Forum Changes Coming!

[Sturngard]

Ostensibly because they all need to be moderated and more forums increases the workload of the community team. I'll be interested to see how this compromise works. Like I said above, I'm not totally sold on the idea but it's a heck of a lot better than what we have right now.

 

Couple that with making the forum organization a bit flatter, and we're making good moves here.

 

Fact

It the business does not scale customer relations to the customer base, then the customer base will scale to the customer relations.

[capnaverage]

There is no point having server specific forums. It would just lead to a clusterf*** of flaming & trolling. WoW did it and it was a grueling experience to say the least.

 

All we really need is an option to sort the forum posts via servers on the display page.

 

Don't listen to them BioWare. Stay strong. Haters gonna hate.

[SomeDudeIsanub]

This is a step in the right direction. Props, Bioware.

 

[ThunderZtorm]

There is no point having server specific forums. It would just lead to a clusterf*** of flaming & trolling. WoW did it and it was a grueling experience to say the least.

 

All we really need is an option to sort the forum posts via servers on the display page.

 

Don't listen to them BioWare. Stay strong. Haters gonna hate.

 

That makes no sense. The server forums in WoW were the only place that had any semblance of community - at least on the four EU servers I played on in my time..

[Fiachsidhe]

Sounds promising. I look forward to seeing these changes, thank you.

[Kirska]

There is no point having server specific forums. It would just lead to a clusterf*** of flaming & trolling. WoW did it and it was a grueling experience to say the least.

 

All we really need is an option to sort the forum posts via servers on the display page.

 

Don't listen to them BioWare. Stay strong. Haters gonna hate.

 

Actually the server forums were a wonderful resource on my WoW realm. I still have friends that I talk to out of game that I met on the forums back in 2006 or 2007.

[Fiachsidhe]

Fact

It the business does not scale customer relations to the customer base, then the customer base will scale to the customer relations.

 

Very poetic. Also very correct.

[ghezundheit]

WoW Server forums, unless constantly cleaned up, tend to be chaotic at best. There is a specific 1% of forum posters that ruin things for the rest of us. They post, flame, derail and otherwise make the realm forums places most browsers avoid rather than enjoy.

 

As it currently stands, with the amount of QQers and Trolls, the forums now are filled with enough unneccessary posts that it would only get worse.

 

Also consider that troublemakers will eventually be banned from posting as they break the rules, why give them more places to break said rules?

[Nebtoi]

There is no point having server specific forums. It would just lead to a clusterf*** of flaming & trolling. WoW did it and it was a grueling experience to say the least.

 

All we really need is an option to sort the forum posts via servers on the display page.

 

Don't listen to them BioWare. Stay strong. Haters gonna hate.

 

Hmmmm WOW...

Ok.... before posting do the effort to read yourself... What you basically wrote is

 

1- We don't need server per forum...

2- We need filters to sort per forum....

3- Your conclusion : Basically we need a function that would allow a forum to be filtered by server..

 

If your not retarded.. that would be simplified by having a forum per server... thus reducing the user's number of clicks and requests to the server...

[oredith]

Also consider that troublemakers will eventually be banned from posting as they break the rules, why give them more places to break said rules?

i fail to see the logic in your argument.

 

if they get banned, how would it matter how many places they could break rules? the more places they can break rules, the faster they'll get banned, and the sooner you will be rid of them?

[ikinai]

Will we get individual server forums? So we won't have to shuffle through every other server just to get to our server?

 

It still feels disconnected from my fellow players on my server. The community aspect of the forums for a particular server is as important to those of us who frequent forums as the in game community. It's where we plan, tell stories, meet new players, spar with the old and commiserate with our friends and enemies (RP ones that is )

[turin-]

the current setup makes LFG/WTB/WTS threads useless to a majority of the servers users. essentially making us filter through "spam" of other servers threads to find ours.

 

really is no reason to not have individual server forums.

[racsofp]

I think server specific forums are going to be necessary.

 

Right now, it's not like I'm reading my community's forum...it's like my neighbors and I all got our mail mixed up and we're standing in the road trying to sort out who gets what.

[Zintair]

Bioware,

 

This is by far the biggest blunder you have made.

 

 

You have ruined any chance of us the players establishing a community on the server we play on.

