forums chatroom/shoutbox

[The_Spinster]

Would it improve these forums if there were to be either a chatroom, or a shoutbox added on. So that the online members could have conversations with each other.

[Brinswith]

Absolutely not.

[Rylnconn]

Absolutely not.

I concur

[Boraxxe]

Yeah. Folks need a few seconds to think about what they are saying. Immediate responses could cause blood-pressure problems...grin.

[DavidmeetHal]

Would it improve these forums if there were to be either a chatroom, or a shoutbox added on. So that the online members could have conversations with each other.

I really cannot see the need for this in a game forum where people talk about the game. Not only LOTRO, but any game forum in existence.

[MourneBlade]

Would it improve these forums if there were to be either a chatroom, or a shoutbox added on. So that the online members could have conversations with each other.

Yeah, hard pass on this...

[Pewpewmidget]

Would it improve these forums if there were to be either a chatroom, or a shoutbox added on. So that the online members could have conversations with each other.

There are discord servers for this and they also turn out terrible.
A chat room would not be a good idea.

[Cordovan]

The new forums could theoretically have something like this. I have seen it in other forums I frequent, but for the most part it doesn't seem to get much use in an era of Discord, Twitter, and Twitch. We could, though, if there was interest and it wasn't a moderation headache.

[auximenes]

Would it improve these forums if there were to be either a chatroom, or a shoutbox added on. So that the online members could have conversations with each other.

No thanks. There's already too much bad behaviour on the forums and a chatroom would be a moderating nightmare.

[DavidmeetHal]

The new forums could theoretically have something like this. I have seen it in other forums I frequent, but for the most part it doesn't seem to get much use in an era of Discord, Twitter, and Twitch. We could, though, if there was interest and it wasn't a moderation headache.

I think it would be a major moderation headache.

[WeirdJedi]

There was once a time I became a moderator for a chat channel on a browser-based gaming website. I went through their whole process of learning what kind of actions that needed to be taken for a series of common issues that would occur. Other moderators assured me that it was easy. For a couple months, not much happened. Then the people overlooking the channel decided to rename it in a way that put it to the very top of the list. Suddenly, my casual once-a-day infractions turned into hours of watching people like a hawk. It got so bad that all my time on the site was spent trying to keep the conversations in order.

I eventually had to stop communicating with other people entirely to enjoy my gaming sessions. After taking a break for six months, I returned in the hopes that things have improved - except I was chastised by new ones who have never seen me before. If you want to have a chatroom, then Standing Stone Games will have to dedicate some resources in maintaining them. At least with the forum there is a little bit of leeway in letting people think about what they have to say before typing it all out.

[Askelin]

A neat idea, but probably outside the reach of SSG's moderation. The forums are more monitored than Discord or Reddit for example as these are unofficial channels and don't necessarily need to be monitored as closely, the forums being an official platform of SSG requires stricter moderation.
There's ways to communicate with lotro developers on Discord that is more off the cuff for example.

The one real feature I would really want for the new forums is notifications and private messaging to work. The forums would get more consistent use if there were notifications when someone quotes you or responds to your post. Even an @ tag feature is basic standard for most forums these days. These features would encourage more discussion and forum use as more people would be engaged with replies to their posts and hopefully it would be more appealing to people outside of the forum regulars who actively post now.

As it stands I'd rather use the subreddit or the various community discords set up unofficially just because of these features, it helps immensely to keep track of numerous discussions without going out of your way to see if someone responds to you. And from what I have seen, the best back-and-forths happen outside the forums just because it's more active and engaging for this reason.

[Boraxxe]

A neat idea, but probably outside the reach of SSG's moderation. The forums are more monitored than Discord or Reddit for example as these are unofficial channels and don't necessarily need to be monitored as closely, the forums being an official platform of SSG requires stricter moderation.
There's ways to communicate with lotro developers on Discord that is more off the cuff for example.

The one real feature I would really want for the new forums is notifications and private messaging to work. The forums would get more consistent use if there were notifications when someone quotes you or responds to your post. Even an @ tag feature is basic standard for most forums these days. These features would encourage more discussion and forum use as more people would be engaged with replies to their posts and hopefully it would be more appealing to people outside of the forum regulars who actively post now.

As it stands I'd rather use the subreddit or the various community discords set up unofficially just because of these features, it helps immensely to keep track of numerous discussions without going out of your way to see if someone responds to you. And from what I have seen, the best back-and-forths happen outside the forums just because it's more active and engaging for this reason.

Yes. A very good idea.
The Forum PM system really kinda sucks.
And,
Misunderstandings could be short-cutted by a quick note responding to something you read in a thread.
That would help prevent some of the animosity that develops in a thread that turns toxic.
Sometimes a quick check about what someone really meant could save a lot of heartache.

[Marancil]

The new forums could theoretically have something like this. I have seen it in other forums I frequent, but for the most part it doesn't seem to get much use in an era of Discord, Twitter, and Twitch. We could, though, if there was interest and it wasn't a moderation headache.

Cordovan,
18 years ago I was a member of a gaming forum (about 130000 screaming fanboys in average - it was the Warhammer 40.000 -Dawn of War game forums, among other titles ) that had this on their forums for a while and it did not end well.
15 years ago I administered a community forum for a CMS, as Community Manager (about 30,000 users - webmasters and developers - in average). While I pondered my previous experience I thought that the current site was a more serious place with a more versed discussion. it started of rather nicely, but after a while it became a source for vents and frustrations since some people assumed they could post just about anything there. We shut it down.

etc...

In short, it will only work on smaller, well moderated communities.

[Shazzbot]

There are discord servers for this and they also turn out terrible.
A chat room would not be a good idea.

Does SSG have an official discord channel we can join? If not, please create one

[Shazzbot]

I would like to at least to have my profile picture as my avatar. I think more people would interact with forums and be more polite if they could relate to characters they see in game from time to time but also a choice for
not having in game characters on your profile, if you didn't want to.

[Cordovan]

I would like to at least to have my profile picture as my avatar. I think more people would interact with forums and be more polite if they could relate to characters they see in game from time to time but also a choice for
not having in game characters on your profile, if you didn't want to.

My plan assuming it is possible (and it should be) is to give users control over their avatars, titles, and signatures.

[Cordovan]

Does SSG have an official discord channel we can join? If not, please create one

This has come up, but the need for official moderation 24/7 is the main reason we have not run our own to date. There are several big ones out there, though, that we frequent mostly as lurkers. If we did go this route it would have to utilize volunteer player moderators and we'd have very strict legal requirements on our end in terms of how we could interact with the moderators, including not being able to communicate anything related to schedule or be able to ask them to do anything or take any action, but perhaps in the future the idea will be more doable.

[paintpixie]

My plan assuming it is possible (and it should be) is to give users control over their avatars, titles, and signatures.

I would love the ability to do this. Even if it had to be approved, etc. (For example, you upload an avatar but it has to be approved before it shows up, or something.)
I would love to use a bit of a screenshot I took myself, or my character's picture, or something like that.

[maartena]

This has come up, but the need for official moderation 24/7 is the main reason we have not run our own to date. There are several big ones out there, though, that we frequent mostly as lurkers. If we did go this route it would have to utilize volunteer player moderators and we'd have very strict legal requirements on our end in terms of how we could interact with the moderators, including not being able to communicate anything related to schedule or be able to ask them to do anything or take any action, but perhaps in the future the idea will be more doable.

Considering the level of intelligence displayed in world chat some times, where the average IQ of the participants seems to have dipped of the average room temperature, I do not think it is a good idea to have anything unmoderated on Discord.....

It would be a big fat mess

[Pewpewmidget]

I wouldn't trust any sort of volunteer work from just anyone on this forum board.
No offense but there are some posters that wouldn't suit the role of being bi-partisan and peace bringer.

With that being said, you can also get bots to moderate a discord server and perhaps program them to your liking.

Bottom line, I don't think SSG needs some sort of live chat system.
It could be a good thing but I can also see a lot hate, bullying, criticism, racism, religious talks and politics if not monitored closely.
That also includes people lashing at the SSG team and mods.... I would not advise this.

[Pewpewmidget]

Considering the level of intelligence displayed in world chat some times, where the average IQ of the participants seems to have dipped of the average room temperature, I do not think it is a good idea to have anything unmoderated on Discord.....

It would be a big fat mess

You just described Ghynniverse.
Lots of helpful and insightful players but also lots of people looking to pick a fight or argue.

[Askelin]

Yes. A very good idea.
The Forum PM system really kinda sucks.
And,
Misunderstandings could be short-cutted by a quick note responding to something you read in a thread.
That would help prevent some of the animosity that develops in a thread that turns toxic.
Sometimes a quick check about what someone really meant could save a lot of heartache.

Sometimes a quick check about what someone really meant could save a lot of heartache.
Hit the nail on the head here mate, and honestly this is how I see it.

