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... the first warning sign ...
kingkong10
Member Posts: 38
about a year ago I would have considered myself a "Vanguard Fan Boy"... I really bought into the hype (is Brad a good salesman or what?) .. of course that game turned out to be the biggest dud ever (okay so maybe there are worse games our there but it was the biggest dud I every played)
I still remeber one of the first things that I could not really rationalize (and in fact turned out to be one of the warning signs that the devs are disconnected from gaming community) ... lack of official forums ... it was as if they knew ( and of course they must have) just how much their game sucked and they simply were afraid to face the gamers
Hearing that WAR won't have official forums gives me the same impression, only that by I'm now wiser and I won't buy into the official line (the same as for VSoH) that seems to be: "fansites will have forums". Yeah right. These sites will so critically depend on the good will of Mythic (devs posting there) that they will quickly lose all fairness and will become henchmen to do the dirty work for Mythic. Seen it already.
WoW is succesfull not because it has forums ... but having them is just one piece of evidence that the WoW devs "get it", they understand that you can have fun in so many different ways. I had a lot of fun on the forums, who can forget the classic "I'm in ur akount sharding your purplz", the O'Rly bird, faceplam, the countless fascinating threads. While my sub was cancelled WoW for a year I still followed the forums.
The official forum turns Mythic into a 'real person", it transforms an abstract company into someone you feel you can have some sort of conversation with. It may very well be that only 0.1% of the WoW population visits the forums, but that segment is by far the most influential and you have to be stupid to ignore these.
The cost of running an official forum is very low, there is something wrong when a gaming company does not want to have one. There is nothing to gain (unless you have a lot to hide).
Comments
I dont see any problem with no official forums for WAR. Mythics last game DAOC didnt have them either. And I had 10x more fun in that game than any other MMO ive tried, and ive tried alot. The Vault network forums work fine for me.
The point rather is that one should move forward, what was good enough back than may not be good (or may be a terrible choice) today.
If there is one thing every MMO builder should not do is forget the lessons learned from succesfull MMOS.
There are multiple threads on this issue, all very active and at the top... you can't tell me you did not see them unless you actively were not looking. This right there shows your lack of interest in WAR and what results is a troll thread with no real argument.
You would know if you followed WAR that the Devs are very active in the fan sites. They encourage the fan sites and even had an all expense paid trip to mythic not long ago to give them never before seen information about the game. They also encouraged these fan sites to collect questions from their vets and ask them directly at this outing. If you had watched the movies you would see that no punches were pulled... while the Devs did not always have an answer it is the best dialog I have seen between devs and user base IN ANY GAME.
Vanguard would have been fine if the game was not released before it was finished... to compare WAR and VG is naive at best. The lack of forums did not kill VG it was the bug ridden incomplete POS they dumped on their customers. How long was the VG beta? WAR will be pushing almost a year when it is released (more if they push back the release date again). There are thousands in testing the game right now with a potential for hundreds of thousands before release...
No, lack of forums is not a warning sign... It just shows good business sense... Why waste the money (which is not minor to the company) on servers, bandwidth, and paid moderators when it would go to appease only a small fraction of their customer base?
Your argument about entertainment is a personal opinion and one not shared by over 80% of people playing MMOs. How can I make such a claim... because less then 15% of subscribers typically go to official forums. Most find it inane and pointless as no real information is found there only spam, whines, and complaints.
When you want to know about a quest, skill, or guide... where do you usually find the best information... not the official forums.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Maybe they learn a lesson. No official forum, like that no need to pay people to read 1 good post sunken into 999 spam hate posts.
Like someone said, DAoC didn't have a forum, and it is still a great game. Personally, I'll be playing the game, not the forum. And if I want to see endless spam and brainwashing crap, I'll just watch TV.
Did you honestly not see the two threads already about this exact topic, one being many pages long?
DAoC didn't have official forums and it did very well for itself. Official forums do not make or break a game. It may keep some people from playing, but it won't kill a game. Vanguard's problem was hardly the lack of official forums. The problem was much deeper, like not actually even having a game till the last year and a half. You can see WAR being played all over the US and Europe. You can even play it at various expos and conventions. Saying a game is a problem because they don't have official forums? Not exactly something to get your panties in a bunch over.
