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Am I the only one who thinks it is really sad
yugohugo
Member Posts: 3
that so many folks here do nothing but bash the game? I mean I get it, we all get it....you hate AoC. You were lied too, mislead, kicked in the head etc.....get over it, or at least move on already.
Why are you wasting your time bashing on a game you dislike so much? I would think that you would be playing something you do like, but daily threads of hate continue. Someone starts a why I love AoC and some whiner has to start a why I hate AoC thread. Why? Are you that bored? Can't you just let us enjoy our forum and our game. As I said before we get it, you hate AoC. We do not.
I like AoC and therefore I check the forums daily for info. This is the first time I have posted because I rather spend my time playing. I find the game very fun and on my server (Tyrn) there are a good amount of folks playing, I know because they keep ganking me. This game is so far from being dead that I find comments about that to be silly beyond belief. Shows a real lack of business sense from those making them.
Keep making your comments about the game, that is what these forums are for I guess. Just know you are really starting to sound damn silly these days. Those who post positive things about the game do so because they have a active interest in the game. That makes sense, those having no interest in the game spending so much time bashing it does not.
Rant over.....I am off to play some AoC.
Comments
YogoHugo, it's not that bad, when I look on the WAR forum it sometimes look much worse over there. There's a lot of players here that have good negative comments, even though they all have this habit of taking this professorial tone and write loooong essays where they try to analyse the game to death. Anyway, it's somewhat funny and worth the read. Also not to forget a very important principle, everybody are entiteled to their own opinion.
Where I think your post and opinions are applicable though are all those cases when a posting profile posts like 30 extremely disturbing and negative rant posts in less than 12 hours. Many of these posts describe how they are going to burn FC devs, shot them and other people that like the game. These posts are total junk and very sad in fact, I have myself reported a lot of these posts. What's even more shocking though is that a lot of the time the MMORPG moderators wount moderate those posts, at least not till the troll have been active for more than 24hours or +30 flame posts. First I did not understand that, but I have developed a conspiracy theory myself against MMORPG. Don't forget MMORPG is also business in form of advertising. MMORPG posts trafic numbers and number of posts pr day to the bigger MMO developers. We all know that more traffic and more posts and members will mean more $$ in the bank for MMORPG. MMORPG makes money on heated discussion and I think this might be the answers for why they are not moderating those obvious trolls a bit harder. Sin or any of the other moderators, if you have a comment on this, that would be worth gold.
This is at least what I have come to. This was a pretty professorial post by myself in fact.
It's about coming to the forums and reinforcing ones opinion whether good or bad and having the ability to do so on a public forum. I am all for freedom of speech. However, it says something about the type of character that has a motive for purposefully posting their thoughts over an over. (eg. This game will fail because of stock) etc etc. If you read here long enough as you do say already, it's easy to pick out those who have ulterior motives for the sake of it and those generally with a point to put across. It's all about how you write it in relation to your own experiences with the game.
If you notice the rules of conduct are aimed more so at people with a negative agenda than a positive one imo.
"Our Goal
We have not set out to limit people's freedom of speech or discussion. These rules simply strive to keep the boards on topic, productive and inclusive for all members. Accidental violation of minor rules will not result in strict penalties. We want our users to enjoy our boards and feel that these rules will ensure that everyone can equally."
There is a fine line in some discussion as whether its not productive or not, and that is what's annoying.
Just a quick item here YugoHugo, specific to your question "Can't you just let us enjoy our forum and our game".
That's the heart of it, right there. It's not your forum any more than it belong to people with a negative view of the game. It's everyone's forum, with everyone's opinion and insights up for discussion.
There are extremists on either side that I don't care much for, but I can choose to not read their posts or be involved in their discussion. The people who do so; do it with an understanding that no good will come out of talking to someone who has already made up their mind (pro or anti).
Ugly, intelligent, thoughftul or crass;
this is the community we share and choose to be a part of. As long as we all abide by the RoC, we're free to discuss our views until we're blue in the face. I don't judge either extreme, I just come here for the occassional post that catches my interest and the people I have met here and talk to via posts or PMs throughout the week.
I wouldn't change it for the world.
