Wow this thread is funny. Vanguard had said they wouldnt have any official forums, and people bitched left and right and cancelled pre-orders and flamed for months. War does it, and its okay? Ha the irony.
Wow this thread is funny. Vanguard had said they wouldnt have any official forums, and people bitched left and right and cancelled pre-orders and flamed for months. War does it, and its okay? Ha the irony.
Look again. People may not be posting complaints, but they are voting.
No Offical Forums , Good or bad?
Good thing.
18.5%
Bad thing.
44.4%
No forums, no play.
12.3%
I dont care.
24.7%
Based on 243 votes.
"Don't corpse-camp that idea. Its never gonna rez" Bladezz (The Guild)
I have long held the opinion that forums are one of the worst things to hit the computer game market. About the only time I think forums are a good thing are during a beta. Once that is done, abolish them. Live forums are filled with morons who think they know better than everyone else.
I'll be the first to admit that there is the odd good idea that comes out in a forum. But more time than not people post ideas without considering the domino consequences their 'good idea' would have on other parts of the game. Why should game companies devote resources to an official forum when other people will create fan forums that will serve the same job?
The only time I visit official forums is to get a good laugh at what gets posted. The WoW forums are a great example of why official forums are a waste of virtual space.
Down with official forums - up with fan forums.
They do need to make sure there is a solid pipeline for dealing with technical problems but forums were never really a good way to do this anyway. Too much noise, not enough meat in them.
There are more than enough forums out there where people can discuss things - or rather, flame, whine, cry, rack down etc. - you know the drill.
Lack of support? Yea well, as long as they have good in game or website support, there is really no need for a forum is there?
There is not a single thing a forum could do, that could not be done inside the game or via website info. It's too much work to moderate a forum of the size it would be and 75% of the people you will see there, are forum lovers who spend 30% of their time in the game and the other 70% on the boards racking down on the little issues of the game because they are bad players and just died to a level 5 mob for the 10th time.
Wow this thread is funny. Vanguard had said they wouldnt have any official forums, and people bitched left and right and cancelled pre-orders and flamed for months. War does it, and its okay? Ha the irony.
Probably because Mythic didn't have official forums for DAoC and it worked great. They still have ways to petition problems, and technical support.
Their petitioning process seems to get around having the "Nerf this, Nerf that" type junk cluttering up important stuff.
--------------------------------------------- I live to fight, and fight to live.
Sorry, this is 2007, and with game budgets exceeding 30-60 Million Dollars, there should be a forum. I can understand back in DAOC's day most games didn't have official forums. Did we not learn anything from Vanguard? Making your players have to go searching the net for information is lazy and is discouraging to potential customers. Hell, even SoE knew the second they took over VG they opened a real forum, and the players applauded it.
From my own personal experience, whenever I am entertaining the idea of signing up for any MMO, they very first place I go is that games official forums to see what has been going on. Will there be crying on the forums? Sure. But as a developer, you should have thick enough skin to be able to have a discussion with your customers, which can not be done through polls. Stand by your product and talk about player concerns in a centralized location. Brad McQuaid was always hiding in a sea of "Fansites". I use that erm lightly because it was later revealed that even though they had no direct relation to Sigil, they were still forcing the hands of the sites moderators to ban and mod negativity.
What kind of community manager is it that tries to justify not having a real community? If you aren't confident enough in your product to answer to your customers and respond to their concerns, then you should not be in the industry.
No need for official forums. Stuff gets blown out of proportion, mob mentality takes over, and very little "productive" communication. Information will be dispersed via the WAR Herald. Dev's will get feedback via submissions. All without the presence of that ever skewing mob mentality thing.
"My class needs a buff!"
"That class is way to powerful!"
"Ya, what they said! We Archers must unite! Power to the players!"
"PWNT!"
"First"
"OMGWTFBBQ"
Oh darn... look at what we may miss out on. Official forums have turned into a playground for kids in some MMO's it seems. No need for these official forums. More cons than pros IMO.
"...and with that cryptic comment, I'm off to bed!"
Most official Forums are flame infested bogs full of stupid complaints, no matter how good the game is. That or they are totally scrutinized by powerhungry moderators where anything negative will get deleted. So no I wont miss them.
Well said!
I won't miss them either. Every time I have played a game with official forums I avoid using them anyway. Too many people bitching! If you want to chat and hang out, DO IT IN GAME! Thats what you are paying for anyway. If you just wanna be a dick and post crap just so people will argue with you... wel... thats what mmorpg.com is for.
