Star Wars Galaxies Forums Turn Player-Only 115
mwbay writes "A note from the Star Wars Galaxies Forums indicates that starting today, SOE will be hiding the PC MMORPG's forums from the non-paying public. Raph Koster submitted this response [on the now-inaccessible forums]: 'It isn't really that we have anything to hide. We spend a lot of time on the
boards here talking to you, and I don't think we have been shy about confronting
controversial issues... But yeah, publicity is at the heart of it. The heart of the matter is
will a game's Internet forums ever be a source of
positive publicity post-launch? And I'd suggest to you that the answer is
no... Someone who isn't a player has no idea exactly how widespread a given issue is.' It is certainly well within SOE's rights to do what they want with their boards, but isn't this a bit extreme?"
One way to get folks to pay (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course I can see a new market for public forums to take the place of the official forums.
In fact...
Re:One way to get folks to pay (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:One way to get folks to pay (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One way to get folks to pay (Score:2)
Opposite Decision Made Here (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Opposite Decision Made Here (Score:2)
DragonRealms and GSIII are probably the two best fantasy-oriented MMORPGs to date, when it comes to game-play. I'm spoiled absolutely rotten thanks to DR, and nothing I play stacks up. No amount of graphics goodness can replace the simple element of immersiveness, and DR beats EQ, SWG, DAoC, etc hands down- No contest!
So while you guys might have acerbic comments, suggestions, and even the 'You should do it this way!!' posts, you have the respect of most of those who ha
Re:Opposite Decision Made Here (Score:2)
Who is considering it a flop? It can't be Sony. You do know that SWG now has the second largest subscription base (second only to EQ) at over 60k people? Thats a lot of money, especially with the box purchases combined with the subscriptions. From a business standpoint, there is no way SWG can be considered a flop.
OTOH, the game is/was a let down to most MMORPG gamers. Over the last couple
Re:Opposite Decision Made Here (Score:2)
> Who is considering it a flop? It can't be Sony.
> (...)
> OTOH, the game is/was a let down to most MMORPG gamers.
I used 'everyone' under the assumption that there are more gamers than game company executives reading slashdot and the SWG forums.
By 'flop' I'm referring to public perception. Public perception, even among those people who have never played SWG, is that
Re:Opposite Decision Made Here (Score:1)
Gemstone III was/is the only text-based game I played online; I've been hooked since waaaaaaay back in the AOL only days w/multiple characters. I quit a few months ago and have been wanting to come back. Hearing (and checking) this new bit of information has hastened my return to the lands.
It may not be much from the perspective of 1 former player, but seeing that the forums are now open to non-subscribers, and I spent a while browsin
Re:Opposite Decision Made Here (Score:2)
Full Disclosure (Score:3, Interesting)
Some members of Sony's Planetside team, including the head programmer, used to work at Simutronics. A subset of that group could only be described as "disgruntled"-- they have bitter personal gripes with the management at Simu, for reasons that seemed totally insignificant to me. Those one or two people have pushed to do everything as differently from Simutronics as possible, since the project started. If Simu had open f
Re:Full Disclosure (Score:2)
Which you signed willingly. Whose fault is that?
Which you are now breaking. Whose fault is that?
Which makes you no better than the whiners at fatbabies. Whose fault is that?
What you have just demonstrated is not just the breaking of a legal contract, which you agreed to abide by, but your word - which may or may not have been valuable once, but it isn't worth shit now.
Loser.
Re:Opposite Decision Made Here (Score:1)
Re:Opposite Decision Made Here (Score:1)
Bad move (Score:2)
Surely there are ways to handle trolls (if that is even a problem) without restricting access to paying members only.
