Are Official Forums a Necessary Evil?
Yes. While there are a number of negatives associated with having official forums and it’s quite a pain to manage a community on official forums effectively, you absolutely have to have official forums for an MMO. If not for existing players to have an out-of-game home and to strengthen the community, then for the new players who don’t know that official posts are made on Fansite A and Fansite C (but not Fansite B, because they are jerks). Even Mythic, long against having official forums, has finally seen the light with Warhammer Online.
Yes. But I think official forums should be used, like you say, to build community. Forums should not be used for serious feedback. Other methods that provide better results for feedback should be used (i.e. in game polls and such). Forums have, for way too long, given the vocal minority too much influence over games. Like in the case of SWG post NGE, I didn’t know who was developing the game. Was it the devs or the two dozen players who constantly beat the crap out of them on the forums? The community forums have, in more than one game, ruined the experience for me and others.
“Other methods that provide better results for feedback should be used (i.e. in game polls and such).”
I’m curious about in-game polls. Do they provide good feedback? I can’t disagree with makkaio’s comments on forums but I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen an in-game poll and I don’t know what kind of track record they have.
Take out “a necessary” to be more concise.
In my experience I find most “typical” players do not use official forums in any capacity. Official web pages for information, updates, etc. Usually you can find tech support info better through google (and answers not on the official forums) and official forums haven’t held a need, or a desire, in my MMO space. My guild of 120 people had less than 10 that used official forums, on those 10 usually only used it to recruit for the guild with an odd monthly post, or just read for entertainment due to excessive whining, trolling, and crying. Good for laughs, not so good for much else – besides dev posts for the state of the game and patch updates (which are invariably covered better in blogs and fansites anyway).
That of course could be the byproduct of how the forums are managed and moderated, but I am not just talking about the WoW forums, either.
I agree that forums of some sort are needed, even if just for technical support. However, I really hate the division of forums and game. Yes, forums should be accessible from a web browser, but there should also be a method to access the forums from WITHIN the game, so you don’t have to Alt+tab out or have a second PC. (Bonus: if you integrate your regular forums into the game, it will be easy to give guilds their own in game private (and even public) forums as well.)
Whether it’s getting some basic information about a feature, class or quest in-game, catching up on the latest news, or just reading about an upcoming player-run event, I find that official forums are a great way to build community within a game and keep interested people informed about what’s going on in-game. I was an avid reader of the EQ2 forums when I played that game and now that I’ve since hopped to LOTRO, I’ve found myself doing the same there.
Also, I’ll second Jason’s point that in-game access to forums would be best and take it one further by saying that in-game browsing should become a standard UI feature. Perhaps it won’t be necessary if Playxpert is adopted as widely as they hope
If Mythic isn’t doing it, you should be. So basically Mythic is a good lesson in what not to do.
“makkaio:Yes. But I think official forums should be used, like you say, to build community. Forums should not be used for serious feedback. Other methods that provide better results for feedback should be used (i.e. in game polls and such). Forums have, for way too long, given the vocal minority too much influence over games. Like in the case of SWG post NGE, I didn’t know who was developing the game. Was it the devs or the two dozen players who constantly beat the crap out of them on the forums? The community forums have, in more than one game, ruined the experience for me and others.”
Absolutely disagree. Disregarding feedback on a forum on the basis of it being from a ‘vocal minority’ is a mistake.
Sure, you will only get 10-20% of your player base on the forum, but that’s actually… kind of the point. If every single player were to have a forum account then the signal to noise ratio would be absolutely dire. Instead you generally have the people who have used forums before, who are most enthused by the game, or who have even been in similar communities previously. They are the people that generally will have played other MMOs, and have a greater experience of MMO design and how to give feedback in a format that can be digested.
Saying that they are simply a misleading vocal minority is a very cynical view of them and of your staff interpreting their feedback. All you need is a CM or designer who can recognize when the community is acting like a dog with a bone, and when it is actually pushing a valid idea.
I’ve never rated in-game polls for serious design feedback. Sure, it’s great for things like ‘What do you think the next special Halloween event hats should be?’, but I really wouldn’t consider making any game changing decisions based on it. On a forum you have the option of ignoring the feedback of players who just don’t ‘get it’, but a poll available to everyone isn’t going to discriminate. There are a few decisions where I could see the additional metrics being useful, but only as supporting evidence to a few lengthy forum topics about it.
So in short, saying in-game polls are more valuable than a forum topic is essentially ignoring your hardcore players in favor of majority rule. I don’t think any developer should bend to the whims and wills of its forum community, but designing a game by democracy would be far, far more foolish.
(That last but was a little deceptive; I’m not saying you have to do one or the other.)
[...] Design, Industry | Tags: community management, Game Design, official forums, Ryan Shwayder In a post by Ryan Shwayder on official forums being a necessary evil, I came across this comment from a user [...]
@Dan Gray – I wrote my comments early in the morning without first having coffee. So I kind of mashed some thoughts together there that shouldn’t be read too literally. However, I still believe forums should be used as a community building tool and not be used as your guidebook to designing your game. And in some cases, over the twenty some odd MMO forums I’ve been a part of, it has. And those games, sadly, are not doing well or have closed up shop completely.
