Originally posted by Arkane_A

What resource are they denying people that isn't already offered somewhere else? We have tons of forums, tons of community, and they told us where we can directly contact them.

  They are denying the resource of having an official forum, as I said previously, 3rd party websites can easily go down due to lack of funds (i.e. Jimmy running WAR-COOL-KIDS runs his own WAR fansite and it gets way overpopulated because there are no officials forums and he cannot continue to pay for the bandwidth). Also 3rd party websites lack official replys from dev's. If there is something I know about being a customer it is that you like to read something written from an official staff member, not from some unknown source. If the servers are down I prefer the professionalism of an official forum, not a 3rd party website. I think it is the responsibility of the developers and staff to actively reply to customer needs and concerns via an official forum, whether they like criticism or not. Where will I go when say, the servers go down? And all I can get from a 3rd party website is "dude, shit crashed dunno how long its gonna be yo". No, I expect an official response with an estimated time of reboot or uptime, and a official explanation as to why, ie update, patch, etc.

Originally posted by Arkane_A

What resource are they denying people that isn't already offered somewhere else? We have tons of forums, tons of community, and they told us where we can directly contact them.

An official forum exists so that there can be an immediate place for the playerbase to communicate with the devs as well as the other players in regards to issues, questions, problems, whatever; instead of having to track down which site has the most recent info.

And like I said again, you can interact with the same players in game, or on your forum of choosing. You can interact with the devs right through the warhammeronline site. You lose nothing by not having an official forum. How many times has somebody made a complaint on the AoC forums and been banned or suspended? Now their only choice is to wait until the suspension is over to get back to the forums. They can moderate those forums as tough as they want because you have to follow a certain post etiquette on there.

Official forums are NOT needed, nor does the majority of the big named mmos community visit them. You lose out on nothing. Do you think a thread on mmorpg.com is going to make them create an official forum when they didn't have one for DAoC, and told us two years ago that there would not be on for WAR?

Nothing is going to change, and you don't miss out on anything.

I go to the official forums of any game for the following reasons; pretty much in that order:

1- I need information about the game.  A good website can inform the players.  You just need to ORGANISE this information in an intuitive way.

2- To feedback/suggest something.  (positive)  They can figure that by themselves or find other way to get it.

3- To explain/whine about something not acceptable in the game.  (negative)

Do I care if a game has an official forum?  Not really.  Do I care if the website is not informative enought and there is no forum?  It may make me quit the game.

So really, they need to developp a webpage...and a GOOD one.  Much better than what they have for DAoC (laggy and not intuitive); althought not for me, since they don't want "real" PvE players atm. Prolly should have a database on their website with a search button, kinda like google for their game (think of the civilization game, the encyclopedia, but much better and more developped).   Such a webpage would take at the very least a few months to do.  :P

First off...I have to say I only made it through the first 2 pages of this.

All I have to say on the subject is that Mythic in my experience has always been good about getting information out and keeping the public informed, and the fansite forums, vn boards etc. have worked well enough for DAOC.

I'd much rather see the company spend its time and money on creating and maintaining the game rather than spend the time and resources to maintain and moderate a forum properly.

I agree with you Arkane_A in the fact that you can get some information from guildies, friends, 3rd party sites, etc. And no, I do not think WAR will change their mind because of a thread on MMORPG.com. However, my main point being that they are not going far out of their way to have something as simple as an official forum, it is not that much to ask for, its like getting a computer with no support manual, sure you can ask around for help but at least you know you have that manual that you can go back to incase you cant find the information you need, and you know in that manual will be support, contact information, etc. You may be able to get much information from friends, and other sources, but you still need that official forum that you can always count on. I believe a games website quality represents a lot about its game, the more professional, intact, detailed and fine tuned, the more likely you are going to be playing a quality game. However when you look at a lot of F2P websites its a joke and it looks abandoned.

EA has its own Support Website they always have and now that Mythic has joined with EA.. they'll have use of those forums for Technical support there's really no need to hire on extra staff to set up a website, maintain it, and moderate it.  It just sounds like excess spending when its already available to them.

I'm not sure you've been following WAR very wel Dvsclarity.  You actualy said they don't care what we say when that has not ever been the case.  If it hadn't of been from vocal community concerns and then beta tester concerns we'd still be stuck with NO Keeps and a heavy focus on Instance PvP.  Now we have keeps and Open PvP is more important than Instance PvP.   

They've held countless events, question sessions, contests and the like through various fan sites that are actually directly linked from their own website.  They care about the community and instead of forcing everyone into a box so the messages get lost they are letting the community build itself so there's many boxes and many voices and they're easily looked through.  

