NEW FORUMS - Current will be read only - FEEDBACK

[Hoppendi]

Maybe as a collective feedback thread throughout the work-in-progress as previewed in +Cord of the Rings

I like many ideas of the new version, even including a better bug-fix communication if conscientiously used by the player-base. And a corner for creators to promote their space within Lotro - or just to post useful guides and projects.
The Question-Format where best answer can get upvoted and will be shown as first response is a good idea for longevity of threads to work as a quick solution for years to come depending on the question.

Suggestion towards this would be a feature where OP can mark the best answer to their own liking and situation.

Another suggestion would be to auto or manually create a feedback thread towards every bigger event (like new version or very special offers and so on) so there won't be 3 or more different player initiated threads literally all targeting the same topic.

But most important to me and why i started this thread personally:
It's still UNCLEAR how the READ ONLY will work! The current "forums.lotro.com" could become something like "old-forums.lotro.com" and this would DESTROY so many bookmarks and links from other website to specific forums-threads as reference.
Url redirection could be a thing but i guess depending on the planned structure it could lead to unwanted conflicts.

Whatever it is. The current plan is to have the new forums be under "forums.lotro.com" and afaik basically kill every bookmark to forums and create more dead links. Yes you can manually work around this but i wish there is a solution where the bookmarks and forum references from website reaching back more than 10 years ago hopefully keep functionality.

Anyways i guess this can be a place to leave Feedback towards this topic since it's literally a forums user exclusive topic for now and still work in progress.

[DavidmeetHal]

I had heard of the possibility of new forums, but I had no idea it was actually in the works. Is there a time frame for this?

[Flaxie]

And please tell me it will still have dark mode, or I will not be able to use it.

[DavidmeetHal]

And please tell me it will still have dark mode, or I will not be able to use it.

Good point, I won't be able to use it either if not anymore in dark mode.

[Elmagor]

And please tell me it will still have dark mode, or I will not be able to use it.

From what I heard dark mode wasn't ready yet

[WeirdJedi]

I can help with some of the information, both old and new. There was a lot talked about and shown on the streams. Tentatively early-May.

January 21st, 2022 35:55 - 43:15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHGwWJMILQA&t=2155s

Cordovan working on the new website
The forums are not part of Lotro.com
Not bringing back MyLotro Portal (API is way out of date)
Possibility of having blogging space on the new forums

February 4th, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RAzcf80X3o&t=45s

New website (1min)
New forums going to use XenForo (2min)
Add "forums" in the front to access old links (5min, 53min)
Hopeful for Light & Dark Mode for new forums (11min)
New forums should provide custom titles (19min)

January 6th, 2023 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1699505435?t=62m

New forums for other Daybreak games before Lotro

Janurary 20th, 2023 Severlin Q&A - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1713106310?t=45m40s

Archive the existing forums and start fresh on a new platform

March 3rd, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JYhj9FvLq0&t=15m

Forums (15min - 30min): Need more time to test forums as it is in the early stages and still not quite a "work-in-progress" state. There are options for article-format, Quora-style Q&A, Update & Downvote, but not radically different. The threads will be broken up into new categories and the old forums will be archived into a read-only state. There will be more content creator categories for player events and streamers. There will be concerns about grabbing names and Extra Life titles to sort out. Hopefully out by this summer. Announcements and Service News for Downtime will be separated. They might enable commentary for these, unlike how they are now.

Cord of the Rings Summary 4-7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZxeHR1g8jo&t=9m20s

Lotro Forums: Test Forums are shown. There won't be a dark mode on release (10min). You have the option for discussion, poll, article, or question formats (11min). We can work on the functionality overtime (14min). There is table formatting, spoiler tag, and url support (15min). There is a bug report forum that will require you to input your bug report number for reference; no connection to the ticket system in game (16min, 32min). Creator & Maker Space for streamers and people who post news (19min). Your own personal profile page and banner (21min). You can add smiles, emoticons, save rough drafts, preview your post better, watch threads, throttle notifications, and have weekly summaries (23min). You can post avatars or gravatars (24min). There are direct links for social media platforms and a way to copy a hyperlink to the page in the clipboard (25min). The old forums will be "nuked" to a read-only state. They will have old or previous indicators (26min). There will be a name grab rush. Cordovan can fix it if someone snipes your well-known username (27min). You can change your forum name once a week so Cordovan wouldn't have to manually do it (30min). No Lotteries (31min). Gameplay, Landscape, and Instance forums (33min). There will be player suggestions with weight system (34min). Tentatively appear around early-May (37min). Custom titles are not functioning well right now but there are "ladders" for number of posts (40min).

[Tralfazz]

Good point, I won't be able to use it either if not anymore in dark mode.

According to WeirdJedi's notes, the new forums will not have dark mode at launch.

Google Chrome has a forced dark mode, learn about it here:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to...google-chrome/

I use Safari. There are extensions available which will force dark mode.
Nitefall works well and has a free trial but is not free:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nitefa...i/id1575190591
Nightshift Dark Mode is free, I haven't tried this one:
https://yep.github.io/Nightshift/
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nights...61604170?mt=12

[tuor66]

I think the hope is that the valuable stuff from this forum will be moved over to the new one, either by cut & paste or by screenshots.
Don't expect "forums.old" to exist forever.
I would expect that SSG would want to delete them completely after a certain, unspecified as of yet, amount of time.

