Chat - Blab versus Discord

[ARTHANASIOS]

I have used Discord for chat in the past and honestly I don't find anything great about it. Its interface sucks, its PM system sucks, though that's just my personal opinion. One thing that I really like in blab is it takes no seconds at all to open while Discord is a quite "heavy" program that has to open automatically along with other programs while windows are loading, making the windows' loading time even worse...

Also, this game is not dead, I had that discussion with iancu and others and as long as we still play this game and organize events like trials/war/brawl, then this game is not dead yet.

Personally, if the whole community moves into Discord I won't follow. I will just stop joining the chat room.


EDIT: If I have no other way to join events like tournaments, trials, war etc. in the future and blab dies, I will use Discord because I will have no other choice.

[dawn to dusk]

Here's something else I'll say,

The reason I like Discord so much is because I use it to a greater extent than just an EtG chat service. Communities from other games that I actively follow, I can easily get a Discord server for them. I participate in 3-5 different servers, and discussions in each whenever I feel like it.

For someone who would not use it like this, Discord is not optimal. It loads slower, PM system is worse, it's less compact (even with compact mode on), etc.
But for someone to be willing to use it for multiple servers, that's where the benefits show through so greatly. PM system is better, loading times become understandable/normal, compact discussions are no longer an issue. Bots become better and show more usage, multiple channels show more usage, etc.

For this reason, if the change is inevitable and we do move, it is probably beneficial to make more use out of Discord than just EtG, but if that would never be a consideration, then justifying using Discord becomes quite difficult.


It is worth noting that with TitanPad dying, Discord has become a service that many use to replace it. I've done so in Brawl, and I know others have for both Brawl and War. Discord being the main chat makes this easier with organisation. Everyone having Discord would be less a question of "Are you willing to use Discord" and more something that you can just do.

[Manuel]

discord is 3 years old, even if it was able to dethrone both ts and skype it is still an app/chat for gamers only, there is currently nothing like msn in 2006-2011 or skype in 2011-2015

if we migrate today maybe in 6 months a new app/something come out of nowhere and discord will be outdated
if u really need to create something to keep the people unite and talk casually make a whatsapp/telegram/fb group or any app mobile friendly that 90% players and future players already have

personally, discord sucks for most points called by ian, torb and arth

[DoctorC]

Here's something else I'll say,

The reason I like Discord so much is because I use it to a greater extent than just an EtG chat service. Communities from other games that I actively follow, I can easily get a Discord server for them. I participate in 3-5 different servers, and discussions in each whenever I feel like it.

For someone who would not use it like this, Discord is not optimal. It loads slower, PM system is worse, it's less compact (even with compact mode on), etc.
But for someone to be willing to use it for multiple servers, that's where the benefits show through so greatly. PM system is better, loading times become understandable/normal, compact discussions are no longer an issue. Bots become better and show more usage, multiple channels show more usage, etc.

For this reason, if the change is inevitable and we do move, it is probably beneficial to make more use out of Discord than just EtG, but if that would never be a consideration, then justifying using Discord becomes quite difficult.

While we do agree with that, the main issue with Discord that people have is that they might feel that they don't need multiple servers, which is alright, but seeing how more and more communities from 1k people and up will soon resort to having, if not having a public community, then at least a private one, is gonna become an more substantial argument towards actually using Discord. To give an example: me and my brothers were fortunate enough to collaborate with one of the people we look up to the most on something very near and dear to our heart. We've gotten in contact with some of the coolest people we know and were able to make some cool friends along the way. Hell, we're currently working on a completely independent game! Discord allowed us to make monumental stuff we wouldn't possibly do with blab

HOWEVER:
Not many people wanna do monumental stuff, or even aim too high at all, they just wanna have a place where they can hang out with friends and talk about EtG, which is an understandable point of view, but... c'mon, put things into perspective of not just having a simple EtG chat system, but a universal chatting app that allows you to talk with pretty much every self-respective fandom, be it TV series, game, celebrity or anything in-between.

