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Let's discuss which forums can go.

Capt. Lucky

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It hasn't had a post since December 10th and the front page still has posts on it from 2013. Is this a forum or a wiki? Turn it into an archive maybe, but nobody should be expected to post where nobody will ever see it.
Legends forum doesn't get many posts. Homes and Castles doesn't get many posts. But when people post I see them. It's a feature of the forums :)
 

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I see a mention of uo players corner as a place where we are supposed to discuss gameplay. I never even heard of that forum until just now. I've been asking and answering questions about gameplay in uohall for years, and asking more specifics about templates in some of the professions forums. What does gameplay or players corner mean anyway. Everything about ultima online is gameplay - so how can a players corner make any sense in the first place? I'm not for changing much, but it seems that's one forum that could go.
 

Kirthag

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Quotes seem wonky right now, but echo @hungry4knowhow's endorsement of The Admin Zone. I believe @Nexus is already a reader/user. When I was first learning, they helped walk us through the migration of Stratics Forums to XenForo and staff forums to MyBB and later XenForo. Not to mention our 36-hour upgrade to XenForo 1.2...fun times. Our graphic designer, Catalin, who designed the cog-type theme for stratics.com/stratics.tv when all WordPress feeds went to Stratics.com, was also found there.

The Cog theme utilized for the 16th Anniversary launch was simply designed by Catalin.. the Child theme is based on a customized version of Paladin theme, done by Dojo Digital with more customs done by myself. I still have that theme and a lot of that code floating around on my dev-rig. I also continued the relationship with Dojo Digital into my consulting business - utilizing several of their themes and plugins for clients' sites.

Although I haven't been on staff for a quite a few months, I tend to not let go of projects I work on.

I've been tinkering with the old xenforo bridge with Wordpress and got it working on a private site on my internal server. Took some nifty scripting and loads of research, but it is feasible to get the bridge working as it was originally intended to...

article posted to Wordpress --> auto-post to pertinent Xenforo board w/linkback to WP for conversation --> authentication for designated users (staff) between each platform (primary being XF)

comments and conversations were to be in the forum whereas articles and content in wordpress.
Further, I was adapting a lot of the calculators and custom scripts by Xena Dragon intothe Wordpress.. one was already done and applied to the wordpress when I was told to stop. A lot of the content and widgets over on the wordpress is also set to display only for certain functions, posts and articles.... eg: creature key would display for the hunter's guide, but not the item catalog.

That was "scrapped" by Stratics when the decision was made to move everything into Xenforo... and a major reason for my leaving as staff.


Something a lot of people keep forgetting is that it was the CONTENT that brought them over here... the forums for the most part were (and still are) for conversation - but how many people would scream into my PMs if portions of the content site were not working? Hunter's Guide, Quest Guides, Housing Guides.... all over in the WP and considered content is what brings a lot of ppl to Stratics and what is searchable by the web-crawlers for the search engines and what brings new ppl to Stratics, and the forums. Crawlers tend to not go over forums for the SEO is atrocious, it is "conversation" not "content"


I think you all keep forgetting about that.
 

Kirthag

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Here is a forum list accessible through the quick navigation menu, and my opinions about each forum. The shard forums and their respective sub-forums should be left alone.
* denotes a sub-forum

