Bulletin board changes

Cz · Jan 27th, 2003, 13:04:52

Waffen; I checked Basher, Stratics, Vault, Portal and JeuxOnline just now, and got no pop-ups.

Gartan; I am willing to discuss, as I'm willing to change my view. That doesn't mean I should change my view on the first argument posted, just to prove that I' willing to do so.

But, are you willing to change your view? If not, you're the one not discussing.

And note that any additional work will force me to cut on other things. I probably have to cut on it anyway though, but the amount is the question.

**Doctorkain** · Jan 27th, 2003, 13:14:26

I hope you realize the fundamental damage that will happen by just removing the market forums - in game trade is absolute crap without some sort of controlling medium. A time ago, that medium was the various shopping and auction bots like Omnibot - but those were removed for understandable reasons.

Next up, the forums heated up extensively because there really isn't any better medium to handle scheduling and dissemination of trade opportunities, something which is critical to many many players.

The market forums are needed, there is no doubt - or, supposing they were removed, better in game functions to facilitate trade would be great as a replacement. 3rd-party solutions are not acceptable to any player of the game, because there is no official and easily findable starting point for everyone to work with. Community shouldn't have to try and ramrod a fix and then try to pull everyone to their forums, because that fails - AO official market forums get the traffic because they are official.

Having a searchable 'For sale' listing in game that can be updated quickly and easily by players would just make life easier. More serverload? More work for the developers? Yes sir - but with the way this game has progressed so much in the past year, why not work on making player-to-player transactions easier to handle?

One last note: For once just support neutrality of sales and don't segregate clan and omni markets, as the shopping channels are now. I think most would agree that the forums being a fully mixed environment where you can trade across alignment is alot better.

**________________Ghir** · Jan 27th, 2003, 13:18:57

I know it's been said before, but I'll add my 2 cred anyway along with my personal reasoning:

Closing the Market Forums is a bad, bad idea.

Why?

Those forums represent a single location for all the folks of Rubi-Ka to get together to buy and sell their wares, regardless of faction, playtime, level, or any number of different reasons two people may never have an opprotunity to meet in-game.

Also, if there were no forums, which site would *everyone* use in this way? I know I for one don't relish the thought of bouncing across 3-4 different EZ-Boards/PHP2BB Boards trying to find that one particular item I want, or posting the same item across different sites and trying to figure out who wins what.. Chaos.

Leave the Market Forums largly un-moderated (to cut down FC maintenance needs), including a disclaimer of some type if needed, and drive on..

I've said my peace, thanks for reading. Please don't fix what's not broken.

Edited for more clarity.

**Waffen** · Jan 27th, 2003, 13:19:54

Originally posted by Cz
Waffen; I checked Basher, Stratics, Vault, Portal and JeuxOnline just now, and got no pop-ups.

I guess it must be timing. Stratics just gave me a large popup ad for CheapTickets, Basher and Vault were clean and I didn't check the others.

**______________Nexuss** · Jan 27th, 2003, 13:32:15

Yes, just give control over a couple of forums to ARKs or choose someone else from the community. I am sure a lot of people would be happy to do this for free.

Look at it this way... social forums are designed for community. Players talk about various topics that interest them, discuss common problems, etc. They are not for Funcom to gather community feedback. That's what profession forums are for and professionals program is all about.

So, if you let a couple of ARKs (for example) work with you so that one moderates market forums while the other administers WoRK and PvP boards... combined with the filtering rules already in place there wouldn't be that much extra work load for you. You, Cz, would only need to take occasional peeks into those forums, just to make sure that everything is allright, but most of the work would be done by the dedicated moderators.

Even if some important issue comes up in one of those forums that would need Funcom's attention, a moderator can always make a nice summary letter about it and e-mail it to you.

