The bannings will continue until morale improves
The subject of player discussion forums has been something I've wanted to talk about for awhile, and last night Abalieno provided me a perfect lead-in. He shares the story of a player who was banned from the official SWG boards for posting sarcasm. The irony is not lost on me, considering the mockery Sony has made of the game. Ban me? Ban you!
Back in the day game publishers, for the most part, left discussion forums to 3rd parties such as Stratics and IGN. It was one less thing to support, and they didn't have to worry about taking ownership of player comments. Some publishers even took pride in their relationships with outside community sites. Mythic's Sanya Thomas, for example, can still be seen posting to 3rd party sites. A Sanya post can do more to quench a stupid flamewar and misinformation than any moderator on an official board could ever do.
Somewhere along the way game developers realized that the disadvantage of not having to control player comments is that they can't control player comments. Even the heaviest moderated boards allowed for a wide range of player discussion. Some of that discussion was quite embarrassing to the publisher, and that was a problem. I don't know exactly when it happened, but it first jumped into my consciousness when Sony started running the official EQ2 boards. It really doesn't matter who started it, or when, because almost every single publisher is on board with running their own boards now. It's usually touted as a “feature,” and players are all too happy to drink that saccharine sweet Kool-Aid.
Players drink the “O Board” Kool-Aid because that's where the official news is going to be posted first. It's the only place the devs and designers are going to post, and if you're lucky maybe the pointy haired president of the company might pretend to listen to your ideas about what will make the game better, provided you bury your nose far enough up his ass to smell the bagel he had for breakfast. And some players even defend the jack-booted decisions of the official moderators, usually hiding behind the “they were just enforcing the rules you agreed to” banner. These same players content themselves with the knowledge that because the official boards are more tightly moderated, there's less garbage to sift through when they're looking for real information. Bullshit. They may not have to wade through the flame wars and the rants that were the hallmarks of third party sites, but it's been replaced with the kind of fanboi chatter that makes Republican party loyalists look like nipple-pierced anarchists.
Many 3rd party player forums are now either extinct or have become shadows of their former selves. (Stratics, you poor poor bastards.) Any more, independent community sites either have loyal but older bases, or they're clan/guild sites with very small communities. The industry has succeeded in consolidating their power over player discussion, it's not likely to change for some time, and we have only ourselves to blame.
Sony and the rest of the industry must be proud of this “technological terror” they've constructed.
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:34 am
Unmoderated community sites do far more harm to the game than the companies could ever do to themselves.
But the lightly moderated company sites aren't much better. Check out the WoW forums for any server. Any at all. They are totally and entirely useless.
At least with highly moderated forums, you can rely on some real information, even if it is slanted. High moderation destroys community, though, so you don't really see many of those.
Looking at the user forums for each games, you'd think that WoW was filled with young teenagers who just learned what dirty words were, DAoC for slightly older teenagers out for blood, EQ1 for OCD-damaged adults, and CoH for NCSoft employees.
March 22nd, 2006 at 10:15 am
Some of the so-called discussion is quite embarrassing to anyone who doesn't need a card to prove that they're human. And that's the problem with these discussion boards - there's normally not a lot of discussion on them, merely flames, ill-thought out and predujiced arguments and the rantings of pre-pubescent fanbois which dowse, subdue and generally obliterate any constructive and insightful feedback that may be present. I can't help feel that sometimes the bannings of dissenting voices is only a pre-emptive strike to prevent the mob from taking up torches and pitchforks and going on the rampage.
Then again, you won't find me standing up to defend SOE any time soon.
March 24th, 2006 at 9:52 am
amber, not sure where you get your ideas from, but you may want to take a closer look at the official EQ2 forums. i really don't see any 'arse sniffing or be banned posts' over there. i see loads of rants and raves and 'devs, wtf did you think?' posts. i really don't see any fanboi chatter, but loads of (unmoderated) 'your a fanboi' accusations when someone likes a change. and i see irony, for example this one:
Fictous meeting at SOE
not sure if he got banned, but i assume not, the thread isn't even locked.
or this open piece of sarcasm:
Easy-to-use Troll Reply Form
the thread was locked, but that's no suprise. but i know pretty well that the poster didn't get banned.
you should check out the EQ2 forums after a live update. you bet they wouldn't even get anywhere, there would be so much to bann.