DD today? (Korea Edition)

[Airborne2001]

Carrying on the tradition of @Blooddawn1942, I guess I will start the thread now since there wasn't a Dev Diary for August 16th. (I am 46 minutes late as of typing this lol.)

[Trooper117]

Wake me up when something happens...zzzzzzzzzzzz... cheers!

[Avimimus]

Dev Diaries seem to be falling on (the more traditional) Wednesdays.

[Airborne2001]

Are dev blogs going to be biweekly this time around? (Not judging, just curious.)

[LukeFF]

It's more as we have something interesting to share. 

[PhilthySpud]

2 hours ago, LukeFF said:

It's more as we have something interesting to share. 

C’mon @LukeFF: so much to share, so little time… 😁

[LukeFF]

Pretty much. 😄

[YoYo]

Hi finally, give FC IV today

 

However, I generally pay attention to giving news, now in my opinion it's a mess, sometimes there's something on the IL-2 page, sometimes on Korea, sometimes in the FC tab and sometimes only on Facebook. It's very hard to follow. Is it possible to give news like before, always on the Forum, in the announcements tab? 

[LukeFF]

14 hours ago, YoYo said:

Hi finally, give FC IV today

 

However, I generally pay attention to giving news, now in my opinion it's a mess, sometimes there's something on the IL-2 page, sometimes on Korea, sometimes in the FC tab and sometimes only on Facebook. It's very hard to follow. Is it possible to give news like before, always on the Forum, in the announcements tab? 

 

Hmm? We post the same information on all of our social media pages, as always. News about Korea we keep to the Korea part of the forum, so there is no confusion about what title we are referring to. When we have a larger, more site-wide announcement, that will go on the Announcements page.

[YoYo]

12 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Hmm? We post the same information on all of our social media pages, as always. News about Korea we keep to the Korea part of the forum, so there is no confusion about what title we are referring to. When we have a larger, more site-wide announcement, that will go on the Announcements page.

 

Luke, you were a user so you know what it looks like from our side.

 

Currently I have the impression (but it's not just mine, but that of my friends who have BoX) that a lot of information is escaping the sideways. When we look at the statistics of the Forum and the pages, the number of visits is decreasing (I'm sure of it) and unfortunately, in my opinion, it is related to the mess. We have several IPs and the news is in different places. I also have to jump from page to page, sometimes IL-2, sometimes Korea, sometimes I don't know what to check. This causes informational mess and because of that you lose people who regularly visited the Forum. Generally, it is not fully known what is happening now. Please do not refer to Facebook or other social media because it is a different story, not everyone uses, likes or even has them.

 

I think that there should be one thread for all news titles, as it used to be + possibly a repeat with a comment in a separate forum thread under a given IP. It used to be like that, it worked great, everything in one place (for example, check how it is in DCS at ED). Now we have several IPs, news appears in different sections, myself, although I follow everything and I am downright pedantic, I have not noticed the most important information more than once. Is it such a big problem to have one thread with DD (about everything - BoX, Korea, FC, TC, etc.) as it used to be, blocked for comments? I think it would make it easier to communicate important news with the community and build good PR. I understand that now you want to have many sections and it is understandable, but I think there should be a separate news section. Now it all disappears and you see it in the statistics.

[YoYo]

This is example how it worked:

 

 

Why don't we go back to that method? It was the best. After all, that's where the name DD came from.

Another example, some time ago in the Announcements section there were also news blocked, but 1 post 1 news (Jason's Post).

 

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/forum/7-announcements/

 

Please think about this method. Today there is too much mess. You have to dig through the post tabs to find out what the last official event was, Korea, BoX, FC, TC, CofD ... You are losing sales and people because of this. 

 

1 place - all news, that's all we need. 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

10 hours ago, YoYo said:

1 place - all news, that's all we need. 

Not sure I agree with that. I rather have Korea stuff in the Korea forum, and IL2 stuff in the IL2 forum. I certainly do not think that their current system is the reason for the decreasing amount of forum activity.

 

I do agree that it's hard to see if there's any news though. I need to check several places. Perhaps a compromise is to have a "News" thread in the Announcements forum, with links to all DDs from both BoX and Korea. Just short posts in a "Dev Blog X for [BoX/Korea] is now available here: [link]" format. This keeps the discussions in their proper places, but still offers the convenience of a single place for all the news.

 

And regarding social media; I don't use that. Whenever I want updates about a certain game, I either check that game's website or its Steam page, and that's really helped if there's an easy way to check if there's any news.

Edited October 26, 2024 by AEthelraedUnraed

[YoYo]

13 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Not sure I agree with that....

 

Not quite, we have it more than once that there is news on the IL-2 Korea website, and there is nothing on the Forum, sometimes you have to jump here, sometimes there, the current solution is completely pointless and it is visible even from the number of posts. What is the problem with having one DD like before? Discussions - ok, let them be in individual sections, but there should be one thread with different IPs like before.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

1 hour ago, YoYo said:

What is the problem with having one DD like before? Discussions - ok, let them be in individual sections, but there should be one thread with different IPs like before.