You said that you decided to keep RP boards for the new players... well, social forums are just as important. What do you think a new player will think when he/she joins the forums and only sees RP boards and no social interruction what-so-ever? What if he/she isn't a roleplaying type? New players need to see how large the community is, and what is a better way to show it than social forums?

Also, please understand that for many many people forums like WoRK and PvP were a part of the game. People would recognise others ingame from their forum posts and vise versa. Some people even spent more time here than in game

.

I hope you guys reconsider... part of the community will die without those forums back online

.

Cz · Jan 27th, 2003, 13:34:05

Waffen; you sure that was on the forums? They have pop-ups on the site, but I have never gotten any on the forums.

About the Market forums; Just thought I'd say I'm definately leaning over to keeping them. I won't commit to it yet, but you guys post good arguments for them.

**______________Gartan** · Jan 27th, 2003, 13:46:32

Originally posted by Cz
Gartan; I am willing to discuss, as I'm willing to change my view. That doesn't mean I should change my view on the first argument posted, just to prove that I' willing to do so.

But, are you willing to change your view? If not, you're the one not discussing.

I never said i wasn't willing to change my mind. Infact i offered a sollution to the problem by surgesting an ingame system. So please don't try to have a go at me.

The point is the only viable market system in operation is the current one on the offical forum. Its Unlikely that any of the fansites will be able to challenge this system, mainly because the people will not go to those sites. So we will end up with several underused market forums splintered around the Ao community sites. Not good.

Plainly CZ has a lot of work and thus something has to be done, but what.

So far several surgestions have been put forward including haveing an ARK system for the message boards. Wouldn't this solve a lot of the problems.

**assassimon** · Jan 27th, 2003, 14:16:29

Cz, give us back World of Rubi-ka and PvP forum and let some volunteers be moderators.

FC set the guideline how it should work and what rules to follow, the moderators follow them.

It will be as in #Anarchyonline on IRC, only volunteers run it, works pretty well.

Why can't we have the same on just those 2 forums?

**Darkbane** · Jan 27th, 2003, 14:18:09

Cz, if you can pass over more forum work to volunteers, then by all means do so. If you need to cut forums short term to make the time to manage that process, then again, do so. Then once the remaining forums are being managed acceptably by volunteers, it may be a few additional forums can be added back in (Market, WoRK, PvP).

**nice** · Jan 27th, 2003, 14:26:24

If FC wanted to close down the forums and hand it over to fansites then why several fansites?!

If the market forums were to get split people wouldn't get as many bids as now.

The same thing goes for alot of the other forums too, people won't get the amount of good.. and bad reply's that they do now.

and basically i DON'T want to go check the same forums on 4 different sites when i can have it all on one site.

**Wispered** · Jan 27th, 2003, 14:30:20

Please don't close the market forums. It gives everybody regardless of timezones a chance to see and bid on an item, nicely and quietly outside their gametime.

Otherwise I would mostly only see what the europeans are selling - and I would have to have the shoppingchannel running all the time hoping for someone to post that one item I'm looking for - not my idea of fun gametime :/

Without one official tradeforum the information would be scattered and hard to find.

**Gene13** · Jan 27th, 2003, 14:39:18

I'm not gonna try to tell you what to do, I've done that enough already. If you think that shutting down the forum is good for Funcom, then it probably is.

I just wanted to pop in and let you know that the forums the way they were, and the way you handled them was worth the 12.95 or whatever it is.
Hope the guys at your office appreciate your work as much as we do.

Thanks Cz. Sorry we pushed you too hard.

And yeah, I know my sig's too long. I'll fix that ASAP. Just haven't figured out what to cut yet.

/G13

**________________Whow** · Jan 27th, 2003, 14:58:51

The forums may indeed be a huge amount of work. But FC needs to ask themselves, is it worth the investment of 1-2 employees? Of course it is. Closing the forums would be a disaster and closing 3/4 of them already was a bad move. name me one MMORPG or one game at all that doesn't have forums supported by the developers? None. Because with any game (MMORPGS in particular) that is a killer to the company. No place for suggestions, no place for discussion, no illusions of being heard = players believe FC doesn't care what they think. We now have NOWHERE to give feedback on patches, suggestions for the future, game mechanics problems or any other hugely important issue.

