oredith Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 I've taken the time to copy this thread on a regular basis after they went through and deleted nearly the entire thread (several hundred posts worth) the first week this was posted. If they keep it up I'll be sure to publicly embarrass them It's not rocket science here Bioware. A lot of folks here have done their best to provide constructive feedback, as requested by you. Now it's your turn to give the reach around and provide US some constructive feedback. to a degree, i feel for BW, because in the short term, they have a lot of bugs, some small, some big, that need to be addressed sooner than later, or else they run a risk of losing players. so in comparison, the lack of server forum probably doesn't seem that important, because after all, they're not a necessity for the game to run. however, I think this is where BW's lack of MMO experience is shining through. a robust community is required for the long term health of a MMO. without a strong server identity, and a server community, people do not stick around. this message has been hammered away in this thread in so many different ways, that BW must be burying their heads in the sand if they think otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staavis_SC Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Adding my support to this cause. My girlfriend and I are in the process of looking for a guild on the Zaalbar (US-PvE-West) server, and finding an appropriate guild is virtually impossible with the utterly ridiculous setup on these forums. Having Server specific forums would allow the Guild recruitment threads to exist on the server forum instead of a generic LFG forum, making it much easier to see what threads are relevant, and what threads aren't. At this point, having virtually no luck here, so we'll likely have to ask in General Chat on Courscant, which isn't ideal because alot of guilds see that as a desperation move and refuse to recruit people who post Looking for Guild requests in Zone Chats. I hate these forums. I really do. Server Forums are a MUST! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oredith Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 so, this is a total hypothetical, as I'm in no position to guarantee this actually happening. what if torhead had server forums? it's still unofficial, but i personally feel it would be more official than the total privateers, and it would be from a site that people already visit all the time to look up items. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandrel-Blitz Posted January 12, 2012 Author Share Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) to a degree, i feel for BW, because in the short term, they have a lot of bugs, some small, some big, that need to be addressed sooner than later, or else they run a risk of losing players. so in comparison, the lack of server forum probably doesn't seem that important, because after all, they're not a necessity for the game to run. however, I think this is where BW's lack of MMO experience is shining through. a robust community is required for the long term health of a MMO. without a strong server identity, and a server community, people do not stick around. this message has been hammered away in this thread in so many different ways, that BW must be burying their heads in the sand if they think otherwise. Well yes and no, Thing is... a company such as Bioware wouldn't have developers tasked with forum duties. Specific employees would be tasked to handle the forums, that'd be their sole purpose in life. You have the Bioware Community Team for example, comprised of the manager and a handful of staff who frequent the forums (or so we think). It's their duty day to day to manage the forums and represent the company to the customers. What we have here is a lack of responsibilities and management. There's a complete oversight of communication and customer support. It's evident that Bioware feels and views that customer support is nothing more then a glorified tech support role and that it has nothing to do with answering key questions from customers. What Bioware NEEDS is to hire more people and chit-can whoever is currently responsible for managing support. Why? Because there is ZERO support right now. It's a giant FFA fest and no one in Bioware is paying attention. Yes, development priorities are high, the products success makes or breaks the project overall. However, sales and developmet are not all that there is to a company/MMO, support plays a even larger role just as much as the rest. Sales/Support/Development, all go hand in hand in he big picture, right now Bioware is lacking in support by a long shot. What Bioware needs is a Support Manager for the SWTOR department who's got a backbone and who can staff a quality team of support minions that are tasked with supporting all of you (and me). Until Bioware has that, everything from here on out will be a goat rope, or as we used to say in the military (cluster ****) so, this is a total hypothetical, as I'm in no position to guarantee this actually happening. what if torhead had server forums? it's still unofficial, but i personally feel it would be more official than the total privateers, and it would be from a site that people already visit all the time to look up items. Personally I think we'll still be at square 1. Without any form of official link/location here on this site then it's just a waste of time/effort/money. Majority of the customers will always be directed here and remain here unles otherwise directed by Bioware. Edited January 12, 2012 by Vandrel-Blitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yummymango Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 so, this is a total hypothetical, as I'm in no position to guarantee this actually happening. what if torhead had server forums? it's still unofficial, but i personally feel it would be more official than the total privateers, and it would be from a site that people already visit all the time to look up items. Man