 

Community is going to be the biggest thing keeping your game alive considering I've already cleared ALL your content including Nightmare EV and Karagga's.

 

 

In every MMO I've spent years playing (YEARS BIOWARE) I was an active member of the server forum community. It was a place for epic adventures, epic rage, community events, boosting and gloating and everyhting in between that make playing the game more than "just playing the game".

 

Please consider making individual server forums. This is the RIGHT way to do it. Have faith in your community and customer base.

 

 

Not to mention you are gimping the expiration date of your game because Community is the #1 thing that is going to be keeping your subscriptions active. Faction Balance will be the second.

 

 

Take it from someone whose been playing MMOs since Asheron's Call. This is the right way.

[Zintair]

I think server specific forums are going to be necessary.

 

Right now, it's not like I'm reading my community's forum...it's like my neighbors and I all got our mail mixed up and we're standing in the road trying to sort out who gets what.

 

This is an epic example of what they look like.

[FourTwent]

Maybe can we get a drop down menu while viewing the threads for a cluster of servers. In this menu would be the names of the servers for that particular cluster. And when you select one server, it filters out all the other threads without the tag of the chosen server.

 

It just feels lame to scroll through a page of threads to find 1 or 2 for your server, and then hit the next page and find none, then the next page to find 3. Just give us individual sub forums for the servers or let us filter out the 'noise' somehow

 

 

 

NOTE - But now that I think about it. Couldn't we get a greasemonkey script to do this kind of filtering for us? I've seen something like this for other websites to filter out this noise.

 

I'd write it up if I could, but I dunno the code.

[GoldSquadGirl]

I've noticed some people have taken it upon themselves to make their own server's forums. Gotta love proactive people

Word of warning to Bioware: Remember Tabula Rasa? Was a FOTM popular game.

 

Tabula Rasa had no "official" forum at all.

 

Players convened on independent sites outside of the game, removed from NCSoft's eyes and influence.

 

Tabula Rasa wasn't a bad game, in fact the combat system in this game for Troopers is very much like the Tabula Rasa combat system.

 

That game wasn't nerfed, it wasn't ruined by devs. Another game did not come along and lure the players off.

 

Players got together in their "unofficial" forum and decided one day to just walk out and bankrupt the game, taking NCSoft by surprise. I know people who took part in this, they are very proud of their achievement as if it were some kind of endgame.

 

That game closed down a couple of years ago.

 

 

If your aim is to make the forums confusing so as to discourage forum users from participating and making moderation easier ... you had better keep an eye on the independent forum that will step up to the task.

Edited January 26, 2012 by GoldSquadGirl

[Pixieydust]

I came on here today to try to find some other crafters on my server Jedi Covenant, to see about swapping schematics after an hour of searching, I can't find any. I cannot begin to share my frustration with this forum!! I really wish Bioware would listen, people are not going to post on these because it is too time consuming to sort through pages of other server's posts!!

 

 

You trying to control the forums to the point of making them totally useless. Each server needs a forum of their own. I do not want to know what the other servers are doing that are in my group. I do not play on them, therefore swapping schematics with them would not work. Trying to have events on a server is hard enough. Posting it on the forums, things get lost.

 

 

I doubt my post will even be read. It sounds like I am not the only one who is beyond frustrated. Why not give it a try, and if you see they are not working take it down but please give it a try!! This is nuts, and people won't bother to use it. I want to spend my time playing the game and doing the forums for a few minutes, not waste an hour searching a group of servers that are not my own.

[Swijr]

Since it's only been a little over a month, I'm still hopeful...but it's waning.

 

I'm not going to pretend to know how to tackle the in game issues, but I can comment on the forums since I've been using and making them for years.

 

 

• Make 3 new forums under a "SERVER" Category: PVE, PVP and RP (don't allow posts in them).
  
• Under the applicable category, add a forum for each server.
  
• Under each server add a Guild (LFG and Guild promotion), PVP and Trade forum.
  

 

The main server forum will be for general chat and PVE's, the 3 sub forums are self explanatory.

 

I agree, there are a TON of servers and that equates to a TON of forums. But it's all DB space, it's not an impossible task.

 

If it's a time issue, I'd gladly offer my time in exchange for sub time. I can whip it out in a day.

 

 

Seriously guys, this is what your community wants.

