[UPDATE] Forums is closing down, date has been extended

They could also give us all the premium assets from their featured LL stories since they are all probably in the wish list by now. They should do an art release that is only wishlist stuff.

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Yes!! Fully support that too!

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Damn that’s bleak. Almost makes me feel guilty about wanting to give discord a chance.:sweat_smile:

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Will you guys join the server? I’m a bit reluctant because I’ve heard some pretty sketchy things about discord and It’s a bit confusing to understand how it works. But I also don’t want to miss out on the announcements and news.

I’ve only been in the forums for a few months, but that has been enough time to realize how kind and lovely everyone is in here. Who will come to the rescue whenever I have a coding problem now? :smiling_face_with_tear:
It was great to be part of this, even if it was just for a couple of months :heart:

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Sorry! :sweat_smile: That’s just me embracing my inner notorious pessimistic self :joy: I didn’t mean to spoil it for anybody :see_no_evil:

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Sorry you’ve only been here for a few months, but it was enough to give you an experience.

I am considering joining the discord. I have a little experience on it and the Episode’s discord actually doesn’t look bad, but everyone here says how sketchy it seems and potentially it’s true intentions give me pause.

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It’s okay. We’re all feeling pessimistic about the future, which is commonplace in this day and age.:disappointed:

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I just came back from years of inactivity and this is the first thing I see bruh :sob::sob: I’ve literally always hated discord too, so this is sad

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I decided to go with “let’s see how this goes” approach, alongside with hoping enough outcry can keep the forums alive.

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There’s already been one signature that came from Reddit, and I’m sure that is just the first of many. The Episode Reddit thread is in the top 3% in size of all Reddit threads, so it is a pretty powerful audience.

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I’m in the server, in case anyone missed my complaining :joy:

I have been part of it since before it was announced to be the “new Forums” as a beta tester. Whilst I still stand strongly with keeping Forums open, being in the server does mean I can still keep up with announcements and such after the doomsday arrives. Admittedly, it has calmed down a bit now. Mods have banned some of the troublemakers I was initially complaining about. That being said, it still gets chaotic, especially when more and more members come online (different time zones, for ya!), so keep that in mind.

Also, if you do join the server, as mentioned above in this thread, you can’t link the petition there. Mods clarified that you can talk about it, but no linking. :grimacing:

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I’ve already left the Discord :rofl:

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:rofl:

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I won’t be too direct, but definitely follow my instagram everyone. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

I don’t like reddit personally, it makes me sad lol. But there definitely needs to be a non-episode run alternative. They’re far too ban-happy and criticism-averse. A bad combination. I appreciate your mindset by the way @aromaticcerise

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Yeah there have been 2.1k views on that thread till now


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I don’t own a company or anything, but why is there NO other side to this? What I mean is, a lot of the time companies have a certain tactic when they f*ck up and their community is pissed with them.
For example.

Restaurant A is getting rid of a fan favorite food. People are upset, but Restaurant A is adding a complete new $1 menu where everything is, you guessed it, $1.

People will still be upset about the restaurant discontinuing a favorite food, but they’re also kind of excited to see the new options available, AND at a cheaper price bc customers love affordable.

Stupid comparison, I know, but I feel like Episode is missing a huge opportunity here. In the switch to Discord, they could’ve said, “Hey, unfortunately we are discontinuing the Forums, but with the next update, we’ll be returning to weekly updates! Don’t miss out!” Or something dumb. The Forums closing would still be devasting, but there would be something to look forward to at least. Not only would people be excited for the weekly updates, but that would 100% increase engagement with the server. They just didn’t think any of this through long-term. And having no bright side is NOT how you please an audience. :roll_eyes:

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I recommend adding an image- pictures speak louder than words.

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This might be a little off topic, so blurring, but maybe 


Summary

They might be offering something new to look forward to. I noticed this when I last updated. Hoping that it is something great :crossed_fingers:

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This is such a saddening news! I’ve been on forums since 2020, and I’ve met many amazing people (people who’ve left and are still active). Forums hold many memories for us, it has been a medium for us community members to stay connected with/to each other, and a place where our voices were heard. Each and every issue literally finds an answer here, old or new thread. Those simple badges we receive for the milestones, means a lot to me honestly. We really need you to discard this decision, Episode. Think about it
 :cry::broken_heart:

