6 replies to this topic

[VermillionT]

Greetings one and all.

Let me first introduce myself: I am Vermillion Twilight. I've been playing RO for over 8 years now (Mainly on private servers, oh no!), though stopped about a year ago due to dwindling low rate servers and horrible custom high rate servers.
In any case, for a year i've been playing another MMO, which I discovered after a certain period of time, was also crap. So i've come back to RO. Official server for once, well since I quit oRO about a year after it went P2P.

Let me get to my original point...
This Ragnarok Forum is BY FAR the worst set-out forum I have EVER seen. 70% of the sections don't look like they've been used for over a year, forum traffic seems to be limited to the market place, sections are poorly named and whole areas of the forum can't even be posted in.
Trust me when I say that i've seen enough forums to know a horribly set out one. As such, i'll list an arrangement of forum sections and purposes below that should increase forum productivity by 200%.

At the moment, the RO Fun-gineer Laboratory is nothing more than a waste of space afaik. You can't post there, it has 8 sub forums with only 1 or 2 threads in each, all of which have barely been touched and, quite frankly, no one seems to give a sh!t about.
Does "13.3 El Dicastes", "Renewal Testing" and "Specific Renewal Feedback" need their own sub forums? They're all pretty much the same thing and seem somewhat... superfluous.
The "AI Scripting and Your Pet" could easily be pushed into a guides section along with several other parts of the forum.
The Creative Contraptions section is home ONLY to 4 EVENT sections, all are passed their best-by/used-by date. Events should have their own single section with no sub forums. It's rare (and wasteful) to run 5 forum-based events at the same time, so overuse is unlikely. There doesn't seem to be any sort of section for "cuz I felt like it" art, it all needs a purpose or to be done for someone.
Quests don't need a section to be discussed. Quest guides can be found on numerous sites that almost everyone knows by now and those that don't can easily find what they're looking for in a single "guides" section.
The "WPS System and Current Standings" section is virtually unused over what, A year, Two years? Another useless section to be removed/merged.
The Party Finding section gets like... 1 new thread every 2-3 days. Wouldn't an NPC in every town be better for it? It's almost impossible to organise a party with variating timezones anyway.
As said, the forum is a mess and full of useless subforums that don't get used. In fact, there's one that has NEVER been used (Quality Assurance. Seriously, what were you guys planning on putting in there?).



Ragnarok Online Community:

News and Announcements:
Patch updates, changes, bug fixes and important announcement go in here. All update threads are listed by date and include maintenance end times. (e.g. "Server Maintenance [12/12/2012]")
-Available for posting by GMs and above only.
-Player read-only.
-No sub-forums. (YOU HAVE TOO MANY AT THE MOMENT)

Events:
All planned events go in here. For events that are forum-based: a seperate thread is made for entries, leaving the main thread available for questions concerning the events. (e.g. "[Forum] Design a card" and "Design a Card [Submissions]")
-New topics can only be made by GMs.
-Players can only reply in threads.
-No sub-forums. You don't need 4 unused sections for events that happened a year ago.

General Chat:
General RO-based chat goes in here. Anyone can make a topic, anyone can reply.
-Player Suggestions have a pinned thread. It doesn't need a massive unused section.
-No sub-forums.

Off-Topic:
A section for everything not RO-related.

Creative Contraptions:
-Sub Forum [Artwork] (For all non-event artworks)
-Sub Forum [Fan Fiction] (For all non-event writings)
-Sub Forum [Screenshots and Videos] (For people who want to show off their skills or who whoop'd who's ass in WoE/PvP)
-An extra section may need to be added for sprites or scripts for the people who do that sort of stuff. ONE section.
-Events don't go in here.


Questions and Answers:
This is where all the class/item/nub questions go. Along with the general getting started stuff.
-Other guides for non-class activities go in here. the Homunculus AIs, quest trouble and whatnot.

Class Discussion:
-Sub Forum [Swordsman] All swordsman questions go here along with all swordsman class guides.
-Sub Forum [Mages] Same as above, except for mages.
-Sub Forum [Archer] ^
-Sub Forum [Thief] ^
-Sub Forum [Acolyte] ^
-Sub Forum [Merchant] ^ No B>,S> or T> goes in here. That has it's own section.
-Sub Forum [Expanded Classes] Gunslinger, Taekwon, Super Novice and Ninja guides, threads and questions go in here.

