Thank goodness. WoW and AoC forums have proven that they are worthless flamefests. DAOC never had official forums and we were better for it. Only people who seriously needed information went to non-Mythic forums to get help. WoW and AoC forums is a breeding ground for malacious flamers and idiots.
All the arguments aside, DAOC always worked this way, and they were wiser for it. This is one huge headache and support nightmare they don't have to deal with. I would rather the time and money be spent on new content and improving the game than serving a bunch of whiners and flamers on an official board. DAOC fan forums were monitored by DAOC community folks and team leads just fine. There is no need for official forums to eat bandwidth and serve folks with an over-inflated sense of importance.
Post your concerns and problems on a fan site and move along. Just like all of us did LONG before WoW or AoC ever came out with the very successful DAOC. It doesn't matter how much you bash it, WAR... IS...COMING. 8% of the voters on FilePlanet are waiting anxiously for Wrath of the Lich King. 35% of FilePlanet voters are looking for WAR.
Originally posted by altairzq Maybe you should relax too. Why fanatics have the urge to insult everybody that is not a fanatic? Anyway, I hope at some point you will have to complain about some game mechanics. Then you will see how weak is your voice in a fansite forum. It is already weak in an official forum where at least they know you are paying, imagine in a fan site where anyone can post.
You ever hear about emailing them? Calling them up? What about using the ingame help function to submit your concerns? You speak as if you have no other way to communicate directly to Mythic without a forum. The lack of an official forum prevents the rampant spread of stupity that one whining asshat can cause. If you have a problem, you tell them directly. You do not make a public spectacle out of it because you want attention. Thats the downfall of official forums. Players who are enjoying themselves are far less likely to post on them. Idiots with an agenda and trolls are the most prevailent users. I am glad that Mythic wont be wasting their time sifting through the endless ocean of waste that official forums bring. <Mod edit>
Take LOTRO example, I browse their forums daily. I check for Dev posts, I check my server sub-forum, take a peek at the Technical Support forum and get involved with the community as a whole.
If its indeed true that WAR won't have Forums, well its not really the end of the world. I'm sure people will find their "home" somewhere where the Devs are most active (Warhammer Alliance I think).
I beginning to suspect the thing going on with the multi-colored posts is intentional now. I refuse to respond to such posts, as there is no reason for it, especially since I clearly said I have a problem reading them and parsing them while pointing out a solution for those who may have a problem with the quoting blocks. It just isn't proper forum etiquette, and it goes to show that some people really don;t give a damn about a discussion at all.
One more thing before I fold- I notice that a lot of you people are from the AoC forum board, that you used to defend them. This does not bode well, especially since you are saying a lot of things now that you did back than.
Whether or not the game succeeds, and I hope that it does, I anticipate a lack of official forum will cause major headaches. And I am done in this thread.
___________________ Sadly, I see storm clouds on the horizon. A faint stench of Vanguard is in the air.-Kien
IMO not having their on fourms is just the cheap way out, and about the fan sites lol, most of them are a joke those like WHA, OW etc.. most are ran by teenagers that ban anyone who dissagrees with them or Mythic, been there seen it first hand my best friend got banned for giving his opinion on why CE pre-order and SE pre-orders should not get in OB at the same time. It's true no flaming a very nice post just giving his opinion.
The reason i said all this is this, if these sites ban people for stating their opinion, then after release there will be little to no feed back on the game from the ones playing and it will hurt the game. If every time someone says anything nagative about the game it gets eidited out and the one posting gets banned then well you get the point. Bad move by a cheap company IMO
let's put things on perspective here, albeit MY perspective, mwhahahahaha!
The IGN Vault for DAoC was the nearest thing to a official forum DAoC had.... and it had so much amount of crap that half was enough, I cannot make comparison but forget the myth "fansite forum means no trolls" cause it does not.
PROs for a Official Forum:
1) ONLY subscribers can post here, a clear advantage. it means if someone is posting he is a customer, not John Doe number 456.
