166 replies to this topic

[Purplefluffybunny]

Are we going to get a response to the fact that this so called referendum does not contain a question about whether we want a general forum or not? Do we need to have a referendum on what questions to have in a referendum?

[blinkin]

Purplefluffybunny, on 27 April 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:

Are we going to get a response to the fact that this so called referendum does not contain a question about whether we want a general forum or not? Do we need to have a referendum on what questions to have in a referendum?

you mean are the developers going to respond to the temper tantrum that portions of this community are having because the developers took their dirty diseased broken toy away?

i don't know.

[Jestun]

blinkin, on 27 April 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

you mean are the developers going to respond to the temper tantrum that portions of this community are having because the developers took their dirty diseased broken toy away?

i don't know.

The negative atmosphere will continue until they actually resolve the issue.

Insulting people by locking all the threads (even the official ones are locked now...) and putting up polls like this which ask just about everything except "should re reinstate general discussion" is not going to fix peoples complaints.


That's like your phone not working, you calling up the provider and them saying that lots of people have been complaining about this and that they will get back to you.

And when they do their response is "We've heard your complaints. We'd like your help on how to improve things. So... how many phone numbers would you like to be assigned to each phone?"

:edit:

To clarify, simply locking threads is not insulting, although it would have been preferable for them to merge them instead. But locking all threads, and the official threads, and then coming out with a poll like this is.

Edited by Jestun, 27 April 2013 - 11:49 AM.

[blinkin]

Jestun, on 27 April 2013 - 11:47 AM, said:

The negative atmosphere will continue until they actually resolve the issue.

Insulting people by locking all the threads (even the official ones are locked now...) and putting up polls like this which ask just about everything except "should re reinstate general discussion" is not going to fix peoples complaints.


That's like your phone not working, you calling up the provider and them saying that lots of people have been complaining about this and that they will get back to you.

And when they do their response is "We've heard your complaints. We'd like your help on how to improve things. So... how many phone numbers would you like to be assigned to each phone?"

:edit:

To clarify, simply locking threads is not insulting, although it would have been preferable for them to merge them instead. But locking all threads, and the official threads, and then coming out with a poll like this is.

if you want to throw a temper tantrum there is a place for that general discussion 2.0!

could we leave the suggestions section to the adults who care about the small game that is associated with this forums simulator?

[Jestun]

blinkin, on 27 April 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

if you want to throw a temper tantrum there is a place for that general discussion 2.0!

could we leave the suggestions section to the adults who care about the small game that is associated with this forums simulator?

Try re-reading the various well reasoned and constructive responses they have.

The truth is not decided by the amount of times you call someone a whiner.

I care about the game, but with 88 forums and subforums I no longer know where to discuss the majority of it. And unless PGI intend to hire me I doubt I have time to monitor that many forums / subforums.


Look in general discussion or the hot topic heatsink (which were mostly general discussion threads, before being hidden away in a sub forum) and you can see a selection of threads which do not focus on a single aspect of gameplay.

A couple of examples:

The consumables P2W fear & feedback - fits into no subforum and was perfectly suitable for general.
3rd person view - again no forum focused on one aspect of the game could cover the whole discussion on this subject.


Not to mention the fact that they say they look for "trends". But now that all threads which are vaguely related to another are being deleted / locked and most people are unlikely to see the majority of the posts due to the number of forums to monitor there is a significantly lower chance of a trend occuring.

[blinkin]

Jestun, on 27 April 2013 - 12:02 PM, said:

Try re-reading the various well reasoned and constructive responses they have.

yeah i found ONE, the rest were dillusions about knocking over the evil empire of the developers with threads, "I AM QUITING BECAUSE NO ONE EVAR LISTENS EVAR!!!1!", or standard garden variety whining.

The truth is not decided by the amount of times you call someone a whiner.

deep, but i have seen no world altering truth here, just a lot of butt sore general discussion people who are mad because they lost their place to yell at and insult the developers.

I care about the game, but with 88 forums and subforums I no longer know where to discuss the majority of it. And unless PGI intend to hire me I doubt I have time to monitor that many forums / subforums.

so we fit all of those 88 forums into one forum and everyone can read everything... BRILLIANT!! everything will be on the front page and it will be amazing!

Look in general discussion or the hot topic heatsink (which were mostly general discussion threads, before being hidden away in a sub forum) and you can see a selection of threads which do not focus on a single aspect of gameplay.

you mean useless and rambling? i wonder how we will ever go without.

A couple of examples:

The consumables P2W fear & feedback - fits into one subforum and is perfectly suitable for gameplay balance.
3rd person view - again suggestions or gameplay balance.


