Forum closing?

Discord is not a replacement for forums. They operate differently and have different uses.

Discord is for live text/voice chat and the only separation of topics is by channels, but you can't have a channel to cover every single topic.

That's where the power of forums lies, discrete discussions, that don't have to be real time, that are easy to return to at a later date, and importantly, easy to search through to find relevant info and discussions.

Yes, you can search Discord, but whatever you are interested in will be mixed in with chat about other random things, memes, random noise, etc.

Its also a terrible platform for sharing screenshots and going through them at a later date.

In short, Discord is a good platform for real time, not for historicity.

Absoloutely terrible decision for PC2 and if as you say, the longer term plan is to move everything over to Discord, this is a horrible move for the future of the overall FD community.
 
And what about the future of the ED forums? Will that also be moved over to Discord, eventually?
Considering almost all recent information from Fdev has been posted by regular users from various Social Media platforms, I'd say the forums have been on life support for some time. I'm expecting the plug to be pulled sooner rather than later
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
And what about the future of the ED forums? Will that also be moved over to Discord, eventually?
No they won't, and yes I do know that :)

Also you can create threads on Discord that work exactly the same as Forum threads. If you use the app you can also see all media in a channel/thread separately.
 
Hey folks. just to clear things up, support isn't dropping for Planet Coaster 2 (That should hopefully be pretty obvious by now :p). For new Frontier games we are slowly moving discussion and feedback over to Discord as fewer and fewer gamers are choosing to use forums and opt instead for sites they already use. We won't be deleting the forum, simply closing new discussions (Old threads will still be available to find and view).

We've already made this move with the Jurassic World Evolution 3 Discussions forum (You will see the only post in there is a link to the Discord) but the Discord didn't fully exist until a little while after Planet Coaster 2 was announced which is why it still had a forum presence.

The Discord is great for hanging out with other PlanCo fans and you can share your screenshots and Workshop Creations even more easily in there than arguing with the forums occasional refusal to post an image :)
I landed here from a stray post in the ED forums. Just wanted to say: Moving to Discord-only support as far as public support goes is a terrible idea for future preservation. Discord is a terrible closed system, not searchable or really available from the public web, or for search engines. Every bit of support done there is lost for future issues for the non-Discord public, and possibly for the Discord users too because of the terrible structure of Discord.

I've seen this more and more, and it is a terrible move.
 

HeatherG

Volunteer Moderator
I understand completely everybody's point, I really really do. I've been here for a long time. I would prefer it to stay as well.

A couple years ago they gave the option for Threads. If you press the + sign to the left of where you type your Discord messages there's an option for "create thread".

The thread will show up like this after it's created. I was able to take a screenshot because someone just created it.
1753544582756.png


--------
If you want to see a list of threads you can click on the far left icon at the top of your screen.
1753549199917.png
 
This forum should stay open, because it's one of Frontier's newest games. Discord is more like a chat service, it is not a forum alternative.

A lot of people, probably the majority of fans / consumers, do not use discord! This is a bad idea to force people to use Discord! Discord is not a good replacement for online forums.

I understand completely everybody's point, I really really do. I've been here for a long time. I would prefer it to stay as well.

If you understand it then keep the forums accessible here. Game communities support your games which keeps the game developer (Frontier) alive. if you destroy your communities (fans) forum spaces... that fan support will decrease and hurt in the long term (less fans, sales and people leaving).

If people are too negative on the forum, perhaps give them a timeout or warning, but do not close the forum. It takes many years to grow a fanbase so do not censor your own fans.

Every new Frontier game needs a forum space here. Tell whoever decided this that it's a huge mistake.

Sorry, some of us have no interest in Discord.

Yeah, I won't use discord. Discord is difficult to archive posts and to keep accessible compared to a forum.

seriously??? after months of zero communication with us here regarding all the feedback and issues, now you are gonna close the forums just like that?

They've given many updates with info on Steam and the Frontier Unlocked streams. If you have issues you can file a bug report.

From my, admittedly limited, experience, almost nobody will use the threads feature. On the Discords I have access to everyone just dumps their thoughts into the channels. This will be a hell to moderate of even try to enforce.

Seconded. Going through all those nonsense, off-topic, chat messages is a nightmare on Discord. It is also not find-able via internet searches.
 