Ultima Online (UO) General Discussion
UHall - General Discussion, leave as is.
UO Time of Legends - Consolidate with Player's Corner.
UO Players Corner - I would rename this to UO Gameplay, since it appears to be a forum primarily concerned with questions regarding gameplay.
UO Homes and Castles - Leave as is.
UO White Stag Inn - Personally I don't see the value in a "general RP" forum. Archive.
Welcomes & Introductions - Remove. I don't see the value in this forum.
*UO Player Memorial Forum - Should remain, but I am curious as to why it is under Welcomes and Intros?
UO Stygian Abyss - Consolidate with Player's Corner
UO Resources - I guess this was the Technical forum. Leave as is or maybe rename it back to Technical
*UO Enhanced Client Discussion - Consolidate with UO Resources
**Reference Library - Consolidate with UO Resources
**Pinco's UI - Leave as is, make it sub of UO Resources. (I don't see an issue with individual resources getting their own sub if the author finds it useful)
*Ultima Mapper - Consolidate with UO Resources, because it isn't used.
UO Vice vs Virtue - Rename and refocus to a PvP forum
*UO Factions - Consolidate with PvP forum or archive
Off Topic - Leave as is.
*UO Spiels N Rants - What is the purpose of this forum? Remove.
*Shards Online - Consolidate with Off Topic or archive.
**Shards Online Stratics Forums - Consolidate with Off Topic or archive.
*Shroud of the Avatar - Consolidate with Off Topic or archive.
**Shroud of the Avatar Discussion Hall - Consolidate with Off Topic or archive.
**SotA Resources - Consolidate with Off Topic or archive.
**Ultimate RPG Discussions [Archive] - Consolidate with Off Topic or archive.
**Other Portalarium Titles - Consolidate with Off Topic or archive.
***Ultimate Collector - Consolidate with Off Topic or archive.

Ultima Online (UO) Trade
UO Trader's Hall - Leave as is.
UO Rares Collector - Leave as is.
*Archive & Reference - Leave as is.
UO Non-Rares Trade - What is difference between this forum and Trader's Hall? Not a regular user so maybe someone can school me.
UO Holiday Trading - Is there a reason why this couldn't just go under UO Trader's Hall?

Ultima Online (UO) Professions
This category is a little trickier, because when considering the multitude of playstyles, defining the distinctive quality of a 'profession' becomes controversial. Therefore I offer these opinions knowing their may be a fair amount of disagreement.

UO Bard - Remove. In my view a bard isn't a distinct enough profession.
UO Botany and Nutrition - Consolidate with UO Craftsman.
UO Craftsman - Leave as is.
*Craftsman's Data Chest - Leave as is.
UO Crime - I am torn. On one hand, a thief is a distinct profession. On the other hand, stealing is so nerfed and worthless that it hardly seems necessary to have a forum for it.
UO Fishing and Treasure Hunting - Leave as is.
UO Spellcaster - Leave as is.
UO Tamer - Leave as is.
*Pet Procurers Inc - Don't have a strong opinion one way or another on this one.
UO Warrior - Leave as is.

Ultima Online (UO) Shards
As I stated earlier, leave shard forums alone (except for the Gov forum). Every shard, no matter how dead should have its own forums for its own (alleged) community.

Governors' Forum - Remove. I don't see the point of this forum at all.
UO Atlantic
*UO Atlantic Trade
UO Baja

*UO Baja Trade
UO Catskills

*UO Catskills Role Play
*UO Catskills Trade
UO Chesapeake

*UO Chesapeake Trade
*UO Chesapeake Role Play
UO Drachenfels

*UO Drachenfels Trade
UO Europa

*UO Europa Trade
UO Great Lakes
*UO Great Lakes Trade
UO Lake Austin
*UO Lake Austin Trade
UO Lake Superior
*UO Lake Superior Trade
UO Legends
*UO Legends Trade
UO Napa Valley
*UO Napa Valley Trade
*In Memorium
UO Oceania
*UO Oceania Trade
UO Origin
*UO Origin Trade
UO Pacific
*UO Pacific Trade
UO Siege Perilous
UO Sonoma
*UO Sonoma Trade
UO Asia
*UO Asia Trade
*UO Japan
**Asuka EM Forum
**Hokuto EM Forum
**Izumo EM Forum
**Mizuho EM Forum
**Sakura EM Forum
**Yamato EM Forum
**UO Korea & Taiwan
**Arirang EM Forum
**Balhae EM Forum
**Formosa EM Forum
UO Test Center
*TC Arena Test
- Remove.
*Archive of Previous Tests - Remove.

