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[trovan2]

<p>First off: </p><p>I would like to express my extreme disappointment with the new forums ... the older ones seem to have ben much better handeled. These new ones actually look like some bad free-ware place (ive had people look over my shoulder and say that too).</p><p>The help:</p><p>Whenever I choose "notify when replied to" option, I NEVER get a notify ...</p>

[Tstorm]

As with many things, it is easy to focus on the bad.  I have my own pet peeves with the new forums, but I did have issues with the old forums as well.  I figure there is not likely to be any 'perfect' forum software out there. In the short time we have been using these new forums, I have seen 3 (at least) forum software updates, so it appears to me that SOE is actively working on issues.  With the old forums, they had to depend on Lithium for software changes and as we saw, that didn't always happen. There are several <i>good</i> things with the new forums.  No continually having to relogin, the auto spell-checker with Firefox just works here (it had to be forcibly turned on each time you wanted to use it with Lithium), we already have one more new skin, and more. I suggest patience, constructive criticism, and participation with getting a summary issues list together. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[trovan2]

<p>To me these forums seem to be more ... unfriendly is the only word I can come up with atm ...</p><p>The older foums was easier to use (to me), and i actually didn't have any problems myself ...</p><p>Now i can't find the spell check option .... is it becasue i run IE?</p>

[Nuhus]

<p>I think we're all really going through the same thing. I've definately had my points of aggravation one way or another. On the other hand, things are actively being improved. Short term, I think it's a pain. long term. I think will be more beneficial than the Lithium forums were. Time will tell I suppose. I see ups and down for both forum software. When it was introduced to the mxo forums. I really thought it looked horrible. But now, it's not so bad. They've definately been working on refining it.</p>

[selch]

<cite>Tstorm wrote:</cite><blockquote>As with many things, it is easy to focus on the bad.  I have my own pet peeves with the new forums, but I did have issues with the old forums as well.  I figure there is not likely to be any 'perfect' forum software out there. In the short time we have been using these new forums, I have seen 3 (at least) forum software updates, so it appears to me that SOE is actively working on issues.  With the old forums, they had to depend on Lithium for software changes and as we saw, that didn't always happen. There are several <i>good</i> things with the new forums.  No continually having to relogin, the auto spell-checker with Firefox just works here (it had to be forcibly turned on each time you wanted to use it with Lithium), we already have one more new skin, and more. I suggest patience, constructive criticism, and participation with getting a summary issues list together. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote><p> "No continually having to login" has been removed from "Lithium" on purpose by SOE's request --it was there before. Firefox's cookie management issues could cause cross-site scripting exploits It is not problem of old boards. </p><p>Constructive critism would be: Removal of amateur look and focus more on the Interface.</p><p>Such as: </p><p>1. Get rid of amateur work, Verdana and replace it with more readable Arial, Helvetica pair.</p><p>2. Use "line-height: 150%" in CSS at least to make lines readable...</p><p>3. Remove useless columns on Dev Tracker. Make it so that it looks like seperate forum with main and big title goes directly to message of tracker and more faded tiny font under for rest such as forum / category etc. (eg. like in Lithiums)</p><p>4. Making user trackers like Dev Tracker above, not showing full post 3 per page. It was one of the most useful part of Lithium that you can actually see how many replies your post has got.</p><p>5. For got sake, did I say increase font heights on almost everything that uses "Verdana, 11px" ?</p><p>6. Please get rid of "underlined" links if you continue on Verdana</p><p>And for above user's "benefical" term is only applied in costs to SOE. Lithium is a proffessional board maker, it requires money to host and yes, these boards look and work worse than free-ware boards.</p>

[Tstorm]

<cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote>"No continually having to login" has been removed from "Lithium" on purpose by SOE's request --it was there before. Firefox's cookie management issues could cause cross-site scripting exploits It is not problem of old boards.</blockquote>I don't recall the exact details anymore, but I do recall a Lithium developer posting that the fix they implemented was a fix to a bug in the forum software that in turn created the issue with logins timing out.  SOE has a login service that is different than that of Lithium's standard offering and the two never worked very well together. Thankfully, it is all under one roof now and SOE can make it work however they want it to work. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <cite>selch wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Constructive critism would be: Removal of amateur look and focus more on the Interface.</p><p>Such as: </p><p>1. Get rid of amateur work, Verdana and replace it with more readable Arial, Helvetica pair.</p><p>2. Use "line-height: 150%" in CSS at least to make lines readable...</p><p>3. Remove useless columns on Dev Tracker. Make it so that it looks like seperate forum with main and big title goes directly to message of tracker and more faded tiny font under for rest such as forum / category etc. (eg. like in Lithiums)</p><p>4. Making user trackers like Dev Tracker above, not showing full post 3 per page. It was one of the most useful part of Lithium that you can actually see how many replies your post has got.</p><p>5. For got sake, did I say increase font heights on almost everything that uses "Verdana, 11px" ?</p><p>6. Please get rid of "underlined" links if you continue on Verdana</p></blockquote>I agree with much of this, though the look & feel isn't as important as the actual functionality in my opinion. SOE has been busy transitioning all their games/forums to the new software and now that this is done (or nearly done?) I expect some of these more ... nice to have (not quite the right term I was looking for as I am not trying to say look & feel is not important, but hopefully you understand!) things addressed. In the meantime, if you are using Firefox, something to check out is the <a href="http://userstyles.org/stylish" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Stylish</a> addon.  I can't find the post as someone else here had mentioned it, but it does seem to work and allow you to tweak the CSS as you see fit.  I was able to easily tweak the style of links used on the forums and am even currently using a whole skin tweak that was contributed on the Stylish site for a forum completely unrelated to SOE that seems to work just fine.

[selch]

<p>Don't get me wrong and my words are not addressed to you Tstorm,</p><p>However, I don't see any "functionality" addition that Lithium boards could not do.</p><p>What is functionality of a forum?</p><p>1. There is categories, there is threads and replies to this thread.</p><p>2. ... hmm that's all..</p><p>now this is the simple forum analogy, here comes look & feel. Thats the reason people still choose to use pirate MS office rather than using Open Office with very same functionality.  All of things I mentioned are not cosmetic, it is functions to keep things going. Functions to keep people comfortable inside, it is pain to read, pain to post,  pain to see who wrote what, pain to search, pain to track your posts and responses to your posts, pain to access with MUCH SLOWER DB access.  THAT is functionality, not cosmetic, not tidy at all. Heck I feel like I'm back to black&white TV's down from HDTV.</p><p>I'm not saying it's doomsday but definitely it is not fun to read or contribute boards anymore. Simply new design "decisions" are quite amateur, nor fitting to a company who made marvelous games. If I were a new player in the market, if I see that website, definitely I would think SOE is a new company who does not have resources and "if games of them like their forums, definitely not worth buying it"</p><p>May be my standards are too high and may be I can not think out of "user comfort" because of my job. But with all my heart, I'm saying and seeing that, this forums are here now in SOE's eyes just to say "they have forums too(!)" and not be without forums in a trendy way of all games.</p>