My thought is that if you have a bookmark saved, and it's still valid info, take the time to move it into the new forums, crediting the original poster.

[Thurallor]

It's still UNCLEAR how the READ ONLY will work! The current "forums.lotro.com" could become something like "old-forums.lotro.com" and this would DESTROY so many bookmarks and links from other website to specific forums-threads as reference.
Url redirection could be a thing but i guess depending on the planned structure it could lead to unwanted conflicts.

Whatever it is. The current plan is to have the new forums be under "forums.lotro.com" and afaik basically kill every bookmark to forums and create more dead links. Yes you can manually work around this but i wish there is a solution where the bookmarks and forum references from website reaching back more than 10 years ago hopefully keep functionality.

I hope Cordovan takes this issue seriously. It would be easy enough to handle, either with redirects, or simply adopting a new server name (e.g. "forum.lotro.com") for the new forums and keeping the old name for the old server. Invalidating links from external sites would reduce the game's profile on search engines.

[tuor66]

Yes, unfortunate, but these sites are outside of their control.
I think the need for a more modern forum outweighs the value of old links from 3rd party websites.
If the 3rd party site isn't being actively managed by the owner(s), how valuable is it as time goes on and the game continues to evolve ?

I don't think we've had one lately, but we used to sometimes have a 'forum purge' to clean out irrelevant and ancient posts, reduce the database size, etc.
Those would have been just as destructive to links people may have placed on other sites.

I think the best option is a redirect that drops you at the top of the "new forum".

[Flaxie]

I cannot stress this enough, without dark mode I can not look at a page, let alone read it.
I can't see to download thingy-whatsis thingies to "force dark mode", as I can't see or read
the pages on their sites. I am functionally blinded by white backgrounds. I will stay on the
forums as long as I can, but will take the time now to say farewell to you all, while I can still
see to do so. This really bites.

[Thurallor]

I cannot stress this enough, without dark mode I can not look at a page, let alone read it.
I can't see to download thingy-whatsis thingies to "force dark mode", as I can't see or read
the pages on their sites. I am functionally blinded by white backgrounds. I will stay on the
forums as long as I can, but will take the time now to say farewell to you all, while I can still
see to do so. This really bites.

If that's the case, then it is probably worthwhile for you to get your web browser set up to force dark mode, so you won't be restricted in which pages you can use. If you tell me which browser you are using, I can probably give you an exact sequence of keypresses to make the change without the mouse.

Another thing you can do (if you're in Windows 10+) is temporarily invert the colors on your screen:

1. Enable the Magnifier by pressing Windows + "=".
2. Invert the colors by pressing Ctrl + Alt + "i".
3. Disable the Magnifier by pressing Windows + Esc.

[Flaxie]

If that's the case, then it is probably worthwhile for you to get your web browser set up to force dark mode, so you won't be restricted in which pages you can use. If you tell me which browser you are using, I can probably give you an exact sequence of keypresses to make the change without the mouse.

Microsoft Edge

If you can help with something I can actually do, that would be awesome.
I have darkmode on the browser itself, and on my email, but when I try going to do anything, like ordering groceries on Instacart
or doing banking, or ordering medical supplies, it's so painful and slow. I would hate to lose use of the forums, it's something I go to every day.

[Tralfazz]

Microsoft Edge

If you can help with something I can actually do, that would be awesome.
I have darkmode on the browser itself, and on my email, but when I try going to do anything, like ordering groceries on Instacart
or doing banking, or ordering medical supplies, it's so painful and slow. I would hate to lose use of the forums, it's something I go to every day.

https://www.anoopcnair.com/dark-mode...icrosoft-edge/
If you can’t read that page, here are brief instructions:
1- Type edge://flags in the address bar of the MS Edge browser and press ENTER.
2- Type “dark mode” in the search flags bar.
3- On the line AUTO DARK MODE FOR WEB CONTENT use the drop-down menu to select ENABLED. (DEFAULT means DISABLED.)
4- You will then be prompted to restart Edge. Do so.

[tuor66]

Regarding Dark Mode, I got the impression that it might not be available for launch.
Not that it isn't going to happen.
Any period of time in which you can't read the default mode should only be temporary.

[Thurallor]

Microsoft Edge

If you can help with something I can actually do, that would be awesome.
I have darkmode on the browser itself, and on my email, but when I try going to do anything, like ordering groceries on Instacart
or doing banking, or ordering medical supplies, it's so painful and slow. I would hate to lose use of the forums, it's something I go to every day.

I think the first thing you should do is make use of the Magnifier app that is built-in to Windows. Whenever you come to a web page that is too bright -- or any Window in any application -- you can use the Magnifier to invert the colors on the screen: White becomes black and black becomes white, so the window will become much darker.

To do so:

1. Start the Magnifier app by pressing the Windows key and "=" (equals).
2. Zoom out, if you want, by pressing the Windows key and "-" (minus).
3. Zoom in, if you want, by pressing the Windows key and "+" (plus).
3. Invert the colors by pressing Ctrl + Alt + i.

