That's it. I'm outta here.

These forums, anyway. I'll see y'all in game, esp. Pinnacle, but I've had it with this broken forum and it logging me out all the time. Oh, I put up with the 'have to log in every time I want to read/reply" and having to add a 'Coh Daily' favorite because 'new posts' won't work due to the bug, but now I can't even open a message as a tab, because it throws me out?! W. T. H?!?

This is sad. We want to have a world class superhero MMO, but if we can't have decent forum technology...? Then again, AE is still broken for outdoors stuff, so I guess that sorta makes some sense... You listenin', Dr. Aeon?

I hope the Pinnheads will at tell me if they ever fix this stupid logout thing in the chats, but honestly, the mods/devs/PTB should be hanging their heads. And don't give me this "it's vBulletin's fault!" because forums.themustangsource.com, while it has issues, doesn't log me out. Ever. And it's vBullietin. Worse thing is the search (that's universal though) and the daily picture gallery on the front page (doesn't apply here.)

If it gets fixed, I may be back, but nobody's gonna care either way, I'm supposing. I just hadda say, because I hadda say. Grr.

End of rant. Peace, out, see ya in game.

/Edit: Amazingly, it didn't throw me out for this post. Imagine that.

Can I have all your forum stuff?

Probably for the best, anyway. Some peeps take these forums too srsly.

It is vBulletin's fault, the problem I believe is that the forum is running on an outdated version of the software (2009 from the looks of it), evidently the most recent version works fine.

Which of course raises the question of why they don't upgrade, but I suppose that would cost too much.

Where does it say an mmo company must provide an official forum?

FINALLY! Okay Zwillinger, he's gone, change that setting back.

On a more serious note, two short comments.

First, this is why I get so frustrated when I hear the lame excuse, "...Because they'll provide official support!" as a rationale for paying for software for which there is a comparable and oftentimes even better open source equivalent. I suggested PHPBB back when they were looking at new software, and that was tossed out as one of the reasons not to use it. There are very few times when I haven't been able to post a message on an open source software's forums and get the support and help I need to fix whatever problems I'm having. Does this mean that PHPBB ultimately was a better answer? Maybe, maybe not, there may have been other good reasons not to use it. But lack of commercial support sure wasn't a good reason to count it out.

Second, I can tell you from firsthand experience that "just upgrade!" is usually not a viable solution. Upgrading was precisely why, for example, the Titan Network Faces site was down for over four months. (But having a site that was exploitable simply wasn't an option.) Also, keep in mind that this isn't out-of-the-box vBulletin. It's got a customized skin and it's got hooks into the back-end user database. There are probably other customizations as well.

Third (bonus comment), if you're mad, please make sure you're mad at the right people. Although the community reps can escalate issues like this, ultimately, it's the NCsoft techies in Austin that will have to fix it. I suspect that Paragon Studios has very little ability to do anything about this problem, and I'd be surprised if Zwillinger hasn't had some frustrated conversations with them about it already.

The OP mentioned some issue with outdoor maps in the AE... what is he talking about?

Avatea once told me that because of NCSoft policy - to which Paragon has to adhere - the vBulletin software is effectively being pushed into territory to which is has never been designed to go.

There's almost nothing the Paragon team can do and it's very much a "make do and mend" scenario with the other guys at Austin who have very little autonomy to make fixes, but effectively here we get what we're given and have to like it or lump it.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

fwiw, I can sympathize with the OP.

Further, just because "that's the way they do it" (referring to NC's approach
to managing this software), does NOT preclude it from being wrong (and very
probably stupid besides).

It's not exactly "Advanced Business Concepts" to understand that your customer
facing "presence" should be as smooth and reliable as you can make it.

NC's rates a 3 or 4 out of 10 (at best) in my book.

With specific regard to the forums, I don't even log in anymore except when
I respond to a message, and I Cut & Paste everything before I press Preview.

Pretty tough to give it a passing grade when that's the approach you need,
simply to post a comment reliably -- pretty lame.


Regards,
4

Edit: PS> I also use other vBulletin boards, and Not Once have I *ever*
been auto-logged out of *any* of them - the issue is specific to *this* site.

I am about to say a similar thing cuz it's almost time to leave work and then I can go home and play the game.

The forums are less than impressive but I don't care enough about it to care. This is not to say it isn't important to most normal people/players but I am not one of them.