I enjoyed posting on aoc forums for a year. you probably only saw the last few months when all the haters and doomers came.
I think a large reason I became more hyped about aoc is because it had active official forums where as war didn't. aoc community was fun until near release.
An unofficial timeline for official MMORPG forums:
What follows (for clarity's sake) is the kind of stuff said by players/non-players on these forums.
T minus 180 days till launch
Life is beautiful, the devs are great, the birds are merrily chirping away, oh look, there's a heretic who thinks that the game will suck, stone him, drive him off! The birds are merrily chirping away.
T minus 90 days till launch
Oh man, this game can't launch, it's not ready yet. Yes it is, no, it's not. This game is gonna tank big time. The devs suck! No they don't, things are still fine, the birds are still singing! Yeah, but they're vultures you moron!
Launch Day
This game is going to go down in flames! This game is going to rock! You devs did it! Yeah, you screwed it up! You lied to us, you cut out features! How dare you ban people from your boards, this is against our freedom of speech! Ever hear of the first amendment???? The game was down for one day, I want my money back! Yeah, give me your address and I'll send you a check for 40c if you are so poor.
Launch + 60 days
Hey, this game is great! Woot! No it's not! Stone the heretic, the devs rock! Umm, when are you going to fix the bugs? You said during beta that you were going to have all these features in, where the heck are they?!? I want them and I want them now! Shutup, the game's great, the devs will get to it! I hope you and your son get in a car accident and die this Christmas Eve Mark! You guys suck! WTF? I don't care if your internet thingie was down, I want to play and I want to play now or I want my money back! Why do you have to XXXXXX patch at 3AM EST? I'm playing from XXXX and that's the only time I have to play the game. You obviously either don't give a damn about your customers or you are racist!
Launch + 120 days
We need to start a class action lawsuit! They lied to us! The servers suck, why don't you buy some more hamsters for your server farms! Hey, we love the game! We have a few questions though! Shut up! We're talking serious bizness here! I want my money back! Hey Sanya, you're hot! When the expansion coming out? What? I have to pay for an expansion too! What a ripoff! Hey, I'm all for an expansion, this game rocks! Bring it on!
Launch + forever
See above.
That's why I don't want to have official forums. Whether it was SOE, Blizzard or us, official or semi-official forums are exactly like I described above for every successful MMORPG that I have played or watched from afar (and that is *most* of them). The unsuccessful ones were even worse. The problem is that most people who read the boards are looking for information and a reasonable number of people want to cause trouble, "grief" the forums or simply get their jollies by saying and doing things that they wouldn't do in real life. As usual, a small percentage of people make life more difficult for everyone else. Back when games had hundreds of people playing, well, no big deal. We ban those guys and life returns to normal. With millions of subs for WoW and hopefully lots and lots for WAR, well, it becomes much more complicated, difficult and soul-sucking for the devs and the community people. I wouldn't want anyone to go through what Sanya and I had to go through (and she had it worse since she is a woman and that brought out the worst in some people) in the early days of DAoC. How she and other community managers put up with the kind of name calling, insults, vulgarity, profanity without losing their minds is amazing.
And yes, some of those statements were drawn exactly from what was said to us, Blizzard, etc., no exaggeration at all. And BTW, those weren't the worst things said to us or other devs of these games.
'Nuf said.
Mark
The above is from Mark Jacobs from back in March of this year. I think he plainly states why we will not see any form of official forums. I think that the current state of the AoC official forums (which can be viewed by the public now) are a current example of what he describes here.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
The ironic thing you guys screaming for "no official forums!" is that, get this... you don't have to go to them.
You can do just what you plan to do now and visit the so called fan-run forum websites. Those of us that want a centralized location for the community to view/post topics can do so and you can be blissfully ignorant of how useful or not they are. If forums are as "useless" as some of you and Mark claim I don't see why you guys think random fan forums are any better because they aren't. The benefit of official forums is consistent moderation and only people actually playing the game can post.
Before you complain about them spending money on it, there are multiple drains on their funds like advertising, lawyers monitoring copyright laws and tons of other crap I'd rather they not spend money on but guess what, they do.