2) You can have centralized informations on class guides, quests and the like. I have seen a lot of negative here about those, but the first stop, FOR ME, when I need to know something about a class is the official forum, there are usually stickies made by serious people that tell you guides, talent build or whatever else you need.
Yes, the fansites can and usually have those too, but they are limited to that fansite's population. Less people in the site mean less people to take for making those guides, then again, sites like WA do offer high quality content, but those sites are not under Mythic control, WA could fold any day, the owner could get bored and just close down the site or who know what else, the information is NOT secure.
3) Server specific forums. A official forum give a clear place where people of Server X can go to hang out with fellow server people. WoW forums placed a server tag on your posts so if someone else from other servers come in, you can just ignore those if they are bad, Fansites cannot do this, anyone can freely add whatever server they want on their profile as the site is not linked to the game chars in any way.
Sometimes servers will make their own separate forum, but that is left to the single person initiative, the official forums gives a board to ALL servers.
4) feedback. Oh yes, you can use fansites for feedback but there is NO GUARANTEE the feedback you are getting is from actual customers. Anyone can do a fansite account, only customers can post on the official forums. On the other hand, you might get a load of bad feedback, meaning non-constructive. However, there is nothing in a fansite structure that stops that from happening, infact with non-customers able to post with no problems, it could be just the opposite.
CONs
1) Official forums tends to become bigger than any fansite forum, this attract more negative trolls and other kind of bad people. (but then again the DAoC VNBoards were quite bad too)
2) Official forums require a lot of resources for an intangible benefit. You need to have plenty of mods (and hiring volunteers like Funcom did, does not seem to work that well), dedicated servers and the like that detract from your other resources. The benefit is intangible, you will not see any tangible numbers go up or down trough this, so it may be hard to justify. Then again, most games do have a official forums, even EVE, so resources should not be an issue for Mythic, especially with EA backing.
3) policing is harder. All the people posting are Customers. They are paying X a month for the service. Arguably this could hold the Mods hand when handling out bans or the like. Fansites do not have this problem as they are usually free and as such can ban whoever they want. On the other hand, Official forums tend to have very definite rules and a very definite process of banning, appeals and the like. A fansite can ban you because you have blonde hairs.
In addition, if you are banned from a fansite, you can just whip out a new hotmail email and register right back in, in an official forums, you can't do that.
Seeing all this points, it makes me think that ALL the negatives of an official forums CAN be present in a fansite forum too, ALL the good points of a fansite CAN be present in the official forums too, but not all of the good points of a official forums can be present in a fansite place.
The point is the PEOPLE posting are the very same! no matter what site you are using. I would rather use an official board that has very clear rules AND have the possibility to go to a fansite for an alternative experience than not have the choice.
Fact is most people will gather in one forum. It was the VN Boards for Daoc, it will be something else for WAR. the problems come from the sheer amount of people, NOT intrinsically from the official forums. IF there are official forums ,you can be sure that is gonna be the biggest of them all and if that bothers you, STILL can go to a fansite.
With no official forum, one of the fansites will probably become bloated and if that happen to be your favorite fansite, you are screwed and have to go somewhere else.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
To the posts responding to me above Bladins here, I already politely asked that you organize your posts so that I can actually read it and there is no confusion. Try to use the "traditional" format if you have problems with the quoting blocks please.
Originally posted by Bladin
You have shown me through your posts in this topic, that you are not a active member of WoWs forums.
Not lately, it has been months since I participated in them.
As for the ratio of spam to real content and discussion, honestly it wasn't *that* bad, and the crap is really irrelevant. You can ignore it. Like I said, what actually matters is that content and community that a fansite doesn't really allow. really now, thing like Leeroy Jenkins would never have showed up on a fansite.
Actually there were plenty of "Celebrity" players on VN Boards in both AC1 and DAoC. (Both didn't have official forums at the time)
I'm sorry you have some mispercieved notion that the devs actually read and care about what you have to say on the forum.
Not about me but what the greater majority wants and thinks. I still haven't seen any kind of rebuttal for the two particular events that I cited.
