Changes to the bulletin board

[Cz]

...but keep it on topic.

I'll add a thread for suggesting improvements to our work on the bulletin board later. I appreciate your eagernes to help us out, but please let this thread continue to be a feedback thread on the changes in the first post.

Bionitrous, I see your point about the Story and Role-Playing forums. My thought about the Story forum is that it might give players the impression that we will tell the story through this forum, which we will not.

The story has been told through the web site all the time, and also through the movies while they were running. We are currently looking into several ways of bringing the story to the players, but I don't think using the bulletin board as a main source is a good option.

In addition there are small stories in addition to the main story. Having a forum named Story might pull attention only to the main scheme and away from everything else, something we do not want. It should be a place for everything that happens on Rubi-Ka, not just what Radiman and Ross have a part in.

Perhaps another name than Role-Playing would be fit for the joined forum? Or at least another name on the Story forum if we keep them separate? Let me know what you think.

Zarrot, good idea. We'll most likely do that.

Natelie and Kirrana, your suggestions are noted, and we will discuss them in the team. I'll add a thread for discussing it more with you players after that.

Intra, I can't promise that the designers will have time to stop by and have discussions with you. That would simply take too much of their time. But you never know. Anyhow, the forum will most likely be one of our main sources for suggestions and questions for the dev team (sided with the profession forums), and should get plenty of attention.

And hey, Natelie, Cosmik didn't open th... oh, nevermind. Whatever.

[_______________Intra]

(sorry for going off topic)

thanks for the response! feedback always welcome from both sides of the player/funcom fence ... oops.. was that off topic too?
doh!

/me tries again... the changes look good!

(better?)

[_____________Natelie]

*Cannot believe her eyes*
My name....written by CZ... First "Prommie" ever said my name...
*shines with a graceful smile*
And OMG..u guys r so funny. =)

Ah yes... about staying in topic. I'm so sorry about that.
Thanks so much for the response. =)

Bless u, Funcom.

P.S.
(Sowwy CZ, thanks for creating the forum.. *giggles* u rule!)

[Lazz]

"Community Corner" & "Funcom talks about..." should be merged. That way I only have to check one forum for official info. Is there a point with having these separated?

[_____________Natelie]

Hi-eeeee. I did some brain storming.

(I hope this is in-topic)

Trolls are inevitable, and therefore i have thought of the perfect solution:

Open a forum called "Why?"

In this forum, Funcom could explain why they nerfed this and that in detail and explain to everyone (in sticky threads) why they did so for instance to save the game balance...

Poeple may agree or not agree, but trolls will be soothed this way. It Re-assures them. Giving them a reason of why FC does this and that will definitly resolve issues.

An extra load on u, Cz, Cosmik and Dai, but it is SO worth it. Besides, i'd luv to help u guys as well, if i'm allowed to.

Have no fear about rude posts, unconstructive comments etc, because if the nerf is completely justified and well planned on, or was made as an emergency pre-caution, then i'm sure poeple will understand.

However there will always be poeple out there who tend to just vent out their.... worries... no matter what.

I remember the time when the patch was released which made the docs chain heal.. i won't go further into that, bad memories,

but when in the future...if an event ever comes when a patch has such a catastrophic consequence, this is when poeple need u 3 at the boards the most.
Just re-assure them that it will be fixed.. Like... a simple "We did not intend to have the doctors to heal themselves so quickly, this will be fixed on the next patch" for instance. This prevents posts like "Funcom ***** us..." or similar rude postings.

So to the point:

By opening the forum "Why?", Funcom can re-assure and/or give the costumers a sense of ..."consumer confidence" (don't know if this is politically correct...), thus decimating the numbers of posts complaining about nerfs.

This also fixes the problem of having a complete chaos having suggestions and complaints all merged together.

However, "Funcom talks about" can also be used as a "Why?" forum..

Just my 2 cents

Hope I stayed in-topic....
Thank u. =)

[___________Evilspork]

Originally posted by Kirrana
Way ahead of you their Natelie on the idea of representitives the post below is a link to a meeting about a player council I am setting up. The council will be made up of about 12 people who each will be looking at different aspects of the game from techincal support, trhough to test server issues.

