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Not honestly combed through the website feedback lately so sorry if this is redundant information and I won't be offended if the topic is locked, closed etc. if your all on top of it. Here are the issues as I see them. No. 1 in particular drove me to make this post-
1. Thread "Hiatus" Problems.
I don't think this issue is seen much outside of the campaign PbP interface but i've had reports that this also applies to people still relying on scrolling through the PbP forums manually or using the "Focus" button.
PMG has said in the past he is not so much in the know about how all the PbP stuff works- but essentially, its pretty common for a game to go on hiatus for a couple of weeks, sometimes up to a month or two. This ranges from various reasons but usually because RL is getting in the way- long travelling plans, a busted computer, floods...
So the IC and OOC threads go very quiet. You still have your dot and in many cases now, your Campaign page on your profile. So your game comes off hiatus, and you start posting on the discussion and IC thread, looking to get your game back on track.
The new posts do not show in other people's campaigns page which they use to track your game. I've had this happen to me on multiple occasions now and for the games which I DM, I ended up sending a heap of PM's to gather everybody. But not everyone is aware this is necessary and wonders why their players never show up. Players in turn, wonder why their DM never came back.
I think the new campaign interface is a fantastic tool and i'm really hoping further things are added to it (i'm also happy to make suggestions :P )- I use it exclusively as it is FAR more convenient than trawling through the respective forums (especially with how frequent dots disappear, see 3) and its a shame that I can't currently always trust it to tell me there are new posts.
A "Mass PM" to a group of players in your own campaign would also be a really neat addition to the PM and Campaign interface, especially until this is fixed.
2. 1 post in 50.
The first post on each page behaves oddly. When adding a new reply using the traditional button, it doesn't show up at all if for example, your making the 4502nd post in a thread. In addition, when trying to get at said new post, the forum will instead take you to the previous page just BEFORE the first post of the new page. More of a PbP issue than a general issue, doubt it bothers people much on the general forums.
3. Disappearing Dots.
I still don't really understand why dots are lost on various threads. I know that the official line is that the server 'repopulates' dots based on your previous posting... But it often doesn't actually ever give you a dot back until you've manually found the thread in question and re-dotted it. Less of an issue than it used to be as we seem to be going through a generally steady period for the site (barring the last major downtime which was ISP I was told).
4. PbP Trolling.
Not a topic i'm entirely comfortable with as I honestly am not sure what can be done about this. We have a situation at the moment where someone is recruiting for their 14th PbP game. This person has never got past the first page in an IC PbP, often disappearing just after recruitment has finished and leaving several players who have spent hours making a character and eagerly awaiting the campaign, hung out to dry. I suppose it would be nice if there was a way to flag such offenders, a reputation system to warn other people... Some way which didn't involve Joana, Mark Sweetman and myself acting as the unofficial forum police... We have warned people in the past couple of games but these warnings are not fully heeded as we're just fellow users, even if his "track record" is fully catalogued.
Don't honestly have a happy fix in mind here. But I don't believe this is the first time such a thing has happened (well, its the 14th time for this one individual). I think even if there isn't a policy put into place for this, its worth PMG etc. knowing about it.
5. 1 Hour Editing Lockout
Some PbP posts are some of the longest i've seen on these forums, dwarfing even the long rants and flame wars found in Monk threads (tongue-in-cheek, please don't post taking offence). People often want to make sure they meet the DM's submitted "posting quota" (i.e., many want a post per day on weekdays) and post on their phone before leaving for work, or make a quick post before heading out. No one likes being the one holding everyone else up in combat.
By the time they then have access to a computer again and time to edit said post, its been over an hour. They made a typo in the spoiler tag perhaps, and the super secret PC secret scene they were having with one of the players is now bare for everyone to see. Or they accidentally linked the wrong map to a combat, causing a mess of confusion.
Lots of people "lurk" on good PbP games and plenty of people like to read them sheerly for the pleasure of it. In turn, a lot of DM's want to take pride in the "story" of their own game and clear up typos, mistakes etc. The 1 hour editing window is probably fine as is for most of the Paizo forum, but the IC threads could really do with something more generous, say three to six hours.
Not only that, but some edits I have made in the past have been so long by the time I click submit to make the changes, i've been locked out, and I am by no means a slow typer.
P.S- yes i'm well aware Paizo is fully busy with Gencon right now. I'm not looking for an immediate fix, if any fixes are even forthcoming at all.