Position of the Lotro Forum

[Brinswith]

I have put together a little drinking game. Drink when a post:

1. Uses the term "money-grab" or claims a change is exclusively to direct players to the store.
2. Announces they've dropped their subscription and/or quitting the game because some long list of grievances.
3. Complains about grind. Two drinks if they're talking about something that is strictly optional.
4. Claims the game is no longer worth playing because an obscure nerf to some skill of one class or raid boss.
5. Claims that some mechanic is not balanced. Two drinks if it's something that was just updated for balance. Another drink if it's the opposite of a prominent complaint about the same mechanic within the last week or two.
6. Insults staff for refusing to address an complaint, especially if there's an answer from a blue name earlier in the thread that they just don't like.
7. Uses the phrase, "Slap in the face."
8. Accuses another poster of being a shill or a fanboy for saying something positive or disagreeing with a complaint.
9. Declares the game is bleeding players and/or dying. Two drinks if enrollment has recently increased.

Don't get me wrong -- I DON'T think we have enough engagement from staff either.

I hope the day never comes that you have cause to complain on the forums for something SSG does that affects your gameplay or something you care about. The forums are our only outlet for a direct link to the developer team through feedback in the form of forum posts.

[TesalionLortus]

Um, no, that's just silly. The posts attacking devs and other players vastly outnumber the posts defending changes.

Toxic posts are just toxic. They're not "daring to question the status quo." That can be done without abuse.

I have put together a little drinking game. Drink when a post:

1. Uses the term "money-grab" or claims a change is exclusively to direct players to the store.
2. Announces they've dropped their subscription and/or quitting the game because some long list of grievances.
3. Complains about grind. Two drinks if they're talking about something that is strictly optional.
4. Claims the game is no longer worth playing because an obscure nerf to some skill of one class or raid boss.
5. Claims that some mechanic is not balanced. Two drinks if it's something that was just updated for balance. Another drink if it's the opposite of a prominent complaint about the same mechanic within the last week or two.
6. Insults staff for refusing to address an complaint, especially if there's an answer from a blue name earlier in the thread that they just don't like.
7. Uses the phrase, "Slap in the face."
8. Accuses another poster of being a shill or a fanboy for saying something positive or disagreeing with a complaint.
9. Declares the game is bleeding players and/or dying. Two drinks if enrollment has recently increased.

Don't get me wrong -- I DON'T think we have enough engagement from staff either.

I have another one - the devs, on their end, have some kind of "user rating system" so they can give as stars and rate us :P If someone is just complaining unreasonably and keeps doing it (so that's the only value they provide) their rating would be poor or non-existent, if someone seems like they're delivering potential value with their ideas/complaints/points their make so their score is high enough - their posts would end up on a special feed the devs try to give more attention to so they can foster better understanding of the community without going through all of the negativity and toxicity that's here on daily basis :P Of course we wouldn't know our 'scores'... and the prospect of ending up on such a list would certainly encourage lots of people to be more polite and articulate any of their complaints in logical, more useful manner. You wouldn't be able to avoid some toxicity (as an user) and anything said would quickly be followed by an avalanche of less useful, confrontational 'rage and gloom' in usual manner but at least you would know (and the devs would know) that some value/constructive thought can actually reach them on more regular basis.

Cordovan is working on the new forum... he should make it happen :P Now THIS would have been more useful from SSG perspective rather than 'vote/emote/like' button under post for users... which is a cool feature but honestly, here it'll only reinforce the kind of shortly articulated, negatively-charged 'constructive criticism' - this is just how human psychology works sadly. I can already imagine threads with posts like "SSG is terrible, they've destroyed the game" and they're trending filled with likes (group negativity is very addictive with humans for some reason..) but someone else, even if they've taken a bit more constructive look at matters and made good suggestion aimed at devs (with some critique attached) doesn't really get any likes or gets dislikes for being 'too soft' on them whereas they should hate them or something :P Not a great prospect of the game's "community" on the official forum :P

[Askelin]

Um, no, that's just silly. The posts attacking devs and other players vastly outnumber the posts defending changes.

Toxic posts are just toxic. They're not "daring to question the status quo." That can be done without abuse.

