A new Unity Pro or Paid forum needed?

Ok, I am getting a bit fed up with the level of noise on this forum and having a ton of web server space and bandwidth available I thought it would be a good idea to create a new Unity forum for paid and pro members only. The criteria to post would be you would need to prove that you had bought either the pro version or any other variant that involved you spending on a Unity licence.

Anyone could read and browse or comment but only the above could start threads.

To join you would need to email your unity receipt minus any software key to the admin as proof.

What say you all? if there are enough people interested I might do it.

 

This has already been discussed to death; as you already know (you posted in that thread).

 

Yes I know, but I am offering a solution. This thread is not to discuss the pros and cons but for me to determine wheater or not to create a new unity forum.

 

I think the point of that suggestion was to have Unity devs answer posts specifically for Pro users. I don't see why they would go to another site, just to ask questions of other developers.

A very thoughtful gesture on your part, but I can't see it taking off.

 

The idea is for a less noisy location to go to, a club if you will. A place where people might be more inclined to help each other out. I would not stop unity staff from joining and helping.

I am offering the time, the server, the software. I would pay the costs. And I am not ashamed to say no free users need apply. Remember I too used to be a free user prior to paying. I just feel there is a need for a more select club, the 'linked in' of unity. Free users can join once they have made a financial commitment to Unity.

 

TBH I think this is a terrible idea, it is like exactly what makes society S*** house.

 

This. Sortof.

This will just turn to bickering like the other thread.

 

I don't see any problem in having an independant place for Pro users to gather.
There is effectively a lot of noise in Support, and especially Scripting forums, you can't post a thread without having 80% chance of it to be burried in "how do I code ?" new topics in a few hours. This is a fact.
How could Pro users (aka people who are using the engine to run a business) be treated like elitists if they only want their question to be answered ?

And no, Unity Answers is not the solution, it's even worse : http://answers.unity3d.com/index.html
Look at the first page, it's filled with a new question every 5 minutes. How on earth could someone who's already short on time because he has work to do, be willfull to open that site with the intent to help, browse more than 10 pages to see all the questions, and find your 1 day old question ?

I'm not personally in the dire need of a Pro write only forum, but I can clearly understand how some Pro users (reminder : people who are running a business) could desire a place with less beginner questions all over, without having to spend 500$ per month on premium support.

 

Of course, ALL Pro users "(aka people who are using the engine to run a business)" are coders
Of course, NEVER EVER a Pro user "(aka people who are using the engine to run a business)" was started a thread titled "Help me bla bla bla..." etc etc ...
Pro users "(aka people who are using the engine to run a business)" NEVER asked newbie questions.

Good luck with your future "elitist-protected-place", which will turn into a new pyramid scheme. (Pros-beginners hesitate to ask newbies questions).


JP

 

You got me there
(but you get the idea ^^)

 

I don't think you understand what a pyramid scheme is.

 

Well I would not be able to join (not a pro user yet) but I would definately look into the threads for learning purposes.
Imo you should add another option to the poll:
"Yes, create it, and I will lurk around like a boss"

 

Not paid... But authorized users can post on that section in the forum .

Authorized means known for not clustering and submits good answers and has a fair amount of good posts

 

No, that's not a pyramid scheme. Bad choice of words.

 

While I do feel that this is a good idea, it should be restricted to users who are experienced or have a Pro license. Perhaps it could be determined by post count or something. This way, users can aim to become experienced so that they can post there, instead of there being a monentary commitment first. This would just lead to bickering, and besides, some of the most experienced Unity users are not necessarily Pro users.

 

As mentioned in other threads, post count often has no correlation with experience (and even if it did, correlation != causation). It only signifies how many posts that user has made, useful or otherwise. I know the pro community wants a specialized forum. Even though I am not part of the pro community, I think it is a good idea. Perhaps one could apply to become part of the community if he does not have pro but does have a lot of experience.

 

No... just no.
What 'noise' on the forums are you talking about? If you're not enjoying a thread, just skip it.

And just because somebody owns a pro license doesn't mean they won't troll or create 'noise' as you call it.

 

Maybe the entrance criteria could be as simple as having released a game of a decent quality. Which would show that you're "experienced" enough to use the engine to a certain extent. Or have a significantly WIP title, with screens/vids/demos to prove it. This would get rid of the "newbs" without excluding experienced free users. Remember, not all free users are hobbyists - as a business, if you can release your final polished game without requiring pro features, why would you drop an extra $1500 per developer?