Personally I've never found a reason for Official Forums.  I played UO never used the official forum.  Played EQ1 never used the official forum infact the Best most informative information about the game was always on other sites like Allakazam and EQCrafters.   EQ2...I peeked at their official forums and it took FOREVER to find anything.  WoW...same thing but about 5 times worse since you have to go through countless unnecssary cries for nerfing, buffing, changes etc etc that often made no sense.  The few that did usually ended up getting deleted.

To me official forums is not a concern there is always a way to contact a company if there's a techincal concern.  Forums are probably the worst place to do it.  Phone, Email, or Chat are the two best methods...of course if your any sort of real gamer you rarely if ever need techincal help (unless its a complete fubar on the Dev's part).

Who gets support manuals with computers? I built mine...if I need support for a part there's usually a number somewhere but....honestly ... who the hell buys a computer out of a box these days?!

Originally posted by Zorvan

 

Originally posted by Arkane_A

What resource are they denying people that isn't already offered somewhere else? We have tons of forums, tons of community, and they told us where we can directly contact them.

Same argument the Vanguard fanbois and McQuaid said when defending Vanguard not having them ( not calling you a fanboi, but the Vanguard ones, hoo boy ). And what happened? The fans got spread out so far on different sites, that noone had the correct info all at the same time, if ever. Then McQuaid decided one particular "fansite" would be the devs official posting place and others could get their info from them, which then allowed that "special" fansite to control what information was released to anyone outside of their members, as well as only info McQuaid approved. So those who knew where there were discrepancies, and called them out, were immediately banned. Any negative viewpoint was silenced so as to keep their "special" status. This was also the same thing that happened with PE making STO.net their official fansite for Star Trek: Online.

 

An official forum exists so that there can be an immediate place for the playerbase to communicate with the devs as well as the other players in regards to issues, questions, problems, whatever; instead of having to track down which site has the most recent info.

Zorvan, you and I are agreeing on way too many things lately. You're exactly right on why official forums exist. While official forums do have their problems, handing things over to fan sites are bad and have been proven so just like the examples you provided. I guess some companies don't learn from the mistakes of others.

I'm not sure how you can compare Sigil and Mythic....its sort of apples to oranges.   Sigil was a completely new company being run by someone who was a 'Designer' but not a businessman in any sense of the word.  Mythic on the other hand is being run by people who actually know what they're doing and have a rather well loved title under their name.  

Most of all Sigil couldn't even properly communicate with its own staff the idea they could properly communicate with say their audience is laughable.  If you can't talk to the people working for you and in the same building then you certaintly don't know how to talk to your customer base.    Mythic on the other hand has been using this method for years without showing any overt favoritism to anyone.  Though they do frequant Warhammer Alliance more than other sites for physical postings it doesn't seem to matter.  The moment anything shows up there its on all the other fan sites.   Many of the biggest WAR sites are all jointly working together but bringing their own unique flavor to the topic.    Unless there's a catastrophic break down within Mythic such as Sigil's break down...I still consider this not a serious issue. 

Though personally I plan to be playing the game..and if there's a problem with the game why bother whining to anyone when I can send a customer complaint through EA's Tech support forums or call them on the phone which is far more efficent then possibly waiting several hours or more for any sort of decent help that doesn't requirement constantly posting.

Originally posted by MChavez

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

But we still get the drama.

Originally posted by banthis

I'm not sure how you can compare Sigil and Mythic....its sort of apples to oranges.   Sigil was a completely new company being run by someone who was a 'Designer' but not a businessman in any sense of the word.  Mythic on the other hand is being run by people who actually know what they're doing and have a rather well loved title under their name.  

Most of all Sigil couldn't even properly communicate with its own staff the idea they could properly communicate with say their audience is laughable.  If you can't talk to the people working for you and in the same building then you certaintly don't know how to talk to your customer base.    Mythic on the other hand has been using this method for years without showing any overt favoritism to anyone.  Though they do frequant Warhammer Alliance more than other sites for physical postings it doesn't seem to matter.  The moment anything shows up there its on all the other fan sites.   Many of the biggest WAR sites are all jointly working together but bringing their own unique flavor to the topic.    Unless there's a catastrophic break down within Mythic such as Sigil's break down...I still consider this not a serious issue. 

Though personally I plan to be playing the game..and if there's a problem with the game why bother whining to anyone when I can send a customer complaint through EA's Tech support forums or call them on the phone which is far more efficent then possibly waiting several hours or more for any sort of decent help that doesn't requirement constantly posting.

Have you ever dealt with EA's customer support? Goodness knows I have and it's one of, if not the worst in the industry. I'm not saying EA/Mythic is going to be bad, but EA overall is horrid company when it comes to customer service.

Originally posted by tikovoo

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