Curse

Cluebag · Sep 23, 2008, 03:00 PM // 15:00

Silly questions time.

In light of the recent news about Anet becoming part of NCWest, do you think its likely or that they should start up an official GW2 forum? Since, back in the olden days, Anet originally used to operate on a shoestring budget out of a cardboard box somewhere in WA, and now that they are part of the monolithic NCSoft empire, wouldn't they be able to afford a proper “official” forum? I know this is kind of a woulda/coulda/shoulda postulation, I was just wondering what the thoughts of the community were about this.

Another question would be: Do any of the other NCSoft titles have official forums? For the record, I'm coming from the standpoint of having previously played Diablo2 and NWN before picking up GW, and iirc, those had official forums (tho my old feeble mind isn't as sharp as it used to be). And although I don't play WoW, I understand they have official forums as well. I guess the real question may be then, do you think the presence/lack of an official forum would significantly affect/impact/contribute towards the overall magnitude of success of the game as a whole?

Being that Anet decided it was a good idea to discontinue the original GW and start afresh w/GW2, and by learning from their mistakes and delivering a new product, was the lack of an official forum something that could have been considered a mistake? Mistake from the standpoint of being able to easily consolidate feedback, with respect to the various concerns from the community (ie: pvp balance, game bugs/exploits, etc), and having a single location where the CR rep can disseminate her info and reach a larger audience more efficiently.

Just some random thoughts... thinking out loud... in text...

King Kong · Sep 23, 2008, 03:15 PM // 15:15

They will say they dont have the budget for it, as GW is free to play or some crap

Billiard · Sep 23, 2008, 04:14 PM // 16:14

Well if you look at the Battle.net forums, you can see that you really need a lot of moderators in order to keep your official forums in decent shape in order to collect the feedback you want. Even if they do have official forums, there will also be fansites likes us around, and where players go with depend a lot on how the forum is moderated.

Anyway the folks at ANet may or may not do official forums, depending on how that fits with their overall plans. And as far as I know that decision has not been made. Regardless though, we'll be moving forward with our GW2 forums, and with mod team and user base I think we'll continue to be a pretty busy site.

Horus · Sep 23, 2008, 05:03 PM // 17:03

well, tbh i would really like to see Anet to make GW2 official forums. Would take many moderators indeed, but imo it's great to have them, easiect way for Anet to communicate with their players etc.

Shayne Hawke · Sep 23, 2008, 05:23 PM // 17:23

Closer to when they plan on releasing real information, I think a temporary official forum would be a good way to get feedback on what the players want to see in GW2.

If they don't really pose any questions to what players want in GW2, besides the random question or update they push every few months, than they'll probably miss something important, or something that would have been a really good idea, but will then take months to come out with because they didn't think of it before.

Spazzer · Sep 23, 2008, 05:27 PM // 17:27

Official forums require staffing. Official forums require money. The Guild Wars business model (and the one they'll take forward to Guild Wars 2) is such that it requires minimal oversight. This is how you escape monthly fees.

I'm pretty happy with the way they do things, to be honest. Fan forums (like this one) support themselves through advertisements and volunteer moderation, which is something an official forum would not be allowed to do.

*Darcy* · Sep 23, 2008, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Companies usually start a forum for a new game, because there is no existing public forum.

ANet didn't due to budget constraints, so several of the public forum sites became superb conveyors of player opinions without ANet spending a dime. In time, ANet assigned the public interface job to Gaile and her associates and has continued with that method of player/company contact.

As of now, all the successful forum websites are poised to include GW2 in their coverage. I don't think ANet will bother to start a company forum that will have to compete for members with guru and the others and require the company to pay moderators to run it. I think ANet will agree that "lack of feedback" is not one of their problems.

Kattar · Sep 23, 2008, 05:35 PM // 17:35

The has been talk of a Dev blog, or something of the like. Truthfully, I'd prefer that over a forum. Won't have to weed through the junk to get the information.

