Official forums incoming

[waffel]

The reason MMOs are so great is not gameplay, or in-game social bonds, or any of that crap.  Its the infinite entertainment we get every day for free. 

Ever since my account got terminated (for being a bad boy) I've had MORE fun reading the forums and laughing at the countless dumbass decisions Mythic keeps making. Just when I think I'm bored of it, something like the official announcement for forums happens (after Mark said no), a thread about how fortress raids are fucking rubbish, and to top it all off, we get that video. I'm sorry, but watching the boat sink is way more fun than riding on it.

[Zzulo]

How did you manage to get yourself banned?

[Bismallah]

Heh, how can you not get banned there. I have been banned at least 3-4 times. I called a guy a 'no talent assclown' and they banned me for 2 days saying it was a, get this, sexual slur... no idea on that one.

I think if it wasn't for the die hard fanbois that post nearly 30-40 posts a day on the Warhammer Online General Fourms that forum would run amuck with folks bashing the shit out of the game. It would almost not even worth going to even for a laugh.

[waffel]

Banned for 1 day, got unbanned, banned for 3, unbanned, banned for 5, unbanned, banned for 7 and terminated at that point.

I basically made fun of zerg guilds in the public chat channel. And you should know, it doesn't take you saying something very bad, or very much, for someone to /appeal you and for a CSR to deal with it. Even had the guild tell me they've all appealed me multiple times whenever I said anything SOMEONE could take offense to. It was the same with DAoC, enough people appeal someone for a name/something they said they WILL be dealt with. Pellinor in DAoC used to have appeal wars where rival guilds would ban eachother's members.

 It doesn't really matter and I doubt anyone on this forums cares.  Hell, I don't even care. I played DAoC from release till TOA, beta tested SI, I beta tested WAR since the beginning of the year. Mythic doesn't deserve my money, or my time testing (I thought they might learn something from SI beta way back in the day, they didn't. Same shit that happened back then happened with Warhammer "We're devs, we know what you players want"

[Pringles]

I'm not certain saying "Dudes on the VN boards thought it was fine!" is the sort of defense you want to be using here.

[trias_e]

Unbelievable.  I didn't see anything funny about that.  Were they laughing at any point?  No, the guy just got humiliated publically.  End of story.  Wasn't a joke, bullshit MBJ.  Kind of pisses me off to see something like that actually.  That's why I have. so many. short. sentences. in this post.

That Paul Barnett's a classy guy, ain't he?  What a fucking jackass.

[WindupAtheist]

I just find it hilarious that first full truly post-WoW generation of MMOs have come and gone without anything achieving even the success of EQ1. It really is a one-horse race.

[waffel]

http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109637811/p4

Nope, no change in my viewpoint. I still think broad and lightly moderated OFs usually do more harm than good, need lots and lots of maintenance and are full of the same "Epic Fail, Class Action Lawsuit INCOMING!, Nerf every class but mine!" stuff that non-OFs are full of before, at and after launch the biggest difference being that if a company has OFs, it's paying for the privilege of seeing that stuff on its own forums. Since I started posting/reading here again, I've seen many posters/responses that have been great, extremely helpful, quite useful and, for the most part, I enjoy being here. If we could avoid all the useless, rude and insulting posting, it would be even better. And yes, I do think as always that epic fail, insulting, lying, rude and overly dramatic posts don't do anybody (except possibly the OP) any good whatsoever. Unfortunately, that's how some people feel the need to express themselves and their opinions. And as is the case in open forums, everybody has to wade through them to get to the good posts and that's a shame. The only time in my 20+ years of making online games that forums haven't had so many of these types of posts are when the forums are heavily moderated or when back in the early days of online, the clock was ticking in terms of per-minute charges for posting. I certainly don't miss the later but I do wish that people would simply be more polite both to us and to each other but as always, that's the problem with the anonymity/safety of the Internet and the fact that accounts/access are free.

Oh and in terms of anyone (EA!) changing my mind and imposing OF on us, etc. no chance of that. This sort of stuff is left totally up to us and in this case, any decision against/for OFs is my call. If we stay with what we are doing now or have OFs or some hybrid, it won't be because someone forced us to do that. The guys above me in the company have a lot more important things to do with their time than decide whether we are going to have OFs or not, like running the Games Label or even running the entire company. Frankly, running OFs costs more money, time and effort and doesn't have an easily calculated ROI so it's a safe assumption that would be a harder, not an easier sell to have OFs than do what we have done with DAoC and WAR.

Mark

So he doesn't like OF forums, hasn't changed his view on them, and the final call to have OFs is his. Yet... warhammer will now have OFs? Or is he saying there WON'T be OFs and is denying they'll be coming?

[tolakram]

I suspect he's come to the conclusion that you need to control the message.

My opinion:

There's a lot of decent information from players but at the same time they're a lot of bullshit that happens that needs to be moderated.  Take nerf posts.  Once someone posts a nerf post against a certain class you will start to see waves of copycats with faux evidence that, sure enough, such and such a class needs nerfed.  Then false authority syndrome takes over and it becomes an accepted fact that this nerf is not only needed but obvious.  Yea, I was totally killed by a wombat once, obviously they're way overpowered, etc.

True or false you need to control that crap so it doesn't become the 'advertisement' for your game.  Designate a nerf thread and then demand that people making claims post clear evidence (logs, times, char names, etc) so that the development team has something to focus on.  You also chop the heads off the morons who like to post epic fail threads and other senseless rage diatribes that do nothing to help the game.

