Current Events > What is Discord actually like? Is it basically a chat room service?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Can it be accessed through PC or not?

S_A_S posted...

Can it be accessed through PC or not?

Yes.

Every discord server is basically a bunch of chatrooms (text and voice).

There are some more tools there too, but that's the gist of it.

Its a group chat app. On a PC you can either access it through a web browser or a dedicated application.

how do you talk to random people without feeling like you're disrupting them or changing the topic? >.>

There's channels for specific discussion

yeah but its usually very broad. like in the visual novels server theres 1 channel for english visual novels

you have to keep in mind that most Gamefaqs users are in their mid 30's or early 40's and aren't too familiar with Discord.

Beveren_Rabbit posted...

you have to keep in mind that most Gamefaqs users are in their mid 30's or early 40's and aren't too familiar with Discord.

Discord came out almost 10 years ago, we have reason to be familiar.

Rika_Furude posted...

how do you talk to random people without feeling like you're disrupting them or changing the topic? >.>

That's the neat part, you don't.

It's annoying / impossible to search for the start of a discussion, and if you are away for like 30 minutes, you are out of the loop.

A board is asynchronous communication, a chat is synchronous communication. (As long as the chat is active that is)

That's why discord may be a alternative for the active people who are, well, active most of the time, but lurker or people who can't stay active for longer periods of times are left out quickly.

If you use slack for work it's pretty similar layout wise.

You can access it through your browser as well.

Its for group chatting.

Channels are set up for specific discussion. Its just a normal chat room, really. Post stuff, talk about whatever.

You can cordon off users based on roles so if they don't have a specific role, they won't be able to see a specific channel (IE a Furry or NSFW channel, with roles being restricted to verified users so you could verify someone is 18 before giving them a NSFW permission)

Many people use it for voice chat for games. You can do video calls and stream content.

Pretty good service overall.

Karovorak posted...

That's the neat part, you don't.

It's annoying / impossible to search for the start of a discussion, and if you are away for like 30 minutes, you are out of the loop.

A board is asynchronous communication, a chat is synchronous communication. (As long as the chat is active that is)

That's why discord may be a alternative for the active people who are, well, active most of the time, but lurker or people who can't stay active for longer periods of times are left out quickly.

This will also depend on the size of a discord.

But I also don't think Discord is a good alternative to what CE is. Unless you're constantly making threads for specific discussions.

wackyteen posted...

This will also depend on the size of a discord.

But I also don't think Discord is a good alternative to what CE is. Unless you're constantly making threads for specific discussions.

It's just a different tool for different kind of communication.

I'm in EU, usually the hot CE topics happen when I'm asleep, and get read as soon as I wake up. This would hardly be possible in a discord chat.

Well, the announcement yesterday was around 8 PM I think.

wackyteen posted...

You can access it through your browser as well.

Its for group chatting.

Channels are set up for specific discussion. Its just a normal chat room, really. Post stuff, talk about whatever.

You can cordon off users based on roles so if they don't have a specific role, they won't be able to see a specific channel (IE a Furry or NSFW channel, with roles being restricted to verified users so you could verify someone is 18 before giving them a NSFW permission)

Many people use it for voice chat for games. You can do video calls and stream content.

Pretty good service overall.

Also a lot of servers have cliques and dont like new people.

tripleh213 posted...

Also a lot of servers have cliques and dont like new people.

I'm in a handful of servers for twitch streamers and I haven't found this issue but new people in chat is... expected so.

I can imagine small servers being restrictive/hostile to newcomers

There's a Discord feature to actually make threads now. The server has to have it enabled, though.

wackyteen posted...

I'm in a handful of servers for twitch streamers and I haven't found this issue but new people in chat is... expected so.

I can imagine small servers being restrictive/hostile to newcomers

You would think that

Karovorak posted...

That's the neat part, you don't.

It's annoying / impossible to search for the start of a discussion, and if you are away for like 30 minutes, you are out of the loop.

