Avnger said:
Meh. Seems redundant and counterproductive for driving people to the site itself.
So, given that most communities I know that use one use it to link directly back to material... it works pretty well. Youtubers, gaming communities, etc. will do that. So new video goes up, you post it in an announcement section and boom... people have a link. The alternative is going back to the site every now and then to go: "Oh, did I miss anything" which is annoying, and just unnecessary given the alternative. Likewise, see below points
SupahEwok said:
I don't see the point of Discord communities with hundreds of members. I feel they work best with a population of a couple dozen, where the conversation will move at a manageable pace and are personal enough to form relationships. Whoever formed a friendship with another rando in a Twitch comment box?
Forums, which we have, are more ideal for the larger community this site will strive for. Compartmentalization of threads within topics, a (albeit currently dysfunctional) reply notification system, and a slower and more deliberate means of communication.
Discord works well as a chat house for forum groups, over this forum's current functionality for them. I highly recommend its private use among those groups. However, there's no need for an overall Escapist discord.
So I don't know what twitch has to do with anything, but I've met tons of people on Discords. I've set up games, met new groups I'd like to play with, etc. That's in large groups And in small groups. This site is ostensibly about "Gaming" so... why wouldn't we want people to meet up and do that? It's much harder to organize that kind of thing using a forum where everything is so disconnected.
Both a forum and a discord can exist, you can link them together even. If you want every one of your posts to appear on the thing, that is possible. If you want all the videos made by the creators to appear on it... also possible. People can see in real time the people that are In their community and the content made By that community.
I mean, do you really think that a post... just to pick one entirely at random from the Offtopic part of the forum: "Poll: Marvel - Which Infinity Stone would you have?" Can you really tell me, that this forum post Needs to be it's own dedicated thread? Like, couldn't that just be a momentary thing someone brings up and people just talk about in a Discord chat?
You can set up plugins, designate channels for different things. This really isn't Super difficult, and resisting against it because it's slightly newer then a, at this point what... 10 year old forum? Is there a Good reason for that? Make it an Option.