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Communication with other users

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And just think - if the cave was undergoing maintenance or fell over - we couldn't be having this discussion at all.

 

dani - you say you only use the chat (that you say is so wonderful) on CS for trading. So why on earth wouldn't a simple in-cave trade facility do what you want. What more is needed AT ALL ?

 

If anything that allowed any form of communication between scrolls ever happened, I would want the facility we have here - do not show my name in the users on line list. And as someone said - who wants to come on DC of a morning and have to deal with messages - when all you wanted to do was check your eggs and breed a couple ?

Edited by fuzzbucket

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After reading through 9 pages I figured I'd add my two cents as a long time user of both the main site and the forum...

 

While I don't see a necessity for it personally, I can see a on-site marketplace, somewhat like the one on EATW, adding a trading dimension to the game that perhaps younger players who are not allowed on the forum can participate in. Since this would be an on-site feature, and since IOUs are not officially allowed as part of the game, this would not require any need to have any method of communication other than the trade link and a very limited capacity in-cave PM system (explained below).

 

I am very much in favor of a very limited capacity in-cave PM system that is attached to the teleport feature with a built-in set of messages/responses such as "I can't accept your offer because you're scroll locked", "Oops! Unlocked now!", "Here's a gift for you - hope you enjoy!", and " Thank you!" etc. This, I think, is something that can improve the overall Teleport function. There have been instances where I have been forced to skip over desirable offers because the person making the offer was locked and the scroll name & forum name were different.

 

That said, please don't misunderstand me, I am in no way shape or form in favor of a mandatory LINKING of the scroll and forum accounts OR a more expansive in-cave PM system other than what I described above unless there are strict parental controls built-in AND we are given the choice to opt-out of PMs AND the option make our online status invisible (i.e. being an Anonymous User if the people logged in were to be made visible on the main site as it is with this forum) without having to hide our scrolls.

 

One of the big disadvantages I see of having an expansive in-cave PM system is that for people like me who take free breeding requests under a set Request Policy, where would l post my willingness to breed for free, and the said policy? Also, being an owner of a CB prize, where would I post whether my list is open or closed so that I don't get bombarded with PMs about prize offspring - since the suggested in-cave PM option would allow people who are not on the forum to PM me without looking at my signature or profile. So my options would be (at the risk of sounding arrogant, which i dont mean to at all) to either waste time when I'm in cave wading through PMs and blocking people or to turn the feature off altogether, which then becomes a useless "bell & whistle" for me.

 

If you're to suggets linking the scroll and the forum account on a mandatory fashion, I'm not really in favor of that because it would be detrimental to people who don't wish to have them always interconnected. The way the system is now, if I just want to play the game I only log onto the main cave, and if I have time to look through the forum and check PMs, I log into the forum. Works perfect! I have my scroll and forum names the same, and have had to hide my scroll from time to time. My brother, who has been playing since 2009, is one of those people who doesn't have a forum account at all. He usually just looks at the forum offline and make offers on teleport links or once in a while asks me to post a trade for him, which I do specifically mentioning that it is not my trade. So what use is a linked forum to someone like him who CHOOSES not to have a forum account? You'd just be forcing one on people like that.

 

Again, in my opinion the way we have the main site and forum separate work well. Keeps the main site simple and uncluttered and gives a forum option for those who wish to use it.

 

Sorry to be long winded and hope my rambles make sense! tongue.gif

 

Edited by lanette

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It's an interesting setup and not a bad one. It works well for chickensmoothie. However, I must point out that just because it works well for cs doesn't mean it would work well for DC, not with how things currently are.

 

That's exactly what I said.

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That's exactly what I said.

And I - and many others. The more people say it, the better chance it MIGHT some day sink in !

 

Heck - I am on several other forums with features we don't have here. And they wouldn't WORK here - or they would be a PIA. Not to mention the WONDERFUL fact that we CANNOT have gigantic avvies that take up half the page and so on. Not everything needs to be the same as everything else.

