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. Very rarely. When they do they are drowned out by all the complaints in response to their posts. Where will these issues be addressed if they are not addressed in an official forum? On the herald site which takes feedback and has weekly updates. Also on community sites which they are already posting on during beta and said they would continue to do so after release. Are devs going to read multiple forums to see what players think? Yes... They already visit several community sites and even invited those site owners to an all paid trip to Mythic answering all of the collected questions from the fans as best they could. It is a successful system that saves the company money and keeps the fans happy. When you need help with a quest or finding information in the game... do you go to the official boards or do you go to a fan site like allakhazam.com? 9 out of 10 people will hit the fan site first. A company that encourages a strong community with easy to access resources will beat out official forums any day. Look at WAR... war-rvr.net is already fleshing out a character builder with skills known to be in the game. Again strong community ties beats out official whine forums any day.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Very happy they won't have an official forum here. DAoC was the best for me for fansites and stuff. While i was at school during a class, I would just browse around and go on sites like Camelot Vault and check out the new pics, vids, and the forums. I prefer going around.
Also, if you look at WoW's official forums, you'd see it's nothing but a place for people to go and whine about the game or defend it. Nothing constructive ever usually comes out of there, just the usual "OMG fix this", "My class doesn't beat every other class, why!?", "You suck Blizzard", etc., with some variations of course.
There is no need for an official forum. It's a waste of money, and as others have said, Mythic is very active in the fansite scene, so they'll be all over the place anyway.
And as others have also said, you should've looked around for 5 seconds and saw the other posts about this before making this one.
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).
UMM.. i like how your no longer a fanboy ... but just becuase you got burnt once ... well you should be careful cuz ur gonna get burnt again, however, to minimize this look at why you got burnt. No offense but Forums had 0 to do with VG , had it had forums the beta post would be well for beta members only and thus ... you still would have taken it in the butt. Now look at hints of bad games... good example DF , no info released shady dealing etc. You know it will sux, if it even is released at all. I learnt this lesson long logn ago with SB ... you can SEE when a game has issues... so far i can't SEE a single issue with WAR (i dislike the simple guild exp system they plan on using atm ... character based is the way to go... not doing character based exp is liek settling on 6 year old system (that will frustrate) when a brand new one could be used , that has almost no draw backs ... devs do get lazy about things they can't figure out matter a ton.) Still the game for everything we see shows that this game has a solid core and its refined plenty already. (more real vid have been show than any game to date btw) .
Now AoC has had for like months major issues visable in its videos , while there has been many deniers , the funcom dev.s have pretty much admitted it recently, which i think is great because now they can focus on fixing it. I want to say that in no way am i saying AoC will be a VG .. just that well it may have come close had they released it in Oct.
So really ids say watch the vids not the dev journals or dev posts, or anythign a dev is claiming they will have.. look for it instead. While doing this if somethign they said would be obviously is not .. you know you have a problem .. and this could be see previous to VG's release if you had been on the look out... or just not a fanboy.
Also, you may want to look at the other three threads on thsi very topic in at least one of them a mythic CM or Dev. dropped by and said see we do read these boards... i doubt you'll get that agian however, seeing as they already have... just like this thread is a waste of time , so would a mythic cm or dev posting the very same thign at the same site 100 times in a row.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
So really ids say watch the vids not the dev journals or dev posts, or anythign a dev is claiming they will have.. look for it instead. While doing this if somethign they said would be obviously is not .. you know you have a problem .. and this could be see previous to VG's release if you had been on the look out... or just not a fanboy.
So many people on these boards need to look at their games this way. Talking to fanboys on here is like face planting a wall... Painful and pointless. How anyone can go through life with such blind faith is beyond me. Question everything... only then can you know truth.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
I'd prefer an official forum, but can't imagine why you'd think the lack of one would be a sign of impending doom. I've never seen as much information available on an upcoming game as there is on WAR, go to youtube,look around here, go to the unofficial sites. I didn't follow Vanguard, but I'm sure they had plenty to hide, not the case here. Only played DAOC as a free trial,but if they didn't have official forums then that's how mythic works then so be it.
Question everything... only then can you know truth.
Question everything... only then can you know truth. Which is that you'll never know the whole truth for all things are inter-related, and knowing everything is not possiable ... Daniel-son. Rofl
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
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).
