Night mode for forums
Not via your forum settings. Anet has stated several times they have no means to update/fix the forum as it is now, see broken search function, page error after 50 posts, and the buggy support link in the header. So a night mode is doubtful. Maybe some day they will acquire new forum software that works with more options and something they have the ability to modify if needed. Given how long the current forum has been broken and how long it has been since they said they were possibly looking into a better solution, I would not count on the forums having anything more available than what they currently offer.
Reference December 8, 2014 (I included in bold where they said they were looking into other options):
The problem is deep within the technology behind the forum structure itself. Yes, we had a search engine in the beginning, but it was broken by our forum contractor in the course of working on other things. We no longer have a relationship with that contractor or his company, and someone else is not able to step into the system and fix the search engine because (1) our programmers are tasked with other essential work, (2) the forums run on a web framework with which most of our programmers are not familiar and (3) we’re investigating other options for forums and it would not be prudent to pour money into hiring someone to fix this as a short-term solution.
My team agrees that it would be great to share the system that is outlined in the OP, and we’re going to figure out a way to do that. It won’t be as simple as “plumbing” the current search window to go to Google — each of us still will need to input the search manually, but it’s better than the current “poke and prod” to find a particular post!
Insert rant: I can’t speak for Anet, but personally I find the limited and broken forum an embarrassment for their product. When I am shopping around for new games to play one thing I always do is go to the game’s forum and search for topics I’m interested in, to learn what people are saying on topics related to the game that interest me. That isn’t an option for the GW2 forum because it is broken. If I were a person looking outside as a potential new customer interested in GW2 and saw they can’t even manage to have a working search function on their forum I’d probably wonder how the actual game was managed.
I understand that they probably go screwed over by the company that provided the current forum. I’m not sure what limitations contractually that involves and what they are limited to changing. However, in my opinion if Anet wants to keep things going and procure new customers a working web presence (see recent problems with purchase page)/forum will make them look better as a company.
If not for GW2 Reddit, which has a lot more dev interaction as it is, I wonder if Anet would have solved their forum problem by now.
The Burninator
(edited by JustTrogdor.7892)
thx for your answer!
and I agree, this forum sucks big time.