Hello Game Leaders :byebye:
The trial with the ARK players is going well and a lot of little niggles have been ironed out. With this in mind it's looking likely that the migration will go ahead but no official decision has yet been made.
To ensure that our Discord server meets all your needs could I ask you to now fire up Discord for yourself and start thinking about how you would like your voice and text channels structured. The structure you see on our server at present is not complete - DON'T PANIC :D We will ensure that your section reflects your needs.
So, if you haven't already done so, download Discord and follow these instructions.
With Discord started click the + in the left-hand side (it's in a dotted circle).
Choose 'Join a Server'
Paste in this link: https://discord.gg/s5EcDJ3
Unless you've already been accepted then you will be in invite_me_text where you should paste the following message:
@Discord Admin Invite me please.
This will message all of the online Discord admins who will duly accept your request.
Your Discord username must match your forum name so that we can be confident that only community members are accessing our Discord server.
Looks great to me. I am so excited with the idea of a wider community chat room to promote 'bonding' (for lack of a better word xD) between members.. sort of like the hangouts/IRC/WhatsApp v2 as this everyone will be involved with to at least some extent.
Obviously with me being in China atm I am limited in what I can do with the app. For Overwatch we just need say 3 team channels and a Twitch Channel.
I do wonder if discord let's channel admins move players between voice groups? This was something I found very useful in TS to organise people into the right chat rooms for our 6v6 games on Wednesdays, and it would be great if we are still able to do so (with the admins doing this in my absence, of course).
I think for the LAN the same functionality may be useful. This LAN it would have been very good to have say a handful of LAN specific channels I could move people around into the right teams etc. Editing channel names to tell players what server they are in etc would perhaps also be useful, but again I am not sure what exactly we are able to do with Discord channels, but what I have described above would be useful if possible.
Of course a lot of this is just my thoughts on later use, feel free to ignore for now as necessary xD
We only need 1 voice and 1 text channel for Wow if needed I am sure we can add more.
I would like to see it all kept to a minimum where possible if we can. I.e. One voice channel and one text channel
If people need more that's fine but others can be created and deleted on the fly as and when they're needed temorarily. I know you can roll up section to keep it neat but best practice to be to keep it minimal.
Yes well I would agree with this completely, as sometimes the TS looks rather cluttered. Problem with Overwatch is it's max teams of 6, and we often have 12+ online at a time which soon becomes 3 or 4 groups (if some don't want to play certain game modes etc).
Pushing people to use the in game comms is an option but so far it has only created headaches with key bindings and the game moving people into different chat areas (team versus group) after every match.. It's just a faf.
The things I was talking about with regards to the LAN is definitely something to put up on the Thursday and remove on the Sunday.. I was more inquiring into what control we actually have over stuff like that.
Just a text and a voice channel for PUBG at the moment chaps :)
Although, we could do with a separate voice channel for use on twitch if that's ok, unless you have discussed this already?
Quote from: Sparko;427585Just a text and a voice channel for PUBG at the moment chaps :)
Although, we could do with a separate voice channel for use on twitch if that's ok, unless you have discussed this already?
How does pubg work with just 1 voice channel sparko? I thought with teams of 4 it would have the same problem as Overwatch? Unless I am missing something...
Changes made to reflect comments so far.
Quote from: Chaosphere;427586How does pubg work with just 1 voice channel sparko? I thought with teams of 4 it would have the same problem as Overwatch? Unless I am missing something...
With the twitch channel it’s 2
We don’t very often need an additional channel, as far as I am aware. If we need anymore should we warrant it then, as Pen has said, they can easily be created.
I think your right Ben this hopefully bring everyone back together in one place to strengthen the community, away from the hangout and the irc, whatsapp. Should be interesting to see how we use it.
Quote from: Chaosphere;427579I do wonder if discord let's channel admins move players between voice groups? This was something I found very useful in TS to organise people into the right chat rooms for our 6v6 games on Wednesdays, and it would be great if we are still able to do so (with the admins doing this in my absence, of course).
Is anyone able to answer this bit for my curiosity? It's obviously not going to be a 'deal breaker' but it was very useful for overwatch and will be again at LANs if possible.