While i dont post on game forums, i guess there really is no way other than email contact or phone help, to reach accross to the GM's and say hey theres a problem with the game or i need help with this or that. So many people are gonna need help and i dont think Mythic will have enough staff to help everyone, while the forums give everyone a chance to post their problems at the same time. And also, fansites have that word in them. FAN! of course the fansites are gonna be really biased you would think. Maybe not if outiders come to give their ideas of the game and ask if it actually is good.
How can any sane human being judge a game by what another game did?
How is it you can even think because one crappy game didn't have official forums than a different game that doesn't have forums must be crappy too?
By that reasoning, we should never play another game because the dev's are just going to CU and NGE us to death! (SWG has an official forum, and look what that got us)
Do people even think before they post?
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self. --Aristotle
While i dont post on game forums, i guess there really is no way other than email contact or phone help, to reach accross to the GM's and say hey theres a problem with the game or i need help with this or that. So many people are gonna need help and i dont think Mythic will have enough staff to help everyone, while the forums give everyone a chance to post their problems at the same time. And also, fansites have that word in them. FAN! of course the fansites are gonna be really biased you would think. Maybe not if outiders come to give their ideas of the game and ask if it actually is good.
No they still have Tech help... And most fixes if not fixed by a patch are given by players not dev.s or CMs. so really theres no need for one still but good point. Had mythic not had tech help then you would be right.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
WoWs forums were never a place to interact with Devs. Hell, the beta forums for thier expo didn't even have Dev interaction. They are mainly just a place to bitch and moan.
I've seen more real dev interaction on the fansite forums that I ever did in all of WoW.
Originally posted by tenthring WoWs forums were never a place to interact with Devs. Hell, the beta forums for thier expo didn't even have Dev interaction. They are mainly just a place to bitch and moan. I've seen more real dev interaction on the fansite forums that I ever did in all of WoW.
Go play around in the City of Heroes forums and look for dev posts. There are a lot of them.
I don't really agree with the reasoning behind some of what the OP said however I do agree a official forums site be set (even if it's VN forums) so there is a central information source.
WoWs forums were never a place to interact with Devs. Hell, the beta forums for thier expo didn't even have Dev interaction. They are mainly just a place to bitch and moan.
I've seen more real dev interaction on the fansite forums that I ever did in all of WoW.
Go play around in the City of Heroes forums and look for dev posts. There are a lot of them.
I don't really agree with the reasoning behind some of what the OP said however I do agree a official forums site be set (even if it's VN forums) so there is a central information source.
This is called the Camelot Herald for DAoC and what the WAR Herald will turn into when WAR goes live. If you want information, the respective Herald will provide you with what you need, including the feedback form to submit suggestions, complaints and other forms of feedback to Mythic.
I don't like it from experience. Official forums are a place you know that you can always go to for the most up to date information, because despite whatever fansite people frequent 99% of the time they'll visit the official site too. I don't really want to surf through and join 20 different communities so I can have a chance at finding the answer to a question I might have. And for advancement related issues, ridiculously comprehensive sites like Thottbott, unfortunately, don't show up everywhere. There's also no guarantee that these sites will always have open doors, unlike with an official forum, or something affiliated with a solid company like IGN. But these massive sites like IGN, where there's a forum for just about every game ever made, aren't really ideal places to build communities.
It also largely depends on how Mythic is going to choose to interact with their fansites. Unless they're going to go and post at everybodies forum they're going to have to play favorites, which usually means death for smaller sites and gung-ho, ban and lock happy mods on larger sites to stay in good favor. I've been part of communities where devs will suddenly decide to pull their support because they don't like an ad that's running or the "tone" of the posts on the forum. Then they slowly just die out and shutdown as traffic dwindles, but costs stay the same. Or maybe they just choose to ignore the community completely which imho is the worst and most incredibly frustrating option.
Either way, I think that any of the possible negative scenarios should just be avoided, as it's not like they won't be able to foot the bill. I can't see any real downsides to having them.
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?
Yes a whole 10 cents worth per month... seriously guys use your brain.
It's something all new MMO's provide. If WAR doesn't have them them why should we pay the same monthly subscription if a key feaure of MMO's is missing? Forgive my cynicism, but if you are getting less from an MMO, shouldn't you expect to pay a bit less in comparison to the games that provide that service?
