After talking with some people, the discussion of official forums came up. Some seem to think a MMO company should provide official forums where customers can reply directly to the maker. Others think "third party" sites where the makers pop in/out sometimes is just fine. Some said none at all are needed.

What do you think? Official forums or not?

Originally posted by popinjay

Others think "third party" sites where the makers pop in/out sometimes is just fine

didnt see this option listed but its one I agree with

for example, for Guild Wars,

there were several fansites that had forums and Devs would occassionally stop by to comment

ANET itself , never had an official forum tho

Everquest initially had their own forums and anyone could post but it was a flame fest

- SOE later changed it so that only paying subs could post

when WOW launched, Blizzard made their forums "subscriber only" for posting

i've seen good official forums and bad ones. With the right moderation official forums can be great but in wows case they just have far too many people to moderate.

I remember pre-cu swg, the forums answered pretty much every question I could ever think of and aside from the bounty hunter/jedi forums, it was quite a reasonable experience.

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Originally posted by Nadia

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Originally posted by popinjay

Others think "third party" sites where the makers pop in/out sometimes is just fine

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didnt see this option listed but its one I agree with
 
for example, for Guild Wars,
there were several fansites that had forums and Devs would occassionally stop by to comment
 
ANET itself , never had an official forum tho
 
 
Everquest initially had their own forums and anyone could post but it was a flame fest
- SOE later changed it so that only paying subs could post
 
when WOW launched, Blizzard made their forums "subscriber only" for posting

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Jah, that one was supposed to be this one: "Yes, a third party site to answer questions". I could have done a better job with that one.

Thx for the reply^^

I think that they should have forums for users to talk amoungst themselves and a technical support and news forum for posting information if they want to.

I won't play a game that doesn't have official website and forums.

Website, sure.... its a marketing tool and an efficient way of disseminating information to the playerbase.

Forums, nope.  The reasoning is simple.  It has been my experience, with some 12+ years playing these things not counting time in NWN on aol, that forums are usually a complete and utter mess.  You have your main 2 groups: The fanbois and the trollbots and hey endlessly go after one another in a vicious circle jerk that is completely and utterly worthless apart from the humor provided.  You have those that cry for nerfs, those that cry for buffs, those that say the devs need to play their game, those that say the devs need to play a specific class, etc etc etc etc etc.

Originally posted by severius

Website, sure.... its a marketing tool and an efficient way of disseminating information to the playerbase.

Forums, nope.  The reasoning is simple.  It has been my experience, with some 12+ years playing these things not counting time in NWN on aol, that forums are usually a complete and utter mess.  You have your main 2 groups: The fanbois and the trollbots and hey endlessly go after one another in a vicious circle jerk that is completely and utterly worthless apart from the humor provided.  You have those that cry for nerfs, those that cry for buffs, those that say the devs need to play their game, those that say the devs need to play a specific class, etc etc etc etc etc.

I agree.  I try to check forums on MMOs I haven't played for tips on playing classes and everything is so skewed and conflicted, you really just have to play the game to form your own opinion.

I'll also say though that the Everquest forums at SOE had some recurring themes(gameplay complaints) that the developers/reps basically scoffed at and failed to act upon.  A few years later Blizzard started beta testing a MMO that complied with alot of the issues raised by EQ posters.

Originally posted by popinjay

After talking with some people, the discussion of official forums came up. Some seem to think a MMO company should provide official forums where customers can reply directly to the maker. Others think "third party" sites where the makers pop in/out sometimes is just fine. Some said none at all are needed.

What do you think? Official forums or not?

Having an official forum is a lot of responsibility and takes a large amount of time to moderate and read them.

Personally I believe developers shouldn't have forums unless they can afford that time; which some games (especially indie) cannot do.  As long as they read what their community has to say (no matter what forum it is) then I don't think official forums are too necessary.

Edit: And yes, of course they need a website.

All forums have asshats and trolls, they also have helpful and insightful members as well.  A third party forum has the same likelihood of being a cesspool as an official forum.  I personally think every subscription based game should have official forums.  The lack of them had a lot to do with turning off to DAoC when I tried it out... I am glad they have finally seen the light on that one, official forums were recently announced as being on the way for Warhammer.  :)

A game really needs a web site.  If you don't have a web site, you might as well not have a game for all the players you won't attract because they can't find anything about your game.

