Curse

Wrath Of Dragons · Jun 29, 2008, 05:34 AM // 05:34

So, GuildWars has avoided creating their own forum for these last 3 years. Why? A number of reasons...they will need people to moderate, need to spend time setting it up, spend money on bandwidth, spend time updating it, spend LOTS of time making it available in other languages. Probably a hundred other reasons. By depending on fan generated forums, they eliminate the need for all that, and allow the community to be more active in discussions.

Then came the Guild Wars Wiki.

Excellent idea....allow users to create content, but at the same time have control over things, and allow the dev team to be able to discuss things in their own setting. Integrate it into the game. It was mostly win for them, as it allowed them some freedom from their fan-created forums. They could post things in one place (the wiki) and let fansites keep up on it if they wanted. No more copy-pasting across multiple forums, unless they really wanted feedback on something, then they would go back to the forums.

Wikis allow users to discuss articles, as well as carry on discussions on user pages. As a moderator for the Game and Dev Tracker, I wanted to pull some of the conversations the Devs held on the wiki here onto Guru. I went to the wiki, to Gaile's user page. That was when I discovered that a wikis main purpose is displaying information. Carrying on discussions was a far, far second. Imagine someone writes a sticky note with an idea on it, and then someone else writes a sticky note to reply to that one, then someone else writes a sticky note about a different topic but links it into the original sticky notes topic.....
Now take those 500 lovely sticky notes, and then just put them randomly across a board. Yes, its almost impossible to follow. Its daunting to me, someone who has been on forums and used wikis before. Imagine being a new player and looking into that mess. Its terrible. This leaves the wiki discussions severely limited to the few users who can deal with the mess. The wiki discussions are pretty much an extreme opposite of a well planned forum.

I think something needs to be done as a halfway between a forum (something they dont want, but works well) and a Wiki (something they have, but doesnt work well as a discussion site).

The ability to carry on a discussion about a specific topic, to make it user friendly, and encourage users to participate in developer-lead discussions would do nothing but benefit the community and help the game.

The best thing I can think of to solve this awkward halfway point is a blog.
Take http://www.engadget.com/ for example.

You have a post made by one of several officials. (We shall call them "devs".)
They make a post, and then it shows up on the main page. Anyone can read the post on the main page, as well as click on the post to add/read comments. Its Neat, organized, and super simple. They can even embed polls! Normal users wouldn't be allowed to create entries, but that's what forums are for anyways. We arent trying to create a forum......just a way to carry on a well organized discussion without all the overhead from a forum or all the disorganized BS of a wiki page.

Google provides a blogging website, free of charge. I am not a business and have no idea on how licenses work for commercial use. But look!
izzmit.blogspot.com

It provides a clean, easily understood interface.
It sorts by day/month/year.
People can easily leave comments.
Admins can delete offensive posts.

Compare this: http://izzmit.blogspot.com/
to this: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_...gina_Buenaobra

Why does the wiki discussion still exist?

Curious as to other peoples thoughts on this.

Dr Strangelove · Jun 29, 2008, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Both wikis and forums are needed. Forums are the best available way to have discussions - flawed as they may be. If you're interested in more directed discussions, take a look at the Sins of a Solar Empire forums. The format is a little different than normal, but it works.

The major weakness of forums is that they're useless in the long term- eventually threads get filled with spam of pushed off the main page, and are forgotten. Wikis fix this by storing the most valuable content at the expense of discussion. You can't have one without the other.

I'd suggest Anet also add IRC chats. This is essentially what the LA d1 Gaile chats did, but IRC would be a little better organized and more conducive to quick discussion and community building.

Wikis provide long-term storage of valuable information, forums provide directed discussion over a moderate period of time, IRC provides personal, candid discussion, but on a more rare basis. All 3 are necessary to good CR.

Silly Warrior · Jun 29, 2008, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wrath Of Dragons

Why does the wiki discussion still exist?

Curious as to other peoples thoughts on this.

While I totally agree with you, often times the most popular sites used are not the most technically advanced or easy to use.

