change is happening and it's happening for a reason, so let's make the best of it.

In your post, simply state which changes you think would benefit the forum, and give any support/constructive criticism of other ideas/current events as you see fit. Hopefully, it will establish a firm line of communication between everyone, making the experience better for everyone.

Here are some changes which I think would be fantastic:

• The addition of a "Quick Reply" button
• The ability to upload personal avatars
• At the bottom of each post, there seems to be a lot of unnecessary space (see this one for proof). I think if this could be removed, then that would be good.
• Extending the "Edit" deadline, prefereably removing the deadline completely.

possumman said:

Echo all of these 100%. Would also add the following:

• Private Message System - if it is here, I missed it
• Subscription to threads/forums - I like to follow specific topics that I don't regularly check
• Color Scheme - we need to establish a better color screen - gray on gray is very hard to read; or give us the option to select our own
• More options in editing - I'd like to be able to add color and change font size/type

But the site is a big improvement - especially on the product pages. I understand it takes time to work out the bugs so we just all need to be patient. Great job so far!!!!

• EDIT or PREVIEW Required. If you are unwilling to, or incapable of, adding the Edit ability; at least give us a Preview option. Preferably both. As the system is currently, we may as well be using Yahoo Groups circa 1998 technology. I am all for saving money where you can but utilizing decade old technology?

• Leave OLD FORUM as "READ ONLY". There is a lot of information there and due to odd design of the text entry system at this new forum it is incompatible with Copy and Paste from the old website.

• REPAIR CODING. The current coding affects Firefox and Safari's ability to use Spell Check . Such as the word Firefox is shown to be spelled incorrectly as it is a name, not an actual word. However clicking the word does not give suggested spelling, instead it gives coded options Cut, Copy or Paste . Again, technology from 1980's, I think we can all cut, copy and paste on our own without the use of dinosaur technology.

• CORRECT the SPANISH Language Roll Over Quick Description Text. The Main Forum Page Description Roll Overs are all in Spanish.

You can preview your post already. Its the "print preview" icon from most Microsoft applications. Not that it does much that I can see but put your text in a white box. But it's there!

I also agree that the ability to have personalised Avatars is very usefull, you get to recognise people by them, and multiple people with the same avatar is confusing.

Add a PM system would be excellent, for those that are playing in PBeM games here especially it would be very helpfull and leave less clutter on the forums themselves.

Cancel the Edit Deadline, if possible.

The possibility to add more information to your personal profile, this way you could truly build a community, perhaps even a blog option.

Suggestion: Bring over all old content, both from the web and the forums.

Where I work, we deploy both customer facing and internal web site updates. We run both the old and new sites in parallel, and have the users test the new site to ensure it meets or exceeds the standards of the old. Before the new site goes live, we ensure all content from the old site is available. Note the word "before" - failure to follow that ensures you'll be asking your next customer if they want fries to go along with their hamburger.

The Quote System

I'm not sure if anything can be done about this since it seems to be a core element of the software itself, but as it stands it is horrendously difficult to use when replying to a thread that involves multiple discussants. As it stands, either you're going to have people serial posting as a means of replying to all the little tid-bits in the previous replies, or people just aren't going to use it.

Motion Sickness when Typing

It might only impact (fast?) touch typists, but when you're typing in a reply the screen dances all over the place. It is actually quite nauseating and I don't actually get motion sickness. Having a fixed box ala the majority of free BBS would certainly help usability. IMO, of course, but then again I type at 130 wpm (and have the typographics to match! )

Keyboard Interface

At the moment, almost every action requires that you use the mouse to put in smilies, adding formatting, etc. Even when you do have the ability to use the keyboard (Ctrl-I for italicised text, etc.) it requires that you highlight the text and then add text. I'm not sure whether this is a problem with the FCKeditor in general, or whether it is peculiar to this forum.

Once again, it might just be my own little hurdle that I have to get over, but I would rather have UBBcode or the equivalent. Typing in an extra few characters is less invasive (to me!) than having to stop, highlight the text, and then either press Ctrl-I or move the mouse and point and click "I" just to get some italicised text .

I strangely find it easier to strip away the FCKeditor and just code HTML. For those that didn't know that you could do that, just press Control, keep it pressed, and then hit the Tab button once. Of course, if you do that then you're going to have to type in HTML code, but that might even give you a few more options. Well, unless that particular code has been stripped away by the software, which is eminently reasonable. (It certainly helped in allowing me access to the endash in the following comment, as well as completely removing the motion sickness glitch, since the page isn't always bouncing around.)

The Wandering "Edit" Button

This keeps on disappearing, which is frustrating when coupled with people getting used to the new formatting options, and the new – forgive me – terrible quotation system.

