We Dont Want Official Forums - EAMythic Wimped Out on the Casual Customer.. - General Discussion - WAR (Warhammer Online)

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tikovoo 3/22/08 9:43:58 PM

Advanced Member

Joined: 4/02/07
Posts: 176

So I was on warhammeralliance.com and was doing a bit of catching up when I came across this post by Mark Jacobs..

McQuaid Flashbacks anyone? Be prepared.

Quote:

Folks,

The age we are living in is definitely a different one. I've gone from moderating forums with hundreds of people to seeing forums that are supposed to support games with millions of people. I wish it was as simple as set a few rules, apply them fairly, be honest with the players and then everything will be all right. It just isn't that way, no matter how much we would like it to be. Heck, even on our own beta forums we have people who refuse the follow the rules, break NDAs, ignore stickies, etc. and we do all the right things. No matter how well-intentioned the mods, unless a company is ready, willing and able to devote a ton of staff to the forums (24x7 mods, ruthless enforcement, limited topic creation ability, large staff), there are simply too many people to handle unless you have either an incredibly thick skin or so few available posting venues (as opposed to reading venues) to make it less than worthwhile. Scale is a wonderful and terrible thing and I'm sorry but you can't compare a game(s) that are small to games like WoW or even what we hope WAR will be in terms of number of subscribers. Also, the type of game has a direct effect on the style of the community. Let's face it, in a game like WAR or DAoC in which conflict between the races, sides, etc. is a main selling point, the forums for these games will be rather, hmm, enthusiastic. Lots of screaming and yelling, lots of false reports and tons of exaggeration. Whether it is WAR, WoW, DAoC or any other game in which RvR or PvP plays a major role, all these games share a very similar community. And I've seen more than enough from DAoC and WoW alone, to tell me that I am indeed right in my assessment. And I am happy to make a prediction here, when AoC launches, if they have official forums (I don't know their stance on it), they will have the same kind of behavior that the aforementioned games have had, count on it. If I'm wrong, I'll be also happy to admit it.

From my perspective, I'm not as concerned with the cost in terms of dollars (but the players should be) but rather what I will have to put my people through to run those forums. If WAR is as successful as we hope, we will have more users than any other MMORPG other than WoW. If that is true, we will be flooded by good users and bad. When things turn ugly, and they always do, my people will be insulted, yelled at, cursed at, threatened and told the vilest things possible. When we launched DAoC, one of my rules for our Customer Service Reps was that they didn't have to sit still and be abused by customers. I believe it is every customers' right to complain about the service but I also do not believe it is every customers' right to treat other human beings as people that they can dump on and treat in a manner that I know they wouldn't want to be treated themselves. I've said this before but unless you have worked the backend for one of these games, you do not really understand how ugly players can get when dealing with CMs/CSRs. I've seen more than my fair share of this ugliness directly and no amount of wishful thinking will make it otherwise. I care greatly about providing my customers with a great game but I also care deeply about my people, whether developer or CSR, and I don't want them to have to go through what I've seen happen both in other games as well as our own. While the percentage of people that are truly abusive is small, when you get to the kind of numbers we hope to have with WAR and given the type of game we are, that small percentage can suck up a lot of time and energy if you want to run forums properly. Just so you know, I would never want to have official forums that we ignore just so we could say we have official forums. That is, quite frankly, BS. As I've told our CM people when we talked about this issue, if we are going to do it, we would have to do it right.

Now, this doesn't mean we won't communicate to the community directly. Our Herald system was the best in the industry when we launched it for DAoC and we want to take it to the next level with WAR. We will have internal tester forums and we might have what we had with DAoC in terms of outside, specifically focused forums to help the players as well as to get additional feedback for us. However, even those had their share of false reports, exaggerations, etc. which diminish their usefulness and cost us time and money. We will also continue to post in places like these and make ourselves available to the community where we can. I want to reiterate that both official forums and internal forums, we have misspent a fair amount of time based on what users have sworn said happened, they saw, etc. At least with internal forums (and they can get heated at time), we know that the people there actually want to be there and help and not just post something to waste our time. And we've had our time wasted so often that it is ridiculous (even with QA sometimes you have to pass things on to devs quickly if it is potentially serious enough).

However, if you are looking for Mythic to provide wide-open official forums where people can threaten, curse, vent, etc., we have no intention of doing that now or in the future. There might be a hybrid solution but for now, I'm choosing to err on the side of caution.

Oh, BTW, I've said this before as well, I also post as myself, never an alias. I do this so people know who they are talking to and what I stand for, even if they think/know I'm wrong. I do believe if people posted under their own names the Internet would be a lot more polite. Anonymity is a very good thing at times but when it comes to issues like these, it isn't. It certainly is not true for everybody but it couldn't be much worse than it is and has become over the years. Twenty years of dealing with online communities has taught me many lessons, one of which is that most people (not all) will say things under an alias that they would never do under their real name or in person. I've lost track of the number of people I've met who on the boards/Internet were angry, vicious, unreasonable and nasty but in real-life, the exact opposite. Heck, even some people say that I'm a lot nicer in RL than I might appear to be at times here.

