In defense of the WoW forums while many want to focus on the flame fests that take place there...there is valuable information for new players that they can simply "search" for.
The official City of X boards is a shinning example of a community that has in depth guides and information about servers, news, and mechanics of the game. Also direct interaction with the devs that is easy to access on demand.
Simply put by putting the burden of centralizing the information on the fan sites they are absolving themselves of putting down the resources and weakening the voice of the consumer when something occurs (eg servers down).
Even if it is a private official board that requires a subscription ( and it can be strictly enforced) I rather have this lesser evil than have to deal with lopsided bias from a fan site. A company can at least be held accountable but a fansite? Your chances of gaining any ground in resovling any matters is slim and none (both left town by the way).
No one is asking for the wheel to be re-imagined, but the current market has changed since DAOC days and a board with dev interaction that is centralized with information is very important in selling your product.
The information for Lineage 2 improved signifiantly when they started to put information about the game on the official site instead of having to fish for it on multiple sites.
Of course those who run and support fan sites clearly like this trade off. But as I mentioned earlier it weakens us as consumers in the long run (which is what matters the most).
In defense of the WoW forums while many want to focus on the flame fests that take place there...there is valuable information for new players that they can simply "search" for. The official City of X boards is a shinning example of a community that has in depth guides and information about servers, news, and mechanics of the game. Also direct interaction with the devs that is easy to access on demand. Simply put by putting the burden of centralizing the information on the fan sites they are absolving themselves of putting down the resources and weakening the voice of the consumer when something occurs (eg servers down). Even if it is a private official board that requires a subscription ( and it can be strictly enforced) I rather have this lesser evil than have to deal with lopsided bias from a fan site. A company can at least be held accountable but a fansite? Your chances of gaining any ground in resovling any matters is slim and none (both left town by the way). No one is asking for the wheel to be re-imagined, but the current market has changed since DAOC days and a board with dev interaction that is centralized with information is very important in selling your product. The information for Lineage 2 improved signifiantly when they started to put information about the game on the official site instead of having to fish for it on multiple sites. Of course those who run and support fan sites clearly like this trade off. But as I mentioned earlier it weakens us as consumers in the long run (which is what matters the most).
This is the most sensible discussion for official forums I've seen yet. You do have a point here.
I have never seen anything ultimately good come out of official forums.
At an operational level, the company is required to moderate the forums appropriately, which should involve paid staff if you want it done right. As the popularity of the game increases, you need to hire more moderators and you need to pay more for forum maintenance. You can bet that WoW's forum costs are astronomical when one considers the resources (manpower included) required to run them.
This means less of your fee goes to paying for useful things, like developers. I do not know about you, but I want as much of my cash going towards server upgrades, maintenance, and new content/balancing as possible.
Also, official forums become mired in filth and no one comes out with anything useful. Developers end up not getting useful feedback, players end up not being heard - it is a myth that official forums provide a direct line to the people who affect the game, as those people are not the ones sorting through the sea of threads - mods are. Basically, between the flaming, trolling, useless meme posts, whine posts, e-peen displays, and nerf posts, you get some good nuggets, but they are buried under crap.
If you feel the need to converse with fellow players and fans, there are many large communities - join one! You can still talk to thousands of fellow players, do you really need it to be hundreds of thousands?
As for customer service and community relations, the former is handled in-game by dedicated Customer Service Representatives, so forums are not the right spot, and as for community relations, go to the Herald! All of the information you need is there.
Anyway, the lack of official forums should not hurt the game, as they do not leave an unfilled void.
FFXI never had official forums and the community was the absolute best i've experience in any other mmo.
It's just a place for the trolls and the whiners to feel special because it's "official" , thus making their venom spewing more "valid" . Thank sigmar that Mythic is smart enough to not spend a dime on theses parasites.
Like FFXI , fansites have a much better atmosphere and are actually helpful. If you have any feedbacks or complaints , use the proper channels. Which are much more effective when they are not busy moderating and maintaining forums. Any official annoncements will be done thru the herald . Dev do post on fansite .
I'm not even sure what you are saying. I'm currently playing Vanguard though, and its improved a lot since launch. All I can say is if you are saying Vanguard failed due to no forums, you have no clue what you are talking about. Vanguard hasn't done well because it was totally jacked at launch. That has nothing to do with forums. What's your excuse for DAOC? It was the most popular MMO for a while. Never had official forums. The forums mean nothing. Better off without them, as I said before.
(With this are you saying that DAOC would have failed with official forums?)
I said regardles of what you may think about Vanguard. That was me pointing out, to readers like you, that I was talking about forums. I never claimed a forum for a success of a game or not.
Ok you are saying it worked out for DAOC, a game released before the masshysteria reached MMO's. And using that a argument saying that not having official forums works well.
