Forums

On the eve of standard edition and Game Pass release of FM4, I thought I'd take a few minutes to post some guidelines on, well, posting. If you're new then welcome, if not then most of these should be old hat but a periodic reminder cannot hurt.

First off, some important links:

Forza Motorsport Forums Terms of Service

Code of Conduct for Forzamotorsport.net Forums

New Support Page


And a few words from our sponsor:

Xbox.com Service Agreement

Xbox Live Terms of Use

Xbox Live Code of Conduct


Current list of moderators:

Myself of course

Dragnet

Duekacer

fyer

TGS Hoss360

ManteoMax

WindsweptDragon

Edited by user Tuesday, October 2, 2018 10:29:17 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Now on to the guidelines/suggestions in addition to what is in our ToS and CoC:

Not everyone thinks the way you do, plays the way you do, speaks the way you do, or types the way you do. That makes them different from you, not necessarily wrong. To quote the Code of Conduct (linked above):

To that end, we expect you to be civil in all your interactions on the forums.

While profanity might make talking out loud fun, it makes narrative or non-dialog prose look, well, childish. Yes, we have a language filter (courtesy of Microsoft) in place but we do expect you to find a way to express yourself without recourse to profanity. Filter or not, we will take action against your posts and possibly you if you insist on thinking the filter somehow absolves you of your responsibility to abstain from use of profanity. Attempts to deliberately obfuscate profanity or circumvent the filter illustrate a willfulness to flout the rules and will be handled accordingly.

Try searching instead of immediately opting for a new post. Scan the page, see if there is a current discussion about your issue and reply there instead of creating a redundant new thread. This might seem hard for many to grasp but one thread with a hundred replies always trumps a hundred threads with only post. This is especially so if you want to get the developer's attention. They simply do not have the time or resources to scan back though page after page looking for patterns. No one does, except maybe Max. Consolidate your discussion into fewer threads and you have better discussions that get more notice. It's science.

Wish Lists, contrary to popular misconception, are not black holes where ideas go to die. By consolidating car and feature wish lists into specific threads, they're easier to read and gather information from for both Max and the developers. Max puts in more hours assembling and tracking all that information than most of you do playing the game, please help him help you by using the wist lists for cars and features. Putting all those requests in one place also keeps the forums moving at a somewhat usable pace. Imagine if those thousands of requests were all new threads, the forums would collapse under the volume.

Quote trains are bad, very bad. They get confusing and hard to keep track of who is posting what. Trim your replies, you'll be happier and we'll be happier. Similarly, please don't quote an entire lengthy post of text or images just to reply with a single word of sentence.

Bumping threads is equally bad, please don't do it and we won't have to remove your bumps. General Discussion is going to be exceedingly busy for the next few weeks and every new post or reply will elevate a thread to the top and thereby force someone else's thread off the front page. You wouldn't want someone to do that to your thread so don't do it to theirs.

We vote no on petitions, especially third party petitions. The number of active players on the forums represent less than one percent of the player base therefore any petition on the forums, even with overwhelming participation, is statistically insignificant and not possibly large enough to overcome the margin of error. While you might feel that yours represents the opinion of a vast number of players, it almost assuredly does not.

These forums are open to all users age 13 and above, please do not link to inappropriate material such as, well, you don't need me to tell you what is inappropriate for 13 year olds and if you do, then you've got larger issues this forum cannot solve. Obviously material of an adult nature is inappropriate.

Likewise, these are the official forums for the Forza franchise, please do not link to material relating to piracy or modding.

Cross-posting and duplicate posting is also frowned upon and as Dragnet is first one to tackle the moderation queue each day, he's the last person you want frowning upon your posts.

Finding your own posts is easy, either select My Topics to the right of your My Inbox or select My Settings to the left of My Inbox and from there select View Profile.

