1. Was this logical? Was it really worth replacing these forums with zone play?
2. What benefits did this decision give to the server?
3. What are your thoughts and opinions?

I, personally, hate their decision. Before they completely removed off topic, tashkin said he was removing them because of lag. Is this true? Because I've heard many rumors as to why they were removed, and I'm still kinda pissed that they were removed because most of these rumors weren't really logical. Once I actually figure out the factual reasoning behind this, I may change my thoughts, but as for now, and with my knowledge on the subject, my opinion stands.  

They were removed because they sucked. What purpose did it serve to have two forums for the same game? Would you rather still have a forum that limited almost all use except talking, and even then prohibited clean viewing and decent conversation? Or a forum that is actually having money spent on it, has way more categories, allows productive and clean conversation, contains way more opportunities and customization, and is overall just a better fit? I think the answer is obvious.  

Posted by kenovo

They were removed because they sucked. What purpose did it serve to have two forums for the same game? Would you rather still have a forum that limited almost all use except talking, and even then prohibited clean viewing and decent conversation? Or a forum that is actually having money spent on it, has way more categories, allows productive and clean conversation, contains way more opportunities and customization, and is overall just a better fit? I think the answer is obvious.

That's my point, but for now, let's exclude zone play. The in game forums were very simple, and were good for a quick post. They were very convenient, and the neat thing about being extremely simple is that it's user friendly. Now, back to zone play- I agree, it's nice to have a forum like this, but I don't think this is worthy of taking the in game forum's spot. Imo, it's hard to navigate on a mobile device, and it's way too complex to post something quick and easy, especially if you have a question like "where's start zone" or something dumb like that. People will either be too lazy to even answer the question because of the series of steps to post an answer, or one person will end up answering and the thread will be closed. If it even becomes as popular as expected, I'll bet that it'll end up with a bunch of spam and worthless posts, OR, it won't become popular, and it'll end up collecting dust with 5 people actually using it. So here's my suggestion: keep zone play, but bring back the in-game forums.  

You don't realize the in-Game forums weren't good. Navigation on it was terrible, and the topics were often unnecessary and provided nothing in return. Saying Zone-Play is hard to post and navigate through is an exaggeration. It works just like any other forum. So why would a player go onto a forum when they have no clue what they are? Also, simple questions like "wheres start zone" can be asked to a Staff Member. Heck, let's hope they weren't using the forums to say meaniniless things like that.  

Posted by kenovo

You don't realize the in-Game forums weren't good. Navigation on it was terrible, and the topics were often unnecessary and provided nothing in return. Saying Zone-Play is hard to post and navigate through is an exaggeration. It works just like any other forum. So why would a player go onto a forum when they have no clue what they are? Also, simple questions like "wheres start zone" can be asked to a Staff Member. Heck, let's hope they weren't using the forums to say meaniniless things like that.

You don't realize that they could have fixed the navigation issues on the in-game forums. I agree, the navigation was terrible, but that's something you can easily fix. I never said it was hard to post on zone play, I only stated that it wasn't worth posting something simple that could be instead posted on an in-game forum. Another great benefit the in-game forums had to offer was the in-game part. For the same reason they made Graal Facebook, some people don't have computers, and some people don't have mobile devices, and until they fix the mobile navigation on zone play, it really isn't worth using on a mobile device.

My opinion still stands.  

I use/have been using mobile Zone-Play. And it's not hard to use. Especially with apps such as Tapatalk that allows easy browsing on forums. And if a player doesn't have a computer or device, why or how are they even on Zone and its forum? The in-Game forums restricted useful abilities that should be on forums. It just wasn't good and there's a reason it was removed.  

Posted by kenovo

I use/have been using mobile Zone-Play. And it's not hard to use. Especially with apps such as Tapatalk that allows easy browsing on forums. And if a player doesn't have a computer or device, why or how are they even on Zone and its forum? The in-Game forums restricted useful abilities that should be on forums. It just wasn't good and there's a reason it was removed.

Again, you didn't fully understand one of my statements. Referring back to my statement about devices/computers:

Posted by TWIZ

For the same reason they made Graal Facebook, some people don't have computers, and some people don't have mobile devices, and until they fix the mobile navigation on zone play, it really isn't worth using on a mobile device.

If a person doesn't have a computer, they can play zone and use zone play on their device, but at the cost of having poor navigation UNLESS they download Tapatalk. If a person doesn't have a mobile device, they can still play zone via Facebook, and they can use zone play at ease. But as stated before, not everybody has a computer, which eliminates the ability to have good navigation without using Tapatalk. It's kinda lame if you have to download a completely different app in order to use the official forums, which leads me to my next argument. In many cases, Zone offers poor solutions to problems, with a great example being the Tapatalk solution. Another example of a poor solution would the forum registration prize. This is a great way to gain zone play users, but I believe it's the wrong kind of motivation to be used in this situation. It's like giving a dog a treat because you want it to like you. Long story short, zone play will never have the convenience of the in-game forums.  

I don't use tapatalk, I was just saying that's another option. I use my Mobile Browser on my Device. Like I am now as well.  

The in-game forums caused some errors and often created problems with databases, this lead to more problems than just lag. The forums were growing quite a lot, like anything on the server they added to the lag and due to the growth it seemed to be causing more and more of it. Originally the online forums were only going to be for trading but the in-game forums seemed uneccessery as we could just use the zone-play for everything. In the end it was decided that the in-game forums were causing more problems than benefits and it seemed that the only postive side to them was convenience of not having to leave the game. In the end Tashkin sacrificed a lot of his time and money to set up the forums, this definitely seems like it was the right decision to me.

There's a lot of other reasons why zone-play is better such as having vbulletin which allows for more customisation, is much easier to moderate and isn't as limited as the in-game forums are in terms of posting (style your posts, add images & videos, quoting, etc). Having our own website allows us to add extras such as the item database and opens up a lot more possibilities. There's a lot more benefits too. I have seen a lot of people complaining about the forums, I agree it was pretty sad to see them go as I had got pretty attached to them but I definitely think zone-play is the way to go with the forums!  

Posted by Vendetta

In the end Tashkin sacrificed a lot of his time and money to set up the forums, this definitely seems like it was the right decision to me.

lolwut.  

Posted by GlazeyB

lolwut.

I won't go into details of how much it costs but its definitely not cheap. vBulletin alone costs a hell of a lot (http://www.vbulletin.com), there's monthly costs too such as hosting and other stuff such as purchasing the domain. It all gets very expensive.  

I prefer the zone-play way better , it way more organized and it could add more variety especially if you consider the forum connect and if you don want to use the browse just use the tapatalk  

Make up your damned minds.

First you ditch graalians, then your own in-game forums, and sooner or later there's gonna be something to outpost your new forums.  

Posted by 5hift

Make up your damned minds.

First you ditch graalians, then your own in-game forums, and sooner or later there's gonna be something to outpost your new forums.

What. I'm confused to what your point is.  

Posted by 5hift

Make up your damned minds.

First you ditch graalians, then your own in-game forums, and sooner or later there's gonna be something to outpost your new forums.

If we ditched Graalians we wouldn't be posting on here, would we ?