It's been a relatively quiet week. With most of the work that came along with the redesign finally complete, I could relax a bit. Since the development of Baldur's Gate 3 has been confirmed by Atari, I've created a new forum for it on the boards as well. Hopefully this is the last newly announced game for a while; this insane amount of D&D game news and announcements has gone on for long enough. Though considering how intent Atari is on milking the D&D licence for all it's worth, I doubt it. We'll see whether any of their efforts will be targeted also at game quality, not just quantity.

We've had some problems with the server over the last couple of days, but I've opened a thread to discuss that in the Sorcerous Sundries forum, so you can read about it there if you've interested.

I'm relatively surprised at how underutilized our new system for making news comments is. I know a great number of people are reading news on the front page daily (and in the News Comments forum), but there are very few comments on the news. As it is now, people must register on the boards to be able to post news comments, but I might enable it even for unregistered people and see if that fares better. Hearing some opinions on this would be nice, so fire away.

I don't want to see comments from unregistered people. I like to know who is saying what.

When people don't have to register, the chances of getting comments that are not appropriate for such a classy web site will increase. You work hard enough as it is let alone spending all your time having to delete somebodys comments that since being unregistered they will surely take advantage of the opportunity to post anything they want.

For me, there are a few reasons:

1. Many of the news posts, while interesting and informational, don’t really seem to have any need for follow-up comments.
2. Due to the simple volume of news items being posted, it seems that it would be difficult to get any kind of discussion going on a particular post.
3. If there is discussion to be had, it's probably already happening in the relevant forum.

I hope the News Staff don’t feel that their contributions are going unnoticed or unappreciated (they’re not for me, anyway). It’s just that, for the reasons above, follow-up discussion in most cases seems unnecessary.

I always skim the forum news but rarely do i feel the need to comment on it...I'm still interested however. You're are correct however that quantity should NEVER take over quality in CRPG's. I'd rather have a brilliant 150-hour BG masterpiece every 4 years or so than a bunch of short, hastily put together games based on different settings. I'm not complaining about the variety of titles out there so far, but Atari must take caution. :coffee:

Everyday before I come to the boards I cruise by Sorcerers first and read the news (especially Dragon Age forum news). I commented a few threads on that subject but the only ones commenting are either Tal or well Chev :rolleyes: .

I can also imagine, and I agree, that people withhold posting because all games are still in such a prelimenary phase. When there are known facts it gets interesting.

Yea, I thought the sheer amount of news might be a problem... Lately we post so many that they drop off the front page in a couple of days, and then only the people reading this forum can still read them. There's simply nothing we can do about that though, short of posing less news... but since complete gaming news coverage is the whole point, that obviously won't do.

As for posts from unregistered people being a problem... I don't know. We already check all the forums anyway, and a click on the delete button in a topic isn't that time-consuming either. ;)

I guess you could say I'm mostly surprised that not more people who post on the boards regularly comment on any news here. I mean, you see people spamming all over Whatnots all the time, but their post count would go up if they posted here just as well. Only it'd be infinitely more productive...

I guess one of the things we could do is provide more editorial feedback on the regular news items, at least something to get the comments started. Right now it's all pretty static, though when I post news I try my best to make them less boring than usual. I'll have to train the rest of the news crew to do the same, however.

I guess one of the things we could do is provide more editorial feedback on the regular news items, at least something to get the comments started. Right now it's all pretty static, though when I post news I try my best to make them less boring than usual. I'll have to train the rest of the news crew to do the same, however. Now that would be a good idea. With all these new games I would like to discuss the ideas being offered by some of the devs but I need something to start it. Personal opinions by the news staff would be great.

The biggest reason that I don't post responses more often is that I almost always check in here during the work day. Most of the sites with "the rest of the story" are blocked by our firewall so I cannot read enough to feel confident that I have the whole story. I feel uncomfortable about posting without being a little more sure of my facts.

Some of the articles that are posted I will reply to, but some just don't peak my interest.

Oh yeah, and only registars should be able to post.

Well, I agree with only allowing registered users post comments. It's not that hard or timeconsuming to register if you want to react and if people really feel like reacting, it might draw them to the boards. That's how I joined, I always skimmed the titles of the last active threads on the front page and read them if the title seemed interesting, untill the day I really couldn't resist correcting someone's views on something (can't remember what topic) and so I joined.

On the other hand, news is in the first place informative, and although I read it, I hardly ever feel the need to comment on it. But that might indeed change if the news posts state an opinion, since to opinions it's easier to comment than to facts.

I commented on two news stories today. Go me.

I do not think it is too much trouble to register. I thought it was more or less painless.

If there were a spin on the news, I would be more likely to comment on it. Take Fox News as an example. I comment on it every time I watch it. Of course, I am not really sure that those would be the types of comments people would like to read.

I commented on two news stories today. Go me. Brown-noser. :p

They were issues that had to be aired.