SHP Forums

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Wed Oct 15, 2025 5:04 pm And although it may seem like a small point, the emoticons here are smaller and more subtle, which helps me. The emoticons on Discord are huge (and sometimes even animated), which is nauseating.

The irony that you used an animated emoji while complaining about animated emojis...

Well, I needed to get used to it too, but over the years many communities were forced to switch to an alternative. Emoticons are customizable there and almost everything else is too.
I don't recommend using threads in Discord. I mod two Discord communities, the plus side is that in app form it is easier to engage.

Tawmis wrote: ↑Thu Oct 16, 2025 1:45 am

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Wed Oct 15, 2025 5:04 pm And although it may seem like a small point, the emoticons here are smaller and more subtle, which helps me. The emoticons on Discord are huge (and sometimes even animated), which is nauseating.

The irony that you used an animated emoji while complaining about animated emojis...

Yes, true. I am not against animation per se, I'm not a luddite. It's only the size of the emoji and the speed with which it animates that counts; I find big emojis, or ones that animate very fast, quite off-putting. Especially ones that spin very fast. *shudder*

If this can be customized, that would help. Thank you!

Discord is the future so I think it’s pretty inevitable

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Wed Oct 15, 2025 5:04 pm Having tried Discord, I would say that this board is MUCH better. You can actually track which threads are new (and need your attention).

While I agree, I prefer phpbb forums, for the feel and such. I've been using Discord for so long now, that overall, you can "mimic" phpbb forums, if you really wanted to as a Discord admin. The plus side of Discord, you as a site owner, don't have to worry about php being breached because of a security issue in the forum which then may (and 99% would) also compromise your site. If Discord gets compromised, your site is untouched by it. Also, there's a 10MB file limit to upload, however, there's no limit to the amount of images you can upload. I have a discord, that literally just has me in it - and I upload a metric ton of images and mp3s that I use for my D&D games, for quick, easy, access.

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Thu Oct 16, 2025 4:57 pm If this can be customized, that would help. Thank you!

Whoever runs Discord can customize it - like the welcome ones can be disabled. Custom ones can be uploaded.

Spikey wrote: ↑Thu Oct 16, 2025 4:35 pm I don't recommend using threads in Discord. I mod two Discord communities, the plus side is that in app form it is easier to engage.

Threads/forums are both options there. Threads keeps it closer to the actual "forum" feel that people are used to. Forums feel the same, but have an odd layout from their section.

JasefWisener wrote: ↑Thu Oct 16, 2025 8:54 pm Discord is the future so I think it’s pretty inevitable

Agreed. A lot of companies even moved to using Discord (D&D, Lord of the Rings Online, to name two I know of, off the top of my head).

JasefWisener wrote: ↑Thu Oct 16, 2025 8:54 pm Discord is the future so I think it’s pretty inevitable

I have to be picky here: nothing is inevitable, because everything is the result of a choice that people make. Saying that Discord is "the future", or "inevitable", is the same as saying "I can't be bothered explaining why it's the best choice".

So here I am, a fresh punter. What makes Discord so wonderful? Why is it "the future"? I'd love to understand, that's all.

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Fri Oct 17, 2025 8:12 pm

JasefWisener wrote: ↑Thu Oct 16, 2025 8:54 pm Discord is the future so I think it’s pretty inevitable

I have to be picky here: nothing is inevitable, because everything is the result of a choice that people make. Saying that Discord is "the future", or "inevitable", is the same as saying "I can't be bothered explaining why it's the best choice".
So here I am, a fresh punter. What makes Discord so wonderful? Why is it "the future"? I'd love to understand, that's all.

Some of why, I covered here.
viewtopic.php?p=104656#p104656

Through Discord, additionally, you can schedule "Events."
So for example, for D&D - they can schedule and "Event" that makes everyone in that Discord server aware, that a new release is coming out.
Lord of the Rings Online also uses it like that - to announce expansions, or downtime for the game server.

You can create "rooms" to host events, as well, which the D&D one has had, where a DM can run a game on Discord with players, while others watch/listen (this is something anyone can do; on a Discord server I am on, they'd done it to have interviews with game designers and allow others to watch/listen - and you can restrict who "speakers" are to ensure folks who shouldn't be talking are talking).

It has the ability to do what forums do, so you can recreate something like a forum; yes, just like ANY other forum, it'd take getting used to (no different if Collector switched from phpbb - the current forum to vbulliten (similar, but different - https://forum.vbulletin.com/ for example)... so everything has their own look and feel, but Discord can definitely do forum (and none of the ones I am on usually take advantage of the forum side, except the Lord of the Rings RPG and the ElfQuest RPG ones) - most use it just for like to line text (or people creating "Threads" which sort of look like forums).

So there's a ton of benefits - and if whoever is running the Discord server buys into "Nitro" (which you can also have users "donate" Nitro boosts for money) - you can customize way more (such as a custom url, like Collector - if he had Nitro - could get discord.gg/sierrahelppages for example, rather that discord.gg/8234273je or whatever)

There's also a wide variety bots you can install that people have created. So a prime example for myself is someone made a D&D Dice bot - so that when people roll an attack on their character sheet from D&D Beyond, it rolls it into Discord. So that way, it makes it much easier to play remotely with people (since Discord also has voice). But there's other bots out there (literally thousands of them) that you can install on your Discord server to do all kinds of things.

There's more, for sure.

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Fri Oct 17, 2025 8:12 pm

JasefWisener wrote: ↑Thu Oct 16, 2025 8:54 pm Discord is the future so I think it’s pretty inevitable

I have to be picky here: nothing is inevitable, because everything is the result of a choice that people make. Saying that Discord is "the future", or "inevitable", is the same as saying "I can't be bothered explaining why it's the best choice".