Stratics Support
Any reason why there couldn't just be one single forum for all of this?
Announcements
Stratics Bug Reports
Stratics Suggestions and Ideas
Stratics Help

*Signature and Avatar Help - Remove, just have a test sig thread.

Ultima Online (UO) Developer Boards
UO Developer Feed - Leave as is.
Broadsword Contact Form - Remove. The link seems too out of the way to be useful.

Archives
Leave the archives as they are.

UO Events
*UO Atlantic Events
*UO Baja Events
*UO Catskills Events
*UO Chesapeake Events
*UO Drachenfels Events
*UO Europa Events
*UO Great Lakes Events
*UO Lake Austin Events
*UO Lake Superior Events
*UO Legends Events
*UO Napa Valley Events
*UO Oceania Events
*UO Origin Events
*UO Pacific Events
*UO Siege Perilous Events
*UO Sonoma Events
Grimm's Corner
Developer Archive
*Bug Tracking
*Fixed List
*Account Management FAQ and Info
*Ask The Devs
*Beta Testing Archive
Contests
*Stratics 16th Anniversary Contests
*Pub 71 Video Contest
Guild Boards
*UO Atlantic Shard
**The Order of Drunken Elders
**United We Fight
**Fishing Council of Britannia
**Mindless Self Indulgence (Toad Town)
*UO Baja Shard
**The Baja Roleplaying & Event Alliance
**The Black Library [Archives]
**The Hooded Crow Inn [Fiction]
*UO Catskills Shard
**The United Pirates
*UO Chesapeake Shard
**Ethereal Void Imperium
**Imperium News Service
**Roleplay Storylines
**Government
*UO Europa Shard
**Royal Arms & Armour
**Royal Arms & Armour Shop
**Alliance Discussion
**Guardians of Valor
**Guardians of Valor - Alliance
**Guardians of Valor - Guild
*UO Great Lakes Shard
**The Fishing Council of Britannia (FCB)-Great Lakes
*UO Lake Austin Shard
*UO Lake Superior Shard
*UO Origin Shard
**Kingdom of Lore
**Kingdom of Lore (Public)
**The Citizens Forum
**The Royal Council's Chambers
*UO Siege Perilous Shard
**Newborn on Siege 2
Back in the day, the forum admin would go through and prune (meaning archive and remove) certain dead forums/boards. This is a part of the forum management.

Where I agree with a lot of what you have here Deraj, again, this is the desire of a single person whereas the Board (and subsequent Admins) need to consider the value of a board and its content for the entire community as well as prospective new members while maintaining the history of the site/content/conversations - for that there is the main purpose of the stewardship.

With all this talk about merging, pruning and shuffling the forum - WHY?!
Is there a tech issue with the forums?
Are the forums sucking up all the resources of the server?

Personally, and this I speak from knowledge... these forums are MINISCULE compared to others out there. The hit and sticky rate for the forums are dismal and really don't generate that much of an impact on even a low-level server at peak time. The forums go wonky when something is going on in the background by Admin - who need to set up a maintenance schedule and stick to it.

I do not think anything should be done to any software/content/forum until the Board has 100% possession, decides where to host (if a host move is needed) and get their plans going. All this speculation about merge this, shuffle that, change the forums is really just not being much of a help IMO until the Board says they are doing this and that. I don't see any announcements or news post regarding such and the conversation is missing the entire point of WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE.

UO.Stratics.com needs to be fixed - the three platforms (old content/newcontent/php content) need to be merged FINALLY - as was the project myself, Larisa, Tamais, Giggles and others were working on. Choose the format/template for the WP - get it updated (for I know for a fact it isn't updated to current WP standards) and get the content up-to-snuff. Set up the SEO, reassign the main domain (I know - ugh - but Stratics.com should be on the CONTENT not the FORUM) and get Stratics viable again.

