Feedback and Suggestions

[Omegaflare]

I noticed that the different Board sections are getting increasingly "messier" in terms of Structure.

For example we have dozens of FF XV threads all over the place in the Final Fantasy section, which just looks really random and unsorted (which is why I created the FF XV General discussion thread)

Here is a few suggestions I have to make the boards better and more appealing to new members:

- Create Sub-sections in the FF-section with general discussion threads for all major FF titles (e.g: seperate general discussion threads for FF I - III, IV- VI, VII, VIII, IX, X-2/X-2, XII, XIII/XIII -2 and XI. Those should all be in a sub-category called "Past FF games" or something with seperate threads for XIV, Lightning Returns and FF XV (already created by me) in a "New Games" category. You could also move FF X/X-2 into that category because of the upcoming HD remaster. I think it would be redundant to have seperate threads for the normal and remaster versions. And then have a 3rd category "Miscallenous" where we get to have the stuff like Favorite FF, Q and A, etc. that doesnt fit into the other categories.

So it would basically look like this:

PAST GAMES:

Threads:

Final Fantasy I - III

Final Fantasy IV - VI

Final Fantasy VII/Crisis Core/Advent Children

Final Fantasy VIII

Final Fantasy IX

Final Fantasy XI

Final Fantasy XII/Revenant Wings

Final Fantasy XIII/XIII-2

Final Fantasy Spin-Offs (Dissidia, type-0, Theathrythm etc.)


NEW GAMES:

Threads:

Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy X/X-2

Lightning Returns

Final Fantasy XV



MISCALLENOUS:

Threads:

Favorite FF

Final Fantasy Q and A

The Music of Final Fantasy

etc.



This way it would really clean up the FF section and would just look way better and more professional and appealing to new users. Pretty much every other FF forum does it this way too. Right now many threads are just floating around unsorted and randomly in the FF section, making it look very messy and unappealing.

 

[APZonerunner]

Thanks for the thread idea; we can keep this for general suggestions! I or somebody else will reply to every single suggestion posted here. That's a promise.

Regarding the above specifically - we've discussed this at length prior to opening the boards. We're really happy with the level of activity we've had, but at least for now that level of activity isn't enough to justify a wider spread of topic boards that splits discussion further and deeper than it is right now.

If you take a look at the FF forum only two thirds of the threads on the first page have been active today. The thing we're aiming for is to have a community where the first page of any given discussion area is always fresh, new and active, and if we split it down further it would be three or four heavily active threads per forum and then a load of out-of-date stuff not posted in for a day, a week, longer. That's just a fact of where the boards stand right now (after merely a week, let's be fair) and our activity levels.

The perspective we take at least for now is that one heavily trafficked forum section with a lot of current threads is more desirable than splitting discussion down into two or three or more sub-sections. Right now in every single section of Mognet you can see every single thread active across the course of that day on the very first page; I'd argue that's actually tidier. If you want to see every single active Final Fantasy thread today (and some) it takes one click to one section, and that is easier, quicker and tidier for you, the user, than having to click around back and forth heading to multiple sections. That "everything in one or two clicks" feel is something we want to keep, and as the community grows and we get to the point where currently-active threads are being pushed to page two or even page three (this'd be a wonderful level of activity to have) we're of course going to rethink the layout and perhaps do something like you're suggesting.

A lot of you are probably familiar with the fact Kagari is a mod on NeoGAF, and in this instance I'd like to point to them for an example; they're the largest video game message board around and actually in the top 20 or so message boards on the planet in terms of size and messages per day, yet they do it with only four forum categories - and in truth only two major ones. The best way to avoid clutter and multiple threads is to be smarter about thread creation; that's a big thing on GAF and that's a thing I'm sure we'll figure out here over time, but that's something for us to come to a conclusion on as a community over time.

Your FF15 general thread is a good experiment towards that; one smart thread that people can subscribe to in order to reduce clutter. I don't believe in just applying that stuff as a rule immediately, though, and it'll be all of us as a collective who decide what of that stuff works and what doesn't. If the idea of official threads or larger more general topics to soak up some of the wider discussion work, perhaps we made it an official thing. Everyone here right now makes up the foundation of the very community, and it'll be us who figure those things out. But it's a week in - it's early days!