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self. --Aristotle
What's with all the thread necromancy lately? Geez man.
Mythic has said they will not run official forums. End of story. How productive are the WoW forums? How many of the 9 million players actually use those forums? Mythic plans to use log in surveys, feedback forms, and other types of player feedback. Those have served them very well with DAoC over the past 6 years. Only Mythic is in the place to say whether or not official forums are worth the price. And that price is never just a monetary one.
I've always despised official forums. Going back as far as Everquest, they've been nothing more than rotting cesspools of hate and rarely ever does anything truly productive come out of them. Between the Flame wars, the endless cries for nerf because someone doesn't know how to play their class, the whining, and any number of other non-productive posting formats, it just isn't worth it. I stopped using the EQ forums about a month and a half before they closed it down. I didn't need any official forums for DAoC. I never used the Anarchy Online official forums. The only time I use the CoX official forums is when I am a part of their beta testing system for upcoming content. I don't use the Eve Online forums, can't stand the crap that goes on there. I only used the SWG official forums before the game was released, never used them once I started playing. I rarely ever went to the WoW forums. Couldn't stand the community. The information I got there was never worth the price of dealing with all the crap. I started using much more helpful player run communities.
I don't see official forums as necessary. It can be a negative as much as a positive and usually just turns into whining flamefest with everyone screaming nerf them because I can't beat them.
Maybe while they are looking at polls and surveys, they should take note of the one here that says on 20% of the players think not having forums is a good idea?
Maybe while they are looking at polls and surveys, they should take note of the one here that says on 20% of the players think not having forums is a good idea?
20% of 272 votes. Yeah, let's get into statistics then. Mythic had 300,000 people register for the beta since the application came out . That gives this poll a whopping 0.091% of the total number of people that signed for just the beta. That's not even half of one percent. This is similar to the whole what race will you play thread, though at the end A55kicker brought in more websites showing similar leanings which can start to show a bit of a trend.
But basing what the players want off a poll that only accounts for nine hundredths of one percent can hardly say it's speaks for the majority. And less than 50% of those 272 votes say official forums is a good thing. The surveys Mythic will run will reach their entire player base when they log in and then the player base gets to decides how important that issue is to them. If you want to start using statistics then you really need to have a large enough sampling rate to be representative of the demographic you are aiming for.
That's right, just keep beating that dead horse, it might still get up....
August '06
Folks,
No, no, no, a million times, no.
And, our excuse was not that we didn't have the resources (that was true pre-DAoC) but rather, our reason is that official forums quickly become ugly, hate-filled places (the most successful US-based MMO of all time, WoW has worse problems than some really bad games' forums) with a huge signal->noise ratio after the games release. I've seen what happens with every MMO released and I am going to spare Mythic the headache that is associated with those type of forums.
However, as always we're looking at ways to improve communications/relations with the community so if we (or somebody else) comes up with better ways of doing things, we are open to it.
Mark
April, '07
Q: Will there be official forums for WAR?
A: This is technically in the main FAQ section on the website, but it's worth repeating given the number of people sending in the question. There will not be official forums, for a number of reasons that are only interesting if you are a community manager.
Mainly, the problem is that there are many more Warhammer players than there are community people. The signal to noise ratio in any given forum is very, very bad. In order to make it less bad (please notice that I didn't say "good"), we would have to drastically restrict the number of posts a person could make, drastically increase the number of community managers, and do nothing but read that forum all day. I do not want to do the first, I can't do the second, and I won't do the third when there are so many other things that do more good for the community.
Feedback forms are the best way to get your feedback in front of the developers. The forms do not offer the pleasure of arguing with other players, or the opportunity to demonstrate one's trash-talking skills, but they do make a big difference in terms of development. If your goal is simply to be heard, to be counted, and to contribute to the game, these forms are the way to go.
If you want to talk about the game with other players, and enjoy all of the pleasures of the internet, there are many WAR forums out there, with very different communities. Hop around until you find one where the tone matches your own. We lurk in several different forums - but whenever there is news after we launch, we will communicate via the Herald.
June '07
Folks,
This is impressive, two dead horses in a single topic by a new poster, what are the odds?
No cross-realm communication, ever.
No official forums. I won't say ever on this one because, at least on this one, having things like the Team Lead program makes it not so cut and dry as above.
The topic's subject says it all and says it quite obviously, incorrectly. I'll take DAoC's community, its support of the game and Mythic (even when we did a dumb thing or two) over any of the games mentioned. They've supported us through their patronage and if the topic's math was correct, DAoC would have died an early death. Almost six years after release and we still have more subscribers than most MMORPGs developed over the last 10 years and a very active community.