You bring up class balance, and it is funny that you do because that is actually mostly the fault of the players on the forums
Paladins were originally over-powered, forum discontent changed that.
Shaman were over-powered, forums changed that.
Warlocks were under-powered, and hahaha, forums changed that.
Oh and by the way, all of this happened long before an expansion pack.
Now you can say that this is actually an argument against forum, but you would have to concede that I had a point about players being able to sway developers.
Actually forums didn't change any of this. Blizzard uses feedback from testing and numbers pulled from server logs to see what is actually going on. If you honestly believe that forum feedback is listened to then I am not sure what to tell you. Forum feedback represents a tiny minority of players. So small that statisically it isn't significant enough to use for feedback purposes.
CoHs forums work, because its a niche game and the niche are the only ones that go there.
Mmm, WAR is technically a niche game.
No actually WAR would be considered a "Main Stream" MMO as shown by the low system requirements. Also it is a mainstream fantasy mmo.
Look at AoCs forums, look at WoWs forums, thats how WAR will look.
And frankly its not good.
AoCs forum went pear-shaped because the game was a biblical catastrophe run by, IMO, con-artists.
WoWs forums, I'm looking at them again, they aren't too bad really.
Aren't too bad? WoW forums are full of bile. Spam. Crap. and more crap.
The Vast majority of players that I have seen that actually look for information don't go to the forums. They go to WoWhead. Thottbot (in the past). Alahkazam. Elitist Jerks. Or one of the various forums for the top end raid guilds. I have never heard someone say hey go look it up on the forums ingame. Ever.
People seem to think that forums are the way to get heard from the developers. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I have been a board moderator in the past for a MMO on their official forums and I can tell you that the vast majority of feedback gets locked due to trolls and flames.
Mythic on the other hand uses their in game feedback tools and (in DAoC) uses class leaders. This has worked out pretty well throughout there history. The one major exception was when Mythic listened too much to "Forum Warriors" and we ended up with Trials of Atlantis.
I could go on but obviously there is way more then enough data on Camelot herald. I expect War herald to be the same. Plus War Herald is going to have an Armory feature and leadership boards for PVP.
Currently playing: World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Beta, Age of Conan Forums.
me experience with official forums have only been good. Mind you i've only played SWG pre-cu but the mods there were quick to remove trolls and spam but they allowed constructive criticism... most of the time.
Thing i like most about official forums is you know the person making the post has an active account, and if they get banned they need to shell out cash to come back, instead of just hitting the register button and not paying a cent.
I know ewveryone is bored at work, but seriously....
WAR will not have an official forum. Go ahead and whine, moan, etc.....won't do you any good. And I for one, welcome it.
1 or 2 fan sites will take the lead and be the "go to" sites.
Not having an official forum will have no impact on the actual game. No, good sir, the sky is NOT FALLING.
If you don't like it? Guess what...practice YOUR POWER AS A CONSUMER AND DON'T PURCAHSE THE GAME. O wait, what fun would that be? Then what would you rant about?
I have seen some quite impressive official forums and some pretty messed up official forums as well (AoC anyone?)
Some have done very well (IMO of course) without "official forums". One case was Guild Wars that have an official site with news/update notices. Discussion/debate is left to all the community sites BUT the community relation people are fairly good at posting/following debates at those sites. Between the official and unofficial wiki + the community sites I have never felt any need for an "Official Forum" in GW.
Some might feel that since the most successful MMO (subscriberwise) has a good official forum that MUST mean that this is the only way to go. I still think that it is all a matter of implementation, but it is definately not the ONLY way to go when interacting with the community.
Personally I find it hard to believe that WoW's official forums have any serious positive impact on their number of subscribers
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!! (repeat ad infinitum)
Look at AoCs forums, WAR not having official ones is a good thing. The existing forum communities work fine for player feedback and developer interaction/communication with the players, the developers for WAR are more active with players on a fan created forum than FunCom is on there own official forums. Warhammer Alliance is pretty much the standard for WAR forum communities, check it out, alot of the developers chat with players daily about the game. Moderation is fair and well managed, its a great site and will more than likely continue on as the premiere WAR forum after launch.