Finally you make everyone aware you have your own forums that everyone can read but ONLY subscribers can post in.  Yea, I said it, but moderating every ragekid who wants to post about how much he hates your game is just too much.

[Megrim]

Man, have you seen what a wombat can do to a car?

[Sheepherder]

There's a reason Blizzard chooses to remain utterly impersonal and not play the usual reindeer games.

They actually had several of their developers make regular appearances on the Wrath Beta forums, some of the resulting communication apparently was actually used as a basis for implementing changes by Blizzard.  Then again, they kept it fairly neutral even when talking with players.

Both Lum and Mark Jacobs claim this guy is extremely talented.  As he is a senior coder he likely didn't even write the buggy subroutine in question.  He is being dressed down publicly by the person responsible for representing the Warhammer universe in-game, who probably included LARP on his resume.  I have a lot of sympathy for coders, the profession demands obsessive-compulsive neat freaks with prodigal ability to create logical structures, the ability to scour dry compiler manuals until their eyes bleed, and faith in the development side of the house to put their tools to good use.  Yes, my vagina is sandy, and that shit chafes.

[Fordel]

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/ The Blue poster Ghostcrawler, is the head dev/designer guy.

[Arthur_Parker]

A short video - how open RVR contribution was broken for two months and nobody at Mythic noticed.  Maybe official forums would have helped.

A new short video - Humour in the last video has been hot fixed.

[Trippy]

Please make it stop!

[Hindenburg]

Oh, well, that totally clears things up.

[Tannhauser]

Well, I'm glad they're having a good time while subscribers flee their game.

Hey if you can throw pies while your game goes down faster than a Vegas hooker then I envy you.

[Modern Angel]

What the fuck are they doing over there?

[Tmon]

What the fuck are they doing over there?

Lots of really bad drugs apparently.

[tolakram]

One day that guy will be looking for a job and this video is out there.  Did he just not think of that, poor judgment, or was he forced to do it by the big egos looking for a scapegoat?  It can only be regretted.

[Soln]

EA execs can troll and grief their staff and players, but they don't want forums because players will do it to them.  Irony.   


Edit: I'm sure Tigole, Furor and team are  about now

[waffel]

That video is funny, but not in the way they intended.

[Jherad]

How foolish was I?. Obviously I was completely wrong about the level of professionalism.

[ashrik]

Meh I dunno
I think zhe internetz are taking it more seriously that anyone else is

[HaemishM]

Meh I dunno
I think zhe internetz are taking it more seriously that anyone else is

Apparently, zhe internetz is taking their game more seriously than they are as well.

Really, what the fuck was the point of that? How is that message better than forum trolls shitting up threads on an official board?

[Triforcer]

Mythic is part of a serious corporation.  You are not the fucking indie hipster in your garage anymore, who can do things like this because its avant-garde proof you are different than all those stuffed suits in their fancy buildings who aren't for realsies like you.   

Seriously, what is it about working on something related to teh Internet that makes people think all management, personnel, morale, etc. lessons learned by all corporations from the beginning of time until now don't apply to them? 

EDIT:  Also, I demand a third video apologizing to those who liked the first video, and were offended by Paul's statements in the second video that seemed to put down the first video.  And the employee in the 3rd video should be crying as he apologizes. 

[Pringles]

needs a shovel smiley.

[Arthur_Parker]

Watching the video in High quality, the poster on the wall says :-

Common Design Faults

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Being sucked into the purity of  ~~~~~~~ rather than fun

An obsession with balance over excitement

Being subtle rather than

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Being too precious about your design

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Tarami]

Dear God, that's embarrassing watching.

[UnSub]

A short video - how open RVR contribution was broken for two months and nobody at Mythic noticed.  Maybe official forums would have helped.

A new short video - Humour in the last video has been hot fixed.

I found it funny - the second one was better. However, yeah, would have been better if Mythic had been more professional from the start and just written a short dev statement, then released it through the Herald (which is what it should be used for). Instead, they made another controversy around a controversy.

[Zzulo]

I find it perplexing that you guys are still moaning about this.

You make me die a little inside.

[trias_e]

I liked the second video.  Pie on the face was deserved and well taken.

[CharlieMopps]

1stly... how is war hammer alliance NOT official forums? They're more strict than any forum I've ever been on. In fact, they locked one of my posts in which I was asking about the broken contribution system. They, ironically, gave me 4 points (whatever those are) for using a "1 liner" and not having a valid point. The video posted in this thread kind of makes my point though. I should re-post with just "HA!"

Also, VN boards seem to be run by mythic as well. Or they are either at least in very close relations with them. I really hate forums that don't allow you to say a games a piece of garbage, when that is, in fact, what it is.

[tazelbain]

I find it perplexing that you guys are still moaning about this.

You make me die a little inside.

Face it, you were already dead inside or you wouldn't be posting here.

People are still butt hurt from the WAR debacle. So when Mythic releases a "funny" but not really funny video, people are going to project those feels on it.  Many ways of avoiding this, deporting Paul is my favorite.

[Jherad]

Watching the video in High quality, the poster on the wall says :-

Common Design Faults

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Being sucked into the purity of  design rather than fun

An obsession with balance over excitement

Being subtle rather than

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Being too precious about your design

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hah, hadn't noticed that. Amazing. Its right there - on the board, behind them. If only.

/facepalm

[fuser]

How about some numbers ;)


Paul Barnett December 05, 2008, 01:53 PM
What are we doing today
4.5
3 days ago 16,986 views