I'm using Vanguard, a game released after the masshysteria reached MMO's. And using that as an argument saying it is can be a wrong desciscion to not have official forums.
Oh no, they don't have time for that. For creating a web game that nobody needs, yes they have the time and the resources. But for official forums, no.
Most "official forums" end up being a whinefest...and a perfect stage for having NERF this or that tantrums.
Fansite forums are better, and your forum account isn't attached to your game account. Which for some..is a good thing considering some of the tangents I have seen folks go off on.
I prefer to read about game information, and watch podcasts..and the occasional newsy items from game devs, not someone having a hissy fit and taking it out on the rest of us.
I have never seen anything ultimately good come out of official forums.
Then you have clearly not played many MMO's in your life time.
The vast majority of game fixes, changes and evolutions are a direct result of suggestions, complaints, bug reports and conversations on official MMO forums. EverQuest 1 was a prime example of this, with the developers trawling the forums to listen to the ideas the fans had, and the problems they were encountering, and trying to make the game into something better. Even up to Lord of the Rings and World of Warcraft, the developers of the game use the forums to find out how the community, their customers, are feeling and ensure their games are better.
Yes, these days you have trolls and flames and off topic rants. But, any good developer knows this and filters through them to find the "good stuff".
And of course, with the release of World of Warcraft, the MMO general population are no longer as internet "savy" as they once were. The majority of casual players will not know to hunt for hours for a fan forum that the developers may or may not have made their latest announcement or explained quickly whats happening with a bug, or know to post there if they need some technical assistance.
Forums should be a community building excerise, and a way for the games makers to get closer to their customers. Not having forums smacks of lack of foresight and avoiding the problems they will get.
On launch day when Jo Average goes to his local gamestore, buys the game, installs it, goes in and crashes, he will go straight to the WAR website to post his problem, see if anyone else has had the same and get an answer. When he hits a dead end, he will email them, and 1 million emails later that day from customers all reporting the same issue (as they have no way of knowing if someone else has reported it), Mythic's email will buckle and the problems will not be dealt with speedily.
Its a bad move. The only other ones to do this were Vanguard, and within 2 weeks of launch they were forced to open official forums as they just couldnt cope with the amount of mail and in game questions to GMs. Worrying.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
I have never seen anything ultimately good come out of official forums.
Then you have clearly not played many MMO's in your life time.
The vast majority of game fixes, changes and evolutions are a direct result of suggestions, complaints, bug reports and conversations on official MMO forums. EverQuest 1 was a prime example of this, with the developers trawling the forums to listen to the ideas the fans had, and the problems they were encountering, and trying to make the game into something better. Even up to Lord of the Rings and World of Warcraft, the developers of the game use the forums to find out how the community, their customers, are feeling and ensure their games are better.
Yes, these days you have trolls and flames and off topic rants. But, any good developer knows this and filters through them to find the "good stuff".
And of course, with the release of World of Warcraft, the MMO general population are no longer as internet "savy" as they once were. The majority of casual players will not know to hunt for hours for a fan forum that the developers may or may not have made their latest announcement or explained quickly whats happening with a bug, or know to post there if they need some technical assistance.
Forums should be a community building excerise, and a way for the games makers to get closer to their customers. Not having forums smacks of lack of foresight and avoiding the problems they will get.
On launch day when Jo Average goes to his local gamestore, buys the game, installs it, goes in and crashes, he will go straight to the WAR website to post his problem, see if anyone else has had the same and get an answer. When he hits a dead end, he will email them, and 1 million emails later that day from customers all reporting the same issue (as they have no way of knowing if someone else has reported it), Mythic's email will buckle and the problems will not be dealt with speedily.
Its a bad move. The only other ones to do this were Vanguard, and within 2 weeks of launch they were forced to open official forums as they just couldnt cope with the amount of mail and in game questions to GMs. Worrying.
I have played online since the last phase of EQ1 beta. The forums there at one point were shut down entirely to free posting, you had to run your comment by a moderator first in order to get it entered on the forum due to the rather large flame fests that were going on in the threads pertaining to classes that felt they were gimped in some fashion or another.
I have played many games since and seen a few official forums in that time, and one that really sticks in my mind..re "official forums" is the cesspool that I saw over there at Wow. I stopped visiting there it was so bad.
I prefer the dedicated fansites, they are usually FULL of info..and moderated in a fashion that most times things are readable and not buried under tons of garbage. If I really need information I go there, I am not one to hang around and hope that some fancy blue or red name notices my posts. But I am one to state an opinion from time to time..depending what the subject is regarding.
I have never seen anything ultimately good come out of official forums.
Then you have clearly not played many MMO's in your life time.
The vast majority of game fixes, changes and evolutions are a direct result of suggestions, complaints, bug reports and conversations on official MMO forums. EverQuest 1 was a prime example of this, with the developers trawling the forums to listen to the ideas the fans had, and the problems they were encountering, and trying to make the game into something better. Even up to Lord of the Rings and World of Warcraft, the developers of the game use the forums to find out how the community, their customers, are feeling and ensure their games are better.
