Forums → News and Feedback → Community: ideas,thoughts,concerns!

How about a different rate, for example 3 posts for 1 star ! It's a bit better , but still an easy way for someone to farm stars , and likely to generate spam!

Still not easy to farm those. While spam may be admittedly generated, you would have to make 30 posts just to receive as many stars as you would by completing an easy quest. Add in the possibility of excluding Forum Games posts from the star count and it will really be hard to spam. But even if that's the case, the other suggestions can deter or even prevent it, especially a combination of those.

How about giving 1 star to each post containing X amount of characters! X could be 300-500-1000 !

That's also a nice idea. +1 But I am not sure if it can be coded properly. We have already discovered a bug that prevents users from earning the balance in stars when quest difficulties are updated. If forum posts are included in the star count, I am not sure if a site-wide implementation can accurately give each active user the stars they should get.

No matter anything , long post , short post , each person can earn maximum 5-10 stars per day through posts !

This is possibly the best suggestion. Like you said, encourages activity in the long run at the very least. The problem is that the post-star ratio should not be 1:1. So if it is 10, a user would still need to post 30 times to earn the maximum. Makes it easy to spam. If it is 5, it is too low. Our task is to promote forum activity, with 5 stars per day which would require 15 posts daily in a 3:1 post - star ratio, I don't think many users will be swayed to post in the forums. This suggestion is good but only seems to work by itself and only if the post to star ratio is 1:1.

I think the best solution is to exclude FG posts from the star count and then look into ivan's third suggestion. With a 1:1 post to star ratio except FG posts (which count for the total post count, so total post count <> star count. Stars are different than posts anyway in the sense that one can also earn them through quests and merits) and a maximum of 10 - 15 stars attainable per day, this could work fine.

The point is that the real spam fest were the comments. At least half of the top 15 of the AP leaderboard used those to farm AP. Forum Posts were not easy to spam to farm AP even then! That's what would make a new system, even with a 1:1 star to post ratio work. But even if that is doubtful, awarding stars to posts based on the number of characters or putting a cap in place can really do the trick and prevent spamming.

At the very least, we won't know until we try. We can't sit here in fear of spam for the rest of the ages and not change anything because of that. Can't a limited trial of any of these systems be set up to see if it would work or not? Such a thing would take a lot of work admittedly (because it would not only require additional coding into the star system to implement the posts, but it would also require failsafes to discard the system if need be.). But any system to be implemented needs such failsafes doesn't it? We can't find a golden reward system that will work forever and ever and we should not let the forums die out of fear of spam without at least trying anything...

1 Game News is already backed into a corner. Shown below is the current main page without AFG+. On your monitor, the cutoff would probably be right above the Game News title.

2 I am dead set against animation. We don't need more flashing repetitive things on the main page.
3 There isn't much point to adding more links to the header. Your placement is okay, but not much more noticeable than the current link.

We can have all the ideas in the world, but if we don't present it to the admins, nothing will be done.

Hopefully the admins see this then. Should they be mentioned?

We can have all the ideas in the world, but if we don't present it to the admins, nothing will be done.

But that's the point, hopefully, we can get some of the active community to discuss it and maybe attract the admins' attention, see what they think after many arguments are presented for and against the various ideas. Hopefully at least.

I'm reading all your feedback guys, and doing my best to take it all into consideration and talk to the others about it. I deeply appreciate everyone who takes the time to e-mail me or post and present their thoughts in such smart, careful fashion.

Stars being tied into post counts is something I've already been contacted directly about several times by several different people, and it's something we're discussing/debating because we know a lot of you feel passionately about. I'm not making any promises, just stepping in to stay I hear you, and we're talking! (We're just also working on a lot of other things at the same time!)

Spam, naturally, is a concern, so how the forum mods feel about it (and whether potential newly appointed ones would like to be so in order to essentially sweep the floor) is something we'd like to hear about.

I do think that the forums are sort of secreted away in that they're only a small text link on the main page as opposed to bigger, more eye-catching media. I also think that the majority of site visitors keep to the game comment sections, so encouraging flow between them all and the forums is something to think about how to do. After all, if I can post in the comments for a game and get the response I want there, whether it's support or just general "Awesome game, dude" chatter, what incentive do I have to go elsewhere to do so? Obviously we want people to feel interested in becoming part of an actual community as opposed to just dropping random comments without a backwards glance.

Keep it coming, folks!