As for official forums, in principle, I'd say yes.  A place for players to meet and get some developer interaction is valuable.  But in practice, most of the games I've played haven't had a forum, or else had a badly run forum.  Puzzle Pirates and Pirates of the Burning Sea are the only games I've played that come to mind as having had an official forum and having done it right.

Since Guild Wars was brought up, that's an example of the wrong way to do forums.  There is an official wiki for the game, and apparently some developers go there.  The problem is that players don't, because the sort of information that players want to go look up on a wiki isn't there.  The real wiki for the game had about a two year head start, so that's where players go to post information on a wiki for the game, and the official wiki never caught up.  As for why the official wiki doesn't catch up, would you want to fill in a few minor details on a wiki people read, or create a complex article nearly from scratch and put it where people won't find it?

The official forums should be a place for feedback and support, other than that, all community related things and guides/speculation should all be somewhere else, simply because they may look bad/be inappropriate for a gaming company to have on their site, yet at the same time are still essential.

Originally posted by severius

Website, sure.... its a marketing tool and an efficient way of disseminating information to the playerbase.

Forums, nope.  The reasoning is simple.  It has been my experience, with some 12+ years playing these things not counting time in NWN on aol, that forums are usually a complete and utter mess.  You have your main 2 groups: The fanbois and the trollbots and hey endlessly go after one another in a vicious circle jerk that is completely and utterly worthless apart from the humor provided.  You have those that cry for nerfs, those that cry for buffs, those that say the devs need to play their game, those that say the devs need to play a specific class, etc etc etc etc etc.

and lots of technical fixes (where people from the company will even reply and/or correct a random bad bit of information), and a single place where devs can communicate (to and from) with players, and a single point for different classes for discussions on good/bad points and dev announcements for the classes with responses/questions to said announcements, player guides, and you don't have people going to half a dozen+ forums to try to find that latest post by a random dev.

guess your 12+ years have been mis-spent on some pretty bad sections of selected forums and ignored all the good areas?  sorry.

ooooooooo and let's not forget the never ending stream of death threats that some moron at a certain company believes all gaming forums generate....  you know, that pvp game that came out not long ago...

Website yep, Forums, nope.

Official forums tend towards fanboi-vs-troll battle royales and rarely have any constructive content.

Players should express concerns/suggestions/complaints via proper feedback, not by grandstanding on a public forum. There's way too much pointless spam too.

Generally speaking, game forums are just one big cry baby fest where over 50% of the posters don't even play the named game anymore. Sad part is they are not going anywhere.  WoW players have to have an active sub to post to Blizzard official forums. WAR on the otherhand doesn't have official but warhammeralliance seems to do quite the business. One thing i like better about single player games is that they are what they are. This leaves the game to the minds of the developers instead of allowing them to be influenced by game whiners which generally ruins the game for everybody. People that enjoy the games they play don't visit forums very much. It's when they begin to dislike something about their game that they start playing the FORUM game more then the actual game itself.

Originally posted by Vistaakah

Generally speaking, game forums are just one big cry baby fest where over 50% of the posters don't even play the named game anymore. Sad part is they are not going anywhere.  WoW players have to have an active sub to post to Blizzard official forums. WAR on the otherhand doesn't have official but warhammeralliance seems to do quite the business. One thing i like better about single player games is that they are what they are. This leaves the game to the minds of the developers instead of allowing them to be influenced by game whiners which generally ruins the game for everybody. People that enjoy the games they play don't visit forums very much. It's when they begin to dislike something about their game that they start playing the FORUM game more then the actual game itself.

Question:   Do you think the average poster on a non-official forum is more mature than on an official forum?

It's really just a 'shift' in what people cry about.  On forums like this, it is ' your game sucks'... on the offical forums it is ' my class sucks'.

