Most of the the channels on Discord could be part of the forums tbh. Wolf Share (Wild Wolf Hunting could be folded into this), Achievement Hunting, Questions (we have a Tiny Little Questions thread for small things) etc. . But at the same time, a lot of people just don't like forums, so unless they absolutely had to, they still wouldn't use them, even if you set the Discord to read-only or deleted it all together.

yeah idk all i can say is really get with the times, i guess? :’D because i feel as if this thread is turning into a bashing zone for ppl using discord, when in reality its just a natural decline for online forums. saying that the anger for shutting down, essentially, a groupchat, would be helpful for the community is also very weird. like, lorwolf is still New so keep that in mind?? its not like fr or lioden’s forums are dead, theyre thriving and they have main discord servers

like i get the sentiment here and dont disagree because it is true that the culture of online communication has shifted drastically in the past decades but this feels really dismissive tbh. like, for any website it absolutely IS poor design to split the modes of official communication between the actual site and a third party app. at this point i dont expect them to ever get rid of the discord but people are making fair points that using discord as a substitute while having really rough forums (which while they have been updated, its really... unfortunate that they still are the way they are considering that none of this is really new technology) really sucks.

yeah idk all i can say is really get with the times, i guess? :’D because i feel as if this thread is turning into a bashing zone for ppl using discord, when in reality its just a natural decline for online forums. saying that the anger for shutting down, essentially, a groupchat, would be helpful for the community is also very weird. like, lorwolf is still New so keep that in mind?? its not like fr or lioden’s forums are dead, theyre thriving and they have main discord servers

i mean overall having an Official discord versus hundreds of community made servers to fill any particular niche is a very different vibe. FR doesn't have an official discord and last I remember neither does lioden?? Could be wrong on that front though.

like i get the sentiment here and dont disagree because it is true that the culture of online communication has shifted drastically in the past decades but this feels really dismissive tbh. like, for any website it absolutely IS poor design to split the modes of official communication between the actual site and a third party app. at this point i dont expect them to ever get rid of the discord but people are making fair points that using discord as a substitute while having really rough forums (which while they have been updated, its really... unfortunate that they still are the way they are considering that none of this is really new technology) really sucks.

yeah idk all i can say is really get with the times, i guess? :’D because i feel as if this thread is turning into a bashing zone for ppl using discord, when in reality its just a natural decline for online forums. saying that the anger for shutting down, essentially, a groupchat, would be helpful for the community is also very weird. like, lorwolf is still New so keep that in mind?? its not like fr or lioden’s forums are dead, theyre thriving and they have main discord servers

i mean overall having an Official discord versus hundreds of community made servers to fill any particular niche is a very different vibe. FR doesn't have an official discord and last I remember neither does lioden?? Could be wrong on that front though.

like i get the sentiment here and dont disagree because it is true that the culture of online communication has shifted drastically in the past decades but this feels really dismissive tbh. like, for any website it absolutely IS poor design to split the modes of official communication between the actual site and a third party app. at this point i dont expect them to ever get rid of the discord but people are making fair points that using discord as a substitute while having really rough forums (which while they have been updated, its really... unfortunate that they still are the way they are considering that none of this is really new technology) really sucks.

im pretty sure theres an official fr discord, i was in one (ran by the community but the devs oversaw its activity) when i played. and cs has one too, i just remembered. not trying to be dismissive, just giving lw the benefit of the doubt. theres a lot of buggy stuff on lorwolf rn anyway, so i dont expect the forums to take a priority anytime soon. perhaps thats why discord is available? and its not to push away the players who prefer forums? food for thought. the dev team is small afterall

in any case, i cant speak for other sites like chickensmoothie because i dont use the forums on there much outside of trading and i've never heard of them having official servers. even trying to do a quick search right now the servers i'm finding seem to be fanmade and not official (judging by how the have been made by regular users? could be wrong though). the only other petsite i have had more experience with that has an official discord server is goatlings, which is a relatively recent addition and has nearly killed all on-site communication. but being fair that's because the forums are extremely outdated running on very basic HTML so i completely understand why people would want to rely on a separate platform.

i get wanting to give lorwolf the benefit of the doubt on being new but thats pretty damning for me personally. i understand how putting a completely new game together is difficult and will need further refinements, but like i said previously forums are not a new technology. chickensmoothie has some pretty robust forum features even if it is running on some pretty old ui and design. heck it's quoting feature is so much better than what we've got right now! unless im blind we cant even tell who got quoted unless you click on the block to be taken to the original post, which i think most can agree is like, such a poor way of implementing a quote function.

anyways, don't really have much else to say other than, just as a general tip, saying "get with the times" is the bit that came off as dismissive.

@perikeets @VNX

Hey, just popping in to say that Flight Rising has never had an official Discord server, and the FR devs do not join community Discord servers.

Additionally, the Lorwolf forums are not an appropriate place to discuss offsite interpersonal issues. Please see the Forum Etiquette guidelines for more information.

[touches the ground softly]

I didn't mean to spark controversy! A month later and I've appreciated all the perspectives! My opinion really hasn't changed: that the crux of the issue is poor ui design and an inability to adapt forums to the changing internet-scape.

I feel like Reddit, and I've said this already, is a really good example of a UI which is adaptable and modern while keeping the idea for forums intact. It's entirely forum based, and remains a very popular and active social media. The sheer use it gets proves itself. A lot of the complaints of forums vs discord are addressed with the way it seeds replies, is more interactive in its feed, and all around invites more casual talk and speed in interactions. My reply to "forums are worse" is "well they don't have to be."

I think the way forums are here, traditionally, is just falling out of fashion. That much is true. But I think it's poor to not even try to adapt a game to change with the shifting communication demand. The fact that the userbase is largely communicating on a third party platform is NOT the fault of said userbase, but a conscious development choice to use an objectively higher quality-built third party software as a crutch, and it's a poor decision at that. I'm not bashing those using discord by saying this, and I think most people aren't. I'm criticizing the development philosophy. There are solutions to the problems brought up with forums, and instead of implementing them the game is reliant on an offsite third party platform--burdening the user to reach outside. I simply take issue with that way of thinking.

It brings about an accessibility discussion, and a discussion about community isolation.

For a game genre almost entirely dependent on social interaction and community outreach, it's just not a design decision I support.

If you disagree, that's okay! But it appears that it's a hole LW has dug itself into. Because even if they changed their forums to be way more streamlined, more interactive, addressing these concerns and modernizing the way, say, reddit has, there would still not be an insignificant amount of people disgruntled to be kicked off the discord and back onsite, as this thread has demonstrated. That's a bit foreboding to me for a genre dependent on community discussion; the idea that users would be disappointed to instead have to spend time onsite. It doesn't speak well for longevity, considering how much community interaction is the lifeline for these games.

And I don't mean to be a negative Nancy! But this is my perspective. The choice to rely on Discord feels a bit like a death sentence for community outreach.

All I know is: I can't use a third party software to play a portion of the game. If that makes me unable to get with the times, I still fault the game for also not getting with the times. Until there's more community here on the forums, I'm not sure how easily I can "get into" and stay on LW.

@VNX since you seem interested in the discussion! Perhaps this articulates it?