Building Community

"Let me point out the two biggest changes in the ways we interact with our communities between the original Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 right up front: we will have official forums, and we will not have a traditional fansite program." -- Martin Kerstein

Well...suppose that puts the issue to rest. Good to hear and smart on their part in my opinion.

Thanks for the info.

This is gonna be so cool to see the backpedaling that will now commence amongst some around here.

Hehe

Now that's a real surprise Oo

Didn't expect this at all, GW1 did pretty well without an offical forum imo.

Excellent decision on their part , now for the crow plates to pass around to those who said there was no way they would have them.

Chose not to get involved with this topic previously but it was obvious I thought that if they're doing any kind of Alpha testing they would need a method to collate discussion on different aspects of the game. Forum being the most likely candidate.

Makes sense that they would then translate that across to retail. Good decision imo.

Farewell Guru, Farewell mmorpg

...

Somehow I doubt official forums will be any beter :(

One less game "breaking fatal flaw" to complain about but you know when one becomes a non-issue 5 others pop up. 

Colour me surprised!

I always understood their reasonings for not having official forums with GW and just assumed it would remain that way. Interesting to see how this pans out, what effective measures can they take to ensure the community doesn't devolve in to what we've come to expect from official forums?

As a forum junkie I approve :)

Originally posted by VowOfSilence

Now that's a real surprise Oo

Didn't expect this at all, GW1 did pretty well without an offical forum imo.

However GW1 didn't have multiple servers as you could meet up with any other player.

Now to better help the communication within servers there will be multiple server threads necessary and the required increased moderation on a fansite such as gwguru would have been tremendous for all the trading/guild recruiting/player events per server.

Originally posted by Dahkot72

Excellent decision on their part , now for the crow plates to pass around to those who said there was no way they would have them.

Don't forget all the people that were whining about them NOT having an official forum, even though countless people, myself included, TOLD THEM that the game was not released yet and that they were making assumptions.

I could have understood them going either way with this decision, however, considering the WoW forums are probably responsible for much of the decline in that game.  Nonetheless, this is the more professional decision, surely.  I think ArenaNet will listen to the average whining gamer much LESS than Blizzard did over the years.  I don't expect they will change their game just because of whiners.

Originally posted by Kwintpod

Farewell Guru, Farewell mmorpg

...

Somehow I doubt official forums will be any beter :(

Don't worry, we'll still be here, ready to hate on the next new MMORPG coming soon. 

Didn't matter to me either way, but it's obvious that ANET is trying hard to make GW2 into a "real" MMORPG, including all the amenities that fans of the genre have come to expect. 

I have stayed out of the "official forums" debate myself because I spoke with ANet devs at PAX Prime whilst in line to play the demo and was told to my face that they would have official forums. But that's just one fan's word. I'm glad to see they gave me the "straight dope." :)

Very good and serious decision from ANET now to have an official forum.

I guess it's a good idea to host some official realm forums, you don't want those scathered around.

I am surprised it was even a question. I don't think it was the fact that Guild WArs 1 was not a traditional MMO as much as it is that Guild Wars 1 was created before the onslaught of so many gaming websites and rabid fansites.  For a game this scale, u need an oficial place to get news.  

Originally posted by catplay

Very good and serious decision from ANET now to have an official forum.

more then likely it was there plan all along. you jumped the gun and created a fuss but it is what it is

What?! NO! This is an outrage! How dare... wait, what? They'll have an official forum?

Ah, cool. Can't wait to check it out.

hahaha wow they just pounded a nail into their own foot. I said in a previous thread we do not deserve official forums and I still stand by that =)

Official forums are as someone else said a Troll breeding ground and 98 percent of it is pure garbage with 2 per cent useful valid stuff. I am actually suprised they would do this to themselves. But hey if they want to create a nice little area for every bad whining qqing troll to fester then so be it. I'll be the guy standing there saying "I told you so" in a month when your all neck high in flamethreads, trollbait and qq.

meh, only use i'd get out of it would be if lots of guides were put on there.. which won't because of the official wiki.

Originally posted by RoyalPhunk

hahaha wow they just pounded a nail into their own foot. I said in a previous thread we do not deserve official forums and I still stand by that =)

Official forums are as someone else said a Troll breeding ground and 98 percent of it is pure garbage with 2 per cent useful valid stuff. I am actually suprised they would do this to themselves. But hey if they want to create a nice little area for every bad whining qqing troll to fester then so be it. I'll be the guy saying standing there saying "I told you so" in a month when your all neck high in flamethreads.

 

...and this is different from any other forum, how exactly? :p