Yes, these days you have trolls and flames and off topic rants. But, any good developer knows this and filters through them to find the "good stuff".
And of course, with the release of World of Warcraft, the MMO general population are no longer as internet "savy" as they once were. The majority of casual players will not know to hunt for hours for a fan forum that the developers may or may not have made their latest announcement or explained quickly whats happening with a bug, or know to post there if they need some technical assistance.
Forums should be a community building excerise, and a way for the games makers to get closer to their customers. Not having forums smacks of lack of foresight and avoiding the problems they will get.
On launch day when Jo Average goes to his local gamestore, buys the game, installs it, goes in and crashes, he will go straight to the WAR website to post his problem, see if anyone else has had the same and get an answer. When he hits a dead end, he will email them, and 1 million emails later that day from customers all reporting the same issue (as they have no way of knowing if someone else has reported it), Mythic's email will buckle and the problems will not be dealt with speedily.
Its a bad move. The only other ones to do this were Vanguard, and within 2 weeks of launch they were forced to open official forums as they just couldnt cope with the amount of mail and in game questions to GMs. Worrying.
See you have good ideas but in practice it doesn't work that way. Official forums have such a huge large noise ratio that mods can not keep up with. The reasons they can't is because they have to have "good" community relations. Meaning is someone is being an idiot they can't just ban them unless they violate a rule. If they do then the idiot runs to all the fan forums and rants about how the company sucks blah blah blah.
Thats where having fan forums are the greatest thing ever. The mods aren't getting paid, they can delete and ban whoever they want without huge customer outrage. Along with this iron fist rule they can then cut down on the noise ratio and have good discussions about things. You wonder why the best WoW forums were ElitestJerks?
You also rant about how will people find fan forums....THEY ARE ON THE WEBSITE. Look under fansites and forums on the main WAR website. Problem solved.
WAR announcements will be made on the herald which is much better then a sticky post on a forum. Technical support for Jo average will be there as well. Also have you paid attention to the WAR news network? Anything Mark Jacobs is immediately quoted on at least 5 other fansites.
There is absolutely no difference to the Devs if the forum is Official or a fansite. Log in- Post. The ONLY difference is who controls the fans. I would much rather have fans in control then a CSR who is limited in what they can do.
Official forums are too big to moderate and as such they cause a very poor community to be developed within the game. Take WoW for example.. The community on WoW is pretty pathetic, you can't go to one of the official forums on there and not see people flaming eachother,calling each other bad, ect. Don't get me wrong you will see flames and such like this on a forum like ign (the former "unofficial forums for DAOC" essentially) but they always get moderated if its for something like this. Developers can communicate directly with the players as well as allow the players to moderate themselves through home-grown communities of people that aren't moderated by the game's developers.
It's not like they won't post things like updates on the state of the game, patch notes, ect. Don't get your panties in a wad. All these will be communicated through the herald as well as things like the grab bag for DAOC and community accomplishments. (Like on DAOC they mention when people attain certain goals) Everything else, like questions directly for the developers, will be handled within a player driven environment.
let's put things on perspective here, albeit MY perspective, mwhahahahaha! The IGN Vault for DAoC was the nearest thing to a official forum DAoC had.... and it had so much amount of crap that half was enough, I cannot make comparison but forget the myth "fansite forum means no trolls" cause it does not. PROs for a Official Forum: 1) ONLY subscribers can post here, a clear advantage. it means if someone is posting he is a customer, not John Doe number 456. 2) You can have centralized informations on class guides, quests and the like. I have seen a lot of negative here about those, but the first stop, FOR ME, when I need to know something about a class is the official forum, there are usually stickies made by serious people that tell you guides, talent build or whatever else you need. Yes, the fansites can and usually have those too, but they are limited to that fansite's population. Less people in the site mean less people to take for making those guides, then again, sites like WA do offer high quality content, but those sites are not under Mythic control, WA could fold any day, the owner could get bored and just close down the site or who know what else, the information is NOT secure. 3) Server specific forums. A official forum give a clear place where people of Server X can go to hang out with fellow server people. WoW forums placed a server tag on your posts so if someone else from other servers come in, you can just ignore those if they are bad, Fansites cannot do this, anyone can freely add whatever server they want on their profile as the site is not linked to the game chars in any way. Sometimes servers will make their own separate forum, but that is left to the single person initiative, the official forums gives a board to ALL servers. 4) feedback. Oh yes, you can use fansites for feedback but there is NO GUARANTEE the feedback you are getting is from actual customers. Anyone can do a fansite account, only customers can post on the official forums. On the other hand, you might get a load of bad feedback, meaning non-constructive. However, there is nothing in a fansite structure that stops that from happening, infact with non-customers able to post with no problems, it could be just the opposite. CONs 1) Official forums tends to become bigger than any fansite forum, this attract more negative trolls and other kind of bad people. (but then again the DAoC VNBoards were quite bad too) 2) Official forums require a lot of resources for an intangible benefit. You need to have plenty of mods (and hiring volunteers like Funcom did, does not seem to work that well), dedicated servers and the like that detract from your other resources. The benefit is intangible, you will not see any tangible numbers go up or down trough this, so it may be hard to justify. Then again, most games do have a official forums, even EVE, so resources should not be an issue for Mythic, especially with EA backing. 3) policing is harder. All the people posting are Customers. They are paying X a month for the service. Arguably this could hold the Mods hand when handling out bans or the like. Fansites do not have this problem as they are usually free and as such can ban whoever they want. On the other hand, Official forums tend to have very definite rules and a very definite process of banning, appeals and the like. A fansite can ban you because you have blonde hairs. In addition, if you are banned from a fansite, you can just whip out a new hotmail email and register right back in, in an official forums, you can't do that.