Regardless of what you may think of Vanguard.
Sigil tried this, and with what you say about AoC it was not any good regarding that and Vanguard.
I'm not even sure what you are saying. I'm currently playing Vanguard though, and its improved a lot since launch. All I can say is if you are saying Vanguard failed due to no forums, you have no clue what you are talking about. Vanguard hasn't done well because it was totally jacked at launch. That has nothing to do with forums. What's your excuse for DAOC? It was the most popular MMO for a while. Never had official forums. The forums mean nothing. Better off without them, as I said before.
I'm not even sure what you are saying. I'm currently playing Vanguard though, and its improved a lot since launch. All I can say is if you are saying Vanguard failed due to no forums, you have no clue what you are talking about. Vanguard hasn't done well because it was totally jacked at launch. That has nothing to do with forums. What's your excuse for DAOC? It was the most popular MMO for a while. Never had official forums. The forums mean nothing. Better off without them, as I said before.
DAOC never achieved anything close to being the most popular mmorpg - please research before you spew misinformation
It never surpassed the original EQ - not even close
LOL DAOC was more popular than Everquest at one time. Perhaps you should know your MMO history instead of being a WoW newb. You can't judge popularity by today's WoW populations. Back when DAOC came out, the average computer per househand was far lower than it is now. Quit making excuses and trying to go around the argument. The fact is - there will be no official forums and WAR doesn't need them. You can practice your flaming powers elsewhere!
EDIT: Checked the population stats of DAOC and EQ. At one point EQ was far ahead of DAOC, but it becomes pretty insignificant over time, especially when you compare both games to WoW numbers. I don't remember EQ having forums of its own when it was released either. I really don't know how this is helping your case any. I could be wrong about EQ having forums, so someone else with a better memory feel free to prove me wrong (yes real proof).
On the flip side of your argument, I bet I could prove a few games that did have official forums that bombed much worse than DAOC.
For what its worth: http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html is pretty interesting. If you want a real debate of why a forum is necessary, at least provide examples. Here are mine:
Everquest 2 - Market share is pititful, considered a bomb. Official forum. Huh.
Age of Conan - another bomb. Has a forum. What gives?
Tabula Rasa - What do we have here? Yes, official forums and yes, it bombed.
God and Heroes - CANCELLED BEFORE RELEASE - had official forums!!!
LOL DAOC was more popular than Everquest at one time. Perhaps you should know your MMO history instead of being a WoW newb. You can't judge popularity by today's WoW populations. Back when DAOC came out, the average computer per househand was far lower than it is now. Quit making excuses and trying to go around the argument. The fact is - there will be no official forums and WAR doesn't need them. You can practice your flaming powers elsewhere!
It's been well known the most it ever got was approx 250K subs - at the time it did EQ was well over 350k - and its second place was even brief lived -
LOL DAOC was more popular than Everquest at one time. Perhaps you should know your MMO history instead of being a WoW newb. You can't judge popularity by today's WoW populations. Back when DAOC came out, the average computer per househand was far lower than it is now. Quit making excuses and trying to go around the argument. The fact is - there will be no official forums and WAR doesn't need them. You can practice your flaming powers elsewhere!
You are the very definition of why WAR doesn't need official forums. At least have an argument worth standing on if you are going to insult someone. Read my edited post above.
LOL DAOC was more popular than Everquest at one time. Perhaps you should know your MMO history instead of being a WoW newb. You can't judge popularity by today's WoW populations. Back when DAOC came out, the average computer per househand was far lower than it is now. Quit making excuses and trying to go around the argument. The fact is - there will be no official forums and WAR doesn't need them. You can practice your flaming powers elsewhere!
I don't remember it being number 1 over EQ but then I do know it had nothing to do with not having official forums either. Its a retarded argument that no forums = fail. DAoC proved that it was a decently populated & ranked gamed and still loved by many. Its only failure was a pve focus'd expansion...but atleast they DID give players servers that dont use that expansion to atleast keep the remaining masses happy. By all accounts though DAoC was a critical success and the fact its still up and running and having expansions made for it proves this. Games that = fail dont' get expansions & new servers etc.
