[2021] Should We Just Join the Private Discord Channel?

Hi folks,

I wanted to pop in here and clarify a few things that have been brought up.

First and foremost, the official forums (where you are now) are the official platform for news and announcements, and are accessible to all subscribers.

Second, it is true I am present in many Discord communities. I do so primarily so I can get a feel for what these different communities are chatting about in an effort to gather as many points of view as possible. I do this in tandem with other platforms where players self-organize that Im aware of.

I do these things in my personal capacity, however if I interact at all I make it clear who I am in my official capacity for transparency. Since Discord seems to be the primary platform brought up here, I want to address some points..

I started joining Discord communities related to the game when I returned to the team over a year ago. Discord is interesting in that it provides real-time communication via text chat, which is vastly different than the turn-based dialogue offered by forums. I use Discord interactions in several ways:

• General human chatting
• Discussing hobbies
• Gathering additional info on reported bugs or exploits
• Guiding folks to official channels who ask where/how to report something
• Guiding folks to official channels when asked about any information thats unannounced (dates/future plans, etc)
• Discussing game design in general

When discussing longer-term plans or philosophies, I use the official forums. And I refer folks back to these posts if it comes up in other communication channels. Generally, I very much enjoy spending some of my personal time on Discord as long as the interactions are healthy. As a reminder, these servers are player-run and non-official, so the rules of each community are determined by those who own the servers.

Hopefully this sheds some light on how I interact with various communities in various capacities. But its worth re-stating again that official information will only come from official sources, including the forums here.

Thanks,
-Chris

I do want to remind everyone that if you are experiencing harassment in-game, please report it. Violations of our Rules of Conduct are not permitted. If you are experiencing harassment off our official platform (such as in Discord, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit etc...), I encourage you to use the reporting tools that are offered by those platforms as we do not have moderation control in those spaces.

Yes, the forums here are considered an official platform. That said, I have spent a lot of time understanding the culture here including what has been done in the past, expectations of both player and dev, what can be improved upon or changed, balancing moderation presence etc... since I've been brought on board. While I cannot go into details regarding what actions we take against posts and accounts that violate our guidelines and Rules of Conduct, please know that we do take them. It won't always be obvious in the public eye, but there is a lot of movement behind the scenes. Warnings are given, and accounts can and have been suspended or outright banned.

My end goal is to cultivate a healthy community and that is obtained in various ways outside of moderation and cannot be done in a short amount of time. There is a lot of history here, and I'm doing my best to empathize with player and dev sentiment alike.

I realize that this is an off topic post, but I did want to address this topic as it is relevant to all players who frequent the forums.

As this conversation has become an echo chamber, I am locking this thread. I try to be fair when it comes to discussions where there are a variety of opinions on a given topic and allow voices to be heard, but this conversation is going nowhere. There are also insinuations that are disrespectful towards multiple parties including our team, and I am not going to tolerate that. Be respectful. To each other, to the community/player base, and to my team.