Community discord

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Community discord

Postby Prickett » Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:11 am

Hey Elendil and Sylon, have y’all considered a discord for redshift games? I think that would definitely strengthen and modernize the community. You could even link directly to it on the steam page. I believe there’s a lot of potential for the editor that needs help being realized, but it will from a discord.
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Re: Community discord

Postby kohlrak » Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:13 am

I would recommend IRC before discord. Discords got some major problems under the hood that are bound to blow up. Not to mention they've got some alienating political affiliations, which results in a particularly toxic atmosphere where "server admins" are scared (because of how easy it is for a regular user to end up getting the whole "server" taken down) into being totalitarians, constantly at the whims of the current politics and the overton window. Rules are generally fairly vague on discord servers, as are the discord terms of service. Instead, compare thta to EsperNet, which also has vague rules, but just reading over them, you can straight up set up a channel at any time and run it just fine as long as you don't mess with other channels or run at odds with pornography laws.

But, honestly, these forums indicate that there just isn't enough of a crowd for a chat. I would likely be damaging, because then people would see how empty the community really is. Then again, maybe after a while it could be lively. The #nethack room on freenode usually gets a few people chatting per day, and that games about 32 years old.

EDIT: And for those who insist on it, i've heard of "IRC-discord" bridge bots, too, for those who want the safety of an IRC backup but the features of discord.

EDIT AGAIIN: Just incase there is interest. I've set up a temporary room on Espernet. I could use my own IRC server, but i want to keep that limited to people tied to me personally, not necessarily a game. Click here if you don't have an IRC client. Rom is "#thequest", and i don't know how to make direct links to channels, yet, with thelounge. There are lots of other clients, too.
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Re: Community discord

Postby Prickett » Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:26 pm

I couldn’t imagine the rules being more complicated that don’t be racist or don’t post porn. If their rules are more demanding than that, please let me bc I would be very surprised.

These forums aren’t super active, but I’ve been around here for a LONG time. I’ve been checking daily for the last 7 years or so. They’re certainly active enough.

The benefit of a discord is more casual chat. I believe it’ll respark the glory days of the off-topic sub forum we’re in right now.

And even if the discord ended up being fairly empty, I could hardly see that driving away sales. Anyone buying the quest is doing so for the retro games aspect. They don’t need the modern addition of community. That being said, discord would only make it appeal to a larger audience.

I think it would be a great PR move, and would hopefully reinvigorate the community. Beyond that, there is absolutely no overhead risk if it doesn’t work. Don’t quote me on this, but I’m fairly certain it’s free to make a discord.

Absolute worst case scenario is it’s just a part of redshift games that doesn’t see any action. It would in no way hurt how the company is performing right now.

It would also help new players rally around the quest 2 when it eventually releases, boosting sales from a whole new audience of modern gamers who enjoy the community aspect just as much as the games they’re playing.
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Re: Community discord

Postby kohlrak » Wed Apr 22, 2020 11:22 am

Prickett wrote:I couldn’t imagine the rules being more complicated that don’t be racist or don’t post porn. If their rules are more demanding than that, please let me bc I would be very surprised.


Except everything anymore is "being racist," including things that have nothing to do with race. I've been called racist simply for existing. I voted for John McCain, and somehow that was racist (looking back, i'm glad he didn't win, but i wish he didn't win the primary, either). "MAGA" is somehow racist, too, which it's not, especially since the man behind it is suggesting it happens regardless of the races involved. This is the kind of vagueness i'm referring to. My favorite one is "not hatespeech." Somehow, "i stand for Israel" is also hatespeech. This is what i mean with vague rules. What's even worse is how bad some people are with this, and they somehow genuinely believe that these are the things that they claim, but if you grill them on how these things are actually the way described, they cannot actually make the connections. It's really sad what echo chambers we live in.

A few hours ago I got banned from the nethack room on freenode for "challenging people to political debates." What happened was, 2 different occasions on the same day, people asked about things that invaribly resulted in politics (one was about whether or not you could make memes about the incubi and succibi, the other was about whether or not Finland is to sweeden or some other country as canada is to america which naturally involved discussion on military spending, and i'll have you know it was the second topic, not the first, that so offensive that i got banned [to be fair, i called out an op who was telling me to ignore the conversation, when s/he was actually posing as normal user and made no declaration that there even were rules in the room, when, in fact, they explicitly said there were no rules to the room yesterday]).

These forums aren’t super active, but I’ve been around here for a LONG time. I’ve been checking daily for the last 7 years or so. They’re certainly active enough.

The benefit of a discord is more casual chat. I believe it’ll respark the glory days of the off-topic sub forum we’re in right now.

And even if the discord ended up being fairly empty, I could hardly see that driving away sales. Anyone buying the quest is doing so for the retro games aspect. They don’t need the modern addition of community. That being said, discord would only make it appeal to a larger audience.

I think it would be a great PR move, and would hopefully reinvigorate the community. Beyond that, there is absolutely no overhead risk if it doesn’t work.


Being dead means "well, maybe this isn't as popular as we thought it was." It destroys any hope of a "hype train."

Don’t quote me on this, but I’m fairly certain it’s free to make a discord.


Depends on how you define free. In practical sense, it is, but IRC moreso. Unlike discord which makes money off of "aggregate" data collection that they supposedly aren't even doing (they say they aren't, but they leave room for it in their privacy policy due to it's vague nature), IRC doesn't even keep logs, and it would be up to someone to actually make a logbot if they wanted logs. In fact, actually, many chats allow free chatting, not just IRC. You can even make a skype room for free. Like i said, i have a free room open already on EsperNet, and if they decide they want to go with it, anyone who actually has mod status here, i'll op them and surrender ownership of the room to them. Right now i'm just holding it as a placeholder just in case. So far, not a soul has joined.

