These forums need work BADLY

EVE Technology and Research Center Forum Feedback & Requests
1

Decided I would like to post a topic in General Discussion with some game related questions and info.

Turns out I can’t post directly to General Discussion, “New Topic” does appear at the top of the section but is not clickable (just so user friendly hey). Then ok I go to the top click EVE and am back at the full overview for the forums, now I can click on and start a new topic.

Step 1. New Topic (easy enough)
Step 2. Pick a sub category for you topic (what a Fukin pain in the but)
Step 3. Scroll through EVERY category listed to find General Discussion right at the bottom.
AND of course this being a layout designed by CCP Devs - non English sections are listed first, so if you speak English you have to scroll through 6 Russian topics before even getting to anything in English. Then there is 29 topics (many of which are in the same category but with slightly different names), next is a few German topics followed by those in French and finally over 30 positions down you’ll get to General discussion (in English).

My suggestion would be, if you want people to use these new forums (the old forums are still getting more new posts and replies daily) then you need to put a little effort into making them user friendly.

I don’t want to see topics, posts threads in languages other than English, I have muted all non English channels yet in this example not only do they show up, they show up at the TOP of an extensive list.

I would imagine (after years of following the other forums) general discussion would be one of the most used, so why hide it right at the bottom of the drop down?

Why does the drop down show so many different sections for a single category? New Citizens Q&A is A section of the forums, it doesn’t need 5 entries in the drop down. There are 3 entries for CSM section (who cares about redundant shite anyway), make it ONE entry with a second drop down for the poster to find a specific section if that is what they want…

Or even easier still - Let people start topics from the topic they want to post in - How fukin easy would that be.

I know, “user friendly” isn’t a thing Eve Devs consider important but please, these forums are brand new can we try and make them “better” than what we had previously? So far they are far from it.

LOL WOW. “Choose optional tags” - Not one of them was in English. What the fuk is wrong with you Avalon, Do you have a clue on what you are doing or are you making it up as you go…

Adding stuff to TQ that is unfinished and then ignored is one thing (and something most of us just live with) BUT this forum needs to be up to scratch, not just another tossed together half finished project where “close enough is good enough”.

I apologize to anyone reading this for going on so much but the more I look at how this “new” forum works, the worse it looks.

Want to post a topic; Browse to category - Click “New Topic” - Type your little heart out - Click “add tags” - See tags in the language you are typing in (not other languages) - Add tags - Submit. How easy would that be?

NB; I added ALL available tags to show what options are available. A mod can remove them - they aren’t there for any other reason than to show how bad the tag system is…

Always remember K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple Stupid.,.

2 Likes
2

You have been around for long enough to know. its the second thing. its not even a joke.

2 Likes
3

Because EVE Online Forums , the place you were likely attempting to post into is the TOP LEVEL folder. The one you wanted was EVE Online Forums , the actual “general discussion” subforum.

1 Like
4

General Discussion is the category that opens up when you click on General Discussion but you can’t post there, as someone decided General Discussion isn’t just “General Discussion”.

Top level folder indeed, that leads you to General Discussion as a sub category plus 4 unrelated categories under the same heading. Doing it on the cheap, is just cheap and nasty.

I’m sorry but this layout simply sucks. The amount of clicking you need to do to find anything is just painful added to by the lack of a mouse over preview on threads.

2 Likes
5

About the Russian forums, did you also mute each forum inside the Russian forum?

I had the same problem with threads showing up in “new”. This fixed it:

1 Like
6

Seems to me you merely have a very narrow view of what exactly falls under “general discussion.” Not much can be done about that.

1 Like
7

As pointed out by others in the thread already, you can only start topics in sub-categories of General Discussion. Pinging @CCP_Falcon for this feedback on category structure.

Feedback noted, I’ve applied the same order of categories to the drop-down. Setting I had it at was to order the category drop-down by activity.

Two additional notes:

  • When you’re in a category where you’re allowed to post, the create new topic button will be available, and will auto-select the category you’re in within the drop-down.
  • In desktop mode the forums will offer a search bar for the category drop-down

It lists the sub-categories, while displaying the parent category as well.

About tags

  • Tags are optional
  • A topic can have up to 3 tags (was 5 until just now)
  • Some English, French, German, and Russian tags have been created by developers (see list)
  • They are suggested based on popularity. Tags have no concept of language/localization.
  • When you start typing in the tags field it’ll start suggesting similar available tags (if any exist)
  • Some categories may have restrictions regarding what tags are available (ex. Player Features & Ideas & Character Bazaar)
  • Players with the basic badge can tag their posts with available tags
  • Developers and ISD can create new tags

Correction, you added the first 5 suggested.

2 Likes
8

It’s not rocket science to understand how these forums work. It was explained in the Dev Blog here.

Clicking “General Discussion” will give you an index of threads in the following subcategories:

  • General
  • Crime & Punishment
  • Out of Pod Experience
  • My EVE
  • Skill Discussion

Clicking on one of the subcategories below that will give you just that subforum.

You can post in any of the subcategories, but the “General Discussion” header just acts as an index.

Simple :slight_smile:

1 Like
9

But you only need to click once, on the “General” subcategory, if you just want to see threads in that sub forum.

It’s literally ONE click… there can’t possibly be any less number of clicks… not sure where the issue is here.

2 Likes
10

I know this sounds silly but the most confusing thing for me is a way to get back to the base forums https://meta.eveonline.com/. I feel like instead of all categories the word home might be more intuitive. clicking eve online at the top makes me think i am going back to the main eve webpage not the main forum page . I am sure I might get used to it after a while but it feels a little overwhelming at first. Also I am not a fan of the extra scrol bar on the side I would much rather just use normal page scrolling instead of having 2 scroll bars one for the page and one for the post is unnecessary or least it feels that way(unnatural)

1 Like
11

The “post bar” as it were, does make sense actually, especially if you have people writing textbooks instead of posts. It’ll let you jump to a given post instead of having to keep scrolling until you find a post you want.

1 Like
12

Simple? That’s useless. If I see a list of topics when I click on something, I assume that I am in that forum and can post there. A list of topics does not imply that it’s just an overview since virtually all forums in existence work like this and not like your “simple” idea.

You should put some more effort into making it clear that this is just a header and not the forum you want to go. For instance, if you really insist on keeping this useless thing, by mentioning the actual sub forum a topic is in. Or by completely removing the NEw Topic button from the header. Or by removing the Welcome To General Discussions sticky topic. You know, reasonable things that clearly convey that it’s just a header with an overview list of topics.

Additionally: What is the point of “none” int he sub forum drop down?

2 Likes