2 good common sense replies, thank you. The personnel attacks against Funcom and it's folks are not only uncalled for but childish and show the mental level of the folks making them.
I am very ecited about the future of the game and where it is headed.
BTW good comparison to the WAR forums. I played WAR for about 2 weeks and did not really care for it. Well made game but it did not draw me in, I missed AoC (which I quit playing to spend time with WAR) and came back. I just purchased 2 x 60 day game time cards and plan on spending alot of time with the game.
Next thing coming I really am looking forward to is Stargate Worlds and Star Trek Online. Time to head out into space for some MMORPG goodness.
OK now 3 smart replies, coming faster than I can type!
i am not saying they can not post but why bother if they hate it so much? Just seems strange to me to harbor that much rage towards a game(,a pretty darn good one at that.
And I have no doubt MMORPG.com is loving the traffic, it all (positive or negative) works in their favor.
YogoHugo, it's not that bad, when I look on the WAR forum it sometimes look much worse over there. There's a lot of players here that have good negative comments, even though they all have this habit of taking this professorial tone and write loooong essays where they try to analyse the game to death. Anyway, it's somewhat funny and worth the read. Also not to forget a very important principle, everybody are entiteled to their own opinion.
Where I think your post and opinions are applicable though are all those cases when a posting profile posts like 30 extremely disturbing and negative rant posts in less than 12 hours. Many of these posts describe how they are going to burn FC devs, shot them and other people that like the game. These posts are total junk and very sad in fact, I have myself reported a lot of these posts. What's even more shocking though is that a lot of the time the MMORPG moderators wount moderate those posts, at least not till the troll have been active for more than 24hours or +30 flame posts. First I did not understand that, but I have developed a conspiracy theory myself against MMORPG. Don't forget MMORPG is also business in form of advertising. MMORPG posts trafic numbers and number of posts pr day to the bigger MMO developers. We all know that more traffic and more posts and members will mean more $$ in the bank for MMORPG. MMORPG makes money on heated discussion and I think this might be the answers for why they are not moderating those obvious trolls a bit harder. Sin or any of the other moderators, if you have a comment on this, that would be worth gold.
This is at least what I have come to. This was a pretty professorial post by myself in fact.
I'm not a moderator if that reference was for me.
As to Jon, he's been very clear on his views regarding people being able to express their opinions on these forums, as long as they adhere to the RoC. To insinuate that he, the staff or volunteers actively cherry pick threads to moderate in order to "stir up" traffic is simply uncalled for.
I think it's human nature to talk about negative experiences, and with the emegence of fast and accessible communication via the internet; it became THE medium to do it.
I work in an industry that bucks the "tell 10-15 people" you had a bad experience norm. In my industry, people tell roughly 90-100 people they were not pleased with their experience; due to how they communicate their expectations prior to their experience. Our latest datamining also showed that 95% of those people never returned, but instead went on to one of several different partners and sister companies. We got a hold of those people and surveyed them and surprisingly 96% said they would have come back if someone had just addressed their issue personally. (Ie, just talked to them and tried to resolve).
Needless to say we spend a lot of money and resources on this kind of thing, and keeping our existing customer base and expanding through positive reviews and word of mouth.
With that said, MMORPG's typically don't have a fluid mechanism in place for that type of customer attention. They have exit surveys on cancellation, win back campaigns and trials. In the interim, they can opt to listen to player concerns and feedback and fine tune the game to best address both their goals and their customer experience.
That however leaves a large amount of people disfranchised without many outlets to express that, and as a result they go to channels that allow them to do that (blogs, forums, etc).
I see it as a positive thing however. If you look past the vitriol, you can often find the issue behind the emotional/non constructive aspects of the post and see just how deeply that issue impacted that customer. That's gold to the right eyes, as there is no other medium to capture that information once the customer has left.
I'd be concerned if no one posted at all or if it was all one sided personally. When that happens, you either have a steady and stable community or the end of your product life cycle.
I think it's childish to bash any game.
people have different likes and dislikes, but 'This game is the worst ever and is sucks so bad you should never play it. I hate [Insert Game Here]' is not appropriate or mature.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
I like to make observations and enjoy sharing them.