Edited by user Friday, November 2, 2018 9:00:39 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Now, what to post where:

First off, the wish lists:
Car Wish List

Features Wish List

I cannot stress enough the importance of using these wish lists for your requests. There is no better way to let the developers know what you'd like to see in the game than posting your request in the wish lists. This is where the developers go for ideas from the community and in case they miss something, Max will periodically remind them by gathering all the requests into one almighty spreadsheet to beat them over the head with every so often. Seriously, use the wish lists and make everyone happy.

New Support Page!
For the first time in Forza history, we have a proper support ticketing system thanks to Nitro Glitter. This is where the developers are looking for issues so go and open a ticket if you've got a support issue. Seriously, this is the place to be for support issues. All the cool kids are opening tickets, you want to be one of the cool kids, don't you?

Technical Support & Help
Yes, we still have the support forum where you can report issues, ask questions and get help and advice from fellow users but just remember that the new support page ticketing system is where support requests are transitioning to so always remember to open a ticket when necessary.

Forza Horizon 4 Discussion
Busiest subforum on the site right now. This is the place to be to ask general questions that might not better fit elsewhere. Don't blink though as things move quickly here!

Forzatography
Got photos to share? Got questions on how to take photos and host them for sharing? This is the place to go to see the game at its best.
(I've just been handed a note - I'm being advised that the best galleries for viewing are those of Dragnet and Windswept Dragon and there's a crudely drawn hammer at the bottom of the note so I take that to mean they're serious).

Paint Booth
The place to post your paints and see what the best painters are producing. Got a request for a paint? This is the place. Mind the wet paint.

Drift Lounge
Not entirely sure what goes on in here but I'm reliably informed it's all sideways.

Tuner's Garage
Are you fast? Want to be faster? These people can help. I believe there's some sort of sorcery involved so know that going in.

Racer's Lounge
Now that you're fast (possibly as the result of sorcery), you'll want to prove it. Come here to meet all the racey go-fast folks.

Club Lounge
Got a club? Want a club? Want to be in a club? Want to tell everyone about your club whilst flashing gang signs and talking tough? This is the place. Sadly, no club sandwiches available as yet.

Seller's Marketplace
Looking to buy or looking to sell, this is the place for all aspiring virtual used car salesmen and their goods.

Edited by user Monday, October 1, 2018 2:01:25 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

A few final thoughts for those of you still awake up to this point.

We're about to be deluged with new posters, not just the standard edition players and not just first time Forza players but first time driving/racing game players. With the release of Forza Horizon 4 on Game Pass, we're going to see new posters that have never played any sort of car game before. They're going to have a lot of questions and no small share of problems, please exercise every bit of patience and civility you can muster to help these folks learn to love the game the way we do. More people playing the game strengthens our community and the racing community as a whole and that leads to better games and better options for all of us. Being nice and helpful is small price to pay for such great rewards down the road.

We moderators are going to be moving a lot of posts and threads over the course of the next few weeks. We'll be merging threads, moving posts into already existing threads, and where we feel it necessary, closing threads and even removing them entirely in certain cases. This sort of thing is vital to keep the forums functioning properly for the benefit of all, it is not personal. I've been a member here for over 11 years and a moderator for 9 and in that time I've locked a lot of threads and taken action against far more posters than I would wish. It's never personal and barring very extreme examples, it's not what is being posted but the means in which someone chooses to express themself that results in action.

Edited by user Monday, October 1, 2018 10:34:26 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Why?

All new user accounts are moderated for a while.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but what does the "+" with a number mean next to a thread in My Post? For example: [+2]

I don't know if there is a general forum help thread as I couldn't find one so I thought this would be the next best place to ask. I'm new to the forum.

If there is such a thread I apologize.

Hi OutTheRectangle, the plus number in brackets next to a thread indicates how many users have clicked Tag As Favorite while reading the thread. You can see your Favorites archive by clicking My Topics in the upper right corner of the forum.

You can read more about the forum features in this FAQ in the News Discussion subforum.

Awesome!

Thank you I appreciate it. It was really bothering me in an OCD way haha, but thanks & I'll definitely go over that!