The trade forums I can see being carried over to another site but please, PLEASE. Add a World of Rubi-Ka or some form of -general- discussion forum where we can talk to each other as players and return the future anarchy section.

If the decline of the forums keeps up I can guarntee you. The "Archives (look at the history of Anarchy Online)" is going to hold a lot more meaning if you know what I mean.

**Cenelia** · Jan 27th, 2003, 15:01:41

Don't remove the marketforums, Where else can a neutral fixer get enough orders to buy his gridarmor, and where can he buy it without the forum? The market forums are flame-free(or at least I haven't seen anny) No need for supervision there, and the few work you have there, do it at the begining of the workday? That way you begin your day pleasant and makes you a little more happy about your job and makes working on teh flame-forums a bit more pleasant for a moment. And you get to be tehre a little less long (:

-Wrathgrit

Cz · Jan 27th, 2003, 15:14:59

Gartan; I'm sorry, I didn't mean to have a go at you. You were the one implying this was not a discussion though. I replied a bit quick though, and worded myself badly. My apologies.

An in-game system is not my area at all though. That would take a lot of work from the dev team, and at best be something to consider a bit down the road.

Exitplov; I don't see anything good about appointing one single fan site the official endorsed one. Each site has its own personality, and people feel comfortable at different ones. I'm not going to put one ahead of the others.

Gene13; Hehe, I thought about PMing you about the sig earlier today.

Darkbane; There's indeed a chance that we can return forums later, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. It's a matter of resources, and I'm still running short. Turning more over to the ARKs now - if possible - still won't put me on the "got extra time" side, but it would bring me closer.

**____________Fakonamo** · Jan 27th, 2003, 15:15:56

Originally posted by Cz
I can't defend having a personal flame against some designer on a forum with "but, we don't read (or moderate) that forum".

Havent you ever heard of the saying "Stick and stone will break my bones but words will never harm me"? Just dont put stock in flames, they cant really hurt you. I'm sure that none of you have such a fragile ego that the ramblings of some basement dwelling, friendless troll will really cause you much pain. I dont pay any attention to them, and I couldnt be happier.

But I do have a suggestion. Why not add some new in agme chat channels to make up for the missing forums. WoRK channel (all factions, all lvls) for discussions, RP channel (for each faction, like ooc channels but actually RP), World Wide Shopping Channels (open to everyone although I still think there should be ICC shopping kiosks around the world, where players could drop in an item, set a price and anyone who visitis the shp could buy it), PvP (all lvls, all factions, for PvP related stuff). People at work could still log onto chat and participate, these wanting discussion could do so in their own channel, those wanting to Rp could do so. You could keep the focus of AO in the game instead of on fansites (which could suppliment rather than replace discussions, markets etc)

**aiwass777** · Jan 27th, 2003, 15:31:30

I can see things from a couple of points of view...

1. The forums that you've removed or intend to removed, are the most difficult to moderate. Suggestions, Next Patch, the Exchange Forums; all filled with slander and hate-filled messages. Surely not a pleasure to monitor and police. This is probably an all-around good idea, giving us less places to tear into each other.

2. The removal of key forums such as Suggestions and Next Patch, can be seen as sort of a marketing move. New customers are more likely to be turned off on a product when they note the huge number of flames over senseless nerfs, poor content implementation, bugs, exploits, etc. Removing the forums means that the new customer will have no place to see this sort of thing and will be blissfully ingorant until he or she begins to find these things for himself. Good intent on this, since I am sure that Funcom wants to keep it's newer customers especially with newer games on the horizon.