LOL wasn't even close? We are talking the hundreds of thousands compared to WoW's millions now. Comparing them to WoW isn't close. Comparing them together is much more acceptable (and to be fair let's talk about the number of computers in each household compared to now). Still, you point is meaningless, and posting my link in your post isn't going to change it. DAOC is still being played by loyal fans and its making money. Someone at EA thought Mythic did a pretty good job and decided to purchase Mythic... Cry about it all you want, DAOC is successful. It all comes down to if the launch for WAR goes well and how good it is. THAT will determine if it is successful. Official forums aren't going to change that.
Comments
Thank goodness. WoW and AoC forums have proven that they are worthless flamefests. DAOC never had official forums and we were better for it. Only people who seriously needed information went to non-Mythic forums to get help. WoW and AoC forums is a breeding ground for malacious flamers and idiots.
ColdSun
All the arguments aside, DAOC always worked this way, and they were wiser for it. This is one huge headache and support nightmare they don't have to deal with. I would rather the time and money be spent on new content and improving the game than serving a bunch of whiners and flamers on an official board. DAOC fan forums were monitored by DAOC community folks and team leads just fine. There is no need for official forums to eat bandwidth and serve folks with an over-inflated sense of importance.
Post your concerns and problems on a fan site and move along. Just like all of us did LONG before WoW or AoC ever came out with the very successful DAOC. It doesn't matter how much you bash it, WAR... IS...COMING. 8% of the voters on FilePlanet are waiting anxiously for Wrath of the Lich King. 35% of FilePlanet voters are looking for WAR.
ColdSun
You ever hear about emailing them? Calling them up? What about using the ingame help function to submit your concerns? You speak as if you have no other way to communicate directly to Mythic without a forum.
The lack of an official forum prevents the rampant spread of stupity that one whining asshat can cause.
If you have a problem, you tell them directly. You do not make a public spectacle out of it because you want attention. Thats the downfall of official forums. Players who are enjoying themselves are far less likely to post on them. Idiots with an agenda and trolls are the most prevailent users.
I am glad that Mythic wont be wasting their time sifting through the endless ocean of waste that official forums bring.
<Mod edit>
To be honest, I actually like official Forums.
Take LOTRO example, I browse their forums daily. I check for Dev posts, I check my server sub-forum, take a peek at the Technical Support forum and get involved with the community as a whole.
If its indeed true that WAR won't have Forums, well its not really the end of the world. I'm sure people will find their "home" somewhere where the Devs are most active (Warhammer Alliance I think).
As long as the player have somewhere to complain lol..
so long as the game is good and customer support is present not like in some games *cough* Aoc *Cough*
i will be happy.
I beginning to suspect the thing going on with the multi-colored posts is intentional now. I refuse to respond to such posts, as there is no reason for it, especially since I clearly said I have a problem reading them and parsing them while pointing out a solution for those who may have a problem with the quoting blocks. It just isn't proper forum etiquette, and it goes to show that some people really don;t give a damn about a discussion at all.
One more thing before I fold- I notice that a lot of you people are from the AoC forum board, that you used to defend them. This does not bode well, especially since you are saying a lot of things now that you did back than.
Whether or not the game succeeds, and I hope that it does, I anticipate a lack of official forum will cause major headaches. And I am done in this thread.
___________________
Sadly, I see storm clouds on the horizon. A faint stench of Vanguard is in the air.-Kien
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/12/13/
http://vnboards.ign.com/
Will be the semi official forum , it was for DAOC .
IMO not having their on fourms is just the cheap way out, and about the fan sites lol, most of them are a joke those like WHA, OW etc.. most are ran by teenagers that ban anyone who dissagrees with them or Mythic, been there seen it first hand my best friend got banned for giving his opinion on why CE pre-order and SE pre-orders should not get in OB at the same time. It's true no flaming a very nice post just giving his opinion.
