...with something that has a decent search capability.

As someone (Lecter or Lebermac perhaps) recently pointed out, Google searches the forums better than the built in search.

It would be nice to be able to do some of the other stuff that even the most noobish forum software lets you do too, like watch threads, etc.

The built-in search tool searches the forum just fine -- most people just don't know how to use it as well as they know how to use google or something like that.

Switching to any forum software other than the custom one we have now would require way too much time and effort to get done than can be spared by the devs. Currently the forum software allows for a direct relation between ingame and the forum; the status of the account you are using to play ingame is directly connected to the status of the one you use here (assuming, of course, that you use the same account for posting as for playing). If you're muted ingame, you're muted here as well, etc. etc.

I'm not saying the search engine is perfect, not by a long shot -- it can always be improved -- but that most people either treat it like a google/yahoo search engine and don't bother to read the text underneath it. I have never ever had issues getting the search engine to find what I want.

To summarize: changing the forum software just to get 'better' search functionality is a waste of the devs' valuable time. There's too much more involved in setting that up for it to be worth the amount of time and effort it'd take away from actually working on the *game*.

Some tips for using the forum's search function:
1) Search engines frequently ignore search terms under a certain length. In this case, any word with fewer than four letters is ignored.
2) If you want to search for an entire phrase, enclose it in quotes. Searching for "faction standing" will produce slightly different results than searching for faction standing.
3) Use + and - to require or omit words or phrases. Searching for +apples -grapes will return posts that contain "apples", but not if they contain "grapes".
4) Use * for wildcard searches. As implied in the instructions for the search, searching for +orang* will find any posts (up to a certain point) that contain any word that starts with "orang", including "oranges" and "orangutans".

The second post should get its own thread and be made into a sticky. A guide to the forums, so to speak. We could then add the much-forgot tags and other things, as well.

I think that was LeberMeat, vardonx. I rarely use the search feature, but it usually works well when I do.

The second post, while helpful, doesn't really need to be stickied. The meat of the info is spelled out right in the search engine window.

"Search is free-form over all message bodies. Keywords must be four letters or longer; short words are not indexed. You may surround phrases "in quotes" to match the exact phrase, and you can use + and - to require or omit words or phrases. You may also use * to match part of a word. For example: +apples -orang* +"green onions" would match all messages containing apples and green onions, but omit those containing oranges or orangutans."

I did indeed state that Google searches these forums far far better than the built-in search function, and I stand by that statement and will challenge anyone else to prove otherwise.

I know HOW to use the site's search just fine. Most of the time I'm not searching for exact phrases, but general concepts of what the VO thread was about; Google seems to find those threads far more readily.

But I also agree wholeheartedly with M.S. Kanaka. Improving the FORUM is not the place to be pouring in development effort. When they get enough money, I would highly recommend upgrading the entire forum to some nice open-source thing with plenty of flexibility and power. (As long as it's not phpBB, cause I know someone hates that software.)

Hell, the DEVS do not need to write new forum software code, they just need to pay someone ONCE to convert to the new open-source system, and then maintain it. This is an obvious candidate for outsourcing.

Leber is right, I was not suggesting writing anything. I also agree the devs have more pressing issues (fixing the Linux JS code for instance)...

To my point, there is other functionality than the search that most common open source forum software has -- ability to watch threads or be emailed on thread update for instance.

An intern or some trusted external source could probably get any one of those open source packages running and set up in a couple of days (if that - they are mostly turn key) -- the harder part would be migrating all the existing posts.

Anyway, this is obviously a low priority suggestion but would be nice to have.