In closing, I do wish I believed that having official forums would be a great move for WAR. Even with the jerks/griefers/flamers/etc., I love online communities, I just cannot be convinced that in 2008, the right way to launch an MMORPG like WAR is with wide-open official forums.

Mark

This shows to me that Mythic dont care, its a Service Industry, they just don't care for the consumer.

Obviously Jacobs felt the need to mouth off, again.

I know we have gone over the official forum thing a few times, but this is new news, a new post addressing yet again negative connotations ~ rumblings in the public.

What I want to know are:

Why do developers expect that 3rd party communities will be more successful with no professional community managers, less official clout and overall less resources than the developers did?

Fans will flock and give more credence to whatever fansite forums that they perceive gets the most of Mythic's staffs attention. What will Mythic do to balance this?

Financial reasons why WAR will not have official forums of the type that other MMOs have - why is that now they sport the EA badge?, its different now to the Daoc times.

There should be official forums because it is unfair to foist all the work onto the community. Why should the fans be made to carry that burden with little more than a 'thank you' from the Devs and the Community. Voluntarily labour is as exhausting as forced.

So what happens when a server goes down?? anyone? ok, i'll answer. You post on the forums and then if the company is nice enough the community manager or someone will pop on and post a "sorry its going to be down a while" - thats cool now I know where I stand for the rest of the day. Having no offfical forums = me trapsing around the i-net for info, and then the developers / community representatives (who mark wants to wrap up in cotton wool) needs to find where a problem is...

"If WAR is as successful as we hope, we will have more users than any other MMORPG other than WoW. If that is true, we will be flooded by good users and bad. When things turn ugly, and they always do, my people will be insulted, yelled at, cursed at, threatened and told the vilest things possible" - poor little baby, should you not explain in the contract of employment "welcome to the industry this is what will happen" or are "your people" socially inadequate and lack training?

Is it me or cant the man take crititism? just like on the VN boards...

Official forums give the customer a chance to voice their opinion formally to the company. I don't really see how much less work it would be to have to shift through a variety of different community unofficial forums to get a sense of what players want or think about the product. Maybe EAMythic just doesn't care about consumer opinions or wants but we'll have to see how well this decision plays out I guess. Forums and the internet is serious business but if you’re in the MMORPG business you have to take the good with the bad and that would be maintaining some sort of official forum

on the flip side though, the Camelot Herald was pretty cool, I expect the War one to be too. The herald can deliever good amount of info, but the direction is all one way. Or I am lost in a sea of people wanting their own question asked in a 'grab bag' even today Camelot Herald still puts out noob info. These things could be covered just as well in one spot on official forums and then we as the community might feel we are contributing to it. Mythic has done an incredible job in providing information, especially podcasts, I just wonder though. Game launch comes, the masses will be lost.

I still think the playerbase will want more interaction with the devs as opposed to a form submission.

Don't forums really equate to customer service? When your customers have questions you want them to find the relevent information quickly. Does Walmart want their customers going to Target for customer service questions? Sure eventually sites like Thottbot and such will be up and running, but I still think relying on others to help your customers is lame. As is the excuse I'm worried about my staff having their feelings hurt by morons on the forums.

Official forums are a non-issue as long as the game works out of the box on all computers, never has any bugs, and we have a community of players that don't mind helping each other. But Jacobs thinks that the game is going to get massive numbers, and it might just get them, but he is also scared of that population having the ability to speak to the company he works for.

Because Mythic's Herald system works in DAoC (a very mature game) doesn't mean today it is still the best model. Lets also assume for a minute or two that Warhammer wont be the same size as DAoC. If this game stays the same size as DAoC then perhaps that system is fine. I guess.

Example, when I bought a game and I installed it - the graphics were whacked. I posted my spec's on the support forum and said what my problem was. 5 mins later there was a post telling me the issue was with my vid card and linked a fix for it. Sorry, but a knowledge base won't help me there. And some filling out some form for something a K.B. doesnt have could mean waiting a long time.

Well there wont be an official forum, lets hope it turns out ok then for all our sakes. Just my opinion, based on this latest post - there are good and bad points mark puts around but on the whole I think its a bad thing.

MChavez 3/22/08 9:46:58 PM

Advanced Member

Joined: 10/24/07
Posts: 144

I am gamer. Hear me click.

Simply put, no official forums = none of my money on this WoW clone.