People on the players council will not only review items on the boards but we will have open floor meetings with the players to discuss what they feel are the current problems.

People selected for the council are based on the area of experice and are seen as the pillars of the players community. My hope is that the players council will be able to meet with members of FC perhaps once a month if not maybe once every two months. Also I hope to allow guests to attend the meeting if they have a point or an idea they wish to raise with FC.

While Dai, Cosmik and CZ do a great job I feel its a bit different playing for real, the aspects raised on the boards do often not reflect the issues felt in game. Also the idea of the council is to make FC more accountable to the players. But the aim of the council is to form a partnership with FC not just to commicate the players feelings but to also work with FC to proved solutions.

I am still waiting for an offical response to the idea of the player council but I do hope to extend the memebers to include 1 person from each proffesion to put there case forward with issues with the class.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...0&pagenumber=1

I really do hope FC agree to this, it is clear right now things are not working out the way they should be (ie the dead storyline). I believe the way to fix this is to create a stronger link with the players and FC and I see the council as the best way to do this.

Kirrana

I would LOVE this to come through, great job Kirrana! If we could get trustworty people into each position, and get Funcom to promise to take each member's information and opinions gathered from the community to heart, this would be great for all of us out there. Also, I think the council/FC meetings should be every one or two weeks, stuff happens too often for meetings to be monthly or bimonthly.

Originally posted by Cz
...but keep it on topic.

[snip]

And hey, Natelie, Cosmik didn't open th... oh, nevermind. Whatever.

Cz

THIS is the kind of post we want to see more often in other parts of the forum!

A comprehensive response to a good number of the posters, not just responding to an easy question while ignoring all the hard ones. Especially in the Fixer related ones.

[_____________Natelie]

Hi-ee Kirrana...
(To funcom:SO so so deeply sorry for abusing this forum as a PM, but Kirrana doesn't have her PM thingy activated...and i really need to contact her to)

Kirra, check my post please, at
In production> In progress
Titled "Gummizluv: A good politician and a valued member."

It would mean alot to me if u could include him in ur council. If possible, please contact me in-game. My main is "Natelie" in RK1.

I'm very very interested in ur council.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's all... hehe... again, so sowwy. =P
*Feels all guilty*

[Whiterrabbit]

changes sound good guys.

as it is now, the board is too clutered, some forums are packed, some are empty, and some of the forums are not used for their intended purposes. but i think that your new changes will help to solve this problem. great thinking batman.

now, im going to say one thing, and dont take this the wrong way:
With a new board system that makes it easier to communicate with your playerbase, please try to have a more visiable presence, more communication = excellent, happy happy players.

ok, thats all i had to say

[Cz]

Lazz, actually, we were just discussing that. We would like to keep two separate forums for this though.

This is mainly because the "Funcom Talks About..." forum is for discussions surrounding articles from the main site (we might rename it "Article discussions" or something), while what we want to have here in the "Community Corner" is more a loose pick of info from all over the place, some of it maybe not even fully official at times.

[Brad, STL/MO]

The listing of what the topics would look like, up at the top of this thread, left out both of the Tech forums. I'm assuming this is an oversight, and not part of the plan. Right?

I agree with the people who want to keep Story and Role-Playing separate. To address the concern of people expecting the storyline to be told through the story forum, why not just rename it "Story Discussions", "Story Feedback", or "About the Story Line"?

Love, love, love the idea of player polls. And I'm just OK with merging the in progress and envisioned stuff into one forum; I was never sure which one to post suggestions to.

Do the suggestions we make in In Progress and Envisioned even get shown to the developers? If they do, I'm guessing that somebody, probably Cosmik, brings them up in a weekly or monthly or whatever meeting. Could we get the developer feedback on the suggestions, from the minutes, posted to the Suggestions forum from time to time? It'd feel less like shouting into a barrel.

