When OG goes ... I go

[Acromos]

There are so many things about this new site I simply don't have it in me to comprehend.

Primarily, it's this: This site can parse bbcode, but has something else (I don't even know what, html maybe?!) as standard. When you have a site, and whole host of users, who use bbcode and are familiar with it, then it just seems to me it would make sense to use bbcode as standard - and keep the html as an option for those, presumably very very few, who want the extra shenanigans it's capable of. Standard input: Bbcode. Optional input: Html - or whatever.

If I want to use a posting template, as far as I've been able to figure out, I cannot do it here. No, what I have to do is open OG, copy my template from there to here - into the optional bbcode translator thing - then post. If I try to do the same from this site, I get a block I cannot edit (well, except in the bbcode translator).

Half the time I try to post a picture, the interface straight up and blankly refuses to play ball. These are images I already use on OG. And I'm not retarded, I know how to do it. It just doesn't work as it should.

So when OG Mythweaver closes - that's the end for me. I'll be on D&D or Discord or whatever. This site isn't ever going to work for me. Which saddens me, not just because I guess my games generally speaking won't survive the transfer, and I'll have to find or make new ones, find new players, and so on. Also because I really would rather support this community - but that's simply not possible.

[Vladim]

That's strange-I've been using images here for a while and I've almost never run into problems.

Do you want to discuss things here? Like, I'm sure there's people who could help with figuring out the new site, myself included. But if you're set on it and there's not much to discuss... then sorry to see you go.

Keep in mind though that Discord probably has less functionality than this site for PbP at least. I think so anyway... I am not a heavy Discord user.

[Acromos]

It's not functionality I want, it's useability. Discord is easy to use for PbP, while this site isn't. To me, this entire new site feels like it's made by back-end, for back-end. It requires levels of user input I've never seen, anywhere else. And I just can't figure out why - for whom? Who is the target audience here? Which group of vocal OG MW users demanded this .... upgrade would be a monumentally wrong term, but this refit towards perhaps slightly more functional options, at the cost of throwing useability on the trash heap?

[hakootoko]

I asked for an improvement in posting templates, and they gave it to me. Now you can have a posting template in your character thread and use the Clone buttons to copy it into any thread you like.

 

The only time I've had a problem with images is inside fieldsets, which I'm told can't be done. Yet I see others do it successfully. I have to wonder what's with that, but it just means I have to stop using fieldsets.

[Eric]

BBcode is on its way out industry-wide, as the user base becomes increasingly familiar with tools like Google Docs that give you the capability to see what it is you're doing as you do it, with no markup or markdown knowledge required. Even newer versions of vBulletin, OGMW's framework, use a WYSIWYG-style editor as the default.

The site transition, however, has nothing to do with BBcode itself. The vBulletin version on which OGMW was built was fragile, temperamental, and unable to be extended in any meaningful way. We made poorly thought out hacked-in customizations back in 2006, and those specifically tied us to a version of vBulletin that is waaaaay out of support. Every attempt to upgrade from our hacked-in custom version to a supported version failed, even when the dev team took weeks off from work specifically to try to tease apart the Gordian knot of code landmines we had left for ourselves.

We did maintain backwards compatibility to BBcode with the express intent of easing the transition for those who want to keep to the old ways. If there are improvements you'd like to see to how it works or is accessed, I'm all ears.

[cailano]

I stick with the basics on this site but that has been plenty for the game I run and the games I play in. I'm happy to help people figure things out if they're interested. In all, I find the new MW very intuitive.

[roryb]

One issue with linking images from the OG I've noticed...if you've uploaded images over there, the link needs to use [og.] instead of [www.]. Probably not helpful, but, maybe?

[Colin]

1 hour ago, roryb said:

One issue with linking images from the OG I've noticed...if you've uploaded images over there, the link needs to use [og.] instead of [www.]. Probably not helpful, but, maybe?