A board is asynchronous communication, a chat is synchronous communication. (As long as the chat is active that is)

That's why discord may be a alternative for the active people who are, well, active most of the time, but lurker or people who can't stay active for longer periods of times are left out quickly.

This, completely. I hate using Discord for anything other than chatting w/ the bois when we're gaming. The way that people use Discord for EVERYTHING now is infuriating.

I've found it pretty useless as a general discussion tool. Anything with more than a few users goes by too fast. I don't see much use in an open format chat room. For more niche stuff and stuff with less users, it's more comparable to a forum.

Discord is great I very much recommend it.

Alot of people see it as a replacement for the traditional message boards though I disagree.

Discord simply does not function the way you probably want it to for anything more than a few dozen people at max. It's not going to replicate the forum experience. I really don't have a horse in this race, I'm an outsider who doesn't lose anything if CE splinters and fizzles out, but... I really do hope for the best for y'all and I think that pushing Discord and Subreddits so hard is misguided. Perhaps it's nice to have them as safety nets, but they'll never come close to being able to actually preserving this community.

ERfollower posted...

Alot of people see it as a replacement for the traditional message boards though I disagree.

You can have pages that make topics and posts but yeah it's not the same and this

Bass posted...

There's a Discord feature to actually make threads now. The server has to have it enabled, though.

This might be the only way I migrate there. I hardly check in anymore because I mainly used it for PoGo where it had more of a chat dynamic

discord itself might have the feature but do people in discord use it? im checking random channels in random servers and i dont see a whole lot of thread usage

I've literally never seen threads used in the way people want them to be. They're inherently at odds with how Discord works.

yeah, the threads stuff just makes it more of a chaotic mess, especially if you're in a large discord w/ hundreds of users, or more.

Most people tend to avoid discord as it happens to have a negative reputation. Usually gamers tend to use that place and twitch but its not a good replacement for online chat or discussion. I used to use discord for discussion of game info until I realized the types of people who frequently visit there. A lot of those people are usually not the type you want to conversation with. Many of them are plum creepy imo.

From what I gather it was created for online gamers to communicate.

It's nothing like posting here. I've tried discords from numerous boards and it's just not the same. Maybe it'll be better now? idk

Nothing replaces a good forum, but each way has their strengths. Discord is good when it's a small passionate amount of users. Reddit is good simply for sheer amount of subreddits, but actual discussions unless in some good subreddits are like a popularity contest.

I like Discord but yes it's hard to keep up with conversations sometimes

Ragtag28 posted...

Most people tend to avoid discord as it happens to have a negative reputation. Usually gamers tend to use that place and twitch but its not a good replacement for online chat or discussion. I used to use discord for discussion of game info until I realized the types of people who frequently visit there. A lot of those people are usually not the type you want to conversation with. Many of them are plum creepy imo.

I haven't found this in particular, but it could be the type of Discords you're hanging out in. Most servers I'm active in, the people who do chat are usually friendly and courteous. Some people definitely lean towards the socially awkward type, but generally I find most to be otherwise (well)-adjusted human beings

Beveren_Rabbit posted...

you have to keep in mind that most Gamefaqs users are in their mid 30's or early 40's and aren't too familiar with Discord.

Discord is just fancy IRC. There are servers, and each server has multiple channels. Thats basically it.

Rika_Furude posted...

discord itself might have the feature but do people in discord use it? im checking random channels in random servers and i dont see a whole lot of thread usage

Yes. The server I spend the most time on is Mikes Book Reviews, and they recently re-organized everything into forums and threads, so its pretty clean.

The fact that threads can be well-utilized doesn't mean they typically are. I have very little faith in them as a feature for a relatively large, interest-diverse community such as this one.

Rika_Furude posted...

how do you talk to random people without feeling like you're disrupting them or changing the topic? >.>

you just gotta embrace the old IRC chatroom style - 4 conversations all going on at once in the same place, about different topics, and people hopping back and forth between them as they please