Isguros
Youngster
- Joined
- May 9, 2013
- Messages
- 737
- Points
- 63
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
.. 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.
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.
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
.. 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.
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.