The same comparision you have made could be applied to any two websites...(off the top of my head.)

www.google.com

and...

www.dogpile.com

Plus its not like this is going to change, people are too lazy.

jzupko · Jun 29, 2008, 06:22 AM // 06:22

I have been wondering about this myself. I always thought ANet did not want an official forum. Fair enough. There are a number of arguments against an official forum.

However, then ANet created the official Wiki, and many ANet developers effectively started using it like a forum, which is just bizarre. A Wiki is a horrible structure for a forum.

So yes, a "dev blog" would be a good compromise. The current trend of creating "Journals" on the Wiki is not a substitute for this - you really need a blog which has a comment function that can be moderated.

Incidentally, see Regina's Journal entry for June 17th for her thoughts on this: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:...naobra/Journal.

Operative 14 · Jun 29, 2008, 08:32 AM // 08:32

I completely agree, and it's something I've been considering for the past few months. Regina sort of took the wiki on as her official form of communications, whereas Gaile and Patrick used the fan forums a bit more. I can't really say if one method is better than the other. But I do have to say, reading a discussion on a wiki, let alone participating in one, takes some getting used to.

I think having an official forum, or a blog, would be better in many ways than using the wikis for discussion. It seems to me the wiki discussion pages aren't really designed for anything other than two or three sentance blurbs about formatting issues, for which two or three responses are expected.

I know one of the issues Regina has brought up is the ability for the developers to have more transparency and communication with the fans. It seems like the ideas suggested in the OP would go a long way towards facilitating that, and do so much better than the wikis ever could.

Though I also was under the impression they were moving toward a solution similar to what was suggested as well, just that it needed a lot of input and work to make it happen.

Konig Des Todes · Jun 29, 2008, 09:39 AM // 09:39

Personally, I say that there should be an official forum. That way, people can just use that one and not have a bunch of fan forums floating around.

For the problem of Administrators and Moderators, just have a few staff be the admins and the fan-based Moderators. I personally don't see what the problem with that is. And for the issue of Trolls and Flames, the rules and punishment could be stricter with an official forum, such as the GW account itself getting a temporary ban. An official forum has quite a few advantages to help counter the disadvantages.

Although, the idea of a blog would be a MUCH better use then the Wiki's for relaying information. So, if a blog is made, then there won't be much need for an official forum. Could hope for an official forum for GW2 though... (even though it won't happen)

Edge Martinez · Jun 29, 2008, 10:13 AM // 10:13

As long as I play GW, I'll never not read Guru, but I fail to see how an official forum would hurt ANet. Limit threads to ANet employees, drop a few mods to weed out posts that contain foul stuff, and run it with a tight leesh. People can always vent and have sidebars on the fan sites, but for people not playing GW currently, they may look to the 'official' GW site for news on GW2 or even GW, with the games dropping in price. All they'll find is a half-assed, hard to navigate main website. And god forbid they find a fan site and believe the negative stuff instead of the real positives. I don't want to have a wiki telling me stuff. If an official forum is not happening, surely there's someone nerdy enough at a game designer company that can do a blog like the OP said. Much easier to read.

Fay Vert · Jun 29, 2008, 10:15 AM // 10:15

Wikis, blogs and forums are all completely different things, despite there being some overlap. Wikis are for information, forums for discussion and blogs for individual or organisational opinions.

Some forums put a wiki up, though there are pretty poor. Most blogs simply aren't visited by people, they are not community sites. There was a good wiki in pkace but ANet wanted to develop an in-game feature to add value to the game, and so they couldn;t use a public resource outside of their control, which is why they setup the official wiki, it wasn't needed as a GW wiki, but it was needed as part of an in-game component. As it happens, wikis are also not bad for blogging, so the official wiki also serves this purpose for ANet.

So if you want discussion use a forum, not a wiki or a blog. An oficial one may be good, but GW is already served well by some estabished forums and ANet have no reason to add an official one to surplant these and I don't see that the addition of an official forum would add any value now. It would have been good from the start, but not now. GW2 however is a different matter and I hope ANet put all these community aspects in place right fromt he start with this.

