I don't really know how many people are actually following the development of this project, but maybe giving everyone interested a platform for communication will help build a community for this game.
Using Discord would also allow the community to interact with the devs more directly and feel more involved in the development process.
What do you think?
Well, it's an interesting idea. I've bookmarked Discord sometime last year, though mostly as an alternative for a lobby chat or in-game (but out-of-character) conversations.
For the record, I don't have first hand experience with it (yet) as I couldn't put it on my current schedules. Most of my info is from their rep materials, and my experience with things like Skype, TeamSpeak, and some prehistoric other things like IIRC, ICQ or MSN Messenger.
For the "in-development" phase, I thought I would stick to the forum system (like this one) as it provides an organized way for information/thoughts sharing and it is more forgiving on us (or anyone) with a heavily loaded schedule - we can easily track and answer new posts in our own pace, we don't have to be around all the time (though we usually are). Also, a "simple" forum we can surely integrate with our in-development Player Module once it's ready.
I'm kind of aware though that a forum requires a bit more "engagement" from anyone to post on and that it's a bit oldschool... well, slower paced..., so I planned to eventually revisit Discord as an interesting opportunity.
If you already have first-hand experiences with it, would you share your thoughts on the benefits Discord could offer us? Thanks! :)
I have been using Discord for about half a year now and for me at least it replaced TS and Skype completely. (the only feature it doesn't have yet is video chat but that not really an issue for this purpose)
The main advantages of discord would be those that most chat systems offer: faster and more direct/casual communication. Its just a lot easier to use and maintain than most other chat systems. It also offers voice chat if you are interested in something like that.
Discord is currently being used by a lot of online communities. By gaming Clans, youtubers, indie games and even internally for development teams.
But what's the biggest advantage in my opinion is that its just easier to actually keep people engaged. A forum has the disadvantage that you always have to keep it open in your browser and every time you want to see if something new has happened you have to go to a website to check. It requires effort to keep up to date with a forum. With Discord you have one program that's usually in your autostart. You join a server and after that you will get notified whenever someone sends a message.
Overall Discord and a forum just serve different purposes and I think this project could benefit from both.
But honestly its probably easier for you to just take a look at Discord yourself. Discord is really easy to understand. If you want I could just give you a 5 minute crash course on how to use it.
I just created a test server so if you are interested just join : https://discord.gg/F4vJGBG
(you dont even have to install discord, you can just use it in the browser)
edit: I am going to sleep now, so I wont be on the test server till tomorrow ^^
Scont, I downloaded the app and checked it out. It's basically a newer, sleeker TeamSpeak or Skype, correct? I'm not sure what we could use it for at the moment as we have a hard enough time to get folks to drop by the forums at this stage in our development, but I certainly could see players using this to discuss games in progress and strategy.
Also, once the server is back online and we're hosting test games again, this right be a valuable tool to gain some feedback from the playtesters.
Glad to see you gave it a try ;D
While most people describe Discord as replacement for TS and Skype (which it is for most people) In my opinion its closer to an IRC than to Skype.
I can understand why you think its not really worth is at this stage, but creating a Discord server is free and doesn't really require any effort to maintain. It would require maybe 10 minutes to set up a server. My point being that you don't really have anything to lose. The only situation that will require you to put in effort is when people actually join the server and want to interact with you.
If you don't mind I would even volunteer to create and maintain the server. The only thing you would have to do is link the server on your website/forum, maybe mention it in a dev blog and on facebook and see what happens. worst case the server is as dead as this forum and will only be relevant during testing or when the game has a larger following.
The only downside I could think of would be that if people actually join it interacting with them might require a bit more effort, as a chat doesn't really provide you the flexibility of a forum to just respond whenever you want.
In the end its your call, I just think a Discord server is one of the things a dev team trying to build a community could benefit from ;D (another example would be a video dev blog, though that's a lot of effort ^^)
Let me discuss it with Mat and see what he thinks. Thanks for bringing it to our attention! :)
Hi Scont,
first of all, thank you for your kind offer! You're right that it can't hurt to try it, and I'm sure it would be quite helpful if not before, then after releasing our first builds for this phase. But you're also right that it may be more difficult for us to keep up with Discord's more "immediate mode" pace at our current schedule.
Putting a link to the server or mentioning it on our channels is definitely not a problem. :)
Does or can Discord maintain a channel history for offline periods (like Skype does)?
Chat logs are saved in the cloud and will remain there. I don't really know how "offline periods" would work on Discord though.
Discord is not really designed for anything like that (as far as I am aware), meaning that you can't just turn your server off and on again. You can delete your server, but I assume that deletes chat logs as well. I could kick everyone from the server and don't allow access to anyone until you want to "restart" the server.
Thanks for the answer!
With offline periods I referred to a situation when you're offline but someone wants to address you with their question. In Skype, it is then placed in a server cache and is delivered to you when you log in again. But in TS, you don't see the chat log from periods you weren't online (so it doesn't store it independently).
Having this function, would allow visitors to ask us questions even if we're away, and they could check back later for an answer (or stick around in afk mode). It is much more forgiving on our schedule.
Later arrivals could also check for older chats and topics, so our discussions could be tracked.
Ahh I thought you were talking about server "offline periods" ;D
Of course chat history is saved and you can reply later. And it even stores data indefinitely, meaning you will still be able to read your chat logs in 5 years, no matter how long they are. (They had an interesting blog post about this: https://blog.discordapp.com/how-discord-stores-billions-of-messages-7fa6...)
Community Discord Server
