I was waiting for your input, not disappointed at all with your input. And you’re on point as usual…the feeling of insecurity is overwhelming. I have no trust in Episode anymore…didn’t have much before but this is the proverbial straw. I’m definitely looking at alternatives, we should all definitely follow one another on any socials. Maybe we should make a thread to share them all.
5 Likes
pretty much you can search up “how to…” and BAM! You could find your answer on the Episode forums, even if you didn’t have an account on here 
I’m sure many people have bookmarked a lot of threads as well 
it’s awfully sad this is happening and it’s been exhausting saving a lot of my directing tutorials, because I’m not even halfway through saving them, I made way too many 
10 Likes
I checked out the announcement for the contest on Discord and something was immediately apparent to me: The responses to the contest announcement in the specific contest discussion channel are all so happy and thankful. It’s kinda creepy. I think I only saw one person pointing out it’s once again another contest with no real theme that requires gem choices and romance. There was way more pushback to that kind of stuff on the forums. Maybe this is part of the plan, move discussions to a different venue more likely to be favorable to them. 
11 Likes
Okay, I’ve got some bold ideas, but depending on the future of the forums, as well as the Episode app itself, we might need something bold to make the most of this situation.
Like others were saying, many of the decisions the Episode team has made feel like they’re not even considering what users want. Their choices seem aimed at making money and controlling the narrative. That’s where my ideas come in…
Firstly, that petition should see as many eyes as possible. The more it’s seen by people, the more likely we’ll get more signatures. I do worry that the team will ignore the petition, but we could push it onto their posts and make our own posts spreading the word. I don’t imagine this will have any miracle-working effects, but it’s worth a try.
We could also create a website dedicated to storing the information on this website. There’s a lot, but we could at least transfer all the tutorials, guides, templates, and issue fixes. This does depend on whether the people that made all those tools are okay with them being posted elsewhere, but imagine how helpful they’d be for someone who’s in the writing/coding process.
Reddit has a similar structure to the forums, so if the community decided to relocate there, we could create a subreddit dedicated to coding, writing tips, art sharing, etc. (Considering the r/Episode subreddit is mostly used to share stories and have general conversations.
And my biggest (craziest) solution is making a new app based off the choose-your-story concept. So many authors have lost their work because of strict, yet vague guidelines. An app made by creators for creators would, I imagine, be a breath of air, considering most choose-your-story apps are cash-grabs.
Call me stupidly ambitious, but I don’t want to give up on the community or the app without trying to help first.
(Also apologies if this sounds cringey or preachy, I tend to problem-solve in these types of scenarios.)
Editing this because I thought of another idea.
13 Likes
I do like the idea of starting an app by creators for creators. I’d be the first to jump ship for such an app (provided there’s nothing exploitive or shady hidden in the terms and conditions and my IP rights are protected. This is actually why I was asking about Donacode in another thread. Does anyone know if it belongs to Episode?) However, I know absolutely nothing about creating an app and I’m too damn old to learn. 
I also don’t have the kind of money necessary to bankroll such an endeavor. But if you build it, I will come.
9 Likes
I’d honestly love that idea, but it requires a lot of money and time especially if we would want it to be successful. If you have the funds to start this I’d love to help be apart of it even if I can’t do much.
6 Likes
I wonder how long it’s going to be until we all start getting flagged 
Usually can’t speak up on here without Episode getting mad
11 Likes
They don’t care what we’re saying here because it’ll all be erased at the end of the month. They’re basically letting us “throw a tantrum” because they know they’re not going change, and they probably don’t expect many of us to transition over.
18 Likes
That’s why we need to be as loud as we can outside of the forums. Once thing that is beautiful about the forums is that they are isolated to the community, but that also means that they don’t get much ‘larger scale’ attention. To truly make changes, we need to use every other means of social media we can. I have posted about it on Quotev and on The Top Tens. I plan on texting the petition to some friends as well. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter… If we are going to save the forums, at least for viewing purposes, we have to use other methods of communication. They expect the forums users to be mad- but if they find that the users of other sites are upset, that’s when they will turn their heads.
13 Likes
I mentioned Reddit in one of my replies, and got curious about their thoughts. I found a post in r/Episode about the Discord server, and I’m sharing it here for anyone that’s curious!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Episode/comments/1d7qe2s/soo_the_episode_discord_server_is_replacing_the/
4 Likes
I finally remembered why this situation was feeling similar to me.
Remember when they released the new animations update with like the wrinkles and the animations looked kind of scary and awful? And thanks to all feedback they ruled the update?
Honestly, this seems something like that. Maybe we do have a chance to somehow save forums because remember that we got them to roll the animations back so if this matter would have more negative than positive feedback maybe they could rethink everything.
10 Likes
What if everyone files a support ticket respectfully begging them to keep the forums up? I mean this is the beginning of the end for Episode. I just feel like they probably aren’t even seeing what we are discussing here.
12 Likes
Thank you so much! A new post there (especially using an image) that would probably get the most attention.
2 Likes
Hey guys I have shared this petition on reddit. Let’s see if that helps.
8 Likes
I’m not sure that would be a good idea because it might just abuse the system and they’re only going to respond to it if its only about a problem we have in the portal and other things.
3 Likes
Honestly, instead of outright closing down Forums and seemingly struggling with numbers, Episode could have put in the much needed time and effort to update everything.
Episode, like any other app, had it’s golden years where it’s users were at an all time high. Hype simmers down eventually, but it doesn’t mean nobody cares anymore.
I would have personally released the following updates in an attempt to not only bump up the number of users, but keep the community that makes Episode successful in the first place happy:
• Released all premium INK assets, since INK is no longer the focus for Episode. It would make a LOT of community members extremely happy, especially the ones who still prefer INK over LL.
• Fixed animations, as well as release newer ones.
• Give Forums a small makeover instead of shutting it down all together, allowing it to peacefully coexist with the Discord server.
• Ask the community for THEIR THOUGHTS BEFORE ANY DRASTIC CHANGES. No community = no Episode whatsoever.
• More mods who are willing to listen to the community. Yes, mods are here to do their JOB, but without us, then they simply wouldn’t be working here. Again, no community = no Episode.
25 Likes
You’re probably right
1 Like
Welp, it is what it is. This is my last stop no discord for me. 
12 Likes
I am not surprised at all! I already got the feeling that Episode split the community into two camps: the ones who prefer the forum and the others who embrace Discord and as you already mentioned, do not criticize Episode at all! Episode struggling to listen to their users is nothing new at all. Also, thank you for pointing out how their new terms for their server give them the autonomy to ban critics altogether.
To me, it seems like that’s exactly the dystopian community and customers they are striving for.
8 Likes
Jem, your tutorials are honestly amazing! I just got it after reading the threads that you made and its so much easier to copy and paste and change things! You can google anything and it comes up.
3 Likes