managing forums is also a PITA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandrel-Blitz Posted January 12, 2012 Author Share Posted January 12, 2012 To further note: It's absolutely sad that I find this kinda of stuff on these forums (and the game just came out) Thank you! Without customer support or any reliable manuals, it's nice to have some sort of help. Cheers! From: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=167978 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HobbeWan Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 however, I think this is where BW's lack of MMO experience is shining through. a robust community is required for the long term health of a MMO. without a strong server identity, and a server community, people do not stick around. Going back to comments earlier. There is a corporation ethos of hype and tripe where the maxim is to spam forums with how wonderfull everything is and deflect from primary & principal truths. Usually by employees and the like. You see the odd forum post from a schill (a term to describe a plant poster who tries to deflect an argument) saying how wonderfull everything is and how "disloyal" and "uninformed" or simply "stupid" and "ungrateful" people are for not liking the present situation. The posts are usually simplistic and say "the game is great ..... i love it..... all who dont agree are "stupid" or just "dont understand". You see the same tactics on facebook etc or on any forum where a a particular argument needs to be negated. If they are deleting posts then there is a significant problem as the argument has already been lost. All I can say to Bioware is that "we want to play stupid!" ... "just dont think we are stupid".... we are not cash cattle. Give us what you promised and advertised (indirectly with PC world and that Darth vader stunt in the UK for example) ..... An MMORPG that actually isnt one has the life cylcle of a fruit fly. So cut the crap and sort it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandrel-Blitz Posted January 12, 2012 Author Share Posted January 12, 2012 You see the same tactics on facebook etc or on any forum where a a particular argument needs to be negated. If they are deleting posts then there is a significant problem as the argument has already been lost. All I can say to Bioware is that "we want to play stupid!" ... "just dont think we are stupid".... we are not cash cattle. Give us what you promised and advertised (indirectly with PC world and that Darth vader stunt in the UK for example) ..... An MMORPG that actually isnt one has the life cylcle of a fruit fly. So cut the crap and sort it out. You make some good points. Saddly, that is much how it appears Bioware views customers. If Darth Vader was here right now he'd probably stand and say "I find your lack of support distrubing" and probably /forceChoke the CEO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oredith Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 bush idiom aside Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me BW has shown its colors to me regarding their community stance. I was in support of their no-cross-server-lfg/pvp, due to the reason given. I thought that was the only answer they could give that actually made sense. but the ONE thing that i thought was pro-community has already been promised to be wiped out. it would be an understatement to say that pre-launch expectations, have not been met with post-launch experience. the alliance/nemesis of the guild function was interesting in the guild deployment phase, even though there were not solid details on how that was going to work, my guild and friends signed up imagining great things. not only did we not get deployed together, but we get deployed with the sole cross-faction nemesis (which is not a problem in itself), but now we are cross faction, without cross faction communication, and no server forum. so even though they are our friends, we have no ways to communicate with each other. not only is that NOT community building, it is down right community destroying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newnin Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 I was pretty surprised that Bioware opted to not include server forums so I started one for the Master Zhar Lestin server at MasterZhar.com. Not a lot going on over there just yet but we are trying hard to get the community involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deannie Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 There are server forums at http://www.swtorowned.com. Every server is listed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandrel-Blitz Posted January 13, 2012 Author Share Posted January 13, 2012 (edited) There are server forums at http://www.swtorowned.com. Every server is listed There's honestly a dozen places just like that. Then there's places for specific servers. The problem is none of them are official and no one is going to use them on a regular basis. It'd probably take 6 months or more to even gain 1,000 members on those places. Case in point, Members: 244 (swtorowned.com) I wish them well but it's honestly a waste of time and money. Edited January 13, 2012 by Vandrel-Blitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oredith Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 There are server forums at http://www.swtorowned.com. Every server is listed i'm kinda wondering if BW is secretly (or not so secretly) watching these privateer forums, to see if any of them take off, so that they can save themselves the trouble of having to provide it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandrel-Blitz Posted January 13, 2012 Author Share Posted January 13, 2012 (edited) i'm kinda wondering if BW is secretly (or not so secretly) watching these privateer forums, to see if any of them take off, so that they can save themselves the trouble of having to provide it. I'd like to direct your attention to something I found earlier today http://www.two-pi-team.de/en/2011/bioware-launches-star-wars-the-old-republic.html