Horus · Jun 29, 2008, 10:31 AM // 10:31

most other MMORPG's have official forums, been wondering whay GW doesn't have any for a long time now :/
I like guru and all, but imo official forums would be best. Then just make owners of fan sites for moderators there

Felixious · Jun 29, 2008, 10:50 AM // 10:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by guardian of dragon temple

most other MMORPG's have official forums, been wondering whay GW doesn't have any for a long time now :/
I like guru and all, but imo official forums would be best. Then just make owners of fan sites for moderators there

I'm not really sure what im saying is right, but my best guess s the fact that unlike other MMO's, GW has no subscription fee (and i can't say i've figured out how the hell they maintain al the servers 0.o?), and forums for 5 million people must be pretty costly to run, and knowing anet, they'd probablyhire more people just to monitor the forums. Mostly, i think there's no official GW forum, beause its not realy needed. Guru was started pretty much at GW release (am i rite, k?).

[/endnonsense]

Esan · Jun 29, 2008, 01:04 PM // 13:04

You don't like the wiki discussion pages because you don't understand wikis. There are those of us who find wiki discussions much more pleasant than forums. In a forum it is a constant battle to have your thread on the front page if the discussion is to remain active. Miss a week, and the topics discussed then might as well not have existed. Even in a single thread, the stuff between pages 2 and N-1 (where N is the number of pages of the thread) might as well not exist as hadly anyone reads them. I'll prove my point by ending this sentence with six "monkey"s, because I am sure 95% of readers haven't read even this comment this far: monkey monkey monkey monkey monkey monkey.

If I think I've discovered something new or find something strange on a wiki page, I can go to the discussion page and in two seconds (Ctrl+F) find whether the topic has been discussed before, what the result of such a discussion was, and whether there is any need to (re)start discussion on the topic. And I have the full expressivity of the hypertext markup language, not to mention the english language, available at my fingertips, so I can create a table that says "duck" when the situation warrants it without the risk of some nanny software driving a red engine all over it. (In the previous sentence, replace "d" with "f" in one key word.) If a discussion page gets unwieldy, I can refactor it and archive stale topics. The signal to noise ratio in a wiki is incomparably higher.

The only real problem with a large wiki is that it may be hard to monitor. Thankfully, not everything needs the full attention of the peanut gallery, and the important discussion topics make it to the centralized discussion portals. Every other flaw, including vandalism, is easy to spot and correct.

wyrd · Jun 29, 2008, 01:09 PM // 13:09

Bioware did a great job running the Neverwinter Nights 1 forums (along with their other games) and have free online play however hey dont run the game servers.

I think it would be much more efficient both for players and ANET for there to be an official Guild Wars forum. It would take a bit more resources to do it but they already have a community manager to monitor and run it.

I go to wikis for encyclopedic information the talk and other things on them I have no interest in and if there is something i want to find on them it would be much easier to find on a forum with a good search on it.

An official forum would create a one stop place for the community to communicate with each other, give feedback and report bugs, shop for game products, etc. much more convenient and efficient while still leaving room for good fansites.

Wrath Of Dragons · Jun 29, 2008, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esan

You don't like the wiki discussion pages because you don't understand wikis.

Exactly. I spend hours on the internet each day. I read Forums, blogs, wikis, and strange websites that seem a combination of all 3. Imagine someone who is mostly new to the whole online discussion thing. The wiki format really discourages new entrants to the discussions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esan

There are those of us who find wiki discussions much more pleasant than forums. In a forum it is a constant battle to have your thread on the front page if the discussion is to remain active. Miss a week, and the topics discussed then might as well not have existed. Even in a single thread, the stuff between pages 2 and N-1 (where N is the number of pages of the thread) might as well not exist as hadly anyone reads them.

The blog format would solve that issue. Its 100% chronological. A dev makes a post, people can respond. If you want to see how a discussion is developing, you look for the 1 dev post and the related comments. You dont need to ctrl-f through 50 different discussions on 1 page. Things arent "bumped" on blogs.