*steps off her soapbox and returns to her mundane crap*
 

Riyana

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I do not think anything should be done to any software/content/forum until the Board has 100% possession, decides where to host (if a host move is needed) and get their plans going. All this speculation about merge this, shuffle that, change the forums is really just not being much of a help IMO until the Board says they are doing this and that. I don't see any announcements or news post regarding such and the conversation is missing the entire point of WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE.
Check out this post. :)
 

Taylor

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I've been tinkering with the old xenforo bridge with Wordpress and got it working on a private site on my internal server. Took some nifty scripting and loads of research, but it is feasible to get the bridge working as it was originally intended to...

article posted to Wordpress --> auto-post to pertinent Xenforo board w/linkback to WP for conversation --> authentication for designated users (staff) between each platform (primary being XF)
This has worked seamlessly for over a year at The Noobist, even through software upgrades. SSO anywhere across the WPMU network or XenForo, news posts automatically create discussion threads, WordPress comments or XenForo thread replies automatically sync to the opposite software. It worked perfectly out of the box and has since, which makes me think it was probably addon conflicts or server security settings that created the issues in the past. But in retrospect, maybe it was only a handful of us who wanted to see universal SSO and discussion become a reality.

these forums are MINISCULE compared to others out there
Echoing this, Stratics was one of the first "large" communities to adopt XenForo. We started with 1.0 beta. After we switched, we saw numerous other major communities, especially in the gaming community, switch to XenForo--IGN, Sony Online Entertainment, Red5, etc. None of these are super hacked, either, just optimized. If XenForo can handle IGN's 114 million posts, I think it can handle Stratics' 1.8 million.
 
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Scott

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I don't think the meaning of these posts are to hinder or decline past work or continue efforts to keep the boards going. To me this is simply a way to see how people view the boards. Physical changes are not needed based on space, but tweaking the visibility for first impressions, new users, and old vets alike, no harm in discussing it. At the end of the day I do believe we all back you @Kirthag and the mondain tasks you have to do. We back the stratics crew, even now to the point of ownership of the boards. We support you and your efforts. Lots of stuff needs to get done before any of this would become viable, but I like seeing what people care about on the boards... I'm still waiting for the RPers to step up and defend their forums! Stratics has been and will continue to be the best forums on the market for ultima. We respect what you and the new owners are doing. Stay strong in those boring tasks and remember that we stand by you and your button pushing!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

FrejaSP

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Every person should have their own forum. It would be like their own little house. You can ban people you don't want to talk to. What do you think?
We already do, I have a public forum for Safe Haven Safe Haven, Siege Perilous and I believe I made the TDO forum The Dark Outlaws, TDO*, SP public too. not sure how much I can control it other than make it not public :p

*Edited* When looking closer, I can see, I have some ideas to improve this forums in the guild.
The one manage the guild/community forum should be able to moderate them and so should the staff members of the guild pace. I can manage the Member and the Staff wall, but I can't do that on the new forum we got, I can't make a post sticky, I could that on old guild forums.

Would it be possible let me manage my forum?
 
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FrejaSP

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*UO Spiels N Rants - What is the purpose of this forum? Remove.
I believe it's the place for annoying threads, I had seen several Jirel threads, that would fit fine there :)
 

Taylor

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*UO Spiels N Rants - What is the purpose of this forum? Remove.
I believe it's the place for annoying threads, I had seen several Jirel threads, that would fit fine there :)
Spiels and Rants (SNR) and UHallOT were my first moderating gig. I think SNR is super under-utilized. The defining feature is that developers aren't able to see it. But aside from that, it's generally been more lightly moderated than UHall, making it really a great place to blow off steam with other players about things that make us all unhappy. Unfortunately, because most of the threads that appear there are moved there, it can feel a little like the penalty box, which isn't intended to be the case.
 

Kirthag

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wasn't the SnR a compromise between tight moderation and the No-Holds-Barred board (aka Troll Haven) from the old-days?
 

TheScoundrelRico

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Nah, SnR was where all of the NHB clan posted before NHB existed, but it was a bit more tame...aka a bit less fun.

As a matter of fact, a pretty large group of SnR UO players had a guild over on Siege...la
 
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OREOGL

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Only question to be asked is what do we gain by axing forums?

