It's 2017, UOR should have an official discord

Discussion in 'Renaissance Discussion' started by Shubre, Oct 2, 2017.

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  1. Shubre

    Shubre New Member

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    Yes? No?

    No need to go old-school in the communication department just because we're playing UO ;)

    Or we could have both.
    Shubre, Oct 2, 2017
    #1
    Nightwolf, Black Tortoise, Soear and 1 other person like this.
  2. ham

    ham Well-Known Member
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    i said the same thing when i joined a few months ago!

    i poked around IRC, and from what i gather, it was attempted a few times in the past, but just didn't really seem to stick...

    but maybe it needs to be tried again? If @Chris had an official one that would be cool... I would definitely love to use discord or slack over IRC.
    ham, Oct 2, 2017
    #2
  3. Ahirman

    Ahirman Well-Known Member
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    From everything I've seen Discord is far superior to IRC but for some reason nobody wants to use it. :confused:

    My only guess is most of us are older and set in our ways and refuse to change or try anything new...
    Ahirman, Oct 2, 2017
    #3
  4. Soear

    Soear Well-Known Member

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    I'd imagine it would be harder to moderate a voice channel in the same way that you can set up automated moderation of text users.

    I'm a no from the point of view that I wouldn't use voice, so irc already offers text, plus with easy flash client from the website and options on phone/work etc
    Soear, Oct 2, 2017
    #4
  5. LanDarr

    LanDarr Renaissance Staff
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    Why does it have to be official? What do you want from staff?
    LanDarr, Oct 2, 2017
    #5
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  6. Chris

    Chris Renaissance Staff
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    We ran a test last year of this and ultimately decided against it. While the tech is amazing it is more of an application for people to build gaming communities. It is not well designed to build a community around a game. Within a week of testing we had push back from players who were sitting in the discord channels of multiple UO servers and indicated that we could not/should not enforce any moderation on their desire to ask people to come play with them. This was evident for both UO and other games very quickly.

    The moderation issues for a moderator of a community of this size would be immense. If you are banned for vulgarity, no problem, just make a new account and rejoin. Unless you restrict new people from accessing the channel for xx amount of time it is hard to stop that. Unlike the hostmasks we have on IRC there is little to no information available to confirm someones identity on Discord.

    There are other issues but one of the most concerning is that you do not own your channel. If players make a sufficient fuss about the staff, moderation, or conduct of players in the channel they can go above your heads to Discord themselves and have your channel closed. If the staff is asleep and someone comes in Larping as a Nazi at 4am and we have not developed the auto moderation tools to stop this your channel could be reported and closed by the discord staff. While the chances of something like this happening are very slim we had a similar problem when we tried to do official streaming on twitch. One bad actor took it on himself to mass report every Twitch UO channel (official and private) and this resulted in some being closed permanently (ours) and some of our players being closed for up to 6 months. NO explanation was ever given to the people affected but the general feeling was the channels were mass reported.

    Now could our opinion on this change. Possibly. However I have been following servers that endorse discord and I have noticed a clear downward trend in activity once they make the switch. I visited a server the other day with 69 players online, and yet 110 people in discord. I was unable to find a staff member, or really any conversation going on. Most of the people in the channel were off playing other games.

    So our official stance on discord is that it is great for guilds or players looking to build a community with their friends to play UO, other games or just hang out. However for the server itself it is not a resource that we need, nor have the time to properly manage. IRC, even with its limitations, serves our needs very well and allows us to communicate with new players who have questions. Our opinion may change in the future, but for the moment we are sticking with IRC.
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2017
    Chris, Oct 2, 2017
    #6
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  7. LanDarr

    LanDarr Renaissance Staff
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    For those of you with short attention spans here is the tl:dr version

    "Thanks, but no thanks"
    LanDarr, Oct 2, 2017
    #7
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  8. Ahirman

    Ahirman Well-Known Member
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    Didn't realize there were that many issues with moderation and stuff! :eek:

    Guess we should just stick with what works!
    Ahirman, Oct 2, 2017
    #8
  9. Chris

    Chris Renaissance Staff
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    With the recent decisions by discord to close channels that contain "hate speech" the risk of not moderating your channel is high. Given our current issues dealing with VPN's and our daily vulgar spammer it can provide a clear incentive to people to try and get your channel closed. And in the Free Server community there are some bad actors (ddos attacks, etc).

    So if we do something, we have to do it right.
    Chris, Oct 2, 2017
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    One and Ahirman like this.
  10. Kirby

    Kirby Well-Known Member
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    @Chris every time I read your posts, I'm mindblown with how well worded they are. Do you go thru multiple drafts before you hit Submit or do you toss all that out in one go?
    Kirby, Oct 2, 2017
    #10
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  11. ham

    ham Well-Known Member
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    As @Chris already mentioned, moderation. Any 3rd party discord... you are at the mercy of the moderators who started it.

    What I think could work, is if a select group of people started an invite-only Discord, and you were accountable for people you invited into it. A lot of us are older now, so this model could really work if people are only inviting players that were mature. And by mature I don't mean conflict free, but if you have beef you just keep it in game, don't take it personal, stuff like that... basically being able to understand emotions and handle problems like adults, because seriously, nobody has time for nonsense.

    Of course the original group would have to be some respected players here already. DOn't know who the best candidates would be.
    ham, Oct 2, 2017
    #11
  12. ham

    ham Well-Known Member
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    On a another note @Chris, you're right that Discord is really meant for teams. Discord, slack, and stuff like that, is for similar minded people who are friendly to another, and intend to be friendly in the future. But in UO... there is definitely a lot of drama, especially if you get pk'd, house sat, etc. so if you bundle all these people in a software meant for team-building... yeah I can see how that doesn't work at all.

    However, if the foundation principle of the Discord room was to leave all drama behind, then maybe, just maybe, it could work. It just needs to have the right "mission" statement.
    ham, Oct 2, 2017
    #12
  13. Shubre

    Shubre New Member

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    I hear you @Chris. Thank you for a well-written answer. I fully understand on your thoughts on the subject.

    In the future maybe!
    Shubre, Oct 3, 2017
    #13
    Soear likes this.
  14. Soear

    Soear Well-Known Member

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    through*
    Soear, Oct 3, 2017
    #14
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  15. Kirby

    Kirby Well-Known Member
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    *sigh*

    :p
    Kirby, Oct 3, 2017
    #15
  16. Rextacy

    Rextacy Well-Known Member
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    Although discord is awesome it can show games people are playing (Not just UOR) Also alot of guilds run their own discord though so that's nice . IRC is a little ancient hehe
    Rextacy, Oct 3, 2017
    #16
  17. NerK

    NerK Well-Known Member
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    So just an FYI there is an Official, Unofficial UO:R Discord:

    https://discord.gg/KSrAWqV

    I dont remember who created it but there is about 20 people online at a time there.

    Thanks @Rad for getting the link.
    NerK, Oct 3, 2017
    #17
  18. Black Tortoise

    Black Tortoise Active Member

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    I diddnt know a lot of this stuff. Thanks for this perspective.

    I'll stop championing for UOR Discord at every available opportunity now. :)
    Black Tortoise, Oct 6, 2017
    #18
  19. Cheapsuit

    Cheapsuit Well-Known Member
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    I think hearing you creeps would be a bit weird.
    Cheapsuit, Oct 19, 2017
    #19
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  20. wylwrk

    wylwrk Well-Known Member

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    What? Who wouldn't want to hear me whisper sweet nothing's into their ear?
    wylwrk, Oct 19, 2017
    #20
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