Then you can just leave the Magnifier always running, so whenever you want to invert the colors (or un-invert them) you can press Ctrl + Alt + i again.

With this tool, you should now be able to read the instructions on the web page Tralfazz linked, which tells you how to put your web browser into "forced dark mode".

[Cordovan]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll be looking into your questions this week. I would point out that the current forums don't have a dark mode, either, but it's something I'd love to bring to the new forums in the future.

[Tralfazz]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll be looking into your questions this week. I would point out that the current forums don't have a dark mode, either, but it's something I'd love to bring to the new forums in the future.

Cordovan, there isn't a user-selectable dark/light mode but the current forums use a dark background. This is the case for every web browser with which I've loaded the forums (i.e. every web browser that isn't something especially ancient like from the mid-90s or specifically designed to render plain text and HTML 1.0 only).

Look at the source code for this page or any page which is part of the forums. Without spending a lot of time on it myself, I can see that there are references to style sheets (css files) as there are for any modern web page. One of those creates the "dark mode" for every page here. The manual for your current forum software should explain how this is done, and there should a similar entry in the manual for your new forum software. Even if the forum software doesn't have a selectable dark/light mode, it should be possible to reference the same css file in order to produce the same background for every page on the new forums.

The background being dark or light is of no matter to me, I don't care but if I did there are things I know how to do on my end to make it look any way I like. However, while the number of current forum users who will be affected by a lack of "dark mode" is certainly small it is well above zero and includes some of the <ahem, cough-cough> louder forum participants. Especially since nearly anyone, even a most-definitely-not-a-coder person like me with even a passing familiarity with HTML could set this up in a couple of minutes given access to the new forum's manual and administration process; there seems to be little reason to select "light mode" when it is not necessary nor being requested by anybody.

edit: Looks like it's in the theme.css file.

[Thurallor]

The editor where you actually enter text has a white background, and the buttons above it are pretty bright, too.

[Flaxie]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll be looking into your questions this week. I would point out that the current forums don't have a dark mode, either, but it's something I'd love to bring to the new forums in the future.

Whatever I did to get the black background with white text, it was so long ago I don't remember. I dimly recall something about choosing a "style".
When I go to type a post, the text box starts out white, but as soon as I click in it, it goes black so I can see what I'm typing. I don't know why you
say the forum doesn't have a dark mode, it's what I'm looking at right now.

[Cordovan]

Moving to the new forums will be great in many, many ways, but it is true that it will be a problem for old historic links, and it isn't really clear that there is much to be done about it other than encourage relevant links to be re-done for the new links and encourage people to repost relevant content under the new forums. We can't do a typical redirect since we are keeping the same URL for the new forums, with the old forums going to something like forums-old.lotro.com. It may be an unfortunate pain point of this process that will be resolved with updated links. Folks should be able to do a copy/replace from forums.lotro.com/restoftheurl to forums-old.lotro.com/restoftheurl, or if faced with a page not resolving change the url from forums.lotro.com/whatever to forums-old.lotro.com/whatever.

Dark Mode is something that we intend to bring in the future, but it will not be available at launch. Messed around with it this morning but unfortunately there are some issues it caused preventing needed elements from displaying correctly. I also tried in a test environment simply flipping the text and background color, but it made the forums not look very good, since some other elements were not able to be changed.

[zipfile]

Dark Mode is something that we intend to bring in the future, but it will not be available at launch.

This is unfortunate...

[Neinda]

Dark Mode is something that we intend to bring in the future, but it will not be available at launch. Messed around with it this morning but unfortunately there are some issues it caused preventing needed elements from displaying correctly. I also tried in a test environment simply flipping the text and background color, but it made the forums not look very good, since some other elements were not able to be changed.

Why not wait until it is complete and ready before activating the new forums?

[istvana]

The obvious answer is that if SSG waits until every feature that every person wants is ready to go - there will *never* be new forums. I think the obvious answer is the correct one in this case.

The old saying that the perfect is the enemy of the good is often heard because it is so very true.

[Thurallor]

Moving to the new forums will be great in many, many ways, but it is true that it will be a problem for old historic links, and it isn't really clear that there is much to be done about it other than encourage relevant links to be re-done for the new links and encourage people to repost relevant content under the new forums. We can't do a typical redirect since we are keeping the same URL for the new forums, with the old forums going to something like forums-old.lotro.com. It may be an unfortunate pain point of this process that will be resolved with updated links. Folks should be able to do a copy/replace from forums.lotro.com/restoftheurl to forums-old.lotro.com/restoftheurl, or if faced with a page not resolving change the url from forums.lotro.com/whatever to forums-old.lotro.com/whatever.

Since you are using new forum software, it should have different names for the PHP scripts, so you should still easily be able to do redirects, such as:

forums.lotro.com/forum/showthread.php... -> old-forums.lotro.com/forum/showthread.php...

This will work as long as your new forum software doesn't happen to have a "showthread.php".

I think the vast majority of links to the forums use that "showthread.php" script, so that's probably the only redirect you would need.