Getting the Community back to where it needs to be

[Valkrist]

In the original thead post I made it clear how the community attracted me to the game. How it influeneces other decisions on playing this game or not if they have not tried it. But as you can see above my thread about the General Forums has become about forum widgets and blogs. Even a forum mod has come into the thread and helped further derail it. So it really doesn't even matter anymore.

Face it if I'm an MMO player looking for a new game and I see the first 3 pages of the general forums I'm looking elsewhere.
The game needs new players to keep spending money so we can keep getting great content.

Since my thread has been taken in a new direction I'll just say after todays nerf bat I am even more worried about the state of the game.

I am sorry you saw these things as derailing your message. As Whart explained so well, I also believe that these issues do cross over because, behind the discouraging posts you are seeing are the people who post them.

There are so many here that work so hard to create and infuse and build upon the foundation we are provided here, rather than simply point out the negatives over and over. Sadly, a great many have left due to the issues we have brought up, and there can be no doubt that loss has diminished our community. It simply has, there is no way around it.

I remember reading about the upcoming changes, changes that have newly been brought about, when they were first introduced on Bullroarer. I should go back there now and post some of them here, for there were complaints from every class about how the changes would bring about the destruction of their role.

There were even complaints from Champions and Captains, who argued with all they had in them, that they were already in a weakened state, and now no one would ever ask them to come along for an adventure anymore.

Then, right after the changes, I heard of 2 Champions and a Captain going into Goblintown and obliterating all would-be kings in less than half the time anyone in their right mind would Challenge them to do There will always be those complaints, no matter how little substance there is to them. Please, do not lose heart to them.

Molly, I am going to try to post that guide about how to migrate your writings here to another place in this thread: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...ging-Community so you and any others who wish to save their writings will know how to do so.

[Whart]

As for blogs... I guess I'm wondering how many people actually use them. A much as I post, I've never written one, and the only blog entries I've read have been A) ones Orion did a couple of years back, and B) one or two stray blog posts linked by the Suggestions forums. That's it. If they were removed, I doubt I'd ever notice.

I'm certain that some would notice, but really... what percentage? If it's 20%, they're probably worth whatever trouble it takes to keep them running. But what if it's more like 2%? A troublesome feature that 2% of your customers use probably isn't worth keeping, especially when alternatives are abundant.

Khafar

It's a chicken-egg debate, like any discussion about a feature that less than 100% of players use. Turbine invests proportionally in content depending on use data. But if one aspect of the content gets less attention and doesn't work as well or is currently less appealing than other aspects, fewer players will use it. When fewer players use it, Turbine says 'oh look, this type of content isn't popular, so we don't need to invest more in it.' I'd hope that they would not just look at current numbers but also potential use if improvements were made. Blogs have great potential to be a marketing tool for the game by showcasing its potential in a positive light.

Many features of the blogs have been broken since the redesign of the community site at f2p, and many people who actively used the blogs before that time stopped using them because they lost years worth of posts, the feed no longer showed us new posts, user names were disconnected from posts so we could no longer find our friends' or favorite bloggers' new work, the widgets became uneditable, etc. So asking how many people use the largely unusable blogs *now* may not be the right question if we're trying to identify which features have the potential to be an actively used part of the new site. How many people *would* use them if they (a) had the full functionality they used to have, and (b) were as visible as they used to be, might be the better way to approach it, although I don't know how one would get at that kind of answer without some kind of survey or looking at pre-redesign user data.

[RKL]

If a man posted something as sexist as that about his wife, I don't think people would brush it aside.

Ayup. As soon as i read that very first line, i disregarded the rest of that post.

On the other hand. As a former husband, I got a good chuckle out of the line. My guess is that her husband probably would have as well if he read it and most of his Army buddies too. I guess it all depends on where your head is at. I did not find the rest of the post to be particularly interesting, but that line keep me going.

[auximenes]

Absolutely, 100% yes on this. At this point, I'd choose a full-on vanilla forum with zero bells and whistles if it:

• Would stop logging me out in the middle of posts.
• Would load pages quickly and consistently.
• Would have a secure login.

Once you have all of the above, then adding back in a few things like lotteries or dynamic forum sigs could be done, but only as long as they don't screw up the core uses of a forum.

/signed

[Glumposneak]

Personally I don't like the way its often implied the free to play players are the ones causing all the problems.

I have a liifetime account, while the store is obviously a bit too intrusive I do think if the game hadn't gone F2P it wouldn't be here any more. Sure there are some problems, bugs not being fixed and it does often look like Turbine are milking us for all they can get and bugs that don't affect us spending money in the store go to the bottom of the pile.