[Ginyu]

Everything important has been brought up already, so I'll keep myself short.
- Discord loads much longer (and, but that is just my opinion, has an ugly, overcoloured design)
- blab is easier to follow on mobile and doesn't take up nearly as much data
- blab is more compact, as in you see much more of the chat without the need of scrolling
- PMs within the same tab
- very important: it is where many new players enter chat; seeing it dead makes them more likely to leave
... and so on

I used Discord as a TitanPad-replacement last War and hated it. Loads of bugs, slow loading, checking history was a pain. I am in a few other communities and none of those had the wish to use Discord at any time.
Btw, you can deactivate AveragePotato and all other bots if they annoy you, with just one click.

[Aves]

Joining discord requires creating a separate account. Image-hosting service also requires you to create separate accounts. Forums require you to create separate accounts. Elements the FRICKING game requires you to create accounts. Do you know which one is easiest to create? That right, neither! All of these are a cakewalk to create. (If anything discord is the second easiest one, only after Elements itself)

The problem isn't that account creation isn't easy. It's that account creation is required at all. "I want to play and talk about runescape!" "Oh here, you have to sign up to four different services before you're part of the runescape community" -- forcing the creation of outside accounts is a natural barrier. There's a reason we're not all on the subreddit or on facebook, because those platforms have separate accounts and it would take effort to integrate them into the community that we don't want to bother with.

Imgur doesn't require you to have an account to post images on it, so that point about image hosting services isn't true. The forum is separate from the game, yes. That's not ideal, and a large part of why retaining new people is hard. Requiring even more on top of that is just a flat out bad idea.

[Wyand]

+1 for blab, old-school stuff, yeah!

[CleanOnion]

I'm pro-discord.

My #1 reason for this is because elementscommunity is on HTTP, and Discord is on https. Chrome blocks notifications on non-https sites - I don't get pinged. Effectively, even if I'm logged into Blab and active, I won't know that you've mentioned my name or that you want to get my attention unless I actually check that tab (and possibly scroll up).

With Discord, however, I do get pinged. Hell, I can even have my phone buzz when someone mentions me if I want, or get an email sent if I don't have the app installed on my phone. And that happens whether or not I'm actually logged into Discord. And I can configure different notification settings for different channels in each server.

Now I'm going to attempt to systematically shoot down every complaint levelled at Discord.

Spoiler for Hidden:

combining the two chats won't actually increase active community members that participate in the game.

No, of course it won't, the game's community is split across two different chats - combining them won't increase the size of the community, it'll just pool everyone into one chat.

Blab offers features like being able to post deck code in chat and have it generate a deck image. You can also use commands such as "/draw e" to generate a random elements card. The PM system within the chat also allows you to see those chat lines in the same big box as opposed to discord, where individual PMs lead you to a separate page and you have to switch back and forth to see PMs and the general chat.

Discord is very supportive of bots, and bots could be made to recreate both of these features. However, it wouldn't be "You type /draw e and then your message is replaced with a card", it'd be "You type /draw e and then a bot responds in the next message with a card". The bot could then even delete or modify your command message if you wanted it to, but fair enough, it's not quite the same.

Why do you want PMs in the global chat? Off the top of my head, I don't know of any other messaging service that does this and I don't know why you'd want it. I think that's just over-familiarity with Blab's PM system speaking. PMs in the global chat are less immersive, easier to miss, easier to get distracted from, and much much harder to look at a day later when you've forgotten what you were talking about last night.

The only downside to PMs that I can think of is that you have to remember what people's nicknames are in the server, and what their Discord account names are. For example, DoctorC is currently "TheChronicler" in the Discord server, but were I to message them privately, I'd be messaging the account called "ToaMagna".

Dice rolling and colored text

Dice rolling: see bots, above.

Coloured text is not supported. You can change the colour of your name, but it's tied to different roles on the server and as such, there's only a limited number to choose from (12, one for each element; and mod/council/admin colours). Absolutely a valid complaint. I miss coloured/formatted text.