With v6 you can copy/paste an image to the post and it’ll automatically attach it. Then you just select the insertion point. 🙂

[Acromos]

Just now, I marked a block of text, and selected the 'quote' thing that pops up when you do. Said text appeared here - but lo and be ****ing hold, I could not then write anything in this field in which I'm not typing.

I had to remove the quote, f5, then I could write this.

And I'm not doing anything wildly unpredictable or weird. I used a function that the site offers, and it immediately seppuku'd. It's like the image posting thing. Someone above (hakootoko) said you can't use images in fieldsets. Well, I got it working - in a fieldset - but when I try to use it for a posting template, I get the same problem described above: I get a block of text and images I can't edit, and I can't type anything in the text field that's there for typing in.

This site is generally either non-responsive, or aggressively counter-responsive, doing something opposite of what you'd expect or want or seems reasonable within the realm of sanity.

Either what you're building here simply doesn't work - or it works in such a cthulic fashion as to defy any mere mortal framework of understanding.

[Colin]

@Acromos You can report issues and odd behavior like the quote issue in the Site Feedback forum, you can make feature requests, and the community is happy to help folks get used to and learn the new UI. We are all here to help, and the reason for the new site has been explained many times in detail over the past couple years.
 

Venting anger at needed change however and metaphorical table flipping is not going to bring back OGMW as the primary site. If you choose to leave as a result of the change that is completely your choice; we understand shifting to a new UI is uncomfortable for many, but yelling about it on your way out is not doing anything productive for anyone.

[Acromos]

Colin, you have a spectacular talent for saying precisely the wrong thing. I'm not venting anger. I'm not flipping any tables. I'm not saying you should bring back OGMW - in fact, I challenge you to point out exactly which thing I've said that makes you think so.

I am trying, Colin, to help you.

And maybe you don't need that. To be certain, I'd need to see some user statistics. I'd need some number crunching. But I can tell you that the one game I've seen try to move from OG to here has stalled and died. If you look at your online user counts and post numbers and are happy and optimistic - then I'm wrong, and more power to you.

I just don't think so. I think you're almost certainly making an incredible, unbelievable moronic mistake by taking a slightly hard to use forum, and turning it into an absolutely hideously user hostile forum instead, and that MW will be dead within a year of closing the old site. I get the impression that you're a bunch of competent backend guys who've heard of frontend, useability tests, user involvement and so on, and decided that's weaksauce for coders with no balls, and you'll have precisely nothing to do with it.

And it doesn't help that you insist on commenting on what I see as legitimate concerns, and point out bullshit tangents that have nothing to do with what I'm saying. No, Colin. Change isn't hard, and I'm not venting anger. I'm watching something I use and love commit messy and bloody suicide before my eyes, and I'm sad at it's untimely passing.

Seriously, man. Can you respond to things I'm actually saying? And NOT respond to whatever reel is playing in your mind - of things you think I'm saying, but I'm absolutely definitely not? Or, alternatively, not respond at all. That works too.

[Roughtrade]

5 minutes ago, Acromos said:

challenge you to point out exactly which thing I've said that makes you think so.

I’d quote it for you, but essentially it’s every single thing you’ve posted. And I don’t think anyone has that much time.

[Vladim]

I've also tried my best, and I think it was on more than one occasion (I think there was another thread with similar issues/opinions being raised/mentioned). So I will respectfully reiterate my previous post and bow out of this particular 'discussion' (I put the quotes because it mostly reads like a monologue, for me at least).

Best of luck to you, OP! I hope you find a new home for your games that is to your satisfaction!

[Acromos]

1 hour ago, Roughtrade said:

I’d quote it for you, but essentially it’s every single thing you’ve posted. And I don’t think anyone has that much time.

Well - since it's obviously unclear, let me spell it out: I don't particularly give two ****s about OGMW, if it has to go it has to go. But OGMW works, from a user perspective, and this shit doesn't seem to. So my point is that if OGMW has to go, I'd recommend replacing it with something that also works, and preferably something that works better.

That doesn't seem to be happening, and trying to point it out seems to get me flamed by the Colin Fan Club. So I'm done trying, and I wish you all the best of luck. Byeee 👋