I have watched a number of MMOs fall flat on thier butts now for various reasons, bad design, poor performance, devs with no focus or plan other than sell a lot of boxes. Dark and Light, Mourning, Horizons, Vanguard and now AoC are all good examples. All of them had 1 thing in common and that was posters who hyped the game sky high, then when it released with only half the features and/or terrible performance wondered why everyone bashed the game and was pissed off. You would think developers would learn by now, but a lot of them keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. I would have figured Funcom woyuld have learned from the mistakes they made with AO, but noooooooooo
I miss DAoC
c'mon dude, bashing is fun, we won't bother you in game any more, now can you please stop bothering us with this moral bullshit.
Cheers!
I have read several of mmorpg.com's subforums for a while and I have NEVER seen a poster threatening developers or players that like a game with physical violence - Let alone death threats.
I challenge you to prove your accusation - Unless proven I will consider it a blatant lie with the intent to damage the mmorpg.com community!
I would have reported your post (would have been a first for me) but it looks like someone already beat me to it.
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
YogoHugo, it's not that bad, when I look on the WAR forum it sometimes look much worse over there. There's a lot of players here that have good negative comments, even though they all have this habit of taking this professorial tone and write loooong essays where they try to analyse the game to death. Anyway, it's somewhat funny and worth the read. Also not to forget a very important principle, everybody are entiteled to their own opinion.
Where I think your post and opinions are applicable though are all those cases when a posting profile posts like 30 extremely disturbing and negative rant posts in less than 12 hours. Many of these posts describe how they are going to burn FC devs, shot them and other people that like the game. These posts are total junk and very sad in fact, I have myself reported a lot of these posts. What's even more shocking though is that a lot of the time the MMORPG moderators wount moderate those posts, at least not till the troll have been active for more than 24hours or +30 flame posts. First I did not understand that, but I have developed a conspiracy theory myself against MMORPG. Don't forget MMORPG is also business in form of advertising. MMORPG posts trafic numbers and number of posts pr day to the bigger MMO developers. We all know that more traffic and more posts and members will mean more $$ in the bank for MMORPG. MMORPG makes money on heated discussion and I think this might be the answers for why they are not moderating those obvious trolls a bit harder. Sin or any of the other moderators, if you have a comment on this, that would be worth gold.
This is at least what I have come to. This was a pretty professorial post by myself in fact.
I'm not a moderator if that reference was for me.
As to Jon, he's been very clear on his views regarding people being able to express their opinions on these forums, as long as they adhere to the RoC. To insinuate that he, the staff or volunteers actively cherry pick threads to moderate in order to "stir up" traffic is simply uncalled for.
Let me remind you that to type out I wany XYZ to burn or to die or whatever is not an opinion, it is bullshit. There is absolutely no reasons for not moderating and Warning posters publishing nonsens like that ASAP, unless of course my theory is true to some extent.
As Avery put it, it requires little experience in this forum to spot one of those abusive posters I am talking about. It is even easier to do so when these individuals spew out like 20 posts an hour. I simply do not buy that the moderators can not act fast enough on reported posts from the AoC forum. First of all AoC and WAR forums are by fare the most active forums. It's not exactly like the Lineage II or the Knights Online forums are stealling all the moderators attention. Also as I said before, there are times when I have reported absolutely outrageous stuff (that hardly needs to be voted over) and it isn't moderated before perhaps 24 hours later when posting tempo starts to cool down. In the two three weeks I have been here as active poster I see this happen so consistently that I in fact think my hypothesis (professor talk again) is not too fare off. Moderator comments on this would be very reassuring.
MMORPG people, I hope you understand that by taking the trolling highway to high activity, you not only repell real game debaters from your forum, you also lower the quality of your service as well as your reputation is compromised. Belive me it is already. MMORPG has a very bad name in the AoC official forums. I am not sure how this will affect MMORPG financially (possibly not), but if the goal in general is to appear as a serious participant in the gaming industry you must strive for something better. By serious I mean a forum used to discuss important and less important stuff (like Kaeira) related to games, as oppose to nonsens revolving more about hate than the game.
I have read several of mmorpg.com's subforums for a while and I have NEVER seen a poster threatening developers or players that like a game with physical violence - Let alone death threats.
