New Board - Props and Slops

[Combat Wombat]

I am not sure what is up with all the whining about private messages and stuff when theres a million different kinds of chat clients that handle the kind of high volume and fast back and forth communication everyone seems to want (aka what forums or forum PM's are not for)

I would recommend a good IRC client or someting like ICQ if you want to send people messages while they are't online. Or shocker here I know use email

I love the new forums,everything about them seems to be an improvement over what we had except maybe the color but I understand reasoning behind that change. Could use some more arcade games though, maybe something I am better at

[Jazzepi]

Originally Posted by Combat Wombat

I am not sure what is up with all the whining about private messages and stuff when theres a million different kinds of chat clients that handle the kind of high volume and fast back and forth communication everyone seems to want (aka what forums or forum PM's are not for)

I would recommend a good IRC client or someting like ICQ if you want to send people messages while they are't online. Or shocker here I know use email

I love the new forums,everything about them seems to be an improvement over what we had except maybe the color but I understand reasoning behind that change. Could use some more arcade games though, maybe something I am better at

You must have never played dominions 3 multiplayer.

People have a need for a single layer of abstraction for communication. It's either e-mail, or the board PMs. Most people are loathe to post their e-mail addresses on public boards for fear that it'll get picked up by spam bots. So if you're an admin, you could go around and send PMs to everyone to collect their e-mail addresses, and then send another round of PMs with all the addresses and who the players are.

It's just much simpler to use the PM system for in game diplomacy. Everyone knows the username of the players in the game without revealing their e-mails to the entire world. You can setup the PMs to e-mail you when you get new ones. The PMs (well they used to before a very small cap was imposed) be a good place to store relevant history for a given game, allowing you to look back on trades, alliances, and agreements you'd setup earlier. You also have all your game e-mails stuck in one place, instead of cluttering up your POP3 client's inbox.

Personally, I think the new forums have more cons than pros, and what pros there are seem highly irrelevant like all the scoring system stuff that just eats up vertical space and clutters the boards. Given the choice, I definitely prefer the old forums.

Jazzepi

[AgentZero]

I must say, I agree with CW. I mean, even MSN has offline message functionality now, and IRC is great for multiplayer games, because everyone involved can have a general discussion, with private messages zipping around in the background. And most IRC clients allow you to log your chats, for those of you concerned with posterity. And given how many services there are out there offering free, anonymous email, arguments about privacy are fallacious at best.

That being said, I rather like the new look. I'm using a 22-inch widescreen monitor, and I actually like the fixed width, because it makes posts much easier to read than on forums that don't use a fixed width. I remember in some graphics design class or another, the teacher telling us that the human eye will only track over a certain number of words or letters before it starts to have trouble maintaining a fix on the line. I definitely notice that on forums that stretch posts out to the full width of a maximized window, but here, everything is nice and readable.

The text in this reply box was a little small but for those of you running firefox, hit CTRL + once or twice and it'll look all nice & big. Not the best solution, but a reasonable stopgap until something better is implemented.

Now, I will admit, my first reaction to the new forum was "What the hell is this crap?! Where's my stuff? I can't find stuff!" But that is how most people react to change, and after fiddling around with it for a while, I've found most of my stuff. Still looking for some of my stuff, but that's how we learn so I don't mind. I think any time anyone has ever come up with a new way of doing something, all back through history, there have been people who didn't like it, who thought the old way was best, and that we should get rid of this strange new thing and bring back the familiar old thing. Fortunately, we've an equally long history of not listening to these protests, as evidenced by the fact that I'm sitting in front of a computer munching on a tasty grilled ham & cheese, instead of sitting in a cave gnawing on a half-cooked skunk. ;-)

[Suicide Junkie]

Originally Posted by AgentZero

...
That being said, I rather like the new look. I'm using a 22-inch widescreen monitor, and I actually like the fixed width, because it makes posts much easier to read than on forums that don't use a fixed width. I remember in some graphics design class or another, the teacher telling us that the human eye will only track over a certain number of words or letters before it starts to have trouble maintaining a fix on the line. I definitely notice that on forums that stretch posts out to the full width of a maximized window, but here, everything is nice and readable.

This is what I don't get.

Why do so many people (such as my parents) insist on maximizing everything on their computer? Just size the window to your own preferences, and you'll get text just as wide as you like it. As a bonus, you'll be able to glance over at the other windows; your IRC client, that download progress bar, whatever. If you leave the edges of all your other windows peeking out, you can switch to them quite easily.

Windows are resizable for a reason

[AgentZero]

Originally Posted by Suicide Junkie

This is what I don't get.

Why do so many people (such as my parents) insist on maximizing everything on their computer?

Ostensibly because I'm one of those dicks with dual monitors, so I can stick IRC, IM, et al on the other monitor and use the whole big one for whatever I happen to be looking at. In all honesty though, Firefox is the only thing I keep maximized, because since there's no universal standard for the width of webpages, some look better wider, others narrower, and rather than resize the window every time I hop to a different page, I just leave it as big as it'll get and hope that web designers make the best use of the space. Most do, some don't, but it works for me.

But that's neither here nor there. I like the new site, even if I'm still learning to use it, and aside from itsy bitsy reply box text, and all the quotation marks in old posts being replaced with funny question mark graphics, I'm quite happy with it.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by AgentZero

I'm one of those dicks with dual monitors

Somehow I doubt that YOUR name is Richard. :P

I humbly request that I be able to say bee itch, if someone can call themselves a dick.

[vfb]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Somehow I doubt that YOUR name is Richard. :P

I humbly request that I be able to say bee itch, if someone can call themselves a dick.

Can we please have the word 'B!tch' back? Otherwise we can't discuss Dominions unit number 401, among other legitimate uses. Case in point:

Don't try this with a 15-hp ***** queen, something unlucky is bound to happen.

[BadCompany]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Somehow I doubt that YOUR name is Richard. :P

I humbly request that I be able to say bee itch, if someone can call themselves a dick.

LOL!