The forums is outdated and dying - We should fix it!!

[Power Ranger]

The title is a bit misleading as the forums is only growing in members and active members from what I've seen.

The chat restrictions

Your cooldown is at 45 seconds! I still have mine at a minute! Anyway it would be nice to have the cooldown shortened but do you want someone like how @POWER_RANGER was being able to message without cooldown? I had about 50 messages a day with that account at my peak activity and once got to 100 messages in a day. The forums might not be spammed by soam bots without the cooldown but message farmers and people who want helper would surely take their place.

Lack of activity

The forums is already promoted every time you change lobbies and games. Most people just aren't forums people and the majority of people on Cubecraft don't even necessarily want to meet new people and post new suggestions; they just want to play Cubecraft. I will say that a better message than just "Website: cubecraft.net" should exist since that doesn't tell you much and makes it seem only like a support site. Something like "Post your feedback here: " after a game is finished would be a bit nicer I suppose.

New profile features

These things have been suggested a million time and really should be added by now. I like the idea of it showing what you are playing and if you are online

User forums

I feel like these would be an organization nightmare. :p You can always use your profile page, about me, and everything else sections to post the type of stuff you would post in your own little sub forum. There's always your threads list which you can view as well.

Since you mostly want user forums for the necroposting rule I would much rather just have the necroposting rule to be changed to not posting on irrelevant threads older than 2 weeks and have bumping be considered a useless post so people can't decide to go back one day and bump all of their suggestions. Things like suggestions that are already accepted, threads about already removed features, and threads that have been thoroughly denied like /report suggestions would fall under this rule. If people still wanted to bump their old thread they could use their profile page.

I'm looking forward to you killing me for disagreeing with some things ;)

 

[Sophie]

Your cooldown is at 45 seconds! I still have mine at a minute! Anyway it would be nice to have the cooldown shortened but do you want someone like how @POWER_RANGER was being able to message without cooldown? I had about 50 messages a day with that account at my peak activity and once got to 100 messages in a day. The forums might not be spammed by soam bots without the cooldown but message farmers and people who want helper would surely take their place.

The rule against spam will still be in place. At the very least, conversation posts shouldn't count towards the cool-down, though having only say a twenty second cool-down shouldn't create too much spam. Getting lots of messages =/= spam. Posting irrelevant trash to inflate your message count = spam.

The title is a bit misleading as the forums is only growing in members and active members from what I've seen.

It's tiny for a server with tens of thousands of players though. There's a far larger audience that the forums would appeal to, that we're clearly missing

The forums is already promoted every time you change lobbies and games. Most people just aren't forums people and the majority of people on Cubecraft don't even necessarily want to meet new people and post new suggestions; they just want to play Cubecraft.

That's fair. Would still be nice to get a few new faces around here though

I feel like these would be an organization nightmare

Nah, I got the whole thing perfectly envisioned, just check out the fancy screenshots ^.^

I'm looking forward to you killing me for disagreeing with some things ;)

I'm outside your house rn. Tell Hades I said hai o/

 

[Lezappen]

The forums used to be a place where you'd go to meet people with similar interests as you, or to propose a super cool suggestion about reintroducing Super Craft Bros, yet I haven't had a single conversation on here in years. In fact, I think the last time I had an actual conversation with somebody was in early 2015, and that was because my friend couldn't access Skype when she was in school. There are a number of pet peeves that I have with the forums, many I would wager that you can relate to, and given how much time I waste on this website I'd like to propose ways to resolve them.


The chat restrictions
Initially, the chat restriction was increased by 50% to counteract the massive surge of spam bots that once occupied every section of the website. Personally, I don't think it's fair to punish the legitimate user-base for the actions of one or two people that have decided to target the website with advertising bots. However, this isn't even a problem anymore! It makes no sense to keep the chat restriction at forty-five seconds, since now it's only hurting the genuine user-base. I propose reducing it to say, fifteen seconds or so.

Keep in mind that one of the greatest appeals of this website was to be able to meet people that have similar interests to you. We're all here for one reason, after all: we still like Minecraft (it's tragic, I know). We should be able to speak to one another and host conversations, but this currently isn't possible because of the chat restriction system.

Lack of activity
There are so few people that use the forums compared to servers with only a fraction of our player-base. Seeing familiar faces is neat and all, but seeing only those faces isn't; the forums needs variety. I propose promoting the forums in-game via frequent announcements. To draw an even greater crowd of people in, you could even promote it through giveaways and competitions (more on these below).