As to what Mark said, he has said a lot of things... one of those things was "no stealth in WAR" and guess what, looks like we are gonna have stealth in WAR from all indications. Not suggesting that means they will have official forums but I wouldn't be surprised if EA put them out there.
Originally posted by Celestian As to what Mark said, he has said a lot of things... one of those things was "no stealth in WAR" and guess what, looks like we are gonna have stealth in WAR from all indications. Not suggesting that means they will have official forums but I wouldn't be surprised if EA put them out there.
Keep in mind as well that Mark has stated time and time again that things will and can change up until release nothing is solid (not his exact words, but the same message)! I agree with ya that EA could possibly throw up some forums some where to make some of the customers happy. If AoC is any indication I would not bother to even set foot in em!
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
The ironic thing you guys screaming for "no official forums!" is that, get this... you don't have to go to them. You can do just what you plan to do now and visit the so called fan-run forum websites. Those of us that want a centralized location for the community to view/post topics can do so and you can be blissfully ignorant of how useful or not they are. If forums are as "useless" as some of you and Mark claim I don't see why you guys think random fan forums are any better because they aren't. The benefit of official forums is consistent moderation and only people actually playing the game can post. Before you complain about them spending money on it, there are multiple drains on their funds like advertising, lawyers monitoring copyright laws and tons of other crap I'd rather they not spend money on but guess what, they do. As to what Mark said, he has said a lot of things... one of those things was "no stealth in WAR" and guess what, looks like we are gonna have stealth in WAR from all indications. Not suggesting that means they will have official forums but I wouldn't be surprised if EA put them out there.
Worse moderation. They have an intested in keeping customers. "Moderating" their forum posts can piss them off and you lose money. Better a 3rd party deals with it.
Privately owned, but Mythic endorsed forums I think are better. Thats what guild wars has and they work alot better. You have little of the crap you get with the dev-hosted forums. This is because the owners of the forums usually have no qualms about deleting crap or telling the forumites to go shove a pickle where sun dont shine. lol It also seems to draw the devs, or alteast a spokes person for the devs into the forums more often.
Id rather not have official forums... site where they can post news and podcasts and stuff would be good though.
I'm just curious how Mythic monitors the game and decides if changes need to be made. Like for example in AOC it's been quite obvious about bugs and lack of content, but as well a couple caster classes are underperforming and need to be fixed. You see these concerns all over the forums and Funcom has replied to them and is making adjustments.
I'm just curious how Mythic monitors the game and decides if changes need to be made. Like for example in AOC it's been quite obvious about bugs and lack of content, but as well a couple caster classes are underperforming and need to be fixed. You see these concerns all over the forums and Funcom has replied to them and is making adjustments.
Devs do visit the top fansites, the only difference is they don't moderate them. Also if you're referring to beta there are seperate beta forums are there not? I'm about 99% sure.
-------------------------------------- A human and an Elf get captured by Skaven. The rat-men are getting ready to shoot the first hostage with Dwarf-made guns when he yells, "Earthquake!" The naturally nervous Skaven run and hide from the imaginary threat. He escapes. The Skaven regroup and bring out the Elf. Being very smart, the Elf has figured out what to do. When the Skaven get ready to shoot, the Elf, in order to scare them, yells, "Fire!"
I'm just curious how Mythic monitors the game and decides if changes need to be made. Like for example in AOC it's been quite obvious about bugs and lack of content, but as well a couple caster classes are underperforming and need to be fixed. You see these concerns all over the forums and Funcom has replied to them and is making adjustments.
Devs do visit the top fansites, the only difference is they don't moderate them. Also if you're referring to beta there are seperate beta forums are there not? I'm about 99% sure.
No i'm not referring to beta. I just read about this today on their forums. I'm playing AOC but it's not for me, so I'm hoping WAR is!
I'm just curious how Mythic monitors the game and decides if changes need to be made. Like for example in AOC it's been quite obvious about bugs and lack of content, but as well a couple caster classes are underperforming and need to be fixed. You see these concerns all over the forums and Funcom has replied to them and is making adjustments.