Quote from: Chaosphere;427599Is anyone able to answer this bit for my curiosity? It's obviously not going to be a 'deal breaker' but it was very useful for overwatch and will be again at LANs if possible.
I'll set up a test tonight and get back to you.
Cheers Oldie! Another simple question I have.. is there a way to integrate it into the forum homepage much like TS? It is a useful way of seeing who is online / what game is active.
Quote from: Chaosphere;427603Cheers Oldie! Another simple question I have.. is there a way to integrate it into the forum homepage much like TS? It is a useful way of seeing who is online / what game is active.
I'm not sure we need it anymore tbh. The web and phone app will both do this. If you're browsing the forum you may as well have the web app open too.
Also, I can see people being permanently camped in the general_text channel to substitute (replace?) IRC/Whatsapp/Hangouts etc. so they will always see what's happening game wise.
It's a good point, if people do use the Beer bar for general chat they may check that fairly often and yes see who is about, or like you said checking the discord becomes to go to instead of checking the forum...
And another question occurred.. does it support any sort of announcement feature? Would be really useful come LAN sign up etc if we can send a message to people that way as even those that don't check the forum often may see it then!
Yes there is a server widget to show who is online. If we move we can enable it if we want it and simply plug it into the website.
(Oldie see server setting>Widget tab)
Yes there are ways to control/use announcements.
My initial thoughts are that I do not see the need for loads of text channels, it simply adds to the clutter and few are used in a way that needs exclusivity. It might be worth experimenting with fewer text channels (or even just one - the general text chat) to increase engagement across the membership. Individual voice channels are still needed, but a text channel is not always needed by each game imo.
I agree with not having loads of text channels in general but i do think that its beneficial to have a text channel for each game. In TS, as we all know, we are able to to type messages within that channel to either drop links or say 'hey dude your mic isn't working' and things like that, so in my eyes that's what the individual game text channels are doing in Discord. However, Discord is a hell of a lot more accessible than TS (tablets, phones and the like), so its inevitable that we are going to get more text chat between members within these channels but i don't see this as being a bad thing personally, it encourages members to interact on generic conversations that would normally clutter the forum.
Having said that, we need to be careful that we do not draw people away from the forum and obviously the more text channels means more moderation and monitoring of whats posted.
Discord gets a big thumbs up from me having used it for a while so i'm happy we are exploring it as a community :)
QuoteIt might be worth experimenting with fewer text channels (or even just one - the general text chat)
Worth a try I recon with just the one ... After a week see if we actually do miss having a channel per game.
Widget is interesting news. Gives us the best of both worlds I guess!
And good to hear about announcements as this may be really useful to direct the masses to booking and other important community threads.
Text chat per channel is 50:50 in my mind. It's nice to be able to drop links relevant to that particular group conversation now and then, but I also agree less clutter the better. Perhaps Jas' idea is worth a go? Seems like a decent one to me!
Edit: Mike's post does bring something to my mind in that what if some members want to chat game specific stuff and find the Beer bar too crowded with general chat? Perhaps the chat channels for the individual games give us this.. game info and so on can be put there and any can see it and discuss in real time away from the general natter. Of course the forum also enables this albeit a bit less in real time. Maybe a non issue, just food for thought.
I think, for now, that we should go with the 'one text channel per game' model so that the transition from TS seems less different to the members. Remember, if you collapse the category (i.e. the game name) then all channels within are hidden so the quantity in there is moot.
What I do like is that icons representing the players are displayed for collapsed categories - very useful.
Quote from: Chaosphere;427599Is anyone able to answer this bit for my curiosity? It's obviously not going to be a 'deal breaker' but it was very useful for overwatch and will be again at LANs if possible.
Quote from: OldBloke;427602I'll set up a test tonight and get back to you.
So we've given the 'Game Leader' role the ability to move members between channels. We will allow the 'Game Admin' role that ability based on the channel they're in.
Be aware that this is generic. In other words, *any* Game Admin can move people in any channel but only where the move ability has been switched on. If we wanted to restrict this then we would have to create a raft of roles such as 'Game Admin - Overwatch' and 'Game Admin - PUBG'. We'd prefer not to have to do that and, surely, we trust our admins not to dick about!