The reason i said all this is this, if these sites ban people for stating their opinion, then after release there will be little to no feed back on the game from the ones playing and it will hurt the game. If every time someone says anything nagative about the game it gets eidited out and the one posting gets banned then well you get the point. Bad move by a cheap company IMO
let's put things on perspective here, albeit MY perspective, mwhahahahaha!
The IGN Vault for DAoC was the nearest thing to a official forum DAoC had.... and it had so much amount of crap that half was enough, I cannot make comparison but forget the myth "fansite forum means no trolls" cause it does not.
PROs for a Official Forum:
1) ONLY subscribers can post here, a clear advantage. it means if someone is posting he is a customer, not John Doe number 456.
2) You can have centralized informations on class guides, quests and the like. I have seen a lot of negative here about those, but the first stop, FOR ME, when I need to know something about a class is the official forum, there are usually stickies made by serious people that tell you guides, talent build or whatever else you need.
Yes, the fansites can and usually have those too, but they are limited to that fansite's population. Less people in the site mean less people to take for making those guides, then again, sites like WA do offer high quality content, but those sites are not under Mythic control, WA could fold any day, the owner could get bored and just close down the site or who know what else, the information is NOT secure.
3) Server specific forums. A official forum give a clear place where people of Server X can go to hang out with fellow server people. WoW forums placed a server tag on your posts so if someone else from other servers come in, you can just ignore those if they are bad, Fansites cannot do this, anyone can freely add whatever server they want on their profile as the site is not linked to the game chars in any way.
Sometimes servers will make their own separate forum, but that is left to the single person initiative, the official forums gives a board to ALL servers.
4) feedback. Oh yes, you can use fansites for feedback but there is NO GUARANTEE the feedback you are getting is from actual customers. Anyone can do a fansite account, only customers can post on the official forums. On the other hand, you might get a load of bad feedback, meaning non-constructive. However, there is nothing in a fansite structure that stops that from happening, infact with non-customers able to post with no problems, it could be just the opposite.
CONs
1) Official forums tends to become bigger than any fansite forum, this attract more negative trolls and other kind of bad people. (but then again the DAoC VNBoards were quite bad too)
2) Official forums require a lot of resources for an intangible benefit. You need to have plenty of mods (and hiring volunteers like Funcom did, does not seem to work that well), dedicated servers and the like that detract from your other resources. The benefit is intangible, you will not see any tangible numbers go up or down trough this, so it may be hard to justify. Then again, most games do have a official forums, even EVE, so resources should not be an issue for Mythic, especially with EA backing.
3) policing is harder. All the people posting are Customers. They are paying X a month for the service. Arguably this could hold the Mods hand when handling out bans or the like. Fansites do not have this problem as they are usually free and as such can ban whoever they want. On the other hand, Official forums tend to have very definite rules and a very definite process of banning, appeals and the like. A fansite can ban you because you have blonde hairs.
In addition, if you are banned from a fansite, you can just whip out a new hotmail email and register right back in, in an official forums, you can't do that.
Seeing all this points, it makes me think that ALL the negatives of an official forums CAN be present in a fansite forum too, ALL the good points of a fansite CAN be present in the official forums too, but not all of the good points of a official forums can be present in a fansite place.
The point is the PEOPLE posting are the very same! no matter what site you are using. I would rather use an official board that has very clear rules AND have the possibility to go to a fansite for an alternative experience than not have the choice.
Fact is most people will gather in one forum. It was the VN Boards for Daoc, it will be something else for WAR. the problems come from the sheer amount of people, NOT intrinsically from the official forums. IF there are official forums ,you can be sure that is gonna be the biggest of them all and if that bothers you, STILL can go to a fansite.
With no official forum, one of the fansites will probably become bloated and if that happen to be your favorite fansite, you are screwed and have to go somewhere else.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Not lately, it has been months since I participated in them.