Another benefit of IRC in particular, is that the chat could be embedded into the game if he chose to do so. Can't really do that with discord.

Absolute worst case scenario is it’s just a part of redshift games that doesn’t see any action. It would in no way hurt how the company is performing right now.

It would also help new players rally around the quest 2 when it eventually releases, boosting sales from a whole new audience of modern gamers who enjoy the community aspect just as much as the games they’re playing.


it wouldn't hurt company performance most likely, but that's not tied to marketing. Elendil will likely chug along coding, chat or no chat.
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Re: Community discord

Postby Prickett » Thu Apr 23, 2020 4:26 pm

You raise valid points, but I guess it boils down to why not try? I’m not suggesting we migrate and abandon these forums (I certainly don’t see myself leaving any time soon). It’s just something that’s cost free, and has the potential to breathe new life into the games and expansions.

What gave me inspiration is a development team called New Blood Games. I joined their discord when I bought Dusk, their retro 90’s style shooter that calls back to an era of Quake-like FPS. I joined and I was amazed at how active the community always was. Different sub-topics allow for easy conversation creation. People talk about other games, memes, music, artwork the members have created themselves, and even just daily life among the members. They host events like a monthly movie night. I’m sure all of us here have a universal love for rpg games, and we could organize events with that specific attribute in mind (DND games or movies like LotR or the hobbit. I’m spitballing here and that obviously wasn’t comprehensive).

It’s a game with a similar cult following (meaning a smaller, more dedicated community) and discord really allows for that to thrive. Even if we’re not talking about the game, we’re members of the community interacting with each other. The forum formula is antiquated (not obsolete) and discord should do wonders to rally the community.

It’s no secret that The Quest aims at a more hardcore audience, but the more casual player might find it more approachable if they can ask questions in a more relaxed environment with quicker response times. Forums can be perceived as formal and intimidating to some.

Moving to steam was a step in the right direction, and I think this should be the next big step. You certainly defended your skepticism, and I understand where you’re coming from, but there are no real irreversible drawbacks to testing a new communication platform.
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Re: Community discord

Postby kohlrak » Fri Apr 24, 2020 1:30 am

Prickett wrote:You raise valid points, but I guess it boils down to why not try? I’m not suggesting we migrate and abandon these forums (I certainly don’t see myself leaving any time soon). It’s just something that’s cost free, and has the potential to breathe new life into the games and expansions.

What gave me inspiration is a development team called New Blood Games. I joined their discord when I bought Dusk, their retro 90’s style shooter that calls back to an era of Quake-like FPS. I joined and I was amazed at how active the community always was. Different sub-topics allow for easy conversation creation. People talk about other games, memes, music, artwork the members have created themselves, and even just daily life among the members. They host events like a monthly movie night. I’m sure all of us here have a universal love for rpg games, and we could organize events with that specific attribute in mind (DND games or movies like LotR or the hobbit. I’m spitballing here and that obviously wasn’t comprehensive).

It’s a game with a similar cult following (meaning a smaller, more dedicated community) and discord really allows for that to thrive. Even if we’re not talking about the game, we’re members of the community interacting with each other. The forum formula is antiquated (not obsolete) and discord should do wonders to rally the community.

It’s no secret that The Quest aims at a more hardcore audience, but the more casual player might find it more approachable if they can ask questions in a more relaxed environment with quicker response times. Forums can be perceived as formal and intimidating to some.

Moving to steam was a step in the right direction, and I think this should be the next big step. You certainly defended your skepticism, and I understand where you’re coming from, but there are no real irreversible drawbacks to testing a new communication platform.


RIght, you're not off at all. That's what we call a "hype-train" where you're using herd mentality and peer-pressure to really cast something into a positive light.

As for the help thing, i actually suggested IRC for that reason as well. Unlike discord, you can actually implement IRC into the game itself relatively trivially. IRC lacks the voice chat, custom avatars, and "multiline messages." Back in the mid-2000s, most people used IRC without knowing it when they wree using programs like LimeWire and such, because IRC so trivially is implemented into programs you could just link and provide a simple "chat interface." IRC can also be used without registering usernames, too, which is particularly helpful for the reasons you specify that you want a chat. Most servers allow username registration, but it's almost always optional. Serioulsy, click the link above for "the lounge" and join me in #thequest, and see if yourself. If we happen to be on at the same time we can chat. If not, we'll just have to find a way to catch each other.
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Re: Community discord

Postby kohlrak » Thu Apr 30, 2020 9:21 am

Closing channel. It's a pain to keep open if we're not using the registration bots, and no a single soul came in the channel, not even OP. Clearly not even the OP is interested enough.
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Re: Community discord

Postby Prickett » Sat May 02, 2020 6:13 pm

Sorry, I didn’t post this intending to personally be super involved at this time. I’m dealing with a lot of stuff as I’m nearing the end of my semester at university. No disrespect was meant by not joining
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Re: Community discord

Postby SuperRegera » Thu Jul 16, 2020 11:59 am

What a shame, I really wish our community was at least large enough to foster a semi-regular discussion. I'd still be up for it if there is still any interest. If not, maybe with the eventual release of The Quest II, we can bring in enough new people to get a real community finally going.

Here's hoping! :)
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