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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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] 

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

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. 

Official forums don't work for actual information gathering.  They turn into a cesspool of whining.  I am glad there will be no official forums because I hate the cesspool that are WoW forums.  And Of course no Official forums means EA Mythic can't delete all of the topics they don't want to see like Blizzard does.

Originally posted by Shifty360

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. 

We can't tell if the DAoC model will work with an estimated 5 times as many subscriptions as that game imo.

Is it fair for one unofficial site to have all the devs post there?

Originally posted by tikovoo

 

Originally posted by Shifty360

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. 

Thats nice assuming DAoC will be the same size as Warhammer Online though. Warhammer will bring many new people to the genre. The official warhammer site gets about 60k hits per month, but we all know the game is played and miniatures are brought by many more. A lot of these people will come online to play this game.

 

We can't tell if the DAoC model will work with an estimated 5 times as many subscriptions as that game imo.

Is it fair for one unofficial site to have all the devs post there?

The Warhammer community is more than capable of running multiple fan forums.

The devs understand this and have decided to let things unfold as they may. Look at the bright side, Mythic will have more time to focus on in-game additions and improvements rather than have to mop up the forums floors day in and day out.