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Which means that a lot of things would have to be changed before such a chat and/or messaging feature could be implemented. Which, in turn, makes the whole thing much more complicated than it already is. Personally, I'd call it another downside.

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Should we list all the things that would need to be changed in order to make this a viable suggestion? (I would suck at trying to make that list, so this is a question)

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I feel like I should reply to this. To combine DC, the forum, and PM would cause nothing but problems with very little return.

 

1. How would it effect the number of new players that join DC? When I joined DC, I did it for fun as something to add to my signature on other forums which I was already a member of. I joined the DC Forum later. If I had had to join another forum to play Dragon Cave, I most likely wouldn't have originally joined. In fact, most of my real life friends who also play DC are not a member of the forum. The only one that is hasn't been active on the forum in a long time, but she's still collecting eggs.

 

2. There's also the issue of privacy. I like the fact that random people on DC can't message me out of the blue or look at my scroll when I'm online. I have my scroll visible now because it's fairly safe, but between beggars flooding my inbox asking for eggs (caught or bred) or trolls who can easily view bomb eggs to death, stalk me on the forum and site, and flood my inbox... I'm not sure if I would even keep playing.

 

3. There would be PM issues. Since we have a limit on PMs, our boxes could easily get full very quickly. Right now, a lot of Prize and Alt owners have that issue, but I believe it would become far worse for them if we gave all scrolls an automatic account. Plus, think of the storage requirements for all those new forum members. That's a lot of memory. Would the site host allow and be able to support such a quick influx without server problems? Would we keep the same size box or would it have to be decreased/increased?

 

4. How could we handle people with multiple scrolls? We all know people do it even though it's quite frankly cheating. Then there are people who quit playing for good and others who give their scroll away to a relative or friend (who doesn't have their own scroll yet) after they retire from it (who may or may not still use the forum). That's a lot of inactive forum accounts and forum accounts used by more than one person.

 

5. Combining everything into one thing is begging for glitches, down time, and buffering. Look how many people have problems with holiday activities every year. I can only imagine what would happen if everything was integrated, stuff went wrong, and we couldn't switch over to the other one (rather forum or DC help) to report it.

 

6. How would this change effect people on mobile? I have no home internet or computer, so all of my surfing is done exclusively on my phone. I have a limited amount of high speed data until it downgrades to regular which takes a lot of buffering. The most simple the site and the less data munching extras (high definition images, gifs, videos,...), the longer my high speed lasts and the easier it is for me to hunt in cave. When I go down to regular speed, hunting in cave become near impossible. Right now, the forum and site are very mobile friendly. How would integrating the site effect that?

 

7. What about the mod/member ratio? We are talking about increasing the number of forum members by literal thousands overnight. We currently do not have enough mods to handle that much of an increase of people per mods. That's either a lot of backlog as mods try to keep up with all the reports and violations (most likely causing burnout) or a large increase in mods to handle the load who will have to be trained. Either way, we're getting more trolls who will be on longer before being banned and most likely quit a few arguments that will get out of control.

 

8. What about banning and suspensions? Would they be banned from everything or just the forum portion? How could we distinguish between trolls and players who aren't good at social interaction? As is, those who do not want to join or are not comfortable joining don't have to. What happens if they say something that sounds offensive in text, but was meant differently? Does their scroll get burned?

