The Officially Unofficial Weekly Discussion #69: Do you use discord with or about CoH?

[DougGraves]

I only use discord for a D&D game every other week.  I don't have it running otherwise.  Discord does not work well on my laptop (neither does Windows Update).

 

I know there is discord for CoH but I have not used it.

 

Do you use discord with CoH or to talk about CoH?  Do you use it for voice chat, or for forums?

[MedievalMatt]

23 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

I only use discord for a D&D game every other week.  I don't have it running otherwise.  Discord does not work well on my laptop (neither does Windows Update).

 

I know there is discord for CoH but I have not used it.

 

Do you use discord with CoH or to talk about CoH?  Do you use it for voice chat, or for forums?

 

Personally i use it to coordinate weekly Warshade Wednesdays, and keep up with Mastermind Mondays on Indomitable.  And just generally shoot the shit in General.

TBH Discord is the default these days for groups of people in games to coordinate and talk to one another.  If you arent in there you are missing out on things that you might be interested in simply because thats the only place its being discussed.

Id say Discord sits in the middle between forums and instant messaging.

[ZorkNemesis]

I'm subbed to the HC discord but I don't use it.  Only pop in to check for dev/GM updates when things are on fire serverside.

[Judasace]

I think the only CoH Discord I'm still subbed to is CAKE because sometimes I like reading about the crazy modifications they make to the game...but I haven't actually used Discord for anything since the last time I ran a Masks campaign.

[ScrewlooseCohh]

One of my friends has a private Discord server that we use for lots of online games and some of what use to be table top games and we use that for voice coordination during CoH play.

 

I am also subscribed to the Homecoming Discord server, but have never joined a voice channel or posted text there, that I can remember.

[SeraphimKensai]

Pre-marriage I was on Discord/Vent/TS/Mumble/etc whenever I played any MMO. Now being married with a toddler, I'll type in chat boxes more than anything but at this point typically for this game usually on the gold standard group or occasionally I'll use discord to catch up with old friends, especially those that live in other countries.

[Lunar Ronin]

I think Discord works well for small groups, but it really is horrible for large groups (500+ or more, or Heaven forbid 5,000+).  However, Discord has sadly become effectively mandatory for PC online gaming these days, and more and more games are forgoing web forums and wikis entirely for Discord.  Only to eventually regret it later when their Discord account is hacked or banned, and/or the Discord server is hacked and deleted, (which has happened quite a few times that I'm aware of).  But I digress.

 

As far as City of Heroes is concerned, I'm in the Homecoming, Rebirth, Mids' Reborn, and OuroDev Discord servers, two other Homecoming-related Discord servers, a Discord server for the server I played on back on live, a server for the two supergroups I was part of back on live, and now the Steady Indomitable Discord server.  Ye gads, that's a lot of CoH-related Discord servers.

 

Text only though, I don't do voice unless absolutely necessary, and there's not a single thing in City of Heroes that requires voice.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Not a fan; possibly that's because I'm using it incorrectly but to me it feels like a mash-up between Craigslist and an internet chat room circa 1995.  Very disorganized, very stream of consciousness.  I can understand using it to try to put teams together on the fly, but for my purposes, good old LFG chat works fine.  Nothing beats good old LFG chat, thinks Bart.

 

Someone could be giving away gold bars on Discord, and I still wouldn't use it.  Probably because I wouldn't know how to sort through it to find the gold bars in a timely fashion.

[Techwright]

I've never used Discord.  I think I may have signed up once about a decade ago for something or other, but that clearly went nowhere.  What I need I get from the forum.  That said, I was surprised to learn Discord was the dominant social media.   I'd been heavily playing No Man's Sky a year ago, and the Reddit for it was hopping: lots of pictures, useful info, and generally great chatter.  I tried out the CoH ones, including one for Homecoming, and they're largely ghost towns.  Granted, we're 4,000 or so compared to 200,000+ players on NMS, but still...

[PeregrineFalcon]

Friends and family have a discord server. We text and chat pretty much every day on that server. I'm also usually in voice chat on Discord whenever I'm gaming. Just last weekend I was gaming together with one son who's in Europe, another who's in Florida and a friend who's in Washington. I love the internet!

 

I'm not on Homecoming's discord server. I quit it last year when I pruned out a lot of servers that I never use.

[Luminara]

I don't need a vacation getaway, I'm happy here.

[Glacier Peak]

Much like many on these forums, back in the day I became proficient at typing not because of Mavis Beacon, but due to the necessity of communicating while in combat in City of Heroes. 

 

When there was REAL risk - as in your character stopped leveling because you had so much debt, the only respec in the game was offered at the end of a ridiculous trial when build-gimped, and you had to pay actual money in addition to sinking your own time in to the grind. 

 

Now there's no risk, so I don't have to type fast or coherently. To answer your question, I do use Discord occasionally. While playing CoH. 

Edited March 1 by Glacier Peak
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[Coyotedancer]

I only use Discord to coordinate with the family SG... The nephews are all about it, so we use the voice-chat when we play together. 

[Ironblade]

Most of my actual talking on Discord is when gaming with family members.

 

As for typing and staying up to date on things, I'm on the CoH Discord, three SG ones, one for Valheim, one for Star Citizen and three for (cough) Pokemon Go.  🙂

[Clave Dark 5]

I signed up for it because it appeared to be the thing for getting into HC?  But I never use it either.  I can't be arsed to dig out some mic/headset thingy I can use for the chat, and as far as simple forums go, it's confusing enough that I found it too offputting to bother with; I'm sure I could figure things out, but why bother spending the time?  I don't need it.