Thanks oldie for looking into this for me! It's useful stuff to know particularly come the Next big LAN as I'm already thinking we can use the discord to help a bit with the organisation over the weekend.
I'm assuming there is no client limit to our discord? I haven't read or noticed any such limits on others.
Quote from: Chaosphere;427641I'm assuming there is no client limit to our discord? I haven't read or noticed any such limits on others.
There is a technical limit at which point the spin up another VPS and the limit increases. I.e. it is nothing to worry about.
Sounds great! Seems it is ticking all of the boxes to me, at least.
Hi guys, last night the Overwatch admins were unable to move players between the different Overwatch voice channels (to organise teams and so on).
Is there an error in how this has been set up? None of them were able to do so and although manageable without, it makes a big difference if we are able to move players to the right voice channel!
Cheers for looking into!
Quote from: Chaosphere;427787Hi guys, last night the Overwatch admins were unable to move players between the different Overwatch voice channels (to organise teams and so on).
Is there an error in how this has been set up? None of them were able to do so and although manageable without, it makes a big difference if we are able to move players to the right voice channel!
Cheers for looking into!
We haven't assigned anyone to the admin role yet nor have we said that anyone other than ARK players should be using Discord instead of TS.
Ah ok, I thought from the post of yours above you had already given out those roles (that's how it reads).
As for the ark only trial, I am aware of this and tried, (clearly to no use!) to keep others / Destiny out of Discord in the public area: see my posts replying to sneakytiger for my efforts here!
Much like that was ignored so to are other games flocking to discord early it would seem, as the overwatchers all ended up on there Wednesday night, 15+ of them despite no one saying it should be used by them yet... the term floodgates springs to mind :(
Quote from: Chaosphere;427789Ah ok, I thought from the post of yours above you had already given out those roles (that's how it reads).
It was just a proof of concept test for the role to be fair, Ben.
Anyways, let's get this show on the road :D
Dear Game Leaders
Discord appears to have gone live all by itself. We would have much preferred a structured migration but the members voted with their feet (mice) and all jumped on Discord.
I'm sorry if this has caused you any issues but it is what it is and there's obviously no way back.
We know from the trial that Discord isn't perfect with the lack of 'whisper' channels being particularly disappointing but the vast majority of the comments have been positive and we now need to embrace Discord as our VoIP solution - warts and all.
So what's next?
1. Check that you are registered on Discord as a Game Leader (yellow name).
2. Post below your current roster of *active* game admins. They will be assigned the 'Game Admin' role (see above for what this allows).
3. Check that your game section on Discord has what you need in terms of number of channels.
4. Ensure that your section on Discord is run in accordance with these guidelines (http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?37529-General-Gaming-Standards-(voice-comms)).
5. Encourage users to use the beer_bar text channel for banter to minimise the amount of distributed spam. The game-specific text channels are for associated gaming chat only.
6. Impress upon your admins that part of their role involves moderating the voice and text channels in their respective areas. We want our Discord server to be a welcoming place for everyone. We don't want to be seen as a 'nanny server' but we do want the high level of maturity and mutual respect that dMw is founded on to be evident on Discord. As only Discord Admins can kick/ban please raise all concerns to one of them as necessary.
7. There will be a 'Discord invite' link view-able to registered forum members. This must be the only way that new people reach our Discord server. In most cases we will insist that forum and Discord handles are synchronised. Members must not change their Discord handle to appear anonymous. This will likely result in a kick accompanied by a short ban.
8. Teamspeak will, for now, remain available but not publicised. If you can't live without whisper channels then TS is your only option for now.
Quote from: OldBloke;427804Discord appears to have gone live all by itself. We would have much preferred a structured migration but the members voted with their feet (mice) and all jumped on Discord.
Floodgates! Happens, I guess. Particularly with what people see as shiny new toys.
Admins then..
Overwatch - pesteh, Jewelz
Gunda & Milli are also admims and do still play, but with other commitments it is fair to say this is no longer a regular occurence. They shall remain part of 'the team' but can manage without the discord rights I'm sure, if you are trying to limit numbers with such. Up to you!
Cheers.
