Are the forums necessary?
by Mike Schramm 
Aug 24th 2007 at 11:28AM
Here's something I'd like to hear all your thoughts on. Glue from Nagrand quotes the fact that "only a small portion of the playerbase read the forums," and he claims that those people are the most important players Blizzard has-- they care enough about the game to visit the forums and voice their opinions. But I'd like to play the devil's advocate on this one. What if (and stay with me here) Blizzard deleted the official forums completely?Do we really need the official forums? They do help-- besides giving us all kinds of fun reads and, yes, occasional insight, they're the main link between the CMs and the player base-- patch announcements and upcoming changes all are made known mostly through the forums, and day-to-day player feedback and questions are centered there. But they don't have to be-- Mythic's Dark Age of Camelot actually runs a daily blog featuring community news and game updates and changes. And it would be just as easy for Blizzard to announce things on their own website, and get player feedback and questions from sites just like this one.
And getting rid of the forums would wipe out all of the lunacy that appears on there-- all the insensitive comments, the jeering and rickrolling, the flaming, the drama (well, actually I'm down for keeping that one), and all of the other wackiness that goes down there every day. If the CMs didn't have to deal with that stuff, wouldn't they be able to spend more time communicating player ideas to the devs? If Blizzard didn't have to pay Timbal to ban rickrollers, couldn't they use that money to come up with a new 5man, or Heroic Deadmines, or any number of other ideas they've had but couldn't carry out? If we lost the forums, wouldn't we have a better game?
Food for thought. It's highly unlikely (at the very least) that Blizzard would ever shut down the official forums. But, even though they may have been necessary in the beginning, WoW's community survives in many other places now. Are the forums really necessary?
Filed under: Realm News, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
zrrn Aug 24th 2007 11:36AM
For me, the Wow site as a whole just takes too damn long to load so I spend as little time there as possible.
Given how much time people must spend flying between places in Azeroth, having some kind of in-game access to the forums might be an idea? Would give people something to while away in game travel time, and get blizz the player feedback they want. God knows the people in game certainly have some opinions if the general channel is anything to go by.
Jon Aug 24th 2007 11:39AM
"and he claims that those people are the most important players Blizzard has"
"without them this game would be horrifying"
HA!!! HAHAHA!!! HAHAHAHAH!!!! HAHA!! *gasp* HAHAHAHAHA!!!! HAHAHA!!! *cough* HAHAHA!!! HAHAHAHAH!!!! HAHA!! *turns blue* *falls down*
Whew....... That was funny. Forum trolls, people bored at work, attention grabbing idiots, and pernicious whiners are the most important players.
Nice troll, not great, but nice. 4/10 for sheer unmitigated audacity.
Strongmark on Arthas Aug 24th 2007 11:39AM
Wowinsider finds all the good forum posts for me so that I never have to travel to that abysmal bottomless pit of hell we call the forums.
Although, I do have to admit, the technical forums saved my account when I was having a problem when I first started playing. Blizz gets their $15 a month from me because of the nice Blue who helped me fix a problem I was having.
Down with Forums!!!
Arras Aug 24th 2007 11:39AM
The community forums are the main link between Blizzard and their customers and for players to talk to other players they wouldn't normally get to talk to - why take that away? How will people discuss bugs in the PTR? Sort out Vista (or other new os) issues? Discuss strategies for boss fights and raid encounters?
Sylythn Aug 24th 2007 11:41AM
I'm not sure how I would have done the research I've done in the past when I want to play a new class. There really is lots of valuable information on them - though you do have to sift through a lot of crap. There's also occassionaly very intelligent conversation about current trends and tactics.
Example: There's a lot of debate in the Warlock forum about how best to epic up prior to T5/6...it's actually a combination of FSW, T4, and Battlecast or Spellstrike you want to shoot for. Without the forums, I highly doubt I could have figured out the best combination of those sets to shoot for and probably would have been left assuming - oooh Tier gear, that's better, I'll upgrade.
Greg Aug 24th 2007 12:16PM
I agree completely, the forums serve very little purpose in my opinion.
Official Blizzard comments and announcements can be made through the web site. They could also have a structured feedback form to allow people to make comments or suggestions.
I don't really see why they need more than that. The pages and pages and pages of idiocy that goes on in the forums bamboozles me, I don't know why Blizzard maintain it, the CMs deserve a medal!
DAoC has got it spot on, if you want to rant and rave then go do it on a forum hosted by someone else!
10pound Aug 24th 2007 11:45AM
I rarely visit the official forums. When I do, I find it to be boring and mostly troll-baiting.
Then again, for insight, I have wowinsider to wade thru the mire for me. When something worth reading comes along, you usually inform me.
idburns Aug 24th 2007 11:46AM
The official forums are garbage. They are filled spam and retards.
DrCheckmate Aug 24th 2007 11:46AM
In a word ... no, they are not necessary.
Why? I would gather that the majority of people who read/write in forums & blogs are the same people that read and write in sites like this, making the worldofwarcraft.com forum community moot. Yes, you have the blues telling you of changes in patches, but the same information eventually ends up on patch notes, and what % of the players stop and read them. They take up unnecessary space which could be used to improve the Armory beyond what they already have, or other site improvements. The forums are also a source of false rumors, heated battles (some that have nothing to do with the topic), and other silliness and drivvel.