There's a lot of links within the game and the forum that lead to Blab. I'm assuming this can be changed though.

While I don't think this can be changed, I believe that the links in the game point to /chat/blab.php. blab.php can then simply point to Discord so this problem can be fixed but at the cost of losing discord completely.

I feel it would be better not to redirect people directly, but perhaps to add an image in the bottom-right of Blab to say "hey, click here to come to out discord". Blab should still be open for use, not closed completely, imo.

Discord requires the creation of an account dedicated for that service

I do not believe there is a way to mitigate this issue. If you don't want to create an account, that's on you.

one really needs to be told by someone in Blab or forums that it even exists

The image thing mentioned above would help with this.

Discord isn't really a too complicated service, but with all the rooms, bots, and whatnot, some people simply just can't keep up.

Maybe. But when I load up Discord, this is what I see:

Chat in the middle, list of people on the right, list of channels (each with a different chat, but the same people) on the left. It's a little more complicated, but... it only takes ten minutes to get used to.

Discord names do not match forum names. That is enough for me to despise the hell out of it and boycott any and all forum events to be centralized there.

TorB, this seems an excessive and irrational response. That being said, as mentioned above, it is a valid complaint.
If Discord becomes the official EC chat, then I could see a "discord name must be your elements name" being a thing. It'd just be a case of restricting nickname-changing permissions to admins and mods, which is easy enough to do. Of course, you can't change the actual Discord account names, much like how you can't change someone's email address; but if you think that everyone should use the same username for every service that they sign up for... I'm not going to even try to argue with that.

Blab feels completely neglected by admins at this point.

Well, yeah. Blab is old, broken, and insecure. I once found out a way to literally type a command into your Javascript console (which is on your browser, accessed with Ctrl+Shift+J I think, might be Ctrl+Shift+I), which would then have you appear as another user. And then you can just pretend to be that user. You can also go invisible without being a moderator and can delete messages from other people while spoofing those deletions to be issued by another user. It's broken as fuck.

For the record, Discord has none of the above security flaws. Were I an admin, Blab would be gone ASAP just for this reason.

It was too hard to follow, lacked focus, and didn't have a "discuss the game" vibe. For blab, you have to have a reason to go there.

The "elements" channel on the Discord server was created for this. If the people who normally chilled on Blab chilled there, instead, this wouldn't be a problem. Equally, if Discord didn't exist, then the people who talk about random stuff in the "general" channel on Discord would just do so in Blab -- as it was before Discord was a thing. Note how the "What People Say In Chat" topic has slowly died since Discord - the discussions that created those funny conversations have moved.

Saying "Blab is just for elements chat" is the same as saying "Most conversations that used to happen on Blab no longer happen on Blab" i.e. "Blab is dying". I don't see that as a Pro for the Blab side.

Blab is sometimes dead. That's fine.

See the above point

Don’t switch to discord, you’ll lose a lot of members.

This isn't a valid point without any reasoning or justification behind it.

Discord "features":
- annoying bots (especially Espithel)
- too many namechanges
- too many channels
- no EtG discussion whatsoever
- annoying PM system (Separate chat? Really?)

Blab features:
- easy to use
- colored text
- main chat and tournament room only (well, and moderator room, but who use that?)
- one namechange per person with admin approval
- only one bot, the almighty AveragePotato bringing important news
- official dice roll chat
- great PM system

Discord features:
- Yep, there are too many bots, some of them need to be removed
- Namechanges could be alleviated by the above proposal
- Why is more channels a bad thing?
- EtG discussion can be created by talking about EtG
- Seriously, can someone explain to me why inline messages is a good thing? I've lost track of the number of times I've had to say "sorry, wrong person" because I was talking to 2 people at once. Not a problem with Discord

Blab features:
- Equally easy to use as Discord, just load it up and start typing
- Coloured text is a valid complaint
- Tournament channel is not yet present on Discord, so fair enough, but - why would you want to completely switch to a tournament channel and completely cut yourself off from notifications on the main channel?
- see point about names
- see point about bots
- Discord has an even more official dice roll channel called #bots for bot commands
- Blab PMs suck (also: no notifications on Chrome)

One thing that I really like in blab is it takes no seconds at all to open while Discord is a quite "heavy" program that has to open automatically along with other programs while windows are loading, making the windows' loading time even worse...

