So I know this has been brought up before and I was one of those that was quite reluctant to adopt Discord and pretty negative about the overall Discord for getting support with MSFS add-ons model. 

Well egg on face and back to admit I was wrong.  Still not a big fan of Discord, I do find it a bit intrusive and the structure can be very difficult to follow and pick up where you left off sometimes in the channels where everything is one big continuous thread but for the most part I am finding that in a lot of cases it is a near real time communication channel with a lot of developers who respond sometimes instantaneously.  Mea Culpa and while Discord itself is still not my favorite tool I can definitely see the value now.  Especially for timely responses...  

With that said I don't think MSFS developers should abandon forums like this and if they DO still have a support forum then they should still be monitoring it or shut it down, not allow it to sit there like a ghost town.   Obviously not everyone is on Discord though so also having another support mechanism that developers are responsive to is still critical.  It's frustrating using a forum only to find out the developer is never there or send emails that fall on deaf ears.   I do actually like programs like FSHUD which have a built in trouble ticket submission function within the app itself and also collect all of the relevant logs and send them over.  

With that said, I was certainly wrong in my earlier assessment about utilizing Discord.  Not perfect but very little is and obvious value when you start to have near real time interactions with a developer.  I have had a great experience with Boris at Boris AudioWorks, Bryan and his lead developer at FS2Crew, the FSHud Developer, as well as Umberto at GSX, so it is nice to see developers being responsive! 

Just my .02, worth about .0001 on the black market and worthless for resale. 

Edited October 12, 2025Oct 12 by psolk
Spelling and grammar

57 minutes ago, psolk said:

With that said, I was certainly wrong in my earlier assessment about utilizing Discord.

Glad to see another one appreciating the strengths of discord. I think more people should actually take some time learn discord and how varied each server is organised. Some can be an absolute mess while others are properly organised just like a good forum.

Though yeah, I don’t see one replacing the other they both have strengths and weaknesses 

I'm discord far more than forums.  Although I show up here still to get into arguments ha ha.

I especially prefer discord on mobile - and yeah it feels like more devs are using discord so you may get a quicker response.

We have so few cute animal images in these forums. This forum system is really too adult !

Discord is brilliant for dev support.  In almost all cases devs are available "live" along with moderators who can assist in real time.

It's great that we have an app that enables real time conversations and helps resolve issues quickly.

Jase

Edited October 13, 2025Oct 13 by MassiveSim32

I agree, Discord as a means of (fast) support is way superior to slow-moving fora.

Yet developers could be just as fast with support on a forum. Simply a matter of willingness. There is no reason that devs can not dedicate the same amount of time on monitoring a forum as they do on monitoring Discord. The clear benefit for the end user is a way more structured 'archive' with information that might solve their issue without ever needing the dev to enter the picture.

Searching for stuff on Discord is a major pain, especially when completely unrelated messages come in between. The only thing Discord is good for is voice chat 🤣.

And especially devs like Aerosoft, who have decided that Discord would be their main means of support but forgot to tell the end users about that. So you end up with a forum for a product, filled with issues and questions, and no one from the "devs" that ever sees it.

 

Hate it with a vengeance, to the point i never go near it.

I'd rather have a box of fish than Discord. 

I've learned it, and use it... because I have to.  I still find it generally chaotic, disorganized and often more difficult to find previously solved issues than in most support fora.  As for the "near real time" stuff, I see no reason why a good support forum can't be similarly responsive.  Yes, I realize you can have pretty much real-time convo's in Discord, but on the few occasions when I've posted that simply doesn't happen.  The response times I've seen tend to be, well, whenever the developer has time, just as they are in most support fora.

Yes, I'm older.  But I've worked in tech my whole life, am comfortable with it and not resistant to new things at all if they do a job better for me than the alternatives.  I just can't seem to warm to Discord.  I recognize its strengths, but for my use the weaknesses seem to impact me more.

Excuse me now while I go shout at clouds.

 

Scott

7 hours ago, CRJay said:

Yet developers could be just as fast with support on a forum.

From a user experience, you can't exactly do live support with a forum, it's like saying you can get the same level of support via email as you would on a live call.

 

7 hours ago, CRJay said:

Searching for stuff on Discord is a major pain, especially when completely unrelated messages come in between.

Then you don't understand how to search in discord, it's extremely powerful with a multitude of keywords and this doesn't even go into the granularity you can do per channel or on the forums/threads. If a developer is trying to do live support on a general chat, then that's just the blatantly wrong way to do support and that's not on Discord, that's on the developer. Discord support forums and threads where you can get a proper 1:1 live support with a developer.

 

 

Discord has provided a forum-like option for a while now, and many developers use that for the problem reporting sections of their discord. Each problem gets its own thread, so its responses are grouped together.

Edited October 13, 2025Oct 13 by ConstVoid
grammar

Anyone familiar with the SimBitWorld or Neofly discords ever see the devs around except to post updates? 

10 minutes ago, ConstVoid said:

Discord has provided a forum-like option for a while now, and many developers use that for the problem reporting sections of their discord. Each problem gets its own thread, so it's responses are grouped together.

Sounds like they're reinventing the wheel. Usenet already did that back in the 1980s.

17 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

I'm discord far more than forums.  Although I show up here still to get into arguments ha ha.

I especially prefer discord on mobile - and yeah it feels like more devs are using discord so you may get a quicker response.

Using it also far more then the forums, also when you are in beta's and teams working great.  Early adapter since 2016 😇

Edited October 13, 2025Oct 13 by virtualstuff

I use the AVSIM forum far more than I use Discord. Whilst the latter can be good for quick responses (assuming that the developer is online at the time), I just find it to be 95% waffle, and 5% useful.