WAR (Warhammer Online)

When they first announced that there would be no official forums for Warhammer, I was disappointed with the development team.  However, after experiencing the forums for Age of Conan, I'm starting to think that no official forums might actually be the better way to go.  The AoC forums are full of useless arguments that do not help foster a stronger community nor better gameplay.  It is mostly thread after thread of people arguing about how the game should be designed, or about which playstyle is superior to another, or about how people need to quit QQing and go back to WoW. 

I think Mythic has picked up on this change in the MMORPG player populace.  I think it started in WoW and has become worse from there.  Official forums are no longer used for players to discuss gameplay, share information, and discuss current ingame events, or current RL events.  Official forums are merely seen as a right to troll and post useless junk on a perceived important place where many will see it.  Many see the forums as more of a game than the actual game. 

This type of abuse of official forums will continue to increase.  Gaming companies will continue to not be able to adequately moderate their forums in fear of losing customers, or causing more outbreaks of unhappy customers when they see their "rights" taken away.  Unaffiliated private forums will just be able to do the job better.  Look at the WoW forums and then look at the Elitist Jerks forums and its easy to tell which is better. 

Anyways, not sure if I summed this up to well, but I think anyone else currently trying out Age of Conan will agree that their official forums have hit an all-time low in the quality of official MMORPG gaming forums.  It's literally like falling into the trash compactor on the Death Star and wading through junk while some monster tries to pull you underwater and drown you.  Seems that the overall MMORPG player base has degraded to a point where giving them a "right" to a forum no longer works. 

Yeah I give them props for aborting this problem before it is born.  WAR is going to attract many of the same people that make the wow and aoc forums what they are, you can't get around that.  Not to mention how many bad design decisions are influenced by whining on the forums.  So many more negative changes are made than positive ones, simply to placate the vocal minority.

  I think they at WAR at least have the insight to see that and it bodes well for instilling trust in their rationality and decision making process, they're off to a *great* start already by simply cutting the head off the beast before it's had a chance to even spawn.

I 100% disagree with this. Sure the AoC forums are filled with useless whine posts much like the WoW forums. However, they are also an invaluable sorce for players to share information, make friends, find solutions to issues etc. Not having any forums and having the community scattered all over the internet is a major strike agaist WAR.

No forums are fine with me since I hardly ever visit them for MMOs in development, but after a game goes live; providing a subscribers only forums would be nice! 

Mythic has never had official forums.....they've been one of the only companies to work without them and still build a perfectly good community LONG before and hopefully after WoW.   Their decision has nothing to do with the WoW or the AoC factor.   

Anyone that uses a forum to 'find friends' to play the game should spend more time in game making friends thats the whole point of the game is socialization.  But ..when you have FFA PvP types.....it doesn't matter what you have...you either come into the game with friends or pray to god you impress someone enough so they dont kill you constantly.

The best information is always found on 3rd party sites, because it'll be catalogued and sorted so you don't spend X days searching through X million posts on random subjects that might have a similiar word or phrase you used to search.

Techincal Issues - well that one could be a given...but at the sametime it'll be on every fan site as well and oft times even the official site will have some sort of technical support...you don't need a troll infested forum in order to seek help. 

Other than possible technical issues beyond player help...there's really no TRUE need for an official forum.  DAoC proved that...they were able to give the community what they asked for without official forums(though ToA was a mistake one could blame that on the community that begged for it in the first place, still they rectified that by putting out servers sans ToA). 

The only other game that tried this yes flubbed but it had nothing to do with lack of forums and everything to do with horrible management & lack of a clear direction, not to mention a host of still existing development / bug issues.

@Deathstiny - I just don't think players really can share information well on official forums anymore because they are so bogged down with trolls and useless threads, all of which is barely moderated.  It's becoming too hard to find the useful information amongst the junk, and hard to have good discussion with all the trolls.  At this point I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people just posting arguments to argue, whether they agree with what they are posting or not. 

@Elvenangel - I guess for me the pinnacle of official forums were those for Star Wars Galaxies.  Some things are just too complex to discuss ingame, you need to see it in document form.  It's hard to show a table of information over tells ingame.  I still feel that forums are useful to gaming communities, but when they are given along with your subscription, people feel like it is a right to use them.  When third parties run and moderate them, it is easier to keep a lid on the discussion and keep things neutral and productive. 

I agree with you on this, I can just as easily go to a well-moderated fansite and get (more) mature responses from people I know play the game. Otherwise why would they go to a fansite? If there's technical issues or whatnot, that's where I know to go. Or, even better, if someone can help me in-game. Official forums may not be a total waste but they are not necessary.

Originally posted by Deathstiny

I 100% disagree with this. Sure the AoC forums are filled with useless whine posts much like the WoW forums. However, they are also an invaluable sorce for players to share information, make friends, find solutions to issues etc. Not having any forums and having the community scattered all over the internet is a major strike agaist WAR.

There are forums for WAR already and the DEV visit them frenquently, and mmorpg is not one of them.

Yes instead of giving a good forum for your players that have bought your game, turn your back to them and wish them good luck somewhere else with a smile. This is very professional and shows a great care for your community. And some players are even happy with the decission and accept they have no right for an official forum! They will soon accept they are so crappy they have no right for technical support anymore, wow they will be drooling in pleasure!