Centralized forums hosted by the developing company are a double-edged sword as seen in your beloved WoW forums. While it would make for a stronger forum, it would breed alot of unnecessary hate and flame-based attacks. I'm not saying this won't happen on 3rd party forums either, but then again who says you won't be able to post a "Im in ur akount sharding your purplz" there?
Forums don't make or break a game, and the majority of players won't even post on forums most likely. It's just another panel for socializing at it's best, and that can be done anywhere on the internet.
If this makes you think there will be no tech support or that the company doesn't want to listen to the player base, then you haven't played DAOC or done any research on Mythic.
The cost may be low, but the hassle for them outweighs the former. They are just drama playgrounds for the most part.
The point rather is that one should move forward, what was good enough back than may not be good (or may be a terrible choice) today.
If there is one thing every MMO builder should not do is forget the lessons learned from succesfull MMOS.
Having a place for people to cry about their pet issues isn't important.A source of getting out information - there are other ways: email, website, in-game information.
Getting feedback from players: In game reporting tools.
Forums for cry babies: There are many forums for that. I don't think game companies should sponser such behaviour.
Since they won't have an official forum which takes a lot of resources and money to keep going, can we expect a lower monthly subscription cost?
Wow, there sure are a lot of trolls out now that AoC got pushed back? I wonder if they are worried that AoC will bomb now that it has to directly compete with WAR?
There have been numerous threads on this topic already. And it has already been shown in one of the threads all of the methods that Mythic employs to insure good communication. There system works and has always worked better then say World of Whinecraft.
So try something else because using the lack of official forums to say the game is bad is pretty pathetic.
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)
Yes a whole 10 cents worth per month... seriously guys use your brain.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
It is nice to see that OP is one of those people who has learned their lesson following the disaster of Vanguard.
But it should be pointed out that many people could tell that game was going to fail before it was released and those warning signs had nothing to do with the topic of public forums. Here are some of those warning signs that still apply today:
If any MMORPG you are following exhibits one or more of these symptoms, consult a phsycian immeadiately. Then ask yourself why you're sitcking your finger into a light socket a second time?
For what it's worth, WAR hasn't qualified for any of those signs. Though Paul's ramblings are a tad wacky at times, they still make 100x more sense than the 'logical' rationales I've heard from other developers sometimes.
Not having a proper forum is the reason I never bothered with DAoC and probably will be the same with WAR.
While I won't argue if it's good or bad, I sure don't like it.
Distancing yourself from the community is just plain stupid in my opinion.
Edit: But I do love Paul...
Played so far: 9Dragons, AO, AC, AC2, CoX, DAoC, DF, DnL, DR, DDO, Ent, EvE, EQ, EQ2, FoMK, FFO, Fury, GW, HG:L, HZ, L1, L2, M59, MU, NC1, NC2, PS, PT, R:O, RF:O, RYL, Ryzom, SL, SB, SW:G, TR, TCoS, MX:O, UO, VG, WAR, WoW...
It all sucked.
I knew i wouldnt like Vanguard from the start. ( pvp was not a mian focus of the game)
I know Im going to enjoy Warhammer. ( Its pvp based )
searching for the next DAoC....
Kay-exile
There is plenty of fansites for WAR and alot of them are much nicer than the crap that is the wow forums. Devs answer alot of the questions and say what they think. Also recently they invited all the fansites to Mythic for a presentation and answerd all their questions about cross server queues and sexually restricted careers and such.
This is much better than having an official forum. I guess if all you wanna do is moan and groan about crap and hardly get heard by any developer you can stick to a game with official forums then.
I dont realy care about official forums
... i just want the game to be fun!
IMHO I think it's a smart move. There is no need for anything more than an in-game petition or browser based reporting system from a developers standpoint, provided they are keeping in touch with the player base via other methods. Which Mythic has done in the past.
It's hard to conceive someone not trying out a game because it didn't have a local forum board. You missed out on a very good game.
Personally... I'm glad they wont have an official forum. I won't lie, I do go to the WoW forums to check up on things coming up in future patches. The problem with the WoW forum is, its filled with a bunch of morons. Almost every post will have replies containing different variations of Noob, L2P, and other disrespectful comments. The forums also affect what goes on in game. All of a sudden everybody jumps on the bandwagon and uses the new cool wow slang. I can only pray to god the next game (most likely war) I play doesnt have crap like this going on... especially chuck fuckin norris. I cant believe that stupid joke still goes on till this day. How annoying was that mod?