Official forums are great.  Here is a list of posts made on the official forums.  Ghostcrawler is the lead game designer for WOW.  Look at some of the indepth conversations he can have with real player.  Those type of conversations could never happen between a developer and a player on a 3rd party site.  Look at MJ's 'posts' (warhammer).  He'll make 1 big post/speech, and then disappear for a week.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/3.html

One thing I have noticed from gaming forums over the years.

When you have an official website, the developers will tend to answer your questions right on the spot. In depth and usually quite complete, most of the time killing the actual thread because the answer is pretty clear of how the company's position is. Heshe is right there to explain it all usually more times than not. Usually its someone who actually designed or is lead in a class or area who gives the full nuts and bolts description. Even if people aren't happy, they at least understand the full in/outs cause its someone who actually made it and works on it everyday.

Bu with "third party" forums, it usually goes like this:

Customer: "Hey so-and-so game community coordinator, how did this thing work in regards to blah blah blah? Why is it that blah blah blah cannot activate the blah blah blah? Is it a design flaw or is it coding?"

So-and-so community coordinator: "I'll check with the devs and get back to you." **Cue Jeopardy music**

*
Couple days pass...
*
So-and-so community coordinator: "Ok, after meeting with the devs who are in charge of this area, they assure me that blah blah blah is working as intended. They say its supposed to blah blah blah, not blah blah blah."

Customer: "No, I'm talking about the blah blah blah. You are not addressing the right issue. That only happens when blah blah blah goes, but if it doesnt, THEN blah blah blah. Please ask them again."

This is because the "community coordinator" is usually just that... a person there just to handle and run questions back/forth. He isn't the lead in an area or may not even have a clue how dps tables are supposed to work (read: Customer Service). So they go to a "meeting" and talk with one. Then they come back with some "notes" and type. If its wrong, meh. He's just the coordinator, what do you expect?

Square one. The conversation below in my sig is a perfect example of this.

I think it's incorrect to assume that a company having forums means it will respond to player concerns on those forums. In my opinion, forums are mainly for player to player discussions and sharing of experiences and tips. Having official forums without a clearly stated purpose just screws this over as "everybody" is just trying to get developer attention and rant their frustration at having their ass handed to them in PvP.

I voted that MMOG companies should have both website and forums, but that's only if they have a clear vision of what they want with their forums and communicate it properly. If not, it'll be useless for anything but whining at developers, in which case I found more interesting reads on fan site forums.

I never go to "official" forums. I think it's a waste of time.

I want the dev team to keep an orderly updated website, and post some dev blogs. I don't expect them to run an official forum, and don't want one.

If they want to pop in to an unofficial forum from time to time, that's fine, and if they don't that's fine. I want devs to do what they are good at, making games. They aren't PR people, and they don't really need to be posting on forums.

When it gets near release they can do press conferences and I'll watch them answer questions on youtube.

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Originally posted by Ihmotepp

If they want to pop in to an unofficial forum from time to time, that's fine, and if they don't that's fine. I want devs to do what they are good at, making games. They aren't PR people, and they don't really need to be posting on forums.

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I see the point here, you'd rather have them spending time on the game, which I agree with 100%.

Another example:

There was a thread in LOTRO that I was reading about where a player came up with a truly brilliant idea. I mean it was pretty golden. It was all about a Merriment-typebuff that people would get in towns at pubs. Drink a little or eat some food and you'd get a half hour buff. Dance a little same thing. And the buffs got higher as you went along. I mean, it was the most professional thing I had ever seen on a website. He even had drawn up the actual look of the UI. (if I find the link, I'll put it here so you can see what I mean). Everyone in the official LOTRO site was saying how crush it was and that developers should take a look.

Well, the thread went on for quite some time. I mean, the community there would'nt let it die. They came on it and said so, bumping it just to keep it at the top they thought so much of it. Eventually, Turbine had to send someone in to officially talk about it quite a bit. I mean it was THEIR site so they had to acknowledge the plan. Ask any long term LOTRO player, and they'll tell you about that thread. Best most had ever seen.

If that was a 'third party' site like this one, Turbine could have ignored it totally claiming they didn't see it. A casual community site such as this would not have pushed it. That's the kind of things an official site does for you.