I challenge you to prove your accusation - Unless proven I will consider it a blatant lie with the intent to damage the mmorpg.com community!
I would have reported your post (would have been a first for me) but it looks like someone already beat me to it.
Come on, you have been in this forum longer than me, don't tell me that you haven't read posts where people describe how they want to bring doom and pain to various members of the FC developer team. If not I think you have to raise your awareness level. Anyway, as I said, the worst comments normally get moderated, but not before it thoroughly has served it's inflamatory purpose.
I will make a special copy past PM for you next time a troll drops by to take a crap in our forum. For some reason I am quite sure you will see that PM already tomorrow.
So there I was, walking through the streets on a cold october day. Hated this town. Nothing but a breeding ground for rats and vermin, and not the small and furry kind, either. A group of punks in tattered clothes beating up on a guy in a cheap business suit on the other side of the street. "Got any words to say about darkfall now?!" A part of me wanted to interject. I had the tools, could have dropped them all in a second. Pity.
This place had gone to hell lately. He said it's good for business. Seedy kind of business, but I guess you can't argue with results. Whatever, made no difference to me. I ducked into a small alley. Man in a trenchcoat there. Always the same smell, that guy. Cheap booze and smokes coupled with traces of perfume from whatever two-dollar whore he'd spent the night with.
"Things are getting worse, Kunou."
He turned to me. Got a good glimpse of his eyes. Little more dead than usual.
"Bad choice last night?"
He smirked a bit and shook his head.
"Too expensive. Not really worth it. I'll have to try the Age of Conan girls next time."
"Careful," I responded, "You know what they say about their advertised features not being quite uh.."
He laughed out loud.
"Give me a little credit, I know what I'm doing."
A gunshot struck out from somewhere in the distance. Sound of scattering groups, a few sirens. I raised a brow and sighed, turning towards him.
"I guess we still have to keep up appearances, don't we."
He frowned at me.
"If you don't like the way we do business in this town, you can always leave. We get paid to turn a blind eye. The only ones who lose out are the useless fans. I'm more concerned about a good smoke at the end of the day than making a few measly plebs happy. And don't give me that look. You're exactly the same. You wouldn't have agreed to this otherwise."
Bit the corner of my mouth. Didn't like it, but, yeah, he was right.
"Whatever. Where's my money?"
He reached into his coat and pulled out a wad of bills. Handed them to me. Flicked through it. Usual amount. Hoped I'd get more for stirring up those Warhammer boys, but I guess I lost points for cleaning up that drunken brawl on NGE street.
"I think our business is done here, Mr. Pellen. Have a good evening."
I slipped the money into my coat and wandered out the alley. Looking up into the sky. Overcast. Grey. Drop of water hit the ground next to me. Rain. I buttoned up my coat and wandered off back to the staff forums. Maybe one of the guys will feel like getting a drink.
Good call Mr. Pellen - Well played!
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
So there I was, walking through the streets on a cold october day. Hated this town. Nothing but a breeding ground for rats and vermin, and not the small and furry kind, either. A group of punks in tattered clothes beating up on a guy in a cheap business suit on the other side of the street. "Got any words to say about darkfall now?!" A part of me wanted to interject. I had the tools, could have dropped them all in a second. Pity.
This place had gone to hell lately. He said it's good for business. Seedy kind of business, but I guess you can't argue with results. Whatever, made no difference to me. I ducked into a small alley. Man in a trenchcoat there. Always the same smell, that guy. Cheap booze and smokes coupled with traces of perfume from whatever two-dollar whore he'd spent the night with.
"Things are getting worse, Kunou."
He turned to me. Got a good glimpse of his eyes. Little more dead than usual.
"Bad choice last night?"
He smirked a bit and shook his head.
"Too expensive. Not really worth it. I'll have to try the Age of Conan girls next time."
"Careful," I responded, "You know what they say about their advertised features not being quite uh.."
He laughed out loud.
"Give me a little credit, I know what I'm doing."
A gunshot struck out from somewhere in the distance. Sound of scattering groups, a few sirens. I raised a brow and sighed, turning towards him.
