DevStrike! WoWs Community Discord Server – Now Open for Business

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

24 minutes ago, iDuckman said:

It might, and might have been, but the treatment of Ahskance when he was here as a private player pretty much guarantees it will never happen.

 

The root cause of that issue lies not here, but with WG itself.

[Bai7200]

28 minutes ago, iDuckman said:

5. Small as it was, the forum participation was in steady decline while the discord was on the increase.

 

Well yes, but the main “advantage” in Discord for WG is the total anacy there, its way to easy to make things go away. And you never see any  post going into detail about anything.

Its to easy to drown anything that WG dont like.

Edited March 3 by Bai7200

[iDuckman]

23 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

The root cause of that issue lies not here, but with WG itself.

Stop beating that drum.  No one here is buying it.

 

[iDuckman]

20 minutes ago, Bai7200 said:

Its to easy to drown anything that WG dont like.

Why bother?  It drowns itself.

 

[Snargfargle]

1 hour ago, iDuckman said:

5. Small as it was, the forum participation was in steady decline while the discord was on the increase.

 

It seems that players would rather communicate like this (actual current WOWS Discord discussion)

• Ship happens
• sigh RP grind is a b itch me want Sicilia
• send a ticket to wg
• Enemy was about to get rekt.
• WG doesnt care
• king of the seas is a joke
• Why <bleeping> Sicilia
• Sell more broken submarines.
• at least those arent in CBs
• Italian CV line when?
• Hey Mods can i ping a red guy?
• Simple man, man see ship, man want ship, ooga booga

 

 

Edited March 3 by Snargfargle

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

1 hour ago, iDuckman said:

Stop beating that drum.  No one here is buying it.

 

I've gotten plenty of positive responses.

It's ok that you aren't buying it.

Come onto our Discord and enjoy some games with your fellow forumites. I know I enjoyed that today.

[Wolfswetpaws]

2 hours ago, iDuckman said:

5. Small as it was, the forum participation was in steady decline while the discord was on the increase.

 

Is it possible to correlate that with the game population?  Natural attrition of both populations (which, understandably, overlap)?  Other factors?

[Admiral_Karasu]

14 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

Is it possible to correlate that with the game population?  Natural attrition of both populations (which, understandably, overlap)?  Other factors?

I think there is a tipping point for forum (and related community) activity. When I was very active still in WoT, I kept visiting the forums, though in effect WoWS was my 'main forum' for years. I occasionally played WoT too in the past years as well, but I didn't log in on the forums much, if at all. I played so few battles that I didn't keep tabs on the game, nor the community, videos, news or much anything.

[Wolfswetpaws]

Thanks @Admiral_Karasu

[iDuckman]

4 hours ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

Is it possible to correlate that with the game population?  Natural attrition of both populations (which, understandably, overlap)?  Other factors?

That reason was cited to me by one of the incompetent WeeGees.  Same incompetent, lying WeeGees (and exposed data) say no corresponding decrease in player base.  Instead, there is some suspicion that cleaning up the toxicity of the NA forum correlates to the decline.  However,  EU toxicity was never addressed in the sane way and may indeed have been responsible for a similar decline, so who knows?

[Wolfswetpaws]

19 minutes ago, iDuckman said:

so who knows?

Yeah.  Oh well.  Life goes on.

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

1 hour ago, iDuckman said:

That reason was cited to me by one of the incompetent WeeGees.  Same incompetent, lying WeeGees (and exposed data) say no corresponding decrease in player base.  Instead, there is some suspicion that cleaning up the toxicity of the NA forum correlates to the decline.  However,  EU toxicity was never addressed in the sane way and may indeed have been responsible for a similar decline, so who knows?

Indeed, the total numbers of people playing have not crashed...though we have seen a lot of unhealthy turnover, which has affected gameplay.

I'm amused that WG actually thinks they 'cleaned up the toxicity' of the NA forum by moving to Discord...

...which is just so obviously false and out of touch it's hilarious. Their Discord is barely moderated at all.

[iDuckman]

23 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

I'm amused that WG actually thinks they 'cleaned up the toxicity' of the NA forum by moving to Discord...