This trend of not having an official forum is the dumbest thing ever...sure they're largely places for people to whine and moan, about alot of constructive cricticism is often posted on them too. It's like the devs can't be bothered listening to their customer base and don't care about their opinions - at least that's the message it seems to convey. I guess they're scared it'll drive players away from the game with all the negativity, but that's their fault. If WAR is a good game not not half-finished turd (aka Vanguard), they don't have anything to be afraid of from forums. Heck, even Vanguard realized the dumb mistake they made and put some official forums on. (heh, not like it matters anymore.) OP is right its a bad sign.
This trend of not having an official forum is the dumbest thing ever...sure they're largely places for people to whine and moan, about alot of constructive cricticism is often posted on them too. It's like the devs can't be bothered listening to their customer base and don't care about their opinions - at least that's the message it seems to convey. I guess they're scared it'll drive players away from the game with all the negativity, but that's their fault. If the company releases a good game not not half-finished turd (aka Vanguard), they don't have anything to be afraid of from forums. Heck, even Vanguard realized the dumb mistake they made and put some official forums on. (heh, not like it matters anymore.)
This trend of not having an official forum is the dumbest thing ever...sure they're largely places for people to whine and moan, about alot of constructive cricticism is often posted on them too. It's like the devs can't be bothered listening to their customer base and don't care about their opinions - at least that's the message it seems to convey. I guess they're scared it'll drive players away from the game with all the negativity, but that's their fault. If the company releases a good game not not half-finished turd (aka Vanguard), they don't have anything to be afraid of from forums. Heck, even Vanguard realized the dumb mistake they made and put some official forums on. (heh, not like it matters anymore.)
This trend of not having an official forum is the dumbest thing ever...sure they're largely places for people to whine and moan, about alot of constructive cricticism is often posted on them too. It's like the devs can't be bothered listening to their customer base and don't care about their opinions - at least that's the message it seems to convey. I guess they're scared it'll drive players away from the game with all the negativity, but that's their fault. If the company releases a good game not not half-finished turd (aka Vanguard), they don't have anything to be afraid of from forums. Heck, even Vanguard realized the dumb mistake they made and put some official forums on. (heh, not like it matters anymore.)
You have no idea what your talking about.
Elaborate?
Basically, Official Forums always are whine, nerf, and flamefests, and the Mods can't punish people properly, because they are paying customers who must not be made angry.
By not having official Forums, but having active Developers and Comm. Managers on various Fan-Site Forums, they can pick out more information than on official Forums, because Fanforums won't be flooded by Whining, Flaming and Nerf-Crying, since there Mods can censor whatever they want, ban whoever becomes annoying.
That way, the only Posts and THreads which stay in the Forum are the ones which give Reasons with Opinions. Example:
"OMG Teh Shaman iz OP! Nerf him ffs!", an exaggerated Version of one out of thousand Threads in Official Forums (and that was the CONTENT; not the Title of the THread ) What Info do Devs get out of this? Nothing at all, except that one Person just lost to a Shaman and now thinks he is Overpowered, maybe some others write in there: "No they aren't noob!" "Hell yeah they are"... so what? Devs can't do anything with it.
In a Fansite Forum, this Thread would be closed with the Comment: "Stop Whining, post in the according THread please and give reasons why you think so", so in a Fansite Forum, you'll see a Thread like: "Why I think the Shaman is overpowered: When I, as Hammerer go against a Shaman, he slows me permanently and kites me, and when I finally reach him, he simply heals up...[...]" etc. etc., with immature Posts being Deleted/Edited for content, so that the Answers that keep staying there are like: "I know where you're coming from, but I, as Shaman can only heal up once before the hammerer smashes me, maybe try [...]"
That way, meaningful discussions evolve, and when the Devs read through them, they get an idea on what could be wrong, what is the player's fault and so on. If those discussions always end up the same, with many people saying: "Yeah, indeed the Skill XY from the Shaman should have more delay" or something, on various different Fan-Site-Forums, with different People saying that, they can look into it.
The upside of not having official Forums is that you can have MUCH harsher Moderators, with MUCH more strict rules, because if someone is banned he can't blame it on the Devs, or the Game, it wasn't an official site.
