Forum Updates

  • khaleesibot
    Master
    Founder

    Ahoy there Swabbies and Legends alike!

    As some of you can tell, as our Forum community has grown, we're currently undergoing some renovations both visually and under the hood! These updates focus on giving our community greater control over their Forum experience. While we look at the data and make decisions based on what we think works best, we know that your user experience is also really important and should sit at the heart of all our changes to the Forum. This is why we're going to be monitoring your feedback and usage data in the coming weeks, making changes and improvements where needed.

    New to the Forum:

    • User Blocking - It is now possible to block visibility on another player's comments and stop players interacting with you over private chat. You can do this, by going to a player's profile
      This was a feature heavily requested and it enables our community to better remove themselves from situations where they are likely to get heated and argue.
    • Preview Posts - Now posts have a preview which allows you to make the decision to interact with the post or not, before you open it. There are a few bugs and feedback points that have been raised - inability to click on titles for shorter posts on mobile, and that the preview section is causing extra scrolling. We're aware, and we're listening.
    • Forum Support Category - The initial intention of this category was to get Forum and Website Feedback, and share the most common Support information. However, as @DHG-IXxRMACxXI mentioned, it was misunderstood to be a support category with players regularly posting support tickets as threads. As a result, we disabled this category, till we can find a better way to surface the useful information there.

    As always, we welcome critical feedback which enable us to make the best possible decisions. We will be monitoring usage and trying to strike the right balance in the future!

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  • Shuoink
    Master
    Insider

    Thanks for the update! Would love to be able to turn off the post preview...

  • Sshteeve
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @khaleesibot cheers for raising all of this, I know it has been discussed extensively on Discord and elsewhere already.
    I would point out though that when you raise a support ticket for the forum, it automatically assumes you are raising a ticket against another forum user, rather than a problem with the forum itself.

    Is this intentional? Or is there another drop-down that should be used for the forum?

    Ta!

  • Sir Lotus
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain

    thx for the update, as almost exclusively mobile user, I would love to have the ability to hide post previews. (in some other way than being forced to use adblock) It's kinda almost unusable for me now.

    And I'm sure you're all aware of how chat works. (or rather doesn't work)

  • FishSt1ck
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain
    Founder

    @shuoink said in Forum Updates:

    Thanks for the update! Would love to be able to turn off the post preview...

    Add this line to your ad blocker filters: seaofthieves.com##.teaser-container
    Courtesy of Mr. @Musicmee

  • Sshteeve
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @sir-lotus said in Forum Updates:

    And I'm sure you're all aware of how chat works. (or rather doesn't work)

    Helps when some muppet (myself) doesn't add 27 people into one group of course...

  • Tre Oni
    Marauder
    Insider
    Founder

    New layout is kind of broken for mobile..

    Tapping titles barely every properly opens up the topic anymore

    When replying in a topic if the topic extends the text box lower a few screens it breaks where you're supposed to tap to do anything, meaning before I can even put most posts out I have to tap basically inches underneath the "reply" button, or any button or piece of text I want highlighted while I'm typing for that matter, since pressing directly on the button (or anywhere) registers my tap as much higher back up, as if that's there it thought the button was before the screen expanded..

    On a topic where the "read more" pull down shows up and then the "read topic" button, pressing read topic will 100% of the time also place you at the very last post, which is kind of annoying.

  • Ve111a
    Ship Mate

    Thanks for the info, Lots of good changes here!

  • Musicmee
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Moderator
    Founder
    Deckhand

    @khaleesibot Thanks for the update... The User Blocking feature is the one I have been on my want list for a while now.

    Thanks for delivering this update... In agreeance with everyone else though, the read more thing could do with a disable option as its a bit of an annoyance at times.

  • xCALYPT0x
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @khaleesibot said in Forum Updates:

    • Preview Posts - Now posts have a preview which allows you to make the decision to interact with the post or not, before you open it. There are a few bugs and feedback points that have been raised - inability to click on titles for shorter posts on mobile, and that the preview section is causing extra scrolling. We're aware, and we're listening.