WoE and PvP Discussion:
It's pretty obvious what this section is for.
-It may be necessary to split into a PvP/BG section and a WoE section.

The Marketplace:
-Sub Forum [Ymir's Marketplace] (For all B>, S>, T> and A> threads.)
-Sub Forum [Valkyrie's Marketplace] ^
-Sub Forum [Yggdrasil's Marketplace] ^

Feedback and Support:
-Sub Forum [Troubleshooting] (For people who can't log in, whose clients crash, aren't getting sound, etc...)
-Sub Forum [Bug Reporting] (For reporting abusable bugs such as players walking through walls, selling NPC-bought items to an NPC for more than they just bought them for (Infinite money), monsters not using the right skills, etc...)
-Sub Forum [Player Reports] (Thread is visible only to the reportee and all mods/GMs. I have yet to see any way to report rule-breakers. Disappointing...)
-Sub Forum [Upcoming Content] (I'd surmise this would be where kRO's latest patches and other nwe content for the future would go.)


Simply, compact and easy to use.
btw, GMs should all have [GM] before their forum name. It makes it easier for new players to identify who the boss is.

[rivermans]

Greetings one and all.

Let me first introduce myself: I am Vermillion Twilight. I've been playing RO for over 8 years now (Mainly on private servers, oh no!), though stopped about a year ago due to dwindling low rate servers and horrible custom high rate servers.
In any case, for a year i've been playing another MMO, which I discovered after a certain period of time, was also crap. So i've come back to RO. Official server for once, well since I quit oRO about a year after it went P2P.

Let me get to my original point...
This Ragnarok Forum is BY FAR the worst set-out forum I have EVER seen. 70% of the sections don't look like they've been used for over a year, forum traffic seems to be limited to the market place, sections are poorly named and whole areas of the forum can't even be posted in.
Trust me when I say that i've seen enough forums to know a horribly set out one. As such, i'll list an arrangement of forum sections and purposes below that should increase forum productivity by 200%.

At the moment, the RO Fun-gineer Laboratory is nothing more than a waste of space afaik. You can't post there, it has 8 sub forums with only 1 or 2 threads in each, all of which have barely been touched and, quite frankly, no one seems to give a sh!t about.
Does "13.3 El Dicastes", "Renewal Testing" and "Specific Renewal Feedback" need their own sub forums? They're all pretty much the same thing and seem somewhat... superfluous.
The "AI Scripting and Your Pet" could easily be pushed into a guides section along with several other parts of the forum.
The Creative Contraptions section is home ONLY to 4 EVENT sections, all are passed their best-by/used-by date. Events should have their own single section with no sub forums. It's rare (and wasteful) to run 5 forum-based events at the same time, so overuse is unlikely. There doesn't seem to be any sort of section for "cuz I felt like it" art, it all needs a purpose or to be done for someone.
Quests don't need a section to be discussed. Quest guides can be found on numerous sites that almost everyone knows by now and those that don't can easily find what they're looking for in a single "guides" section.
The "WPS System and Current Standings" section is virtually unused over what, A year, Two years? Another useless section to be removed/merged.
The Party Finding section gets like... 1 new thread every 2-3 days. Wouldn't an NPC in every town be better for it? It's almost impossible to organise a party with variating timezones anyway.
As said, the forum is a mess and full of useless subforums that don't get used. In fact, there's one that has NEVER been used (Quality Assurance. Seriously, what were you guys planning on putting in there?).



Ragnarok Online Community:

News and Announcements:
Patch updates, changes, bug fixes and important announcement go in here. All update threads are listed by date and include maintenance end times. (e.g. "Server Maintenance [12/12/2012]")
-Available for posting by GMs and above only.
-Player read-only.
-No sub-forums. (YOU HAVE TOO MANY AT THE MOMENT)

Events:
All planned events go in here. For events that are forum-based: a seperate thread is made for entries, leaving the main thread available for questions concerning the events. (e.g. "[Forum] Design a card" and "Design a Card [Submissions]")
-New topics can only be made by GMs.
-Players can only reply in threads.
-No sub-forums. You don't need 4 unused sections for events that happened a year ago.

General Chat:
General RO-based chat goes in here. Anyone can make a topic, anyone can reply.
-Player Suggestions have a pinned thread. It doesn't need a massive unused section.
-No sub-forums.

Off-Topic:
A section for everything not RO-related.

