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The New Forums are here!


JackieKo

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First off, good job! I was pessimistic that the transition would result in lots of broken links on my blog where I linked to specific forum threads, but everything appears to still be working.

Just a question from me: Will old posts that were imported into the new software eventually be searchable? When you click on the post count under anyone's name, it only shows posts they made since the transition, and posts from before then currently also don't show up in forum search results.

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4 hours ago, ronin_chi_lao said:

It looks that way. I just logged out and looked around.

No others were showing including mine.

Well, that's inconvenient. Hopefully, they'll change that. I'm not logging in just for siggies if I'm only reading the forums, rather than talking. XD;

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1 hour ago, Tiranea said:

First off, good job! I was pessimistic that the transition would result in lots of broken links on my blog where I linked to specific forum threads, but everything appears to still be working.

Just a question from me: Will old posts that were imported into the new software eventually be searchable? When you click on the post count under anyone's name, it only shows posts they made since the transition, and posts from before then currently also don't show up in forum search results.

It may be a while for the search bar to propagate results (or get fixed) but I tried to click your post count and then clicked "Topics" on the left and found results of your stuff going back to like 2012. It was defaulting to all activity maybe because it's what they would call a starting point for the new forum. At least some can be found. Maybe over a little more time more will show.

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Beyond the initial culture shock, so far so good.

Though it lacks some of the uniqueness attributed to older game ui design, it definitely seems smoother and less clunky while retaining a similar feel.

A couple issues from a UX perspective are with navigation context.

The top navigation bar (Game - News - Store - Forums - Support) which could do with offering better indication that you are hovering over a non active item. I.E hovering over Game should partially fill in the little circle underneath it and dim the text colour as well as the current cursor change.

Same goes for the headers for each subforum. Hovering over the sub-sub-forum bits causes them to glow blue, whereas hovering the actual headers (New Player Help, General Discussion, Combat Styles etc) only shows a cursor change.

Having additional context as to what is currently being hovered is more important specifically for these two (amongst others like hovering player names) because they are some of the key ways to navigate to larger blocks of content and will help the site achieve it's goal of modernisation.

Just a couple small things that I haven't seen mentioned yet and I don't know if there are changes planned for these already in Phase 2!

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I can't find the Quinn thread (via the "search the forums" option)  Is that because the old forums are still updating?  I can still access the Quinn thread via the links in my signature though, so it's not lost.

Edit: Signature is working - yay!

Visually - is there a way to increase the entire forum font size or can that only be done through my personal PC settings?  That's the only other issue I have - the font is too small for me.

Edited by Sarova
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29 minutes ago, codydmaan said:

Don't particularly like the new forums. 

i think  i will like them....eventually  :csw_jabbapet:

gotta  give things a few weeks  imo  for BioWare team to  iron out all the hitches & glitches

Then  also gotta give  our collective human-eye  time to acclimate (aesthetically) and personlize.  Which reminds me:  i better go fix my 'sig'  lol....

p.s.  @JackieKo & BioWare forum team: Any chance we can please get the STAR WARS  emoji's  to be at the TOP of the  'Emoji'  toolbar clicky listing?  (so we don't have to scroll  down all the way to the bottom  past 100's of other regular ones, since  i personally believe  STAR WARS themed  emoji's  should be  top  priority on this  game  site)

p.p.s.  i also think  it's sorta  weird  for it to say  "Members"  ( PLURAL ) under our forum handle pics .  Shouldn't  it just say  'Member'  (singular)  ?   Or, in my case: 'Founder' ?   :sy_title:

Edited by Nee-Elder
*Edited for words and another p.s.
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30 minutes ago, codydmaan said:

Don't particularly like the new forums. 

That's fair enough @codydmaan 

Personally I think that the attention that they've given to the forums is an excellent opportunity and I believe by the end of phase 2 we will have a forum to be proud of. Out of interest, what is it that you don't like? It you could give @JackieKoor the Bioware team more information they might be able to suit the forums to your needs. :jawa_angel:

Edited by RuneJS
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While I haven't had ample time yet to check the new forums for functionality, my first impression is... disappointment. Honestly, the new forums are just like all the other graphical "improvements" the game itself had to its UI over the last couple of years: soulless. The previous forums had more character and personality from its art direction, there was a certain regalness to the design. This one on the other hand looks barebones as hell. The individual categories don't even have unique icons anymore. This looks like a board from the early 2000s in terms of design.

EDIT: Also, I am not a fan the entire structure being vertical. I preferred to have the different sub-boards split in rows of 2.

Edited by BenKatarn
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Okay so I see we've disabled video previews in signatures now. That's great, but my link originally was text that linked to the video and not just a pasted link so now you broke it. 

Thanks. 

I'd fix it myself, but apparently it would be too many lines now even though it wasn't before so ????? 

Edit: Removed line breaks but had to up text size to compensate so it wasn't all squished. This "fix" doesn't give me confidence that my guide will be fixed correctly though. 

Edit 2: Please for the love of god make hyperlinks some other color that's visually distinct. White and grey are very close and that's not great design.  For consistency it ought to be the same color as the breadcrumbs. 

Edited by DakhathKilrathi
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4 hours ago, clericz said:

Holy cow I can actually use the forums on my phone now!

Yes, I'm finding it much more usable on mobile. Thanks to the team for all your work on this!

Just one question--is there some way I'm not seeing to increase the text size of posts in a mobile browser (Safari)? The headers, user names, etc. are all OK for me, but the text size of the individual posts is pretty small.

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5 minutes ago, chaharbagh said:

Are there forum achievements now?

There's a reputation system and a counter for likes given and likes received. As far as I can tell, getting likes boosts your reputation. 

If there is a trigger or a threshold for getting your reputation up, I would personally prefer they kept it private to prevent reputation farming. 

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18 minutes ago, RuneJS said:

There's a reputation system and a counter for likes given and likes received. As far as I can tell, getting likes boosts your reputation. 

If there is a trigger or a threshold for getting your reputation up, I would personally prefer they kept it private to prevent reputation farming. 

They should keep any trigger or threshold private.

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Over all, it's ok. My major critique is the reputation system will absolutely be abused somehow.

I don't always want people to know i'm online so if there was a privacy toggle for activity that'd be cool.

The quote + feature is too pronounced and the 'reply' feature is too subdued, maybe highlight it with a little yellow perhaps?

 

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\o/

Woohoo!

Forums that work properly on mobile devices. Still rough around the edges, but I like it. Miss the old classic style and this weird orange color is not exactly screaming SWTOR to me, but I like having new features to play around with.

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21 minutes ago, JediAAK said:

\o/

Woohoo!

Forums that work properly on mobile devices. Still rough around the edges, but I like it. Miss the old classic style and this weird orange color is not exactly screaming SWTOR to me, but I like having new features to play around with.

My thoughts are with you on this. I like the colour scheme, it looks good and it reminds me of Jaffa Cakes but it is weird to see the visual differentiation between the main website, the loading screens and the forums. 

I would heavily suggest that once the forums are modernised, that they move on and harmonise the colour scheme and design of the main website. The Expansion splash screen for Legacy of the Sith and Onslaught are good examples. 

The reductionist design will always be subjective however advancing into a mobile age, this is still probably the right move. 

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