Server forums?

[LordBadGuy]

Server specific forums are essential for guild recruitment and trade. I still haven't found a guild yet mainly because of the difficulty in finding some on the forums in their current state. They can really help increase the sense of community on a server, and I think that is pretty obvious.

[darkligihdelica]

The only thing I ever visit on mmo forums are the official anouncements and Server Forums! It's the most basic thing needed for community building on servers. Fix this please!

[Ki_Draken_Magus]

Who and where exactly have you seen "the majority" say that MMO forums are ignored?

 

The facts are plain and simple, there's probably more customer traffic on this forum right now then any other MMO out there. No one can communicate effectively.

 

I ask you, directly, please explain how everyone is supposed to effectively communicate within the current layout of the forums. Regardless of your personal opinion of who's in the majority, sit back and view the forums as a customer trying to communicate with other players on your server.

 

The answer to the above is, you can't, period. It's completely impossible to communicate right now without spending hours of your time to scroll through 100's of pages of threads in hopes that you find something relevant to your server.

 

It's simply not possible right now and it needs to be fixed. If you still don't understand the key points then I ask you to visit other MMO forums, WoW, the old SWG ones, EQ2, etc. and view their forums.....analyse the forum setup and server traffic. You'll find your answer

 

 

 

Well...you can start here:

 

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/2011-fall/53102/what-influences-customers-online-comments/

 

I don't know about you, but MMO's I've played that had server forums (Asheron's Call / City of Heroes / Dungeons & Dragons Online) were little more than collections of drama fests, trade posts, & trash talking. I didn't see any "community" being built in those server forums.

 

What I did see were the same (again vocal minority) posting the same $%*& over and over.

[BobaTed]

AFAIC, Bioware's playing it smart. They're probably not entirely certain what the population will look like in, say, six months, and are waiting to see if they'll need to revamp their server architecture. Not much point in taking on even a little extra overhead before the server model is stabilized.

 

Besides, it's not like the community can't do it themselves...

Edited December 30, 2011 by BobaTed

[milkoway]

it's a must have. We want server forums asap. I will quit without this.

[Valorian]

/signed

[Dboyyy]

Will sign this daily and keep it bumped!!!! Get it figured out BW, Not a difficult order, your community is asking of you.

 

 

 

D,

[Deejo]

It amazes me that this is still an issue. What bothers me most about it is the position that Bioware is taking on this and NOT listening to their customer base. This reminds me of another company that had another Star Wars MMO. They forced stuff down their customers throat that they didn't want and told them to eat it. I wonder how their game is doing???

[Jeffor]

One of the problems with unofficial server forums is now we have so many people trying to make unofficial servers that it's hard to know where to go. I just think that since Bioware is the master of the TOR world (god if you will ) they need to be the ones to facilitate sever forums. Having official forums promotes fairness since it takes moderation out of the hands of players and it also makes them much easier to find and use.

 

I can't state this enough that many, many players use server forums. Yes they can be havens of drama and discord but they are also useful and informative. As stated before, many people browse server forums to help them choose what server to play on.

 

So pretty please, Bioware.

[Vandrel-Blitz]

Well...you can start here:

 

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/2011-fall/53102/what-influences-customers-online-comments/

 

I don't know about you, but MMO's I've played that had server forums (Asheron's Call / City of Heroes / Dungeons & Dragons Online) were little more than collections of drama fests, trade posts, & trash talking. I didn't see any "community" being built in those server forums.

 

What I did see were the same (again vocal minority) posting the same $%*& over and over.

 

1) Your link is to someone's MIT thesis project, I don't really care about that. It's not fact.

 

a) This is why I don't care what the article says "Wendy W. Moe is associate professor of marketing at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. David A. Schweidel is assistant professor of marketing at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. Michael Trusov is assistant professor of marketing at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland." They are not gamers. That's like Barak Obama trying to tell a NASCAR driver how to win the race. I work at a gaming company, I most certainly don't walk over to our sales and marketing guys to ask them about support matters.

 

b) The entire project (article) can be summed up with this "To probe this question, we analyzed product ratings and sales over time from a popular online retailer. By studying rating behavior at the level of individual contributors, we uncovered several key dynamics that drive the evolution of online forums. We subsequently demonstrated how these dynamics influence product sales by relating online opinions to sales performance across a sample of products." They clearly state they only looked at one company. How many MMO's are out there? One company is not the majority.

 

2) You probably didn't see much of a community in your other MMO's because they were low-end/low-vis games that also trailed a very young consumer basis and were not even close to the population that's currently present in SWTOR. Go analys EQ/EQ2/SWG/WOW/LOTR and then tell me what you think. Take a look at ( http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/forums/list.m?category_id=41 ) and tell me what you think then, 25052 topics 388346 messages - 1 server out of how many? Keep in mind they did server consolidations not long ago near the end of the game's life, so there used to be more forums.

 

3) You still didn't answer the question about explaining exactly how customers here and now are supposed to effectively communicate with others on their own server. None of us care what's going on with you or someone else on another server, we want to talk with our OWN community (ie: server).