But since its gone F2P I have met many new kin members, the vast vast majority being polite, helpful players, fun to be around and fun to group with.

A few of my kin are lifetime members, many are VIP and many are F2P. I have met just as many rude VIP players as I have F2p and thankfully both those numbers are pretty low.

[Maximilan]

I've also made it clear that based on feedback I would happily take a nuclear option of blowing everything away and having just basic forum functionality if it meant we can have a faster system and reliable ability for players to log in and post. We've gotten the ball rolling, and a new site is coming, but there will be systems that are removed because they simply are too fragile and cause much of the issues players report on a regular basis.

I'd like to think I'm right in saying we'd all like more reliability and are willing to lose some features to get it. Yes?

As several others have said - YES, this is the route I would like you to undertake. It takes care of the most basic problems and demonstrates the main purpose of the forums, which is obtaining information and understanding.

I'd also like to add that it is obvious by your last statement that you are the player's 'best friend' in this game. You do listen to us and even manage to make sense out of the rabble. Thank you Sapience for your patience and perseverance, I look forward to the simplified but more reliable forum to express my gratitude!

[Tuco]

As I stated in the original post, I was wondering about everyone's opinions on the General Forum. Even Sapience has come into this thread and talk about the lottery, blog and other features. Please folks lets stay on track. Is what has been happening over the last month or so in the general forum become disturbing to anyone. We all know there are problems with the other features of the community. Those opinions should be saved for a different thread or a new one.

Because of this message I deleted my carefully composed and incredibly enlightening point (well, perhaps a little useful in *my* mind, at least) about what people were saying in the thread, and I've been stewing over it since... so I have something to say that's more directly relevant to the OP.

One annoying kind of posting behavior that seems more prevalent lately is when a person who posts a message thinks that entitles them to control and direct everything that's said in the thread. Dudes - you're not playing solo here - it's an MMO, and people may recognize that your original question has ramifications that you may not have seen, or that they feel are more important, or that is directly relevant to what someone else has said. It was initially your question or comment or complaint, but that does not make the whole thread your personal property to manage and direct.

[Edrogar]

I've also made it clear that based on feedback I would happily take a nuclear option of blowing everything away and having just basic forum functionality if it meant we can have a faster system and reliable ability for players to log in and post. We've gotten the ball rolling, and a new site is coming, but there will be systems that are removed because they simply are too fragile and cause much of the issues players report on a regular basis.

I would be happy with this, in fact i would even be happy with a total separation of the forum and other parts of the website form our game accounts, if the only way to have the shiny features would be to have separate logins for each then i would be fine with that.

[Whart]

Personally I don't like the way its often implied the free to play players are the ones causing all the problems.

I have a liifetime account, while the store is obviously a bit too intrusive I do think if the game hadn't gone F2P it wouldn't be here any more. Sure there are some problems, bugs not being fixed and it does often look like Turbine are milking us for all they can get and bugs that don't affect us spending money in the store go to the bottom of the pile.

But since its gone F2P I have met many new kin members, the vast vast majority being polite, helpful players, fun to be around and fun to group with.

A few of my kin are lifetime members, many are VIP and many are F2P. I have met just as many rude VIP players as I have F2p and thankfully both those numbers are pretty low.

I completely agree that F2P vs VIP is another one of those annoying and pointless community divisions, like groupers vs soloers, casual vs hardcore, etc. The forums are full of threads that are nothing more than 'the way I play is better than the way you play so everything is all your fault' statements, and that is unfortunate and unhealthy for the community. F2P happened, it has its pros and cons, but no one type of player is breaking the game or hurting the community, and there are great people and huge trolls among every subscription category or style of play. I do think that f2p sometimes gets mentioned as a timeframe reference, because lots of unrelated game and community site changes happened around that time, so it's not always meant as a cause-and-effect judgment. But nobody should be blamed for playing the game in the way that best suits them.

[uvm.tp]

Well, in my opinion it depends what features. I am a little bit afraid of loosing all the lorebook...

Same here on the Lorebook... and there was the whole discussion in the Store feedback section that people didn't like losing the weekly sales page (and being forced to log in). It's probably safe to assume patch notes will still exist (trying not to take "nuke and start over with the forums" TOO literally)... but it would be nice to have some dialog on the key features (especially those tied to information only Turbine can summarize - like leaderboards, kinship rosters, lorebook) before the plan goes into execution.