Not to mention the fact that they say they look for "trends". But now that all threads which are vaguely related to another are being deleted / locked and most people are unlikely to see the majority of the posts due to the number of forums to monitor there is a significantly lower chance of a trend occuring.

because i am sure the general forum had everything and didn't get clogged at all with tons of useless spam because it was unregulated.

how about my well reasoned argument?

these forums are here to talk about a game not other forums. if you want a place to BS about what ever random topic that suits you at the moment then here ->general discussion 2.0! almost completely unregulated, just keep it within the realm of legal.

[RG Notch]

blinkin, on 27 April 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

you mean are the developers going to respond to the temper tantrum that portions of this community are having because the developers took their dirty diseased broken toy away?

i don't know.

How do other developers manage to maintain a General Discussion forum without it becoming a festering mess of negativity? Is there something special about this community that it can't be allowed a General Discussion forum? Or is there something wrong with the dev team that they have created a community so toxic they have to burn part of it out to not scare off new players or upset the sycophants? Is there some magic these other dev teams have used? Maybe not over promising and constantly under delivering? not going back on promises made early in development? not taking people's money for one game and making another? Or again is this community somehow in the wrong?

[Roadbeer]

RG Notch, on 27 April 2013 - 01:19 PM, said:

Maybe not over promising and constantly under delivering? not going back on promises made early in development? not taking people's money for one game and making another?

All great points and I don't disagree, they've had several missteps (understatement).

However,

Quote

Or again is this community somehow in the wrong?

Quite usually, yes. I would say I've seen about 200 posters who are able to articulate a thought, and convey it in a constructive manner, for or against anything that has occurred in the game and not resort to hubris, hyperbole or ad hominem attacks.

The rest are basically bashing their fists against the keyboard then hitting "post"

Edited by Roadbeer, 27 April 2013 - 01:27 PM.

[GaussDragon]

Jestun, on 27 April 2013 - 12:10 AM, said:

*sigh*

PGI/IGP think that adding a forum to discuss the bobbleheads and fuzzy dice is more important than reinstating the general discussion forum.


I'm almost speechless...

To be fair, for every 1 good thread in Gen Disc, there were 20 other complete ***** threads about some irrelevant crap from someone who has no idea what they're talking about.

[RG Notch]

Roadbeer, on 27 April 2013 - 01:26 PM, said:

All great points and I don't disagree, they've had several missteps (understatement).

However,

Quite usually, yes. I would say I've seen about 200 posters who are able to articulate a thought, and convey it in a constructive manner, for or against anything that has occurred in the game and not resort to hubris, hyperbole or ad hominem attacks.

The rest are basically bashing their fists against the keyboard then hitting "post"

******* hilarious. Yup it's the community's fault, so again how do other games manage it? Or is this particular community, that according to most surveys and evidence skews older on average, is some how composed of misanthropes?
I've been on many game forums, and this one seems no better or worse than the others. I've also seen lots of dev teams and while this one doesn't seem better or worse on the game development side I've yet to see one worse at managing the community. It's not the blunders themselves it's the not learning from them, or worse taking the wrong lesson : i.e lots of complaints in GD, get rid of GD.
I guess they are hoping the biggest critics will go away with out a soapbox, guess what so will lots of others without a central place to check in on the game. If you don't want people seeing a mass of angry rants in there maybe look at how to deal with the issues, rather how to make the forums look better for new players. If anyone really believes that isn't the reason for the removal of GD, I ask again how do other games manage it? For those happy to see it gone, well if it remains gone and this forum starts looking dead, well that's a bigger kiss of death than an angry forum. I've seen angry forums and they are often at least lively and show people are still concerned about the game. A dead forum tells me it's too late.

[Roadbeer]

Well, all I can speak from my experience is, this community was no better or worse than other game forums... that's where we agree.

But, with the changes, I can now, rifle through EVERY subforum in GenDiscs, find the information I need, reply to several well thought-out posts and my trolling of mouthbreathers is down by about 75% in about 1/3 the time it used to take me to wade through the old Gendisc... So, quicker information and less trolling = good in my eyes.

I think I summed it up better in another thread... or maybe it was this one, when someone said "Every other game has a Gendisc forum..." well, everyone used to throw their chamber pots out their window and on to the street too... huzzah indoor plumbing.

[RG Notch]

Roadbeer, on 27 April 2013 - 02:01 PM, said:

Well, all I can speak from my experience is, this community was no better or worse than other game forums... that's where we agree.

But, with the changes, I can now, rifle through EVERY subforum in GenDiscs, find the information I need, reply to several well thought-out posts and my trolling of mouthbreathers is down by about 75% in about 1/3 the time it used to take me to wade through the old Gendisc... So, quicker information and less trolling = good in my eyes.