Seeing all this points, it makes me think that ALL the negatives of an official forums CAN be present in a fansite forum too, ALL the good points of a fansite CAN be present in the official forums too, but not all of the good points of a official forums can be present in a fansite place. The point is the PEOPLE posting are the very same! no matter what site you are using. I would rather use an official board that has very clear rules AND have the possibility to go to a fansite for an alternative experience than not have the choice. Fact is most people will gather in one forum. It was the VN Boards for Daoc, it will be something else for WAR. the problems come from the sheer amount of people, NOT intrinsically from the official forums. IF there are official forums ,you can be sure that is gonna be the biggest of them all and if that bothers you, STILL can go to a fansite. With no official forum, one of the fansites will probably become bloated and if that happen to be your favorite fansite, you are screwed and have to go somewhere else.
Very good post. It really comes down to this sentence:
Seeing all this points, it makes me think that ALL the negatives of an official forums CAN be present in a fansite forum too, ALL the good points of a fansite CAN be present in the official forums too, but not all of the good points of a official forums can be present in a fansite place.
It's not really a game breaker for me, but I would have prefered an official forum.
I'm not even sure what you are saying. I'm currently playing Vanguard though, and its improved a lot since launch. All I can say is if you are saying Vanguard failed due to no forums, you have no clue what you are talking about. Vanguard hasn't done well because it was totally jacked at launch. That has nothing to do with forums. What's your excuse for DAOC? It was the most popular MMO for a while. Never had official forums. The forums mean nothing. Better off without them, as I said before.
(With this are you saying that DAOC would have failed with official forums?)
I said regardles of what you may think about Vanguard. That was me pointing out, to readers like you, that I was talking about forums. I never claimed a forum for a success of a game or not.
Ok you are saying it worked out for DAOC, a game released before the masshysteria reached MMO's. And using that a argument saying that not having official forums works well.
I'm using Vanguard, a game released after the masshysteria reached MMO's. And using that as an argument saying it is can be a wrong desciscion to not have official forums.
Vanguard is actually looking really nice. If WAR wasn't coming out, I would likely continue playing it. The fact is, when it was released it was done VERY poorly. The failure of Vanguard to capture significant MMO market share has nothing to do with official forums and everything to do with a poor launch and a game that clearly wasn't ready for release. Because of this, it angered many customers who paid for it, scared away other customers who were gunshy to begin with and never comitted to the sale and failed overall. I don't see how you can use this as a soapbox for why WAR needs official forums. From reading the posts above mine, it seems like most people agree that WAR is better off without them and I have yet to see any reason why they are needed.
The success of the game depends on how fun it is when it is released. This is in turn depending on how good the launch goes and if the game is as promised by the developers. Mythic has a very good record with DAOC and launch so far, and many are hoping WAR goes the same. Judging by its popularity and the many voting poles out there, it is clearly the frontrunner for gaining MMO market share when it is released. Only time will tell, but having official forums has nothing to do with it.
I'm not even sure what you are saying. I'm currently playing Vanguard though, and its improved a lot since launch. All I can say is if you are saying Vanguard failed due to no forums, you have no clue what you are talking about. Vanguard hasn't done well because it was totally jacked at launch. That has nothing to do with forums. What's your excuse for DAOC? It was the most popular MMO for a while. Never had official forums. The forums mean nothing. Better off without them, as I said before.
(With this are you saying that DAOC would have failed with official forums?)
I said regardles of what you may think about Vanguard. That was me pointing out, to readers like you, that I was talking about forums. I never claimed a forum for a success of a game or not.
Ok you are saying it worked out for DAOC, a game released before the masshysteria reached MMO's. And using that a argument saying that not having official forums works well.
