Forums vs In-Game

[Virtus]

While I have created this section I certainly hope that once the game comes around that everyone will be using in game systems to communicate and discuss mainly the Totems since that is what they are there for.

Maybe once the game comes I will temp lock this section to try to get people to use the in game system.

The totems should allow enough communication that the forums are not needed.

I would hate to see another game go to the dogs because it was not all in game.

[Xx1327]

but of course
personally I usually ignore the game forums and do everything in game.

[Teotwauki]

I'm glad you posted that Virtus, in a game like this where RP is not enforced, it may not be needed, but I do not doubt it will increase imersion ten fold. It does suck when there's an in game event and some **** goes and posts all the details on the forums.

Edit:
Not to mention all the flame wars, trolling and general crap that goes on. One thing I may recomend to you though, since you seem to be the Magic behind the forums. I'm stealing this idea from another game... Make a private leaders board, entry on application, for those people who play the game a lot to have inteligent discussion with developers about things that need to be changed in the game.

Not an elitist community, but somewhere without the rants, flaming, insults. Kept clear of spam, a place for issues to be discussed by players with admin.

[Toxic]

[b]Teotwauki wrote:[/b]
[quote]I'm glad you posted that Virtus, in a game like this where RP is not enforced, it may not be needed, but I do not doubt it will increase imersion ten fold. It does suck when there's an in game event and some **** goes and posts all the details on the forums.

Edit:
Not to mention all the flame wars, trolling and general crap that goes on. One thing I may recomend to you though, since you seem to be the Magic behind the forums. I'm stealing this idea from another game... Make a private leaders board, entry on application, for those people who play the game a lot to have inteligent discussion with developers about things that need to be changed in the game.

Not an elitist community, but somewhere without the rants, flaming, insults. Kept clear of spam, a place for issues to be discussed by players with admin.[/quote]

What about the casual community? What if the people who play the game a lot are all griefers? Shouldn't everyone get a say in what goes on? The people in the leader boards might not have all the skills so they don't know whats good/bad in some areas of the game. This may work on other games where players can explore all areas of the game, but you can't in this game (Seeing as you can't master all skills) so IMHO this is not an advisable course of action.

[Virtus]

There will be an area for subscribers only so that we can hear your ideas/wishes for the game. This way we make sure the actual players are making the decisions.

[TangerineSky]

[b]Virtus wrote:[/b]
[quote]There will be an area for subscribers only so that we can hear your ideas/wishes for the game. This way we make sure the actual players are making the decisions.[/quote]This idea sounds good in theory, as long as you don't completely exclude the rest of the community because input from potential subscribers is valuable as well.

[Teotwauki]

[b]Toxic wrote:[/b]
[quote][b]Teotwauki wrote:[/b]
[quote]I'm glad you posted that Virtus, in a game like this where RP is not enforced, it may not be needed, but I do not doubt it will increase imersion ten fold. It does suck when there's an in game event and some **** goes and posts all the details on the forums.

Edit:
Not to mention all the flame wars, trolling and general crap that goes on. One thing I may recomend to you though, since you seem to be the Magic behind the forums. I'm stealing this idea from another game... Make a private leaders board, entry on application, for those people who play the game a lot to have inteligent discussion with developers about things that need to be changed in the game.

Not an elitist community, but somewhere without the rants, flaming, insults. Kept clear of spam, a place for issues to be discussed by players with admin.[/quote]

What about the casual community? What if the people who play the game a lot are all griefers? Shouldn't everyone get a say in what goes on? The people in the leader boards might not have all the skills so they don't know whats good/bad in some areas of the game. This may work on other games where players can explore all areas of the game, but you can't in this game (Seeing as you can't master all skills) so IMHO this is not an advisable course of action.[/quote]

In a perfect world, everyone is able to submit a thread to the admin outlining all of your woes, Xsyon comes and takes a look and discusses the problems with you, then works to change the broken skill.

In the real world, a game with 10 or so developers can't sit there and troll the forums reading thousands of posts, rants, flame wars and suggestions about every broken skill.


Not everyone is granted access to the leaders board, the idea is to keep it small, a max of 20 or so people, so the discussions are kept mature, to the point and accurate. You can't expect the admin to read through 500 new forum posts every day to find out what needs fixing in the game. So it's the duty of the leaders board to help the admins decide what needs fixing and how.

Anyway, just an idea, at the moment it isn't even needed, but if the game ends up with a massive population (MMORPG, get it, lol), the forums will be to crowded with every man and his dog putting forward a point of view.

[Biships]

I agree with Sky on not closing the forums. I need something to do at work As for the subscribers forums I like it. So many posts on game forums are from people that don't play and just like to regurgitate what they hear.

[aliksteel]

That's cool Virtus. Sounding great, I have done a blog or two on how it seems the people that play on the forums and not the game get's there way more times the the players do. This should at lest make them pay a Sub to play on the forum area's that will count.

[TangerineSky]

[b]Virtus wrote:[/b]
[quote]While I have created this section I certainly hope that once the game comes around that everyone will be using in game systems to communicate and discuss mainly the Totems since that is what they are there for.

Maybe once the game comes I will temp lock this section to try to get people to use the in game system.

The totems should allow enough communication that the forums are not needed.

I would hate to see another game go to the dogs because it was not all in game.[/quote]While I can't comment on the totems because I have not seen the functionality, you may want to keep in mind that there are a lot of people that have a love for forums because of certain features that are difficult to replicate in-game.

Many of us have long work days with no access to anything other then forums, so in-game communication isn't always available.

I don't think a temp lock is the best solution (not a terrible one), rather a functional communication system that provides incentive to use by itself. If the system works well, I wouldn't worry about needing additional encouragement for people to use it.