I opened up https://discordapp.com/channels/128688142097186816/128688142097186816, which is the link to the #general channel on the Elements server, using a hard load (which clears my browser's cache and pretty much forces it to load as new, excepting login cookies). I timed it on Chrome's networking devtools, and it took 5.44 seconds to load. I refreshed it normal, and it took 1.90 seconds. Your mileage will vary based on connection speed and computer speed, but it's really not that long.

I'd test Blab to compare the two, but worst case scenario it's literally a few seconds you're losing

Disclaimer: I'm on a Chromebook, so I don't use the Windows app - I just open it in a browser tab. Like Blab. I image the Windows app would be horribly slow, but I feel the same way about the rest of Windows.

it's less compact (even with compact mode on)

Frustratingly, it is less compact. I've tried to use a browser extension to slim it down a bit, but it's the slightly-oversized emojis that take up the full line height that are the problem.

if we migrate today maybe in 6 months a new app/something come out of nowhere and discord will be outdated

Sure. If it does what Discord does but better, then fair enough. But you don't not buy a new phone or computer or car just because it'll be outdated at some point. That's the point of technology, constantly improving upon itself, and things do get left behind.
Things like Blab. As mentioned above, it's outdated and insecure. And a quick google found me this post, which means that Blab is at least 6 years old though I suspect it's a lot older. If you don't want to use Discord because it's going to be outdated, why are you using Blab?

if u really need to create something to keep the people unite and talk casually make a whatsapp/telegram/fb group or any app mobile friendly that 90% players and future players already have

Of those three, I only use facebook, and I do not want CleanOnion being associated with my real life. That is non-negotiable for me. Just because I already have it doesn't mean I want to use it for EC.

- blab is easier to follow on mobile and doesn't take up nearly as much data

I haven't tested the data part (have you? I'd love to see some statistics), but I've had nothing but awful experiences using Blab on mobile.

- blab is more compact, as in you see much more of the chat without the need of scrolling

Sure, but consider this: wouldn't it be nice to be able to scroll up, get to the point where you logged in today, and then keep scrolling up as far as you like?

checking history was a pain

This comment may be comparing Discord to TitanPad, but I'll use it anyway: Blab lets you do this weird thing where you enter a number of days and go back that far to see the messages. Discord lets you a) scroll back as far you need to, b) search for messages. There can be no argument that "Discord history is bad" is not a valid complaint.

Uncontested complaints:
- No coloured text
- Requires account creation
- Discord is less compact

[dawn to dusk]

There was discussion in the Discord about naming rights (by the way IRC had this same feature but hey that's not important).

It is possible to make a bot that, whenever you change your name, can add your forum name on the end. Disabling Nickname Changer, and instead having a command for /nick doing essentially the same thing. This is, of course, relating to account linking.

Example. I type in "/nick Fernando McBlisterfoot". My name then becomes "Fernando McBlisterfoot | dawn to dusk". The bot adds my forum name to the end of my proposed nickname.

This should hopefully end the debate on "Too many nickname changes".

By the way this was confirmed possible by Anti himself

[Manuel]

yes blab is old but it doesn't require an account (or it require a simple forum account?), but it is well established in the community, it can be see like a forum section/functionality rather than an external site like discord

It is possible to make a bot that, whenever you change your name, can add your forum name on the end.

i suggested something similar in discord yesterday

[TheonlyrealBeef]

Nicknames. Not having ability to change nicknames, while proves to serve consistent character... ultimately backfires. Not sure about you lot, but we personally find ourselves "growing out" of certain names, feeling after a while that some names just don't suit or stick up anymore. It might be just us, but if you're really concerned about getting people confused, then talk with admins to implement rules that restrict name change in our particular server. Alternatively, you can just stick around to see all the shenanigans that cause the name change, but, evidently, it's too much to ask.