Natelie's "Why?" forum suggestion sounds sweet, and she's right, it would probably cut trollage down by at least 30%. But to work, it'd take a committment from Gaute Godager and/or the developers to be willing to explain what they were thinking when they made various decisions, and a similar committment from Cosmik to track down those answers and post 'em. It would be really, really wonderful.

See, now, when you run into something that sucks about your profession, most people assume it's there because Funcom hates them. Me, I've been around enough to know that they're probably there for a reason. It may not be a good reason. It may not be working the way the developers intended it to. Or contrariwise, it may be that none of the players have figured out how the developers intended it to be used. But absent any feedback from the development team when their decisions are questioned, a solid half of the people seem to want to assume the worst.

Hence, all the threads entitled "Why does Funcom hate fixers/agents/adventurers/nanotechs?" I assume that Funcom doesn't hate those professions. I assume that Funcom thought, when they designed them, they'd be perfectly playable. (For 3 of those 4, I think I've got the "why" figured out. The design of the NTs baffles me; I still can't figure out how Funcom intended people to play them.)

And if we had a forum where we could get answers back from the development team, where they were willing to explain why they thought those designs would be playable, I'm pretty sure there'd be a lot less whining. There might even be a lot fewer cancelled accounts.

I realize that the suggestions I've made make more work for the Community Team. To address that, I suggest that the stupid antique IRC server be shut down, and its hardware scavenged to make Broken Shores run faster, and freeing up Dai-Galean's time to work on something useful.

[_______________Crung]

Definitely in favor of cleaning up the boards. Far too many topics as it is now and it's hard to sort through and find anything. Double bonus if it helps the players and the employees find what they are looking for.

I would be all for seeing a "Why?" forum as was suggested earlier. There are many "nerfs" that create much turmoil among the players. Most of the trouble is simply because no one knows why it was done. This creates the appearance that Funcom is randomly throwing out nerfs at the drop of a hat. Topics could be a result of whatever change is creating the biggest waves in the other forums (which would most likely be easier) or go through the patch changes one by one (answering everyone at once). While intimate details may need to be skipped it would help to lessen the storm if the reasons where posted for changes that are made. Both "good" and "bad" changes should appear here to lower the number of people complaining about other problems getting bumped in front of their personal pet peeve (ie. agent fix before adventurer/fixer/etc). I really think this would be very beneficial.

Cleaning up the site is definitely a good thing in any case. Whatever it takes to make it easier to find official responses and player concerns has my support. Organization can't be a bad thing.

[_____________Natelie]

*sits here staring at the screen for an houre thinking*

Well, other then the "why? forum" suggestion I have not a single idea how one can improve the boards even more now. lol

How long does a discussion go for before it is considered "done?"

Will it be concluded when no one has any comments anymore or if no one has a new ideas for the next 2 days or 1?....

[Bionitrous]

My only wish was that there be a single forum where people could discuss the actual Story here on the boards. I don't propose that FunCom actually start telling the story here. I like the website, the movies were fantastic, and whatever you've done in-game has been acceptable. That's enough places for you to tell your story. We the players want two places to discuss the story: in-game of course and here on the boards.

We also need a place for people to do their role-playing out-of-game. This should not necessarily be comingled with discussion of the Storyline. IownzoredJoo has every right to discuss the Story and it's effects on his gameplay experience as do the dyed-in-the-wool roleplayers. We need a single spot to talk about the developments on the planet and clouding this spot up with people's backstories and personal squabbles isn't beneficial in my opinion.

[-Zagadka-]

Beyond this, I would suggest a IRC channel for role play, moderated to keep the trolls out. Just one channel.

[Cz]

Brad, STL/MO, yup, leaving out the Tech forums was an oversight. We're gonna keep them around. And I think I can say for sure that we will keep the Story and Role-Playing forums separated.

About a Why? forum: A very nice suggestion from Natelie, but as Brad, STL/MO said, it takes a commitment to get a forum like that working. Usually we don't lack the questions, but the answers. And not due to a lack of willingness to explain, but a lack of time to follow up on the issues.