    Ohhhhh... I thought my phone was just being stupid lolol.

    @khaleesibot Any chance we can get signatures?

  • NunoAzuldimeter
    Champion
    Insider
    Boatswain
    Founder

    The mobile version seems to be a lot bugged tho... Notifications doesn't pop-up, missing categories in the menu, takes too much to load the page.

  • NunoAzuldimeter
    Champion
    Insider
    Boatswain
    Founder

    And now I have my badges removed

  • Capta1n Cr0ss
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    Ability to block users? Hell yeah! That'll make this place a heck of a lot more friendly. Seriously.. Good stuff!

  • Puck269
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    @tre-oni I've had all of these issues also while reading in Safari, which is the only thing that I use.

    I've also had issues with the preview.. which i'm on the fence with. I like it, but at the same time it takes up too much screen.

  • IceMan 0007
    Insider
    Founder

    i agree with @Tre-Oni its messed up for mobile devices...

  • LIFEWCOKE
    Commander
    Boatswain
    Founder

    You can mark my vote for disliking the new preview format. I prefer the previous simpler version. One thing that might improve it for me is if all of the previews were automatically collapsed so they are not visible initially and then allow me to expand it if I so choose to. Also, the ability to re-collapse the thread once I have viewed the preview would be extremely useful as well.

  • Darrkbeard
    Master
    Insider

    Yeah perhaps the biggest issue with the preview format is that it just takes up way too much real estate. Either the font should be scaled down, the amount of preview text reduced, both, and/or have an option to disable post preview natively.

    The preview isn't very helpful if it's a topic I'm frequently visiting. I'm already well aware of the OP content. If there was a way to only show post preview on new/unread topics, that might be a path worth exploring as well.

    Cheers.

  • SappyElephante
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    @khaleesibot
    I can no longer use the forums on my phone after the updates. I have the following issues:

    • I can't open/view forum posts because sometimes the "Read More" button doesn't show up
    • I can't up-vote any posts if I am able to view a post
    • I can't reply to any posts
    • I can't DM anyone

    I haven't tried to make a topic yet on my phone, but I could try if you'd like me to.

    Thankfully everything is working on the computer.
    Hope my feedback helps.

  • Captain Nicklas
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    Wel... it takes some getting used too.

  • Darrkbeard
    Master
    Insider

    To those on mobile, I have a question:

    Are you in portrait or landscape mode when encountering these issues?

    I have noticed the issues only in portrait mode. When I rotate to landscape mode, things seem to work a lot better. Hoping this feedback is useful to the devs.

  • Hudson RL
    Lord
    Insider
    Founder

    It’s not very user friendly for mobile/tablets imo. Preview posts take up too much screen space. Upon hitting read more the thread opens at the newest comment even if I’ve never opened the thread before.

    Notifications are also delayed for me. Often they don’t appear at all.

  • FishSt1ck
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain
    Founder

    As an addition to my previous post, the tip @Musicmee gave in another topic also works on mobile.

    So to disable the preview of forum posts on desktop or mobile, you need to have an ad blocker installed and add this line to your ad blocker filters: seaofthieves.com##.teaser-container. It perfectly hides the preview section and makes the forums work like before again.

    On desktop I use this on Chrome in combination with Ublock Origin
    On mobile (Android) I use this with Firefox in combination with Ublock Origin

  • WilliamHerschel
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @lifewcoke said in Forum Updates:

    You can mark my vote for disliking the new preview format. I prefer the previous simpler version. One thing that might improve it for me is if all of the previews were automatically collapsed so they are not visible initially and then allow me to expand it if I so choose to. Also, the ability to re-collapse the thread once I have viewed the preview would be extremely useful as well.

    Agreed. It treats threads like articles instead of user created threads. For example, do I really need to see a "preview" of like the upper third of an embedded youtube video? No, I don't, and it looks quite ugly to boot. As far as thread content goes, the subject/thread title line should be adequate enough to determine if a given thread peaks a user's interest.