Re:Bad move (Score:2, Interesting)
A bad move indeed. Ultima Online realized that and dropped their private member only "MyUO" forums in favor of a third party, Stratics. Now Stratics is the recognized official forums of UO and these forums are open for anyone to see. As a result (in addition to many other things as well, mind you) UO account subscriptions have risen. UO continues to
Re:Bad move (Score:2)
Although, with the people that play UO, they will be playing it forever, while the SWG people might burnout in 2-3 months.
Re:Bad move (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree. Reviews of the game in magazines, tv, or other forms of media are going to give a more objective overall review of the game, as opposed to forum dedicated to a discussion of the game.
The forum could be detrimental to their marketing in that only the most vocal forumites make their views clear, and in many cases, these views tend to be impassioned and sometimes irrational.
Re:Bad move (Score:3, Informative)
You said: The forum could be detrimental to their marketing in that only the most vocal forumites make their views clear, and in many cases, these views tend to be impassioned and sometimes irrational.
As a person investigating a game for possible purchase, I DON'T care about marketing decisions. I want to know what people who
Re:Bad move (Score:2)
Nope. If you don't like it, then don't buy the game. If you don't buy the game, then you have not lost a penny. How are you hurt then? Just take the closed forums as a warning to stay away.
Who IS hurt is possibly the company. Look at it this way -- if you have not paid any money, they don't owe you anything. However, if they close the forums, it could be because they feel that they have something to hide. If they feel that by closing the forums they ar
Re:Bad move (Score:2)
Because I'm not able to make a fully informed decision on whether or not to buy the game. Duh.
Re:Bad move (Score:1)
Player-Only Forums (Score:1)
if you ask me... (Score:1)
When Unreal 2 came out I was pretty torn about whether or not to buy it after hearing mixed reviews. The members of the infogrames (now atari) forums convinced me it would be worth my money. (truth is, i only moderatley enjoyed the game though...)
Re:if you ask me... (Score:3, Informative)
That is a hell of a lot of people, making this game a far cry from disapointing.
Re:if you ask me... (Score:1)
Re:if you ask me... (Score:2)
The fact that they "HAD" 275k accounts means nothing. It will go the way of AO. AO had at least 300k accounts in the first 3 months but lost about 200k before 6 months were up. And yes, AO also tried the board closing, board moderating and whatnot in hopes of luring customers back in.
SWG IS a huge flop.
Re:if you ask me... (Score:1)
Re:if you ask me... (Score:2)
That's so cute!
Come talk after one year. You'll notice that MMORPGs that don't do well have dropoffs at (roughly) two month, five month, seven month, and thirteen month intervals. Why? Because that's when subscriptions runs out. It will reach a peak, and it will start to decline. Eventually, equilibrium will be reached.
To give you an example, Dark Age of Camelot had "more than 220,000 paying subscribers" ( http://mythicentertainment.com/press/atlantis.htm l ) back in May of 200
It's not so bad (Score:4, Interesting)
If I was on the fence about Galaxies and went to the forums to check things out about it, I would definatly not buy it after reading them. Then again, I'm about to cancel anyway, I don't recommend it. Wait for World of Warcraft.
Re:It's not so bad (Score:1)
Totally, the forums are a scattered, but complete list of every problem in the game (believe me, this game is still pratically a beta). I cancelled my subscription after viewing problems in my classes in game, and then finding that every class is equally as broken on the forums. SoE wants you to buy without knowing what a worthless product you're getting.
Hiding Something? (Score:1)
It seems like maybe there's been so much negative feedback that they want to close the forums from the public to stop other potential players from getting discouraged. I haven't played the game. But I usually browse a game's forums when I'm deciding to buy a game or not.
D
Re:Hiding Something? (Score:1)
It's sad that Lum the Mad degenerated into a soapbox and drama fest once Lum left, because the idea of shining the light on the dysfunctional world of MMORPGs is a good one.
The saddest part of all is that I really, really like MMORPGs as a concept. I love muds, mushes, moos, you name it. Sadly, most commercial companies seem unable to reconcile the high cost and the idea of taking risks by includ
Re:Hiding Something? (Score:5, Funny)
The problem with Galaxies is that it is NOT a game. It is a 'simulation' of the Star Wars universe, but unfortunately you get to simulate the life of the most bored person in the galaxy...
