Ingame Forums
 

Is there a way you can have the forums connected from ones used in a browser like Firefox or IE? I honestly don't tune into the forums in game because it seems too compact and obviously doesn't have as many functions as a normal forum would.

It would also be nice to have a command to remove the forum from popping up every time you log on.

I believe that'd be possible

has been suggested so many times, and it's a no every time. it's really annoying having it in your face as soon as you log on.

So let me address this as best as I can, and hopefully Rage can fix anything that I dont state correctly, or elaborate on things.

1. You can make the forums the same size as the Graal window right now, and in the future when we can have external windows the Forums will act almost as an entirely seperate entity. So it being compact should not be an issue now, and should only improve with future forum updates. Thusly, there is no reason to have it tie in to an Internet website. Any functions the forums dont have that are deemed as good ideas can be implemented, and that is what the Forum Suggestions section is for.

2. The plan for the forums popping up everytime you long on is compensation for not having the NPC Server sending you the news. If you log on and see the bright red NEW button you are more likely to read what it says than PM anyhow. This helps to minimize the "I didnt know what was going on" complaints that we receieve from players.

Actually I just close it and don't read it anyways. It's annoying, especially when you're in a PK zone and such and it's stealing focus and taking up the whole screen. Have an option:
1) always pop up on login
2) pop up only when there is new news
3) never pop up

God why not just use regular forums

Can't you just allow the forums to be accessed through a web browser and Graal? I don't want to make my window size bigger as it causes me to lag and move alot slower (and I wouldn't want to re size my window every time I want to browse the forums).

I've never had a problem with it.

Adding an option to disable it automatically popping up upon login would be nice though.

It's all in a matter of opinion, people will like it and people won't. I think it would be nice to have these options implemented.

To both of you, like I said, it will be a seperate window in the next version of Graal.

As for you Dusty, if you just close it what is the difference to you personally?

Because I like to log in and just start playing. Between the fading download window and news windows and crap, it really breaks the flow. If people decide to opt out of seeing the forums and news on login, and they complain they don't know what's going on, that's their loss.

If I log on and get a PM from the NPC server for news, and decide to just open and close it... what's the difference? The same logic can be applied to that, but apparently these forums are supposedly compensation... when I find it actually more annoying than NPC server PMs. At least the PMs I can just ignore and they don't cover my whole screen on login.

You act like it's a trivial matter. The forums are based in a SQLite database located on the Graal server. It would be quite difficult to code the PHP section (or some other serverside language) to cooperate with Graal's SQLite database for UN, not to mention you'd have to convert all the GUI stuff to HTML. It would take a long, long time to do.

he acts like it's a trivial matter because he doesn't know any better.

Short answer is no, because it'd be a nightmare. cbk1994 elaborated a little bit on why it would be

Is there anything wrong with being compact? You're probably just too used to the bloat you get on normal forums. 200-pixel-high signatures and so forth. Besides, nothing's stopping you from making the forum window as big as you want.

I honestly beg to differ. You won't find a forum that lets you view profiles or send PMs to people who are currently on Graal. Those are just tiny examples. Imagine a trading forum where you can click a single button to buy or trade the item in question. Because this is tied in to Graal, it has limitless potential for functionality inside of Graal.

There might be an option to not pop up if there isn't any new news, but I doubt I'll enable people to entirely ignore the news.

That's how it'll be in the future, so yeah.

I understand it might be slightly annoying, but I'm not sure how sorry I can possibly feel for people who have to make a single, predictable click when they log on. Especially if it means they learn about an upcoming reset or system release. Again, I might make an option for it not to pop up if there's no new news. Also, a lot of peoples' woes will disappear once the forum window is made external.

ANYWAY. You guys are missing out on some important points of the in-game forums. Right now, they have 6,145 posts and it's only 1 month 7 days old. This is way, way more posts than any of the many online forums UN has had in the past.

Why is that? It doesn't require registering an account. It doesn't require going to an external website. It doesn't require an additional login. Instead of making people go to some other place to visit the forums, this brings the forums to YOU. If you're on Graal, you're all ready to post.

I frequent the in-game forums a lot more than these forums for those very reasons. There is a forum feedback section in the in-game forum that I check multiple times every day. You're welcome to post suggestions on there as well.