Draknorr wrote:
Yea, my comment was related directly to the EQ2 site, not the forums. I've looked into getting these features opened up on the EQ2 forums but it's all-or-nothing.
I apologize for not being more clear. We're constantly improving all of our sites including EQ2... a lot of the things are smaller and you might not notice them but there are a few big changes and enhancements coming in the future. One is advanced bestiary search.
Forum Avatars are a premium feature and that can't be changed, ditto with forum search. Completely customized signatures will not be happening anytime in the forseeable future, but we should have some sigs very similar to our WoW site down the road. Image tags will likely never happen for the reasons Kao stated.
Sorry Stugein, hopefully that cleared some stuff up.
I appreciate you coming out to speak on this issue, Drak. You back up your words and that's very strong. And I now have a better understanding of the spirit with which your original post was made.
I get that there are certain things that, here at AllaK's, have always been part of a higher tier, premium service. It could be viewed that suddenly giving some of these conveniences or fun enhancements away may be seen as almost...devalueing that service. I understand this. Revamping a feature set that has driven the perceived value of premium for so long isn't something to be taken lightly and as such I appreciate that it was even given contemplation. It's not even an uncommon revenue generating model on commercial message forums.
While there are many reasons to be wary of changes to the service tier and feature sets thereof, there are just as many reasons to embrace such changes. Points can be made on both sides of the table and I'm sure, given enough time, pressure and consideration, that one day a reasonable solution can be reached that is to the benefit and enjoyment of all of your loyal legacy and "adopted" users. There are surely reasonable and acceptable solutions to conerns of increased risk and need for moderation, as many commerical forum services have faced in the past (SA, SOE, IGN, etc.) and I look forward to seeing what you, as the caretakers of the site, come up with going forward.
Thank you for your time, and your consideration.
Cheers.