The downside is basically non-existant, because the Devs (Both from EA, Mythic, and the european Host GOA) are highly active on various different Fansites already. They simply saved themselves the hassles of maintaining official Forums, to have more time to actually read through community issues and make the game better.
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?
Yes a whole 10 cents worth per month... seriously guys use your brain.
It's something all new MMO's provide. If WAR doesn't have them them why should we pay the same monthly subscription if a key feaure of MMO's is missing? Forgive my cynicism, but if you are getting less from an MMO, shouldn't you expect to pay a bit less in comparison to the games that provide that service?
Because a forum in not even part of the mmo.. thus not part of the mmo ... thus not what your really paying for... I have never seen any main line US mmo list official forums as a feature, let alone a key feature.. so your argument (even in the eyes of mmos co.s with official forums) is pretty much bunk.
See you don't get any less from the MMO. right now i can hop over to Cox forums without paying anything, or wows etc. Thus this is not part of the subscrition.
Your argument = defeated.
I like no official forums because all it does is encourage the my class needz buffs issue. There was no lack of critizism for op classes in DAOC. The devs got the message and it didn't take 100k people bitching and arguing back and fourth about how Shadow priest are op .. wait no the WArlocks are OP .. etc. (PS blizz will never see an end to this, buecuase alot of it is not based in reality and some of it is ... if anything when your looking for 500k + subs less places for players to argue over who is more pown the better.)
PS Elgareth has it spot on ... I ask those of you who do not like the lack of official forums, if you have played a good and sucsessful mmo without them? I am betting most likely you have not and therefore what we see is a lack of imagination or the fear that you'll have no info sites that is driving the dislike of the policty... but its been proven quite effective in the past.
There also a plus to this, it encourages external (from the game) communities. Youll post alot more on your guild boards and a favorite sites boards. And look at some of the big war fansites already they have more info on them than the mythic sites.. and more info than many released mmos sites (which have their own forums).
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
I have to agree with OP, unless you were part of the whole vanguard thing you won't really get the problems that comes from not having official forums, it sounds like it works but it doesn't. And one of the first things SOE did with vanguard is to re-instate official forums.
They may not be part of the MMO world directly but they are an extension of the social environment. For good or bad, they are an outlet for people to make positive and negative suggestions/comments on gameplay, as well as a centralised source of tips and information outside of the actual MMO world.
What happens is about 20 odd forums/fansites will pop-up, some will be graced with the occasional presence of Devs or their representatives, others will fail and close when they don't recive that honour, important information will be spread out over the remaining ones.
Players will then end up settling in the 2 or most 3 top sites that are the best managed and most informative with the most dev visits and exclusives the others over time become graveyards. So your left with the same type of posts and same information that would exist on 1 official forum site but spread out over 3 sites.
There is no advantage to this, the same negative and positive posts occur on fan site forums as occurs within an official site, except they are spread thinner so it appears less, the problem is that important information is also spread thinner and no one site has all the information at one time, so you spend hours going through the 3 sites collating what you require.
Having them spread out on a whole list of sites helps no-one, again you wont understand the problems unless you have experienced the situation of having to sift through multiple sites just to find some bit of info that would be easier to locate on a centralised forum.
Official forums does not take anything away from fan sites, they will still exist for those that want them, and if anything official forums will make those a more pleasant place to be. Don't be fooled by the old argument that not having official forums allows better out of game communities to develop, that's rubbish, these communities develop of their own accord and cannot be forced into existance or bettered by not having official forums.
No official forums is a bad idea, doesn't work as well as it sounds, does not reduce negative posting but simply spreads it thinner and causes players to have to spend longer periods finding important information.
The decision if final will not stop me playing warhammer but it is dissapointing.
Comments
http://warhammervault.ign.com/View.php?view=devtracker.List&id=1&category_show_all=1
Just an example
That is a straight out lie. Considering that Mythic puts out almost weekly grab bags for DAoC. Which is nothing but responses to player feedback.
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)
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Very happy they won't have an official forum here. DAoC was the best for me for fansites and stuff. While i was at school during a class, I would just browse around and go on sites like Camelot Vault and check out the new pics, vids, and the forums. I prefer going around.
Also, if you look at WoW's official forums, you'd see it's nothing but a place for people to go and whine about the game or defend it. Nothing constructive ever usually comes out of there, just the usual "OMG fix this", "My class doesn't beat every other class, why!?", "You suck Blizzard", etc., with some variations of course.