"I guess we still have to keep up appearances, don't we."
He frowned at me.
"If you don't like the way we do business in this town, you can always leave. We get paid to turn a blind eye. The only ones who lose out are the useless fans. I'm more concerned about a good smoke at the end of the day than making a few measly plebs happy. And don't give me that look. You're exactly the same. You wouldn't have agreed to this otherwise."
Bit the corner of my mouth. Didn't like it, but, yeah, he was right.
"Whatever. Where's my money?"
He reached into his coat and pulled out a wad of bills. Handed them to me. Flicked through it. Usual amount. Hoped I'd get more for stirring up those Warhammer boys, but I guess I lost points for cleaning up that drunken brawl on NGE street.
"I think our business is done here, Mr. Pellen. Have a good evening."
I slipped the money into my coat and wandered out the alley. Looking up into the sky. Overcast. Grey. Drop of water hit the ground next to me. Rain. I buttoned up my coat and wandered off back to the staff forums. Maybe one of the guys will feel like getting a drink.
If your post is supposed to explain why really abusive hate posts are not moderated in a timely fashion, I have to tell you that it doesn't. Your message rather tells me that you could absolutely not care less.
Good Night.
Disclaimer: I'm a moderator with a mouth too big for his own good, please don't take anything I say as representative of the whole staff.
I was concerned something like this might happen, but yeah, you're absolutely right; It doesn't actually answer anything. I just find it vaguely amusing when people suggest that the staff here are a bunch of paid shills because it paints such a romantic image of crime and treachery.
As for why posts go unmoderated.. that depends a lot on the post. Borderline stuff often gets through because we don't want people to feel like they can't say anything negative without being banned. Some stuff simply doesn't get reported. Some moderators might be slightly more lenient or stiff than others. There are very few hard and fast rules here; Everything is extremely subjective. Also, remember that some stuff will fall through the cracks. It just happens. We have a community manager who oversees all this stuff: community@mmorpg.com is how to get through to Kunou. If something falls through, he's the guy to talk to.
Also, something you said stood out to me: You mentioned "hate posts". If you're talking about personal attacks, that's flaming, and that usually gets dealt with pretty quickly if it's explicit. Now if you mean "hate related posts", I should note that the "hate related content" rule applies to things like sexism or racism or other such things. Hate related content has nothing to do with a person posting that they really hate a game. That's acceptable. If you couldn't say bad things about a game, then the forums would get pretty stale pretty fast.
As for "not caring less"..
On a personal level, I don't care too much about what people think of me. I mean, I do, but I realize that some people are going to look at me (or the staff, or other moderators, or CEOs of various companies) and think that I'm a crooked bastard who's only interested in himself no matter what I do or say. It's not true of course, but some people are still going to believe that it is. And if they do? So be it. Being called a crook doesn't make you one, and it just comes with the territory.
But! In my comments I've committed a horrible sin: TOPIC HIJACKING. So with THAT said, let's see if I can say something in regards to the original post before things get any further off track.
-----------------------------
People like expressing hatred of a game. I couldn't really tell you why, but I have my theories. Maybe they like the game but want it to change? Maybe they feel that it's a lousy product and they want to deter other people from buying it in the hope that it'll discourage other companies from performing shoddy practices? Maybe they just feel like letting off some steam? Maybe they're dedicated players who want a place to complain?
I often complained about a game I used to play. It was the only one I did, and I complained about it tons. It really was a bad game, and I stand by that. I still enjoyed playing it, and I played it for several years in spite of its flaws, but if you walked up to me and asked me to tell you all the things wrong with this game, I'd write you book rivaling the length of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. My old guild mates would testify to that.
So I guess what I'm saying is.. why wouldn't people complain? It's fun!
Not sure what started this thread. I have not seen a thread lately bashing the hell out of AOC like it was a month ago.
Disclaimer: I'm a moderator with a mouth too big for his own good, please don't take anything I say as representative of the whole staff.
I was concerned something like this might happen, but yeah, you're absolutely right; It doesn't actually answer anything. I just find it vaguely amusing when people suggest that the staff here are a bunch of paid shills because it paints such a romantic image of crime and treachery.