Aside fom the team members visiting various forums, you could always send them an e-mail, plus they said that they are going to have feedback forms and surveys at regular intervals upon opening the client before you log in.
The last couple of days I have more or less spent on the AoC boards trying to get answers to my problems with the game. All graphics was just flickering for me and I was trying to get some help. At first I tried to search around for some info, but almost all leads ended in whine or flames.
So I posted a serious post about my problems with all technical data needed. And the first answer I get is "Its not Funcoms fault your pc fails..lol". And after that it seems like the rest joined to mock me. It just doesnt feel any fun anymore. Maybe its me getting old and sensitive. But those boards was no use at all to me.
I like the idea of having several fan forums, so if I dont like the community on one forum I can choose another. They cant all suck.
Oh well... well see... maybe they open up a forum after launch... but it might take a outrage from fans...
By the way... I quit AoC today...couldnt stand it... to much bugs and it didnt feel so innovative as I thought it would...it wasnt for me... sad... oh well...
No official forum is a good thing. People get more spread out and fan forums tend to gather people who like the game and that way you can have a forum that is fun and giving. Also if you have a guild forum more people in the guild tend to dicuss things there. And official forums often become a bashing arena for trolls, haters and fanbois. Another good thing is that you actually discover all the nice fan site forums out there when there is no main forum to turn to.
The ironic thing you guys screaming for "no official forums!" is that, get this... you don't have to go to them. You can do just what you plan to do now and visit the so called fan-run forum websites. Those of us that want a centralized location for the community to view/post topics can do so and you can be blissfully ignorant of how useful or not they are. If forums are as "useless" as some of you and Mark claim I don't see why you guys think random fan forums are any better because they aren't. The benefit of official forums is consistent moderation and only people actually playing the game can post. Before you complain about them spending money on it, there are multiple drains on their funds like advertising, lawyers monitoring copyright laws and tons of other crap I'd rather they not spend money on but guess what, they do. As to what Mark said, he has said a lot of things... one of those things was "no stealth in WAR" and guess what, looks like we are gonna have stealth in WAR from all indications. Not suggesting that means they will have official forums but I wouldn't be surprised if EA put them out there.
I totally agree with you.
From one perspective, the reason Mark is giving for not having official forums is basically because they "make their life difficult". That's bloody it. They don't like feedback in a "random" way and yet they're gonna keep up with the hundreds of fan sites available for the game? Not having official forums is just ignoring the problem of opinion. Single opinions in a fill-out form at the beginning of the game is definitely not the same as opinion constructed from discussion, civil or not. Without points of reference, or having dispersion among an endless variety of fan sites, the quality of criticism will be lower, and it'll show in time. Look at the City of Heroes forums. Sure, it's full of all the trolling we don't like, but they're also an example of how efficient direct dialogue with the developers is in a centralized medium. I wouldn't have found that quote from Mark you used, because the guy can only post so many times in so many forums, and this is not one of them. So, one dev gets feedback from a select group of people who aren't willing or able to look at what other select groups of people are telling another developer, possibly degenerating into a one-way conversation or a simple series of repetition of opinions simply because there are no other opinions to compare them with.
For god's sake, they need to stop giving us reasons that make their moderators look like lazy, sensitive not-up-to-the-task-of-facing-people type of persons. The reference is Blizzard, but Blizzard's got 9 million subscribers. Until they get a stratospheric amount of subscribers as them, then they can't use the same reasoning, because it doesn't fit the case. I hope they're making the right choice. DAoC worked that way, but I sincerely think that official forums work up discussions a lot better, advancing them quicker.
Comments
I enjoyed posting on aoc forums for a year. you probably only saw the last few months when all the haters and doomers came.
I think a large reason I became more hyped about aoc is because it had active official forums where as war didn't. aoc community was fun until near release.
My blog:
Actually the official forum was horrible even before launch, and yes even a year ago.
Folks,
An unofficial timeline for official MMORPG forums:
What follows (for clarity's sake) is the kind of stuff said by players/non-players on these forums.
T minus 180 days till launch
Life is beautiful, the devs are great, the birds are merrily chirping away, oh look, there's a heretic who thinks that the game will suck, stone him, drive him off! The birds are merrily chirping away.