Personally, I judge people by their actions. Peoples' identities are shaped by it, with (nick)names providing naught but a reference. Changing these references is therefore a hassle. Especially for people like me that will remember each and every name a person has attained for a long amount of time. The changing of names soon becomes the only thing I remember them by... is this how people want to be known? As nothing more than a nameshifter? For example, I still associate "Discord" more with a certain nameshifter than the chat or even the Entropy card

The reason I like Discord so much is because I use it to a greater extent than just an EtG chat service. Communities from other games that I actively follow, I can easily get a Discord server for them. I participate in 3-5 different servers, and discussions in each whenever I feel like it.

The people already using Discord for something else are indubitably already on Discord, even if it were alongside blab. They need no convincing. The switch is exactly about those people not using it for anything else.

c'mon, put things into perspective of not just having a simple EtG chat system

That is what this discussion is about replacing: a simple chat system. That is what people will look for in Discord that are currently not using it and instead using blab. All the rest may intrigue users at a later point in time, but will prove of no incentive to change chats initially.

The problem isn't that account creation isn't easy. It's that account creation is required at all.

For those that do not remember, this was in fact a strict requirement of blab for some of the very reasons Aves mentioned in his post, along with -if I recall correctly- zanzarino requiring it explicitly. I can still remember the discussions of disallowing guests from blab.

Discord names do not match forum names. That is enough for me to despise the hell out of it and boycott any and all forum events to be centralized there.

TorB, this seems an excessive and irrational response. That being said, as mentioned above, it is a valid complaint.
If Discord becomes the official EC chat, then I could see a "discord name must be your elements name" being a thing. It'd just be a case of restricting nickname-changing permissions to admins and mods, which is easy enough to do. Of course, you can't change the actual Discord account names, much like how you can't change someone's email address; but if you think that everyone should use the same username for every service that they sign up for... I'm not going to even try to argue with that.

There is nothing rational about frustration. However, if you have participated in pvp events you would know practically everything is linked to peoples' forum usernames. Not having a concrete link between chat names and forum names would frustrate me. Ceasing frustrating activities and instigating a removal of the source of said frustration is a very rational course of action.

Blab feels completely neglected by admins at this point.

Well, yeah. Blab is old, broken, and insecure. I once found out a way to literally type a command into your Javascript console (which is on your browser, accessed with Ctrl+Shift+J I think, might be Ctrl+Shift+I), which would then have you appear as another user. And then you can just pretend to be that user. You can also go invisible without being a moderator and can delete messages from other people while spoofing those deletions to be issued by another user. It's broken as fuck.

For the record, Discord has none of the above security flaws. Were I an admin, Blab would be gone ASAP just for this reason.

For the record, you are missing the main point which I will therefore clarify. The main concern here is not about neglecting the blab chat engine, but an entire part of the community currently residing on blab. It is the members of the community there that are neglected that rubs me the wrong way. In fact, I do not resent a Discord change by definition: let's be clear about that. I resent the idea that admins that no longer feel connected to the community populating blab would force Discord upon them without so much as listening to them and their reasons for not already actively using Discord. Resolving these issues until there are few solid arguments left in a way such as:

There was discussion in the Discord about naming rights (by the way IRC had this same feature but hey that's not important).

It is possible to make a bot that, whenever you change your name, can add your forum name on the end. Disabling Nickname Changer, and instead having a command for /nick doing essentially the same thing. This is, of course, relating to account linking.

Example. I type in "/nick Fernando McBlisterfoot". My name then becomes "Fernando McBlisterfoot | dawn to dusk". The bot adds my forum name to the end of my proposed nickname.

This should hopefully end the debate on "Too many nickname changes".

