Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Phobos Sep 08, 2009 15:07:18	content for Star Wars, Magic and any other game in my side bars when I come into the D&D forums?  To be honest, why am I seeing side bars at all?
#2 lokiare Sep 08, 2009 18:05:16	content for Star Wars, Magic and any other game in my side bars when I come into the D&D forums?  To be honest, why am I seeing side bars at all? Its better than seeing them all the time everywhere. If they focused it a little, it might even be useful.
#3 Nifft Sep 08, 2009 20:37:47	Its better than seeing them all the time everywhere. If they focused it a little, it might even be useful. Even if it just showed the whole topic name, and the whole forum in which the topic was posted, it would be actually useful. As it is, even an interesting-looking topic usually leads somewhere useless. "Help with elf..." turns out to end with "... based Deck using Lots of Googawhatsits". Oh well, -- N
#4 Herrozerro Sep 10, 2009 2:46:02	Yeah!  Yar!  Its bad, WotC only wants our money... In a more serious note, I like it, it allows me to see more then my small scope.  I have already seen a few topics that I never would have seen.
#5 lotusblossom Sep 10, 2009 2:54:48	Even if it just showed the whole topic name, and the whole forum in which the topic was posted, it would be actually useful. As it is, even an interesting-looking topic usually leads somewhere useless. "Help with elf..." turns out to end with "... based Deck using Lots of Googawhatsits". I recall the old forums having, not only the whole topic name and the board name, but also a tooltip showing the first paragraph of the original post. Man, I wonder when these new forums are going to have all the functionality of the old forums. That's IF WotC has allocated resources for doing so.
#6 drnick Sep 10, 2009 10:49:20	It appears to me that they have. They have already responded to and resolved several complaints people had with the new boards. It has given me much faith that they are listening and taking everything into consideration.
#7 mudbunny Sep 10, 2009 10:57:06	Man, I wonder when these new forums are going to have all the functionality of the old forums. That's IF WotC has allocated resources for doing so. At what point in the old forums are you talking about? There were quite a few hacks of the old forum software to add in things that people requested.
#8 lokiare Sep 10, 2009 13:03:25	Even if it just showed the whole topic name, and the whole forum in which the topic was posted, it would be actually useful. As it is, even an interesting-looking topic usually leads somewhere useless. "Help with elf..." turns out to end with "... based Deck using Lots of Googawhatsits". I recall the old forums having, not only the whole topic name and the board name, but also a tooltip showing the first paragraph of the original post. Man, I wonder when these new forums are going to have all the functionality of the old forums. That's IF WotC has allocated resources for doing so. I doubt they have allocated resource for doing it. They changed the white background to a light brown color and it took them what almost two weeks. Seriously it should have been as simple as opening a picture and filling it with color and resaving it. Which is like 5 minutes worth of work. Then they want back and put it back as white. That tells me they have their 2 programmers working on programming the bugs out of the CB and MB and possibly the compendium. In other words we are out of luck. It appears to me that they have. They have already responded to and resolved several complaints people had with the new boards. It has given me much faith that they are listening and taking everything into consideration. The only thing that I saw them do with any speed was to remove the sidebar from posts. I have seen no other permanent changes to the community site. I have on the other hand seen hundreds of bug reports and feature requests gone unnoticed. Man, I wonder when these new forums are going to have all the functionality of the old forums. That's IF WotC has allocated resources for doing so. At what point in the old forums are you talking about? There were quite a few hacks of the old forum software to add in things that people requested. As an actual programmer I find the word 'hack' to not accurately describe what happened. The functionality of the phpBB forums that were used can easily be looked up as I beleive (don't quote me on it) that phpBB is free. 99% of the functionality was already there to begin with, some of it might have been turned off like the BBCode. The rest was not 'hacked' in. They were programmed in when people requested it. You cannot really call it a hack unless you use some unconventional method to patch or alter the program.
#9 mudbunny Sep 10, 2009 13:17:22	That tells me they have their 2 programmers working on programming the bugs out of the CB and MB and possibly the compendium. In other words we are out of luck. I am quite confident in telling you that the DDI programmers are not the ones resposible for the forums. In fact, chances are very good that in addition to the web-team that WotC no doubt has, that there are people over at OneSite working on this as well. We don't know the terms of the contract that WotC has with OneSite. We don't know if WotC staff are even permitted to work on the community site software at all. In short, we don't have enough info to make a decision on how things are being done. Granted, this being the internet, a lack of information has not (and will not) stop people from making unfounded accusations and statements. As an actual programmer I find the word 'hack' to not accurately describe what happened. The functionality of the phpBB forums that were used can easily be looked up as I beleive (don't quote me on it) that phpBB is free. 99% of the functionality was already there to begin with, some of it might have been turned off like the BBCode. The rest was not 'hacked' in. They were programmed in when people requested it. You cannot really call it a hack unless you use some unconventional method to patch or alter the program. phpBB comes with a base set of features. For everthing else that you need to add, you need to either find a mod for it or create one yourself. The more mods you add, the higher the likelihood that you introduce: instability; conflict between mods; or something completely unknown happening. The old forums had been patched and modded so many times, as a result of user demands, that they had become unstable to the point where they required weekly, and sometimes daily downtime for maintenance.
#10 asmodeuslore Sep 10, 2009 14:16:51	The old forums were based on vBulletin; not PhpBB   /nitpick
#11 mudbunny Sep 10, 2009 14:24:00	The old forums were based on vBulletin; not PhpBB   /nitpick My bad. I think, however, that the principle is the same.
#12 kratch Sep 10, 2009 17:25:11	My bad. I think, however, that the principle is the same. Not really your bad, you weren't the first one to make the assumption (incorrectly) that phpBB was what was used.