Competitions
I would love to see more competitions on the forums. They could be related to art, story-writing, video-making, quality screenshots, tutorials, best suggestions, etc. What I think would be fascinating, would be to host a competition whereupon players create suggestion threads in a new area of the forums. The best suggestions are then taken, and are voted for in-game. Whichever suggestion gets the most votes is actually implemented onto the server, with credits going to whoever initially proposed the idea. This way, you're tackling two birds with one stone; you're promoting the forums, and are releasing an update that you know the community wants.

New profile features
We should be able to link our in-game accounts to our forum accounts. Imagine how many possibilities this would open up! First of all, we'd be able to display our ranks on our forum profiles, but better yet, I think we should be able to view somebody's in-game profile via their forums profile. We should even be able to see what other people are playing at the time, or when they were last online in-game!

I have created an example of what a profile might look like via my MLG-Superstar Paint skills, below:
View attachment 136422

As you can see via the screenshot, there are three notable differences:
-You can see what the person is doing on the server (if online): '"Snap" Exotic_Athena is currently: Playing Super Craft Bros [Arcade]' (Bit hard to see in the screenshot, but it's above my profile picture)
-You can see the person's in-game rank: '[Diamond]Snap'
-You can view the person's stats for every game: 'View Cube Record'

You would, of course, be able to hide these details via this menu:
View attachment 136423

If Cubecraft ever receives a new website, these are just a couple of features that I reckon should be considered for it! :)

User forums
I reckon that once we reach a certain message / account age milestone, we should be able to create our own sections of the forums. Anybody can view it, but only you can create threads in your own section. That way, you can create a fantastic and organised list of your greatest threads, that can all be viewed in one place.

How to access the User forums:
View attachment 136425


Inside the User forums:
View attachment 136426
Obviously the list will keep going down at this point as more and more users create their own sections. It'd also be handy to be able to go straight to somebody's user forum via their profile.

I would love to have a place to put all of my suggestions, where I could revive any of them at any time without having to worry about necroposting rules. It would certainly be a unique feature :3


Thnx for reading, pls appreciate the effort that was put into these quality images :)

Oh, also mention whether or not you like these ideas. If you don't, I'll kill you c:

A very "all in one" suggestion... It would be easier for me to give my opinion and more detailed criticism to individual suggestions rather than 1000 suggestions all in one.
A long suggestion with a lot of details is fine.
A long list of little fixes is fine.
A long list of suggestions in one post... pls no.
Reading this, three things stick out :
Competitions : Neat idea, why can't community members organise them on the forums, it isn't interresting because there are no rewards.. I know this as my last "building competition" was pretty much a flop because of a lack of participants, the community isn't that driven if there is no reward... Only admins+ can give rewards, those that are otherwise extremely busy.

Profiles :
I hate the fact players would be able to see where you are from the website, knowing where to find someone is not a good idea.
Online/Offline status is fine, and I like stats.. Again they should be in their own posts.

Having ranks displayed on the forums creates an imbalance when it comes to conversations.. As it is right now, everyone is on a level playing field, with ranks added some players will think their opinion is "worth" more because they have a higher rank ! Stone ranks will suffer a bit of negative prejudice due to that.

Read through the rest of the suggestions, some are good, some are "mehh", please please make multiple suggestions rather than one massive one..
Otherwise make it more readable than a wall of text, make a list of the different fixes then add explanations for each in spoilers.

 

[Sophie]

As it is right now, everyone is on a level playing field, with ranks added some players will think their opinion is "worth" more because they have a higher rank ! Stone ranks will suffer a bit of negative prejudice due to that.

I disagree. After all, statistics are already documented on the forums that differ from user to user, such as messages, likes, or trophy points. Also, we rarely - if ever - see rank hierarchy in-game despite the vast majority of players being Stone ranks.

Otherwise make it more readable than a wall of text, make a list of the different fixes then add explanations for each in spoilers.

I do usually do this, so I'm not sure why this thread is an anomaly. I've updated the thread, so it should be easier to read now. Sorry :x


Edit: I prefer to compact multiple suggestions into one thread if they relate in any way, as to not flood the forums unnecessarily.

 

[Deleted member 169486]

"worth" more because they have a higher rank

How does that not happen In game Though?

 

[Lezappen]

How does that not happen In game Though?

Opinions don't matter in game, and it does happen in game, players seem to think we owe them more because they have a rank.

 

[Deleted member 169486]

Opinions don't matter in game, and it does happen in game, players seem to think we owe them more because they have a rank.

True, however, I don't believe showing someone's rank will affect other peoples opinion. People often have their rank in their signature and I never see it affect decisions.