Moving from Discord to BlaB - is it desirable?

[Rachael Blackthorne]

Let me begin this by saying that I was against the move to Discord for roleplay and the duels in the beginning.

But, after playing and dueling on Discord for a while now, I find that I like the idea of dueling on Discord a lot. I have been more active in dueling since the move to Discord. The bot system makes the matches much faster than the caller tool/PMs method unless the other person has delays on their end to respond to moves. I like the idea of dueling on Discord enough that, if dueling moves to Blab without a secure and stable dueling bot in place, I will more than likely walk away from 8+ years of supporting the duels by dueling for good. I do not trust the PM system on Blab at all, and the so-called "fixes" for the problems that I and others have experienced with the PMs completely negate the idea of dueling for me and others without a secure and stable dueling bot in place.

I treat the so-called split between Discord and Blab chat much like the way that RoH and DM chats were split when I started dueling. I loved the standalone chat clients for both RoH and DM. I could have a character duel on RoH at the same time they were playing in another scene on DM. I lamented the loss of the DM chat client because I did and do not like a web-based chat client that can crash when a browser does. I almost never had the chat clients crash. Usually, when they had problems it was due to an internet connection error, and not with the chat client itself. I also did not personally experience any of the problems with either chat system such as the DNS errors, but I did see them happening. I used the RoH chat client without problems until the chat room was removed permanently.

I have had few to no problems with using the Discord desktop client, and those are related solely to problems on my end, rather than the program itself. I use a desktop computer and frankly, it worries me when the main focus appears to be about mobile users using the various chats without taking into consideration those who don't and likely won't use a mobile or other device. It's great that people can use the mobile devices to play when they couldn't before, as that expands the player base. But don't forget about those of us who choose to use desktops to play on when the merits of various chat clients are being considered.

The only negative that I personally have experienced with Discord so far is the annoyance factor of having to register a separate username per character that I want to play/duel with there. I know that I can link usernames, but honestly, I have thought about bringing new characters over to Discord and I prefer the (relative) anonymity of having them separated from this name, for example. DM's current plus in its favor is that multiple character registration is easy with the multiple usernames linked under one email factor.

For the record, I check both the main DM (burgundy page) and RoH sites daily, sometimes multiple times per day. There was no announcement of the Blab logs being live on the main DM site, for example. I happened by accident to catch the sidebar announcement for the logs on the DM RDI chat page, otherwise, I wouldn't have known about the logs.

People need to stop treating both sites like the red-haired stepchild in this matter. Both Discord and Blab have their good points to recommend them for what they can be used for. I strongly recommend cross-promotion of Discord on DM and DM on Discord. Events that play to the strengths of each site should be held on that site and cross-promoted on the other site. When possible, if events can be held simultaneously on both sites, that is a viable option to not leave out players that want to play on one site or the other. Stop alienating both sides because of where they choose to play primarily. Some players might want to play in both areas, me for example. But if there's animosity against our choice of where we primarily play, I for one will more than likely just play where I feel welcome.

TL; DR: I like the separation of Blab and Discord, as both chats play to unique needs in the community. Keep dueling/roleplay on Discord, and roleplay on Blab. Cross promote both chats to build up the joint player base. Don't trash talk people who choose to play in one or the other. Some of us (like me) may want to play both if we feel welcome to do so.

[Amaltea]

Point is that I don't think where we chat necessarily dictates use of forums or not.

Challenges need to be posted. As far as I know the forum is important to the duels for this reason. This is why people need to visit the forum. Or was did someone get rid of that too?

[Goldglo]

Nooooooo; forums are good and should stay for lots of reasons (challenge postings, stories, etc.)

I think what was trying to be communicated before (not to speak for people) is that, in relation to info on BlaB, there weren't any forum threads here on RoH specific to the timeline, adoption of, etc.

I usually don't check DM forums but happened to log in there one day about week or 10 days ago and ran across the BlaB thread; I never saw one on RoH (realizing we don't necessarily want to have discussions on multiple forums for the same topic, it might have been good to have a notice on RoH, whether via forum or an alert on the site's main page with something like, hey, we're having a forum discussion about BlaB over on DM - please come check it out). If one does/did exist over here, I totally missed it. =/

--Matt

[Kalamere]

Point is that I don't think where we chat necessarily dictates use of forums or not.

Challenges need to be posted. As far as I know the forum is important to the duels for this reason. This is why people need to visit the forum. Or was did someone get rid of that too?

I never advocated getting rid of the forums. I think they are an important piece of the overall package of tools RoH and RDI offer to the playing community. And, naturally, a title holder would still be responsible for checking them periodically to answer a potential challenge. We have many years of precedent setting that standard in place.