 

Edited to comment about live chat as my 9th point. While I wouldn't be opposed to a limited type of PM in the cave for the purposed of transfers (like being able to have a forum name or email show when someone makes an offer on your trade or you make an offer, leave a short comment when an offer is pending, have a gift show on a specific user's page with a notification above the scroll so they can go to a one way trade you created for them, or a short comment tied to the transfers themselves), a live chat would most likely bog things down and cause frustration (and possible trolls and creepy stuff). Forums require you to load a page, so when another person posts before you're done typing a post, you can only see their reply if you refresh or post your own (therefore reloading the page). DC works mostly the same way (especially on mobile). Live chat requires a constant stream of data from the host, a reliable Internet connection of a certain speed from the user, and some way to monitor it all for misuse (so another mod most likely). Not all countries have the necessary Internet capabilities for it to work properly as common as others. Not all of the users in countries where the majority of people have higher speed Internet have access to it because of either finance or location. Libraries could block or ban the site for it (I worked at a small college for years and the tech guy would do it to keep things like live chat/feed/stream, a lot of YouTube and similar video sites, and heavy data stuff from causing an issue for people taking tests) causing people without home internet to be unable to participate in DC. Mobile users would most likely have trouble supporting it too. Then there is the problem with the lag that occurs the further two people are apart from each other and the server that their signal goes to (which can be several seconds long or longer) which can be annoying for people not in North America (if you have never experienced this, it's about like watching live news between someone in the US and someone overseas. Long pauses between each talking).

 

Basically, I believe a live chat at this time would leave a lot of users out and would most likely cause a lot of people to quit in frustration. Perhaps it could be a more viable option a few years down the road if the benefit eventually outweighs the cost and roadblocks.

Edited by JBluewind

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Thank you, JBluewind, for making such a comprehensive post.

And thank you for the compliment! It was a lovely surprise happy.gif

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I do think keeping chat and forums separate is the best plan. As it stands, we generally don't permit people under 12 in without parental consent.

 

Chat can go quite quickly, with Forums added, it would be difficult to keep up with moderating. Currently people get upset because we moderate what we see. and if we are not around when something happens, and it goes unnoticed by staff, we find users saying but XXX did it 45 minutes ago! And then people think they get singled out, yadda yadda yadda. Which with forums, people report offensive posts. Offensive posts are easily found by going through the thread.

 

It would be a major nightmare to have to moderate chat because it is a very different beast. As for linking forums to cave, perhaps. However an easy ability for users to disable their scrolls to people can't find them is high on my list of needs in that case.

 

Where the TOS indicates all interactions between users must be willful, it still does not stop people who are "self important" and feel these rules do not apply to them and bother users anyway. I have had it myself where people say "I know your scroll says not to ask but...." to which I generally say no.

 

IRC being on its own means, our services might be down - noteserv, nickserv, chanserv - but our chat is still up. Such as last night - Site was down, but IRC was still hopping. Perhaps having a link on site to IRC may permit people to log in easier, the help section might be best place to direct.

 

IRC can be, during events, a nightmare to moderate. Merging forums would be more like night terrors tongue.gif

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Right now, with the current bad gateway issue for the cave, I'm quite happy to have the forums still functional. smile.gif Which they wouldn't be if everything was put on the main site.

Edited by olympe

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Right now, with the current bad gateway issue for the cave, I'm quite happy to have the forums still functional. smile.gif Which they wouldn't be if everything was put on the main site.

Let's not make assumptions about the implementation details of systems that are currently but thoughts in people's heads.

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Let's not make assumptions about the implementation details of systems that are currently but thoughts in people's heads.

But TJ - that stands to reason, surely ? If the forums were a part of the cave, it would be one down, both down. AS it stands - even when the cave fell over yesterday we were able to come here and talk about it....

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This still going on??? ohmy.gifblink.gif

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I was just thinking about this and I'm glad there's already a thread for it. I think there should be some way to message people directly on the main site. And the main reason I would like that? Because I see so many people who accidentally lose an egg or hatchling and it gets snatched by someone with no visible username or just no forum account, and the previous owner really wants to negotiate for their dragon back but they have no way of getting into contact. Yeah it's sad, and I guess one could say oh well it happens, but it'd be nice if those users could have a way to contact whoever gets something that they didn't even intend to release. That's the one of the most practical uses I see for such a system and even getting a "no" can at least put their mind at ease so they can move on. Idk, just my thoughts

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