    The stated reason for why they added this "preview" button, makes absolutely no sense. Literally a total of 0 gaming forums or social media sites (including Reddit) that I've used over the years have included a thread preview.

    Likewise, the user blocking system seems totally unnessary. We should all be mature enough on this site to interact with people that we disagree with. I can understand blocking users from interacting over private chat, but discussions should not be hidden on the general sub forums. It's also pretty obvious that blocking never works as intended. For instance, I can almost guarantee that a good number of bigots would have blocked folks who were explaining why it was a great and inclusive decision to include the pride flag in game. This block just allows certain users to cover there ears and say "I'm not listening, I'm not listening, I'm not listening" instead of engaging with people that they might disagree with.

    Again, over the year's I've visited a lot of video game websites and blocking is very rarely an enabled feature. In general, it is the responsibility of the moderation staff to make sure that users are being respectful in accordance with forum rules.

    Quite honestly these changes are ridiculous, and so is the fact that @khaleesibot is just now posting about this change almost 24 hours after users had to discover the changes for themselves and piece together what was going on. A handful of folks thought that this was some sort of bug. I'm looking forward to people blocking each other because users on the forums argue and guess about what's going on both on the forums and in the game all because Rare cannot sort out their post-launch communication issues.

    @khaleesibot has stated repeatedly that "they are listening", but actions speak louder than words. It's pretty obvious that nobody wants these changes besides the usual suspects who defend every action that Rare makes, and folks who rarely use the forum.

  • dlCHIEF58
    Legend
    Insider

    My thoughts on the change to these horrible new forums can be summed up in 3 words:

    alt text

  • DrunkPunk138
    Master
    Founder

    @khaleesibot said in Forum Updates:

    Ahoy there Swabbies and Legends alike!

    As some of you can tell, as our Forum community has grown, we're currently undergoing some renovations both visually and under the hood! These updates focus on giving our community greater control over their Forum experience. While we look at the data and make decisions based on what we think works best, we know that your user experience is also really important and should sit at the heart of all our changes to the Forum. This is why we're going to be monitoring your feedback and usage data in the coming weeks, making changes and improvements where needed.

    New to the Forum:

    • User Blocking - It is now possible to block visibility on another player's comments and stop players interacting with you over private chat. You can do this, by going to a player's profile
      This was a feature heavily requested and it enables our community to better remove themselves from situations where they are likely to get heated and argue.
    • Preview Posts - Now posts have a preview which allows you to make the decision to interact with the post or not, before you open it. There are a few bugs and feedback points that have been raised - inability to click on titles for shorter posts on mobile, and that the preview section is causing extra scrolling. We're aware, and we're listening.
    • Forum Support Category - The initial intention of this category was to get Forum and Website Feedback, and share the most common Support information. However, as @DHG-IXxRMACxXI mentioned, it was misunderstood to be a support category with players regularly posting support tickets as threads. As a result, we disabled this category, till we can find a better way to surface the useful information there.

    As always, we welcome critical feedback which enable us to make the best possible decisions. We will be monitoring usage and trying to strike the right balance in the future!

    Thanks for the thread. My feedback is pretty simple, give us an option for the preview mode. It's utterly cumbersome and bloats the UI unnecessarily. Most of the threads I read, so the preview becomes worthless quite quick, however being able to quickly and efficiently scan the titles for topics I am more interested in or have not yet seen creates a simpler forum browsing experience. I'm less likely to come to a forum where browsing threads feels like a chore, and that's what the new forum layout does.

  • DHG IXxRMACxXI
    Marauder
    Founder
    Deckhand

    @xcalypt0x Signatures is something that’s been talked about a few times, however with the format of the forums it was determined that they would add a lot of unnecessary clutter to the forums and draw out the length of most posts. For this reason it was decided not to go with signatures.