I'm using Vanguard, a game released after the masshysteria reached MMO's. And using that as an argument saying it is can be a wrong desciscion to not have official forums.
Vanguard is actually looking really nice. If WAR wasn't coming out, I would likely continue playing it. The fact is, when it was released it was done VERY poorly. The failure of Vanguard to capture significant MMO market share has nothing to do with official forums and everything to do with a poor launch and a game that clearly wasn't ready for release. Because of this, it angered many customers who paid for it, scared away other customers who were gunshy to begin with and never comitted to the sale and failed overall. I don't see how you can use this as a soapbox for why WAR needs official forums. From reading the posts above mine, it seems like most people agree that WAR is better off without them and I have yet to see any reason why they are needed.
Because I did not like them, others did not like them. People liked them, and the idea, before the game was released. Speaking of the unofficial Vanguard forums that is.
A game will be flamed regardless if it has official forums or not if it "deserves" it, looking at AoC. But for me as a player that enjoys both games the official AoC forum is still usable to discuss the game, the former unofficial Vanguard forums percisted of to much noise (repeated noise).
(Also add the cumbersome in Sigil having multiple unofficial forums.)
So it boils down to if I thougth the idea with unoffficial forums works, no I don't think so. And postwow it is as far as I know only Vanguard that tried this. What did not work was the actuall comuncation on the forums in alot of occassions. I don't go to a forum to see rants, whinage people throwing a fit or whatever. A non-moderated forum don't work in my opinion, there have to be moderation. Especially postwow. A to loosely moderated forum can easily be overrun by one side, the side that makes the most ill noise.
A question here would be. How far can a nonofficial moderate a forum before people claiming them to be "working" for EA/Mythics?
(Oh, I think the unofficial forums will have moderation dependant of the success of the game.)
An official forum is ment for the game, for the community that plays (maybe even enjoys it alot) not for people throwing fits repeteadly because the game didn't fit them. And I'll promise you that there will be people who won't like WAR (not saying the amount). And as I may be repeating myself I think they are welcome to throw their fits on other forums.
The success of the game depends on how fun it is when it is released. This is in turn depending on how good the launch goes and if the game is as promised by the developers. Mythic has a very good record with DAOC and launch so far, and many are hoping WAR goes the same. Judging by its popularity and the many voting poles out there, it is clearly the frontrunner for gaining MMO market share when it is released. Only time will tell, but having official forums has nothing to do with it.
Wich is pretty strange to say as I am (or was) not talking about a games success or not. I have not said if I think WAR will be a success or not, I dont care. I will play it for my emusement only, if I don't like it I will promise you I wont throw a fit on wherever their forum may be.
Comments
In defense of the WoW forums while many want to focus on the flame fests that take place there...there is valuable information for new players that they can simply "search" for.
The official City of X boards is a shinning example of a community that has in depth guides and information about servers, news, and mechanics of the game. Also direct interaction with the devs that is easy to access on demand.
Simply put by putting the burden of centralizing the information on the fan sites they are absolving themselves of putting down the resources and weakening the voice of the consumer when something occurs (eg servers down).
Even if it is a private official board that requires a subscription ( and it can be strictly enforced) I rather have this lesser evil than have to deal with lopsided bias from a fan site. A company can at least be held accountable but a fansite? Your chances of gaining any ground in resovling any matters is slim and none (both left town by the way).
No one is asking for the wheel to be re-imagined, but the current market has changed since DAOC days and a board with dev interaction that is centralized with information is very important in selling your product.
The information for Lineage 2 improved signifiantly when they started to put information about the game on the official site instead of having to fish for it on multiple sites.
Of course those who run and support fan sites clearly like this trade off. But as I mentioned earlier it weakens us as consumers in the long run (which is what matters the most).
This is the most sensible discussion for official forums I've seen yet. You do have a point here.
ColdSun
amazing how i get issued a warning for my post to this thread...and yet they let obvious troll post fly daily....w/e
------------------
Originally posted by javac
well i'm 35 and have a PhD in science, and then 10 years experience in bioinformatics... you?
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/218865/page/8
I have never seen anything ultimately good come out of official forums.
At an operational level, the company is required to moderate the forums appropriately, which should involve paid staff if you want it done right. As the popularity of the game increases, you need to hire more moderators and you need to pay more for forum maintenance. You can bet that WoW's forum costs are astronomical when one considers the resources (manpower included) required to run them.
This means less of your fee goes to paying for useful things, like developers. I do not know about you, but I want as much of my cash going towards server upgrades, maintenance, and new content/balancing as possible.
Also, official forums become mired in filth and no one comes out with anything useful. Developers end up not getting useful feedback, players end up not being heard - it is a myth that official forums provide a direct line to the people who affect the game, as those people are not the ones sorting through the sea of threads - mods are. Basically, between the flaming, trolling, useless meme posts, whine posts, e-peen displays, and nerf posts, you get some good nuggets, but they are buried under crap.