Wow - Michelanio
TY
Quote from: Chaosphere;427806... Gunda & Milli are also admims and do still play, but with other commitments it is fair to say this is no longer a regular occurence. They shall remain part of 'the team' but can manage without the discord rights I'm sure, if you are trying to limit numbers with such. Up to you!
Cheers.
Definitely not trying to limit numbers - we rely on you guys (GLs) to tell us what you need. I've done the two you mentioned but if you think the other two may feel aggrieved then happy to do them too.
OW and WoW done.
Ah ok, good to know then. Milli and gunda won't mind at all, they're good guys (just don't tell them I said it). I've let them all know and said that if they DO discover a need to move players within the channels to let me know. Thanks Oldie & Co.
SithAfrikaan and a_cheese_puff for PUBG please :)
Quote from: Sparko;427838SithAfrikaan and a_cheese_puff for PUBG please :)
Done :thumb:
Hi,
Please would it be possible to have 2 new voice channels on PUBG discord.
1 called Team Mate Lobby (or something along those lines) - idea is to have a channel for people to go to when they are looking for team mates to then jump into a squad game (i will post something up in the section re this).
2 A extra team voice channel, so Team 3
There's a new map on the test server and i think it may start to get a little busy
Quote from: Sparko;428355Hi,
Please would it be possible to have 2 new voice channels on PUBG discord.
1 called Team Mate Lobby (or something along those lines) - idea is to have a channel for people to go to when they are looking for team mates to then jump into a squad game (i will post something up in the section re this).
2 A extra team voice channel, so Team 3
There's a new map on the test server and i think it may start to get a little busy
Done :thumb:
Excellent, thanks OB :)
Sorry to be a pain, would it be possible to move the PUBG twitch channel on discord up to the PUBG channel listings as per Overwatch? just think its more visible when people look to see whos on?
Quote from: Sparko;429046Sorry to be a pain, would it be possible to move the PUBG twitch channel on discord up to the PUBG channel listings as per Overwatch? just think its more visible when people look to see whos on?
They were split in the first place was because another game leader wanted it absolutely clearly differentiated between streamed channels and non-streamed (ie have them in different places). The alternative way of doing it is as you suggest, with channels together and us relying on members to read the channel name to see if they will be recorded.
I see advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. What are GL's preferences?
From my experience with Overwatch, it was useful having the Twitch channel lumped with the others. This made moving people around to sort out teams much easier. It meant only I was alt-tabbing to organise the games, rather than everyone else doing the same and inevitably a few moving to the wrong place... it simplified the whole process. Trying to get 15 people in one channel organised into balanced 6v6 games with working team voice comms, and then mixing it up every few rounds so things don't get one-sided or stale... that can be a headache. This only gets worse when half of your player base is in an entirely different area, making it just plain harder to see what is going on, who is actually playing your game, and so on.
Then from another point of view, you have someone not sure if they are going to come on checking the forums / discord and seeing 11 players in the Overwatch section - this is the push they need to join us and make it a 12 for some 6v6 fun. Split the chat areas up, and maybe this person doesn't notice, sees a full team of 6 in the Overwatch section instead (with 5 in the Twitch area that they just don't notice / register) and decides not to join as 6 is company and 7 is a crowd :D They go off to do something else and our game remains 1 man short of a full 6v6 custom. This for me is one of the big advantages, it lets people see quickly how many are on playing a game, and nudges them to join in with the activity.
The downside of course is that you have to be sure that people know what channel is being streamed, and that the ones playing there are happy to be there. I was careful to only move people INTO the Twitch channel if either a) they had already been there voluntarily earlier in the night, or b) I asked them either directly or via an admin (we have TS whispers for just this sort of thing). Moving people OUT of it is, of course, not such an issue. Just have to be careful when bringing them back in that they still know the score. Either way, with Overwatch and PUBG teams are relatively small, so there is always an active channel for those that don't want to be streamed. This 'work' (making sure to only move people to the Twitch channel after they had already 'signed up' for it that night) seemed much easier to me than moving people around between different TS areas, as I was already telling new arrivals we were streaming and putting the work in to make sure all were aware of and comfortable with it.