The bottom line is this, if all players could engage in cross-realm communications in the way we used to in old-school games like Air Warrior, I'd be all for it. However, that's not reality. Today's reality is large crowds, lots of people who think it's okay to use profanity, abusive language, hate-filled speech even on official forums. How much worse would it be from those same people, inside a game, especially when you've been fighting them? As someone who has been creating and playing these types of games for 20+ years, let me tell you, it would be a lot worse. I've seen it in all these games as a player, I've reviewed the bannings as a developer and there is no way in this or any other lifetime, that I'm going to put cross-realm communication in a large-scale RvR-centric game. The old saying about one bad apple spoils a bunch is an understatement in this case. Heck, the stuff that people say people in the same realm is bad enough when someone thinks another player has stolen a kill, loot, etc. or simply when players like to act up in general chat. I can't force people to be polite to each other and to lose gracefully (as some players do) but I sure as heck can prevent them, in some ways, from being total jerks to each other. And so I have in the early days of MUDs and will do so again with WAR.
In one of my first posts here I said that Mythic and I would piss off and disappoint some people no matter what we do with WAR, it's inevitable and a side-effect of the creative process. In this case, I'll happily piss off some players who want to denigrate, abuse and act like jerks to their fellow players. If that means that they don't want to play WAR since they can't cross-realm, so be it. To the players who would act politely, honorably and with dignity, I'm sorry that it has to be this way, I truly am. I want WAR to be a fun game for players of all ages and we will do what is necessary, as we did with DAoC, to make sure that happens, even if it costs us some subscribers.
Dead horses, closed subject as should be this topic.
You poll isn't really fair though cause most people who voted are the ones who post on forums lol. It's a great idea that they ain't doing offical forums and no matter how much you moan and groan about it they ain't going to change their mind. So either get used to the idea or get lost .
I do think forms are important specaly REALM forms they help build a community
Class forms are important as well thay can they can rly help you improving your gaming prefromens and learn you stuff about your class you dit not now.
i don't care if they have forms when there making the game but as soon as the game is gold they should have froms
That's right, just keep beating that dead horse, it might still get up....
June '07
Folks,
No cross-realm communication, ever. The bottom line is this, if all players could engage in cross-realm communications in the way we used to in old-school games like Air Warrior, I'd be all for it. However, that's not reality. Today's reality is large crowds, lots of people who think it's okay to use profanity, abusive language, hate-filled speech even on official forums. How much worse would it be from those same people, inside a game, especially when you've been fighting them? As someone who has been creating and playing these types of games for 20+ years, let me tell you, it would be a lot worse. I've seen it in all these games as a player, I've reviewed the bannings as a developer and there is no way in this or any other lifetime, that I'm going to put cross-realm communication in a large-scale RvR-centric game. The old saying about one bad apple spoils a bunch is an understatement in this case. Heck, the stuff that people say people in the same realm is bad enough when someone thinks another player has stolen a kill, loot, etc. or simply when players like to act up in general chat. I can't force people to be polite to each other and to lose gracefully (as some players do) but I sure as heck can prevent them, in some ways, from being total jerks to each other. And so I have in the early days of MUDs and will do so again with WAR. Dead horses, closed subject as should be this topic. Mark
Speaking of dead horses, our official Mythic-Warhammer forum representative seems to have more or less disappeared from the forums here recently.... you still out there buddy?
I know what they say about how they're sure that their log in forms and whatever are the best way to communicate with the player base, which they really proved back in DAOC when they released the TOA expansion followed by the really (not) popular New Frontiers expansion..... which pretty much killed the game off for about 75% of the player base.
Yep, their past methods of player interaction proved quite successful...no doubt......
As to cross-realm communication (or lack there-of), I played on Mordred, a FFA PVP server in DAOC and everyone regardless of realm affiliation could talk to each other.... sure there was some trash talking and what not, but it wasn't nearly as horrific as 'Mark' here makes it out to be..... and it was sort of cool to tell someone "good fight" or "you suck" rather than having to use emoticons to cheer or spit on them.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Guys, read what Skyles posted. This entire topic is very much a
I wouldn't count on seeing official forums. Mark Jacobs clearly says that the way Mythic ran things with DAoC is the way he wants to do it. If they lose some customers because of it, so be it. Anything else on the subject is nothing more than wasted effort.
That's right, just keep beating that dead horse, it might still get up....
