compile future updates / concerns better

yet another sudden update came out that has players angry. an update i never knew was gonna come, but was expected to know about by mods, despite me not even being on the site when it was briefly mentioned. im not a veteran, along with many users here. we should not be expected to read up on every admin's post from years ago to look for context clues for future updates. Suggestion Title: compile future updates, future concerns, potential changes etc. in a better way Suggestion Summary: i'd love to see some sort mega-thread that neatly compiles the above mentioned, and is somewhere where new players can find it (something like a pinned announcement, for example, so that it's always at the top and stays there). it would prevent issues like this one, or the big region recolor that was announced years ago but only happened last year. new users like me had no idea it was gonna happen unless for any reason they deep dived into announcements / discussion threads and saw it by chance. (also some veteran players simply forgot, since years passed) Positive points: -newbies (or general non veterans like me) + forgetful people dont have to scramble through all the posts admins made on different threads / announcements to know about whats to come on this site -better transparency from mods to users, which i saw was a voiced issue in the community Negative points: - it would have to be updated by mods each time theyre planning a change Reason For Consideration: 1. to prevent chaos like what happened before to happen again, or at least greatly minimize the damage 2. for better transparency from the moderator team 3. it saves time than looking through every post admins made on the threads my post below sums up my view pretty well, it's from the RMT removal announcement. i encourage you to come to your own conclusions, whether you're for or against this suggestion. and remember to not discuss the update itself here, unless it links to something you have to say. thank you

Full support. Nothing is healthier for a site that relies on community (such as this one) than clear cut communication. Things that are withheld or lost in the depths of the forums should NOT be expected by moderation or the site owners to be known by the general populace. People come, people go, but to have a set panel that includes upcoming changes, plans, or even discussions being made between mods, would clear up a lot of the animosity and frustration people are feeling. Things would be better understood. There could be a healthy discussion. That's not to say EVERY mod discussion needs to be brought up. There are some things that people don't need to know about, but if it affects people on a grander scale, then it absolutely must be shared. This is my two cents, thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

Alternative idea: a poll section above every possible update, just to see how the community feels about a topic without having to say anything lol. Edit: Sorry, I didn't mean to overthrow the thread, I fully support the idea you've given, I was just mentioning something that could go along with it. xD Please ignore me.

I support this completely! You voiced my worries here much better than I did in my forum post over in general discussion, ahaha. I agree with your points, and with RiverOtter's post. What you're suggesting would be, in my opinion, no different than the changelog we had when this site was being more frequently updated - A quick and easy way to see what important stuff has gone on/is going on. I would also add that if a megathread isn't possible, some sort of documentation on the Wiki instead of (or in addition to!) a post might be useful, and may encourage more use of the Wiki. What's the point of having one, if not to document important information users can easily reference?

Full support. This honestly should have been a big thing from the get-go but I guess we'll take what we can get at this point lol. We also generally, and genuinely, need some sort of forum search function but that's another topic I suppose.

i had to rewrite some things a few times before they made sense so i hope i didnt say something stupid lol <3

Full support. This is something I see in a lot of communities and I can say from experience it helps SO MUCH to be transparent with the userbase. Just an update of some sort every month or so saying things like "Staff are discussing changes to ____" and giving a place for players to give opinions. I have nothing against any staff member and I appreciate the work they do, but saying "Oh we discussed it 9 months ago" just shouldn't be acceptable. Just a small monthly newspost or a megathread that gets updated would suffice. A simple site status talking about possible changes and users opinions on said changes. I understand not all decisions should be decided by the community and balance changes should be up to the developers, but they should at least be known by the community in some easily findable capacity. No, I'm not saying this just in regards to the update today. I'm saying this because I worry that this fire will start all over again unless something changes. User transparency is incredibly valuable in many ways, for both staff and community members. Especially on a site that is built on collaboration.

Full support. Also, I suggested a search option for the forums ages ago, but was turned down. I can't even remember what the reasoning was. It's impossible to find anything in there. Especially the shops. I don't want to go through 20 pages of shops to find the one thing I'm looking to buy that might not be available in the market at the time. But I'm veering off topic. It's an easy code to add to be able to search the forums, and we should have it. If I try to use google, it brings up deleted threads most of the time. The wiki idea is good too, to archive topics there too. I also like the idea of a newsletter, but we kind of already have that with the news section in a way.

Full support ^^ I’m a relatively new player still (joined september last year) and I think this would be very helpful so people don’t have to spend hours searching for an update or suggestion thread that was made years ago.

I support, with one caveat. There likely won't be any actual timeline involved. It would be a collection of "here's things that may happen in the future when we get the chance to do it." It will require a lot of patience from the users, is that something that can be asked for?