Of course, there is going to be discussion about the design of your game. Ideas will come and go. The feedback is invaluable. And like you said, CMs and developers *should* be smart enough to sift through the crap. Or take the issues in stride.
Developer interaction and moderation needs to be done right. Everyone loves it when developers interact with the community. Even if it a developer is talking about how the donut he had didn’t quite cut it for breakfast. If that wasn’t true, things like Twitter and blogs wouldn’t have such the popularity they do.
Here is the problem with allowing a vocal minority to influence and take over your message boards. And by vocal minority, I’m not talking about the whole player population. I’m talking about the fraction of a % of the 10-20% number you used for message board population. Say your game has 200,000 players. Then 10% would be 20,000 players. Say a fraction of that, 200 players, hates an entire combat system and jumps on board a thread. And the developers bend to some major changes. You’ve just let .001% of your player base change a major element of the game. Problem is, this has happened more than once.
Here’s what else happens. Players start figuring out they can influence and bully the development. Now you create this feeling that the development is over responsive. This notion caused two separate bands of players in two different games I just happened to fall in with to take up projects of drafting extensive system ideas and submitting them to developers. When they didn’t get feedback like the development was so readily giving to the vocal minority on the boards, they were put off and quit the games. That vocal minority tends to be viewed as elitist. Not the greatest way to build community.
Sorry…more rambling on my part. LOL. But, I love message boards when they are done right and I hate to see any game suffer when they’re not.
I think you make your first mistake by referring to them as a “Necessary Evil”. From the get go you’ve walked in with a bias and disrespect for your customers. If you create a forum with that attitude (“necessary evil”) you’ll get what you ask for.
Might as well post, “Hey we really hate this thing but it’s a necessary evil. I guess it makes you guys happy so have fun. Oh and don’t forget our ‘Because we can so shut up’ moderation policies before posting”
Well they’re not my customers. I think the bias and disrespect is generally well deserved. Dan Gray thinks that “…you generally have the people who have used forums before, who are most enthused by the game, or who have even been in similar communities previously. They are the people that generally will have played other MMOs, and have a greater experience of MMO design and how to give feedback in a format that can be digested.” With all due respect I think Dan is delusional and that the nice people he describes avoid game forums like the plague. Gaming forums are pretty much like the rest of the internet but with a worse class of people because the porn sites get a lot of the non-trolls.
http://digg.com/design/Greater_Internet_Dickwad_Theory
IMO when one creates a forum with a negative mindset, one will simply reap what one sows.
“Back in the day” when I admin’ed an 80k user forum for a large game company, I actually enjoyed it. It was a nice place, people had fun believe it or not. And I think that’s because from the get go it was meant to be a ‘good thing’ as opposed to a ‘necessary evil’.
One should also ask if the “problem customers” are a result of a bad game, bad service or some other failing in the product.
I hate to dissagree,
In fact, Warhammer Online is one of the best examples of why you do not need official forums. During the launch, the external community flourished. Developers could post at 3-4 different fansites and the developer posts could be tracked and read all in one place. So regardless of where developers posted, customers knew what developers were saying at X fansite, Y fansite, and Q fansite. You can stop fooling yourself If you think that Mythic’s sudden change to official forums has anything to do with seeing the light.
Garthilk:
You knew how to track dev posts because you’re a gamer, and you were fully entrenched in that community. It took ME a couple hours to figure out where to go to find where devs were posting. Imagine if it was a new MMO player–they’d just think the developers never communicated, and they’d have no idea how to get in touch with the community outside of the game. You have to design for certain edge cases, and new players are one of the most important ones to design for if you want your game to be successful.
That said, you should never stop posting on fansite forums. Some fansites are built on that communication existing (though I’d argue they really need to offer more than just that after launch), and it can be a death blow. I really like for other fansite forum communities to exist because it’s a place to get unfiltered feedback (and, believe it or not, sometimes a better signal-to-noise ratio). I especially love forums for classes, races, servers, etc.
Take EQII.com as an example for what can happen: I ran that site with a couple buddies before EverQuest II came out. After I started working at SOE, there weren’t enough people to keep the actual site updated with new features and such, so the only thing that it did was give news and provide a forum… then the official forums showed up, and even though Moorgard and I both posted there sometimes, it killed the site.
Ryan,
Are you talking about a developers official site being lackluster in that it doesn’t show what’s going on in the community and their involvement in external sites? Or that a fansite doesn’t easily portray the developers involvement?
In your example with EQII, which was the cause of death? Did the developer cause the death of the fansite, or was the fansite the cause of it’s own death?
Lastly, what are 3 things that you belive can only be done with official forums?
Garthilk:
Part of the problem is poor official websites. Fansites sometimes don’t easily portray developer involvement, but they usually do.
EQII.com: It died from both. For EverQuest II, we launched official forums well before the game came out. Prior to that, EQII.com’s forums were the unofficial community forums. But, that shifted almost entirely over to the official forums when they came out. If some other people had volunteered to help with EQII.com after I left to work at SOE, and they refocused the entire site, it could have stayed around. But that’s a lot of work for little payoff (as is any fansite).
What are 3 things that I believe can only be done on official forums? Hmm, good question…
I’ll answer that one in a new post!
[...] innocent post declaring official forums a necessary evil led to some controversy. Garthilk, a guy who actually runs very good fansites like WHA, basically [...]