What I see as possibility that could be done on one way or another is making a separate channel , next to game comments , to serve for game reviews , bugs reporting and the rest of stuff not related with chit-chat!I consider this important because , game developers, moderators and admins don't have good enough overview of stuff posted into game comments ! Often a comment worth of gold remains unnoticed!

What I have heard from stories , but can't confirm , is that on other sites (competition) , game developers have much better interaction with users! It's a shame in any case if we don't make something that will allow easier true face to face , Devs - Gamers talk !

One of the ways I see it is making a separate channel , just for that purposes , other way I see it is making a sub-forum within Feedback or Gaming forum!

How things currently stand, the forum is the right place for something like that, it is much easier to read, much easier to monitor and it has a nicer format for those purposes!

What I see as possibility here that could boost things a bit is AFG+ ! Perhaps it could be a good trigger! How about gifting AFG+ (3 months) to each person selected for giving a valuable feedback?

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Now , I know that Armor Games is trying to compress Forums , since apparently we have too much of them. So followed by that logic , new forums are out of question !

Well that depends if you ask me , on what do you think by compressing forums! If you think to mix all threads into one larger group , like quests , forum games , games , games walkthroughs into single one called Games or what ever I don't think it would be working well!

You could eventually make it to look cosmetically like single one , but there would still need to be some kind of bounds , or some kind of sub-dir icons!

Anyway , if you think of combining, as something inevitable , sure , there are many options that could work, but I am having in mind different approach!

Instead of just pure combining, why don't bring something new ? If we bring something new to the table , fresh , interesting , I think we would achieve far more! (Note : need time to prepare stuff)!!!

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However , I would like to mention , that this thread isn't about my ideas , or discussion about them, I would like to see many other ideas as well , as well as your thoughts and concerns about community in general ! The way I see it , administrators have all the right to be restrained from changing anything , since that is the will of majority , if such a majority even exists !

Nice to see you guys are discussing it

Spam, naturally, is a concern, so how the forum mods feel about it (and whether potential newly appointed ones would like to be so in order to essentially sweep the floor) is something we'd like to hear about.

True. Best people to ask in that matter @nichodemus and @HahiHa , what do you think of this?

What I see as possibility that could be done on one way or another is making a separate channel , next to game comments , to serve for game reviews , bugs reporting and the rest of stuff not related with chit-chat!I consider this important because , game developers, moderators and admins don't have good enough overview of stuff posted into game comments ! Often a comment worth of gold remains unnoticed

So, another chat channel? This would require game devs keeping their status for that channel at least (if not for all of them), so that just like Mods and Chat wardens appear separately on the list of online users in each chat room, so would the devs. This would be a nice idea in the end. Not sure if it can be coded and if so how easily, but developers like Iriysoft who reply to every single profile comment and frequently update their social media with updates would definitely benefit from this.

One of the ways I see it is making a separate channel , just for that purposes , other way I see it is making a sub-forum within Feedback or Gaming forum!

I think a channel is preferable, if a sub forum is made for all the devs, then each dev would still have to go in and spend time looking through the threads. Like you said, the primary concern is the direct communication of players and devs. With a sub-forum neither side earns anything from it, as it can be just as chaotic as game comments. Though it would help community activity in the long run. It could help with longer queries the users may have. I say, with the right resources (and of course if said resources and time is available), why not do both? Both of the benefits with added community activity (probably at least) and developers have 2 new ways of communicating directly with the players

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All the active members know how popular Dora's contests were, at least compared to the rest of the threads. I think that this is really something that can be used, especially if devs have a sub forum. In a sense, encouraging the devs themselves to participate in the forums would help a lot in the long run, players could contact the devs without admin help to resolve their issues quickly and swiftly, developers can turn the community in a 'true flash gaming forum'. To talk specifically, by working with devs, we could even host gaming contests. Imagine having some popular games' contests every set amount of time with the help of the guys who made it Wasn't the Give Up 2 contest a success for example? Possibly because Tasselfoot is an AG admin and Massive Monster is in contact with the rest of the team. Maybe that's what helped the popularity of the contest.

I'll just sweep the forums clean of them, don't like messes.

^

There, we already have one mod who's willing to do the dirty work. Much appreciated too.

I think that a booming forum always comes with spam. It's not avoidable.

this ivan guy sucks, who does he think he is?

if anything my guy ivan is some spam like shiii boy

Can you pretty please add geometry dash 🙏
I love this sight did you help make it
If you did thank you
Also can you bless me pls I just learned about stars and I have been playing on armor games for TWO YEARS I am in 7th grade John Adams and twelve