What you quoted from me is not at all saying we don't need the forums. I was simply saying that I don't think which place someone decides to chat is going to be determinant in whether or not they read them.

Forcing someone to hit the front page to click a link and type their login credentials isn't going to be a driving force that makes them want to read what's on the board if they aren't inclined to do so. Compelling stories or regular staff updates or ... something of interest (I'm sure somebody else has ideas as to what that might be, I'm just the code guy) is what I feel drives forum engagement. Something people want to do over something they are forced to do.

[Bailey Raptis]

Here are my two cents for whatever they are worth - and I am fully aware that some people may not think they're worth all that much, given that I don't go all the way back to the AOL dueling days and that I have spent a LOT of time on hiatus for a lot of different reasons.

Last July, I went on one of those hiatuses from live RP -- I work a job now that requires me to spend a lot of time in front of a computer and (at the time) I lost interest in spending even more time on a computer after work. I didn't totally check out though, so I was vaguely aware that Flash Chat had gone kaput.

Quite honestly, it was a pretty apocalyptic year for RP tech. Flash Chat went away, Pro Chat didn't seem to get off the ground, and then you had AIM shutting down in December. I think it says something about our community's resiliency that we found a way to more or less stay together in spite of all the roadblocks put in our way.

Anyways, when I finally got back into the mood to RP and duel again in July, Discord was here. And yeah, it took me a while to figure out how to use it, and how to duel with it, but the fact remains that I am here and active again because it is here.

I can't say with any certainty that if blab had been here instead of Discord that I would or would not have returned. But from what (admittedly) little I've seen of blab, I think it would have been harder to lure me back. I like Discord - both the platform itself and the fact that we have brought in people to RP and the duels and our setting that we would not have if we were just using a blab chat on our forum page. I don't know that I would outright quit if we went to blab instead of Discord, but I doubt it would be good for our community.

TL;DR: I would much rather prefer the duels stay on Discord than blab.

[PrlUnicorn]

I'm not a major fan of Discord at least, not yet. As chat programs go, Blab fills that need nicely. My primary concern is a further divide between the RDI side of the house and the dueling side. Took long enough patch them together, albeit not smoothly, only to have things torn apart again because ProChat was not what it was cracked up to be. The name Rings of Discord sounds godawful to me, it has from the beginning. Sadly, it is somehow fitting since discord means a lack of harmony which is how it got its start, but I digress.

While I'm not overly fond of Discord as a chat program, I do find Discord to be very effective for the purposes of dueling. If a caller can't make their shift, the bot fills that need nicely. No more worry about an official getting booted out of chat in middle of a duel. The bots allow those playing officials to interact more with their fellow players rather than to be hiding behind a half dozen or more IMs and not be able to see the chat screen. With the ability to easily switch between all the rooms with a click or two, there's no more need to put stray OOC things to the screen in the RP rooms to tell everyone good night, BRB, etc. Flip to the OOC Lobby, send, and done.

This brings me to the issues that have been brought up with PMs on Blab not being an effective tool for calling duels. In listening to the opinions of others, the suggestion of whispers to the chat screen was brought up. I don't know the full opinions of everyone on this, but having called duels in the AOL days with and without the PowerTools add-ons, it's my belief that trying to chase down the whispers on screen would be difficult at best. Resources are not generally a problem for my desktop, but I sympathize with those using phones and other devices that are unable to make use of very large virtual memory blocks.

During the gubernatorial debate, I had two characters logged in. One was on Chrome, the other on Edge. For both of them, I checked the box next to Log me on automatically each visit. (The one on Edge still logs in as I didn't close that session.) I tried sending a PM between those SNs. Since I was unaware of how the system operated, I failed to note the sound for PMs in the midst of the sounds for chat. Eventually, I figured it out. Through that night, both SNs were logged in, but I had to refresh the screen on Edge as it stalled out. I tried to open the PM in Chrome from the SN on Edge. The message amounted to not available. That wasn't anything crucial for me as I was just trying it out. If that happened during a duel, people would not be pleased. Basically, it seems to log people out of the PM system without notice and without actually being logged out of the site/chat room they are using. Is that a fixable issue? I don't know.

There's no reason that the forums and histories can't be maintained on RoH while play goes on on Discord. Be far less work on the site upkeep, wouldn't it?

Due to health issues, I'm bit behind on forum reading. However, unless I am very much mistaken, the first notice about Blab coming to RoH was last week. In all fairness, since some of the people, who take part in duels, only read RoH boards and not RDI/DM, wouldn't it have been a good idea to post a notice on RoH saying a discussion was taking place and testing was in progress?

Ages ago, Xeno posted this notice.
I love that some hosts are posting RoH events on the RDI Playables.

