Building Community

[Lensor]

I just hope they do not go the route of the official SW:TOR forums; No embed of images or video, no drop-down quick-navigate forum menu, no "New posts" feature etc. etc. I mean, sure it is easier to run a forum without all those things, but eww.

[sorudo]

i rather not use an official forum, in fan forums ppl tent to know each other more and more and the mods know better when handling with known members.
i tried 2 official forums and it never fares out right, ether the mods don't relate with you (making the mods non-personal) or you get a chance of full out ban even when you criticize on there own weaknesses and flaws.
in SWToR they act way to personal for my taste, on the CO forums they have absolutely no backbone and rather ban/warn you rather then sucking the negative feat back up.

[Hukka]

The official forums are very good news. It will merge the community at one central place and provide a more straightforward channel to give feedback/suggestions to developers (wiki is horrible for that).

That forums are going to be "central place" is what will bring another set of problems. It would be fine if GW2 only sold few copies, but we all know that wont happen.

More GW2 copies they sell, harder it become to have any discussion/feedback/suggestion on official forums. SWToR is good example of forums going bad. I just checked general discussion there and top thread had last post 05:16 PM and bottom post 05:08 PM, so that means threads get pushed to 2nd page in matter of minutes and only few read 2nd page on these forums. End result is that you see same topic repeating often as multiple times in hour in worst case (patch day), which doesn't make these forums any better.

For big global communities most limiting feature forums have is that 10-20 threads shown on first page doesn't work well with community which size can be measured in millions.

[The King of Dust]

I know I'll probably stick to smaller communities and only lurk on official forums for official announcements and posts made by Anet representatives. I can't stand overcrowded, heavily moderated forums, and official forums of popular franchises are usually overcrowded and heavily moderated.

[Rushster]

Sadly I think what will happen is the opposite of "building community". I know I can't stand social media such as Facebook an Twitter but it makes the CMs jobs a lot easier and gives more control over the content which can have a positive impact if done right.

There will always be place for community forums, I tend to find official boards a waste of time when trying to find useful info or take part in discussions. Usually a lot of flaming and inane comments. Tried it for RIFT and just gave up. CMs can't predict human nature, and in official forums, I find that it can often bring out the worst in people.

The plus side is that all major QQ threads will likely end up on the official boards which means topics can be sensibly debated on forums such as these.

It's a shame if hard working "fansites" could get the same level of support as someone who updates a Youtube channel once a month. I certainly hope that doesn't happen, but the Anet team's intentions are all positive and I hope the community can band together to make it the GW2 community a great one to be part of.

[Tru Reptile]

It seems like I'm one of the few people actually happy about this.

[Meliai]

The main goal is to be inclusive, not exclusive, to encourage collaboration between communities, and to generate an atmosphere that is helpful, friendly, and above all, respectful.

T__T It's so beautiful~!

No seriously, I would love for this to be true, but we shall see if they can follow through on this.

I'm really excited that they're going to have an official forum.

It just seems like the next logical step for them to make. Would be nice if they could keep trolling to a minimum as well.

I guess they're going to have region specific forums as well? Or maybe they'll have separate websites like Aion does. (i.e. NA, EU, FR, German, etc.)

And....this is probably kind of a stupid reason to be excited about official forums, but I kind of like that all the community managers may be interacting with fans in one central location. I don't know maybe because many of them have been CM's for several years now and they seem familiar, but I guess my fondest memories associated with the long wait for GW2 are all connected to major announcements made by the CM's, like when they first showed us that footage back in 2009. :shrug: Meh, I dunno, yay for Guild Wars nostalgia.

[harniq]

I have mixed feelings on the matter. I've yet to see a good official forum and I hope Anet pull it off But also I hope the strict moderating there will allow us to call 'a spade a spade', where constructive and well thought out 'i'm not sure this will work' or 'Fix this, it's broken' will be allowed to discussed rather than deleted or locked due to the trolling by others.

I would hate for the official forum to be a fanboi only site, where valid and well thought out concerns had been given no chance to be aired.

It's a lot easier to delete or just lock a thread than remove a few offending posts and imho a lot of very valid threads on here and on other GW related forums have been lost because of it.

From my time being mod of a 160,000+ user forum a few years back there was always a balance and an issue with if to just vape a thread or to unpick the wheatfrom the chaff. It'll be interesting to see where the balance will lie.

Onto a few specific questions.

1. Will we be forced to use our user names as user id's on the forums?
2. Will there be separate server forums?
3. How will the moderating team be chosen?
4. Will it be Ipad/Iphone/Android/Smart phone friendly?
5. Will there be a widget to show say the top 10 most recent posts on a guilds website?
6. Will there be a ban/infraction/or thanking system?
7. Will users be able to publicise in game events on the offical forums home page?

8. Will administrators be volunteering peers or paid developers?

Most official forums degenerate because they are moderated by the team. The team isn't interested in healthy debate, only about maintaining company doctrine. Trolls are usually either encouraged or not stopped, while valid concerns are met with swift bans.

Blizzard has, on more than one occassion, banned tons of top community players simply because they disagreed with the CCCP party line. For example several class-destroying nerfs were not allowed discussion, which led to hundreds of locked posts and bans on said class forums. Same thing happened with serious lag issues on certain servers which were not allowed to be brought under attention.

On the other hand, trolls are running rampant and the atmosphere at the blizz forums is toxic. As such I believe moderaters should be peers and not paid. How to select them is up to A.net, although constructive bloggers and guide writers seem most likely choices. Choosing a single main to post with per account should be important too.

[Manwithtwohands]

Looks like I'll need a bookmark bar extender for me firefox interweb acquainter.