 

L'anglais n'est pas ma langue maternelle. Croyez le, je serais heureux de débattre avec vous avec les avantages linguistiques de celle-ci (Français). Merci pour la leçon. Confirmation ici que vous êtes un... foutu arrogant prétentieux.
Par pyramidal, je sous entendais l’établissement d'une hiérarchie désagréable entre les Pros expérimentes et les Pros débutants.
Auriez-vous un autre commentaire intelligent dont vous aimeriez nous en faire profiter?

English is not my native. Believe it, I would be happy to discuss with you with the benefits of this great language (French). Thank you for the lesson.
By pyramidal, I heard on the establishment of aunpleasant hierarchy between Experienced Professionals and Beginners Professionals.
Do you have another smart comment to make?

Thx SevenBits

 

Think this is all a bit elitist personally. A lot of the noise you're referring to consists of these two topics which essentially cover the same thing.

If you are willing to make it, do it, why post a thread asking for everyone to repeat the argument from the other one?

 

The post was edited so I might answer again :

Sorry for the word I'm going to use, but I can't find another one for this precise meaning : why is it that anytime an "Advanced Coding" section is talked about, many people have to act so butthurt ?

What's wrong with some people wanting to make, I repeat, an independant forum ? Why would you get mad at that ? How on earth will it ever change this very forum ? Will an independant Advanced Unity forum prevent you from posting question in these official forums right here ? Please explain.
Would you get mad aswell if some site was created that only allowed people who actually released a game ... ?

I'm sorry but it's insulting to be labelled as an elitist whenever you just want to filter topics by question's technical complexity. If this is elitist, then don't ever open Stackoverflow.

Just chill down people, nobody's taking your rights away as far as I know.

 

I personally think the elitist claim is semi justified based on not allowing certain sets of people to be involved in it. Fair enough i'm a complete amateur when it comes to unity (and coding in general), however it doesn't mean that I wouldn't want to potentially read about an incredibly complicated problem. That's how I learn.

If you separate pro and free users so I'm not able to see the complicated stuff, i'm limited to whatever "simple" problems you guys deem to be novice.

And therefore less likely to become a pro user myself.

 

A pro only section would be good. We could all make fun of the free members and laugh at them. :/

Jokes aside people just need to chill and ignore threads that don't interest them. It's easy, you just don't click on it or let it ruin your life.

 

Wait, if you read carefully, nobody ever talked about preventing from viewing such forums (here or elsewhere), it's just talking about moderating topic creation and posting.

Just like Stackoverflow .... which is, as a matter of fact, the worldwide reference for complex coding questions. And when I started to code in C# and was a complete noob, nothing prevented me from learning a lot from this site. I didn't even post a single thing on StackOverflow in my life, but yet I've learned so much over there ... and still learning. So what's the big deal ?

Anyway I shouldn't insist on arguing for this, as I don't even feel the need to have such a place ^^ Everytime I need a coding answer I'm either reading Unity reference manual, either Google search, either browse StackOverflow. Et voilà, 4 years like this, not a single learning issue.

 

My bad must have got thrown somewhere when reading it all!

 

No problem

 

no

 

Point taken

 

Speaking of noise, thanks for posting this again in a new thread.

 

Honestly I only skimmed this thread, but I will say right now that we aren't going to create a Pro only forum. I found Unity when I bought a license for Torque and was granted access into their "private forum". This was 2005. There was a thread there about Unity, I looked into it, found it way more suited to what I was doing and said "thanks for the link, see you all later"... best $100 I ever spent ;-)

Private forums for a product suck and we're not going to go down that road. Throughout all this discussion I'm trying to figure out how to make our forum more appealing to the more advanced users that are actually making top games with Unity. Right now, the people that are actually making great games with Unity are not here on this forum and that's really unfortunate. How to get them back is what I'm thinking about right now. I want to figure out a way to raise the bar of discourse here so that it's interesting for people of all skill levels. Right now it's the LCD that drives it and it frustrates me quite a bit.