[Jeffor]

As a long time fan of the LOTRO forums I can tell you the biggest down-turn was the upgrade to the new format. No single event had a bigger effect on the forum community. Due mostly to performance issues many, many of the regular posters on the Brandywine forum stopped posting and never returned unless they had a specific reason to post. The game is aging also so that will certainly affect the community but the change in the forum format a few years ago made a very observable difference. IMO it had nothing to do with F2P (which actually brought an influx of nice people to the forums) and mostly due to poor performance.

[Minquinn]

Because of this message I deleted my carefully composed and incredibly enlightening point (well, perhaps a little useful in *my* mind, at least) about what people were saying in the thread, and I've been stewing over it since... so I have something to say that's more directly relevant to the OP.

One annoying kind of posting behavior that seems more prevalent lately is when a person who posts a message thinks that entitles them to control and direct everything that's said in the thread. Dudes - you're not playing solo here - it's an MMO, and people may recognize that your original question has ramifications that you may not have seen, or that they feel are more important, or that is directly relevant to what someone else has said. It was initially your question or comment or complaint, but that does not make the whole thread your personal property to manage and direct.

I'll go ahead and start off by apologizing. I'm a big man I know when I am wrong. I was trying to get the thread back to the main topic because the truth is I really am interested in everyone opinions on the General Forums. After yesterday their state is even more disturbing. No I do not own the thread. And i'll end again by apologizing. Before I made this pact to become a more mature forum poster I knew I would make some mistakes in the beginning and for that i am sorry. I will try to do better.

Before yesterday I would have taken a post like this a s personal attack but today I've changed and I take it as advice.

Change is hard but darn it I'm trying

[RKL]

I'll go ahead and start off by apologizing. I'm a big man I know when I am wrong. I was trying to get the thread back to the main topic because the truth is I really am interested in everyone opinions on the General Forums. After yesterday their state is even more disturbing. No I do not own the thread. And i'll end again by apologizing. Before I made this pact to become a more mature forum poster I knew I would make some mistakes in the beginning and for that i am sorry. I will try to do better.

Before yesterday I would have taken a post like this a s personal attack but today I've changed and I take it as advice.

Change is hard but darn it I'm trying

Good post Min. /swordsalute to you.

[LordVoronturEU]

I'll go ahead and start off by apologizing. I'm a big man I know when I am wrong. I was trying to get the thread back to the main topic because the truth is I really am interested in everyone opinions on the General Forums. After yesterday their state is even more disturbing. No I do not own the thread. And i'll end again by apologizing. Before I made this pact to become a more mature forum poster I knew I would make some mistakes in the beginning and for that i am sorry. I will try to do better.

Before yesterday I would have taken a post like this a s personal attack but today I've changed and I take it as advice.

Change is hard but darn it I'm trying

Well done. It takes a big man(or woman)to admit fault and apologize.

[Tuco]

Apology accepted, Captain Needa.

[7h3C47]

I've gotta tell ya if I was choosing a new MMO and using the general forum as a basis for my decision I would have avoided this game like the plague.

Yyyyyup. People who have anything insightful to say get squashed under a wave of people complaining about the most absurd things. God help you if you dare have a question to ask of the forums.

[Lohi]

I agree completely. This seems to have occurred around the time it went F2P and the influx of new people into the game.

It happened before that too. The problem really comes just after a new expansion or major update. That's when players who have temporarily left come back. Those who say "this game sux!" and leave in disgust will often come back if there's a new raid. Casual player's who've finished the books will come back when a new book si out. Basically, there's always a large influx of players, new and old, when the updates occur.

As for F2P, I did not see things as worse than normal. Many of the F2P (not premium, not past-players) were great people and it was a nice influx of people who were unsure about joining a different MMO who then decided that this was the place for them.

The worst for me I think was after Moria was released. That's when there was a huge influx of hardcore players in my view, with more people than any other time who'd stop and tell other players how they were doing things wrong. There was a lot of angry muttering about addition of rune keeper and warden; not due to lore reasons but due to players feeling that their privileged unique role had been usurped. The balance between tactical and physical classes was really large, and when they fixed up physical damage (players AND enemies) a lot of players quit for good in anger. With 6 end game instances plus a raid, and needing to do them all to get a full set of gear, it was a lot more hardcore than now and it was much more difficult to get into a group as a casual play than it was before or after in my view.

Granted, there's some weird stuff happening right now to be sure. But it's not as bad as it could be.

