Suggestion for the forum from an old user

[Andredal]

I don't know if you're going to take these to heart, but i've been a forum user since the early 2000's. I like to think i know a little of how a good forum is run or how it looks like. If you take these suggestions to heart is something i would love to see, but i understand if you can't. My first suggestion is to add levels to the forum. Like the old gamespot and IGN use for their users, or at least used to have on their sites. To award users for returning and posting. I know there is a system already there. But a more sophisticated one i think would be better. Perhaps you could also add badges for users to earn and also make them stand out. Like having anniversery badges for when they signed up like 1 year anniversery for example. Another one would be "blogger" for being a contributer for blogging or a "user reviewer" for making a lot of user reviews.
I would also suggest making a forum for consoles and PC for discussion purposes. Adding another forum where users can blog as well would also be a good idea.

[aileron]

Add badges but let people turn them off. If I could I might turn mine off. People don't need to know I'm "senior"because I've got X posts. But maybe someone else wants to show that off. If people were trying to use their creds to silence others that's not cool and I assume a mod would step in.

[ola_norsk]

Oh lighten up, you negative nelly you. "Nice of you to strawman me like that" ..

Your strawman is feeble, and he's crying out loudly

[Andredal]

I too wonder who the mods / admin are. That said, isn't this about the games. Every gamer playing the same game I would imagine has a different experience. Does how long they've been here or how often they post make their view any better or worse than another view? Would not badges tend to skew perceptions? But what do I know?

It's just an addition, something fun to do on the forums. And no, it should not take away the experience from the forum overall. As i said, they're just suggestions

[Aidy]

Agree that a spoiler tag would be incredibly useful.

[LiamC]

I do not particularly care for additional images, If they make people happy fine. I don't think people should be afraid to engage here because someone is a 15th level Firebrand or whatever, but I do know some will think that way if we support the idea that those badges add power or prestige. However the more I think about it the more I realize we should have the join date, post count and a mod/admin badge. If we do get the grief some are expecting being able to show that some shit poster joined yesterday and was dealt with correctly by the mods goes a long way toward supporting our core concept

[Broken Mirror]

I agree with Saskia here.

A badge or level system (based on whatever) doesn't add anything useful to the forums nor would I be inclined to be active more often because of it.

I think it creates just another artificial divide and reason for someone to dismiss someone else post because of his “level” or the number of badges he got. It also seems to punish less active users in this regard.

For me, there are more pressing issues (highly subjective) than some e-peen-enlargement-measures like levels or achievements:

• Get rid of Yahoo, AIM or even ICQ integration in the profiles and add either free form fields or at least try to integrate modern platforms (Steam, PSN, Microsoft, YT, Minds, etc.).
• Integrate more tags in the editor (like spoiler tags to make content visible selectively)
  • I remember the vBulletin editor to be way more feature-rich... what happened in all those years?

[ethansito]

Be honest, What you really want, is to be able brandish your registration date, and "badges" to future users.

flaunting "I've been a member longer than you, n00b!!" .. Correct ? .. "i've been a forum user since the early 2000's"

Why don't you simply man up and outright ask: "Can i haz be moderator?" ..

There's nothing more fun than flexing your made-up titles and badges on other people.
Not that you would know, with your measly post count.

[Saskia]

I respectfully disagree. We don't need any form of forum levels, tiers, badges, or any other rewards for participation.

If you're talking to a person or a group of people in meatspace, do you ask for some kind of reward or tchotchke for your comments? No, so why do we feel the need for it in cyberspace? People usually just want these things as a status symbol, to feel more important.

We're all adults here, can't we just talk about games and have intelligent discussions without resorting to using forum status to push our opinions on others?

I prefer quality over quantity. Judge a post on it's content rather than the post count or join date of the poster.

[Village Idiot]

I too wonder who the mods / admin are. That said, isn't this about the games. Every gamer playing the same game I would imagine has a different experience. Does how long they've been here or how often they post make their view any better or worse than another view? Would not badges tend to skew perceptions? But what do I know?

[Andredal]

I don't think it's a bad idea to try and implement some kind of badge or achievement system into the forum. In terms of modern forums that have such a system and do it nicely, you can look at Beamdog:

https://forums.beamdog.com

They give little achievements that use icons from the Baldur's Gate game depending on how long you've been registered.

That said I think that if you want do distinguish yourself visually your best options on message boards are the tools you have at hand - e.g. avatars and signatures.

that's kind my idea. for the forum at the moment. I do have some ideas for reviews as well but i will do another post for that. But i also think there should be a blog forum and console forums to seperate discussion

[LiamC]

Light the fires and close the gate! the trolls have arrived! Well played trashfire, well played. ; )

[trashfire]

Hey guys, I've been using the internet for a long time. I suggest that we call the Forum a BBS instead. Also, we should all log on to the internet using CompuServe or Prodigy.

[ad_victoriam]

I don't think it's a bad idea to try and implement some kind of badge or achievement system into the forum. In terms of modern forums that have such a system and do it nicely, you can look at Beamdog:

https://forums.beamdog.com

They give little achievements that use icons from the Baldur's Gate game depending on how long you've been registered.

That said I think that if you want do distinguish yourself visually your best options on message boards are the tools you have at hand - e.g. avatars and signatures.

[LiamC]

Thanks Tom, I should have guessed that