One forum that brings on the seriously talented guys is ZBrush Central... maybe we have to promote the good stuff that is happening here more to bring back the more talented users. I've been thinking about that "Top Row" element for this forum to promote great work in Unity... what do people think about that?

 

Top row is awesome.

I'm not sure this will affect the issue we are talking about and i agree with n0mad that in the end the people who are serious issues, go about their business and find a solution anyway, but maybe there is a way to somehow decrease noise. Some sort of rating system maybe, there must be a way.

Putting gates on the collab forum, stopped the MMO frenzy, but it also stopped every other collab. as well. Which is not exactly what was intended of course, but I guess close enough.

 

Thanks for taking some time to ask, Ethan.

Actually, in my humble opinion, appealing top talents is pretty simple : promote top stuff, yep.

Each category would need a different type of promotion, though, to keep it clean :

- Graphical : Assets / Screenshot of the week, would be displayed on top row, like you suggested above.
- Code : Technical topic / Most interesting technical discussion of the week. This would encourage people to dig into deeper, higher game logics. It could be displayed under Assets of the week, in successive block lines, containing title and the first few words. You could also put such a row in each subforum.
- Helper : The Helper of the week. People with a high helping activity would be recognizable by some icon under their avatar (just like most forums do).

Those 3 highlights mechanics would revolve around a silent "Like" system, that wouldn't be visible (or would be very abstract, like simple icons, to avoid elitism). No Unlike, because it's useless, and anyway if one doesn't like a post, he simply doesn't click on the Like button.

Basically, each user could Like a post, à la Facebook. For mods, this would mean instant access to the most upvoted posts of the weeks, letting them to separate these into the 3 categories above. A top liked post with a screenshot would fit in Asset of the week, a top liked post about coding (question or answer) would fit into Technical topic of the week, and a top answer into Helper of the week.

Simple
With the Like mechanic, you could even automate the Highlights generation.

That weekly update would also show that these forums are dynamic and not dormant.

 

I don't think that a toprow would change too much, to be honest. Since there's more programmers than artists in here, for good reasons, afterall. And great code seems quite hard to display in a header. And just realistically speaken, nobody gets too much from a banner in a forum, I guess the "top products" unity folks is already aware of and share the spotlight with these, more than anything else

If I had to put it in a harsh way, 95% of the people that do "great games" are too busy with making great games instead of spending time on a forum that can't really bring anything to their table. If they shall encounter a serious problem I'm sure they will find ways to solve it, with or without this very forum.

It's also seemingly the nature of most forums that members focus more on shoving people's mistakes in their face then enjoying each others projects/progresses and improvements. Just look at all the showcase and wip threads. The ones that have something to show get 2-3 postings while others that don't show anything get lectured by 25 people over and over again.

You can't educate people for behaviour like that. It's a matter of age, preference and attitude, I guess. 2 years ago these threads had been created and whenever a new boost of new forum members comes in here, this topic pops up.
And as many people stated, just having a pro version of some software doesn't make you a smarter "problemsolver" or "questionasker", let alone a nicer person - which is not what anyone said, I know

For me a minor thing would make the community a tad nicer, if people actually took the time to report posts, instead of making long unneeded replies in there. And giving kudos for other people's work instead of teaching the unteachable people. But that's utopia
Also some people only are around the gossip forums and don't even know how other boards appear, if I'm allowed to say that.

That and a moderated commercial board in style with the collaboration board (haha just to state it here instead of making another thread for that )

As usual the easiest solution is to blame moderators for not making a good enough job. If some these complaining people actually behaved a tiny bit differently, this forum would already contain less noise automatically

 

Well, with the Top Row I'm just thinking that it could bring back more serious devs... I don't frequent the ZBrush forums that often, but I check it once a week at least for the Top Row content. If that sort of competitive nature could get people to take this forum more seriously it might up the general skill level here. And if those people stick around to discuss Unity issues all the better ;-)

 

There are game developers on this forum who are making great games. An example is n0mad. IMO, I don't think he is a hologram. Some links to view n0mad's game.

www.kineticdamage.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kinetic-Damage/167792766607890

Press/Marketing:
http://toucharcade.com/2012/12/07/upcoming-indie-fighting-game-kinetic-damage-looks-legit/
http://bit.ly/W3xZCw

I really don't think that it should be a "one person" decision. I would hope that long term all of the stakeholders within the Unity Staff (Technical and Marketing) would re-examine the issue. I do realize its not a simple answer but an instant rejection isn't a wise pathway easy.