Currently playing: No MMOs. They all suck.

banthis 3/22/08 9:51:01 PM

Apprentice Member

Joined: 3/19/07
Posts: 10

Everyone's known and talked about this for months...I even think there's various threads related on it atleast when I searched it after seeing this one. Personally I'm glad their devs & tech people won't be tied up with 1 billion and 1 complaints, elitists listen to me, and other massive problems caused by official forums.

I don't even bother going with the WoW forums because they're so out of control. I'd rather the Company be tied up working on additions & fixes to the game based on well writen customer feed back they'll get from heavily controlled boards like Warhammer Alliance. I guess thats just me though...anyone thats familiar with Sony Knows how rough things get there..infact things get so nasty the Dev's rarely talk with you at all anymore.

btw MChavez if you aren't going to bother to learn anything about the game perhaps you should troll elsewhere.

jackman1118 3/22/08 9:59:05 PM

Apprentice Member

Joined: 10/04/04
Posts: 215

OMG NO OFFICIAL FORUMS?

hey maybe people will actually read thier guilds forums instead? It could just be me but honestly do you need an official forum if you know how games work? I mean really its just a bunch of people who have no idea what they are talking about giving out advice, since most of the "experienced" crowd doesnt bother. Thats just my experience though.

tikovoo 3/22/08 10:01:11 PM

Advanced Member

Joined: 4/02/07
Posts: 176

Originally posted by WHCWrenn

/yawn

Old topic . . with a long-ass post. But I read it, so I could present a condensed version for everyone to read:

Condensed version of OP's post: I am a troll. I play Hello Kitty Island Adventure! Have a great weekend!

Thats why I goto warhammer alliance - nice one! still not perfect though.

And thats why on the whole fan sites owners or moderators dont have the industry knowledge or legitimate face to face customer service as potentially one in an official capacity.

Its about the feeling of direct relations with the public and not some "post every now and then" on some 3rd party website where people don't know how to moderate.

Old topic, but one Mark Jacobs decided to thrust his recent thoughts into the public spotlight. And one where he feels he wouldn't want to talk about it on forums with the warhammer official logo and connection to - just in case his poor staff had to endure some trollish posts.

WHC - well represented my friend.

Geriden 3/22/08 10:04:33 PM

Novice Member

Joined: 7/03/06
Posts: 151

Still for me no official forums is a big question mark i dont get why they wont have one i dont beleave there exscuse why they shouldnt have one its total b******t and all this c**p about read the wow forum well for f*** sake thats god dam wow not war go check out eq2 forums there fine not every god dam game is like god dam f****** wow !

If im paying a sub i should be intitled at least a tech forum with dedicated staff thats all theres no if buts or why we shouldnt have one its a given.

dont even try tell me other wise its just a given.

{ Mod Edit - Toned down the profanity }

[Geriden here i was also very drunk at the time and the drink sent me into a typing frenzy i get anoyed when everything is constantly compared to wow also a paying customer for a mmo should have a certin level of customer service and there current stand in my opinion comes of as a way to ignore there customer i also said this way back when they anounced they will not be having any forums]

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Vortex500 3/22/08 10:18:52 PM

Advanced Member

Joined: 7/01/05
Posts: 235

The man who has nothing can still have faith

Originally posted by WHCWrenn

/yawn

Old topic . . with a long-ass post. But I read it, so I could present a condensed version for everyone to read:

Condensed version of OP's post: I am a troll. I play Hello Kitty Island Adventure! Have a great weekend!

Total uncalled for. He brings up a topic he feels concerns about, thats all. No troll baiting, not a controversial topic or a total irrelevant off-topic message. He even end it "Well there wont be an official forum, lets hope it turns out ok then for all our sakes. Just my opinion, based on this latest post - there are good and bad points mark puts around but on the whole I think its a bad thing.". Doesnt feel so "trollish" to me.

Mythic has made up their mind, no official forums. I myself dont really care for a official forum. I think the fan sites works really good (except one of them that got a little out of hand in the moderation). But then again I can understand the people that would like to have one official forum. Im not gonna deny them that.

The Second Day Vet

---------------------------
Waiting for: WAR(CE pre-ordered), AoC (pre-ordered) and GTA IV (pre-ordered) :P
Now Playing: Nothing
Retired From(In chronological order): SWG, EQ2, Roma Victor, D&D Online, Vanguard:SoH,LotRO(Life Sub), Hellgate:London, Tabula Rasa, PoTBS .

† Rest in Peace, Gary Gygax. I wish you godspeed in the Elysian fields that surely awaits you. †

Shifty360 3/22/08 10:28:29 PM

Novice Member

Joined: 12/17/07
Posts: 649

DAoC did not have Official forums and the community still functioned very well.

There is no reason to get bent out of shape. There will be a site that everyone congregates to and you will most likely hear about it in game. (ex. DAoC Vault, DAoC Catacombs, etc etc) There are already some good Warhammer info/fan sites out there, so just find the most populated one and sign up.

Cabe2323 3/22/08 10:30:33 PM

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