If you feel the need to converse with fellow players and fans, there are many large communities - join one! You can still talk to thousands of fellow players, do you really need it to be hundreds of thousands?
As for customer service and community relations, the former is handled in-game by dedicated Customer Service Representatives, so forums are not the right spot, and as for community relations, go to the Herald! All of the information you need is there.
Anyway, the lack of official forums should not hurt the game, as they do not leave an unfilled void.
FFXI never had official forums and the community was the absolute best i've experience in any other mmo.
It's just a place for the trolls and the whiners to feel special because it's "official" , thus making their venom spewing more "valid" . Thank sigmar that Mythic is smart enough to not spend a dime on theses parasites.
Like FFXI , fansites have a much better atmosphere and are actually helpful. If you have any feedbacks or complaints , use the proper channels. Which are much more effective when they are not busy moderating and maintaining forums. Any official annoncements will be done thru the herald . Dev do post on fansite .
I don't see any problems.
This is a blessing.
http://revolutionwar.guildlaunch.com/
(With this are you saying that DAOC would have failed with official forums?)
I said regardles of what you may think about Vanguard. That was me pointing out, to readers like you, that I was talking about forums. I never claimed a forum for a success of a game or not.
Ok you are saying it worked out for DAOC, a game released before the masshysteria reached MMO's. And using that a argument saying that not having official forums works well.
I'm using Vanguard, a game released after the masshysteria reached MMO's. And using that as an argument saying it is can be a wrong desciscion to not have official forums.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Most "official forums" end up being a whinefest...and a perfect stage for having NERF this or that tantrums.
Fansite forums are better, and your forum account isn't attached to your game account. Which for some..is a good thing considering some of the tangents I have seen folks go off on.
I prefer to read about game information, and watch podcasts..and the occasional newsy items from game devs, not someone having a hissy fit and taking it out on the rest of us.
Cend
Then you have clearly not played many MMO's in your life time.
The vast majority of game fixes, changes and evolutions are a direct result of suggestions, complaints, bug reports and conversations on official MMO forums. EverQuest 1 was a prime example of this, with the developers trawling the forums to listen to the ideas the fans had, and the problems they were encountering, and trying to make the game into something better. Even up to Lord of the Rings and World of Warcraft, the developers of the game use the forums to find out how the community, their customers, are feeling and ensure their games are better.
Yes, these days you have trolls and flames and off topic rants. But, any good developer knows this and filters through them to find the "good stuff".
And of course, with the release of World of Warcraft, the MMO general population are no longer as internet "savy" as they once were. The majority of casual players will not know to hunt for hours for a fan forum that the developers may or may not have made their latest announcement or explained quickly whats happening with a bug, or know to post there if they need some technical assistance.
Forums should be a community building excerise, and a way for the games makers to get closer to their customers. Not having forums smacks of lack of foresight and avoiding the problems they will get.
On launch day when Jo Average goes to his local gamestore, buys the game, installs it, goes in and crashes, he will go straight to the WAR website to post his problem, see if anyone else has had the same and get an answer. When he hits a dead end, he will email them, and 1 million emails later that day from customers all reporting the same issue (as they have no way of knowing if someone else has reported it), Mythic's email will buckle and the problems will not be dealt with speedily.
Its a bad move. The only other ones to do this were Vanguard, and within 2 weeks of launch they were forced to open official forums as they just couldnt cope with the amount of mail and in game questions to GMs. Worrying.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
Then you have clearly not played many MMO's in your life time.
The vast majority of game fixes, changes and evolutions are a direct result of suggestions, complaints, bug reports and conversations on official MMO forums. EverQuest 1 was a prime example of this, with the developers trawling the forums to listen to the ideas the fans had, and the problems they were encountering, and trying to make the game into something better. Even up to Lord of the Rings and World of Warcraft, the developers of the game use the forums to find out how the community, their customers, are feeling and ensure their games are better.
Yes, these days you have trolls and flames and off topic rants. But, any good developer knows this and filters through them to find the "good stuff".
And of course, with the release of World of Warcraft, the MMO general population are no longer as internet "savy" as they once were. The majority of casual players will not know to hunt for hours for a fan forum that the developers may or may not have made their latest announcement or explained quickly whats happening with a bug, or know to post there if they need some technical assistance.
Forums should be a community building excerise, and a way for the games makers to get closer to their customers. Not having forums smacks of lack of foresight and avoiding the problems they will get.
On launch day when Jo Average goes to his local gamestore, buys the game, installs it, goes in and crashes, he will go straight to the WAR website to post his problem, see if anyone else has had the same and get an answer. When he hits a dead end, he will email them, and 1 million emails later that day from customers all reporting the same issue (as they have no way of knowing if someone else has reported it), Mythic's email will buckle and the problems will not be dealt with speedily.