Community Builder

I can understand the desire to push the product range, but community does have a more expansive meaning on the current web. Users are just expecting more from their web time, whether it is personalised avatars, the ability to put in more information to their profile, or the ability to select a game (for example) that lies outside of the FFG range. Not a great push mechanism, for sure, but more client oriented than company oriented. Makes people feel a bit more special, rather than as a potential punter. (Admittedly, you are providing them a place to chat, but a "community" is that much more than a BBS, despite phpBB's tagline.)

Leave Old Forum

I definitely agree with this one. Just throw it as old.fantasyflightgames.com/gobbledegook_url and remove the ability for people to post to it. It might take up server space, but surely not that much. Surely? (I might be surprised, but given the amount of posts on the old boards, I would be very surprised if this was a particular load on the server.

Just some comments that might help to improve the overall site. In general, though, I think that it is a much improved interface and kudos to the designers.

Kage

When "Adding a Friend", let us write a note to introduce ourself. I may know the person, but not the username.

Also, allow us to add a friend by clicking on the "friends" icon under the avatar in a post.

Thanks!

In hopes of having semi-manageable quotes for replies to multiple discussants, I ended up (as above) skipping into the HTML code rather than using the FCKeditor. Much to my surprise it actually allowed me to do the most basic of styling, but then for some reason stripped out the text that was being quoted, leaving the blockquote there, just with no text. Very strange.

Guess I'm going to have to quote using a combination of bold for the name, italicised text for the relevant quote, or even do what Wu Ching and others have suggested and use Word. It's going to bloat the post with inline styles but - hey! - I'm a selfish user. Well, now I am. I wonder if some of the text will end up getting stripped out of those replies, though?

Just some more thoughts.

Kage

Also, I'd like links back to the main website. When clicking the "logo" of a game, I would like to go to the game's page on the main website, NOT the forum. (When I click the "name" of the game, it goes to the forum entry of the game.)

I second the comments about being able to bold words, that'd be really helpful.

It'd be nice to have a navigation menu in the bottom-right like in the old forum to jump between forums easily.

I'd like to second the requests for a private messaging system, a quick reply button and the ability to preview our posts before "publishing" them.

I'd also like to throw in a couple other suggestions, if I may:

1. Add an option to turn off viewing of avatars and signatures.

2. Give us the option of a simpler text editor.

EDIT: 3. Let us edit our posts whenever. This is kinda important for people on the CCG forums, where we tend to maintain trade lists.

Another feature I miss that may seem minor, but I used it a lot:

The "Jump To Forum" feature; it was at the bottom of every forum page, and allowed you to jump between game forums VERY quickly. Without it, it is sometimes a hassle to go find a different game (especially since the new forum eats up a LOT of screen real estate per entry, which makes scrolling a pain).

One has to wonder how many of these changes are releastic. Is the website custom crafted, or does it use an established CMS that has been heavily tweaked? The answer to that might see whether there is any light at the end of the tunnel...

Kage

well self proclaimed non-euclidean pixel worshipers seem to be responsible for the design of the site so I would think such 'non-conventunal' enities could mutate the site some.

Erm, okay....

I'll go with the answer myself.

Kage

I think should be usefull some "slots" (forex 1 max. 3 linkZ) for user so-called "Topic WatchDog" which let user after Loging localize (annotated) Threat Quick 'n' easily. Not a history because history remember even unwanted only user defined link to Topics.

One click instead of min. four ....
0 . Login / 1 . FFG Forums / 2 . Board Games / 3 . Descent: Journeys in the Dark (or any other...) / 4 . concrete last viewed/anottated topic

If is not on first but on another page need much more ...

P.S. I know its possible get there through " See the messages written in the forum.... " but there's could be plenty of them (need time to loading all on page)

Guys, let's try not to clutter the thread too much. The more to the point it is, the more chance there is of changes being implemented.

We have good news! There is now a larger range of Avatars available - all 14 TI3 races are now available as avatars. It's definitely a step towards a better forum, so thanks to everyone at FFG for that.

Just a couple of things from another thread:

• Spell checker - For us, non-native (or for the native english speaker that still have trouble writing!) it is important to have a good english so it is important to have this implemented.
• Add-on skin - Have more skin for the web forum. Light gray writing on medium gray background can be quite annoying on my eyes.
• Last page connection - When you write an address, you always get on the last page. Thing there wasnt on the last board, but that there was on the previous to the last one.
• PM - Very important for PbEM

A few thoughts...

Fix the post page

I just lost a very nice, constructive, detailed post because the window was jumping all around and I had to constantly re-adjust my screen. I hit backspace to delete something, and instead when back on my web browser and lost all of my message, because I was no longer focused in the text editing frame.