Well for starters, they're different games and not everyone who's interested in one is necessarily also interested in the other. Similar to how TC and FC are not as interesting for players of pure BoX, but at least there, all changes do appear in the base game. E.g. new ground vehicles for TC can be used as targets or scenery in BoX missions.

 

Then there's the issue that merging the threads can lead to false expectations among players if they don't read the announcements thoroughly (and judging from these forums, many don't...). E.g. if they talk about Korea's new radio system, if this post is flanked by posts about BoX, it's surely going to lead to some people expecting to see these changes in BoX. Which in its turn is bound to lead to angry users and forum flame wars down the line.

 

Lastly, merging everything can also make things harder to find. Oftentimes I'm looking for some specific piece of information about either Korea or BoX. It saves me time if I only need to scroll through the Dev Diaries of the game I'm looking for.

 

That's why I suggest keeping the current situation but adding a thread in the Announcements forum, with links to DDs of both games. IMO this gives the best of both worlds

1 hour ago, YoYo said:

it is visible even from the number of posts.

At best, it is pure speculation that this is the reason for the downturn in forum activity, and I don't believe it for a second. It won't help, sure, but being one of the causes for it? Come on...

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, YoYo said:

 

Not quite, we have it more than once that there is news on the IL-2 Korea website, and there is nothing on the Forum

 

Like what? The only news I see on the IL-2 Korea website are the DDs, and those have all been posted here.

Edited October 27, 2024 by Aapje

[LukeFF]

6 hours ago, YoYo said:

Not quite, we have it more than once that there is news on the IL-2 Korea website, and there is nothing on the Forum, sometimes you have to jump here, sometimes there, the current solution is completely pointless and it is visible even from the number of posts.

 

What has been posted on the Korea website that's not been posted here? We post the exact same news on all of our social media pages.

[Avimimus]

3 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

What has been posted on the Korea website that's not been posted here? We post the exact same news on all of our social media pages.

 

M 2 cents - I think it would be good to have an announcements subforum and moved the locked dev diary/update threads to it. I know there is a trend to move everything to discord - but there is still an audience which could really benefit from having the dev updates indexed on the forum as well as on the website. 

[MiGCap]

I am with @YoYo.

 

Interested in ALL aspects of the game (IL-2 BoX, FC, TC and Korea), I would prefer ONE announcement section with links to the sections of the forum where the discussions take place. It is easy to overwrite each post with the part of the game structure it belongs to.

 

My five cents. 

[Talisman]

22 hours ago, Avimimus said:

M 2 cents - I think it would be good to have an announcements subforum and moved the locked dev diary/update threads to it. I know there is a trend to move everything to discord - but there is still an audience which could really benefit from having the dev updates indexed on the forum as well as on the website. 

Please, no, not Discord  

Happy landings,

 

Talisman

[AndyJWest]

Discord is an abysmal platform for any sort of structured discussion of topics. 

[YoYo]

On 10/27/2024 at 5:29 PM, LukeFF said:

What has been posted on the Korea website that's not been posted here? We post the exact same news on all of our social media pages.

 

This is exactly the problem I am writing about, there is no information that should reach users in a continuous manner.

 

We have news scattered across the web, we have news scattered across the Forum, we have information about Sales in the announcements section, etc. It's hard to figure out what's important.

 

Why not put them all in the Announcements section and pin the Announcements section to the top?

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/forum/7-announcements/

It used to work on a DD basis, I provided the link earlier and that's how it should be done. and what worked perfectly here. DD = everything together (IL-2, Korea, FC, TC, etc.) in a locked thread.

 

[LukeFF]

58 minutes ago, AndyJWest said:

Discord is an abysmal platform for any sort of structured discussion of topics. 

 

It's quite simple to set up a Discord server with traditional "forum" topics. 

 

Otherwise, Discord servers are really good at dissipating the drama that lingers on traditional forum pages, since the discussion literally just drops off the page, out of sight.

 

5 minutes ago, YoYo said:

This is exactly the problem I am writing about, there is no information that should reach users in a continuous manner.

 

We have news scattered across the web, we have news scattered across the Forum, we have information about Sales in the announcements section, etc. It's hard to figure out what's important.

 

Why not put them all in the Announcements section and pin the Announcements section to the top?

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/forum/7-announcements/

It used to work on a DD basis, I provided the link earlier and that's how it should be done. and what worked perfectly here. DD = everything together (IL-2, Korea, FC, TC, etc.) in a locked thread.

 

Because the Announcements page is for GB announcements, not Korea. Perhaps we will restructure things further in the future with this, but for right now things will remain as they are.

You can also configure notifications for when someone posts a new topic in a given part of the forum, so that way you will be instantly notified of when something is posted.

Or just do the quite easy thing and sign up for our Discord page. 🙂

[YoYo]

On 10/26/2024 at 10:08 PM, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Not sure I agree with that

 

You wanted to see statistics. Here you go - the latest news Korea vs the latest news from the DD thread, general:

 

vs (February 17, 2023)

This doesn't even require a comment. And this is a problem I have already pointed out some time ago. 1CGS is shooting itself in the foot after changing its scattered news policy.

 

My proposal is simple, to resume DD as a locked topic, as it was in 2023 and from the very beginning, so that everything can be tracked continuously and in one place, but if it concerns a specific title - give the possibility of commenting in General Discussion as it is now (repeated news + reopened thread). That's how it used to work, when information was still moderated by @Han @BlackSix Jason etc.

 

 

Edited October 28, 2024 by YoYo

[YoYo]

22 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

You can also configure notifications for when someone posts a new topic in a given part of the forum, so that way you will be instantly notified of when something is posted.

 

It is impossible to set notifications for a new topic only about important news from developer such as news about work progress. You would have to set notifications for all new topics in a given section also created new topic opened by users.

Edited October 28, 2024 by YoYo

[AEthelraedUnraed]

1 hour ago, YoYo said:

You wanted to see statistics. Here you go

Uhm, I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to prove here. If you read my posts, you'll see that I explicitly agree with you that there's less forum activity than before. I've acknowledged this decrease in both of my replies to your posts. Please forgive me if I feel a bit flabbergasted about you spending effort on proving something that I already explicitly 100% agree with?

 

However, what you are proving is that there is less forum activity than before. That's something that I, once again, don't doubt. My point is that you're stating that the cause for this downturn in forum activity is their current way of supplying information. And that's just pure guesswork. There's much more at play, among which the rate of new information in general, IL2 nearing the end of its actively maintained lifetime, several competitors coming with other exciting stuff, and apparently Discord becoming more actively used compared to forums. To say that of all those things, the one thing that causes their shrinking audience is their way of presenting new information - sorry but unless you've got access to in-company marketing figures, you're talking bollocks.

 

Anyhow, if you read my posts you'll find that I actually agree with you that information is currently hard to find. I was wondering how you feel about my proposed compromise?

 

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

Otherwise, Discord servers are really good at dissipating the drama that lingers on traditional forum pages, since the discussion literally just drops off the page, out of sight.

This is actually one of the strengths of traditional forums. Sure, there's a bit of drama, but at least there's a very structured framework for everyone to share their opinion. Dissipating drama may sound good, but in the end it only dissipates rather than solve it.

 

I am very biased here, but I absolutely hate Discord. I avoid it like the pest for everything non-work related.

[LukeFF]

20 hours ago, YoYo said:

It is impossible to set notifications for a new topic only about important news from developer such as news about work progress. You would have to set notifications for all new topics in a given section also created new topic opened by users.

 

Which is why I also suggested Discord - or X, for that matter. Dead simple enough to set either up so you only receive notifications from the sources you care about. 

19 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

This is actually one of the strengths of traditional forums. Sure, there's a bit of drama, but at least there's a very structured framework for everyone to share their opinion. Dissipating drama may sound good, but in the end it only dissipates rather than solve it.

 

Perhaps, but in speaking with people who have moderated / ran both web forums and Discord servers, the latter are far easier to run and maintain, in addition to containing drama that, TBH, isn't usually relevant after a few days. And, like I noted above, it's simple enough as well to set up a server with "forum-style" topics where it's useful. 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

59 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

Which is why I also suggested Discord - or X, for that matter. Dead simple enough to set either up so you only receive notifications from the sources you care about. 

 

Perhaps, but in speaking with people who have moderated / ran both web forums and Discord servers, the latter are far easier to run and maintain, in addition to containing drama that, TBH, isn't usually relevant after a few days. And, like I noted above, it's simple enough as well to set up a server with "forum-style" topics where it's useful. 

With all due respect, but I don't think that when we address a problem with the current setup and come up with some possible solutions, "just go to some different platform" is the answer we're waiting for. There is a number of customers who don't use Discord or X, including yours truly, and have no intention of doing so. Frankly, and I know you don't intend it that way, but after I explicitly mention I don't like Discord, I find it a bit denigrating to be told effectively "well that's your problem; just go to Discord if you don't like it here cause we aren't going to change a thing."

[LukeFF]

Didn't mean to come across that way. 🙂

 

That said, forums are an outdated way of communication these days for software developers. It's far easier to get a Discord server up and running and to maintain, and, personally as someone who "grew up" with forums in the late 90s and early 2000s, I find the Discord experience to be superior in many ways. Yes, forums will probably always be around, but they are going to become less and less important as time goes on. With most of the flight sim developers I follow, there is far more traffic on their Discord server than on their forum, if they even have one. 

[MiGCap]

If You want to communicate to all Your customers, You have to take care of the Discord haters, too.

I have a Discord account but I do not use it very often and I will not start using it more frequently.

All this social channels (Discord, X, Facebook, Insta etc. - and I must admit, I have every one of it due to business, but haven't the time to follow them all for every single game or section of a game) will only reach a part of the customers as not every customer is using the specific channel.

A specific game forum for me is the most solid source to get news about the specific game.