Its a bad move. The only other ones to do this were Vanguard, and within 2 weeks of launch they were forced to open official forums as they just couldnt cope with the amount of mail and in game questions to GMs. Worrying.
I have played online since the last phase of EQ1 beta. The forums there at one point were shut down entirely to free posting, you had to run your comment by a moderator first in order to get it entered on the forum due to the rather large flame fests that were going on in the threads pertaining to classes that felt they were gimped in some fashion or another.
I have played many games since and seen a few official forums in that time, and one that really sticks in my mind..re "official forums" is the cesspool that I saw over there at Wow. I stopped visiting there it was so bad.
I prefer the dedicated fansites, they are usually FULL of info..and moderated in a fashion that most times things are readable and not buried under tons of garbage. If I really need information I go there, I am not one to hang around and hope that some fancy blue or red name notices my posts. But I am one to state an opinion from time to time..depending what the subject is regarding.
Cend
Then you have clearly not played many MMO's in your life time.
The vast majority of game fixes, changes and evolutions are a direct result of suggestions, complaints, bug reports and conversations on official MMO forums. EverQuest 1 was a prime example of this, with the developers trawling the forums to listen to the ideas the fans had, and the problems they were encountering, and trying to make the game into something better. Even up to Lord of the Rings and World of Warcraft, the developers of the game use the forums to find out how the community, their customers, are feeling and ensure their games are better.
Yes, these days you have trolls and flames and off topic rants. But, any good developer knows this and filters through them to find the "good stuff".
And of course, with the release of World of Warcraft, the MMO general population are no longer as internet "savy" as they once were. The majority of casual players will not know to hunt for hours for a fan forum that the developers may or may not have made their latest announcement or explained quickly whats happening with a bug, or know to post there if they need some technical assistance.
Forums should be a community building excerise, and a way for the games makers to get closer to their customers. Not having forums smacks of lack of foresight and avoiding the problems they will get.
On launch day when Jo Average goes to his local gamestore, buys the game, installs it, goes in and crashes, he will go straight to the WAR website to post his problem, see if anyone else has had the same and get an answer. When he hits a dead end, he will email them, and 1 million emails later that day from customers all reporting the same issue (as they have no way of knowing if someone else has reported it), Mythic's email will buckle and the problems will not be dealt with speedily.
Its a bad move. The only other ones to do this were Vanguard, and within 2 weeks of launch they were forced to open official forums as they just couldnt cope with the amount of mail and in game questions to GMs. Worrying.
See you have good ideas but in practice it doesn't work that way. Official forums have such a huge large noise ratio that mods can not keep up with. The reasons they can't is because they have to have "good" community relations. Meaning is someone is being an idiot they can't just ban them unless they violate a rule. If they do then the idiot runs to all the fan forums and rants about how the company sucks blah blah blah.
Thats where having fan forums are the greatest thing ever. The mods aren't getting paid, they can delete and ban whoever they want without huge customer outrage. Along with this iron fist rule they can then cut down on the noise ratio and have good discussions about things. You wonder why the best WoW forums were ElitestJerks?
You also rant about how will people find fan forums....THEY ARE ON THE WEBSITE. Look under fansites and forums on the main WAR website. Problem solved.
WAR announcements will be made on the herald which is much better then a sticky post on a forum. Technical support for Jo average will be there as well. Also have you paid attention to the WAR news network? Anything Mark Jacobs is immediately quoted on at least 5 other fansites.
There is absolutely no difference to the Devs if the forum is Official or a fansite. Log in- Post. The ONLY difference is who controls the fans. I would much rather have fans in control then a CSR who is limited in what they can do.
Official forums are too big to moderate and as such they cause a very poor community to be developed within the game. Take WoW for example.. The community on WoW is pretty pathetic, you can't go to one of the official forums on there and not see people flaming eachother,calling each other bad, ect. Don't get me wrong you will see flames and such like this on a forum like ign (the former "unofficial forums for DAOC" essentially) but they always get moderated if its for something like this. Developers can communicate directly with the players as well as allow the players to moderate themselves through home-grown communities of people that aren't moderated by the game's developers.
It's not like they won't post things like updates on the state of the game, patch notes, ect. Don't get your panties in a wad. All these will be communicated through the herald as well as things like the grab bag for DAOC and community accomplishments. (Like on DAOC they mention when people attain certain goals) Everything else, like questions directly for the developers, will be handled within a player driven environment.
Very good post. It really comes down to this sentence:
Seeing all this points, it makes me think that ALL the negatives of an official forums CAN be present in a fansite forum too, ALL the good points of a fansite CAN be present in the official forums too, but not all of the good points of a official forums can be present in a fansite place.
It's not really a game breaker for me, but I would have prefered an official forum.