As a standing partner for many years we compliment BioWare on officially launching Star Wars: The Old Republic, the most anticipated MMORPG of 2011 and almost certainly the Game of the Year. All the hard work you have put into it finally will pay off when all the thousands of Jedi and Sith players around the globe will set the gaming servers on fire. Congratulations, BioWare! Or how Yoda would have put it: “Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you.” So I ask you this, Why is it that the above linked company owns countless SWTOR related domain names? And date of purchase/registration was March 2009? Can we say conflict of interest? Why is that important? Well, quite simply.... either this company did some contract work for Bioware and decided to make a little extra cash on the side by securing any/all related domain names possible for resale to folks like us.....OR Bioware is attempting to collect a little extra off of customers who are "forced" to venture out and create their own community sites. Edited January 13, 2012 by Vandrel-Blitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oredith Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Why is that important? Well, quite simply.... either this company did some contract work for Bioware and decided to make a little extra cash on the side by securing any/all related domain names possible for resale to folks like us.....OR Bioware is attempting to collect a little extra off of customers who are "forced" to venture out and create their own community sites. a bit too conspiracy theory for me, but who knows. the troubling part is the lack of response. it's not as if the devs are just being mum on everything. there's plenty of activity on the dev tracker. they are just blatantly ignoring this issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painted Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Server Forums are a great place to find a guild or get the general pulse of what is going on. I disagree we do need Server Forums Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phurbies Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 /signed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riho Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Once again, still no server forums? Wow, just wow. Come on Bioware, you greatly underestimate the impact of not having these things for coordination and community purposes. Sadly, I think this bodes poorly for the future and them leaning towards cross-server crap like 'that other game'. Little to no in-server rivalries or interaction. Just stuck in another LFG queue to group with random people you'll never hear from again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alakaiser Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 If another drop in the bucket of posts means anything, I'll add in my support. While I understand the desire for the forums to adhere to a certain level of quality, denying the community a valuable resource due to a lack of manpower (a level of manpower that likely doesn't exist, realistically) is unfortunate. I believe (as do many others, apparently) that it is a worthy compromise to sacrifice a bit of moderation for what is - at its core - a community building tool, and a damn good one. Everything in TOR right now happens within the realm of the server you play on. You only interact with the players you see day in and day out, and already I've become familiar and friendly with a whole lot of players on my server (Vornskr). A forum to organize events, raids, guild recruiting, or whatever else would be a huge boost to an already insular community. Hell, a place to post with my server while the game is down for maintenance alone would be great. Unofficial sources don't cut it. I don't necessarily like or hate that everything happens on one server, but it's somewhat ironic that the only "cross-server" function in the game is the official forums. Server forums don't need to be perfect. I know telling a community team "hey, be a little lax on the rules sometimes" is poison to their ears (for an understandable reason!), this is one of those cases where I really support it. I'm sure a lot of what I'm saying is redundant with the myriad of posts in this thread, but hey - I'm just a drop in a bucket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black_Knight Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Im still waiting for this game to begin! Even at level 52 it feels like we are still in beta without server forums. Open the forums and let the games begin ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oredith Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Im still waiting for this game to begin! Even at level 52 it feels like we are still in beta without server forums. Open the forums and let the games begin ! haxx! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dvius Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 The community did it. Bioware just announced server group forums. Maybe not the completely individual server forums many of us hoped for, but a great first step. Great job making your voices heard. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1587319#edit1587319 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mugaman Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1587319#edit1587319 YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baateen Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Small population servers will feel even smaller without a general forum to get to know the other players and guilds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oredith Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 i wonder how much of this is just BW's reluctance to accept that "cookie cutter spec really is better than my 1-off whacked spec" server group forums? can't just go with the tried and true individual forums, ehh? oh well, it's better than nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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