    @NunoAzuldimeter Some badges were reset don’t worry they should all be back now! :)

  • NunoAzuldimeter
    Champion
    Insider
    Boatswain
    Founder

    @dhg-ixxrmacxxi ohh thanks for the update, but it fixed itself after I said.

    However it still a bit heavy to mobile version.. takes too long to load threads and notifications

  • Darrkbeard
    Master
    Insider

    @dhg-ixxrmacxxi said in Forum Updates:

    @xcalypt0x Signatures is something that’s been talked about a few times, however with the format of the forums it was determined that they would add a lot of unnecessary clutter to the forums and draw out the length of most posts. For this reason it was decided not to go with signatures.

    Emphasis mine. I'm curious why this same line of thought wasn't applied to post previews as they add a lot of unnecessary clutter to the forums and draw out the length of the topic pages.

  • DHG IXxRMACxXI
    Marauder
    Founder
    Deckhand

    @kyros-in-exile They draw out the length to serve a purpose in which @Pikaaroon brought up a good point in which it allows you to read, at least part, of a thread without having to click on it and then read it to determine if you want to contribute to the discussion. This is handy when you see a topic that has a misleading title it's easier to just read the preview and scroll past instead of clicking the thread then going back and having to scroll back down to where you were. Signatures don't serve a purpose other than 'stamp' a personal mark on every post, which is already done by your gamertag being on every post you write.

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    @dhg-ixxrmacxxi It becomes a big issue when the same topic gets a new reply and the preview still only shows the first message. Eventually your screen is filled with a lot of previously seen content. It kind of defeats the purpose and is not very helpful if you are browsing within the same category or using the "Unread" feature.

    It might be less of an issue if the "Watching/Not Watching" feature wasn't broken, because then you could at least keep tabs on threads you are active in but as of now, the increased scroll space with useless preview windows on the Unread page make navigating for new content a nightmare.

  • DHG IXxRMACxXI
    Marauder
    Founder
    Deckhand

    @d3adst1ck This is very true and I've experienced this part myself, potentially switching the previews around and having the most recent post be the one that's shown and the original in the top right and a little bigger? Or when you hit "read more" it shows you the latest comment?

  • WilliamHerschel
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @dhg-ixxrmacxxi said in Forum Updates:

    @kyros-in-exile They draw out the length to serve a purpose in which @Pikaaroon brought up a good point in which it allows you to read, at least part, of a thread without having to click on it and then read it to determine if you want to contribute to the discussion.

    What purpose does it serve when there is an embedded youtube video? There was a thread yesterday with the new trailer and the preview contained the top 1/3 of the embedded video.

    Additionally, this is a forum not the AP newswire. People are writing very informally here, and it's pretty silly to assume that the first few sentences or paragraph will contain the gist of what the user is talking about. The vast majority of people are not writing in proper essay style here (or on any other internet forum for that matter).

    I'm glad all the deckhands are in agreement that these forum changes are good though...

  • xCALYPT0x
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @dhg-ixxrmacxxi I will join @mad-jack-ketch in his rebellion! There will be signatures!!!

    I haven't made a picture yet but I will, mark my words!

  • DHG IXxRMACxXI
    Marauder
    Founder
    Deckhand

    @williamherschel I know we're having the same conversation in two places right now haha so I believe I answered all of this in my post in the other thread so we can continue there so it's easier to keep track of.

    https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/67704/what-s-happened-to-the-forums/100 for anyone else curious.

  • a13on
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    @xcalypt0x sagte in Forum Updates:

    @khaleesibot said in Forum Updates:

    • Preview Posts - Now posts have a preview which allows you to make the decision to interact with the post or not, before you open it. There are a few bugs and feedback points that have been raised - inability to click on titles for shorter posts on mobile, and that the preview section is causing extra scrolling. We're aware, and we're listening.

    Ohhhhh... I thought my phone was just being stupid lolol.

    @khaleesibot Any chance we can get signatures?

    Just what we need, even more bloat, even more scrolling. Signatures are the biggest annoyance ever.

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