As for the ratio of spam to real content and discussion, honestly it wasn't *that* bad, and the crap is really irrelevant. You can ignore it. Like I said, what actually matters is that content and community that a fansite doesn't really allow. really now, thing like Leeroy Jenkins would never have showed up on a fansite.
Actually there were plenty of "Celebrity" players on VN Boards in both AC1 and DAoC. (Both didn't have official forums at the time)
Not about me but what the greater majority wants and thinks. I still haven't seen any kind of rebuttal for the two particular events that I cited.
You bring up class balance, and it is funny that you do because that is actually mostly the fault of the players on the forums
Paladins were originally over-powered, forum discontent changed that.
Shaman were over-powered, forums changed that.
Warlocks were under-powered, and hahaha, forums changed that.
Oh and by the way, all of this happened long before an expansion pack.
Now you can say that this is actually an argument against forum, but you would have to concede that I had a point about players being able to sway developers.
Actually forums didn't change any of this. Blizzard uses feedback from testing and numbers pulled from server logs to see what is actually going on. If you honestly believe that forum feedback is listened to then I am not sure what to tell you. Forum feedback represents a tiny minority of players. So small that statisically it isn't significant enough to use for feedback purposes.
Mmm, WAR is technically a niche game.AoCs forum went pear-shaped because the game was a biblical catastrophe run by, IMO, con-artists.WoWs forums, I'm looking at them again, they aren't too bad really.
Aren't too bad? WoW forums are full of bile. Spam. Crap. and more crap.
The Vast majority of players that I have seen that actually look for information don't go to the forums. They go to WoWhead. Thottbot (in the past). Alahkazam. Elitist Jerks. Or one of the various forums for the top end raid guilds. I have never heard someone say hey go look it up on the forums ingame. Ever.
People seem to think that forums are the way to get heard from the developers. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I have been a board moderator in the past for a MMO on their official forums and I can tell you that the vast majority of feedback gets locked due to trolls and flames.
Mythic on the other hand uses their in game feedback tools and (in DAoC) uses class leaders. This has worked out pretty well throughout there history. The one major exception was when Mythic listened too much to "Forum Warriors" and we ended up with Trials of Atlantis.
Once again I will direct you to:
Game news right on the frontpage
Support Knowledge Base
feedback Form
patch notes
team leads and team leads_suggestion form
Artifact database
I could go on but obviously there is way more then enough data on Camelot herald. I expect War herald to be the same. Plus War Herald is going to have an Armory feature and leadership boards for PVP.
Currently playing:
World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Beta, Age of Conan Forums.
me experience with official forums have only been good. Mind you i've only played SWG pre-cu but the mods there were quick to remove trolls and spam but they allowed constructive criticism... most of the time.
Thing i like most about official forums is you know the person making the post has an active account, and if they get banned they need to shell out cash to come back, instead of just hitting the register button and not paying a cent.
It's one of their more stupid things they are proud of , they'll be the only major mmorpg without them and in this day most players expect them
Like it or not DAOC was and is a minor player sub wise in the mmorpg world - just because old DAOC players were used to it doesnt mean others will be
I know ewveryone is bored at work, but seriously....
WAR will not have an official forum. Go ahead and whine, moan, etc.....won't do you any good. And I for one, welcome it.
1 or 2 fan sites will take the lead and be the "go to" sites.
Not having an official forum will have no impact on the actual game. No, good sir, the sky is NOT FALLING.
If you don't like it? Guess what...practice YOUR POWER AS A CONSUMER AND DON'T PURCAHSE THE GAME. O wait, what fun would that be? Then what would you rant about?
To me it is all a matter of implementation.
I have seen some quite impressive official forums and some pretty messed up official forums as well (AoC anyone?)
Some have done very well (IMO of course) without "official forums". One case was Guild Wars that have an official site with news/update notices. Discussion/debate is left to all the community sites BUT the community relation people are fairly good at posting/following debates at those sites. Between the official and unofficial wiki + the community sites I have never felt any need for an "Official Forum" in GW.
Some might feel that since the most successful MMO (subscriberwise) has a good official forum that MUST mean that this is the only way to go. I still think that it is all a matter of implementation, but it is definately not the ONLY way to go when interacting with the community.