The forums are extremely outdated, lacking many basic features that most players take for granted elsewhere. As a result most people choose to use other platforms such as discord and Reddit, these platforms are not as strictly moderated though they don't get as much 'official' recognition (though as a sidenote, the time they did a Q&A from the subreddit was bloody brilliant)

And as such, usually only a handful of the community actively use the forums.
and in my view, it's concerning how much some people here have the developer's ears sometimes.

-Threads get derailed super quick as certain people clash on fiercely held opinions and beliefs without any other medium to settle their disagreement other than the thread in question.
-This oftentimes results in threads being locked where they previously had good discussion, essentially killing the topic in its crib sometimes.

-Threads get derailed because someone posts something incredibly dumb or misinformed, this isn't usually a problem but I've seen several cases where someone insists that they are right and they get to decide what other people think on the matter regardless of if they are actually speaking sense. It's either that or the post that was misinformed in the first place gets bombarded with comments correcting them. This is seldom done in an insulting way but kind of like on world chat in game when someone asks a question, they often get like 5 of the same answer because everyone wants to help.
-On a forum medium, it's often distracting if not unhelpful. This point is a little bit of a nag though rather than a consistent issue, but it's a symptom of a bigger issue.

-The forums are relatively slow, especially when you compare it to the subreddit, this is due in part that there are subforums that generally help with compartmentalizing discussion, but also because the forums don't see as active use as other platforms.
-On one hand this is good. You get less fluff posts about someone posting screenshots they like or whatever and more threads that generally talk about the game and promote discussion and feedback, this is good and in my opinion people should be more encouraged to use the forums for that reason. The developers read the forums and it should be promoted as a medium to provide feedback. On the other hand the forums lack a bunch of features that should really be there and moving on to my ultimate point...

-The most prevalent issue I have seen here is that there exists this 'old guard' of forum users that rack up thousands of posts and insist that they have sway. They don't.
-The forums is not an accurate example of the playerbase at large, it's mostly casual players who spend more time posting than playing or people who have been here way too long that they have been institutionalized on a platform that generally rejects any challenge to their ideas, because you can't private message someone or take a real disagreement out of the thread to handle privately, threads sometimes get derrailed because people can't handle a back and forth reliably enough, and a lot of established users here aren't exactly used to getting their ideas challenged on a 15 year old video game and take any post responding to them as a personal slight.
We need to remove the egos that have been propped up over the years and promote actual discussion from the organic playerbase. A lot of people may lurk here and see less than stellar posts or infighting that generally stays them away from the forums because few people want to actually post here outside of a clique. I don't really have a comment on whether or not the moderation enables this behavior or not, the only time I got a warning was because I posted a meme.
Discussion is generally more serious here than on other platforms but in my honest opinion people need to be less uptight, more open to differing points and be less insistent that just because they've posted a lot they deserve to never be challenged.


TLDR: Whenever the forums get a much needed makeover, I'd like to see more people use it. Even someone as invested in the game as I have little incentive to use it at the moment, it has bred a clique of players that can't handle challenging ideas and opinions and IMO it has stagnated badly.

You just described Ghynniverse.
Lots of helpful and insightful players but also lots of people looking to pick a fight or argue.

My guy you just described the entire Internet!
I like Ghyn's server because the theorycrafting is top notch and people generally do help. It's not hard to disregard arguing on a platform like that also. And there's a lot more resources for the game these days that are actually useful because of people like Ghyn and the community he has established.

[Marancil]

I wouldn't trust any sort of volunteer work from just anyone on this forum board.
.

You can, but it takes a dedicated core of experienced members to set the example for other volunteers and control them and the board. At the Dawn of War forums I referred to earlier we were about 5 admins, 20 or so moderators and varying number of prospect moderators. We controlled everything down to the server configuration and had the blessing of the studio. Boy, I miss those days. Intelligent discourse.

[Askelin]

You can, but it takes a dedicated core of experienced members to set the example for other volunteers and control them and the board. At the Dawn of War forums I referred to earlier we were about 5 admins, 20 or so moderators and varying number of prospect moderators. We controlled everything down to the server configuration and had the blessing of the studio. Boy, I miss those days. Intelligent discourse.

No, I wouldn't trust anyone to actually take it professionally and wouldn't just use it for clout chasing and getting closer to the ears of the developers.
It may work for a community made forum, but it's way too close to 'official', there's a real nest of vipers who would want nothing more than to get power on an online forum to serve their own interests.

I'd rather they keep moderation on an official contract sort of thing, but even the NDA from Palantir gets breached on a basis much too frequent to be overly comfortable.