Don't get me wrong I'm all for housekeeping, but you'd need to consider if this is a priority vs something else.
 

Captn Norrington

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The Time of Legends forum currently has a total of three threads that have been bumped in the last week.
Yes, and the Oceania forum has had 6 threads bumped in all of 2016.

There are a lot of forums that are significantly more dead than the Time of Legends forum is. If we were going to get rid of some it would make more sense to remove the truly dead ones that barely get 1 post a month before removing the Time of Legends one that is actually somewhat active compared to the other forums like it (warrior forum, stygian abyss forum etc.)
 

Merlin

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Where would those recent posts in ToL end up? In UHall? That doesn't make much sense either. We might have a large number of forums, and I would be open to seeing some consolidated some how if we could come up with a meaningful way to do it, but I also believe that having separate forums for separate topics allows us to break up and categorize a bit better. If we just consolidated everything into UHall, it would be a real mess and hard to properly research older topics without having to scan through several pages of UHall threads.

It's easy to identify an issue, but difficult to come up with a reasonable solution.
 

Tina Small

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Would it be possible to do any or all of the following?

- When creating a new thread, require the OP to assign a prefix to the thread and to select one or more tags.
- Have a Stratics staffer assign one or more tags to previously created threads.
- Display a tag cloud in each forum and sub-forum that provides a visual representation of topics covered in that forum and which ones are most common/most popular.

If prefixes and tags were used for every thread, it might be easier to consolidate some of the subforums that don't get a lot of use now.
 

Captn Norrington

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Would it be possible to do any or all of the following?

- When creating a new thread, require the OP to assign a prefix to the thread and to select one or more tags.
Yes, this is possible and is in place for multiple forums already. Mostly in the trade forums.

- Have a Stratics staffer assign one or more tags to previously created threads.
Yes, this is technically possible but would be tremendously time consuming for us since it would pretty much end up being me and one other moderator handling that for 100's of threads.

- Display a tag cloud in each forum and sub-forum that provides a visual representation of topics covered in that forum and which ones are most common/most popular.
I'm not entirely sure about this one, but it probably would not be possible due to technical limitations.
 

Tina Small

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Yes, this is possible and is in place for multiple forums already. Mostly in the trade forums.


Yes, this is technically possible but would be tremendously time consuming for us since it would pretty much end up being me and one other moderator handling that for 100's of threads.


I'm not entirely sure about this one, but it probably would not be possible due to technical limitations.
It looks like XenForo has an add-on to batch update tags after you've used criteria to search for/filter for threads to receive certain tags: Batch Update Tags .

Also, I found this on the Xenforo forum regarding tag clouds: Most Popular Tags . Don't know if either of these are now or could be made available for the Stratics forum.
 

Captn Norrington

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It looks like XenForo has an add-on to batch update tags after you've used criteria to search for/filter for threads to receive certain tags: Batch Update Tags .

Also, I found this on the Xenforo forum regarding tag clouds: Most Popular Tags . Don't know if either of these are now or could be made available for the Stratics forum.
Those seem kind of cool, @Nexus is the one in charge of adding new plug-ins to the site, maybe he could look into those.
 

Tina Small

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It looks like there are several services/tools out there that you can paste text into and have it analyze the text to come up with keywords or most frequently used words. Maybe that would be an option to help come up with tags for already-created threads? I'm sure there are lots of resources on tagging and tag clouds out there. This is one specific article that I found that looks at least somewhat helpful, although it's a bit old now (from 2007): https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/11/tag-clouds-gallery-examples-and-good-practices/ . If it's something that the Stratics board thinks would be a good idea, I'm sure you could find a few volunteers to help with tagging old threads.
 
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Zalan

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Leave the Profession forums up. I agree that they need work, but they still serve a purpose. At one point I did an overhaul on the warrior forums faq. Then again a few years later someone else did an overhaul on it. Spell-caster forum definitively needs a rework to many stickies. Long as a forum still generates traffic it should be there. Its not easy to rewrite a faq. People still come up with different templates, or things changes in the different professions.