Personally I find it hard to believe that WoW's official forums have any serious positive impact on their number of subscribers
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
official forums give games a bad name.
Regardless of what you may think of Vanguard.
Sigil tried this, and with what you say about AoC it was not any good regarding that and Vanguard.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
I'm not even sure what you are saying. I'm currently playing Vanguard though, and its improved a lot since launch. All I can say is if you are saying Vanguard failed due to no forums, you have no clue what you are talking about. Vanguard hasn't done well because it was totally jacked at launch. That has nothing to do with forums. What's your excuse for DAOC? It was the most popular MMO for a while. Never had official forums. The forums mean nothing. Better off without them, as I said before.
ColdSun
DAOC never achieved anything close to being the most popular mmorpg - please research before you spew misinformation
It never surpassed the original EQ - not even close
LOL DAOC was more popular than Everquest at one time. Perhaps you should know your MMO history instead of being a WoW newb. You can't judge popularity by today's WoW populations. Back when DAOC came out, the average computer per househand was far lower than it is now. Quit making excuses and trying to go around the argument. The fact is - there will be no official forums and WAR doesn't need them. You can practice your flaming powers elsewhere!
EDIT: Checked the population stats of DAOC and EQ. At one point EQ was far ahead of DAOC, but it becomes pretty insignificant over time, especially when you compare both games to WoW numbers. I don't remember EQ having forums of its own when it was released either. I really don't know how this is helping your case any. I could be wrong about EQ having forums, so someone else with a better memory feel free to prove me wrong (yes real proof).
On the flip side of your argument, I bet I could prove a few games that did have official forums that bombed much worse than DAOC.
For what its worth: http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html is pretty interesting. If you want a real debate of why a forum is necessary, at least provide examples. Here are mine:
Everquest 2 - Market share is pititful, considered a bomb. Official forum. Huh.
Age of Conan - another bomb. Has a forum. What gives?
Tabula Rasa - What do we have here? Yes, official forums and yes, it bombed.
God and Heroes - CANCELLED BEFORE RELEASE - had official forums!!!
ColdSun
{ Mod Edit } DAOC was never #1 in subs - period
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html
It's been well known the most it ever got was approx 250K subs - at the time it did EQ was well over 350k - and its second place was even brief lived -
{ Mod Edit }- DAOC was never #1 in subs - period
You are the very definition of why WAR doesn't need official forums. At least have an argument worth standing on if you are going to insult someone. Read my edited post above.
ColdSun
DAOC never had more than approx 250k subs { Mod Edit }
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html
It wasnt even close to EQ at its highest
{ Mod Edit }- DAOC was never #1 in subs - period
I don't remember it being number 1 over EQ but then I do know it had nothing to do with not having official forums either. Its a retarded argument that no forums = fail. DAoC proved that it was a decently populated & ranked gamed and still loved by many. Its only failure was a pve focus'd expansion...but atleast they DID give players servers that dont use that expansion to atleast keep the remaining masses happy. By all accounts though DAoC was a critical success and the fact its still up and running and having expansions made for it proves this. Games that = fail dont' get expansions & new servers etc.
LOL wasn't even close? We are talking the hundreds of thousands compared to WoW's millions now. Comparing them to WoW isn't close. Comparing them together is much more acceptable (and to be fair let's talk about the number of computers in each household compared to now). Still, you point is meaningless, and posting my link in your post isn't going to change it. DAOC is still being played by loyal fans and its making money. Someone at EA thought Mythic did a pretty good job and decided to purchase Mythic... Cry about it all you want, DAOC is successful. It all comes down to if the launch for WAR goes well and how good it is. THAT will determine if it is successful. Official forums aren't going to change that.
Did you even play DAOC?
ColdSun
i prefer it this way.
Look at the WoW forums, they're a mess filled with trolls and flamers.
WAR will have forums that the majority of the players look at it will be a fansite of some kind thats all.
Similar to guild wars.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum