PlaForumDex

[Isguros]

Klay's latest post on the forums and Fonty's reply in said post have made me think back to easier times and made me realize how big the rift between the seperate entities of this community (Game/Playerdex/Forum(/Twitter)) has become.

The Playerdex
 Even though the Playerdex has stripped away numerous features that once were showcased on the Forum, it's used solely for trading nowadays. Of course, if you've come across a problem, you can make use of the Bug Catcher or the Suggestion Box (Yes, you've heard me right, there's indeed a Suggestion Box on the Playerdex), but once your business is settled there's little reason to return.

The Forum
The Forum isn't better off either. After the introduction of the current Playerdex, the Forum lost most of its imporance: the Community Watch (thankfully) got locked up and moved to the Playerdex in its entirely, the Trade sub-forum has died out and is only used only by those that don't believe in the the capabilities of the Bidding and Advert features (with good reason) in their current states. The only thing it's used for now is to cause uproar by posting incredibly extravagent (non-official) events and suggestions that are doomed to fail and eventually end up doing so.

The Twitter
Hahaha

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.. and that's how things currently stand.
My suggestion will change things (and simultaniously confirm what I've said about Forum posts, with them being a lot of hot air and amounting to nothing): GET RID OF THE FORUM! and integrate it in the Playerdex. I know that adding two negatives don't make a positive, but please allow me to walk you through to what this suggestion can mean for different parts of what we've come to know as the Playerdex.

Player Central:
Unlike originally intended (perhaps), the only thing you'll see after having logged in to the Playerdex (aside from the top 20 players in certain catagories (Stalker Update 4 thread incoming)) are things that have been placed on the Mart. Although that perfectly mirrors the interests of the Playerdex demographic, a little bit of variety will never go unappreciated. Imagine a place where you can see new forum posts, the latest announcements, newest tweets (how else are we going to keep being up to date on the latest maintenence and Jinji's projects on Sanitarium.FM) and possibly other things I haven't even started to think about. That would be a lot more of a "home" page than this advertising page is.

Search:
Right now you can only search for players and guilds. If you want to know if there has been a bug report made about a certain subject, if you want to add something to that suggestion a while back, or if you changed your mind and do want to make an offer on that advert; you're fresh out of luck. If the Playerdex were to adapt a more Forum-style way of thinking, all of this would be just as easy as searching for a Forum topic.

PokéMart:
Let me start of that the whole adverts thing is just a underwhelming/non-functional copy of what selling on the Forum made succesful. With that being said, I think it only makes sense to replace it with the real thing. It's much easier make and respond to those "old-school" threads than trying to close a deal without being able to properly communicate with one another. Even Playerdex PMs could be a thing if you don't want to state your offer publicly.

Guild Central:
A good communication within guilds is hard to establish. There have been success stories in both present and past about guilds with Xat chats, websites, forums of their own, Facebook pages, and Discord servers (PWO having a Discord server of their own really helps), but even though you might have thought everything through, but having people (frequently) visit places that themselves don't have ties to PWO can be quite difficult without little help. Having a two-way communication system, like a guild sub-forum, right there on your guild's page, can mean a world of difference.

Notifications:
Probably an unused feature on the Forum, but you can get notifications for new posts in threads. It doesn't matter if you made the chat yourself, you made a post in it, or you simply like the thread in question; with a few clicks you can get updates on pretty much anything on the Forum. I'm adamant however that the Playerdex only provides notifications for bids on the PokéMart and when a Pokemon of yours is being sold. The Playerdex has a lot to benefit if you'd get notifications from other things as well: Bug reports would be solved so much quicker if there was an easy way of telling that the status had been updated. the same obviously goes for Community Watch reports and Suggestions as well. 

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Of course, these "improvements" don't warrant the Forum being adopted by the Playerdex, and I would more than happy if just one of these suggestions made the Playerdex a bit more convenient.

If you have a different idea, or just have something insightful to add, please do so.
Communication is key to success.

 

[Jinji]

Would it surprise you Isguros, if I told you I thought of this exact same thing several years ago? I suddenly realised that with how much of the Playerdex already handles social interaction and is integrated with our accounts, it wouldn't be too much of a step to just make the Forum part of the PDex too; and mentioned such a concept in passing in one of our Staff discussions - but I don't think any of us really took the idea seriously.

 

[Isguros]

Would it surprise you Isguros, if I told you I thought of this exact same thing several years ago? I suddenly realised that with how much of the Playerdex already handles social interaction and is integrated with our accounts, it wouldn't be too much of a step to just make the Forum part of the PDex too; and mentioned such a concept in passing in one of our Staff discussions - but I don't think any of us really took the idea seriously.

Well, we did had that little conversation about how to improve the Forum a while back, so no, I don't think that something like this would have been too big of a leap for you to make as well. I don't know what it's like on your end of the spectrum, but 'social interaction' isn't the first thing I think about when talking about the Playerdex. The only way to "socialize" is by making a status update which wasn't that convenient (that's why only Krysi ever did those).
I won't say that this is the best idea ever (it's hard to top my last thread), but - at least to me - it's something worth looking into.

 

[HitmonFonty]

I like the idea of linking the latest forum topics on the Playerdex I think that would be great.

Did you post your actual suggestions here on the Playerdex? The reason we still have both avenues for suggestions is so that we have a place for discussion and and easier list to follow through on after the discussions get lost in the forum history.

 

[Jobey]

The only thing it's used for now is to cause uproar by posting incredibly extravagent (non-official) events and suggestions that are doomed to fail and eventually end up doing so.

 

[Isguros]

Did you post your actual suggestions here on the Playerdex? The reason we still have both avenues for suggestions is so that we have a place for discussion and and easier list to follow through on after the discussions get lost in the forum history.

Congratulations. Your post has pissed me off in such a way that after more than two days of trying to come up with a fitting response, the only way I could think of was by being cynical. Don't get me wrong though, the content is still as interesting and insightful as people have come to expect from me:

"Sorry that I posted this thread both here in the pretend suggestions location as well as an edited version of it (due to the character limit) on the actual Suggestions Box. I know I should have waited a while before posting it over there, so that the discussions over here could fine-tune it enough so it won't stand out much next to topics such as these. I fully understand that the handy colour coding makes a world of difference, since players can now easily see if their suggestion is being monitored, considered, or dismissed depending on which of the same colour red is used. Surely such a feature is unable to keep up with the hundreds of suggestion threads being made on the Forum each and every day."

 

[Jobey]

#IggyIsAngry
#YouWontLikeIggyWhenHeIsAngry

 

[HitmonFonty]

Did you post your actual suggestions here on the Playerdex? The reason we still have both avenues for suggestions is so that we have a place for discussion and and easier list to follow through on after the discussions get lost in the forum history.

Congratulations. Your post has pissed me off in such a way that after more than two days of trying to come up with a fitting response, the only way I could think of was by being cynical. Don't get me wrong though, the content is still as interesting and insightful as people have come to expect from me:

"Sorry that I posted this thread both here in the pretend suggestions location as well as an edited version of it (due to the character limit) on the actual Suggestions Box. I know I should have waited a while before posting it over there, so that the discussions over here could fine-tune it enough so it won't stand out much next to topics such as these. I fully understand that the handy colour coding makes a world of difference, since players can now easily see if their suggestion is being monitored, considered, or dismissed depending on which of the same colour red is used. Surely such a feature is unable to keep up with the hundreds of suggestion threads being made on the Forum each and every day."

Sorry I upset you, it was just a question not meant as an insult to your intelligence. If you look through suggestion posts you should find I offer this advice to most if not all people who post suggestions here., and I don't want an opportunity to be missed because someone didn't think to post on the Playerdex. Usually people just call me Captain Obvious, but I do see why you're upset so sorry for pissing you off for two days.

 

[Bluerise]

Player Central:
Unlike originally intended (perhaps), the only thing you'll see after having logged in to the Playerdex (aside from the top 20 players in certain catagories (Stalker Update 4 thread incoming)) are things that have been placed on the Mart. Although that perfectly mirrors the interests of the Playerdex demographic, a little bit of variety will never go unappreciated. Imagine a place where you can see new forum posts, the latest announcements, newest tweets (how else are we going to keep being up to date on the latest maintenence and Jinji's projects on Sanitarium.FM) and possibly other things I haven't even started to think about. That would be a lot more of a "home" page than this advertising page is.

At one point - an achievement section was being considered of which would boost up status updates with automatic postings. I also wanted to include little ideas in the status updates 'panel' for suggestions for what you may want to post about. Forum Posts, Announcements, a Twitter feed could be added - will keep in mind. Might also be worth considering what we could have as achievements. I'm hoping to pull an artist on this idea so we can introduce badges or something to recognise things.

Search:
Right now you can only search for players and guilds. If you want to know if there has been a bug report made about a certain subject, if you want to add something to that suggestion a while back, or if you changed your mind and do want to make an offer on that advert; you're fresh out of luck. If the Playerdex were to adapt a more Forum-style way of thinking, all of this would be just as easy as searching for a Forum topic.

Its been considered for bug catcher and suggestion box. I just haven't considered implementing it.

PokéMart:
Let me start of that the whole adverts thing is just a underwhelming/non-functional copy of what selling on the Forum made succesful. With that being said, I think it only makes sense to replace it with the real thing. It's much easier make and respond to those "old-school" threads than trying to close a deal without being able to properly communicate with one another. Even Playerdex PMs could be a thing if you don't want to state your offer publicly.

If i'm understanding correctly - you want some means of communication involved in the Mart? Can be considered.

Guild Central:
A good communication within guilds is hard to establish. There have been success stories in both present and past about guilds with Xat chats, websites, forums of their own, Facebook pages, and Discord servers (PWO having a Discord server of their own really helps), but even though you might have thought everything through, but having people (frequently) visit places that themselves don't have ties to PWO can be quite difficult without little help. Having a two-way communication system, like a guild sub-forum, right there on your guild's page, can mean a world of difference.

Guild Forums is on the task list though i've been holding it off as I didn't want to implement it if we switched forum provider but we may just adopt using the same code for CW/BC/SB for guild forums.

Notifications:
Probably an unused feature on the Forum, but you can get notifications for new posts in threads. It doesn't matter if you made the chat yourself, you made a post in it, or you simply like the thread in question; with a few clicks you can get updates on pretty much anything on the Forum. I'm adamant however that the Playerdex only provides notifications for bids on the PokéMart and when a Pokemon of yours is being sold. The Playerdex has a lot to benefit if you'd get notifications from other things as well: Bug reports would be solved so much quicker if there was an easy way of telling that the status had been updated. the same obviously goes for Community Watch reports and Suggestions as well. 

I have been asking internally in the past what we would like notifications for. I'll have another thought over where else we can take advantage of notifications in the future.

Of course, these "improvements" don't warrant the Forum being adopted by the Playerdex, and I would more than happy if just one of these suggestions made the Playerdex a bit more convenient.

As you put across and I have before. We have spread ourselves too thinly and dropping/pausing the forums have been considered before. The other thought i've had before is to allow you to view BC/SB from both Playerdex and Forums. It'll also be more convenient for users if both adopted the same logged in status too.

Given some food for thought. The next Playerdex update will be released before end of August. Its now feature locked and is being tested. It includes an updated skill editor, updated Pokedex including various fixes, updated layout/design and various changes for the benefit of staff. I'm hoping from this - that we can start adopting smaller changes that are based around suggestions.

 

[CheckeredZebra]

Frankly communications does need to be merged in a meaningful and polished way even if staff aren't 100% on board with any particular suggestion on -how- to do that. It has beyond splintered a community of only a handful of people.

Forums worked in the past because places like discord didn't exist, leaving only IRC and forums with XAT being the underground/niche-specific community hangouts. But now we have playerdex, forums, discord, and guild discord servers.

I'm really happy PWO did swap to discord and have no regrets over it. I think it helped keep a chunk of the community within each of eachother at most times. Now we just need to do that with a merged forum/playerdex area as you stated + ingame updates for critical content and things will be more gucci.

 

[Isguros]

Player Central:
Unlike originally intended (perhaps), the only thing you'll see after having logged in to the Playerdex (aside from the top 20 players in certain catagories (Stalker Update 4 thread incoming)) are things that have been placed on the Mart. Although that perfectly mirrors the interests of the Playerdex demographic, a little bit of variety will never go unappreciated. Imagine a place where you can see new forum posts, the latest announcements, newest tweets (how else are we going to keep being up to date on the latest maintenence and Jinji's projects on Sanitarium.FM) and possibly other things I haven't even started to think about. That would be a lot more of a "home" page than this advertising page is.

At one point - an achievement section was being considered of which would boost up status updates with automatic postings.  I also wanted to include little ideas in the status updates 'panel' for suggestions for what you may want to post about.  Forum Posts, Announcements, a Twitter feed could be added - will keep in mind.  Might also be worth considering what we could have as achievements.  I'm hoping to pull an artist on this idea so we can introduce badges or something to recognise things.

Don't get me wrong, I do digg achievements, but I'm a bit wary of having them (automatically) posted for all to see. In stead of which Pokemon are/were for sale, the feed would get flooded by beginning trainers getting achievement after achievement for collecting badges.

PokéMart:
Let me start of that the whole adverts thing is just a underwhelming/non-functional copy of what selling on the Forum made succesful. With that being said, I think it only makes sense to replace it with the real thing. It's much easier make and respond to those "old-school" threads than trying to close a deal without being able to properly communicate with one another. Even Playerdex PMs could be a thing if you don't want to state your offer publicly.

If i'm understanding correctly - you want some means of communication involved in the Mart?  Can be considered.

As I'm writing this there are 11 pages of adverts. They can't be sorted, most of them are indistinguishable from each other, you don't know when they're posted, if the player is still active or not, if the Pokemon has been traded already, and sometimes it will tell you the Pokemon is no longer active (http://prntscr.com/ko93m7). Adepting to something similar as what we had/have on the forums was my way of solving at least some of these issues I had with the Advert feature as well as giving the seller a way to truly advertise their Pokemon the way they want.

Given some food for thought.  The next Playerdex update will be released before end of August.  Its now feature locked and is being tested.  It includes an updated skill editor, updated Pokedex including various fixes, updated layout/design and various changes for the benefit of staff.  I'm hoping from this - that we can start adopting smaller changes that are based around suggestions.

Can't wait to see what y'all have in store for us.