I think I summed it up better in another thread... or maybe it was this one, when someone said "Every other game has a Gendisc forum..." well, everyone used to throw their chamber pots out their window and on to the street too... huzzah indoor plumbing.

Still doesn't explain how other forums manage to get useful feedback and not scare off new players with a General Discussion forum. I'm glad you can find what you want, me I'm not bothering to look through 55 sub forums. While you don't mind wading through that, I didn't mind wading through the crap that appeared in General Discussion.
I'm yet to hear why this game community can't have a General Discussion forum while every game I've ever seen has one. It seems to me only two causes are possible, either it's the awful community here or the fearful devs.
All I hear from the people who support this is that now the whiners will have to go somewhere else, well guess what? Those whiners, wouldn't be whining if they didn't care about the game, just because they can't express those concerns properly doesn't mean they don't want the game to succeed. I imagine a lot of them will find somewhere to go, I imagine it will be another game. Apparently since the forum goers aren't valued by the team as they are dismissed as a small vocal minority, which they are. I admire the devs for being honest and telling them so. But this game certainly, despite vague hints of good numbers, isn't a run away success that can afford to dismiss players. The only reason they have hid the number of players is that it isn't something to brag about.
I'm not doom mongering here, just being realistic. If anyone thinks you can dismiss players and that some magical group of people who were apparently scared off by all the negativity will swoop in and make this game a success, well I hope you're right. The community that began in CB is being driven away and PGI better do more than sweep dissent under the rug to attract more.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

It is a much larger hassle for me to find things. To the point where my wife has even noticed it.

She hates when I click the mouse, and I have to move all over the damn place trying to find threads.

Anyone that has been on good, functioning forums, with mods who are trained properly would see how much of pain the current setup is.

Way too many subforums, and discussion is much too spread out.

[Roadbeer]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 27 April 2013 - 04:22 PM, said:

It is a much larger hassle for me to find things. To the point where my wife has even noticed it.

She hates when I click the mouse, and I have to move all over the damn place trying to find threads.

Anyone that has been on good, functioning forums, with mods who are trained properly would see how much of pain the current setup is.

Way too many subforums, and discussion is much too spread out.

My ex-wife used to complain about that too, between the kb and the mouse all I heard was "ALL THAT DAMN CLICKING NOISE"

Notice I said EX wife.

[Delas Ting Usee]

GaussDragon, on 27 April 2013 - 01:51 PM, said:

To be fair, for every 1 good thread in Gen Disc, there were 20 other complete ***** threads about some irrelevant crap from someone who has no idea what they're talking about.

But no one forces you to click on 'Gen Disc'.
Or scan through the 20 threads about irrelevant crap.
That's on you.
Some of us like to read irrelevant threads with our morning coffee.
Some of us don't have the time nor inclination to search through 80 subforums for answers.
Maybe just enough time to scan through 20 crappy threads, just to get to that one gem.

[Murasama]

A simple workaround would be to have a latest posts link with all threads listed chronologically and a hot posts link which shows the threads with the most action.

[blinkin]

Murasama, on 27 April 2013 - 08:12 PM, said:

A simple workaround would be to have a latest posts link with all threads listed chronologically and a hot posts link which shows the threads with the most action.

way to be useful! i think this would be a great idea. those of us who still want to be able to find things on the forums can have our way and them "other people" can have their rapid info feed.

[Jestun]

Murasama, on 27 April 2013 - 08:12 PM, said:

A simple workaround would be to have a latest posts link with all threads listed chronologically and a hot posts link which shows the threads with the most action.

This could work.

While people would still have to take the time to work out where to start a new thread I don't think that's too much to expect. But if you could bypass the entire forum structure and just see *all of* the threads in the order they were last updated it would make browsing the forums considerably easier.

Preferably with the ability to flag which forums are included, for example I don't need to see all the threads in the other language forums.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Purplefluffybunny, on 27 April 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:

Are we going to get a response to the fact that this so called referendum does not contain a question about whether we want a general forum or not? Do we need to have a referendum on what questions to have in a referendum?

Im guessing no

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Murasama, on 27 April 2013 - 08:12 PM, said:

A simple workaround would be to have a latest posts link with all threads listed chronologically and a hot posts link which shows the threads with the most action.

then again most of those "crap" thread WERE the ones with the most action because of the ppl that were trolling said threads by calling them "crap" threads or the mods trolling ppl IN them (cause two wrongs really make a right.... right?). For example. the "why youre wrong about..." thread in my sig, it didnt get moved to off toopic till someone posted a counter argument. There were even mods posting in there agreeing lol

Edited by Mechwarrior Buddah, 28 April 2013 - 01:38 AM.