[K'Arian]

I'll go ahead and start off by apologizing. I'm a big man I know when I am wrong. I was trying to get the thread back to the main topic because the truth is I really am interested in everyone opinions on the General Forums. After yesterday their state is even more disturbing. No I do not own the thread. And i'll end again by apologizing. Before I made this pact to become a more mature forum poster I knew I would make some mistakes in the beginning and for that i am sorry. I will try to do better.

Before yesterday I would have taken a post like this a s personal attack but today I've changed and I take it as advice.

Change is hard but darn it I'm trying

I'm sorry, but why should Minquinn be apologising? For trying to get a thread back on topic?? A thread that alright he doesn't physically own, but sure as heck started LOL He asked a question, wanted opinions, it was hyjacked and HE apologises? Where's the respect for the OP?

I see Sapience has visited this thread....what do you think man....should he have apologised?

[Khafar]

...should he have apologised?

No need to apologize, but it's just a fact that nobody "owns" threads, and that the only moderation most posters will pay attention to comes from well... moderators. Fighting against that is pretty much like trying to swim upstream - you can spend lots of energy and not ever really get anywhere.

My own version of "swimming upstream" was during the first year or so after the game launched. I tried to convince people on the forums to "keep it civil" because I knew from long experience that incivility would be the quickest way to drive developer interaction on the forums down (as well as being generally unpleasant for most of the rest of us). It was hopeless, of course. Most people were already civil, and those who weren't certainly weren't going to pay any attention to me.

Khafar

[Edrogar]

it was hyjacked

No it wasn't, no matter what anybody believes this tread has always been and always will be about bacon.

[Minquinn]

I'm sorry, but why should Minquinn be apologising? For trying to get a thread back on topic?? A thread that alright he doesn't physically own, but sure as heck started LOL He asked a question, wanted opinions, it was hyjacked and HE apologises? Where's the respect for the OP?

I see Sapience has visited this thread....what do you think man....should he have apologised?

It goes back to my original thoughts in the thread. When I ask the community to get back to the one I remember when I first started playing it maybe hypocritical to then come back into the thread and say something that is remotely related to my original post should not be voiced. It is aggravating when everytime I go to post something I am logged out. So maybe that does contribute to the attitude we are seeing in the forums.

I will reiterate my original post for those just joining us on page 3. Some disturbing trends in the general forums have me worried about new players joining the game. When they see the following:

1. A page full of troll posts about 1st age weapons
That shows right there that there maybe a problem with how we are given loot in game. Even if there isn't
If I'm a player looking to start this game I google 1st age symbol right away and see why there are so many closed threads on it started by the same people.

2. Several threads that underlying are trying to start a flame war between different playstyles (words like forced grouping and faceroll, etc)
This shows that there may or may not be a problem with joining a group in the game. It also shows a trend that the game is taking a turn to solo play and group play may be eliminated. If I was a WOW player looking to switch games and saw this I would avoid this game. Wow is a game where solo player is for leveling and dailies only and most of the fun is done in groups. Content so easy that there is no challenge at all. When you play any game you want some type of challenge. Risk vs. Reward. Even PS3 games present some type of challenge on single player. Why should an MMO not suport this same type of behavior

3. Posters linking definitions from wiki when tearing someones opinion to shreds, condescending attitudes towards other players
If I'm a new player and I see this and I tell myself that I never want to ask a question in the forums that may be even remotely stupid. Since the community is only going to answer with trolls or try to make me look like an idiot I'll find a game that has more helpful players.

Hopefully this is more specific as to what I am asking of the community. There are more I could cover but we get the general basis of the thread.

[Edrogar]

It goes back to my original thoughts in the thread. When I ask the community to get back to the one I remember when I first started playing it maybe hypocritical to then come back into the thread and say something that is remotely related to my original post should not be voiced. It is aggravating when everytime I go to post something I am logged out. So maybe that does contribute to the attitude we are seeing in the forums.

I will reiterate my original post for those just joining us on page 3. Some disturbing trends in the general forums have me worried about new players joining the game. When they see the following:

1. A page full of troll posts about 1st age weapons
That shows right there that there maybe a problem with how we are given loot in game. Even if there isn't
If I'm a player looking to start this game I google 1st age symbol right away and see why there are so many closed threads on it started by the same people.