Being mindful of this when moving players between channels is just one more step for the GLs / admins involved, and one that I am sure they can all manage (or they would not be an admin in the first place, one would hope!). I'd like to see us make more use of Twitch down the road, as I think it is something that could add real value to dMw if we can push it a little more, get a bit of momentum going. Building these foundations is key to that of course, but I would hope that as we go on it becomes second nature both for our members to know they are likely being streamed on organised nights and mention if they do not want to be, and for our admins to be mindful of the latter group and tell them when streaming, to keep them up to speed and best accomodate their wishes.
tl;dr - I like lumping the channels together in one game section, I see it as a job of the GLs / admins to make sure members know when they are being streamed, and that those unhappy with this are looked after (either by sorting out a non-streaming team/channel for them - easy with PUBG and Overwatch's small team sizes, or disabling the stream).
I'm sure this sun is giving me a tendency towards novel writing, you know...
Quote from: TeaLeaf;429055They were split in the first place was because another game leader wanted it absolutely clearly differentiated between streamed channels and non-streamed (ie have them in different places). The alternative way of doing it is as you suggest, with channels together and us relying on members to read the channel name to see if they will be recorded.
I see advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. What are GL's preferences?
Personally i'd prefer them to be within the group of channels for that particular game as i think it's tidier and you can see straight away who is in what channels.
An example is, if i logged onto Discord and thought 'who is on pubg' i would immediately go to the pubg channel list (which is obvious), i wouldn't necessarily think 'oh, ill check the twitch channel too to see if there is anyone in there too', i probably wouldn't even do this if no one was in any pubg channel (the Twitch channels are right at the bottom of the channel listings, i don't think this helps maybe?).
At least if the twitch channel was within its games group of channels its easier to see who is playing?
In the interest of fairness (Overwatch) and because I'm sure that Sparko and his admins will reinforce the message regarding members being made aware that their comms will be recorded in these 'Twitch' channels - I have moved the channel as requested.
Quote from: OldBloke;429097In the interest of fairness (Overwatch) and because I'm sure that Sparko and his admins will reinforce the message regarding members being made aware that their comms will be recorded in these 'Twitch' channels - I have moved the channel as requested.
Thanks OB. I do think it is the best place for them, and what you have said in bold there is the key, imo.
Quote from: OldBloke;429097In the interest of fairness (Overwatch) and because I'm sure that Sparko and his admins will reinforce the message regarding members being made aware that their comms will be recorded in these 'Twitch' channels - I have moved the channel as requested.
Thank you OB
I always remind members of where they are within the voice channels once they join, in fact, they do on occasion remind me :)
Albeit, I can’t control their mouths :blink:
And i've noticed some mouths more than other of late. Can i just ask excatly where we stand on members swearing?
Absolutely no swearing before 9pm.
Well i think we should send out a reminder then as the particular incident i'm thinking about was 7.30 and on a Twitch channel
Apologies if it was me but I can’t recall myself swearing much,
There are one or two members I can think of off the top of my head that seem skirt around the rule by apologising afterwards but then continue to ‘curse’ there after
Twobad is right though we could do with maybe an official reminder of some sort as I’ve heard things said in other channels more frequently recently too
Have posted a announcement in Discord with links to the standards. Also we will need all GL and Admins to be on this at the same time. We do all forget and make a mistake and we should bring it up with the person and if they continue have a word. You know what we need from you guys and you know your players.
Thanks Toby. I will mention it to the Overwatch admins and players too.. I know there are some particularly colourful characters in that group.
I've likely been 'too soft' myself on this in the past, and I'm sure guilty of it too a few times. It shouldn't be a difficult thing for any members (and I include myself here of course) to keep it clean before 9, though. A bit more of an active (but diplomatic) approach to curtailing the potty mouth can't hurt.
Thanks Twobad, for bringing it up. It's important we make these things known when we can, as sometimes things can slip without many of us really realising.
Please can someone update Gorliath's member status to Admin on Discord, he has kindly agreed to step up to an admin role for PUBG
Also i'm not sure if the badge allocation system automatically allows him to access the PUBG admin area on the forums, could this be checked also please?
Thanks guys :)
I PM'd you before I saw this message. I'll sort him out as soon as I get on a PC.
Quote from: Sparko;429437Please can someone update Gorliath's member status to Admin on Discord...
'tis done :D
Thanks guys :)