Forum update

[Wulfgaarr]

Well I will answer the obvious question since Tomium seems to be avoiding it...

I learned that the new version of vbulletin breaks all previous themes, and its impossible to export/import old themes.

They would have to manually redesign the old theme from scratch and they obviously won't do that.

So its pointless to beg them to go back.

I am also rather inclined to not bother with this forum anymore, just because this random ugly theme they generated took all of 5 minutes.

It really shows how little this company cares about anything they do for their customers, they could have at least offline tested a better theme and made sure functionality was done before releasing.

So thats that.

If this was the case they surely had time in advance to build up a new forum structure, instead of this amateurish mock up they came up with. Seriously, this is a testament of how poorly manned this company is. Having a functionig attractive and easy to navigate forum speaks for presentation and professionalism, if nothing else. Regardless of theme, colour pallet choices and basic design options are not hard to accomplish. But why spend any resources on some forgotten communication tool that serves about 163 paying customers that are a pain in the ass for publically speaking out stuff they have no business meddling with...

[Fearthis]

It is what it is. Just remember to keep your expectations low. I am disappointed with Joel and the funcom team on this. I understand a need to update your software but they really halfAssed it. Quickly done, very poor quality.

[twinklez3]

the 1990's called, they want their forum back. Where is the animated .gifs? Are we hosted on geocities?

[Slith]

Funcom managed to do the impossible: drive me away from obsessive ageofconan forum browsing and that was pretty much my most used subscriber feature.

What you have going here design wise is visual clutter with a side dish of eye straining colors. Previous design was not only good because of nostalgia factor: it was actually very well put together, good enough that I was comparing it to other MMO forums thinking "well, its not as good as aoc forums".

But new forum has a great new feature: I can finally see what ze germans are posting! You know you gotta watch ze germans!

[Texan615]

Tbh, I really don't get all the bitching and moaning about the new forums, there's really nothing wrong with them, just a few tweaks here and there.

I guess most people on these forums just want to complain about any damn thing.

[P00rDevil]

Tbh, I really don't get all the bitching and moaning about the new forums, there's really nothing wrong with them, just a few tweaks here and there.

I guess most people on these forums just want to complain about any damn thing.

I agree this new design is fine. I don't get all the blown out responses. It is just a message board, and it has appealing colors and layout. No problem with it here.

[Khaletohep]

But new forum has a great new feature: I can finally see what ze germans are posting! You know you gotta watch ze germans!

Oh nein! A evil schpy iz watchink us!

Oh, yeah, and about the forum: Looks weirdly 90ies or early 00s - I can remember having a forum like that back in the days. Nostalgia and a love for simplicity make me like it in a way, but the lack of announcement, lack of an apparent reason and customer contact in that matter is... well, Funcom again. "Don't disagree with me, or there will be harmony!"

If not implemented already: Enable picture posting!

Or if possible currently: omg, quickly disable it in some forum sections just to mess with people.

[Xanzyx]

You read it. You post to it. That pretty much covers everything.

[cins]

rage

more rage

It's distressing that I find myself agreeing with the rage on display here. To the point I momentarily considered leaving AoC for good over this particular bit of stupid, which is ridiculous considering what other bullshit I've endured over the years. While this little bit of stupidity is par for the course for FC, all of these little pieces of bullshit has been piling on us constantly. So anyone who's been around here for some years gets wearied down and starts to get disproportionately angry at every new little fuckup. The giant mass of seething rage I feel at this shitty forum change is the sum of all the crap I've had over the years, not just the tiny speck at the top caused by the change itself. And whatever new little fuckup you'll inevitably perform next will infurate me even more, no matter how insignificant it'll actually be. You've probably lost a number of devoted customers over the years for stupidly insignificant crap like this. The fact that I bothered to write all this is probably proof that I'm approaching my break point and will quit for good after a few more fuckups you try to laugh off as unimportant.

Moral of the story: Get your shit together Funcom. Your game is already aging and MMO industry as a whole is in decline, you can't afford to keep losing players in trickles due to small incompetencies like this.

[kinlock]

Walls of text is all I see. I've never layed out a forum design before so I don't know what works best, but I do know this version is icky. Any shade of brown is depressing to begin with, and I see lots of brown shade. The windows seem to have sharp corners and I feel "boxed" in. I see brown boxes of of text. So maybe spice the font, make a bit larger, a bit more space or gaps between messages, and ditch the brown. I REALLY like the old look best of all forums I have ever used.