So here I am, a fresh punter. What makes Discord so wonderful? Why is it "the future"? I'd love to understand, that's all.

I think the point is that people -have- made that choice, and it’s been a few years at this point. It’s how discord has become the go-to and one of the reasons that forums just don’t exist anymore outside of the rare exceptions.

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Fri Oct 17, 2025 8:12 pm

JasefWisener wrote: ↑Thu Oct 16, 2025 8:54 pm Discord is the future so I think it’s pretty inevitable

I have to be picky here: nothing is inevitable, because everything is the result of a choice that people make. Saying that Discord is "the future", or "inevitable", is the same as saying "I can't be bothered explaining why it's the best choice".

So here I am, a fresh punter. What makes Discord so wonderful? Why is it "the future"? I'd love to understand, that's all.

Discord isn't the future, it is just very current.

Hmm. vBulletin's look-and-feel (https://forum.vbulletin.com/) appear to be closest to the forum we have now. If we want to avoid this board's problems, perhaps that would be best to go with?

I'm only speaking personally, of course ... but I don't need bots. *shrug* We don't release any new products, so I don't know if we need "Events" (other than to announce the new forum, or to announce the yearly MASQ). The "Rooms" sound useful, but we don't really use them for anything except the MASQ.

Of course, Collector has the final say. This is simply how I feel; after using Discord for a while, I might change my mind.

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Sat Oct 18, 2025 6:34 pm Hmm. vBulletin's look-and-feel (https://forum.vbulletin.com/) appear to be closest to the forum we have now. If we want to avoid this board's problems, perhaps that would be best to go with?

We'd be in the same boat as using phpbb (where it's hosted on this site). Just saying different forums have different looks. Overall, many are the same feel, but they can be different.

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Sat Oct 18, 2025 6:34 pm I'm only speaking personally, of course ... but I don't need bots. *shrug*

You're saying that without even checking the thousands of different bots available through Discord.
So there's one that will do things for sports (for example, you can use bots to get up to date things)... so I don't doubt there's bots about different authors, artists, that you can use to pull information about them, their books, etc.
Here's a list of a fraction of the bots - https://discordbotlist.com/

Rath Darkblade wrote: ↑Sat Oct 18, 2025 6:34 pm We don't release any new products, so I don't know if we need "Events" (other than to announce the new forum, or to announce the yearly MASQ). The "Rooms" sound useful, but we don't really use them for anything except the MASQ.

Which, while we're on that, only one person has reached out to me for a MASQ ID.
And here we are more than half way through October.
So I feel like MASQ this year is a bust.

But had we had an event reminder....

And I don't wanna go chasing/hounding people down as a reminder. If they're not interested enough to send me MASQ IDs, I am going to assume they're either not interested or too busy.

Spikey wrote: ↑Sat Oct 18, 2025 6:33 pm Discord isn't the future, it is just very current.

Yeah, but that's everything.

Sierra Online was the future, until it wasn't.

MySpace was the future, until it wasn't.

You can say that about anything "successful."

OK, the bots do sound interesting. Maybe I was wrong.

As for the MASQ ... le sigh. If only one person has reached out to you with a MASQ ID, then it doesn't matter if I do, because with only three people doing the MASQ, it will be trivial to guess who is who.

Tawmis wrote: ↑Sun Oct 19, 2025 1:50 am Which, while we're on that, only one person has reached out to me for a MASQ ID.
And here we are more than half way through October.
So I feel like MASQ this year is a bust.

That's too bad. I was going to give my ID but I was waiting for an announcement. Oh well.

I'm sorry to hear the news.

I admit, I haven't visited this forum very much at all in the last few years because of how inactive it has become. It's a shame how fragmented the Sierra community has become over the years -- there aren't really any good-sized public communities online anymore, which made it pretty difficult when I was trying to figure out the best places to advertise It Takes Two to Tangle, since it felt like the biggest community hubs are now private Facebook groups or Discord servers.

True, r/Sierra subreddit exists, but it's just not the same as a forum like this one.

Akril! Welcome back! Please stick around! *pulls out a chair for Akril and hands her a big mug of her favourite drink*

I love your Sierra fan-art and especially your LucasArts fan art ... especially this and this. (And yes, Guybrush would kick the ever-lovin' snot out of Jack Sparrow. 'Cos Guybrush is fun and witty, while Sparrow is a mascara-wearing creepazoid).

As for your 20-year-old rant about Discworld ... I'm sorry it treated you that way. I gave Jasper Fforde a red-hot go, but I'm not much a sci-fi fan, I'm afraid, so it never grabbed me as it did you. But I have to say, Discworld is NOT fantasy. Sure, it has wizards and dragons and heroes and so on, but it's a parody of fantasy. It's a world that, most of all, works and makes sense. It's what fantasy would've been like if fantasy rolled up its metaphorical sleeves and stopped handwaving inconvenient things away because "a wizard did it and ran away". Along the way, you'll see what happens to the Discworld if/when it gets rock 'n roll, supermarkets, invasions by eldritch creatures from beyond time, and so on.

It really depends what you'd like to read. "Wyrd Sisters", for instance, is the Discworld's take on Shakespeare (and a Damn Fine Book). "Soul Music" deals with rock 'n roll. "Small Gods" (one of the finest books) deals with the nature of religion, where it comes from, and why it sticks around. And so on. To be honest, the series proper really gets going with "Mort", the 4th book. Before that, Terry was only writing and publishing part-time - he was working as a press officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board, which was responsible for nuclear power stations in Britain. So, he was the publicity officer for four nuclear power stations before he left in 1987 to become a full-time author. ("Mort" was published in late 1987, and it's also a Damn Fine Book, exploring the essence of death and the Grim Reaper, and what happens when He needs help).

I really hope you'll give Discworld a go again. It's a lot of fun.