3. It's censorship. It's easier to remove our ability to post than it is to police our posts.

Whatever, I don't really care. My impression is that our posts were read but not understood, edited but never really taken into consideration. I'm sure that a dozen or so "Funcom-Hate" themed message boards will arise to allow your customers a place to publicly air thier complaints.

**_____________Liyanne** · Jan 27th, 2003, 16:21:48

Originally posted by Hoops' Cousin

1. The forums that you've removed or intend to removed, are the most difficult to moderate. Suggestions, Next Patch, the Exchange Forums; all filled with slander and hate-filled messages. Surely not a pleasure to monitor and police. This is probably an all-around good idea, giving us less places to tear into each other.

The argument is valid and I'm not sorry to notice that general whining has ended. It's not that people shouldn't be allowed to express themselves when they aren't content, it's just that having to wade through threads that are 80% full of "FC suxxors" no-content posts is a relief.

While I wish there was a forum left to express ideas and there was some content in the forums now, at least they are more pleasant to read - you don't get annoyed all the time either by the whiners or FC not reacting in any visible way.

3. It's censorship. It's easier to remove our ability to post than it is to police our posts.

Timing for the change was extremely bad. I don't know how many posts there were per day about miscellaneous issues demanding FC to comment them, but it was a lot. I personally started to really feel quite a bit less than confident about the future of this game and how much FC listens to players and that's always bad.

Now the whining is gone, so things must be better. Well, I feel better. Long live the power of self-denial.

**Darkbane** · Jan 27th, 2003, 16:26:29

Originally posted by Cz
Darkbane; There's indeed a chance that we can return forums later, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. It's a matter of resources, and I'm still running short. Turning more over to the ARKs now - if possible - still won't put me on the "got extra time" side, but it would bring me closer.

Wasn't expecting anything quickly Cz, I appreciate that getting the right people and getting things organised won't happen overnight. I'd even put up with you shutting down the forums completely for a week or so if that was what was needed to get a more manegable system in place for the community. I'd even offer to help...

**Jellobiafra** · Jan 27th, 2003, 16:34:26

Originally posted by Cz

And note that any additional work will force me to cut on other things. I probably have to cut on it anyway though, but the amount is the question.

I once asked that you list the the things that would have been cut if FC had decided to not cut the forums. I'm sure it was lost in the 20k posts begging you all not to do it.

You have heard all the arguments already, but let me state just a couple.

Markets: Having one central location for the listing and bidding of items is far superior than 3-5 unofficial locations. We all know that everyone is not going to go to all of the alternate sites. Some people will pick one or two. Others will just not go. If you are someone who is selling an item, are you then expected to choose one site to list it, and then go to the other 3 sites and post a link to your auction? That would seriously get ugly.

Social: Yes, a social forum would need moderating. But assigning a couple ARK's to do the moderating would both relieve you of the responsibility, and be a token of good faith from FC to the community. A simple 'official' place for people to meet and discuss all things AO related and un-related. There were weeks when I literally spent more time on the boards than in-game. Having it here allowed for a unique way for people around the world to get together, through a common interest, and discuss everything under the sun. For me, it was 'part' of what I was paying for. No, not as in, "your 12.95 per month didn't include access to a social forum forever", but as in "12.95 per month is not bad considering I have this great game to play, and I have a place that only other AO players can go and discuss world events, the price of condoms, post a pic of myself, whatever". I am personally already feeling the loss of that one forum.

Now I'm sure to some, it seems petty. And I understand that. It wasn't for everyone. But it was amazing how a thread like "free shades" took on a life of it's own. People who don't post in other threads, post there. I had a chance to talk to people who I never would have before (ie. clanners, people from opposite timezones).

It just seems that instead of taking away something that so many people participated in, everything could have been solved by getting some ARK volunteers to handle some of your work load. And at a time when many are screaming about other games, poor customer service, and serious bugs, giving us back the social forum could go a long way in FC's relationship with thousands of it's customer base.

/my 2 cents

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