 

4) Expecting paying customers to render their own services for a product that's industry standard already delivers the service free of charge is simply unsat. Customers should not be expected to pay for their own service that other MMO's traditionally carry. Period.

 

If even so much as 1 customer has to go out of his/her own way and pay for a web domain/hosting plan in order to deliver server forums to SWTOR, then the answer is still wrong. It's Bioware's job, not the customers.

 

Furthermore, Bioware's key point to not featuring server forums was lack of employees available to moderate. So you tell me, who's right and who's wrong here? We are all smart people and I'd hope everyone can put 2 and 2 together to understand roughly how much revenue Bioware has racked in from SWTOR sales. Do you expect me or anyone else to believe that they are not capable of hiring a couple of entry-level employees at say $20/yr just to moderate forums?

 

I don't know about you but it sounds a little and a lot like greed and lack of care for customers and community.

 

Lastly, additional forum sections in vBulletin (what this forum is) doesn't cost a penny. You simply add the new secton (which I covered in detail previously here) and you're good to go. Server space isn't a issue, I can assure you that much. 99.999999% chance is that Bioware is hosting their web services in-house on their own hardware, which means their only limitation/s is the one/s they create.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Vandrel-Blitz

[werenotfriends]

Why dont we have server forums yet???

[MrTerrito]

Because it makes too much sense.

[illLogic]

I was really bumbed to find out that there were no server forums. I have faith that these will come in time and that Bioware is just working on other more important stuff. But bump for justice anyway.

[Jeffor]

I'll say it again; staffing and moderation concerns do not hold a lot of water with me. What are they doing with the money they get from us? 30k views and over 600 replies and hardly a single word against server forums. If the players were against server forums then you would think that more of that 30,000 would speak up and say so.

 

To me it's just not right to exclude these. How are we supposed to find guilds? How are we supposed to advertise sales or organize events? How do we locate people if we've been away for work, military or financial reasons?

 

Please don't take our money and then tell us you don't have the resources for this or that. I would believe it more if the game wasn't flying off the shelves. Maybe then I would believe that they lacked the resources to moderate some extra forums. Personally, I would prefer better forums over goofy the cut-scenes. To me community>fluff and by excluding server forums they are keeping an important community building tool out of our hands.

[Aodren]

we rly need server forums

[Vandrel-Blitz]

we rly need server forums

 

Agreed

[HuskyLawyer]

+1 on needing server forums. Completely idiotic. Many people play this game to interact with others, and a lack of server forums just kills the community. If they want "stickyness" for the game, start some server forums. It can't be that hard.

[Dboyyy]

/signed again and again!!!!!

 

 

 

D,

[Hoagtrain]

It is extremely important to have Server/Realm forums. One can see their huge effects in terms of community development by looking at other MMOs.

 

I just logged on to the forums for the first time a couple of hours ago and was looking for my realm so I could post about how I was looking for a guild and if anyone could give me insight.

 

As of now I have no awareness of the guilds on my server, the groups of players on my server or really what are the current events on my server.

 

To be honest, that's the only news I really care about besides patches: what is going on, on the server I'm on.

 

We MMO players continue playing MMOs because of the relationships we create. These forums are of much less importance to me than other MMOs forums because I don't know a single person who posts here, and will probably never see them in game.

 

So please, help out the community and make realm forums. Please keep bumping this so we get the forums!!

[Geekygirl]

As a newer player here, I absolutely agree that server forums are necessary.

 

They can be utilized to form/find guilds or gaming partners/groups - other people who play when you do.

 

They're a great way to get a feel of the server community before spending time rolling a character there only to find out that the 'flavor' of the server doesn't suit you.

 

They're a great way to get a feel for server balance - if you're waffling over which side to play.

 

For Role players server forums are great for finding a server with the level of RP that you're looking for - it's pretty common for RP levels to fluxuate from nominal to moderate based on what sort of RPers gather there.

 

Server forums would also break up these general forums and make general issues easier to find - right now it just feels like an overwhelming mesh of information that some might not feel they are up to slogging through.

 

I, for one, would appreciate any consideration that is given to this need. It's a vital part of an MMO community.

[Hoagtrain]

/bump

 

/do it

 

/sign

[Carlax]

Somethig we should have would make finding a guild a lot easier and really how expensive can it be must just be a drop in the ocean of EAs budget and income / operating expense wise now the intial developments done they must be virtually printing money.

 

So they have a responsibility to moderate well can they not just put some legal blurb "enter at your own risk" its not as though they can really moderate the chat in game (i dont think anyone doesnt know how to get round a profanity filter)

 

for what its worth (i suspect very very little.... ) /sign

[Ki_Draken_Magus]

1) Your link is to someone's MIT thesis project, I don't really care about that. It's not fact.

 

a) This is why I don't care what the article says "Wendy W. Moe is associate professor of marketing at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. David A. Schweidel is assistant professor of marketing at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. Michael Trusov is assistant professor of marketing at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland." They are not gamers. That's like Barak Obama trying to tell a NASCAR driver how to win the race. I work at a gaming company, I most certainly don't walk over to our sales and marketing guys to ask them about support matters.