All I ask is that they post the same on our own homepage. Please.

Shouldn't that same logic have applied on the part of the Admins regarding the chat testing that was intended to be implemented on this site as well as RDI?

[Kalamere]

... it worries me when the main focus appears to be about mobile users using the various chats without taking into consideration those who don't and likely won't use a mobile or other device. It's great that people can use the mobile devices to play when they couldn't before, as that expands the player base. But don't forget about those of us who choose to use desktops to play on when the merits of various chat clients are being considered.

Rachael, thank you for your input. I wanted to address this part specifically to let you know that we are not meaning to leave desktop users out in the cold. I forget to mention desktop usage when I write these things because, in my head, it's just a given. I very rarely use mobile clients for any of this and write code exclusively on the desktop, tested again desktop clients and browsers. That's just always my "go to".

I call out mobile usage just because it's the offshoot from the norm and I want to let the people who gravitate to those know that they aren't forgotten (whether or not I can actually help them being an entirely different matter). I need to state that outloud every now and then though so I don't leave the impression I've actually forgotten the old standby desktop. Sorry that I haven't so far.

[Amaltea]

Nooooooo; forums are good and should stay for lots of reasons (challenge postings, stories, etc.)

I think what was trying to be communicated before (not to speak for people) is that, in relation to info on BlaB, there weren't any forum threads here on RoH specific to the timeline, adoption of, etc.

I usually don't check DM forums but happened to log in there one day about week or 10 days ago and ran across the BlaB thread; I never saw one on RoH (realizing we don't necessarily want to have discussions on multiple forums for the same topic, it might have been good to have a notice on RoH, whether via forum or an alert on the site's main page with something like, hey, we're having a forum discussion about BlaB over on DM - please come check it out). If one does/did exist over here, I totally missed it. =/

--Matt

Thank you. That makes it more clear. The point I'm trying to make is without a chat to come to the site, people will not visit the site as already stated by several people. That in itself is not good for the forum.

[Amaltea]

Collie is correct and I apologize for not posting here. Somehow I assumed that players checked the forums. But after seeing several comments here and on Discord I see that they are not even bothering.

To me Discord is separating the community more than bringing it together. Players go there, stay there, interact with whoever is there and forget that we have the RoH forum and the RDI forum to play around with.

Everyone is making a big deal of this, Kalamere hasn't even bothered to look at the code to try to bring the tools to Blab. It was my understanding that these were stand alone tools and that they could probably be added to Blab. I already offered access to him to do so. I know it won't be done right away, but it can probably be done. I believe he can do it.

Logging to the forums to play should not be a chore, you login to Discord to chat. We used to login to AIM to chat. We used to login to AOL to chat and the message boards were not that easily found either, but we still played and posted. I had to fight for people to use Flash Chat and it took a while for players to get used to the idea of using it instead of AIM. I understand that people do not like change and I understand that when they have something new and shiny (like Discord) they don't want to give it up.

Like I said before, Discord is not RoH, or RDI. Discord was a temporary solution while we found something else that would work for the community. Blab works. Flash chat was more resource hogging that Blab. Unlike Flash Chat, Blab can be used with mobil devices. It will take several weeks before we can fix some of the things with Blab and we will keep adding more as we use it. And I believe that we can have the calling tools that were already created here.

[Kalamere]

For the record, I should be clear that what I wrote for the discord dueling bots cannot be ported to blab. While the ideas that drive both are obviously similar, the systems themselves are very different in how they work and how automation would interact with them. This is a start from scratch effort.

Cor had asked what the expectation was. I guess I'm not positive on that myself, but I can speak to what I've been considering.

First and foremost, as the Coords and others have mentioned, I'd need to create an automated caller. That's not something we had under flash chat, but is something I think we need these days. Of the 3 projects I see as needing to be completed, this is probably the easiest. I see that blab supports commands for rolling dice and emoting, so I can probably leverage that to get slash commands working for dueling. I'm not sure folks will like this, since it is issuing commands straight to the room, but I think it's the fastest path to usability. I then get the code that interprets slash commands to know about the new ones and be able to read/write things to a database and pipe through some other logic and voila, automated calling. The discord bot that does this is written in python, blab is not in that language - so even though I can use a lot of the same or similar logic, it will need to be rewritten. Overall, this one probably involves the most extensive code work, but since I don't have to create any sort of user interface for it, that's easier on my brain. That, of course, brings me to the next bits...

Project 2 is something I have not yet written for the discord bots, but which I had on the plan. This is a user interface much like the flash chat interface we had for dueling. You do challenges (maybe) and move sends with the click of a mouse rather than a text command sent to the room. This one is where things (for me at least) get a little trickier, because then I have to worry about interface design. Trust me that things get a little more complicated when you try to go and make them look pretty. This is also where I doubt I can make them work incredibly well for mobile users. (though, of note, the same can be said for adding this to the Discord setup).