Re:Hiding Something? (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm leaning towards the fanboy, but you think Lucas would at least MADE THEM STICK TO THE STORYLINE. For example, the Empire views Wookies as barely sentient beasts of burden. They have a blockade around Kashyyyk (the Wookie homeworld), and sell 'em off to work as slave labor. Any Wookie they see roaming free of
Re:Hiding Something? (Score:1)
Re:Hiding Something? (Score:2)
Now you know why Luke spent all of his free time fantasizing about being somewhere else... anywhere else...
Maybe not such a good idea. (Score:2)
Re:Maybe not such a good idea. (Score:1)
Other sources of information (Score:4, Insightful)
With the internet being what it is, do the producers really think that closing the forum is a good move? I assume that problems and negative opinions will be voiced in other forums, wikis, product sites,
The truth is out there and everyone will know it, eventually
Quite right (Score:2)
Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone going to a game's forum will find countless complaints and very little positivity, an unbalanced ratio that is of course NOT representative of the majority of players. It creates an inaccurate impression of what people think of the game, which in turn may discourage other people from playing it.
Now you may say that it's also 'hiding' the legitimate complaints from potential customers, and of course that's true. However, it has only come about after many years of openness from all (or nearly all?) games companies.
The reason is has got to this stage is that the vast majority of people posting on a game's forum will be very angry, very vocal, very rude and somewhat-obsessive. If you want to blame someone for this decision then blame them, because they have created the situation that is now being addressed.
To be clear: I don't *like* the decision, but I understand and agree with it.
Re:Makes sense (Score:2)
so someone who doesnt own the game will see all the complainers and think the game is crap, because they rarely see people there to praise the game, cause all those people have got no reason to go to the forums.
Re:Makes sense (Score:2)
Yes, there are probably going to be a high ratio of noise in there, however a good game has quite a bit of healthy discussio
Re:Makes sense (Score:2)
"...the vast majority of people posting on a game's forum will be very angry, very vocal, very rude and somewhat-obsessive."
Then why host forums at all? If they are the negative situation you proclaim them to be, what are the positive reasons for having one?
Very simply put, there *must* be a good reason for having these forums, or else they wouldn't exist. If it's about image management, then it's about "keeping things quiet" by not letting the public in. Is that a smart business decision? P
A player's perspective (Score:2, Informative)
The registered owner forums are much more civilized. Which is not to say th
Re:A player's perspective (Score:1)
Re:A player's perspective (Score:2)
Only SWG members could post before and after change.
All they have done is shut off viewing access to non-members.
Re:A player's perspective (Score:1)
Re:A player's perspective (Score:2)
Give me manning a turret on a MonCal cruiser attacking an enemy player-driven Star Destroyer.
Give me getting 15 friends and forming a lance of Tie Fighter to lead that attack.
Give me piloting a dropship to drop off AT-ATs to attack a rebel base.
Give me piloting a snowspeeder to attack said AT-AT.
Give me taking over bases and planets to achive an ultimate winning goal and resetting the game.
Give me making illegal cargo runs for the rebels for profit.
Give me upgrading my cargo running ship.
Re:A player's perspective (Score:1)
What an Interesting String of Words! (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, just as important, would a designer's desire to close off forums to the public be a sign of a worthwhile game? While it is true that most forums are plagued by trolls and screaming, petulant adolescents, hiding behind anonymity while they snipe at anything anyone holds dear, it's also the one of very few places to find an honest opinon about a given game.
Re:What an Interesting String of Words! (Score:1)
Re:What an Interesting String of Words! (Score:2)
I agree with the first part of what you said, but the bit I've marked in bold doesn't make sense to me. How can all that sniping be an "honest" opinion about a game?