Part of what we hope to accomplish with this Community Corner forum is to cover the kind of questions that would appear in a Why? forum before people feel the need to blow off some steam.

I'll discuss it with the others and see how we choose to organise it. One idea is to take the questions by e-mail, and post them with answers in the forum, just to avoid 45 bumps, 8 rants, and 37 colorful signatures that hide the message of the thread completely.

Now, if I can only get an e-mail program installed on this computer (my harddisk broke down last night), I'll get back on track for today. Catch ya later!

[_______________Intra]

I am not so sure that taking questions via email would fix the problem.

I know if I was in your position I would prefer to read an issue once and scroll through posts of one word saying bump than having to have my inbox spammed with lengthy posts of everyone saying the same thing, and then lengthy posts from people whining that you havent replied.

and the fact that they would be by email and so not for public viewing may change the content of the post for the worse in many occasions, as out of the eyes of the public people may think they can get away with alot more.

I do feel that the way the the bulletin boards work at the moment is good, and the changes that are comming to the boards are good. taking things away, for instance the suggestions by email, would take away from the community.

the only thing that needs to be addressed is the presence on the boards and the feedback from funcom. because to be honest, that is the reason most people come here. they dont alwyas come to chat amongst themselves. they want to believe they are speaking to funcom.
I think that will always be the way it is, players wont read your description of the board saying it is for player/player commentary.
they will jump straight in and get down to trying to speak to funcom as quick as possible whether you tell them to or not.

It is on player moderated boards where people go to talk amongst themselves. but offical boards are always different

I have noticed a huge effort to get funcom back into the public, cosmik seems to have been working over time on these boards lately (especially yesterday.. a sunday!) and I assure you it hasnt gone unnoticed by the players.
he has even come in game to chat to some of us about our concerns (granted the outcome was not what we wanted, but that is besides the point )


anyway.. I am babbling again,
I guess I just wanted to say, I think the approach and changes to the bulletin board wil be good. I personally cant see the suggestions by email working for you.
I wanted to support cosmik for his presence on the boards, hes doing a sometimes nasty job, but I thank him for doing it

we just need to keep the players in the loop as you said would happen in that article you wrote

good things ahead

[Gantilious]

I would like to know how do I get in contact with some of the RP guilds that are Clan. I would like to set up a little event. Where the Clan guild and a Omni Guild work to achieve a goal. Or do a vs thing.

Currently there is no place for that. I was wondering where you would post that?

Secondly, We have ARK's and we have ARK's that are event coordinators. I am a EC for my guild and would love to chat with the EC's in ARK to discuss joint events. Omni vs Clan in the desert and things like that. Where you don't have to do to much but make a mission key to a cleared dungeon. Place item in the dungeon. Put clues out for each side to find. Or just annouce to the Guild leaders at a particular time that there is something they need them to do. Give the coords and let them go there. Of course in my book I say let them move out over ground and don't use Yalms but hey I like the long walks.

Either way there are so much more things we can do if we can get the ARK's to work for us. There are a lot of creative players and guilds out there. We don't want to kill storyline events but maybe we can increase the activities for players with board areas like that.

[_____________Natelie]

I fully agree with Intra. He's got a point there.

But i completely understand what u mean, Cz.
Xept for the E-mail part..... =P

I'm excited.... Please let me know what u guys have decided.......

Thankies!

I have like... 5 different drafts of replies and suggestions saved on HD.. but i wanna see what u guys have decided first before i go brainstorm fantastic ideas again.

[__________Blackfists]

How about a vent/flames board?

Alot of people get pissed off about something in AO and there is really no way to tell Funcom what you think of the game.

Yeah, yeah I know. Feedback@anarchy-online.com, but that is like sending it off into the great abyss. You never know if anyone read it.

Also, that might mean you need a props/praise board but knowing they way posters are, 90% would be flames anyway.

Anyway... The idea is to let the community vent thier fustration, anger etc.

[_______________Crung]

I'd have to disagree about the feedback system being the great abyss. I've gotten replies to the majority of my feedback. I don't mean automated responses either, those don't even count as a response.