By the way this was confirmed possible by Anti himself

Is therefore an acceptable compromise regarding usernames for me.

[DoctorC]

The only downside to PMs that I can think of is that you have to remember what people's nicknames are in the server, and what their Discord account names are. For example, DoctorC is currently "TheChronicler" in the Discord server, but were I to message them privately, I'd be messaging the account called "ToaMagna".

You actually don't need to do that at all. All you've gotta do to reach us, or anyone else for that matter is to click on our nickname/avatar and it will show up the little space for a message you can send directly to someone without leaving the chat.



You do have to remember which people are which, though, but that's besides the point.
What's good about that feature is that it takes a hearbeat to load, while blab version of that same thing takes forever, leaving some people (us, for example) waiting long enough to fall into an existential crisis.

I opened up https://discordapp.com/channels/128688142097186816/128688142097186816, which is the link to the #general channel on the Elements server, using a hard load (which clears my browser's cache and pretty much forces it to load as new, excepting login cookies). I timed it on Chrome's networking devtools, and it took 5.44 seconds to load. I refreshed it normal, and it took 1.90 seconds. Your mileage will vary based on connection speed and computer speed, but it's really not that long.

In our typical fashion, we opened up a crapton of various tabs in our chrome, overworking our poor laptop just as we always do.

Discord (Website) loaded in six seconds (give or take, our reaction is rubbish)
Blab took only three...

HOWEVER
Remember us talking about how PMs take forever to load?
Well, the correct number is five seconds. For EACH PM LOADING. You'd have to load discord once, everything from then loads in a heartbeat. Blab, while loading faster the initial time, takes forever doing EACH loading. It's especially bad if you talk in PMs with multiple people, constantly jumping between the ever-slow loading PM interfaces.

Of course, you can't change the actual Discord account names, much like how you can't change someone's email address; but if you think that everyone should use the same username for every service that they sign up for... I'm not going to even try to argue with that.

You can change your default name, me and my brothers used TheHierophant to went undercover for a short timespace a while back. It's in the user settings.



I will say that me and my brothers are pro second point (tbh, we're kinda pro everything Clun said, but this really does hit close to home) because we never liked to have only one name sticking up for one time. ESPECIALLY since there's three of us inside one head and, therefore, one account. You lot may be able to live with sticking to only one nickname, but we really don't like that idea.

Personally, I judge people by their actions. Peoples' identities are shaped by it, with (nick)names providing naught but a reference. Changing these references is therefore a hassle. Especially for people like me that will remember each and every name a person has attained for a long amount of time. The changing of names soon becomes the only thing I remember them by... is this how people want to be known? As nothing more than a nameshifter?

Here's a thing. Each one of us would love nothing more than to be a nameshifter. One name just doesn't fit for a bloke with multiple minds, let alone for someone who'd be a nameshifter even if this whole "3 blokes 1 body" wasn't a thing. I accept that we might be the weird ones on this one, but being stiff is a bore, and that applies even to only calling ourselves one name.

That is what this discussion is about replacing: a simple chat system. That is what people will look for in Discord that are currently not using it and instead using blab. All the rest may intrigue users at a later point in time, but will prove of no incentive to change chats initially.

You're basically giving up having a smartphone with myriad of functions and an incredible potential for an old stationary phone that barely works at this point, you know that, right?

Both us and Clun went into huge detailed essay on why we think Discord is objectively better on just about all parameters, explaining that almost everything that blab does, discord does better. More so, it gives you a CHOICE to accept the functions and have fun with them or reject them and live like they don't exist. Blab gives you a choice between having a potato-powered (in more ways than one) chat and buggering off.

Also, why on earth is blab being compact a good thing? Discord's cozy mode is easier on the eyes than blab EVER can be, utilizing a comfortable outlook, showing both nickname and an avatar of person speaking which some people spent hours making D:< and just features a generally more appealing colorscheme for both light and dark mode (Oh yeah, you can also choose whether to leave things dark or bring some light in your life). Blab is just a near-black desaturated mess.