Discord - Worth Having for Game Development?

Anoua

Anoua

Senior Member
So recently I've noticed a lot of in development games with a discord. Anyone have any thoughts on this? If they are useful and good to have? What about after a game is already open with a live site?

It seems like it can be a good way to do updates and discuss with the community more and I have been thinking about if I should open one for Eliyo or not, or whether that would even be useful. We don't really have live chat on the site, so it does add something I guess. But also seems like it might just be something else to maintain, which could be a pain. Curious as to what other people think in general and for those that have chosen to have one or specifically not have one on how they like it.

 
I currently use Discord to keep people updated on Wild Souls as I work on it. I find it great for talking to the community, and they definitely appreciate the transparency. Every time I work on the site I post constant updates in a dev blog channel so they can see how the game is progressing. Not even large things, it can be small like "I'm working on the breeding system today! Here's the babies I got from the random generator".

Discord is also widely accessible, rather than an on-site chat box. Discord can easily be embedded on your site with something like Titan (I did that for Foodbabs before it went on hiatus), and it allows users to communicate with players wherever they are, be it through the site, phone app, or desktop app.

Depending on how many people are going to be in this discord server, it's up to you to appoint mods to handle things while you're away. My discord server is currently small (21 people, only 5 or so active), so I can maintain order myself. If you have a large server of about 100+ people though, all active, then it's best to have moderators.

 
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I've used discord for a while and recently made one for my in-dev game. Dinocanid basically said everything I was going to!

I find discord much easier to maintain and push updates on honestly. I also use it to instantly share smaller things with the community, like new art, concepts, anything really. I also get tons of feedback and suggestions from my discord users. Overall it's just a very big plus that I can post in discord and people can respond a second or two later. It's really nice having that immediate communication and responding to users right away. ? It opens up a lot more conversation and encourages others to hop in as well. My discord is fairly new and I've only been using text channels, not voice channels unless it's with my other developer. I'll likely utilize the voice channels for things like future streams while I work, contests, etc. 

Discord has some built in protection and you can set the level of protection you want, though I doubt you'd get any malicious users if you're only posting the link in your own site/blog/etc. There's also bots you can invite to your discord that can handle all sorts of things, like assigning new users roles, giving users exp and levels when they post, setting up mini-games directly in your discord, the list goes on. You may already know all this but just mentioning it anyway for any others out there who are reading and curious. Also regarding maintaining it, there really isn't much to maintain once it's set up. You just have to stay active on it, respond to people, and post updates periodically there. That's really all there is to it!

So bottom line I think discord is great and very useful if you're ready to get feedback from players on your game, and even after your game is released it's a great place for users to communicate with one another. They can share their achievements, ask for help, make friends, etc! If you can't tell by now I really love discord. ? If anyone needs help setting up a discord or setting up bots let me know. I would love to help! 

 
@Dinocanid I had not heard of Titan before that sounds interesting. Probably won't use it at the moment, but good to know my options. Thanks for the information! Definitely helps. :)

@ToyOwlet I really haven't used discord that much myself and have never run anything on it,. I have only recently have been using it more and seems like a lot of games have one or recently started one. So all the information is useful to me. I think that level of community feedback would be nice. My game is live and open, but still in beta, and I am doing a lot of development for it. I think having a place to post smaller updates and discuss would be helpful. 

Thanks for all the information and thoughts.

 
I'm part of four different official Discord servers for pet sites (2 in beta, 2 in development). I really enjoy the speed with which Discord allows you to communicate with the members and staff. I'm a moderator for one in beta, and it's great how we can quickly switch between private staff discussions and public chat conversation with the other members of the site. We had to do a lot of that switching tonight because there were several users who were starting a brainstorming session for site ideas and it turned into a deluge of information being created by everyone. It was so convenient having a shared platform for those two very different types of conversation. All I had to do was click between the two channels within the server, and it saved a lot of headache that we would have had if there were different apps we were using for talking as staff and talking as players.

I'm also really biased towards Discord because I use it all the time to talk with friends. I find it very easy to use once you get the hang of where things are (which doesn't take long). I've never made an active server myself, but it seems to be relatively easy. I know adding bots like pokecord (fun!) is easy because I did it for a private server I made for myself. :P  It's pretty user-friendly. They even have a list of markdown to make it easy for people to know what's supported (markdown list here). Plus they have neat quirky things they'll say at times like when the program's loading or when they ask for your permission to access your account info when you want to upvote a bot.

 
It's worked really well for aethria's development and site members prefer to use the discord chat instead of the site chatroom even now that we are open.  It's really nice to be able to have the different channels.  We have about 180 on the discord server currently.

 
Thanks for all the feedback! Decided to go ahead and create one. Seems like the ability to discuss would be pretty useful and honestly something I've been wanting as I work on new features.

 
I'm a huge advocate for discord. It's something I personally use everyday. It's my preferred method of contact.

It also helps that a lot of my friends are on it, and even my brother and his friends. (My brother is the artist for the site we're working on.)

We've set up a discord server, it's still in beginnings but we chat and share our small progresses with close friends.

If you already use it, I think it can be very valuable. If you don't usually use it, you might actually forget about it. I've had people invite me to servers that they then never log into lol

 
TGL has discord, although not active, I am usually always there in case.

I also have a discord for Novilar setup, it has allowed me access to communicate with some of the player base directly, and get direct feedback from them. With the early bugs that existed when I took over Novilar, this was immensely beneficial for not only myself, but the game's community as well.

 
Silverwulfess said:
On the back of this subject, for those with in development games where do you usually advertise your discord?
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Typically wherever I’m showing off my game.

Youtube - in the description

Reddit - in comments to a post I’ve made for the game

DeviantART - in every art submission’s description 

Twitter - in my website url or Bio section

I have found most of my followers have come from Reddit, DeviantART, or from a friend’s invite.

Hope this helps. ?

 
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