June '07
Folks,
No cross-realm communication, ever. The bottom line is this, if all players could engage in cross-realm communications in the way we used to in old-school games like Air Warrior, I'd be all for it. However, that's not reality. Today's reality is large crowds, lots of people who think it's okay to use profanity, abusive language, hate-filled speech even on official forums. How much worse would it be from those same people, inside a game, especially when you've been fighting them? As someone who has been creating and playing these types of games for 20+ years, let me tell you, it would be a lot worse. I've seen it in all these games as a player, I've reviewed the bannings as a developer and there is no way in this or any other lifetime, that I'm going to put cross-realm communication in a large-scale RvR-centric game. The old saying about one bad apple spoils a bunch is an understatement in this case. Heck, the stuff that people say people in the same realm is bad enough when someone thinks another player has stolen a kill, loot, etc. or simply when players like to act up in general chat. I can't force people to be polite to each other and to lose gracefully (as some players do) but I sure as heck can prevent them, in some ways, from being total jerks to each other. And so I have in the early days of MUDs and will do so again with WAR. Dead horses, closed subject as should be this topic. Mark
Speaking of dead horses, our official Mythic-Warhammer forum representative seems to have more or less disappeared from the forums here recently.... you still out there buddy?
I know what they say about how they're sure that their log in forms and whatever are the best way to communicate with the player base, which they really proved back in DAOC when they released the TOA expansion followed by the really (not) popular New Frontiers expansion..... which pretty much killed the game off for about 75% of the player base.
Yep, their past methods of player interaction proved quite successful...no doubt......
As to cross-realm communication (or lack there-of), I played on Mordred, a FFA PVP server in DAOC and everyone regardless of realm affiliation could talk to each other.... sure there was some trash talking and what not, but it wasn't nearly as horrific as 'Mark' here makes it out to be..... and it was sort of cool to tell someone "good fight" or "you suck" rather than having to use emoticons to cheer or spit on them.
That is actually a pretty good point I was thinking about. Maybe if they had some real forums they would have realized that ToA was going to be a colossal bomb and saved themselves from losing a massive part of their subscriptions.
As far as discrediting the poll here, there is one thing one of the previous posters may have forgotten. Last time I checked, it looked to me that currently WAR has zero subscription currently. By using the Mythic "community" managers logic, since the fan sites are held in such high regard under their model, then that should give this poll some meaning. After all, we are not subscribers yet, only potential subscribers' Last time i checked, this was the premier web site on the internet for all things MMO related and is the prime demographic of their target audience. Even if your statistics 101 post is true, how far off is the margin of error? Even if it 10% on the high end, still the vast majority thinks not having forums is a bad idea. The posters here falling in lock-step with the "community" manager are a vocal minority, but I know after I post this they will try to spin it otherwise.
I also played on Andred and Mordred Who were you? Those were some of the funnest times I've ever had in an MMO, and yes have even just server boards does a tremendous amount to boost community on the server-wide level. If you decentralize that across multiple fan sites, it makes it harder for servers to unite under 1 forum. So what does a community manager do when there is no community?
There is absolutely no need for official forums. The DAoC system worked much better then WoW's System of Forums. When you have official forums it becomes human nature to give into the vocal minority. That is what happens on WoW all of the time, people whine and complain and then they change something in the game. Which in turn causes more whining and complaining and another change. Having the Herald and log in polls are the best way to get the information that is needed out to the community. Official Forums (other then for tech support) are never EVER productive!
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
There is absolutely no need for official forums. The DAoC system worked much better then WoW's System of Forums. When you have official forums it becomes human nature to give into the vocal minority. That is what happens on WoW all of the time, people whine and complain and then they change something in the game. Which in turn causes more whining and complaining and another change. Having the Herald and log in polls are the best way to get the information that is needed out to the community. Official Forums (other then for tech support) are never EVER productive!
Most official Forums are flame infested bogs full of stupid complaints, no matter how good the game is. That or they are totally scrutinized by powerhungry moderators where anything negative will get deleted. So no I wont miss them.
Any way, lets look at Vanguard, Vanguard did not have an official forums as well, but as soon as SOE took over, it does.
Also, as far as what official forums turn into (Flame fests ETC) its well known that that in the hands of developers. They create the tone, and the effectiveness, and stregenth of a community. Don’t blame official forums for bad communities, Blame developers and Community managers. You reap what you sow.
There are many GREAT communities surrounding games that have official forums, Saga of Ryzom being one of them.
