pmm711:
garyk49: And Paul, I am on the fence where games should not have their own Discord Server. Us old farts don't necessarily go along with all these newfangled changes.
Gary, I get it....but my entire career since 1981 has been focused on best practices and change management. I was a COBOL programmer for Christ's sake. This is 2022. Today is an entirely different world. Now my daughter just graduated from GA Tech with a degree in Industrial Engineering with a Supply Chain and Analytics focus. I'm pretty progressive but she's light years ahead of me. If she went to work for WGT she would've sunset this forum back in June....first task...done....POOF! She's in tune with today's best practices and understands the pulse of today's app users. She's a frigg'in brainiac el extraordinaire. It started at age 3 1/2 in Montessori school. Her spreadsheets are already coveted where she works. She's teaching people not much younger than us an entirely new way of thinking...and they're buying into it. Think of the way there was so much moaning about flash going the way side. Just saying.
I too started as a COBOL programmer back in the mid-80's. Yes, computers and technology have changed since then, but not always for the better. For example, someone mentioned "live chat" earlier; so often now you go onto "live chat" and you are greeted by a bot (and then they ask you how useful it was!), so you either get a question answered that you did not ask, or they don't understand - you can't actually get to 'chat' with a real person! All that does is anger and infuriate the customer. Many companies won't even publish a phone number any more... because they won't want to be communicated with! Let's face it, 99% of the time someone wants to get in touch becuase they have a problem, complaint, or don't understand something; the company doesn't really care, they will do what they want to do regardless of what the customerbase thinks.
Georgia Tech... *spits*. Ever heard of Chris Klaus? He's heavily involved with GA Tech. Some years ago he created a 3D virtual world game called Kaneva. It was one of the reasons I stopped playing WGT for a few years. The game was the best 3D virtual world game available, and for that I applaud both Klaus and the developers. However, it was highly suspected (no one would ever give us a straight answer) that Kaneva was a platform to teach GA Tech students game development, and so there were often changes that were not asked for and not wanted, and often brought discontent to the many that had played the game for years. Maybe there is a similar university in SF to whom WGT give their development, becasue that's exactly how it feels! In 2016 Kaneva was closed down, I can only assume because they couldn't really take the game any further, and replaced it with CasinoLife Poker in 2017 which I believe was a dead duck - it still seems to exist, but I don't know anyone who plays it. Again, very similar to WGT - who remembers the 'dead duck' WGT baseball site?
I've digressed. To get back to the subject at hand, I did initially join the WGT Discord server. However, I believe it to be very unwelcoming for a number of reasons:
- Players names are coloured according to what tier they are. The higher the tier, the lighter the colour is. I'm old school, and on a computer I write and read with dark writing on a light-coloured background, usually black on white. Changing to a dark background is not pleasing to the eyes, and in fact I find it is a strain on the eyes. However, this is what I was told (by Nico) that I had to do to be able to see the names. Shocking answer in my opinion! I know many websites now have the option for both dark and light backgrounds, but they also change the font to suit - they don't put yellow writing on a white background!
- As has been said, there are too many people on the chat server, and most of what is written is pure drivel, and most of it in some language that I neither want to learn, nor have the time or inclination to sit and decipher. And, as has also been said, most of what is written is by members of one or two CC's. If you didn't know better you'd think it was their private server! Ask a question and it will soon get lost amongst the drivel and endless 2-seconds long repeating video clips that do nothing more than make you get a nervous twitch! Also, the UK is 8 hours ahead SF, so if I posted a question it probably wouldn't be seen by WGT staff for a few hours, and I find it hard to believe that they will look back through a few hours of 'chat', and even if they do there's a good chance the quesion would get missed, or the reply would get missed next time I came to look, which may well be the next day. I hate to think what it is like for others with a longer time difference.
I found the Discord server to be of no use to me at all, so I deleted it. For me, the forum or a PM is still the best form of communication between WGT and the masses; if I want to talk to individuals I use Skype which I've used for many years and is far easier to use than Discord, albeit less so since Microsoft took it over - another change that certainly wasn't for the better!
Regarding changes (deviating slightly from the OP again), remember that to keep people in employment, developers have to keep 'enhacing' their product, otherwise they would be out of work. They do this by putting in changes, not necessarily changes that enhance the product for the end user, and not always changes for the better, simply changes to keep them in a job. 10 years ago WGT was a very realistic golf game. They made some changes to enhance it - e.g. alt shot, skins etc - and some changes that were necessary - e.g. demise of Flash, but most other things have been nothing more than keeping developers in a job, or more ways to fill the WGT coffers. Now it looks, feels and plays like any other arcade game.