Allow Attachments for the Forums

By NTJedi on September 14, 2009 11:51:42 AM from

I searched the current list of forum issues and haven't found this topic, I appologize if the topic has already been discussed.

Currently there's no method for adding attachments in the forums. I've been on other game forums where attachments are allowed and believe this feature would be appreciated by the community as well. It's very useful having a single trusted location where gamers can provide not only a topic describing their game map, game utility, technical issue, game mod, etc., etc., but the related files as well.

EDIT: I realize there's concern regarding "Hosting the files becomes a liability issue so Stardock would have to moderate the attached files... such as the liability due to a virus distributed". However I recognize several other game forums have been hosting files for several years. Wouldn't it be possible to contact these other game forums and ask for advice regarding these fears? If the only barrier is liability concerns then the solution would be investigating HOW the other gaming forums have solved this problem.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/ Multiple forums for independent games (has allowed attachments for years)

http://www.heavengames.com/ Perhaps something can be done which matches what's provided by heavengames? They provide a section for uploading and downloading files, but it's a single trusted location.

+38 Karma | 19 Replies

You can add links and pictures. Looking for something else?

Quoting Philly0381,

reply 1

You can add links and pictures. Looking for something else?

Yes as mentioned in the original post, when someone creates a game map, game utility, game mod, etc., etc., it's beneficial for the community to have a single trusted location for downloading these files.

I've always assumed that the main reason Stardock forums don't accept direct pastes of pictures or attachments of other files is that storage and bandwidth cost money and they'd rather put money elsewhere. But both storage and bandwidth costs have been declining steadily thanks to Moore's law and the backbone-building binge that's been going on since the '90s.

I appreciate NTJedi's interest in a "trusted location" and I'd second that with an interest in simplicity. I would have annotated many of my past posts about GalCiv2 with screen caps if I could simply paste them into the forum editor rather than having to upload them somewhere and then add a link. I also like the idea because I consider the boards to be something of an archive, and it is very frustrating to dig up an interesting old thread that depended entirely on screen caps that are no longer stored wherever the OP uploaded them lo those many moons ago.

Those other sites also use prepackaged third-party forum software. In addition to everything else, we'd have to write a whole new system in from scratch since we use our own system.

I thought folks were saving game maps in the WC Gallery Libaray, could be wrong.

For Sins, yes.

Upload them to Rapidshare, add a link to your post. That's easy enough.

Quoting kryo,

reply 4

Those other sites also use prepackaged third-party forum software. In addition to everything else, we'd have to write a whole new system in from scratch since we use our own system.

Would it not be in Stardocks best interest to provide the best forums possible to encourage activity amongst the forum community? While I'm sure there's some pains involved with providing better forums this should be a constant longterm goal. If Stardock needs to write a whole new system in from scratch just to allow attachments then migrating to prepackaged third-party forum software might be worth considering for providing the best longterm results.

I know Stardock has great passion for providing top quality games and the same should be envisioned for the Stardock forums.

Hmmm, don't the games have thier own forums? Ahhh, this must be a cross post from it, right?

This is something we have discussed back and forth for a while. I'm not sure what the status is, but let me see if I can find out anything.

Quoting CarGuy1,

reply 7

Upload them to Rapidshare, add a link to your post. That's easy enough.

Here's the problem with using other locations:

1) These free download locations all have different expirations such as rapidshare has a 90day time limit for unaccessed files thus maps, mods, and utilities will gradually be lost with time.

2) If one of these other 3rd party download locations goes out of business... all downloads at the site are lost.

3) It's annoying to upload them somewhere and then add a link after recognizing other forums allow attachments as mentioned by GW Swicord.

Quoting Island Dog,

reply 10

This is something we have discussed back and forth for a while. I'm not sure what the status is, but let me see if I can find out anything.

Awesome... as long as Stardock has some longterm action plan for providing the best gaming forums I know it will benefit Stardock as well as the gaming community.

It would be nice to be able to attach our dxdiag.txt to bug reports in the beta forums... That way we'd avoid scrolling through hundreds of lines at the end of each post.

IMO, if we allow attachments in the forums, we may as well change the name to Virus Central!! Baaad Idea!

Quoting Zorglon,

reply 13

It would be nice to be able to attach our dxdiag.txt to bug reports in the beta forums... That way we'd avoid scrolling through hundreds of lines at the end of each post.

Heh. Got all quicky-typy with an 'example' of a selected dxdiag report chunk and then finally noticed that what you're hoping to see is fewer superlong posts filled with complete debug.err and dxdiag.txt files.

Local attachments would help there, no doubt, but so would a bit of learning on us beta folks parts about which chunks are actually relevant to a report we're trying to make.

Also, I haven't done a beta since Twilight for GC2, but back then the devs had no problem accepting attachments of debug.err and game saves via email. I surely hope the same will be true for Elemental.

Quoting RedneckDude,

reply 14

IMO, if we allow attachments in the forums, we may as well change the name to Virus Central!! Baaad Idea!

As mentioned within the original post... several other gaming forums allow attachments and I never see any complaints regarding viruses. An individual only needs to browse a few gaming forums to recognize allowing attachments for a single trusted location is a safe reality.

Quoting NTJedi,

reply 16

Quoting RedneckDude,
reply 14
IMO, if we allow attachments in the forums, we may as well change the name to Virus Central!! Baaad Idea!

As mentioned within the original post... several other gaming forums allow attachments and I never see any complaints regarding viruses. An individual only needs to browse a few gaming forums to recognize allowing attachments for a single trusted location is a safe reality.

Never having been to a gaming forum, I didn't know. I just hate to see malicious code put on the forum here at WC.

While we are always striving to make the forums better, it usually comes down to a matter of cost, time, and resources. Unfortunately, our web team is very small and very busy. Due to this, we try not to spend too much time on things that we consider to be "unnecessary" or that can be handled by 3rd parties (like the aforementioned Rapidshare).

With that in mind, I have brought up attachments for the forums in the past, but insofar there are more people against it than for it. Perhaps some day this will change, but I wouldn't count on it anytime soon.

Bara

Bara, I figured that was the case from what I've seen in other posts from Stardock. I'm disappointed, but not seriously surprised or offended. That said, I still very much believe that the long-term value of the forums would be improved with local hosting of attachments. Here's hoping that future success and general storage cost trends will give Stardock 'the luxury' of changing their minds on this point.

The Forums Are Now Closed!

The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.

Allow Attachments for the Forums