T minus 90 days till launch
Oh man, this game can't launch, it's not ready yet. Yes it is, no, it's not. This game is gonna tank big time. The devs suck! No they don't, things are still fine, the birds are still singing! Yeah, but they're vultures you moron!
Launch Day
This game is going to go down in flames! This game is going to rock! You devs did it! Yeah, you screwed it up! You lied to us, you cut out features! How dare you ban people from your boards, this is against our freedom of speech! Ever hear of the first amendment???? The game was down for one day, I want my money back! Yeah, give me your address and I'll send you a check for 40c if you are so poor.
Launch + 60 days
Hey, this game is great! Woot! No it's not! Stone the heretic, the devs rock! Umm, when are you going to fix the bugs? You said during beta that you were going to have all these features in, where the heck are they?!? I want them and I want them now! Shutup, the game's great, the devs will get to it! I hope you and your son get in a car accident and die this Christmas Eve Mark! You guys suck! WTF? I don't care if your internet thingie was down, I want to play and I want to play now or I want my money back! Why do you have to XXXXXX patch at 3AM EST? I'm playing from XXXX and that's the only time I have to play the game. You obviously either don't give a damn about your customers or you are racist!
Launch + 120 days
We need to start a class action lawsuit! They lied to us! The servers suck, why don't you buy some more hamsters for your server farms! Hey, we love the game! We have a few questions though! Shut up! We're talking serious bizness here! I want my money back! Hey Sanya, you're hot! When the expansion coming out? What? I have to pay for an expansion too! What a ripoff! Hey, I'm all for an expansion, this game rocks! Bring it on!
Launch + forever
See above.
That's why I don't want to have official forums. Whether it was SOE, Blizzard or us, official or semi-official forums are exactly like I described above for every successful MMORPG that I have played or watched from afar (and that is *most* of them). The unsuccessful ones were even worse. The problem is that most people who read the boards are looking for information and a reasonable number of people want to cause trouble, "grief" the forums or simply get their jollies by saying and doing things that they wouldn't do in real life. As usual, a small percentage of people make life more difficult for everyone else. Back when games had hundreds of people playing, well, no big deal. We ban those guys and life returns to normal. With millions of subs for WoW and hopefully lots and lots for WAR, well, it becomes much more complicated, difficult and soul-sucking for the devs and the community people. I wouldn't want anyone to go through what Sanya and I had to go through (and she had it worse since she is a woman and that brought out the worst in some people) in the early days of DAoC. How she and other community managers put up with the kind of name calling, insults, vulgarity, profanity without losing their minds is amazing.
And yes, some of those statements were drawn exactly from what was said to us, Blizzard, etc., no exaggeration at all. And BTW, those weren't the worst things said to us or other devs of these games.
'Nuf said.
Mark
The above is from Mark Jacobs from back in March of this year. I think he plainly states why we will not see any form of official forums. I think that the current state of the AoC official forums (which can be viewed by the public now) are a current example of what he describes here.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
The ironic thing you guys screaming for "no official forums!" is that, get this... you don't have to go to them.
You can do just what you plan to do now and visit the so called fan-run forum websites. Those of us that want a centralized location for the community to view/post topics can do so and you can be blissfully ignorant of how useful or not they are. If forums are as "useless" as some of you and Mark claim I don't see why you guys think random fan forums are any better because they aren't. The benefit of official forums is consistent moderation and only people actually playing the game can post.
Before you complain about them spending money on it, there are multiple drains on their funds like advertising, lawyers monitoring copyright laws and tons of other crap I'd rather they not spend money on but guess what, they do.
As to what Mark said, he has said a lot of things... one of those things was "no stealth in WAR" and guess what, looks like we are gonna have stealth in WAR from all indications. Not suggesting that means they will have official forums but I wouldn't be surprised if EA put them out there.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
You can still get information.
Privately owned, but Mythic endorsed forums I think are better. Thats what guild wars has and they work alot better. You have little of the crap you get with the dev-hosted forums. This is because the owners of the forums usually have no qualms about deleting crap or telling the forumites to go shove a pickle where sun dont shine. lol It also seems to draw the devs, or alteast a spokes person for the devs into the forums more often.