I have seen more dev interaction on warhammeralliance.com than I have on the official AoC site.
I have seen better moderation on warhammeralliance.com than on the official AoC site, leading to a more mature and productive arena for discussion.
And with WAR I have choices in the forums I can go to. So we have better moderation, more dev interaction, and more choices, sounds good to me.
Ask Blizzard again if they would allow another forum.
I bet you they wouldnt do it in the first place if they could turn back the clock.
(With this are you saying that DAOC would have failed with official forums?)
I said regardles of what you may think about Vanguard. That was me pointing out, to readers like you, that I was talking about forums. I never claimed a forum for a success of a game or not.
Ok you are saying it worked out for DAOC, a game released before the masshysteria reached MMO's. And using that a argument saying that not having official forums works well.
I'm using Vanguard, a game released after the masshysteria reached MMO's. And using that as an argument saying it is can be a wrong desciscion to not have official forums.
Vanguard is actually looking really nice. If WAR wasn't coming out, I would likely continue playing it. The fact is, when it was released it was done VERY poorly. The failure of Vanguard to capture significant MMO market share has nothing to do with official forums and everything to do with a poor launch and a game that clearly wasn't ready for release. Because of this, it angered many customers who paid for it, scared away other customers who were gunshy to begin with and never comitted to the sale and failed overall. I don't see how you can use this as a soapbox for why WAR needs official forums. From reading the posts above mine, it seems like most people agree that WAR is better off without them and I have yet to see any reason why they are needed.
The success of the game depends on how fun it is when it is released. This is in turn depending on how good the launch goes and if the game is as promised by the developers. Mythic has a very good record with DAOC and launch so far, and many are hoping WAR goes the same. Judging by its popularity and the many voting poles out there, it is clearly the frontrunner for gaining MMO market share when it is released. Only time will tell, but having official forums has nothing to do with it.
ColdSun
(With this are you saying that DAOC would have failed with official forums?)
I said regardles of what you may think about Vanguard. That was me pointing out, to readers like you, that I was talking about forums. I never claimed a forum for a success of a game or not.
Ok you are saying it worked out for DAOC, a game released before the masshysteria reached MMO's. And using that a argument saying that not having official forums works well.
I'm using Vanguard, a game released after the masshysteria reached MMO's. And using that as an argument saying it is can be a wrong desciscion to not have official forums.
Vanguard is actually looking really nice. If WAR wasn't coming out, I would likely continue playing it. The fact is, when it was released it was done VERY poorly. The failure of Vanguard to capture significant MMO market share has nothing to do with official forums and everything to do with a poor launch and a game that clearly wasn't ready for release. Because of this, it angered many customers who paid for it, scared away other customers who were gunshy to begin with and never comitted to the sale and failed overall. I don't see how you can use this as a soapbox for why WAR needs official forums. From reading the posts above mine, it seems like most people agree that WAR is better off without them and I have yet to see any reason why they are needed.
Because I did not like them, others did not like them. People liked them, and the idea, before the game was released. Speaking of the unofficial Vanguard forums that is.
A game will be flamed regardless if it has official forums or not if it "deserves" it, looking at AoC. But for me as a player that enjoys both games the official AoC forum is still usable to discuss the game, the former unofficial Vanguard forums percisted of to much noise (repeated noise).
(Also add the cumbersome in Sigil having multiple unofficial forums.)
So it boils down to if I thougth the idea with unoffficial forums works, no I don't think so. And postwow it is as far as I know only Vanguard that tried this. What did not work was the actuall comuncation on the forums in alot of occassions. I don't go to a forum to see rants, whinage people throwing a fit or whatever. A non-moderated forum don't work in my opinion, there have to be moderation. Especially postwow. A to loosely moderated forum can easily be overrun by one side, the side that makes the most ill noise.
A question here would be. How far can a nonofficial moderate a forum before people claiming them to be "working" for EA/Mythics?
(Oh, I think the unofficial forums will have moderation dependant of the success of the game.)
An official forum is ment for the game, for the community that plays (maybe even enjoys it alot) not for people throwing fits repeteadly because the game didn't fit them. And I'll promise you that there will be people who won't like WAR (not saying the amount). And as I may be repeating myself I think they are welcome to throw their fits on other forums.
The success of the game depends on how fun it is when it is released. This is in turn depending on how good the launch goes and if the game is as promised by the developers. Mythic has a very good record with DAOC and launch so far, and many are hoping WAR goes the same. Judging by its popularity and the many voting poles out there, it is clearly the frontrunner for gaining MMO market share when it is released. Only time will tell, but having official forums has nothing to do with it.
Wich is pretty strange to say as I am (or was) not talking about a games success or not. I have not said if I think WAR will be a success or not, I dont care. I will play it for my emusement only, if I don't like it I will promise you I wont throw a fit on wherever their forum may be.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"