Project 3 is allowing for a caller. The traditional dueling where two people send moves to the caller to figure out. FC had this and I expect it is a requirement here. This is another piece that requires a good deal of interface work to display things to the caller, allow for changes to things and to show multiple duels. In Discord I can do this with slash commands because I'm able to have bots talk to you in PMs; blab doesn't give me a bot system, so it'll require an interface and a bunch of back end code support.

So, again, this is just to clarify. One piece needs a code port and 2 have never been written by me. I don't need to look at the code to know this. Looking at the code is obviously something I need and want to do still, but that's going to inform me as to full level of difficulty beyond this basic premise.

And also, again, none of this means I'm unwilling to do it.

I want to do 2 things:

(a) I want to continue writing code. I know I stated I'm not a professional at this or anything, but I do like to do it. For me it's like figuring out a puzzle.. or maybe it's just the joy of bending stuff to my will... Point is, I'm going to keep writing things.

(b) I want to help the RP community. I love RhyDin roleplay and have spent most of my adult life playing in either the Inn or in the duels. I want to see it continue and help it along in what little ways I can.

The whole point of this was for me to see what the community wants. RoH and RDI aren't about me or Amaltea or any other individual staff member or participant. It's about all of us as a community both present and future. When I know what people want, then I know how to prioritize my time. I'm going to be writing things anyway, but if I know Blab isn't really the thing folks want for RoH, then I'll spend that time continuing to try and make the Discord experience better.

~Kal

[Amaltea]

To clarify myself. I never asked you to write anything for Discord. If I had asked for you to write anything would have been for our chat. What I mean to say here is that anything you write for Discord will be a waste of time.

Also, Blab has a bot.

[Corlanthis]

Kal, thank you for answering my questions!

For me at least, this helps inform what I think the best solution going forward. The idea of moving back to BlaB before these systems are in place feels like moving one step forward and three steps back when we already have a working system on Discord.

Moreover, having an alternative in place in the eventuality of site/chat issues, is not a terrible thing, I don't think.

Either way, moving to BlaB now before there are any tools in place seems grossly premature.

There are no callers to Call.

The PM system in BlaB as-is, is untenable.

The forums are wonky and somewhat unreliable.

Trying to duel or Call duels in this atmosphere would be spectacularly counterproductive to growing membership and getting people excited to duel, I think.

[Corlanthis]

As an addendum, I just want to say a huge THANK YOU, Kal, for everything you'e been doing to keep the duels going, and for all the work you're willing to put in with the coding.

You really are a wizard.

[Canaan]

What I mean to say here is that anything you write for Discord will be a waste of time.

Except... it would seem that's not true.

I don't see BlaB as a step in the right direction for the community.

I am not interested in making the move from Discord to BlaB.

In short: I believe your time and energy will be wasted in writing anything for Blab.

TL;DR Answer: Moving dueling back to it's own insular website feels like a wasted effort to me.

Should Discord no longer be supported, I would sadly put an end to my 7+ years of volunteering for this site. And even if Kalamere were to make tools on BlaB, I would not have interest in them as a player and volunteer when Discord can offer much better.

The caller-bot permits dueling (and associated roleplay) to carry on regardless of whether a human volunteer is available and, whether it's a direct correlation or not, we've had a pickup in the amount of dueling (and role-playing) since the transition to Discord.

At the end of the day, for me, it comes down to where the community will be most successful and thrive. If that's BlaB, huzzah! If that's Discord, huzzah! We've seen the positives of Discord thus far, especially in getting new players to come check stuff out, because we desperately need such.

Keep dueling/roleplay on Discord, and roleplay on Blab.

TL;DR: I would much rather prefer the duels stay on Discord than blab.

While I'm not overly fond of Discord as a chat program, I do find Discord to be very effective for the purposes of dueling.

And lastly, again:

So I'm presented with a choice. Continue to support you and your choices while getting zero support or communication back. Or to continue putting my time and energy into a place that respects and solicits my opinion, that tries to respond to the needs and requests of our community, and that has actually seen results in community growth.

You tell me. What would you do?

[Amaltea]

I tried to keep the community together, but apparently this has been impossible since day one. It hurts me to say this, but it appears that the community prefers that the duels to remain on Discord, as well as the other issues of dissatisfaction presented. We will begin the transition of ROH to Kalamere's ownership as soon as a server is available to host it.

There will no longer be a connection between the two sites, and events on RoD will not be advertised on the RDI site.

I wish you all luck.