[Your opinion matters] Pros and Cons of the forum!

avivakler10

Dear BlackShot Community,

I have seen many complaints regarding the current forum system. Both veteran players and newcomers keep saying that the forum is too complicated to understand, or that it has too many sections and navigation panels. However, the forum also has some great advantages that we can not ignore, some of them visible to the us as regular users and some not - being related to back-end systems.

In this thread I'd like each and every one of you to share your personal opinion, including as many pros and cons regarding the forum system as possible. Those of you who were active on the previous forum, please add specific examples of how it was better than the current one. One thing is certain though, there were way more active users on the previous forum. Let's work all together and find out why. To begin with, here are a few points that I can think of:

Pros (+):

+ Looks similar to the main website, maintaining a global frame for all sub-sites.

+ Account integration between the website and the forum, meaning that we only need to remember our BlackShot ID.

+ Categorized sub-forums that make it possible to use a single forum system for both games (BlackShot and Dekaron).

+ Personal user medals.

+ Mentions (@) system.

Cons (-):

- Inability to edit posts after 1 hour. (corrected)

- Not mobile-friendly.
- Main page is too narrow for the amount of content it should contain.

- Too many navigation bars, an overall complex browsing experience.

- Lack of popup/noticable notifications for PMs or new replies to own threads.

- Lack of friend list and ignore list.
- There isn't a list of currently active users and their recent actions (unlike the old forum).

- More languages should be supported and added as sub-forums (branches).

- Display name of staff members has to be changed manually because of the integrated user system.

- Many great tutorials, tips and discussions were lost with the old forum.

At the end I will create a detailed list including all reviews and points that we will mention. I hope that this discussion will be rich and positive!

Thanks for your time,
Jacob.

avivakler10

Thanks for your reply, @RaVenR . It's appreciated.

Correct me if I am wrong, but my impression is that overall you are happy with the new forum.

Is that right?

MrDeyveeN

Hello @avivakler10 ,

As we already discussed on Discord, I honestly think that this forum has a lot of positive aspects. 

First of all, I love the fact that the forum is directly linked to the website and to our accounts in-game (Papaya Play). Contrary to the old forum, we do not have to create an other account, which is a great thing to me.

Second of all, I prefet the Papaya Play forum design rther than the "old one".

The only bad thing about this "new" forum is that there are less people here than in the old one. My suggestion to change this and bring more people to browse the forum/comment/communicate with each other is to create way more events that will take place ONLY on the forum, just like you already did before. (check this link for more informations about this suggestion : http://forum.papayaplay.com/index.php?p=/discussion/355017/my-favorite-suggestions-to-make-blackshot-even-better)

QUOTED FROM @avivakler10 :

"Cons (-):

- Inability to edit posts after 1 hour."

> as @RaVenR already mentionned, we can edit our posts anytime we want.

QUOTED FROM @avivakler10 :

"- Lack of popup/noticable notifications for PMs or new replies to own threads."

"- Lack of friend list and ignore list."

> I mainly agree on these two points

avivakler10

Your reply is appreciated, @MrDeyveeN .

Thanks for drawing my attention to the fact that post editing after 1 hour has become available for everyone. The corresponding argument was removed from the updated list above.

Noxy_634

I'm very nostalgic about the old forum. The rank system was better, I do prefer the design of the old forum, and think this one is too superficial, something's missing in the new forum's design (or this I just don't like this new design because I'm nostalgic haha).

We had a very nice friendlist and private message system.

The old forum was easely understandable, this one is as Jacob said confused. When I first arrived on the new forum I was completely lost.

I think the forum needs a refund a rework about the main page and the bars, and maybe the design.. too simple to me.

Also I think the forum needs more languages options, like a spanish branch, or an arabic or turkish one.

As Jacob said, the tips and tactics need to be implanted in the new forum, the ones in the old are GOLD!

avivakler10

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, @Noxy_634 .

I've added your logical request to cover more languages within the forum.

Oldtoby88

This forum is way to over complicated with a terrible setup that is clearly off putting & isn't user friendly in the least. Why else do you think so few players even come on here & bother to post at all ? There are a couple things that you should always come to mind in situations such as going from the old forums to these new ones "keep it simple" & "if it ain't broke don't fix it". A forum should be as simple as login & start posting not login click to pick what game click to go to that games forum click to connect to the forum to be able to post like why make people jump threw some many hoops before they can post ? 

Pro's

- I can think of none 

Con's

- Where do I begin

Think maybe some of those pros need to be reevaluated cuz come on looks & medals as pros really ? The cons far out weigh the pros & is clearly a reason this forum's attendance of active posters is lacking.

  

avivakler10

@Oldtoby88 thank you for expressing and explaining your feelings.

In your post you wrote more than once that the pros should be reconsidered. However, we simply can't judge something by looking only on its negatives. Otherwise our judgement won't be objective. Therefore, I believe that even the slightest of positive has to be mentioned.

On the other hand, I do agree with your claim that:

this forum's attendance of active posters is lacking.

And that's why this thread exists.

xTwIsTeRx

Cons:

The new forum is nonintuitive, unreadable, too much content and too little space for example the main forum page, you can not see the full post date.

For me everytime I check it I see one big mess.

Maybe the old one was ugly but much much better.

Pros:

LACK

avivakler10

You mentioned some good points, @xTwIsTeRx .

I particularly agree with your argument that:

too much content and too little space for example the main forum page, you can not see the full post date.

glubokij

Honestly, the forum is horrible. And here it is why:

1) Forum is super slow;

2) It has horrible classification of posts;

3) It's extremely hard to overview the topics;

4) An account ID is used as nickname here (WTF?);

5) Full names of post creators and last modified are not displayed while you overview the posts;

6) Forum looks ugly and there is no way to customize it.

7) Forum is dead (probably because of the points 1-6).

I have to say that the old forum was very nice and user friendly.

Example:

There was an update last night and it said there are some changes in Goldbox and a new map boost applied. Where can I fund the information on forum about it? There is nothing in update.

People will not use the forum that's impossible to use. :D 

addictedtoholes

it stinks tbh, like everything blackshot is producing. :)

avivakler10

Hello everyone,

It's been a while, but I honestly think this thread is still relevant and important.
In the near future, I plan to gather all the points mentioned here and send a detailed request, asking for solutions and/or fixes to the problems we experience in the forum.

My hope is to write a convincing letter which will reach caring hands/ears, but in order to do so I once again ask you to share your opinion - including any more points you'd like to forward regarding the forum.

Have a wonderful day!