 

 

Thanks,

Swijr

[rocity]

server specific forums. period. terribly done as it is, a start, sure, but terrible to use right now.

[Mebbe]

Why wouldn't you guys just make server specific forums?

 

I just don't understand the reasoning behind this move, sure now it is a little easier to find others from my server but still this is just stupid.

 

Actually I am going to cancel, be back when Bioware does some better work, and hopefully it is soon because I really want to love this game.

[PjPablo]

Why wouldn't you guys just make server specific forums?

 

Because they don't want to spend the money for support. Bottom line. It would cost them to have server forums and they don't want to pay.

[Fedarsond]

Next week, we’re going to implement some changes to the Forums based on feedback we’ve received from the community. These changes are meant to help address some of the concerns the community has and to make Forums organization a little easier to use overall.

 

In the layout we have now, things like Guild Recruitment and Server Events are spread out and can be difficult to locate. We’ve also seen some requests for places on the forums where players can go to discuss things more closely with others on their particular server, and for a place for suggestions for the game. To start addressing some of these concerns, we will introduce a new forum section: Server Group Forums, and will place the Suggestion Box back in its rightful place under General Discussion.

 

The Server Group Forums will be divided by server type (PvE, PvP, RP, and RP-PvP), and then alphabetically by the server listing. We have grouped several servers of the same types together to provide areas where players can more easily talk with others on their server (and other players on the same types of servers) – about crafting items, grouping up, hosting events, and more. Each Server Group Forum hosts several servers. If your server’s name falls in the alphabetical range in the forum title, that’s where you’ll post!

 

Each Server Group Forum has a Guild Recruitment subforum, where players can recruit others into their guilds and look for a guild. There are many more subforums for recruitment in this organization than previously, so it will be much easier to find a guild on your server!

 

We ask that you please use a [server Name] tag in front of your threads in these forums when they open to make it easy to see when you make a thread that is specifically intended for other members of your server, and to make sure everyone can see relevant threads easily.

 

As a side effect of opening these new forums, we will close the Guild Hall and Server Events sections of the forum, as the content for those forums now belongs under our Server Group Forums. We’ll leave those forums visible for a time (but not open for posts) so that you can grab the text of your recruitment posts (or any other posts you’d like to keep from those forums) and post in the new Server Group Forums.

 

We will also add the Suggestion Box forum to create a place for constructive suggestion threads to live. We encourage you to share your ideas!

 

We understand that some players would still prefer individual server forums. If volume in the Server Group Forums dictates and it is still too difficult to locate information important to you that relates to your server, we will continue to consider additional changes. We believe this organization will allow us to have a thriving area for per-server discussion, and we’ll remain flexible and receptive to feedback from these changes. As always, if you have any other suggestions for the forums (new forums you’d like to see, changes that would be helpful), we’re glad to hear them. Thank you for providing your constructive feedback!

 

OR

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Just make server forums so we don't have to weed through a billion threads to find ones about the server we care about. What do i care about whats going on on another server nothing that's the answer i don't give crap what some other server is doing. So the question is why do you want to force me to weed through all of there threads cause you know no one else does either. Stop being lazy and just put up server forums already.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Fedarsond

[Aazendi]

Playing on a RP server, the issue is not only effective advertising for Events and Guilds. It's the fact that the Rp community within the server community needs to find each other and be able to advertise themselves as individual RPers. It's not uncommon that non-rpers roll on RP servers for various reasons, and as a player there is little to do to monitor this. We have no reason to see if someone is a RPer unless we ask them.

 

Imo a server forum is importat, regardless of the purposes it serves. It's a way of socialising even when you may not be playing the game, sharing stories relevant to the server, and much common for RP servers: keeping updated. At the moment we have progenitorarchives and swtor-rp to somewhat help us, but the issue remains that these sites are hard to find still.

 

AT LEAST make it so that there is a server forum section where BIOWARE DIRECTLY REFERS TO THESE INOFFICIAL FORUMS. Make it easy for the community to find each other! Not having a server forum is a huuuuuuuuuge minus for me, there's no reason whatsoever for me to hang on the forums apart from actually searching for assistance that is irrelevant to my community.

[Kyus]

Bioware stop referring to how busy individual server forums are, at the end of the day they won't be busy as presently formatted because we want to only be talking to our localised community. Provide individual server forums and they will attract far more people to them.