There is no need for an official forum. It's a waste of money, and as others have said, Mythic is very active in the fansite scene, so they'll be all over the place anyway.
And as others have also said, you should've looked around for 5 seconds and saw the other posts about this before making this one.
Vanguard failed for many reasons, lack of official forums wasn't one of them.
UMM.. i like how your no longer a fanboy ... but just becuase you got burnt once ... well you should be careful cuz ur gonna get burnt again, however, to minimize this look at why you got burnt. No offense but Forums had 0 to do with VG , had it had forums the beta post would be well for beta members only and thus ... you still would have taken it in the butt. Now look at hints of bad games... good example DF , no info released shady dealing etc. You know it will sux, if it even is released at all. I learnt this lesson long logn ago with SB ... you can SEE when a game has issues... so far i can't SEE a single issue with WAR (i dislike the simple guild exp system they plan on using atm ... character based is the way to go... not doing character based exp is liek settling on 6 year old system (that will frustrate) when a brand new one could be used , that has almost no draw backs ... devs do get lazy about things they can't figure out matter a ton.) Still the game for everything we see shows that this game has a solid core and its refined plenty already. (more real vid have been show than any game to date btw) .
Now AoC has had for like months major issues visable in its videos , while there has been many deniers , the funcom dev.s have pretty much admitted it recently, which i think is great because now they can focus on fixing it. I want to say that in no way am i saying AoC will be a VG .. just that well it may have come close had they released it in Oct.
So really ids say watch the vids not the dev journals or dev posts, or anythign a dev is claiming they will have.. look for it instead. While doing this if somethign they said would be obviously is not .. you know you have a problem .. and this could be see previous to VG's release if you had been on the look out... or just not a fanboy.
Also, you may want to look at the other three threads on thsi very topic in at least one of them a mythic CM or Dev. dropped by and said see we do read these boards... i doubt you'll get that agian however, seeing as they already have... just like this thread is a waste of time , so would a mythic cm or dev posting the very same thign at the same site 100 times in a row.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
So many people on these boards need to look at their games this way. Talking to fanboys on here is like face planting a wall... Painful and pointless. How anyone can go through life with such blind faith is beyond me. Question everything... only then can you know truth.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
I'd prefer an official forum, but can't imagine why you'd think the lack of one would be a sign of impending doom. I've never seen as much information available on an upcoming game as there is on WAR, go to youtube,look around here, go to the unofficial sites. I didn't follow Vanguard, but I'm sure they had plenty to hide, not the case here. Only played DAOC as a free trial,but if they didn't have official forums then that's how mythic works then so be it.
Question everything... only then can you know truth. Which is that you'll never know the whole truth for all things are inter-related, and knowing everything is not possiable ... Daniel-son. Rofl
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
While i dont post on game forums, i guess there really is no way other than email contact or phone help, to reach accross to the GM's and say hey theres a problem with the game or i need help with this or that. So many people are gonna need help and i dont think Mythic will have enough staff to help everyone, while the forums give everyone a chance to post their problems at the same time. And also, fansites have that word in them. FAN! of course the fansites are gonna be really biased you would think. Maybe not if outiders come to give their ideas of the game and ask if it actually is good.
Man!
How can any sane human being judge a game by what another game did?
How is it you can even think because one crappy game didn't have official forums than a different game that doesn't have forums must be crappy too?
By that reasoning, we should never play another game because the dev's are just going to CU and NGE us to death! (SWG has an official forum, and look what that got us)
Do people even think before they post?
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.
--Aristotle
No they still have Tech help... And most fixes if not fixed by a patch are given by players not dev.s or CMs. so really theres no need for one still but good point. Had mythic not had tech help then you would be right.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
WoWs forums were never a place to interact with Devs. Hell, the beta forums for thier expo didn't even have Dev interaction. They are mainly just a place to bitch and moan.
I've seen more real dev interaction on the fansite forums that I ever did in all of WoW.
Go play around in the City of Heroes forums and look for dev posts. There are a lot of them.
I don't really agree with the reasoning behind some of what the OP said however I do agree a official forums site be set (even if it's VN forums) so there is a central information source.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
3rd post about no official WAR forum and going strong...
