My Discourse instance is private and focuses on board games. I invited about ten people to test it and see if everything works, and some of them told me: “Discourse still feels a bit dated, like a 2010–2015 interface.” They’d rather use Discord 
What do your users think about your Discourse interface?
Am I the only one in this situation?
Right, i’ll change my second forum from Horizon to Default. Default theme makes Discorse unique verses Discord
imho Meta Branded (on dark theme particularly) looks very modern and fresh.
You can follow up with Theme updates, the main issue is Chat focus vs Topics - Chat is ephemeral and usually requires a group “in attendance” to make it make sense. Topics are longer form and meant for more substantive async discussion with longer lasting material - what’s your goal with your site?
Currently, I am using the default theme with modifications
The purpose of my post is to present games with sheets including descriptions, videos, rules, etc. I use topics to create tables for playing (thanks to @merefield for the location plugin, the event, and custom wizard to simplify table creation).
Ah, it’s so hard to find a solution that will please everyone, and I think people want ephemeral discussions that don’t really make sense compared to more substantial discussions.
would a masonry wall make more sense given you have so many topics with images? At least for those categories with an image preview focus …
Can we download the Meta Branded theme for a self-hosted setup?
Because I can’t seem to find it.
best discuss that here: Rebuilding the Meta Branded theme: New icons, a custom homepage, and a first look at the Blocks API
If you’re looking to convince them, it might be worth noting there’s a tradeoff. Discourse gives you more control over your site’s appearance and your data. Discord looks slicker partly because everyone gets the same experience, designed and controlled by Discord.
Based on your screenshots specifically, maybe starting with a little less customization could make it feel like a more polished experience? The grey category banner feels a little out of place with the rest of the styles, for example.
Also the tertiary blue should be better aligned with the background image - these two blues are clashing - make them the same?
One of my users has several times said it is [expletive] confusing. One point of confusion is a lack of clarity whether something is a public topic or a DM.
Any ideas what they expect to be different about the two? currently we rely on the big envelope icon near the title, but always open to more suggestions. We had made PM messages look a little more like rounded bubbles for a little while, but ended up simplifying.
This has come up from time to time, and the answer has been that the Meta Branded theme will stay exclusive to Meta. Our own custom branded themes are up to us. 
I’m not sure. In our particular case, I post a monthly update topic, and at the same time send out a multi-recipient DM. So there are two things with a similar semantic content. Possibly a different colour scheme would help, although it might only help a frequent visitor once they’ve learned their way around.
Good timing. Just updated mine: https://thedenforum.com/
I’ll be swapping out the default for this. As it relates to Discourse vs Discord. The Discord UX is a trainwreck and a stain on humanity. But Discourse’s endless flexibility lends itself to modernizing in fun ways. Let me know what you think of mine. ~
I’m also trying to make it unique little by little; my users like it because I ask for their feedback to shape it.
The fact that some Discord members find it outdated is a matter of muscle/affective memory for this generation, especially since Discord doesn’t stray far from the standard Electron framework. In terms of UI/UX, Discourse is light-years ahead of any current CMS, even though I really like Mastodon’s style as a former Twitter user.
Perhaps there are things you can do to help visually distinguish the two:
I know it doesn’t help for other non-routine DMs, though.
IMO, your background is a little distracting with all the other images. I recommend either blurring it slightly (similar to Meta’s bg here) or switching to a version with a limited color palette.
The radio player in the top-right is unique! Really cool idea.
I published it on GitLab if you’d like to test it. I recently changed it to display only for members, but an earlier commit is global if you’d like to revert.