I agree with Billiard though. I guess an official forum is something they just don't want to mess with. Understandably so.

Shadow Kurd · Sep 23, 2008, 05:44 PM // 17:44

No please, no official forum. I like the independant forums much better.

A forum hosted by Anet/NCSoft would mean it would have to get filtered/censored.

Jecht Scye · Sep 23, 2008, 07:51 PM // 19:51

I agree with Kurd. Official game forums always tend to be cluttered with random people. I enjoy coming to forums like this with alot of people, yet not an overwhelmingly large amount of people. It's good to recognize a poster that has previously contributed. At any rate, I'll probably just continue to come to this site.

DarkFlame · Sep 23, 2008, 09:44 PM // 21:44

This is as close to a forum as they are going to get.

Their current format of using fansites is already working well, and if it ain't broke...

illidan009 · Sep 23, 2008, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by guardian of dragon temple

well, tbh i would really like to see Anet to make GW2 official forums. Would take many moderators indeed, but imo it's great to have them, easiect way for Anet to communicate with their players etc.

I agree completely. The best way for a game to be a success is if the developers understand the player base...short of physically meeting them at a nerdcon :P I think it would be best to communicate on a forum.

Skyy High · Sep 23, 2008, 10:41 PM // 22:41

They can communicate with us just peachy on a fansite.

Operative 14 · Sep 23, 2008, 10:46 PM // 22:46

If nothing else I'd hope they'd realize that a wiki is not a substitute for a forum, and stop using them as if they were.

I like the idea of an official forum, but I kind of have to go with the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" crowd. GW Guru, GW Online, and the other fan forums do a superb job.

The only thing I think an official forum would do better is to centralize the community in one place, and bring a few more players out of hiding. While some might view that as a bad thing, I think it would really help the community as a whole. Having a bunch of different fansites is a bit confusing, and it's hard to figure out which one you want to hang out at when you're first getting into the community. I don't remember how I stumbled across GWGuru (Glad I did though

), but it certainly wasn't on purpose. Having an official forum might make things easier, both for the community, and now that I think of it, Anet, because they wouldn't have to travel around as much for PR and information dissemination.

Age · Sep 23, 2008, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Forums don't cost not all of them if you take phpbb or phpbbfully modded then there is invision powerboard all free except support tickets unlike vb jelsoft which does cost money.It would be good for support and reporting problems.I would rather something like that than posting something on a wiki talkpage.

Esan · Sep 23, 2008, 11:20 PM // 23:20

Public forums are good if you want to give players a place to whine. For information gathering, they are mostly useless. Since the fansites are happy to provide the former, ArenaNet shouldn't waste their already thin budget on it. Not that anyone at ArenaNet empowered to make decisions will ever read this comment...

Avarre · Sep 24, 2008, 06:21 AM // 06:21

ANet can use the current model. it's more of a question of whether they will or not. CR is definitely lacking; at any given time I can expand on most of the views of the community and the reasons/concepts behind those views and how they would effect the game. There's no reason an ANet representative couldn't do the same, especially if they were paid to do so, and hence decisions that positively impact the game (CR would have to be experienced enough to know the difference) could be lifted from a large fanbase that already make a huge number of suggestions.

The wiki format really isn't as good.

Stuart444 · Sep 24, 2008, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Age

Forums don't cost not all of them if you take phpbb or phpbbfully modded then there is invision powerboard all free except support tickets unlike vb jelsoft which does cost money.It would be good for support and reporting problems.I would rather something like that than posting something on a wiki talkpage.

Sorry, I just have to comment on this.

First off, phpbb regardless of fully modded or not is PRONE to being hacked, I have seen this on a number of phpbb forums.

second of all, last I checked, invision powerboard is NOT free, invisionfree IS free, the difference is. Invisionfree is a company which uses invision powerboard to provide free forums for people on their servers. However lack of customization and having to PAY to backup your forum, most professionals dont like those type of restrictions.

