Shattered Kingdoms

I'm getting to the point where I really would like access to the sub-forums of groups I have a character involved with, and I would like removal from (so far inactive) groups I should not have access to. I have PM'd and Emailed a few different Imm's, and Dulrik, with little action taken so far, although I was pointed in a direction by a nice Imm in a rather timely manner.

Is there any Imm about that can PM me and resolve this issue?

Is the fixing of "forumid" on the chart?

You dont need access to it. Most of the sub-forums are dead and rarely anyone around to engage in those subforum.

The forumid is broken. I think the programmer who created is no longer with us and is therefore no longer maintained or when the server was moved it broke and no one was around to fix it.

The linkage between sub-forums and the game is partially functional at best. And since I didn't set it up, I'm not sure where things have gone wrong.

I have been pondering for awhile whether it would be better to just remove them entirely so as not to have false expectations about their availability. As was mentioned, they were mostly inactive even before the current issues. And removing them would clear an obstacle preventing us from migrating the forums to the current version of phpBB (which has the added advantage of full compatibility with modern mobile web browsers).

I think the sub-forms are important. I know people who have used them quite a bit in the past.
I recently used it to prompt a cabal second leader flag. So they do have their uses, even if under-utilized.

The sub-forms that you mention are faith/cabal/trib/hero forms, right?
I would support removing the automated forumid tie into the mud. I think people could come to the forums and manually request a PM from an imm to discuss what forums the player needs to be added to.
Perhaps assign one specific imm to monitor this and add people as needed.
But it's your call. If we drop it we drop it. But I think the sub-forums are important.
*shrug*

If reverting phpbb would fix the forumid, I think we should downgrade. There's not much benefit of keeping phpbb up to date besides the security updates. Browser compatibility is marginal at best. Also SK is generally a pc base game as playing on phone can be pretty difficult so we wont lose out on having mobile friendly phpbb. Sometimes it's best not to update if the risk is high. For example if SK was upgraded to circlemud as a more updated branch of dikumud, a ton of things would break due to deprecation.

Or just have someone debug the mud/phpbb code. I'm sure it something as silly as renewing a token or something.

I share this sentiment. But I might just be one of the few like Trosis that do try to use the sub-forums.

If they are going to be dropped, can we make sure all of the Cabal skills/spells have a help entry? Or at least have the NPC trainers volunteer a description of the use of said skills/spells?

Thankfully I know well about my current Cabal's skill set having led the Cabal twice in the past, but if I were to join one like the Druid that I admittedly have never been a member of, I'd be a little lost on their skill set, even worse off if I happened to be the only active member.

Downgrading is not the issue. The in-game linkage is broken on the current version of phpBB, which we have not upgraded for years. And do keep in mind that the purpose of the forums is communication OUTSIDE of the game. I know that I personally do not visit the forums nearly as often these days specifically because it does not have mobile compatibility. I, like the majority of the population in 2019 (although perhaps not everyone reading this message), access the internet far more often from my phone than from a laptop.

I'm confused by your meaning. 99% of the time I am browsing these forums via my iPhone and it works just fine for me.
Though, I am using an older app called Perfect Browser that -was- available for iOS. I'm unsure if it is anymore.
Do the forums not work well for Safari?
Are you wanting to utilize a completely new forum system to better-accommodate mobile devices?

It isn't that it doesn't work at all, but viewing this forum on a phone means you are constantly having to zoom in and pan around to read stuff. It's just really painful compared to how it ought to work in the mid/late 201Xs. This version of phpBB was written without responsive design -- a now common technique that automatically adapts a web page based on the screen size. The main SK website now uses this, but the forums still don't. By upgrading our version of phpBB, we will get this benefit.

I suppose I shouldn't even say this is an either/or situation. We should probably just go ahead and upgrade. The sub-forums won't connect to the game, but they already don't connect to the game, so it's no loss over the current situation. This wasn't always the case because it used to partially work, but it doesn't seem to anymore.

Okay. That’s a valid argument.
I’m personally afraid of change and this would shake up what I know. Lol
Is it possible for us to get a link at the top of the forums, or in the comments, so we could try out the new system before go-live?
Or are you just gonna pull the trigger and make it happen?