 

b) The entire project (article) can be summed up with this "To probe this question, we analyzed product ratings and sales over time from a popular online retailer. By studying rating behavior at the level of individual contributors, we uncovered several key dynamics that drive the evolution of online forums. We subsequently demonstrated how these dynamics influence product sales by relating online opinions to sales performance across a sample of products." They clearly state they only looked at one company. How many MMO's are out there? One company is not the majority.

 

2) You probably didn't see much of a community in your other MMO's because they were low-end/low-vis games that also trailed a very young consumer basis and were not even close to the population that's currently present in SWTOR. Go analys EQ/EQ2/SWG/WOW/LOTR and then tell me what you think. Take a look at ( http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/forums/list.m?category_id=41 ) and tell me what you think then, 25052 topics 388346 messages - 1 server out of how many? Keep in mind they did server consolidations not long ago near the end of the game's life, so there used to be more forums.

 

3) You still didn't answer the question about explaining exactly how customers here and now are supposed to effectively communicate with others on their own server. None of us care what's going on with you or someone else on another server, we want to talk with our OWN community (ie: server).

 

4) Expecting paying customers to render their own services for a product that's industry standard already delivers the service free of charge is simply unsat. Customers should not be expected to pay for their own service that other MMO's traditionally carry. Period.

 

If even so much as 1 customer has to go out of his/her own way and pay for a web domain/hosting plan in order to deliver server forums to SWTOR, then the answer is still wrong. It's Bioware's job, not the customers.

 

Furthermore, Bioware's key point to not featuring server forums was lack of employees available to moderate. So you tell me, who's right and who's wrong here? We are all smart people and I'd hope everyone can put 2 and 2 together to understand roughly how much revenue Bioware has racked in from SWTOR sales. Do you expect me or anyone else to believe that they are not capable of hiring a couple of entry-level employees at say $20/yr just to moderate forums?

 

I don't know about you but it sounds a little and a lot like greed and lack of care for customers and community.

 

Lastly, additional forum sections in vBulletin (what this forum is) doesn't cost a penny. You simply add the new secton (which I covered in detail previously here) and you're good to go. Server space isn't a issue, I can assure you that much. 99.999999% chance is that Bioware is hosting their web services in-house on their own hardware, which means their only limitation/s is the one/s they create.

 

 

 

/e shrug

 

"Go analys EQ/EQ2/SWG/WOW/LOTR and then tell me what you think."

 

Sorry...EQ never held my interest, SWG failed, I deleted WOW after playing for 20 minutes, and have never tried LOTR (but might in the future).

 

It's not up to me to change your mind or try to prove you wrong. All I can rely on is my own expierence with MMO forums. From MY viewpoint, there is nothing you can show or say that will lead me to believe that "server forums" build community.

 

Since you are challenging me for proof, I'd like you to SHOW me evidence that a majority of an MMO user base uses server forums in the capacity you are describing.

[DevouringPlague]

/e shrug

 

"Go analys EQ/EQ2/SWG/WOW/LOTR and then tell me what you think."

 

Sorry...EQ never held my interest, SWG failed, I deleted WOW after playing for 20 minutes, and have never tried LOTR (but might in the future).

 

It's not up to me to change your mind or try to prove you wrong. All I can rely on is my own expierence with MMO forums. From MY viewpoint, there is nothing you can show or say that will lead me to believe that "server forums" build community.

 

Since you are challenging me for proof, I'd like you to SHOW me evidence that a majority of an MMO user base uses server forums in the capacity you are describing.

 

lol.

 

This is an example of a person that should not be allowed on any forums anywhere.

 

Also, +1 for server forums.

[Itukaaj]

/e shrug

 

"Go analys EQ/EQ2/SWG/WOW/LOTR and then tell me what you think."

 

Sorry...EQ never held my interest, SWG failed, I deleted WOW after playing for 20 minutes, and have never tried LOTR (but might in the future).

 

It's not up to me to change your mind or try to prove you wrong. All I can rely on is my own expierence with MMO forums. From MY viewpoint, there is nothing you can show or say that will lead me to believe that "server forums" build community.

 

Since you are challenging me for proof, I'd like you to SHOW me evidence that a majority of an MMO user base uses server forums in the capacity you are describing.

 

Server forums allow for a consolidated space for people to get to know each other. An MMo is more succesful if people feel they are part of a unique discrete community, Server forums would allow people to organize events . recruit for guilds easier. shows guild progress in a way releveant to the members within that server community.

 

 

yes, there will be immature stuff happening too. but at least the immature stuff will only be relevant to mebers of that community and not even looked at the world at large. Alos, ,aybe a way to get info for potential "xfers" to server.

 

 

It seems you never felt attached to anything. if you don't yu are essentially an mmo sociopath and we can't help you but for people excited about a new game trying to make a successful community it would be nice to have an available singel point of contact. And that point is truly the fiduciary responsiblility of the company.