*grabs an electric clippers and looks at Spock*
 

Goodmann

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When UO finishes there official forums we can get rid of them all
 

MalagAste

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When UO finishes there official forums we can get rid of them all
Breath... not holding it.

And Does anyone remember how the "Official Forums" were before? Where if you got banned there they banned your account as well.

And I have to say I highly doubt anyone is going to get much more of any response from the team on any official forum than you do here except that when it starts its possible they will quit visiting here which IMO would be a shame.
 

Spock's Beard

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There are a lot of forums that are significantly more dead than the Time of Legends forum is. If we were going to get rid of some it would make more sense to remove the truly dead ones that barely get 1 post a month before removing the Time of Legends one that is actually somewhat active compared to the other forums like it (warrior forum, stygian abyss forum etc.)
How did we even get a separate ToL forum?

"Uh oh, a new expansion! If people start posting about it in Uhall all the time then Stratics might start looking like a halfway-thriving community that's actually interested in the game they play, and not the same ten people making the same couple of threads over and over again about how they hate the billing system and are butthurt that they didn't get an EM drop! Posts might fall off the front page in less than a week! MADNESS!"

Seriously is there any other gaming site on the planet that thinks dividing itself into 400 different forums (397 of which are dead) because "it's easier to search" is a good idea?
 

Captn Norrington

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How did we even get a separate ToL forum?

"Uh oh, a new expansion! If people start posting about it in Uhall all the time then Stratics might start looking like a halfway-thriving community that's actually interested in the game they play, and not the same ten people making the same couple of threads over and over again about how they hate the billing system and are butthurt that they didn't get an EM drop! Posts might fall off the front page in less than a week! MADNESS!"

Seriously is there any other gaming site on the planet that thinks dividing itself into 400 different forums (397 of which are dead) because "it's easier to search" is a good idea?
The time of Legends forum was created because people were complaining they couldn't find information about it in Uhall.

Sidenote: as I am no longer Stratics Staff I have no control over this anymore.
 

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Breath... not holding it.

And Does anyone remember how the "Official Forums" were before? Where if you got banned there they banned your account as well.

And I have to say I highly doubt anyone is going to get much more of any response from the team on any official forum than you do here except that when it starts its possible they will quit visiting here which IMO would be a shame.
If BS did make their own forums, I'm sure those moderating it will be volunteers (2 guesses who that will be...) Which will pretty much ensure the forums are a pathetic joke full of only the most flowery of praise and butt kissery. Furthermore, if said forums were tied to actual game accounts, can you imagine the butthattery volunteers (i.e. other players) could inflict?

Pass.
 

MalagAste

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If BS did make their own forums, I'm sure those moderating it will be volunteers (2 guesses who that will be...) Which will pretty much ensure the forums are a pathetic joke full of only the most flowery of praise and butt kissery. Furthermore, if said forums were tied to actual game accounts, can you imagine the butthattery volunteers (i.e. other players) could inflict?

Pass.
Oh I agree... and the thought scares me.
 

Goodmann

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Breath... not holding it.

And Does anyone remember how the "Official Forums" were before? Where if you got banned there they banned your account as well.

And I have to say I highly doubt anyone is going to get much more of any response from the team on any official forum than you do here except that when it starts its possible they will quit visiting here which IMO would be a shame.
At least there you had to have a reason to get banned....................................
 

Lord Frodo

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If BS did make their own forums, I'm sure those moderating it will be volunteers (2 guesses who that will be...) Which will pretty much ensure the forums are a pathetic joke full of only the most flowery of praise and butt kissery. Furthermore, if said forums were tied to actual game accounts, can you imagine the butthattery volunteers (i.e. other players) could inflict?

Pass.
If it were an official UO Forum run by BS then it would be no different than the old UO Forum, both would be owned by EA and the DEVs would run the new one just like the old one and also EA will not allow volunteers to do it because of the last bullcrap from volunteers
 

MalagAste

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At least there you had to have a reason to get banned....................................
Yeah because one of them disliked something you said. Because you didn't kiss them and cheer when they put out buggy garbage...
 