I didn't say that.  I said they cleaned up the toxicity of the NA forum.  We were talking about the possible reasons for the decline of the forums.  Get your eyes checked, will you?

Said WeeGees also seemed to believe that the move to discord would make the toxicity much more difficult to control.  Apparently you hold that opinion too.

 

[clammboy]

What's the obsession with some people and WG? You guys that started Devstrike did a great job with forum you want discord to that's great who cares what WG did or think about it. I am all for anything the site and the guys in charge want to do. 

[Snargfargle]

7 hours ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

Is it possible to correlate that with the game population?  Natural attrition of both populations (which, understandably, overlap)?  Other factors?

Let me crunch some numbers.

A WOWS Community Manager said that only about 5% of players visited the forums. Currently, players on the NA server are peaking at just over 12800 with an average of 6400. This would mean a peak forum population of 640 and an average forum population of 320 on any given day. This would now be split between DevStrike and the WOWS Discord server but, as you said, there is some overlap too. Of course, just because someone visits a forum doesn't mean they are active on it. I'd say that less than a two-dozen of us do the lion's share of the posting here. My apricot tree just burst into bloom today so outside work is just around the corner. I'll probably be posting less when that happens.

[Snargfargle]

1 hour ago, iDuckman said:

We were talking about the possible reasons for the decline of the forums. 

Forums naturally decline. A tech support forum I have been a member of for almost fifteen years was once the largest on the internet with dozens of certified computer, electronics, and software technicians answering questions. As a certified electronics technician, my specialty was fielding electronics and system building questions but very few people assemble their own computers anymore and almost nobody today has an electronics hobby so the questions dwindled to about one a month. This was the same for other areas of the form too and the technicians began to leave (or die off, as most were retired folks who actually had the time to volunteer).

For a time, I would research the answers to questions that were asked that had no specialists to answer them anymore but it became more of a job than a hobby so I finally called it quits too. That forum has had 4.7 million posts and 957,000 members since 2002 but now only a handful of helpers are still active and they just mainly Google answers. The most-active staff member actually even says this in his profile, though he's being pretty modest as he's actually a darn good technician. We joined at the same time but I've only answered 6,277 questions on that forum. I guess that I was too active on the Age of Empires and WOWS forums, were I had about 20,000 posts each, LOL.

[iDuckman]

8 hours ago, Snargfargle said:

Forums naturally decline. A tech support forum ...

Well, yes, but as you say that's pretty much a case of interest in the subject matter going away.  Not a parallel here.

For those wondering how the decreased toxicity on the WoWs NA forum would lead to a decline in participation when intuition might tell one that a friendlier forum would be more inviting and encourage participation, well.  First, some folks were outright banned.  These tended to be high-volume, combative posters.  Second, flame wars are interesting, like a competitive game to some.  I must admit to enjoying the hack and slash, though clearly some of my opponents could have benefited from trepanation.  So fewer deranged posters and less 'interesting' exchanges would lead to a reduced post count, but what about the user count?

A reputation is a terrible thing to have.  Friendlier forum, yes, but who knew it?  Not the casual player, who if he were aware of its existence would hear that it was a toxic swamp.  That doesn't change overnight, or even overyear.  It might have over time, but I suspect that WeeGee was looking at the numbers before and after the cleanup, saw no uptick (yet), and said F it. 

Otoh, I know the EU forum only by reputation, which is that the toxicity made the NA forum look like a kindergarten, especially with antagonize between national groupings.  And that there was no cleanup like NA.  Beyond that, I hear there was also a decline, though it and the rate may have had considerably more to do with its swamp-like nature than anything else. 

Some of you EU guys want to chip in on this?

 

Edited March 4 by iDuckman

[iDuckman]

8 hours ago, Snargfargle said:

My apricot tree just burst into bloom today

For some reason, my big habanero did too.  Guys, it's still winter! 

Yeah, I got outside work to do.  There's a dozen plants that need up-potting and the older ones all need haircuts.  Yes there is a feng-shui of plants.

 

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

11 minutes ago, iDuckman said:

For some reason, my big habanero did too.  Guys, it's still winter! 