Creative Contraptions:
-Sub Forum [Artwork] (For all non-event artworks)
-Sub Forum [Fan Fiction] (For all non-event writings)
-Sub Forum [Screenshots and Videos] (For people who want to show off their skills or who whoop'd who's ass in WoE/PvP)
-An extra section may need to be added for sprites or scripts for the people who do that sort of stuff. ONE section.
-Events don't go in here.


Questions and Answers:
This is where all the class/item/nub questions go. Along with the general getting started stuff.
-Other guides for non-class activities go in here. the Homunculus AIs, quest trouble and whatnot.

Class Discussion:
-Sub Forum [Swordsman] All swordsman questions go here along with all swordsman class guides.
-Sub Forum [Mages] Same as above, except for mages.
-Sub Forum [Archer] ^
-Sub Forum [Thief] ^
-Sub Forum [Acolyte] ^
-Sub Forum [Merchant] ^ No B>,S> or T> goes in here. That has it's own section.
-Sub Forum [Expanded Classes] Gunslinger, Taekwon, Super Novice and Ninja guides, threads and questions go in here.

WoE and PvP Discussion:
It's pretty obvious what this section is for.
-It may be necessary to split into a PvP/BG section and a WoE section.

The Marketplace:
-Sub Forum [Ymir's Marketplace] (For all B>, S>, T> and A> threads.)
-Sub Forum [Valkyrie's Marketplace] ^
-Sub Forum [Yggdrasil's Marketplace] ^

Feedback and Support:
-Sub Forum [Troubleshooting] (For people who can't log in, whose clients crash, aren't getting sound, etc...)
-Sub Forum [Bug Reporting] (For reporting abusable bugs such as players walking through walls, selling NPC-bought items to an NPC for more than they just bought them for (Infinite money), monsters not using the right skills, etc...)
-Sub Forum [Player Reports] (Thread is visible only to the reportee and all mods/GMs. I have yet to see any way to report rule-breakers. Disappointing...)
-Sub Forum [Upcoming Content] (I'd surmise this would be where kRO's latest patches and other nwe content for the future would go.)


Simply, compact and easy to use.
btw, GMs should all have [GM] before their forum name. It makes it easier for new players to identify who the boss is.

there is already a system in place where you can look for partys currently going on.

if you look under the character information window their is a booking tab that lists all current parties. And if you go looking for a party just use /recruit select what classes you would like to group with, select the map, select the level range and click ok and your party shows up under the booking tab. You will usually get parties easier if you create a booking as I have found the booking system to be extremely helpful when looking for a group.

The RO Fungineer Labaratory is so the community can see what the fungineers are currently working on and give a sneakpeak to stuff we may see in the future.

I disagree with you statement of Quests needing a Single guide section as the guides all in a single section would make it rather confusing for new players. Not everyone knows where the sites where to find guides!!!

I also disagree with your forum idea as this is IRO this isn't a private server and forums between private servers and IRO are much different as the IRO Forums contains alot more information than a private server forum ever will.

Anywho welcome to IRO

[VermillionT]

Official server or not. The Forum is a mess and difficult to navigate for any new player.
Mutiple similar sections are hardly used and several should be merged into one active section or removed completely.

As for party recruitment, that function wasn't available when I last played. Even more of a reason to remove that section of the forum now.

1) The Creative Contraptions section seems to be entirely for the use of year-old events and has no option of any player wishing to express their creativity outside an event that has long finished. As I said, it should be available to all people in the manner i've shown.
2) All events should have their own section. A working system and an efficient system are two very different things. No player wants to search 7 sections of the forum just to find an event that was mentioned in-game and then not compete.
3) A simple single thread with a link to all relevant pages or other threads would solve the basic problems of the newbies and quests. In any case, the Quests Section already exists on the iRO forums, it could easily be kept.
4) Regardless of what you say, I can clearly see hundreds of topics that have barely been touched for months. A clear sign of an inactive forum, especially sad when you consider that there's around 3000 players online right now.

[Xellie]

I agree that the forums need a serious redesign D:

[VermillionT]

I agree that the forums need a serious redesign D:

I luv j00.

Btw, why is it that the forums here are so inactive? On every private server i've played, even those with low populations (300-600), the forums are filled with active threads and regular posters. But here, where the population exceeds 3000, the forum is rarely used.
There really should be more encouragement to use the forum.

[Xellie]

bumping this, lag fix too please, wtf is going on?!

[Makk]

Now if everyone didn't just post everything in Community Chat (though that's the only section most people read ) we might be onto something.