MalagAste

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To give my honest opinion about the forums and about things like ToL and Styngian Abyss... Things like this should be around long enough to gather up information to put on the Guide.... and then after the guide is updated to offer help with the new stuff and a nice indexed and updated resource of knowledge they should be archived.
 

Obsidian

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I think we have too many forums. I think we should have far fewer. Something like this:

- UHall
- PvP Forum
- Professions Forums
- Trade Forums (All Shards and rares, but I would merge the shard specific trades into the respective shard forums)
- Shard Forums (includes EM and shard specific trade)
- Misc (Off Topic & No Holds Barred)
 
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MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
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I think we have too many forums. I think we should have far fewer. Something like this:

- UHall
- PvP Forum
- Professions Forums
- Trade Forums (All Shards and rares, but I would merge the shard specific trades into the respective shard forums)
- Shard Forums (includes EM and shard specific trade)
- Misc (Off Topic & No Holds Barred)
I happen to like the Home Decor and Design... where does that fit in here?
 

Spartan

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
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I think we have too many forums. I think we should have far fewer. Something like this:

- UHall
- PvP Forum
- Professions Forums
- Trade Forums (All Shards and rares, but I would merge the shard specific trades into the respective shard forums)
- Shard Forums (includes EM and shard specific trade)
- Misc (Off Topic & No Holds Barred)
I would suggest a Combat Forum with perhaps a sub for PvP and one for Non-PvP. I believe there are plenty of folks who do not PvP that would benefit from that type of slant to templates and such. Perhaps 2 forums ... Non-PvP Combat, PvP Combat. Tactics against a monster are different than a human foe.

For the rare times, where would a new player go to get basic information? Altho New Players is a relatively dead place it has good info on some early basics anyone can use to get going. And not all is combat related, nor trade, nor home deco, nor professional.

Agree with Malagaste - Homes and Castles should remain. I use it as well.
 

Obsidian

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I admit I forgot about the Homes and Castles forums. I've used that from time to time when I am looking for decorating ideas.

I didn't include a combat forum because I think those discussions often go into the respective Professions Forums. The UO Players Corner forums doesn't get used very much. Maybe the purpose should be tweaked for that forum.
 

Spartan

Certifiable
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I'm going to go out on a limb here ... Shard Forums and Shard Trade Forums. Combine them with mandatory thread prefixes. If merged, existing threads in the Trade section are prefixed "Trade", whereas the Shard posts are prefixed "General".

New posts are either General prefix or Trade prefix ... or whatever may be more appropriate. That should prune a few forums.
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Would it be out of place to have a NEW Forum - Player Info. That then becomes edited collections of New Players tips, etc plus Profession data that is relevent and other data in that vein. Purpose ... while things get organized these are the repositories for templates, etc. When a more correct place is determined - forum, article or archives - it is moved. End result is that this collection would go away as the info gathered pertains (and goes to a good home) or it doesn't (and is scrapped/archived). Once empty it disappears.

Aside to this ... New Players could go when this collection place is created or whatever. Most of what is there is the tip sheets, mantras and stuff anyway. It's already been noted UHall has been getting most of the questions any way. <thinks> Heck, rename New Players to this new place, allow Mods and higher the right to create/edit and have at it with the data collection.
 

Smoot

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On a serious note I think the Mods should do a Poll and we make our decision that way :)
whos not being serious? and i have a feeling a poll would only confirm this (unless that poll were only posted on UOhall. the vast majority of players i know see UOhall as nothing but bad news in the end, and only use the trade forums. which after the recent events of the past few weeks i have accepted as the best option. i have permanently un-bookmarked uohall.

my current UO bookmarks:

traders hall
rares forum
atlantic trade

uo.com
the facebook uo site
the forum where captain norrington mods now
uocraft
uoguide
various player run random pages on rares, events, commentary.
 
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