Id rather not have official forums... site where they can post news and podcasts and stuff would be good though.
I'm just curious how Mythic monitors the game and decides if changes need to be made. Like for example in AOC it's been quite obvious about bugs and lack of content, but as well a couple caster classes are underperforming and need to be fixed. You see these concerns all over the forums and Funcom has replied to them and is making adjustments.
Devs do visit the top fansites, the only difference is they don't moderate them. Also if you're referring to beta there are seperate beta forums are there not? I'm about 99% sure.
--------------------------------------
A human and an Elf get captured by Skaven. The rat-men are getting ready to shoot the first hostage with Dwarf-made guns when he yells, "Earthquake!" The naturally nervous Skaven run and hide from the imaginary threat. He escapes. The Skaven regroup and bring out the Elf. Being very smart, the Elf has figured out what to do. When the Skaven get ready to shoot, the Elf, in order to scare them, yells, "Fire!"
Order of the White Border.
Devs do visit the top fansites, the only difference is they don't moderate them. Also if you're referring to beta there are seperate beta forums are there not? I'm about 99% sure.
No i'm not referring to beta. I just read about this today on their forums. I'm playing AOC but it's not for me, so I'm hoping WAR is!
Aside fom the team members visiting various forums, you could always send them an e-mail, plus they said that they are going to have feedback forms and surveys at regular intervals upon opening the client before you log in.
No official forums
Im ok with that...
The last couple of days I have more or less spent on the AoC boards trying to get answers to my problems with the game. All graphics was just flickering for me and I was trying to get some help. At first I tried to search around for some info, but almost all leads ended in whine or flames.
So I posted a serious post about my problems with all technical data needed. And the first answer I get is "Its not Funcoms fault your pc fails..lol". And after that it seems like the rest joined to mock me. It just doesnt feel any fun anymore. Maybe its me getting old and sensitive. But those boards was no use at all to me.
I like the idea of having several fan forums, so if I dont like the community on one forum I can choose another. They cant all suck.
Oh well... well see... maybe they open up a forum after launch... but it might take a outrage from fans...
By the way... I quit AoC today...couldnt stand it... to much bugs and it didnt feel so innovative as I thought it would...it wasnt for me... sad... oh well...
THE SECOND DAY VET
No official forum is a good thing. People get more spread out and fan forums tend to gather people who like the game and that way you can have a forum that is fun and giving. Also if you have a guild forum more people in the guild tend to dicuss things there. And official forums often become a bashing arena for trolls, haters and fanbois. Another good thing is that you actually discover all the nice fan site forums out there when there is no main forum to turn to.
From one perspective, the reason Mark is giving for not having official forums is basically because they "make their life difficult". That's bloody it. They don't like feedback in a "random" way and yet they're gonna keep up with the hundreds of fan sites available for the game? Not having official forums is just ignoring the problem of opinion. Single opinions in a fill-out form at the beginning of the game is definitely not the same as opinion constructed from discussion, civil or not. Without points of reference, or having dispersion among an endless variety of fan sites, the quality of criticism will be lower, and it'll show in time. Look at the City of Heroes forums. Sure, it's full of all the trolling we don't like, but they're also an example of how efficient direct dialogue with the developers is in a centralized medium. I wouldn't have found that quote from Mark you used, because the guy can only post so many times in so many forums, and this is not one of them. So, one dev gets feedback from a select group of people who aren't willing or able to look at what other select groups of people are telling another developer, possibly degenerating into a one-way conversation or a simple series of repetition of opinions simply because there are no other opinions to compare them with.
For god's sake, they need to stop giving us reasons that make their moderators look like lazy, sensitive not-up-to-the-task-of-facing-people type of persons. The reference is Blizzard, but Blizzard's got 9 million subscribers. Until they get a stratospheric amount of subscribers as them, then they can't use the same reasoning, because it doesn't fit the case. I hope they're making the right choice. DAoC worked that way, but I sincerely think that official forums work up discussions a lot better, advancing them quicker.