As for why posts go unmoderated.. that depends a lot on the post. Borderline stuff often gets through because we don't want people to feel like they can't say anything negative without being banned. Some stuff simply doesn't get reported. Some moderators might be slightly more lenient or stiff than others. There are very few hard and fast rules here; Everything is extremely subjective. Also, remember that some stuff will fall through the cracks. It just happens. We have a community manager who oversees all this stuff: community@mmorpg.com is how to get through to Kunou. If something falls through, he's the guy to talk to.
Also, something you said stood out to me: You mentioned "hate posts". If you're talking about personal attacks, that's flaming, and that usually gets dealt with pretty quickly if it's explicit. Now if you mean "hate related posts", I should note that the "hate related content" rule applies to things like sexism or racism or other such things. Hate related content has nothing to do with a person posting that they really hate a game. That's acceptable. If you couldn't say bad things about a game, then the forums would get pretty stale pretty fast.
As for "not caring less"..
On a personal level, I don't care too much about what people think of me. I mean, I do, but I realize that some people are going to look at me (or the staff, or other moderators, or CEOs of various companies) and think that I'm a crooked bastard who's only interested in himself no matter what I do or say. It's not true of course, but some people are still going to believe that it is. And if they do? So be it. Being called a crook doesn't make you one, and it just comes with the territory.
But! In my comments I've committed a horrible sin: TOPIC HIJACKING. So with THAT said, let's see if I can say something in regards to the original post before things get any further off track.
-----------------------------
People like expressing hatred of a game. I couldn't really tell you why, but I have my theories. Maybe they like the game but want it to change? Maybe they feel that it's a lousy product and they want to deter other people from buying it in the hope that it'll discourage other companies from performing shoddy practices? Maybe they just feel like letting off some steam? Maybe they're dedicated players who want a place to complain?
I often complained about a game I used to play. It was the only one I did, and I complained about it tons. It really was a bad game, and I stand by that. I still enjoyed playing it, and I played it for several years in spite of its flaws, but if you walked up to me and asked me to tell you all the things wrong with this game, I'd write you book rivaling the length of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. My old guild mates would testify to that.
So I guess what I'm saying is.. why wouldn't people complain? It's fun!
Thanks for taking the time to step and discuss this topic VPellen, it's a appreciated.
P.S. Your gumshoe style post was hilarous, kudos.
Personally I stoped playing because there is very little to do at endgame, populations were too low to have fun, an alts are unappealing in this game, however many of my guild continued to play and AoC had alot of potential so I wanted to continue to follow the game so I'd always be informed and could return at a later date if the game improved enough to make it appealing.
So I read here silently untill I realised just how much lies and misinformation was coming from the pro AoC crowd especially regarding things like populations. So being someone who enjoys a debate I've tried to even things up and counter those people who are trying to mislead people into coming back or into buying the game.
Yeah it's like they they disappear or something. Like yesterday. First it was there, and then.. it was gone. Strange.
Death of the lying thief never looked so sexy!!!
Here is an interesting article about word-of-mouth :
marketreporting.blogspot.com/2008/08/word-of-mouth-marketing-friend-or-enemy.html
Basically it says:
There is a saying in marketing: "happy customer tells five people, an unhappy customer tells 100". With todays technology, unhappy customer can tell thousands, maybe even millions. That's why word of mouth is so important in the world of MMO's.
When you see people complain here every day, that is perfectly normal. They had been waiting for AoC for years and after seeing it sucks, they are just venting their anger. Don't blame them, blame FC dor making a subpar product.
What is worrying is some of these people here praising FC and AoC every day, saying it's best game ever and telling people to buy it. This is NOT normal. When people like a game they don't go on a crusade to tell everyone how great the game is. They just play it. These people have some kind of angle and I wouldn't trust them one bit. What the angle is, I don't know, but it's not normal human behavior.
I played the beta version which attempted to kill my computer and have been trying to find a buddy key since so I can try the game out again. Even with all its bad publicity.
"Life is not judged by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
I dont play anymore, I shook the hook free. Im not going to bash the game. I think the game could be alot better then it is. I did have fun when I played, I do miss the combat system. I find myself now when playing other MMOS trying to fight like I did in AOC...