Yeah, I got outside work to do.  There's a dozen plants that need up-potting and the older ones all need haircuts.  Yes there is a feng-shui of plants.

 

Winter is over here in Richmond.

Heck, there is a guy growing a palm tree outside in a protected angle of his house and garage here. It hasn't died yet after several years...

😮

[Ensign Cthulhu]

19 hours ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

The root cause of that issue lies not here, but with WG itself.

Some bullies always want to blame the victim for everything. 

[iDuckman]

5 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

Winter is over here in Richmond.

Heck, there is a guy growing a palm tree outside in a protected angle of his house and garage here. It hasn't died yet after several years...

😮

In bloody Richmond?  If you hadn't reported it I wouldn't have believed it.  Palms were growing here in Dallas.  Some very well established and protected.  After the Big Freeze of 2021, there aren't any more. 

Are you sure that isn't a special "palm" developed in them secret, underground, Gubbmint labnatories the area is honeycombed with? 

Oh, I know!  The house hides an entrance to one and the heat rising from below keeps it toasty.  Yeah, that's the ticket.

 

[Captain_Rawhide]

All I can say is this.  I went to Discord after they first closed down the WoW fourms.  I found it confusing and difficult to work with.  Frankly, it's the worst forum platform I've ever seen.  And yes, I do blame WG for this.  WG just threw it on a platform that was never designed for Forums.  Supplying a fourm is just part of the expense of maintaining a game.  The money from those $200 ships has to go somewhere.  

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

41 minutes ago, iDuckman said:

In bloody Richmond?  If you hadn't reported it I wouldn't have believed it.  Palms were growing here in Dallas.  Some very well established and protected.  After the Big Freeze of 2021, there aren't any more. 

Are you sure that isn't a special "palm" developed in them secret, underground, Gubbmint labnatories the area is honeycombed with? 

Oh, I know!  The house hides an entrance to one and the heat rising from below keeps it toasty.  Yeah, that's the ticket.

 

It is next to his house and protected...I suspect it will eventually die if we get a long enough freeze.

But still.

[Snargfargle]

1 hour ago, iDuckman said:

a toxic swamp

When Microsoft closed it's in-house gaming studio, the Age of Empires III forums and game quickly fell into chaos. Things got bad, and I mean really bad. Many of us long-time forum members tried to keep the worst of the toxic members in line but we had no authority to do anything and it was mostly a losing battle.

How bad was it? Well, when a private gaming studio was hired to run the game. Not unironically, this was a studio that was comprised almost entirely of ex-Microsoft employees that had been from their in-house gaming studio. The new CM PM'd me because I was one of the lead tech-support members on the forms and he wanted to give me some game install scripts. The game was originally written for Windows 9.0 and was buggy with newer versions of Windows. After discussing with him how bad the forums had gotten during the moderation hiatus, he said that FBI agents had actually shown up at their offices to discuss the fact that private game chat rooms were being created to send clandestine messages overseas and several members were sending what were being perceived by the FBI as actual death threats to political candidates.

Finally, like with WOWS, that forum was completely shut down and transferred over to Xbox Live. Before its demise, however, a contest was held to vote for the most important forum members over the years. I was voted Most Important Overall Forum Member under my username "Metis." I also got Most Important Tech-Support Specialist, and Most Popular Forum Member but as the prizes were actual monetary-value prizes I could only be awarded one so I received only the highest one.

My prize was a complete collection of the game signed by all of its developers.

 

 

 

[Snargfargle]

29 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

It is next to his house and protected...I suspect it will eventually die if we get a long enough freeze.

My apricot has never borne fruit and it's self-pollinating too. It always blooms in late winter but we then have a hard freeze. It's March 4th and we will have hard freezes until at least April 10th. A few years back, we got a hard freeze and over two feet of snow on May 1st. All the trees had leaved out and the weight broke off all of the limbs. The town looked like a tornado had gone through it. Back when it stayed colder longer we had fruit. However, now it warms up in the late winter, the trees bloom, and then we get a freeze sweeping off the mountains that kills the developing fruit.