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I’ve been quiet on this - as I’m still juggling my thoughts - I’ve only been on forums since the beginning of this year, and though it’s only been a few months, I instantly fell in love with it; I was very pleased with the way the formatting and overall setup looked (very clean, and organized), and the amount of countless information at my disposal that I never even knew existed, and I’ve been on episode since its release in 2014, and have been coding since 2018/2019. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve not been as vocal about my love and respect for Episode because at the time it seemed “uncool” to support something that had been stereotypically cheesy and cringy for a lot of its advertised stories. I still had so much respect for Episode considering that it allowed people to quite literally make their own animated interactive stories from scratch without an entire team of people, but instead from the comfort of their homes (and even on your phone at one point). The moment the announcement came out about the forum’s closing, I think it only sent a lot of people into panic mode(not from it being just a “huge and scary change” Nika) because, in a sense, it feels like Episode yet again proves that they don’t take what we are saying into consideration(even though they claim they do), and it shows that no matter what we say, you guys are going to continue to ignore and exploit us artists who truly want to see this community thrive. I understand wanting to branch out, you’re literally a brand; it’s understandable that you guys want higher numbers, but what’s not understandable is why you guys decided to act on this without truly giving us a chance to reconcile. Because let’s be for real here, you guys could have given us more than 3 weeks to prepare for this “huge and scary” change, so it shows that you are aware of your hypocrisy. I recently downloaded discord, just to give everything my fair and honest opinion; I will say, I like the idea of having real time discussion with the community, but what I don’t like is having to sift through hundreds of posts that literally have nothing to do with anything. My anxiety literally goes up scrolling through the countless emoji’s and random hello’s, which I wouldn’t mind if this was a different kind chat, but to cram the entire Episode “community” into just one chat, it’s chaotic and overstimulating. After using it for a day, I like how the other channels are formatted in a way, making it so everything is divided into equally different categories; it’s only when I click into each category where I feel that it is not so equal. For example, the “sort & view” filter only sorts by “recently active” and “date posted” (it only shows the most recently posted btw)? It seems manipulative for one, in the sense that once time goes on, the more chats that appear, the more likely it will be for things to get drowned since there is no way to get to the beginning without scrolling endlessly, and it feels not everyone’s post will have equal opportunity for views; This post itself in the top 3 this week, and the top 15 of this year, and it’s only been a couple days (which again shows the level within the forum’s features being superior to discord’s features). I think it’s insulting that we as a community are proving that we can come together -IN REAL TIME- to try to change the things that affect us, and yet it seems none of our efforts are ever really rewarded. It’s also insulting to try to force people to use discord, while essentially telling us to “suck it up, you’ll get use it”. I’m all for trying new things, change isn’t always a bad thing; I for one loved when LL came, even though I started in the ink style, I was willing to embrace it because it still felt like Episode was being innovative, as opposed to now where they feel dictative(I don’t think this is a word, but you get the point). With the forums, it’s set up in a way that makes it user friendly and easy to view topics, lets you view activity, and feedback; there is a decade’s worth of FREE, institutional and irreplaceable knowledge that cannot be just copied fully onto an app like discord. There is a topic for literally anything on here, and the way this community has made it comfortable to voice your opinions in a well thought-out and organized manner is not a coincidence. With discord, there’s some organization, but ultimately it doesn’t feel like everything is at your disposal in terms of resources; to me it seems like they’re purposefully reducing resources, while telling us they’re “preserving as much as possible”, but why have they not fully come out and said that they have been able to successfully copy and transfer everything from the forums to discord? Even when the people are posting the links from forums to discord, the mod tells them, “I recommend copying any external links from them and transferring any information to the server”, as if it’s suppose to be OUR job to copy and transfer THEIR entire website? Why is it impossible for them to make this into an searchable archive? It seriously can’t be a money thing, you guys said it yourselves that episode wouldn’t be closing anytime soon, and if it did it’s unlikely it will be a money issue; what you guys don’t consider is your audience’s value as people. It’s like one person said, it insults our intelligence, making it our responsibility to adjust to your system of control. I mean seriously, really convenient that a “summer contest” is happening and it’s only for a month; how many people do you know can plan, write, code, 3 chapters in a month by themselves? Yeah, I thought so. Especially since the theme is literally “do whatever you want”, it’s giving distraction. Someone literally said, (and I have to take this with a grain of salt as I have never entered a contest) “writers usually got 3 months’ time for the past ‘do whatever you want’ contests”. Even The Dark Academia contest for the community has extra time (and I was seriously thinking about entering it until this bull crap happened, but I’ve also been on and off revamping my own story), it’s no wonder people have lost interest, people are sick of being used. Anyway, I think that’s what I have to say on the matter. I might keep adding, but we’ll see, all of this is making me see a really ugly side of Episode, and I don’t know if I want to keep supporting; It feels really nasty what they’re doing to the people who’ve been sticking around for this long. I think when talking about this, it’s very important to put personal feelings aside - as I have very mixed feeling about this whole thing - I think I have been able to express how I feel in a very unbiased way, and even if Episode still decides to go through with the site’s termination, we will know what happened.

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