Why does everyone want an official forum? Frankly I never used the forums in EQ,EQ2 and when I checked on the WoW forums they where filled with to many rickrolls, belairs,300, SPARTA!!!!!!!, ASCI to actually be usefull. Mythic has allready gone out of its way to be friendly with its FAN based forums by giving them beta access and invites to ask questions.
Official forums = the crybaby deep down complaining about the wtfpwn you got because you where afk.
Now if they have one person who frequent all the class forums and is responsible for their balancing/development issues then there is no problem there with it being no official forums. I can guarantee you this some of the same people saying who cares and this and that will be the same ones posting all types of crazy stuff about "Wahammer" when it hits and the classes are not completely balanced ingame.
I will admit though that they do have something going for them the other two games didn't have and that's the money to put out a huge world hopefully with classes that have been worked on through and throuhg also, Mythic could be taking the easy way out by giving each class the same damage abilities with different skins (ala GW).
I mean everything currently is speculation and based off past games we all have played/loved and hated and I hope that the Mythic developers make a "fun" (the most importanat factor) well balanced game that PvE and PvPers can enjoy.
Are you joking? WOW's forums are one festering pile of crap. Best forum for WOW is on FAN run site. Here let me point you to it, on the second thought maybe not wise to direct more traffic there. (forums.elitist.....com I am sure you can guess from there). Those forums are read by Blizzard developers and on more then one occasion what was discussed there to great detail backed up by math was actually implemented in the game. When TBC came out quite a few things were pointed out as flaws for example overtuned encounters that depended on heavy consumables. One of more prominent posts on those forums (after Gruul and such were brute forced through by top guilds) was, nerf alchemy, etc . . .
In short WOW official forums are one bad joke 3 years running. As a matter of fact all of Blizzard's official forums turned into a lot of crying.
I could care less if WAR has no official forums, so far developers are voicing their thoughts on few fan run forums. I am sure they will keep an eye out on more popular ones, and read them every day.
It hurts when I pee. WAR is doomed.
A perfect example of WoW forum rhetoric.
The point rather is that one should move forward, what was good enough back than may not be good (or may be a terrible choice) today.
If there is one thing every MMO builder should not do is forget the lessons learned from succesfull MMOS.
Having a place for people to cry about their pet issues isn't important.
A source of getting out information - there are other ways: email, website, in-game information.
Getting feedback from players: In game reporting tools.
Forums for cry babies: There are many forums for that. I don't think game companies should sponser such behaviour.
I dont consider "no offical forums" game breaking BUT it is nice to see Devs respond to Specific issues like they do in WoW. They respond to ingame problems/bugs/class balance etc.
Where will these issues be addressed if they are not addressed in an official forum?
Are devs going to read multiple forums to see what players think?
The point rather is that one should move forward, what was good enough back than may not be good (or may be a terrible choice) today.
If there is one thing every MMO builder should not do is forget the lessons learned from succesfull MMOS.
Having a place for people to cry about their pet issues isn't important.
A source of getting out information - there are other ways: email, website, in-game information.
Getting feedback from players: In game reporting tools.
Forums for cry babies: There are many forums for that. I don't think game companies should sponser such behaviour.
I dont consider "no offical forums" game breaking BUT it is nice to see Devs respond to Specific issues like they do in WoW. They respond to ingame problems/bugs/class balance etc.
Where will these issues be addressed if they are not addressed in an official forum?
Are devs going to read multiple forums to see what players think?
I imagine it will be similar to this http://www.camelotherald.com/article.php?id=61
Keep in mind that game issues pertaining to a select moment in development period are only finite. I doubt they will read EVERY forum to see what players think, but the most active forums will likely be monitored (which theyve done in the past) to see players reactions/thoughts.
Mythic addresses issues in the form of "Grab Bags". Small groups of inqueries or suggestions that are responded to by Mythic and posted to the public view via the main website.
In DAOC Mythic rarely directly responds to any player game feedback. Not even acknowledging recept of the input.