I have put together a little drinking game. Drink when a post:

1. Uses the term "money-grab" or claims a change is exclusively to direct players to the store.
2. Announces they've dropped their subscription and/or quitting the game because some long list of grievances.
3. Complains about grind. Two drinks if they're talking about something that is strictly optional.
4. Claims the game is no longer worth playing because an obscure nerf to some skill of one class or raid boss.
5. Claims that some mechanic is not balanced. Two drinks if it's something that was just updated for balance. Another drink if it's the opposite of a prominent complaint about the same mechanic within the last week or two.
6. Insults staff for refusing to address an complaint, especially if there's an answer from a blue name earlier in the thread that they just don't like.
7. Uses the phrase, "Slap in the face."
8. Accuses another poster of being a shill or a fanboy for saying something positive or disagreeing with a complaint.
9. Declares the game is bleeding players and/or dying. Two drinks if enrollment has recently increased.

Don't get me wrong -- I DON'T think we have enough engagement from staff either.

Thanks for replying quickly!

I just don't agree that complaints are toxic, they've been around for as long as the game has, that's how feedback works. They may be annoying or tiring to read as a player but they're not invalid if the complaints are genuine. And when many people complain at once, change can happen.
As of now it seems the thing to complain about is the relative content drought from the producer's letter. There are very valid points from an endgame perspective as to why the content drought is a problem, but there does seem to be a few people who just want to find a reason to be angry.

There are ways that people can write their complaints in a way that is pleasant to read, but many people are passionate and will just say things outright. People will have disagreements. That's human nature. That's how it is.
I don't think the the forums are full of toxic players, I don't believe that is the case at all. I've lurked for a long time and honestly the only time I see genuinely toxic behavior are from users who will attempt to use moderation as a shield to silence disagreement and threaten to report others for merely engaging with them. I've seen this happen on numerous occasions.

In my blunt opinion, people should just grow a backbone and mature a little so it's not as if every disagreement they get into is so personal to them.

The term toxic is so overused that it's losing its meaning. People seem throw it around at anything they don't like, this is not to say that you do this personally but it's something I've seen a lot. People use it and few could really define what they mean by it. It's a poor excuse to defend genuinely malicious behavior, sure. But it's also not fair to brand half the community as such.

...Though I could get super drunk just by reading people calling eachother shills and fanboys lol. It does go both ways to be fair. That's the nature of the internet!

I have another one - the devs, on their end, have some kind of "user rating system" so they can give as stars and rate us :P If someone is just complaining unreasonably and keeps doing it (so that's the only value they provide) their rating would be poor or non-existent, if someone seems like they're delivering potential value with their ideas/complaints/points their make so their score is high enough - their posts would end up on a special feed the devs try to give more attention to so they can foster better understanding of the community without going through all of the negativity and toxicity that's here on daily basis :P Of course we wouldn't know our 'scores'... and the prospect of ending up on such a list would certainly encourage lots of people to be more polite and articulate any of their complaints in logical, more useful manner. You wouldn't be able to avoid some toxicity (as an user) and anything said would quickly be followed by an avalanche of less useful, confrontational 'rage and gloom' in usual manner but at least you would know (and the devs would know) that some value/constructive thought can actually reach them on more regular basis.

Cordovan is working on the new forum... he should make it happen :P Now THIS would have been more useful from SSG perspective rather than 'vote/emote/like' button under post for users... which is a cool feature but honestly, here it'll only reinforce the kind of shortly articulated, negatively-charged 'constructive criticism' - this is just how human psychology works sadly. I can already imagine threads with posts like "SSG is terrible, they've destroyed the game" and they're trending filled with likes (group negativity is very addictive with humans for some reason..) but someone else, even if they've taken a bit more constructive look at matters and made good suggestion aimed at devs (with some critique attached) doesn't really get any likes or gets dislikes for being 'too soft' on them whereas they should hate them or something :P Not a great prospect of the game's "community" on the official forum :P

Huh... I didn't know they had that system in place.
An interesting concept in theory. But I don't think a reddit karma system is what we need, especially if a high rating would mean a priority over other players in devs listening to feedback. I can think of many ways on how this could be abused both internally and externally. There's no guarantee that the system would work fundamentally as well as on paper.

If other players rate it, then naturally the more well known people here will just be rated higher, and anyone who disagrees or complains about anything, no matter how well thought out a post or how interesting a potential solution they have is, they'll get bombarded by downvotes. I see this happen a lot on the lotro subreddit. If you're not praising Lotro you get downvotes, it's actually kind of funny how much of a hivemind like mentality that place has sometimes (though it's actually not a bad place to check out, some interesting things can be found there).
On the contrary to this, a well thought out thread that has a great solution to a problem many people face may get a lot of upvotes, it could work as intended. But in order to create discussion you must first make some sort of point of contention, and people just can't seem to handle themselves here without making it personal in some cases. If the rating purely cosmetic and bragging rights or whatever then fine, that system could work.
Everyone should feel able to contribute here without this culture of old guards feeling they are the only ones with the rights to talk with the devs. And the system you suggest would quite literally enforce that culture.

