Mythic Announces Official Forums

[JC the Builder]

At this time they are Warhammer Online only.

So, I’m pleased to announce that in the next few months Mythic will be hosting, for the first time, its own Official Forums for one of its games. Now, I expect that some (okay, a lot) of you are wondering what form these forums will take and why, after so many years of being rather vocal against OFs, are we doing them now. I hope to answer both of these questions here today.

http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=603

Now, as to why I have reversed my rather vocal stance on internal support forums for a game. Quite frankly, I still believe that OFs are not a panacea to cure all the ills of a game. I still also remain convinced that having OFs are not a guarantee of success for an MMO. However, I do think that right now we should have our own OFs because it will allow us to communicate with and better support the players of WAR.

If the forums are a success perhaps they will open one for UO. But it might be complicated because UO doesn't use the same account management system as DAOC or Warhammer. I would not be surprised if they are working behind the scenes to transfer UO over to this. They have already hinted that account management is being worked on.

 

[Babble]

Might be they get their own forums so not all call it Borehammer before the name catches.

 

[AesSedai]

- Well I'm glad to see he changed his stance on this & has realized that being able to better communicate & provide more support just may, umm, improve the community (biz brass, read: improve potential income: $$$) of an MMO.

Mark Jacobs: MMO game design / support changed now = xx.x (+0.1)

x: However I do think that right now is a bit late for this addition ~ the right time for this would have been before WHO went Live, is what I think.

 

[Maplestone]

He doesn't explain what problems with communication and support are being solved, especially given the expense.

As much as I like the possibilities of official forums, my gut reaction to that letter is that someone managed to argue that negativity in the community was being caused by a minority of ex-players. If so, they run the risk of discovering that negativity is an ecological niche in any forums of sufficient size ... someone will always flip over and fill that role.

 

[Millie]

If the forums are a success perhaps they will open one for UO. But it might be complicated because UO doesn't use the same account management system as DAOC or Warhammer. I would not be surprised if they are working behind the scenes to transfer UO over to this. They have already hinted that account management is being worked on.

*Shudders at thought* I don't know what their system is but if its any thing like the one for Linage 2 or vanguard, I'ma goina be screwed. Never got to even try the games Because I could not get their so called Main account for all games set up. I truly hope they leave it alone. other than maybe adding security questions.

 

[Kaleb]

Lets hope it filters down to UO. Stratics is not a good spot for UO's forums to many times threads are locked and or deleted due to a mods personal opinions and when taking it to the Admin. They do nothing.

 

[Dragkiris]

Lets hope it filters down to UO. Stratics is not a good spot for UO's forums to many times threads are locked and or deleted due to a mods personal opinions and when taking it to the Admin. They do nothing.

QUOTE FOR THE ****ING WIN!!!

 

[Maplestone]

Lets hope it filters down to UO. Stratics is not a good spot for UO's forums to many times threads are locked and or deleted due to a mods personal opinions and when taking it to the Admin. They do nothing.

Um ... I would expect an official forum to be more severely moderated than what we see here, and if you got banned there, your game accounts themselves might be at risk.

 

[Setnaffa]

Lets hope it filters down to UO. Stratics is not a good spot for UO's forums to many times threads are locked and or deleted due to a mods personal opinions and when taking it to the Admin. They do nothing.

Show some evidence to support your claim. I've been on these boards for years and have seen almost no Admin mis-use at all. I think they do a great job here and are alot less biased than any official boards could be.

 

[Kaleb]

I. Publicly discussing actions by the moderators is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: bans, warnings, locks, and moved threads. Any inquiries or comments on bans, warnings, or other moderator actions, are to be sent in private messages or via email. A moderator may choose to publicly inform the participants of a forum about bans and warnings if this is in the interest of the forum.

 

[DanTheMan19]

Lets hope it filters down to UO. Stratics is not a good spot for UO's forums to many times threads are locked and or deleted due to a mods personal opinions and when taking it to the Admin. They do nothing.

Well, as much as I hate stratics and their mods, if EA ran it, it'd be 10 times worse, fyi.

 

[Kaleb]

Yah but things like posts for adding some pre aos style servers w/ Fel or tram only based rulesets wouldnt get locked on sight. They may tell you they cant do it, but they can do it. Many have seen it done by normal people if they can get it done so can the people running UO if not hire the people who can (RG?).

 

[AesSedai]

- Kaleb, are you just making a point that your initial post is in vilation of that rule, or what?