Go play around in the City of Heroes forums and look for dev posts. There are a lot of them.
I don't really agree with the reasoning behind some of what the OP said however I do agree a official forums site be set (even if it's VN forums) so there is a central information source.
This is called the Camelot Herald for DAoC and what the WAR Herald will turn into when WAR goes live. If you want information, the respective Herald will provide you with what you need, including the feedback form to submit suggestions, complaints and other forms of feedback to Mythic.
I don't like it from experience. Official forums are a place you know that you can always go to for the most up to date information, because despite whatever fansite people frequent 99% of the time they'll visit the official site too. I don't really want to surf through and join 20 different communities so I can have a chance at finding the answer to a question I might have. And for advancement related issues, ridiculously comprehensive sites like Thottbott, unfortunately, don't show up everywhere. There's also no guarantee that these sites will always have open doors, unlike with an official forum, or something affiliated with a solid company like IGN. But these massive sites like IGN, where there's a forum for just about every game ever made, aren't really ideal places to build communities.
It also largely depends on how Mythic is going to choose to interact with their fansites. Unless they're going to go and post at everybodies forum they're going to have to play favorites, which usually means death for smaller sites and gung-ho, ban and lock happy mods on larger sites to stay in good favor. I've been part of communities where devs will suddenly decide to pull their support because they don't like an ad that's running or the "tone" of the posts on the forum. Then they slowly just die out and shutdown as traffic dwindles, but costs stay the same. Or maybe they just choose to ignore the community completely which imho is the worst and most incredibly frustrating option.
Either way, I think that any of the possible negative scenarios should just be avoided, as it's not like they won't be able to foot the bill. I can't see any real downsides to having them.
Yes a whole 10 cents worth per month... seriously guys use your brain.
It's something all new MMO's provide. If WAR doesn't have them them why should we pay the same monthly subscription if a key feaure of MMO's is missing? Forgive my cynicism, but if you are getting less from an MMO, shouldn't you expect to pay a bit less in comparison to the games that provide that service?
This trend of not having an official forum is the dumbest thing ever...sure they're largely places for people to whine and moan, about alot of constructive cricticism is often posted on them too. It's like the devs can't be bothered listening to their customer base and don't care about their opinions - at least that's the message it seems to convey. I guess they're scared it'll drive players away from the game with all the negativity, but that's their fault. If WAR is a good game not not half-finished turd (aka Vanguard), they don't have anything to be afraid of from forums. Heck, even Vanguard realized the dumb mistake they made and put some official forums on. (heh, not like it matters anymore.) OP is right its a bad sign.
You have no idea what your talking about.
You have no idea what your talking about.
Elaborate?
I'm really looking forward to this game and am prolly gonna pick it up the day it comes out.
Still, I wish they had official forums. Bad decision imo.
I don''t really know when Humankind will die out but i''m guessing about 6 years before WOW.
-BarCrow
You have no idea what your talking about.
Elaborate?
Basically, Official Forums always are whine, nerf, and flamefests, and the Mods can't punish people properly, because they are paying customers who must not be made angry.
) What Info do Devs get out of this? Nothing at all, except that one Person just lost to a Shaman and now thinks he is Overpowered, maybe some others write in there: "No they aren't noob!" "Hell yeah they are"... so what? Devs can't do anything with it.
By not having official Forums, but having active Developers and Comm. Managers on various Fan-Site Forums, they can pick out more information than on official Forums, because Fanforums won't be flooded by Whining, Flaming and Nerf-Crying, since there Mods can censor whatever they want, ban whoever becomes annoying.
That way, the only Posts and THreads which stay in the Forum are the ones which give Reasons with Opinions. Example:
"OMG Teh Shaman iz OP! Nerf him ffs!", an exaggerated Version of one out of thousand Threads in Official Forums (and that was the CONTENT; not the Title of the THread
In a Fansite Forum, this Thread would be closed with the Comment: "Stop Whining, post in the according THread please and give reasons why you think so", so in a Fansite Forum, you'll see a Thread like: "Why I think the Shaman is overpowered: When I, as Hammerer go against a Shaman, he slows me permanently and kites me, and when I finally reach him, he simply heals up...[...]" etc. etc., with immature Posts being Deleted/Edited for content, so that the Answers that keep staying there are like: "I know where you're coming from, but I, as Shaman can only heal up once before the hammerer smashes me, maybe try [...]"