Yes, you have 9 million players. Yes .1% of the playerbase is 90.000. I dont think we would lose 10% of that # if WoW closed the forums down. I would think Blizzard has banned at least that many gold farming accounts.
DrC
Lunati Aug 24th 2007 12:02PM
Before playing WoW I played Ragnarok Online, which had no official forums whatsoever. Fan forums ran rampant (and still do) with people mostly congregating at one or two different sites, but people didn't feel they had any real direct voice with the company, and email couldn't get a personal response very easily.
After the forums people generally felt more able to voice their opinions, and you would see how the community managers responded as a voice of the company which helped pr quite a bit for the game. Even though the critical phase is past, they do still help Blizzard as a company to get some feedback from their players. Perhaps a whiney very vocal minority, but still a part of their players.
Freehugz Aug 24th 2007 11:47AM
There's alot of questions asked on the official forums that aren't mentioned anywhere on the official site.
Also from what I've heard, developers in most games use forums to get a general idea of what are popular concerns with the playerbase.
xanik266 Aug 24th 2007 11:58AM
If I could actually log into the forums and use them, I'd use them more lol.
Duncan Aug 24th 2007 11:53AM
If the forums were deleted (something SOE did) then unofficial forums would sprout up everywhere. It would solidify down to a few good ones but there would be even less of a percentage of the total wow base.
The forums are a necessary outlet and discussion area. They will exist regardless of Blizzards control or lack of it.
Eldiablohijo Aug 24th 2007 11:56AM
So you know Dark Age of Camelot does have offical forums where Devs and others communicate directly with a portion of the player base.
This however is NOT a public forum, and the only way to get onto it is to be invited to it which generally happens when you get into the early stages of one of their Beta tests.
DAoC Devs also visisted privately moderated forums related to different aspects of the game as well. Which I think is best, on a lot of these forums many of the people who make the WoW forums unbearable to read at times would not be allowed.
Doug DeJulio Aug 24th 2007 11:58AM
I think they're important because they're a relatively innocuous sandbox where all the kids who *think* they "are the most important players Blizzard has" can go and yell at each other and leave the rest of us alone.
Plus, sometimes it's fun to log in and play a game of "poke the crazy person". You might be surprised how long you can keep it up. (Or you might not be.)
Amok2006 Aug 24th 2007 12:04PM
Minus the few people who actually post something useful on the forums, there is nothing to see. Every class forum is invaded by whiners QQing about OP or saying that people like Hunters shouldn't complain about their dead zone. 99% offer nothing to the discussion at hand. There is almost no reason to hit the forums at all.
Warlocks, rogues, hunters all have better forums visited mostly by their own class and free from a lot of the morons who troll the forums to post their "genius" on a class they know little about or post so they can get attention in their sad little lives.
The best place to go is Elitistjerks.com for class info. The data is top notch and well worth the reading. The admins, although lacking any FUN genes in their makeup, keep the forums clean from trolls and morons. Be warned though, if you have to ask a question there, be sure it hasn't been asked before. They keep the forums from becoming the same question asked 700 times, unlike Blizzard's forums.
Michel Aug 24th 2007 12:05PM
The WOW FORUM is GREAT and very USEFUL and without it YOU WILL BE OUT of jobs, wowinsider !
so _NO_
and blizzard does NOT only listen to the forums
they send mails for studies sometimes, has samples groups to study reactions and so on !
and they surely can monitor reactions of people on popular others wow website, for example wowins... hu.. mmo-champion.com
(of course I like wowinsider, I'm just angry at the idea of erasing the WOW forums and great and _INTERESTING_ official wow website, fully translated and adapted in all languages the game is sold. it's HUUUGE !!! )
ghaAAAAaa
Ahoni Aug 24th 2007 12:10PM
90% of books published every year are meaningless drivel. 90% of magazines published every month are meaningless drivel. 90% of TV is meaningless crap. (might be a little low there!) 90% of hit movies are boring meaningless crap.
Basically, 90% of everything is crap. Though basically meaningless and full of crap, keep the forums, it keeps the morons and trolls busy.
Angus Aug 24th 2007 12:17PM
They might as well delete the Shaman, Paladin, and Priest forums.
Those three groups often have a huge number of posts indicating concerns and issues their class has. Blue posts are seen once in about 1.5-2 months.
Meanwhile we have blue posts in General responding to stupid topics.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1230414704&sid=1
Why are player concerns, comments and suggestions blown off but stuff like that gets a post?
When someone lists the issues a class has, like how Holy priest 31 and 41pt talents aren't taken by serious raiders, how lack of threat dumps hurts hybrids and how itemization needs to be tweaked to allow one class or another to be able to do their role they get silence or a once in a blue moon post saying they think it's fine.
Want to see funny? Go to the Shaman forum and wait for a blue post.
The thread will immediately jump to 13 pages within an hour. The Shaman will fall into 2 camps. "Please, please look into this" and "Where the hell have you been, go to hell for ignoring us and not listening to us ever."
dekulink Aug 24th 2007 12:17PM
Yes, delete the forums. The devs can GUESS what the players want, because they're not human. They can read minds.