Lastly - I appreciate that every other FF forum does it, but we're pretty excited to hopefully offer something smarter, better and more appealing on Mognet with how we make these kind of decisions... and hopefully you all appreciate that. We'll lift features from our contemporaries and rivals, but the ones we think work for us.

The TLDR version - not right now, but this is something we'll keep an eye on as we grow and keep reconsidering constantly. Thanks.

 

[Omegaflare]

Dont worry I always read everything, no matter how long it is

thanks for responding in such detail and I accept the decision the team has made on that topic. However I really think it should be made a general rule not to create a dozen seperate threads for one game which could be all easily handled with one single discussion thread about the game. Personally I created the general FF XV thread cause it really bugged me how I was assaulted in the FF section with so many different FF XV threads about little things that quite frankly dont really qualify for a thread of their own but would all easily fit into a general FF XV thread instead.

 

[Squirrel Emperor]

I wouldn't worry about official threads right now. Too early for that. When the forums become more active and faster, it should be something to consider I guess. Shouldn't be too strict about that stuff when the forums just opened a couple weeks ago.

That said, have you guys considered more emoticons? Like the ones Yahoo! IM uses (IGN Boards use them too).

 

[Misty]

thanks for responding in such detail and I accept the decision the team has made on that topic. However I really think it should be made a general rule not to create a dozen seperate threads for one game which could be all easily handled with one single discussion thread about the game. Personally I created the general FF XV thread cause it really bugged me how I was assaulted in the FF section with so many different FF XV threads about little things that quite frankly dont really qualify for a thread of their own but would all easily fit into a general FF XV thread instead.

I disagree completely, I much prefer this approach. Having one big thread for each game (I'll use Final Fantasy X as an example because I like it) would have two major disadvantages:

Finding Things
It's a lot more organized to segment things by topic (hence having different threads). If I wanted to discuss the best sphere grid path for Tidus, would it be easier for me to have to look through several pages of an enormous FFX thread, where the discussion might start, stop, start again, or to have a topic dedicated solely to the sphere grid? This is tied to the next problem...

Discussion
Continuing with the FFX example, let's say there was just one big FFX topic. For the sake of the example, we'll say it has 65 pages. On page 50 - 52 there's a discussion of the sphere grid. Someone new comes in on page 53 to talk about some of the model changes in FFXHD, and the sphere grid discussion dies down & is buried under it. The model discussion continues up to page 60, when someone comes in to discuss the best blitzball strategy. It would be very strange, then, for me to continue the discussion on page 65, when there's a completely different discussion going on in the thread at that time (about blitzball). Even if the both discussions occurred simultaneously within the thread, it's very difficult to read it that way. So instead, you make separate threads for each topic.

Like @APZonerunner said, this method also ensures that the "hottest" discussions are what's on the front page. If you want to reawaken a discussion from several pages back, there's nothing wrong with that. I'd so much rather have smaller, more specific threads than 15 mega threads with thousands of posts. What you're proposing would be a fine system for the current size of the forum, but if it grows any more (which it will!), the system will quickly show its faults.

I do think it might be useful to utilize thread prefixes, though. That way, if I only want to discuss FFX, I can narrow the threads down using them.

 

[Zerox20]

I agree with both points here. I will say if the board starts growing and we tend to start having pages upon pages I would prefer to have a breakdown, we could maybe just combine some of the FF games too, like Final Fantasy 1-3, Final Fantasy 4-6 etc. But I think for now with our current user base and thread count its not a issue "yet". If we grow to NeoGAF size within a few years or so I can for sure see splitting the boards up into specific FF games, Kingdom Hearts games etc.

 

[APZonerunner]

That said, have you guys considered more emoticons? Like the ones Yahoo! IM uses (IGN Boards use them too).

I'll look into adding more! I'll look at the YIM ones, too. I'm always up for adding more. I mean, hell, I added for the Twitch TV fans... and we'll have a little something else cool coming on the twitch front.

 

[Joshua]

On NC, there's generally a lot of comments and discussion via Disqus. Any chance of that getting chucked out and for a way for that article discussion to be integrated here in Mognet Central?

