WAR (Warhammer Online)

Originally posted by Maeiliu
If players like the game they'll make their own forums. The main bad point in my opinion would be the lack of technical support forum.

/agree

Wow this thread is funny. Vanguard had said they wouldnt have any official forums, and people bitched left and right and cancelled pre-orders and flamed for months. War does it, and its okay? Ha the irony.

Originally posted by JPR1985

Wow this thread is funny. Vanguard had said they wouldnt have any official forums, and people bitched left and right and cancelled pre-orders and flamed for months. War does it, and its okay? Ha the irony.

No Offical Forums , Good or bad?
	Good thing. 18.5%
	Bad thing. 44.4%
	No forums, no play. 12.3%
	I dont care. 24.7%
Based on 243 votes.

I have long held the opinion that forums are one of the worst things to hit the computer game market.  About the only time I think forums are a good thing are during a beta.  Once that is done, abolish them.  Live forums are filled with morons who think they know better than everyone else.

I'll be the first to admit that there is the odd good idea that comes out in a forum.  But more time than not people post ideas without considering the domino consequences their 'good idea' would have on other parts of the game.  Why should game companies devote resources to an official forum when other people will create fan forums that will serve the same job?

The only time I visit official forums is to get a good laugh at what gets posted.  The WoW forums are a great example of why official forums are a waste of virtual space.

Down with official forums - up with fan forums.

They do need to make sure there is a solid pipeline for dealing with technical problems but forums were never really a good way to do this anyway.  Too much noise, not enough meat in them.

There are more than enough forums out there where people can discuss things - or rather, flame, whine, cry, rack down etc. - you know the drill.

Lack of support? Yea well, as long as they have good in game or website support, there is really no need for a forum is there?

There is not a single thing a forum could do, that could not be done inside the game or via website info. It's too much work to moderate a forum of the size it would be and 75% of the people you will see there, are forum lovers who spend 30% of their time in the game and the other 70% on the boards racking down on the little issues of the game because they are bad players and just died to a level 5 mob for the 10th time.

No official forums, good call.

12% no forum no play lol wtf I want to play with ppl who care more about farming stars than the game itself. 

Originally posted by JPR1985

Wow this thread is funny. Vanguard had said they wouldnt have any official forums, and people bitched left and right and cancelled pre-orders and flamed for months. War does it, and its okay? Ha the irony.

Their petitioning process seems to get around having the "Nerf this, Nerf that" type junk cluttering up important stuff.

Sorry, this is 2007, and with game budgets exceeding 30-60 Million Dollars, there should be a forum.   I can understand back in DAOC's day most games didn't have official forums.  Did we not learn anything from Vanguard?   Making your players have to go searching the net for information is lazy and is discouraging to potential customers.  Hell, even SoE knew the second they took over VG they opened a real forum, and the players applauded it.

From my own personal experience, whenever I am entertaining the idea of signing up for any MMO, they very first place I go is that games official forums to see what has been going on.  Will there be crying on the forums?  Sure.  But as a developer, you should have thick enough skin to be able to have a discussion with your customers, which can not be done through polls.  Stand by your product and talk about player concerns in a centralized location.   Brad McQuaid was always hiding in a sea of  "Fansites".  I use that erm lightly because it was later revealed that even though they had no direct relation to Sigil, they were still forcing the hands of the sites moderators to ban and mod negativity.

What kind of community manager is it that tries to justify not having a real community?  If you aren't confident enough in your product to answer to your customers and respond to their concerns, then you should not be in the industry.

No need for official forums.  Stuff gets blown out of proportion, mob mentality takes over, and very little "productive" communication.  Information will be dispersed via the WAR Herald.  Dev's will get feedback via submissions.  All without the presence of that ever skewing mob mentality thing. 

"My class needs a buff!"
"That class is way to powerful!"
"Ya, what they said!  We Archers must unite! Power to the players!"
"PWNT!"
"First"
"OMGWTFBBQ"

Oh darn... look at what we may miss out on.  Official forums have turned into a playground for kids in some MMO's it seems.  No need for these official forums.  More cons than pros IMO.