That way, meaningful discussions evolve, and when the Devs read through them, they get an idea on what could be wrong, what is the player's fault and so on. If those discussions always end up the same, with many people saying: "Yeah, indeed the Skill XY from the Shaman should have more delay" or something, on various different Fan-Site-Forums, with different People saying that, they can look into it.
The upside of not having official Forums is that you can have MUCH harsher Moderators, with MUCH more strict rules, because if someone is banned he can't blame it on the Devs, or the Game, it wasn't an official site.
The downside is basically non-existant, because the Devs (Both from EA, Mythic, and the european Host GOA) are highly active on various different Fansites already. They simply saved themselves the hassles of maintaining official Forums, to have more time to actually read through community issues and make the game better.
Yes a whole 10 cents worth per month... seriously guys use your brain.
It's something all new MMO's provide. If WAR doesn't have them them why should we pay the same monthly subscription if a key feaure of MMO's is missing? Forgive my cynicism, but if you are getting less from an MMO, shouldn't you expect to pay a bit less in comparison to the games that provide that service?
Because a forum in not even part of the mmo.. thus not part of the mmo ... thus not what your really paying for... I have never seen any main line US mmo list official forums as a feature, let alone a key feature.. so your argument (even in the eyes of mmos co.s with official forums) is pretty much bunk.
See you don't get any less from the MMO. right now i can hop over to Cox forums without paying anything, or wows etc. Thus this is not part of the subscrition.
Your argument = defeated.
I like no official forums because all it does is encourage the my class needz buffs issue. There was no lack of critizism for op classes in DAOC. The devs got the message and it didn't take 100k people bitching and arguing back and fourth about how Shadow priest are op .. wait no the WArlocks are OP .. etc. (PS blizz will never see an end to this, buecuase alot of it is not based in reality and some of it is ... if anything when your looking for 500k + subs less places for players to argue over who is more pown the better.)
PS Elgareth has it spot on ... I ask those of you who do not like the lack of official forums, if you have played a good and sucsessful mmo without them? I am betting most likely you have not and therefore what we see is a lack of imagination or the fear that you'll have no info sites that is driving the dislike of the policty... but its been proven quite effective in the past.
There also a plus to this, it encourages external (from the game) communities. Youll post alot more on your guild boards and a favorite sites boards. And look at some of the big war fansites already they have more info on them than the mythic sites.. and more info than many released mmos sites (which have their own forums).
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
I have to agree with OP, unless you were part of the whole vanguard thing you won't really get the problems that comes from not having official forums, it sounds like it works but it doesn't. And one of the first things SOE did with vanguard is to re-instate official forums.
They may not be part of the MMO world directly but they are an extension of the social environment. For good or bad, they are an outlet for people to make positive and negative suggestions/comments on gameplay, as well as a centralised source of tips and information outside of the actual MMO world.
What happens is about 20 odd forums/fansites will pop-up, some will be graced with the occasional presence of Devs or their representatives, others will fail and close when they don't recive that honour, important information will be spread out over the remaining ones.
Players will then end up settling in the 2 or most 3 top sites that are the best managed and most informative with the most dev visits and exclusives the others over time become graveyards. So your left with the same type of posts and same information that would exist on 1 official forum site but spread out over 3 sites.
There is no advantage to this, the same negative and positive posts occur on fan site forums as occurs within an official site, except they are spread thinner so it appears less, the problem is that important information is also spread thinner and no one site has all the information at one time, so you spend hours going through the 3 sites collating what you require.
Having them spread out on a whole list of sites helps no-one, again you wont understand the problems unless you have experienced the situation of having to sift through multiple sites just to find some bit of info that would be easier to locate on a centralised forum.
Official forums does not take anything away from fan sites, they will still exist for those that want them, and if anything official forums will make those a more pleasant place to be. Don't be fooled by the old argument that not having official forums allows better out of game communities to develop, that's rubbish, these communities develop of their own accord and cannot be forced into existance or bettered by not having official forums.
No official forums is a bad idea, doesn't work as well as it sounds, does not reduce negative posting but simply spreads it thinner and causes players to have to spend longer periods finding important information.
The decision if final will not stop me playing warhammer but it is dissapointing.
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