Potential Forum Changes

Hi guys,

I just wanted to pop in and talk for a brief moment about the forum. The forum community has always been one of the core parts of the Path of Exile community and we want to take some time to look at how we can improve the forum experience.

While there are several areas we can focus on to improve the forum experience, the first one we wanted to address is the staleness of some subsections of the forum and condensing broad topics into fewer categories for more focused discussion.

As such, we want to look at condensing some of the forum topics and see how we can nurture more discussion and engagement in these various areas. The current plan is to remove or merge a number of forum topics that have overlap in other areas as follows:

• Announcements
• Development Manifesto
• Patch Notes
• Account Help & Information/Technical Support
• Bug Reports
• Feedback and Suggestions
• Xbox One
• Discussion
• Gameplay Help & Guides
• Build Guides
• Guilds
• Communities
• Racing & PVP (Temporarily Unchanged)
• Trading (Unchanged)

Note that this means the following changes would occur:

• Help and Information would merge with Technical Support and be renamed 'Account Help & Information/Technical Support'
• Gameplay Help & Guides would move to the 'Help' subcategory.
• The Skill Gem Feedback, Support Gem Feedback will be merged into one topic 'Skill & Support Gem Feedback'.
• Art and Audio Feedback would be replaced by stickied threads in the 'Feedback and Suggestions' forum.
• General Discussion would become simply 'Discussion' and encompass Gameplay, Hideouts, Community Showcase and other miscellaneous topics.
• Item Display Cabinet would be removed.
• The 'Community' subcategory would consist of 'Discussion', 'Off Topic', 'Guilds' and 'Communities'.
• Hideouts and Community Showcase would be merged with discussion.

This is just a jumping off point that we believe will enable further improvements to be made down the road. Before we make the above changes, we want to check in with you to see if you have any feedback or requests regarding this shift.

Please keep in mind that the purpose of this discussion is not to address any moderation queries. If you have feedback or queries regarding forum moderation please email us at support@grindinggear.com to discuss it.

"

viperesque wrote:

That sounds reasonable. Particularly like doing away with the help and information forum, it's always just been half gameplay help and half tech support.

So to clarify, the current "gameplay help and discussion" forum would just become "gameplay help" and move to the Help section? This would also mean the complete removal of the Gameplay section?

The one big thing I would suggest doing differently would be re: guides. This forum is, and always has been, the best place to find build guides. IMO they deserve their own section. What I would suggest is renaming that section "guides" and solidifying those forums as a place only for guides, not questions. This also makes finding guides easier for a new player.

Yes, the currently 'Gameplay Help and Discussion' would become 'Gameplay Help and Guides'. I would have to clear it with the team but we could possibly add a tagging system to make guides more accessible. I'm definitely interested in finding a way to make guides more prominently featured on the forum as they're a huge help to many people.

"

Iangyratu wrote:

Eh, I hoped you'd wipe "Off-Topic" out of existence. .

I'm not sure exactly how popular off topic is anymore. It has a certain history that I would have a hard time erasing but if there were a good reason to do it, it might be something to consider.

"

cybershell wrote:

Please, make profiles visible by default, because mostly newbs have real problem to find this checkbox in profile->Privacy. Its kinda hard to find profile link too. Thanks!

I'll pass your suggestion onto the team.

"

I agree with wiping Off-Topic out of existence. While I've had a lot of fun there, and still like to post about other games and anime and shit, it's not necessary and attracts far more vitriol and conflict than we ever needed or wanted.

Off-Topic boards were necessary way back when we didn't have reddit or twitter. Now that such outlets exist, I think it's perfectly okay for a computer game's fora to forego anything unrelated to that game.

I know some staff agree with me. It's just a waste of PoE Support resources to be called in to mediate discussions and debates that have nothing to do with PoE.

I'm definitely open to it. If we see more support for this we'll be happy to consider it.

"

viperesque wrote:

"

Bex_GGG wrote:

Yes, the currently 'Gameplay Help and Discussion' would become 'Gameplay Help and Guides'.

Now I'm confused. Does that mean build guides, or other kinds of guides? What would happen to the existing class forums where build guides are currently posted?

My apologies! Build guides will stay where they are in their class forums. I imagined that the guides section would include anything else from setting up Item Filters e.t.c.

You make a good point in that that could be quite confusing for newcomers to know the difference between these guides. I'll rethink that part.

"

Make the badge system come out faster Bex =(

Hehe, I don't quite have that power but I have put it on my list of things to badger people about once the 3.2.0 crunch is out of the way.

"

Sarno wrote:

"

Bex_GGG wrote:

• Xbox One

I do not agree with this; I think the console sections are currently good as they are.

"

Bex_GGG wrote:

• The Skill Gem Feedback, Support Gem Feedback will be merged into one topic 'Skill & Support Gem Feedback'.

Is even that worth having?

Yes, the Xbox One section will remain unchanged.

The main reason for keeping the Skill And Support Gem Feedback section separate is that our developers still find this a very useful way to track and monitor discussion about these topics.

"

D3izhistory wrote:

my primary criticism here is the item display cabinet, without flooding general with item finds etc these sorts of posts need a home, a place where people can view "finds of the day"

I was wondering about this too. I can certainly see how it would become frustrating in General Discussion. Originally this topic was created to get item lotteries out of General Discussion but they don't seem to be very popular anymore. Perhaps we'll keep this one separate just in case.

Thanks for all of the feedback so far, everyone! It looks like we'll be keeping the Item Display and considering removing Off Topic.