Remove the Hubris

We come to forums to view content, not to view links to other content or see big labels that tell us that we are, in fact, about to view the content we want to view. Each forum has about 1/2 a page of junk preceding any actual content. Reduce the gap between the header and the content panel (about 1/8 a page). Remove the links to other forums (1/8 a page), they're already at the bottom of each forum. No need to display them twice. Shrink the sub-forum marker to a single line of text (You are here: FFG Forums / Fantaasy Flight Games / Support). That big label right below is completely redundant (and about 1/8 of a page).

Alphabetical is Nonsensical

Subforums are listed alphabetically. They should really be listed by relevance. Finding Fantasy Flight Games / Support had the difficulty level of an epic quest. This should be like killing kobolds. Fantasy Flight Games was buried in the middle of a list of links to game type sub-forums. It should have been the first or the last listed thing, not buried in a list of unrelated subforums.

Contacting Non-Friends

I'm ambivalent towards the whole "forum turned facebook" thing, but it's worth pointing out that about 75% of people I send or receive PMs from on other forums are people I would not have already had added as a "friend" if it were possible. Private communication between people who are meeting for the first time is sort of a neccessity. It's how people become friends in the first place! If it's not a PM system, at least let us send messages to annonymous email addresses through the forums!

Points

Basically, the points system as it appears is about as close as possible to a textbook example of how NOT to have a positive impact on behavior. It's destined to backfire if the goal is to encourage positive community development. This is much more effectively implemented through community regulation -- e.g., allowing people to rate the quality of posted messages on, say, a scale of 1-5, or perhaps as simply as being able to check a box if a post was good or bad. Here is why it doesn't work.

Either points will have an impact on forum behavior, or they won't. If they don't, one has to wonder why they were implemented in the first place. And if they do, it's even more problematic.

On the one hand, you have people who are regular posters that now receive an external reward for continuing their behavior. Probably about the worst thing that could possibly be done. If anything is going to happen, it's going to be a decrease in the quality of posts, with no -- or a marginal -- increase in the quantity of their posts. There's a huge literature on extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation. The take-home point: if you give a reward for doing something that people are doing already, you actually decrease the quality of their behavior.

On the other hand, you have people who have ideas but might be too timid, or just don't care, to post. Hooray for them. Maybe some of them will start posting now. It's a shame you're also giving more motivation to troll as well. Thorndike's law of effect: behaviors survive or die by their consequences. In theory, all behaviors (positive or negative) have the same consequence here: points. So all that's been accomplished is an increase in the number of posts, and not their quality. In practice, however, it's much harder to come up with a constructive or interesting post than it is to come up with a trolling post or a flame. So the real net effect here is an overall decrease in forum quality.

Trolling is only compounded by this little line from the exclusive contests: "according to your Point total, you can enter in pages with scoops that only a privileged few will see before the rest.". I don't think I've ever seen a better reason in my life to forum troll. If someone thinks this can be avoided with clever design, I assure you that any large enough community will have many more individuals, far more clever than the designer. Anything that can be exploited will be exploited, and then propagated through the entire community.

On the bright side, we'll probably only see an increase in trolling towards the end of the month when prizes are awarded. Fixed interval reward schedules have a bigger impact on behavior the closer to the reward it gets. Think: cramming before an exam, or doing all your work the night before a presentation first thing in the morning. The forums will probably have PMS once a month, but be otherwise unaffected. Well, except for the decrease in activity by regular posters who are no longer internally motivated to contribute to the forums. Variable ratio or interval reward schedules are much better for increasing desired behavior overall. Think: slot machines or random-interval work evaluations.

61 seconds to open this thread!

Average of 14 seconds to open any page on the website/forum.

This should take a 1-2 seconds.

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Smiles need to work without editor which only slows down posting in the first place.

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Forced double line spacing... bizzare and waste of white space.

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Lack of donuts, unforgivable.

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In closing, the absolute worst forum system I've ever seen, and I've seen ezBoard in its bad days.

I think that mostly I'll be posting only when I have insomnia, as posting at this new forum is the best cure for that if you get over the frustration.

jgbaxter said:

For what it's worth, if you switch to HTML mode, you can space things however you want

ced1106 said:

This is a good idea and one I would like to see as well.

For the profiles of others, I would like to see location. i am slowly tracking down friends that kept the same user name but without avatars, location helps me decide who is legite and who isn't.

For the "Stats" section, besides the title of a posting, I'd like to see which subforum the post comes from. Titles like "should I buy this game" don't help when we don't know which forum the post is in!

Thanks!