Tips to Improve Discord Experience?

[Zardnaar]

Use it more. I don't use it that much and didn't even know some features existed.

 

[Jahydin]

@Argyle King
Is there a particular game or group you wanted to join?

I wouldn't mind finding the link for you, joining myself so I can take a look at their setup, then giving you tips on how to settle in.

 

[Argyle King]

@Argyle King
Is there a particular game or group you wanted to join?

I wouldn't mind finding the link for you, joining myself so I can take a look at their setup, then giving you tips on how to settle in.

Honestly, at this point, I'm not sure.

The individual groups aren't what I find unintuitive. It's the baseline use of the app itself to do much of anything.

I'm confused about what the app is meant to provide that I'm not more capable of doing without it.

Edit: I signed up for it originally (about 3 years ago) because it's what the DM of gaming group I was with preferred to use to schedule game times.

More recently, I looked at it again because some gaming companies and designers have advertised having communities there rather than continuing to have message boards.

 

[Ryujin]

Honestly, at this point, I'm not sure.

The individual groups aren't what I find unintuitive. It's the baseline use of the app itself to do much of anything.

I'm confused about what the app is meant to provide that I'm not more capable of doing without it.

Edit: I signed up for it originally (about 3 years ago) because it's what the DM of gaming group I was with preferred to use to schedule game times.

More recently, I looked at it again because some gaming companies and designers have advertised having communities there rather than continuing to have message boards.

Everyone has to have a app for... whatever. It's the Big Thing. Not so long ago it was Slack that everyone was using. Many of those boards migrated to Discord. Wait until the next Big Thing comes along.

 

[Jahydin]

I'm confused about what the app is meant to provide that I'm not more capable of doing without it.

Discord makes a bit more sense if you know its history. It started off as just an app to let gamers talk to each other while they played PC games. From there, gamers began forming groups and making their own Servers.

For instance, my wife and I both signed up and created a Server where we both hopped onto to talk to each other while we played Grim Dawn. As time passed, other friends showed interest in playing the same game, so we added them to the group. Now it's 20 people, and whenever they play Grim Dawn, everyone in that group can see and join in to play or just pop in to chat. This is the foundation Discord is built around and why its so "group centric" despite exploding in popularity and becoming a platform for waaaay more than just gaming groups.

What it provides for me is a single spot where I can pop into multiple severs and interact with creators and their fans in real time. Nothing beats seeing that the writer of your favorite game is on shooting the breeze and you get to ask them a question directly!

If setup correctly, it's like having a giant digital FLGS where multiple rooms all dedicated to a single game. Inside each one, people are chatting, sharing ideas, and playing games in real time. Real time having its advantages, for instance, this exchange we're having took several days here on ENWorld. If I saw you on Discord, we could have had the same exchange in a few minutes.

 

[Nutation]

There's no way to sugar coat it, I struggle with the Discord user interface. I find it unintuitive and frustrating, and the new (to me) updates that have been added have made the experience even worse for me. A lot of the features (such as the search function) don't even seem to work on the mobile app.

The desktop interface is better than the phone interface. A phone doesn't have enough width to display all of the columns, so you have to know to swipe left or right to see what you want.

 

[Argyle King]

Discord makes a bit more sense if you know its history. It started off as just an app to let gamers talk to each other while they played PC games. From there, gamers began forming groups and making their own Servers.

For instance, my wife and I both signed up and created a Server where we both hopped onto to talk to each other while we played Grim Dawn. As time passed, other friends showed interest in playing the same game, so we added them to the group. Now it's 20 people, and whenever they play Grim Dawn, everyone in that group can see and join in to play or just pop in to chat. This is the foundation Discord is built around and why its so "group centric" despite exploding in popularity and becoming a platform for waaaay more than just gaming groups.

What it provides for me is a single spot where I can pop into multiple severs and interact with creators and their fans in real time. Nothing beats seeing that the writer of your favorite game is on shooting the breeze and you get to ask them a question directly!

If setup correctly, it's like having a giant digital FLGS where multiple rooms all dedicated to a single game. Inside each one, people are chatting, sharing ideas, and playing games in real time. Real time having its advantages, for instance, this exchange we're having took several days here on ENWorld. If I saw you on Discord, we could have had the same exchange in a few minutes.

That makes some amount of sense.

I didn't grow up with PC gaming like that. It was either in-person "Couch Co-op" or Lan Parties.

Having a way to chat with a group makes sense.
I do that with some gaming now; I just don't use Discord to do it.

How do you find a group or a person without knowing if they're on Discord?

 

[MichaelSomething]

Find a server you like and join that?

 

[Ryujin]

How do you find a group or a person without knowing if they're on Discord?

If it's a public server then they'll actively advertise it in social media and on their website, if any. Many, however, are closed servers that require membership to a Patreon or something similar. I'm a member of two Discord servers that are private. One is attached to a Patreon account and the other is because I've helped out a small production company, so they keep me up to date on what they're doing.

 

[Kichwas]

How do you find a group or a person without knowing if they're on Discord?

For a group, I search for topics

That button on the bottom left, then type into the field, and if it's public join it.

For people, message people you end up in a conversation with.

Game servers will often have an LFG channel or series of channels, which is where you find people to game with. Here I've collapsed the channel list to just show the part I'm talking about:

There's a busy ENWorld Discord... but lately random people have been using it to send me private messages even though neither they nor I have ever posted to that discord... so I've left the ENWorld discord for now

(That actually suprised me that I'd never posted in it. I thought I used to, but I couldn't find my name even in old posts. I'm in way too many servers so I guess I just joined it ages ago then forgot.)

The top two channels on my list there are a game I'm in and a game I GM (which is a sever I also used to use for MMO groups).