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cormyn
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cormyn
2,892 posts
Nomad

In a nutshell, we don't know.

That should clear up everyone's questions, right? Good ...

As a development team and as a company, we know that the forums are extremely important to some of you, and we know that some of you have put a lot (!!!!) of effort into building up the community here, especially those who have written the more creative poetic stuff. C'mon, how many of you have > 5,000 posts, raise your hands. That amount of effort is *staggering*. Seriously, I think the highest post count I've seen was ~8400? Over 2.5 years, that'd be like 10 posts EVERY DAY since AG2 launched.

The effort of migrating that much data from AG2 to AG3 is almost as staggering, since the guy who wrote the AG2 forum software didn't make it terribly efficient, and the way we're linking accounts, etc., between the two systems might cause problems. Trying to migrate it to AG3 will be a pretty big job, and it will probably fall in my lap since I'm sorta the database guru around here, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's up to me whether I want to do it or not. If Dan says do it, I do it.

Whether we start over, and wipe everything, and build a new forum engine, or implement someone else's forum software, remains to be discussed internally because it's not a critical feature for us yet. That doesn't mean it's not important to us, it just means we have to get core features working like, y'know, logging in.

Will we migrate old posts into the new forum software? It depends whether we can find an easy way to make the old forum data compatible. Nothing's *impossible* but it's also not practical for us to spend development time (read: dollars) for us to spend a big amount of effort trying to sort stuff out so it's all perfect and pristine.

If we start over with forum posts, will we archive the old forums? Again, nothing's impossible, but I can't answer that right now.

What will happen to your armor points for forum posts? Well, since armor points are also up in the air regarding the same sort of "wipe vs migrate" discussions, I can't answer that question right now either.

Please direct people asking about the future of AG2 forums to this thread if they start asking questions in other forums/threads. I'll post updates to this thread as I have more information.

  • 438 Replies
GhostOfMatrix
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GhostOfMatrix
15,622 posts
Herald

What I mainly want to see/have for the AG3 forums are more BB codes, such as underlines and probably making things bigger or smaller for headings and subheadings.

The ability to edit posts freely, it'd be nice to be able to edit the opening post in a thread I've created to keep track of things and to be more organized and even being able to edit posts if I've made a mistake. Yes, I could re-read my post for mistakes, and I often do, but there are things that miss my eye and I see it after I've posted it. It would also be convenient for stickied threads, the mods could update their posts with more relevant things.

Something telling me I got a post deleted or something, it's kind of annoying when posts suddenly disappear and you don't know the reason. Sometimes the reason is obvious, but other times it's not.

Ability to click on your post count in the forums to see all the posts you've made or even limiting it to an amount of pages, say being able to see 20 posts a page and it being 20 pages long.

For threads I'd like to be able to see more posts on a page. Only seeing 10 and having to go through all these pages to find something is irritating and an inconvenience. Say seeing about 20 or 30 posts on a page. It'd reduce the number of pages you'd have to read and you would probably understand the conversation more.

That's about it, I think. Just summing that up for future reference and getting all the ideas onto this post.

CommanderPaladin
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CommanderPaladin
1,531 posts
Nomad

The effort of migrating that much data from AG2 to AG3 is almost as staggering


Here's one idea that might ease some of that workload:
Delete or just don't transfer any thread that is locked or aged enough that posting on it would result in a necro. In some forum sections, that would probably cull out a few hundred pages of threads.
GhostOfMatrix
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GhostOfMatrix
15,622 posts
Herald

Not sure if they'll do that considering many users will lose thousands of posts and it's deleting part of the sites history.

sensanaty
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sensanaty
1,094 posts
Nomad

Not sure if they'll do that considering many users will lose thousands of posts and it's deleting part of the sites history.


So the newer users are clear on this, there was a lot of threads where us vets posted a lot, and nostalgia is good from time to time. And also mods like to look back at the old days of AG
GhostOfMatrix
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GhostOfMatrix
15,622 posts
Herald

So the newer users are clear on this, there was a lot of threads where us vets posted a lot, and nostalgia is good from time to time. And also mods like to look back at the old days of AG

That's why I dislike the idea of them deleting a lot of old threads, plus it'll probably make a few users quit using the forums. But they'll do whatever is most convenient and beneficial.
wait how abaut acivment to get faste uper lvl or for fun like newground and kongrat

Check this thread for things about achievements.
nichodemus
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nichodemus
14,987 posts
Grand Duke

That's why I dislike the idea of them deleting a lot of old threads, plus it'll probably make a few users quit using the forums. But they'll do whatever is most convenient and beneficial.


Pragmatism always trumps memories and sentimentality for them. Blearh.... ><
GhostOfMatrix
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GhostOfMatrix
15,622 posts
Herald

That's the sad thing about it. I certainly don't like the idea of having to restart everything. I imagine that a lot of the AMW folk will be complaining about this if it happens. Among some bad things coming of it, such as a sudden influx of threads in all the sections.

benjaminio
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benjaminio
83 posts
Nomad

So are the forums getting transfered or completely wiped?

GhostOfMatrix
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GhostOfMatrix
15,622 posts
Herald

It depends on what forum engine they decide to use and if it's possible for them to transfer them.

Ernie15
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Ernie15
13,349 posts
Bard

So are the forums getting transfered or completely wiped?


If they do get completely wiped, I'm sure there will be quite a few angry active forumers complaining about the loss of their post count (I'll probably be one of those users, whether I like it or not). Knowing how they value their users, they probably will not rest until they can find a way to transfer the forums to AG3.
GhostOfMatrix
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GhostOfMatrix
15,622 posts
Herald

Hopefully they feel that way instead of "Let's restart everything, give us a fresh start" way.

11pikachu11
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11pikachu11
167 posts
Nomad

i think that every game should have a score on it so that you know what your friends have got like on Epic Combo where you see what your friends have got.
11pikachu11
(\\__/)
(o^.^o)
(&quot__(&quot

GhostOfMatrix
offline
GhostOfMatrix
15,622 posts
Herald

i think that every game should have a score on it so that you know what your friends have got like on Epic Combo where you see what your friends have got.

Nothing to do with this thread. But I will tell you that implementing a score system is on the developer, AG staff won't mess with the games by adding things to them. However, on games with highscores already on them you can see what people on your friends list have gotten, there should be a tab on there saying "Friends" or something.
invalid777
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invalid777
2,074 posts
Nomad

I have an idea/suggestion. For most active AG users, if you post a question or start a new thread, then you will have to go back through all of the sections to check for a new reply. And since there will not always be a immediate reply, then you would be wasting your time by doing this. So, in AG3, I think there should be something like where you "mark" a forum and every time there's a new reply to it, it will notify you by sending you an email or something like that.

GhostOfMatrix
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GhostOfMatrix
15,622 posts
Herald

So, sort of like watching a topic? Some other forums I've visited use that and it works great.

Also, I'd like something for before you submit a thread it shows you a few recent threads already like that one. Say a newcomer wanted to make a thread asking what merits are, before they press the submit button it would show the stickied merit thread and some already answered threads about that question.

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