Nope, I am sorry, No official forums means the developer does not care for feedback, they only wish one way communication, and segregating the community that players your game to other disjointed sites only allows ignorance to flourish. If you mess up with official forums, you and the rest of the community will know, if you mess up with only having a hand full of fan sites, large portions will not know. Plausible deniability.
Keep them separated, keep them ignorant. Many governments use this thinking as well.
It is worth noting that many industry members support official forums (Developers), the only ones that do not have been those that openly don’t care about communities.
As far as the "I would rather them work on the game" line, that holds no water, as programmers, artists and QA people do not moderate forums. The only person that is of "DEV" status that would be on the forums is the community manager... As the title implies, its what they should be doing.
It puts the cost, and responsibility of supporting there product (including advertising) in the hands of the fans... A cost that many can’t afford, giving users sub par support for a product they pay for…to someone else.
For a great example of some efficient decentralized forums, click the link in my sig. And enjoy your misdirection, wasted time, false info, cover ups, and did I mention wasted time?
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
It was purposely done as a Statistics 101 post. Let's take a good look at this. Methodology is everything when it comes to surveys. Randomness is a vital part of this. Of the 272 people that had taken this poll, how many were in the Pro-WAR camp compared to the Con-WAR camp? I based my original numbers on the number of people that had shown serious interest in playing WAR pre-release and these 300,000 are the only people truly affected by most of this. When the game goes live, that demographic changes to the subscription base.
But let's look at this from your point of view, in that MMORPG.com is the targeted demographic. MMORPG.com has 617,428 members. 272 of those members voted in this poll. That's 44 thousands of a single percent of the targeted audience here. Can you honestly say that represents even a smattering of said demographic? And then we again come back to the whole random sampling. These polls are purely voluntary by people who actually see and want to post. Is that random? Based on that fact alone, the survey isn't accurate. Accuracy is key when doing statistical analysis which is exactly what these polls are. People want to find out what percentage of users feel a certain way about a certain topic. If we want accurate results, then we have to follow proper methodology. If I said 90% of Americans eat beef, you would and should want me to prove that statement with hard facts and show proper methodology. If I told you I had gotten those results off a website about food on a random poll posted by a member of a community of 200,000 people and only had 75 people respond in the affirmitive, you'd question it's accuracy wouldn't you? How is this any different? There is no way to confirm that these numbers are a true representation of the targeted demographic. And to use such as a definitive example of what that demographic wants is flawed. The polls on the front page are of a much better quality as most of them have thousands of answers, but I highly doubt anyone would take the results of those polls as hard evidence in proving or disproving the topic of said poll.
Without proper methodology, a survey given cannot be a true statement of a given demographic. That's just how it works. And due to the lack of true randomness in this particular poll, we can't use any kind of Margin of Error because it's not a true representation of the targeted audience.
The other aspect, I actually agree with Mark Jacobs. I was there for the Everquest forums until a month and a half before they closed them down. I saw the kind of discussions that went on, first hand. Ashamedly, I even participated in a few. I went to the Eve Online forums when I first started playing. I haven't gone back except when my corp posts a link to a particular thread that personally affects us. We all know what the WoW forums are. Even the forums here have this open hostility at times. Only reason I come here is because once in a while, there is a discussion actually worth participating in. I was on the VNBoards during my time in DAoC. I applaud Mythic for not establishing official forums for the crap that went on there. There were some threads that were reminiscent of stuff I've seen on the SA forums at times. By not having official forums, that's one more employee they can have do other things besides act as a babysitter on the forums. I'd be willing to bet if we asked Sanya Weathers her opinion on whether or not she thought the lack of Official Forums for DAoC was a good thing. And I bet I can guess her answer.
I don't see official forums as being needed. Especially with the way Mythic ran the Camelot Herald and the stated plans they have for the WAR Herald. I guarantee it was much easier to find the information you needed to play your character, outside of spoilers and walk throughs. Though, I guess that's what people really want official forums for.
Comments
Wow this thread is funny. Vanguard had said they wouldnt have any official forums, and people bitched left and right and cancelled pre-orders and flamed for months. War does it, and its okay? Ha the irony.
No Offical Forums , Good or bad?
"Don't corpse-camp that idea. Its never gonna rez"
Bladezz (The Guild)
I have long held the opinion that forums are one of the worst things to hit the computer game market. About the only time I think forums are a good thing are during a beta. Once that is done, abolish them. Live forums are filled with morons who think they know better than everyone else.
I'll be the first to admit that there is the odd good idea that comes out in a forum. But more time than not people post ideas without considering the domino consequences their 'good idea' would have on other parts of the game. Why should game companies devote resources to an official forum when other people will create fan forums that will serve the same job?
The only time I visit official forums is to get a good laugh at what gets posted. The WoW forums are a great example of why official forums are a waste of virtual space.
Down with official forums - up with fan forums.
They do need to make sure there is a solid pipeline for dealing with technical problems but forums were never really a good way to do this anyway. Too much noise, not enough meat in them.
There are more than enough forums out there where people can discuss things - or rather, flame, whine, cry, rack down etc. - you know the drill.
Lack of support? Yea well, as long as they have good in game or website support, there is really no need for a forum is there?
There is not a single thing a forum could do, that could not be done inside the game or via website info. It's too much work to moderate a forum of the size it would be and 75% of the people you will see there, are forum lovers who spend 30% of their time in the game and the other 70% on the boards racking down on the little issues of the game because they are bad players and just died to a level 5 mob for the 10th time.
No official forums, good call.
12% no forum no play lol wtf I want to play with ppl who care more about farming stars than the game itself.
Their petitioning process seems to get around having the "Nerf this, Nerf that" type junk cluttering up important stuff.
---------------------------------------------
I live to fight, and fight to live.
Sorry, this is 2007, and with game budgets exceeding 30-60 Million Dollars, there should be a forum. I can understand back in DAOC's day most games didn't have official forums. Did we not learn anything from Vanguard? Making your players have to go searching the net for information is lazy and is discouraging to potential customers. Hell, even SoE knew the second they took over VG they opened a real forum, and the players applauded it.
From my own personal experience, whenever I am entertaining the idea of signing up for any MMO, they very first place I go is that games official forums to see what has been going on. Will there be crying on the forums? Sure. But as a developer, you should have thick enough skin to be able to have a discussion with your customers, which can not be done through polls. Stand by your product and talk about player concerns in a centralized location. Brad McQuaid was always hiding in a sea of "Fansites". I use that erm lightly because it was later revealed that even though they had no direct relation to Sigil, they were still forcing the hands of the sites moderators to ban and mod negativity.
What kind of community manager is it that tries to justify not having a real community? If you aren't confident enough in your product to answer to your customers and respond to their concerns, then you should not be in the industry.
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No need for official forums. Stuff gets blown out of proportion, mob mentality takes over, and very little "productive" communication. Information will be dispersed via the WAR Herald. Dev's will get feedback via submissions. All without the presence of that ever skewing mob mentality thing.
"My class needs a buff!"
"That class is way to powerful!"
"Ya, what they said! We Archers must unite! Power to the players!"
"PWNT!"
"First"
"OMGWTFBBQ"
Oh darn... look at what we may miss out on. Official forums have turned into a playground for kids in some MMO's it seems. No need for these official forums. More cons than pros IMO.
"...and with that cryptic comment, I'm off to bed!"
I won't miss them either. Every time I have played a game with official forums I avoid using them anyway. Too many people bitching! If you want to chat and hang out, DO IT IN GAME! Thats what you are paying for anyway. If you just wanna be a dick and post crap just so people will argue with you... wel... thats what mmorpg.com is for.
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.
--Aristotle
What's with all the thread necromancy lately? Geez man.
Mythic has said they will not run official forums. End of story. How productive are the WoW forums? How many of the 9 million players actually use those forums? Mythic plans to use log in surveys, feedback forms, and other types of player feedback. Those have served them very well with DAoC over the past 6 years. Only Mythic is in the place to say whether or not official forums are worth the price. And that price is never just a monetary one.
I've always despised official forums. Going back as far as Everquest, they've been nothing more than rotting cesspools of hate and rarely ever does anything truly productive come out of them. Between the Flame wars, the endless cries for nerf because someone doesn't know how to play their class, the whining, and any number of other non-productive posting formats, it just isn't worth it. I stopped using the EQ forums about a month and a half before they closed it down. I didn't need any official forums for DAoC. I never used the Anarchy Online official forums. The only time I use the CoX official forums is when I am a part of their beta testing system for upcoming content. I don't use the Eve Online forums, can't stand the crap that goes on there. I only used the SWG official forums before the game was released, never used them once I started playing. I rarely ever went to the WoW forums. Couldn't stand the community. The information I got there was never worth the price of dealing with all the crap. I started using much more helpful player run communities.
I don't see official forums as necessary. It can be a negative as much as a positive and usually just turns into whining flamefest with everyone screaming nerf them because I can't beat them.
Maybe while they are looking at polls and surveys, they should take note of the one here that says on 20% of the players think not having forums is a good idea?
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lol this thread is funny
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Currently playing:wow/war
Retired:,runescape,swg,
everquest2,lotro
But basing what the players want off a poll that only accounts for nine hundredths of one percent can hardly say it's speaks for the majority. And less than 50% of those 272 votes say official forums is a good thing. The surveys Mythic will run will reach their entire player base when they log in and then the player base gets to decides how important that issue is to them. If you want to start using statistics then you really need to have a large enough sampling rate to be representative of the demographic you are aiming for.
That's right, just keep beating that dead horse, it might still get up....
August '06
April, '07
June '07
You poll isn't really fair though cause most people who voted are the ones who post on forums lol. It's a great idea that they ain't doing offical forums and no matter how much you moan and groan about it they ain't going to change their mind. So either get used to the idea or get lost
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I do think forms are important specaly REALM forms they help build a community
Class forms are important as well thay can they can rly help you improving your gaming prefromens and learn you stuff about your class you dit not now.
i don't care if they have forms when there making the game but as soon as the game is gold they should have froms
Speaking of dead horses, our official Mythic-Warhammer forum representative seems to have more or less disappeared from the forums here recently.... you still out there buddy?
I know what they say about how they're sure that their log in forms and whatever are the best way to communicate with the player base, which they really proved back in DAOC when they released the TOA expansion followed by the really (not) popular New Frontiers expansion..... which pretty much killed the game off for about 75% of the player base.
Yep, their past methods of player interaction proved quite successful...no doubt......
As to cross-realm communication (or lack there-of), I played on Mordred, a FFA PVP server in DAOC and everyone regardless of realm affiliation could talk to each other.... sure there was some trash talking and what not, but it wasn't nearly as horrific as 'Mark' here makes it out to be..... and it was sort of cool to tell someone "good fight" or "you suck" rather than having to use emoticons to cheer or spit on them.
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Guys, read what Skyles posted. This entire topic is very much a
I wouldn't count on seeing official forums. Mark Jacobs clearly says that the way Mythic ran things with DAoC is the way he wants to do it. If they lose some customers because of it, so be it. Anything else on the subject is nothing more than wasted effort.
Speaking of dead horses, our official Mythic-Warhammer forum representative seems to have more or less disappeared from the forums here recently.... you still out there buddy?
I know what they say about how they're sure that their log in forms and whatever are the best way to communicate with the player base, which they really proved back in DAOC when they released the TOA expansion followed by the really (not) popular New Frontiers expansion..... which pretty much killed the game off for about 75% of the player base.
Yep, their past methods of player interaction proved quite successful...no doubt......
As to cross-realm communication (or lack there-of), I played on Mordred, a FFA PVP server in DAOC and everyone regardless of realm affiliation could talk to each other.... sure there was some trash talking and what not, but it wasn't nearly as horrific as 'Mark' here makes it out to be..... and it was sort of cool to tell someone "good fight" or "you suck" rather than having to use emoticons to cheer or spit on them.
That is actually a pretty good point I was thinking about. Maybe if they had some real forums they would have realized that ToA was going to be a colossal bomb and saved themselves from losing a massive part of their subscriptions.
As far as discrediting the poll here, there is one thing one of the previous posters may have forgotten. Last time I checked, it looked to me that currently WAR has zero subscription currently. By using the Mythic "community" managers logic, since the fan sites are held in such high regard under their model, then that should give this poll some meaning. After all, we are not subscribers yet, only potential subscribers' Last time i checked, this was the premier web site on the internet for all things MMO related and is the prime demographic of their target audience. Even if your statistics 101 post is true, how far off is the margin of error? Even if it 10% on the high end, still the vast majority thinks not having forums is a bad idea. The posters here falling in lock-step with the "community" manager are a vocal minority, but I know after I post this they will try to spin it otherwise.
I also played on Andred and Mordred
Who were you? Those were some of the funnest times I've ever had in an MMO, and yes have even just server boards does a tremendous amount to boost community on the server-wide level. If you decentralize that across multiple fan sites, it makes it harder for servers to unite under 1 forum. So what does a community manager do when there is no community? 
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There is absolutely no need for official forums. The DAoC system worked much better then WoW's System of Forums. When you have official forums it becomes human nature to give into the vocal minority. That is what happens on WoW all of the time, people whine and complain and then they change something in the game. Which in turn causes more whining and complaining and another change. Having the Herald and log in polls are the best way to get the information that is needed out to the community. Official Forums (other then for tech support) are never EVER productive!
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Hear hear
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Agree 100%
Wow, this is still be discussed.
Any way, lets look at Vanguard, Vanguard did not have an official forums as well, but as soon as SOE took over, it does.
Also, as far as what official forums turn into (Flame fests ETC) its well known that that in the hands of developers. They create the tone, and the effectiveness, and stregenth of a community. Don’t blame official forums for bad communities, Blame developers and Community managers. You reap what you sow.
There are many GREAT communities surrounding games that have official forums, Saga of Ryzom being one of them.
Nope, I am sorry, No official forums means the developer does not care for feedback, they only wish one way communication, and segregating the community that players your game to other disjointed sites only allows ignorance to flourish. If you mess up with official forums, you and the rest of the community will know, if you mess up with only having a hand full of fan sites, large portions will not know. Plausible deniability.
Keep them separated, keep them ignorant. Many governments use this thinking as well.
It is worth noting that many industry members support official forums (Developers), the only ones that do not have been those that openly don’t care about communities.
As far as the "I would rather them work on the game" line, that holds no water, as programmers, artists and QA people do not moderate forums. The only person that is of "DEV" status that would be on the forums is the community manager... As the title implies, its what they should be doing.
It puts the cost, and responsibility of supporting there product (including advertising) in the hands of the fans... A cost that many can’t afford, giving users sub par support for a product they pay for…to someone else.
For a great example of some efficient decentralized forums, click the link in my sig. And enjoy your misdirection, wasted time, false info, cover ups, and did I mention wasted time?
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How are you?" -Me
It was purposely done as a Statistics 101 post. Let's take a good look at this. Methodology is everything when it comes to surveys. Randomness is a vital part of this. Of the 272 people that had taken this poll, how many were in the Pro-WAR camp compared to the Con-WAR camp? I based my original numbers on the number of people that had shown serious interest in playing WAR pre-release and these 300,000 are the only people truly affected by most of this. When the game goes live, that demographic changes to the subscription base.
But let's look at this from your point of view, in that MMORPG.com is the targeted demographic. MMORPG.com has 617,428 members. 272 of those members voted in this poll. That's 44 thousands of a single percent of the targeted audience here. Can you honestly say that represents even a smattering of said demographic? And then we again come back to the whole random sampling. These polls are purely voluntary by people who actually see and want to post. Is that random? Based on that fact alone, the survey isn't accurate. Accuracy is key when doing statistical analysis which is exactly what these polls are. People want to find out what percentage of users feel a certain way about a certain topic. If we want accurate results, then we have to follow proper methodology. If I said 90% of Americans eat beef, you would and should want me to prove that statement with hard facts and show proper methodology. If I told you I had gotten those results off a website about food on a random poll posted by a member of a community of 200,000 people and only had 75 people respond in the affirmitive, you'd question it's accuracy wouldn't you? How is this any different? There is no way to confirm that these numbers are a true representation of the targeted demographic. And to use such as a definitive example of what that demographic wants is flawed. The polls on the front page are of a much better quality as most of them have thousands of answers, but I highly doubt anyone would take the results of those polls as hard evidence in proving or disproving the topic of said poll.
Without proper methodology, a survey given cannot be a true statement of a given demographic. That's just how it works. And due to the lack of true randomness in this particular poll, we can't use any kind of Margin of Error because it's not a true representation of the targeted audience.
The other aspect, I actually agree with Mark Jacobs. I was there for the Everquest forums until a month and a half before they closed them down. I saw the kind of discussions that went on, first hand. Ashamedly, I even participated in a few. I went to the Eve Online forums when I first started playing. I haven't gone back except when my corp posts a link to a particular thread that personally affects us. We all know what the WoW forums are. Even the forums here have this open hostility at times. Only reason I come here is because once in a while, there is a discussion actually worth participating in. I was on the VNBoards during my time in DAoC. I applaud Mythic for not establishing official forums for the crap that went on there. There were some threads that were reminiscent of stuff I've seen on the SA forums at times. By not having official forums, that's one more employee they can have do other things besides act as a babysitter on the forums. I'd be willing to bet if we asked Sanya Weathers her opinion on whether or not she thought the lack of Official Forums for DAoC was a good thing. And I bet I can guess her answer.
I don't see official forums as being needed. Especially with the way Mythic ran the Camelot Herald and the stated plans they have for the WAR Herald. I guarantee it was much easier to find the information you needed to play your character, outside of spoilers and walk throughs. Though, I guess that's what people really want official forums for.