2. Several threads that underlying are trying to start a flame war between different playstyles (words like forced grouping and faceroll, etc)
This shows that there may or may not be a problem with joining a group in the game. It also shows a trend that the game is taking a turn to solo play and group play may be eliminated. If I was a WOW player looking to switch games and saw this I would avoid this game. Wow is a game where solo player is for leveling and dailies only and most of the fun is done in groups. Content so easy that there is no challenge at all. When you play any game you want some type of challenge. Risk vs. Reward. Even PS3 games present some type of challenge on single player. Why should an MMO not suport this same type of behavior

3. Posters linking definitions from wiki when tearing someones opinion to shreds, condescending attitudes towards other players
If I'm a new player and I see this and I tell myself that I never want to ask a question in the forums that may be even remotely stupid. Since the community is only going to answer with trolls or try to make me look like an idiot I'll find a game that has more helpful players.

Hopefully this is more specific as to what I am asking of the community. There are more I could cover but we get the general basis of the thread.

To be honest, all this sounds exactly 100% like every single gaming forum i have ever been to and anyone who has any experience with forums will understand that, people who haven't had experience with forums generally won't visit here anyway through lack of knowledge, and others just won't come here until they really need to know something.

You can tell this by the new player forum, most of the posts there are from players who have played for a few weeks even months and have hit a stumbling block in the game so they've come here to get answers, once you've hit that "experience" point in a game the forum is no longer a deciding factor on whether you will continue or not.

I know when i first started playing mmo's the games i played didn't even have forums and the first one that i played that did have forums i never visited them until i'd been playing for months and someone told me about them.

[K'Arian]

It goes back to my original thoughts in the thread. When I ask the community to get back to the one I remember when I first started playing it maybe hypocritical to then come back into the thread and say something that is remotely related to my original post should not be voiced. It is aggravating when everytime I go to post something I am logged out. So maybe that does contribute to the attitude we are seeing in the forums.

I will reiterate my original post for those just joining us on page 3. Some disturbing trends in the general forums have me worried about new players joining the game. When they see the following:

1. A page full of troll posts about 1st age weapons
That shows right there that there maybe a problem with how we are given loot in game. Even if there isn't
If I'm a player looking to start this game I google 1st age symbol right away and see why there are so many closed threads on it started by the same people.

2. Several threads that underlying are trying to start a flame war between different playstyles (words like forced grouping and faceroll, etc)
This shows that there may or may not be a problem with joining a group in the game. It also shows a trend that the game is taking a turn to solo play and group play may be eliminated. If I was a WOW player looking to switch games and saw this I would avoid this game. Wow is a game where solo player is for leveling and dailies only and most of the fun is done in groups. Content so easy that there is no challenge at all. When you play any game you want some type of challenge. Risk vs. Reward. Even PS3 games present some type of challenge on single player. Why should an MMO not suport this same type of behavior

3. Posters linking definitions from wiki when tearing someones opinion to shreds, condescending attitudes towards other players
If I'm a new player and I see this and I tell myself that I never want to ask a question in the forums that may be even remotely stupid. Since the community is only going to answer with trolls or try to make me look like an idiot I'll find a game that has more helpful players.

Hopefully this is more specific as to what I am asking of the community. There are more I could cover but we get the general basis of the thread.

well +rep for trying man. But I go back to what I said in an earlier post, there isn't just 1 community here, but a diversity of communities and the main problem lies with a lack of consistency and respect. They all want the same thing in the end, a better environment, they just have different ways of approaching it and sometimes, this can be misinturpreted. But I for one welcome a friendlier community where one is not flamed or trolled for voicing an opinion

[Minquinn]

well +rep for trying man. But I go back to what I said in an earlier post, there isn't just 1 community here, but a diversity of communities and the main problem lies with a lack of consistency and respect. They all want the same thing in the end, a better environment, they just have different ways of approaching it and sometimes, this can be misinturpreted. But I for one welcome a friendlier community where one is not flamed or trolled for voicing an opinion

Welcome to the new world Mr. Columbus. As you can see we are already changing the community for the better one person at a time. This thread seriously has become a troll-less thread. You can imagine the uproar if someone came into this thread and did one of the things I described above. I am sure I would have many of the posters coming to my defense and defending the heart of this thread which is that we want a better community.

[ThistleRose3]

The OP is either suffering from long term memory lose or more likely was looking at the game and the forums with rose colored glasses. During the time period he said he joined the forums were very negative. There was still a lot of resisual negativity from adding rune keepers with the Moria quest pack. Also a large number of players were were angery that Mirkwood was considered an expansion and they had to pay for it.

The forums have not changed much since the game started. There are the haters, the people who love the game and the people who really dont care one way or the other. Its just that you have been with the game so are starting to see the wrinkles.