If they did have a forum, I would prefer it to be a custom made one (which is easy enough to do if you know how that is) or a Vbulletin one as it is probably the most secure out of most forum software.

Regardless of if there was an official forum or not. We all know that people will visit fan forums like this one regardless (I would personally visit both this one and the official forum)

Konig Des Todes · Oct 05, 2008, 05:53 AM // 05:53

Something that has come to me, or back to me I should say, is “why doesn’t ANet have an official forum?”

I remember this being discussed by some people along with me (not sure where, it was a long time ago). And the two things people said, that I recall, for why there isn’t an official GW Forum, is because of 1)Anet would have to pay moderators, and 2) Anet would need to pay for site maintenance, upgrades, etc. etc.

Now, after thinking about this again, I realize that both of those reasons are easy to get around.

Fan-made forums, such as this, afaik, have moderators that work as volunteers (may a mod correct me if I’m wrong). So why can’t ANet have fans be moderators as volunteers as well?

For the “money for resources” argument, the Official Forum can do the same thing most forums do, that is having optional subscriptions that give extra benefits in the forums. This won’t even go against the idea of “no monthly fees” because 1) it won’t be for the game, 2) it is optional, and 3) it would be donations, not a fee.

I can’t think of any other reasons why not to, if they handle the GW website, and the official wiki, it shouldn’t be too much harder to manage one more site.

The benefits of an official forum would be:

1) There would be no need for Fan-based forums (therefore saving people who make the forums money because it costs money to maintain a site).

2) If the Official Forum can replace the Fan-Based forums, all the players who use forums will be in one group.

3) With there already fan-based forums out, they can be used for ideas of what to start out with.

4) The Official Forum can be separated into two parts (or two sites), one for GW1, one for GW2 (which doesn’t have to be up until close to GW2’s release).

5) And, if people are doing things that would be a ban of the forum account, the game account can get banned to (this would be done by making the forum account a must-link by player account), and vice versa (when needed).

Making the must-link on the forum account would also prevent spam accounts constantly being made.

Draw-back: People who do not own GW yet would need a “trial” forum account if they wish to ask if the game is worth getting (which has been done before).

I do not see anything else to add, so now I ask this question:

Do you think an Official Forum would be a good idea? (Which would include replacing the need for forums such as GWGuru, GWO, pre-searing community *whatever that website is called*, and other fan-forums that I do not know about; just as the Official Wiki is basically replacing the need for the Unofficial Wiki)

Note: Although points of this may sound like a suggestion, this is not, depending on the responses to this thread, I may *most likely will* make a detailed thread in the suggestion forum about how the Official Forum can be set up.

daze · Oct 05, 2008, 06:07 AM // 06:07

An official Forum sounds like a good idea in theory and i would support it, but not to the extent that you seem to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazel The Assassin

5) And, if people are doing things that would be a ban of the forum account, the game account can get banned to (this would be done by making the forum account a must-link by player account), and vice versa (when needed).
[/I]

I dont think this is a good idea because The reasons someone can be banned from a forum have nothing to do with Guild Wars EULA.
Plus i think the freedom of speech would be nerfed (no more talking crap about ANet). Most people would be walking on eggshells not to offend ANet, where as In guruu i am constantly entertained by the verbal barrage that ANet and Lizzy receive.

I also think No official forum could do as good of a job of hosting a forum as Guru. And the fact that Guru is not limited by Guild Wars terms and conditions makes this place a more viable and useful forum anyways.
eg. Since Guild wars doesnt condone Farming, do you think their official forum would contain a farming section? ( i always did wonder why ANet could condone farming/running in Wiki but makes it clear that Farming/running is not supported)
eg. In the "monthly gvg predictions" thread i see people admitting to having multiple accounts for making predictions. (which is against the tournament house rules)

I just think an official Guild wars Forum would have a few drawbacks that Guru is able to bypass.

Although an upside might be that ANet actually listens to suggestions from the mass public. (That might be a big win for everybody)