For my own selfish reasons I would prefer a Unity iOS Pro forum to get focused dialogue, information, and resources ... Each platform can be a beast within itself.

 

Thanks a lot, although I don't deserve more attention than anyone else
Actually there are tons of people who make great games here !
Just a quick view under WIP section shows some awesome projects (my favorite being Oliver Spike, it's not a secret anymore).

But it's true I don't see that much AAA devs sharing tips techniques, or even their experience in here.
Unless they're simply not stating they're coming from AAA industry ... ?

edit : that could be a good idea : to promote AAA devs by putting a small icon under their avatar ? So they would get the needed recognition to attract them, and would also give more general value to the forum ?

 

Exactly, I want to see the "Oliver Spike" WIPs flourish... atm they get drowned out by the "Slender: The Copying" threads. I want to highlight stuff like "Oliver Spike" with Top Row status so that our community has something to shoot for in a way and knows what is actually possible.

 

Indeed, a "Top Row" would be great.
Some project like "Space" deserve this.

 

Elitist assholes that think their S*** doesn't stink are more than half the problem with this forum in the first place.

 

Once again, this is not a thread to repeat the arguments. It is primarily a poll to help me determine the need for a new independent forum.
When I say 'noise' i refer to the shear number of threads started daily meaning legitimate questions go unanswered.
Maybe once there are sufficient numbers to start a new forum those new potential members and I can discus the entry requirements, then maybe its not just pro or unity paid members that can join.

At no point am I suggesting Pro or paid means you are a better developer, but what I am saying is these people need a different place to hang out, where they are more likely to support each other. I might even have a non 'authorized user' area for anyone to post where only 'authorized' users vote on the individuals posting to promote them to now authorized.

None of this is about just being a paid up unity user. It is to get rid of the how do i write a game etc posts.

 

So let's just let the blind lead the blind, right?

 

All for it, not that i ever have any questions because i know how to google (which 90% of the free user community have obviously never heard of)

Be handy for those that run into a hard question that only people who use pro might be able to answer (ie pro only features - a free user isnt going to be overly helpful here - so I can see where there might be some benefit)

All the complainers can go spend a few thousand on pro licences as I'm sure the majority of people against this 'elitist practice' (are you f****** serious?) are free users that expect everything that's good to be free (hence why the apple store is full of free games now)

 

Your poll isn't going to give you any new information. You are asking for advice on a forum with a majority of people you don't want on your forum.

Just start a forum and see what happens. It will only cost you a few bucks a month.

 

Reposting Antenna Tree's mini poll, that was drowned into ......... forum noise

 

Look at antenna tree, insulting my work. That cuts deep, man.

 

I don't think it needs to be a new forum, but just add another forum category. We already have "Unity Support" just add "Unity Pro Support" that only Pro users can post to (anyone can read). I wouldn't want anything beyond that as it'd get pretty silly and difficult to manage.

 

They've already said they won't be doing that.

 

I don't have time for new forums or bbs or anything, mostly because everything should be gathered in one place, that was the point of merging things into the UDN. While it does need improving, I doubt signal to noise ratio would work out well just gathering only pro users together.

I believe the amount of competent programmers who use free outnumber the competent ones that use pro. I just think that the competent pro owners are basically just bored of the noob spam, and noob spam is the real issue to be dealt with here, either by having a delay on how many posts you can make per day, or just regulating them to the beginners forum by moving their posts out with moderators. Get more moderators if it's a problem moving them, but do move them.

 

I know, just giving my 2 cents in relation to the topic (don't agree with a completely separate forum). So far I haven't had any issue I couldn't solve with some Google searching.. figure if time comes I need serious support then I'll just email them or post on Answers.

 

Top Row is cool, but I think there needs to be some sort of substantial reward for people who contribute.

Example:
Unity could ask people who contribute to the Asset Store if they want to donate a certain number of assets to reward Top Row every month. So, if you get picked for Top Row, you get to pick $200 worth of stuff (whatever amount or percentage) from the Asset Store. This costs Unity nothing up front (except employee time to organize), asset developers get some advertising, and contributors get a reward. This would all have to be voluntary. Maybe just a tick box on the publisher admin page.