Maybe I'm just midunderstanding you, but there seems to be a common feeling that negativity equat
Re:What an Interesting String of Words! (Score:2)
it's a place though where you can find the most common problems with the game and find more about the features without buying the game(sure, you could find them in a review but with the state of reviewers nowadays they aren't worth shit).
anyways, now i just got the feeling that there's some really bad flaws with the game they're trying to hide, so bad flaws that they would be very obvious if reading the forums(like having to watch j
Re:What an Interesting String of Words! (Score:2)
Re:What an Interesting String of Words! (Score:2)
And therein lies the problem.
Yes, some people -- you, me, anyone else with experience of ga
Re:What an Interesting String of Words! (Score:2)
A bit excesive.. (Score:1)
The Bioware thing is right IMHO, only owners can post I see the number of trolls decrease, but hiding the forums from the community? It's insane..
Missing the point (Score:2)
People get so caught up in their petty power struggles that they lose sight of the bigger picture. It's just like a business -- you may own the building and equipment, but your customers own you, because without customers you have no business. The same applies
Customers can still use the forums. (Score:2)
Customers can use the forums just like they could before. Nothing, in that regards, has changed.
All it means is that those who don't pay for the SWG service don't get to use the SWG official boards.
It makes perfect sense to me.
And, as far as I can recall, you couldn't EVER post on the foru
Re:Customers can still use the forums. (Score:2)
exactly, so what are they hiding there? paying customers complaining that it is boring as hell? that's the feeling you get it from now.
-
Re:Customers can still use the forums. (Score:2)
That's an incomplete way of thinking about it. It doesn't matter if you prevent someone from writing something, or just preventing anyone else from reading it: either way, you're stopping a potential communication between writer and reader. So in a sense, the voice of the subscribers talking to non-subscribers has been silenced. Of course, these subscribers can just move to another forum to share views with non-subscribers -- indeed, I expect that to happen to
Oh yeah... (Score:2, Interesting)
i remember i was in the digital cantina, a place where many come to rest and revive wounds and form hunting parties and such, and a player by the name of "Stud," yeah, Stud, was doing a provocative dance for another male player and blowing kisses (theres actually a command to blow a kiss to a certain player).
after this, he used a bug in the game to simulate willingful participation of sodomy.
there is no collision detection detection in the game for players, so if for e
Re:Oh yeah... (Score:1)
Re:Oh yeah... (Score:2)
Bad move (Score:5, Interesting)
I read about EQ-style time sinks, lots of walking. Content like lore and quests sounded rather sparse. Aside from humans and wookies, most of the races sounded like "random guy from the cantina" -- not gungans or jawas or things like that which would at least be recognizable as a Star Wars creature. No spaceships, though supposedly they're coming in a future expansion. Lots of going out to hunt random creatures to build up one's character.
It sounded like something that a lot of people were enjoying, but not really very "Star Wars"-ish in terms of the roleplay possibilities, and not something for me. By reading over the boards, I was able to determine before having to buy anything that I would be dissatisfied with this title, based on my own tastes and expectations.
You might look at this and think, "Sony lost a sale because you read the boards, closing them is a good move". But it's not. Sure, if I had bought the game and hated it, they might have made $50 more, but I would have been much more wary of buying anything from them in the future. After being burned, Sony would have a much higher burden of convincing me to buy their product next time around, and in the long run would lose much more money than they made.
Re:Bad move (Score:2)
Not that this means the boards were necissarily a great deal of misinformation, but Gungans and Jawas are in the game. Indeed there are several Gungan camps littered about Naboo, an area of static Gungan quests in or near the "sacred place" or something like that. There is also a static Jawa camp of some sort (I've never been there so I can't describe it). While it doesn't have any missions associated w
Re:Bad move (Score:1)
Re:Bad move (Score:2)
Also, part of the race's popularity in the myriad of books helped. Bothans, for example, feature heavily in the Star Wars universe, but they're never on screen in any of the movies. Trandoshans and Zabraks are only feature briefly in the mov
Re:Bad move (Score:2)
Where the hell did the Star Wars universe go, and what is being represented in SWG?