Inde · Jun 29, 2008, 04:54 PM // 16:54

Wiki's are not good for discussion and are not user-friendly for that. It's a well known fact, no point in really having to debate that. Same goes for trying to search a wiki or to find a simple question. Most people can barely manage to search a forum... a wiki is even harder.

The problem with now opening up a blog at this point is that your community/discussion/feedback is spread even farther now. If I post a comment on an official blog by Anet, what type of communication am I going to expect back? Not to mention that, just like a forum, someone has to moderate that. Always the possibility of not allowing comments though. Which just brings people back to the forums or the wiki to debate or leave their suggestions on various points. In addition, I'm not sure why this couldn't also just be put up on GuildWars.com versus an entirely new site. Much like The Scribe used to be, just an "article" if you aren't going to allow comments.

I'm not sure there's any clear solution at this point. While everything has its pros and cons at this point I think Guild Wars 1 is established in their means of communication. Mixing it up for GW2 would be interesting. Using the blog idea I'd like to see not only Regina but the other developers post what's going on with what they are doing, environment, animation, etc. I can see it being more of a behind-the-scenes type of look then really game informative but I haven't seen another MMOG company take that approach so that might be interesting.

Selket · Jun 29, 2008, 05:05 PM // 17:05

I'll just echo some statements here:

Wiki is terrible for discussion, it always has been, it always will be. There's absolutely no point to use a wiki for discussion, unless there's a pressing issue about the article in question. The fact that people use wikis as a means of 'socializing' (lol, Internet?) confuses the hell out of me, as its both needlessly useless and proves that you're seemingly overly lonely.

There are official forums (alpha/balance), but they're not for the public and for good reason.

Commander Ryker · Jun 29, 2008, 06:07 PM // 18:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felixious

Guru was started pretty much at GW release (am i rite, k?).[/endnonsense]

No, you are not. Guru's been around since beta I believe.

lorph · Jun 29, 2008, 07:58 PM // 19:58

You have to understand it in arena.net's perspective.

1. A huge forum+wiki costs bandwidth and money.
2. The "community" can take care of it and even make money off it with ads.
3. No official forum+wiki, means more fansites. More fansites means more google hits. More google hits means more profit?

Of course its no surprise that the official wiki was released late in the guildwars lifetime. Now that they have enough people who know about it, and money from selling guildwars episodes, I wouldn't be surprised if anet made an official forum. But I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't either.

captain_carter · Jun 29, 2008, 09:36 PM // 21:36

In my experience wiki discussion pages are designed to discuss the content of the article, whether something should be deleted or moved or cleaned, they are not designed, nor do they work well, as forums for discussing the subject of the article.

I think one of the issues with the discussion pages is the poor structure caused by badly thought out replies, people create new sections when they ought not to, and place their comments in the wrong place. Although this is likely due to attempts to use the wiki discussion pages as a forum.

Tyla · Jun 29, 2008, 09:49 PM // 21:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Commander Ryker

No, you are not. Guru's been around since beta I believe.

I thought Guru was around for other games too? (I'm pointing my finger at the top left corner of this website itself)

Or did you mean that this particular part of the "Guru Network" or whatever was created at beta?

I'm not really sure about it myself, so I would like it if you clear it up for me.

Scarlett Romanov · Jun 29, 2008, 10:31 PM // 22:31

I don't think a blog would remedy the problems found with discussions on forums and on the wiki. Its as convulted to navigate and respond to as a ten page forum thread or ongoing wiki page.

However, a blog or even a plain webpage devoid of commenting options, would definitely be better for divulging news. Take the following example.

Ex. Regina posted about Tormented Weapons being
added to HoM on a discussion page. The official website announcement
wasn't made until weeks later. Folks shouldn't have to go digging for information on the wiki/official site/blog or forum. Anet needs to
find a way so that news on the wiki and on the official website is updated consistently and promptly with each other.

Anyway, as stated, I don't see things changing anytime soon. They'll give us the ol' "We're busy with GW2" excuse and things will be left as they are. *sigh*