I agree that an official forum would potentially be more heavily moderated & perhaps even carry more significant ramifications if we ran around and whined like a bunch of whingers when we get a bit too upset about things. But that is what boards like Stratics originally existed for, prior to the demise of the MyUO official forum...
And I consider that a great benefit for visitors (potential players ~ $$$) observing an official game forum.
And if it is moderated adequately and the punishments are more severe than just making a new username, it will also provide a potential increase of registered posters' desires to maintain a modicum of respect for their fellow community members & perhaps even a willingness to provide constructive criticism rather than simply whinging, bragging about the greatness of illegal game servers or how cool they are for being able to google cheat programs, and other methods of abuse to UO, its community, and other ever-impressive methods of chat board tomfoolery.
Stratics does a pretty good job of keeping the riff-raff at a low level. But I always enjoyed the official forum environment more because there was a lot less junk to wade through, since most of the posters that have a hard time controlling their responses would either be reprimanded into submission, kicked out, or too 'elite' to post there in the first place.

 

[Dragkiris]

Stratics does a good job of keeping the pvp community down while allowing people who constantly complain about how the game is ruined because someone can outrun them to post.

 

[AdamD]

Strange U-Turn to make, given their previous thoughts on the matter
But, I don't see them ever opening an official UO forum.

 

[Hemisphere]

I don't see them ever opening an official UO forum.

Agreed. They'd have to staff it if they did, and in keeping with EA policy that would mean staffing it with paid customer support staff, something UO's budget probably doesn't allow for, whereas Warhammer's obviously does.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Maybe I could get a moderating job with them, lol...la

 

[AesSedai]

- Perhaps
But they might request that you drop your '...la's' & act a bit more selflessly as a community persona; could you handle that?

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Bah...the "...la" goes nowhere...and they'll like it...la

 

[AesSedai]

- Rock on then, Rico...la

 

[Setnaffa]

Yah but things like posts for adding some pre aos style servers w/ Fel or tram only based rulesets wouldnt get locked on sight. They may tell you they cant do it, but they can do it. Many have seen it done by normal people if they can get it done so can the people running UO if not hire the people who can (RG?).

They would after the 1,000th post about the same dead horse.

Pre-AOS is never going to happen and the moderators here do the right thing by locking threads that ignore reality over and over again and only ignite dead-end arguments.

 

[Alvinho]

Might be they get their own forums so not all call it Borehammer before the name catches.

may WAR account is deactivated for lack of content for level 40's

 

[Kaleb]

They would after the 1,000th post about the same dead horse.

Pre-AOS is never going to happen and the moderators here do the right thing by locking threads that ignore reality over and over again and only ignite dead-end arguments.

Thing is its not a dead horse It can be done Ive seen it done by normal people if these people can do it why cant EA? I know the majority of Stratics posters dont want anything better for the game that dosnt involve bashing something with a weak AI that gives overpowered items to decor their house or banksit with, even though it wouldnt effect their server alot. Siege isnt an option It was killed by the aos combat/item changes. At least if mythic ran official UO forums we can keep the fire burning we would also be able to talk about PvP issues w/o fear that an anti PvP mod(personal opinions) will lock our thread.

 

[Setnaffa]

Thing is its not a dead horse It can be done Ive seen it done by normal people if these people can do it why cant EA? I know the majority of Stratics posters dont want anything better for the game that dosnt involve bashing something with a weak AI that gives overpowered items to decor their house or banksit with, even though it wouldnt effect their server alot. Siege isnt an option It was killed by the aos combat/item changes. At least if mythic ran official UO forums we can keep the fire burning we would also be able to talk about PvP issues w/o fear that an anti PvP mod(personal opinions) will lock our thread.

Reality check here...

It doesn't matter if they technically could do it or not. They aren't going to do it. They have said they aren't going to do it. Most people don't care if they do it or not.

Saying AOS killed Siege is strictly an opinion. Btw, that's another that we've had hundreds of threads on where no agreement has ever been reached.

PvP wouldn't have any more of a foothold in an EA sponsored Board than it does here. Wishful thinking on your part. PvP threads are very plentiful on these boards and they only get cut off when someone gets personal or starts trolling.

Trust me. EA/Mythic would have a much shorter leash on posts about ideas they've already said "no" to. It's their game, and they wouldn't put up with much trolling or screaming about it. The difference is when they ban you from the boards, they may also ban you from the game (since most likely your UO account will be the same for UO and the boards

 

[canary]

First off, ANYONE who used the old EA/UO boards knows it was not as free in the speech category as stratics is (though at times imo I think some of the mods interject opinions TOO much and some play favorites, which gives stratics a not so pristine reputation to others).

Also, anyone who thinks these boards will bring attention to things quicker than the old EA/ UO boards needs to recall there was a 100 plus page thread on how to make archers more viable. It was stickied and lingered for YEARS. In that time nothing was done for the archer skill... and nothing would be done until WAY after the boards shut down...

 

[Hemisphere]

Yea, then they made archers awesome and everybody shouted at them to put it back again.