After beta testing and playing during the stress test, I was so sick of how VI totally ignored the basic foundation of the Star Wars universe and "dumbed down" all of the gritty important stuff, I just couldn't fathom *anyone* wanting to play this game.
I guess my questions are more like this: are you a Star Wars fan? How big of a fan would you rate yourself? Do
Re:Bad move (Score:2)
Vader: My Lord, what of the rebel fleet mounting near Sullust.
Anyway, yeah I'm a big fan of the episodes IV-VI. My question to you is what Star Wars do you find lacking? Lets start with the ones everybody mentions: No space ships and limited (essentially no) Jedi. The first one is completely unacceptable, and if you refuse to play a star wars game until there are space ships in it then wait for the expansion. It
Re:Bad move (Score:2)
Yeah, Sullust rings a bell =) I didn't pick up on the '|'s at first - and a great little trivia thing, I can only think of one Sullustian in the classic Trilogy (Nien Nunb [sp?]), and Vader's quote doesn't even link him to that planet.
Well, I'll just jump right in. I was thrilled when I got into the beta earlier this year, but was really disappointed b
Good way to hide bugs. (Score:2)
After being burned by Anarchy online and its patches, the only reason to lock forums is to hide problems. And dont even start with Tribes2 and its whole patch fiasco.
Tired of wasting my time on 50 dollar games, that have these huge amount of bugs. Time is starting to be more valuable to me these days
Low self-esteem (Score:4, Interesting)
As a game reviewer, I always check message boards dealing with a game I'm reviewing, mainly for reports on technical difficulties. So far I've been lucky, and most of the games I've played were very stable. However, sometimes (most recently with Republic: The Revolution), there is a widespread technical problem that's significant enough for me to take notice and mention it in my review. Over the course of my reviewing career I've nocised some interesting patterns:
1. The smaller the company the more positive the board. While this is not always the case, very often games from small publishers receive more praise. In addition, the developers tend to follow these boards more closely and are ready to answer any question or solve problems. Especially the Dramcatcher/Adventure Company and JoWooD boards are great examples of how game forums can have positive spin. In fact, as long as the developers sound helpful, I tend to buy games with known technical problems, because I'm confident that I'll be helped.
2. Scam and deception works, too. Remember Command & Conquer: Renegade? It was not a perfect game. In fact, it was piss-poor, deserving a fraction of sales it ultimatelly achieved. The reason for such high sales was that EA was censoring out all posts that mentioned technical and gameplay problems. Those who recognized this practice were booted off the forums, and those who came to check other players' reactions found only positive posts. SW:G falls into this category. While not as deceptive as EA, SOE is still trying to create the impression that the game is better than it really is. Most likely, the strategy will work.
I agree (Score:1)
I'm sure they're under some pressure from management who are skiming the boards and seeing bad things.
This is probably the reason that the board admins have lately been cracking down a little too hard, IMHO.
Now that the boards are private, the admins will be able to lighten up. Information will again flow freely within the community, without bringing down the hammer of the skittish management types.
It is an unfortunately thing to have to do, however. I can only assume that Raph's wish
Re:I agree (Score:2)
No Jedi+ No spaceships= No subscription (Score:3, Interesting)
It is a SMART idea, not a BAD one (Score:1)
The REAL story of the game is in there. I realise most of the posters are inflammatory, but I look past that to the facts they present: what kind of bugs, how bad are they and is the game any fun.