If developers rate it, then you may as well just listen to palantir players and no one else because it's the classic case of nepotism at that point. What stops a dev from privately lowering the userscore of an individual with impunity just because they may not personally like them or they bring up uncomfortable points? I understand this is a bit of a Devils Advocate point to bring up, but I reckon there's already protocols in place that aren't as invasive for devs to decide what posts they wish to take seriously.
This thread is turning out to be a neat meta discussion and I thank you both for bringing up neat points!

[TesalionLortus]

I just don't agree that complaints are toxic, they've been around for as long as the game has, that's how feedback works. They may be annoying or tiring to read as a player but they're not invalid if the complaints are genuine. And when many people complain at once, change can happen.

That's true but as some of the recent happenings had shown... maybe it's merely the kind of change that will be overruled anyway sooner or later? Because the forum isn't the only metric they use, right? If that's what the devs - for some reason - had set their eyes upon it is possible to deduct any complaints from this forum won't change a thing in the bigger picture/long-term. Now, if the dev is specifically interested in some kind of feedback, such as Scenario when he's working on all that housing stuff, or recent intention to reevaluate monster play and make some changes, ok - the feedback/complaint format work because the devs really delve into it to begin with and have their eyes on the lookout for such feedback while working on an already established project/intention (and let's face it, those two areas are more tightly self-contained to begin with, limited to just a couple of forum areas - easy to follow).

And while it's true the 'toxic, aggressive' behavior is part of this sometimes, what I would refer to as 'toxic' wouldn't be just that but the very nature of the forum to put all complaints of 'angry sort' '' on the pedestal of attention here, with known users, lots of them known to be always complaining and nitpicking about everything and screaming the loudest, jumping on the bandwagon of every single thread and overtaking it whenever someone says something that is less of 'i hate it' kind of stance.

Huh... I didn't know they had that system in place.
An interesting concept in theory.

Yeah, what I meant was "the devs have - in theory" not that they actually have such system right now. Sorry for the confusion

But I don't think a reddit karma system is what we need, especially if a high rating would mean a priority over other players in devs listening to feedback. I can think of many ways on how this could be abused both internally and externally. There's no guarantee that the system would work fundamentally as well as on paper.

Everyone should feel able to contribute here without this culture of old guards feeling they are the only ones with the rights to talk with the devs. And the system you suggest would quite literally enforce that culture.

If developers rate it, then you may as well just listen to palantir players and no one else because it's the classic case of nepotism at that point. What stops a dev from privately lowering the userscore of an individual with impunity just because they may not personally like them or they bring up uncomfortable points? I understand this is a bit of a Devils Advocate point to bring up,

There is no ideal solution here but still, I wouldn't say it's completely pointless or nepotism. Just a way to organize things a bit more and there are clearly some users who provide more value in certain areas and less in others (value from dev perspective, what we players think as value may not always appear as such to the devs, in which case it's just useless chatter). Also, other devs have other needs, so MoL is clearly interested in story bits/world-immersion stuff etc. So a different dev would be rating players according to their own needs. Either way, it was of course a cool idea to think about but nothing too serious - still... as discussed... I guess it would bring more value to the forum from dev perspective (to make some contributions from community at least more visible to them thus more viable) than a like system for us to turn this place into the kind of place reddit is :P Which is why I said Cordovan should take care to put such (or other) system in place for the devs rather than deliver this kind of "like" feature to the users because I fear what it might turn this forum into :P

but I reckon there's already protocols in place that aren't as invasive for devs to decide what posts they wish to take seriously.

Hmm, not sure. Looks more like they just have the stuff that interests them saved/take a look occasionally/ also take a look at the drama/stuff trending, but overall they STILL got to scroll through all of that noise and toxicity to find anything meaningful that might be of *professional* interest to them/useful feedback that could benefit the game's development process.

[Bothketbog]

Hello
I'd like to talk with you about the position of this forum for Lotro, the player base and others...
...
Thanks

This being a public forum, anyone who registers can post whatever they like. Think of it as if it was Twitter; everyone in the world gets to share their ####ty opinion with everyone else. My new philosophy is I either ignore the flamers and move on. Yes, it's annoying, but remember the simple rule; don't feed the trolls.

[Arantha]

I want to thank @SSG_orion for the good communication, like we discussed here...