 

[Fleur]

We appear to lack some sort of chatroom function. Like a chatbox/shoutbox/whatever you call them. Unless you guys have hidden it.

I'd love to have a bit of random chit-chat with people here. Can that be incorporated into this site?

 

[Zero]

Looking forward to that darker theme.

 

[Jenova]

I'd like to suggest a shoutbox. IM is always appreciated.

 

[Shin Kazama]

A gray and black FFVII theme would be awesome.

 

[APZonerunner]

A gray and black FFVII theme would be awesome.

Looking forward to that darker theme.

In the works! Hoping to get to it soon. We want to bring back the classic old UFF blue in a retro theme too.

On NC, there's generally a lot of comments and discussion via Disqus. Any chance of that getting chucked out and for a way for that article discussion to be integrated here in Mognet Central?

100% looking into Disqus integreation. Hope to bring you something on this soon.

I'd like to suggest a shoutbox. IM is always appreciated.

We appear to lack some sort of chatroom function. Like a chatbox/shoutbox/whatever you call them. Unless you guys have hidden it.

I'd love to have a bit of random chit-chat with people here. Can that be incorporated into this site?

This wasn't actually something we'd fully considered, but I'm raising it for a staff consideration now. It'd be fairly easy to implement, I think!

 

[Crystal Power]

Hello, I think more sections to organize would be nice. Like a FFI-VI, FFVII-XIII, FFXIV-XV also add more sections for Kingdom Hearts like main games and spin-offs. It may be best to do that for Final Fantasy too, a main title and spin off forums, that actually may be better than having the whole FFI-VI, etc thing I mention earlier.

Also, I think there should be gaming sections for Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Mobile, and PC gaming. And a Square enix games section (for all in one talk for all Square enix titles).

One last things, a Forum Games section, for little games like rate the above avatar, ban the user above for a dumb reason, etc. Sorry if I'm saying to much. Just thought I'd add some suggestions for more organized forums.

And I have a question, when were these forums created and what can I do to help spread the word to attract more members? :- )

 

[Zack]

Hello, I think more sections to organize would be nice. Like a FFI-VI, FFVII-XIII, FFXIV-XV also add more sections for Kingdom Hearts like main games and spin-offs. It may be best to do that for Final Fantasy too, a main title and spin off forums, that actually may be better than having the whole FFI-VI, etc thing I mention earlier.

Also, I think there should be gaming sections for Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Mobile, and PC gaming. And a Square enix games section (for all in one talk for all Square enix titles).

One last things, a Forum Games section, for little games like rate the above avatar, ban the user above for a dumb reason, etc. Sorry if I'm saying to much. Just thought I'd add some suggestions for more organized forums.

And I have a question, when were these forums created and what can I do to help spread the word to attract more members? :- )

As was discussed above in the first two posts, creating these sections only serves to divide the member base right now as we currently are not active enough to warrant the granularity. Of course, we are taking these ideas into consideration. We also have plans for a future game to play on the forum - stay tuned for that!

As far as the final question, Mognet Central went live earlier this year, in September, and the best you can do is just share on whatever social network you frequent any cool threads you enjoy or anything of that nature. Thank you!

 

[APZonerunner]

@Crystal Power I'll add to Zack's post - feel free to use "Off Topic Discussion" for any other games - like rate the avatar above and so on if you want to create those kinds of threads. It is an off topic thread, after all!

 

[Crystal Power]

Thank you to the both of you.

 

[Tsukiyomi]

Are you thinking about adding a role playing section to the forums later on when there are more users?

 

[APZonerunner]

@Tsukiyomi Yeah, definitely. All stuff like that is basically under constant review For now, as with the previous post, I guess I'd say if people want to RP we could do an RP thread in off topic - and if that really takes off, we'll give it a forum all of its own!

 

[Squirrel Emperor]

This might not really do much of anything but I would consider putting "News & Site Updates" on top of all other categories. That's a section I think should get more hits. Usually the first google search result gets the most clicks, so maybe something similar would happen as well? It's at the bottom of the page and feels like nobody really visits that section. By putting it on the top, it'll be one of the first things people see and click on.