I have seen the bad posts and decided to buy anyway, an well informed decision. No MMOG is without bugs and the ones I seen were not fatal. (As with Shadowbane for example)
And you know what? The forums, taken in this light, were
As a player of SWG and regular poster. (Score:1)
Re:As a player of SWG and regular poster. (Score:1)
If this was true, then they wouldnt have much of a problem with the forums being so bad. If every negative post was locked and buried, that would make the game look awfully nice to prospective buyers, wouldnt it?
The truth is, there is a lot of complaining. And for the most part they dont care. They're glad to have people expressing their opinions, as
Re:As a player of SWG and regular poster. (Score:1)
Other forums will take up the slack. (Score:3, Informative)
There is a Yahoo! Group [yahoo.com], the Allakhazam forum [allakhazam.com], SWG Warcry [warcry.com], the Stratics SWG board [stratics.com], and even the Lucasforums boards [swgalaxies.net], among quite a few others. If you're thinking of learning more about the game, don't let Sony stiff-arm you, visit one of the other forums and start reading.
isn't this a bit extreme? (Score:1)
no.
Just got Banned for linking (Score:1, Interesting)
I posted the link, they locked it saying I was repoting. I checked, noone else has posted about article. I included my own view at the bottom.
I post saying there was none. I am locked, they say they want only "one thread" on the topic. Still no threads on the fact that slashdot is running an article on our community.
I repost without my own viewpoint (thinking this was the problem). Just the link, and my reasons for doing this and why I th
Re:Just got Banned for linking (Score:1)
Re:Just got Banned for linking (Score:1)
I checked and all my posts are there with the article linked as expected. You sir, are either an incompetent forum user or are telling bald-faced lies.
I could not care less which.
Very suspicious... (Score:2)
The way I see it, they just sealed off a huge publicity source. Most companies I know like word of mouth promotion if their product is any good.
SOE are user hostile IME [long] (Score:2)
I'm not by any streach of the imagination a 'whinger' on the boards, but they constantly give misinformation, are not aware of bugs that virtually every user knows about and has been aware of for months (like doors that don't open [makeing capturing a base impossible, which is kind of the point of the game], your character being killed for no reason if you jump in certain areas of the game world [and th
Re:SOE Games: Planetside and Infantry (Score:1)
However, the game itself lacked any depth. There were about 20 or so of us coming from Infantry, another (not good, IMO) SoE game, and by the release date we had had enough. We formed an outfit a month or so before release, had 50 members, a fairly active message board with 6 or so people on most of the time, and after release, exactly nobody bought the ga
Re:SOE are user hostile IME [long] (Score:1, Interesting)
This is because the head Planetside programmer, John Ratcliff, has a very low opinion of non-Windows users. His view is that all Linux users are code thieves and software pirates, because anyone who uses a free operating system is unwilling to pay for any other software either. (As near as I can remember those were h
Re:SOE are user hostile IME [long] (Score:1)
Interesting post all round, cheers.
Why not leave it read only? (Score:1)
Or maybe they just don't want the public to know about the inner workings of the game until after they get some money.
SWG's development in a nutshell (Score:1)
A more balanced approach... (Score:2)
Non-players might have an interest in some of the content and to get a better impression of the game but do not need to see the discussions about games changes, recommendations and the intra-game communication mentioned above.
So maybe SOE shoul
SOE's forums a joke anyway (Score:1)
I was banned from PlanetSide for harassing their technical support. Despite harassing them so much that it warranted my removal from the game completely, SOE Tech Support NEVER responded to any of my problems, issues or posts until the day they told my they were cancelling my account.
SOE Tech Support won't talk to you unle
SoE doesn't grasp customer relations very well.. (Score:1)
Their customer support, on the other hand, is mostly comprised of a bunch of clueless sacks of sand, who can't do anything but read from a script, and ban you if anything deviates. Generalised, but true.
SW:G has often had notices in the patcher posted if users could -please- delete their open trouble tickets (y
Re:Why I hate linux score -1 offtopic (Score:1, Flamebait)
Linux outperform
Re:Why I hate linux score -1 offtopic (Score:2)