Last edited:
And what about the future of the ED forums? Will that also be moved over to Discord, eventually?
No they won't, and yes I do know that :)
I'm very happy to read that, but can you please say more about why you're confident about it?
I ask this because it's not at all clear to me that there's a qualitative difference between PC2 and ED - a decision to replace one game's forum with Discord seems likely to "spread"... if the bean-counters get to decide.
Also you can create threads on Discord that work exactly the same as Forum threads. If you use the app you can also see all media in a channel/thread separately.
Well, I agree with Helmut on this:
From my, admittedly limited, experience, almost nobody will use the threads feature. On the Discords I have access to everyone just dumps their thoughts into the channels. This will be a hell to moderate of even try to enforce.
Yes, even in those Discord servers with threads turned on, I've rarely seen them used.
This forum should stay open, because it's one of Frontier's newest games. Discord is more like a chat service, it is not a forum alternative.
^^ This is so true. Discords are great for interactive chats, and absolutely horrifically awful for the things that forums do well. For example: you have a question about why a game feature doesn't do what you expect? Google it and you'll be directed to a forum about that game with a useful thread. Discord servers don't offer that at all; they're like a walled garden - no search engines allowed, and their own search function is laughably terrible. This will mean that questions get asked again and again by people that do find the Discord server, while many users won't attempt to use Discord at all and may abandon the game if they don't find a source of info. (I guess they'll end up on Reddit, in all likelihood.)
 
No they won't, and yes I do know that :)

Also you can create threads on Discord that work exactly the same as Forum threads. If you use the app you can also see all media in a channel/thread separately.

That's great to hear for ED, not so great for all the other games that are being moved from being forum based.

I haven't seen that feature on Discord that you can make forum like threads... is this a Nitro only feature? Even so, and i'd have to see it in action, but i'm doubtful it will serve as a functional replacement for forums.
 
I think HeatherG just can react to what some people at Frontier have decided, with no further access to change it.

Hopefully this thread will get a huge response to make them change their decision...

Discord is not a place for sim game players!

I'm here as an ED player in support of the PC community. This is an abysmal change for PC2 and all other FD games that will change to using Discord.

And not just for existing community. Imagine you're a player but never joined the forums (or Discord). As things stand, if you need help with an issue, you can do a search and find a relevant forum topic that gives you the answer you seek. Discord is not publicly discoverable via search engines, its limited to members of the discord, meaning any helpful advice is only findable if you search that particular discord.

At least for the moment we have reddit, but that's currently undergoing its own ensh.... erm.. can't say that word on the forums, its own demise chasing $$$ and it will soon go the way of MySpace and Digg. Still, a replacement will likely rise from the ashes.
 
The irony is almost comical to me. This is the same group that had a wonderful thing going with a tried and tested UI on more than one game that was very user friendly, intuitive, and overall a great experience for the player to navigate and easily accomplish what they wanted to do. Instead of keeping and maybe doing some tweaks here and there to make it better, they made a new UI that is unbelievably user UNfriendly and tedious that has complicated the experience exponentially for the player. In Planet coaster, I could save and exit the game directly from within the park I was playing. In Planet Coaster 2, it takes me upwards of 7... SEVEN ... clicks to try to exit the game. This is but one example of how they keep choosing to ruin good things. This forum.. same thing to me. Very easy for me to navigate, to find what I'm looking for, is very user friendly and an amazing platform. The few times I've used discord, it was ONLY for real time communicating with voice chat while on an MMO and even for that I hated it. I find that platform to be everything I Don't want to have to try to navigate through and use. WHY are we continuing to go BACKWARDS with decisions is what I can't comprehend. I will NOT be on the discord and seeing as this has always been my primary source for information, discussion, community, etc, I guess I will now be left in the dark a lot more and now less likely to follow progress and ultimately now support this game. My job gives me very little time for me and these forums were something I could pull up when I got a chance to read through, but I won't be able to ever have discord open at work. I am being alienated by this decision and I wholeheartedly hope they at least reconsider but I doubt it.
 
I love to see the reactions here to this mess. And I have only this to say..Why would they start to listen to what WE want now? How come only this one closes? Kind of obvious if you ask me. I go here at least 10 times a day and love the comunity here..SO STOP this nonsence to close down a good thing.
 
Back
Top Bottom