[Vic Raiden]

Yes, I do spend a lot of time chatting on the Homecoming Discord server, on my SG server and on Everlasting Roleplay, as well as post gameplay screenshots with in-character commentary on some other server.

[Snarky]

I use Discord very little. But it is just for CoH.  I used it a bit for WoW years ago, but i was horrid at the game. 
 

I reached a peak with Discord when Cosmic Council was on nightly and had weekly incarnate badge trials.  
 

Now a lone leader from CC runs one weekly event.  I am trying to bully him into running every night and organizing huge events on weekends.  So far no luck. 

[Digirium]

I keep the Discord client shutdown until I want to use it, then exit it immediately upon finding out what I needed to know.

 

Ideally, I don't open Discord more than once a month and only for a few minutes.

[Greycat]

Do I use Discord? Yes. Primarily because the people I use it *with* are people I enjoy talking to anyway... well, typing. I don't use voice chat at all.  I think one of my SGs used it to have a movie night once. So... while it's related to a couple SGs, it's not really an "in game resource." We don't coordinate anything over it. We'll post longer character bios, news, etc. on it, sometimes write (though... usually a Google Docs link instead,) but we don't really use it "in game" for game stuff.

 

I'm on the HC discord... but I don't really use that, frankly, just too much there so it all gets lost in the noise.

 

(And no, I don't really use it for any other games, either.)

[UltraAlt]

16 hours ago, DougGraves said:

Do you use discord with CoH or to talk about CoH?

 

Yes.

Honestly, a good amount of the communication that I run into in Discord when I'm playing CoH has nothing to do with CoH. Well, I guess "good amount" is toning it down. Often times, I find myself trapped with someone rambling on and on about this and that and anything that can possibly not be about CoH while I'm trying to play CoH with them.

 

I don't always use Discord when I'm playing CoH. Most of the time that I'm playing CoH, I'm not using Discord.

 

16 hours ago, DougGraves said:

Do you use it for voice chat, or for forums?

 

I have used it for both.

 

But I guess maybe the real question is have I used the official Homecoming CoH channel?

No. I have never gone there. Not to use the voice chat, nor to use the forums.

Edited March 1 by UltraAlt

[CFIndustries]

Nope, never use Discord (and am slightly annoyed by some companies that rely on that instead of emails or chat forums for support and news), don't even have it installed anywhere. 

 

Beyond that I see no need while playing, there is a chat system in the game.

 

I also don't use any voice apps while playing because it really messes with the immersion (tried that once on Live, it was jarring). I come to Paragon City to pretend I'm elsewhere and let my imagination fill in the blanks.

[Uun]

Not often, but I am signed up with the Discord channels for HC, Mid Reborn, Task Force Junkies and ULTRA. If the leader of an Incarnate Trial or HM invites participants to a voice channel I will often join. (My SG still has a Discord channel, but we stopped using it several years ago. We now use TeamSpeak for voice chat.)

[Clave Dark 5]

By the way, has anyone made the "nice" joke yet?

[AboveTheChemist]

I belong to four CoH related Discord servers:

 

OuroDev

Main Homecoming - use it mostly to see if there are questions I can answer

Closed Beta - use it mostly to keep up with upcoming changes and to see if there is testing I can assist with

HC Wiki - use it to keep abreast of what is going on with the Wiki

 

I have OuroDev muted and only check it a few times a year, the rest I check a few times a day depending on what I am doing. I used to belong to a couple of SG-related discord channels, but these were small SGs to begin with and the discords weren't active so I left those servers a while ago once the SGs seemed to fizzle out.

 

I have a strong dislike for Discord, in general. It varies by individual channel, but I find that it requires wading through too many inane comments and unfunny memes to find the odd substantive comment/question. The main HC discord is by far the worst for this, and if it went away tomorrow I would not be bothered at all. The Closed Beta discord isn't nearly as bad, but sometimes the discussions go off the rails. The HC wiki discord doesn't have this problem, but the user base is much smaller.

 

I have used voice chat on Discord, mostly on the Closed Beta discord as part of testing teams. I am not a chatty person, especially when there are more than 2-3 people involved, so I tend to just listen for instructions/info and the like. It's fine if the conversation stays generally focused on the task at hand, but sometimes the really chatty folks will take the conversation in uninteresting directions, which makes listening in more of a chore. Otherwise, I avoid voice chat if at all possible unless it is someone I know or if the person wants to converse with me specifically.

[Ukase]

I run discord for a once a week event. I recognize it for what it is, a tool. 

The pros: I was leading an MoUGT. We had reached the point in the trial where we were about to snipe or zerg (i forget which, it's been a couple of years) the bombs in the long hallway, where they are 75 feet apart, and on both sides of the hall. 

We ALL got disconnected due to a temporary server glitch. With discord, we were all aware it wasn't just us. We were all advised to log back in when the server came back up (a few minutes later) and to "join event already in progress" upon entering the game. 
We were able to finish and get our Master of Underground badge. 

The cons: It's not very user intuitive. Initially, I got a lot of complaints. 
I actually just deleted about 2 pages of complaints with little stories about each one. Kind of cathartic to type it all out. But I chose to remove all those unasked for details. You're welcome! 

If Discord were to somehow determine each user's setup and fine tune things accordingly, it would probably be easier. But when you first join a discord, there's no way to know if your background noise is too loud, or if you're being heard properly. 

And lastly...noise cancelling headphones are just damned uncomfortable to wear. In the Summer they make my ears sweat. I despise them, which is why despite being bullied and begged to run big events on weekends and daily activities, I'm not going to do it. Once a week with those damned things is already as much as I can stand.