No matter what number 5,4 and 3 will always be true, but the damage could be less with good communication, it will make life easy for all. Half the posts are "is this a bug or did you change this!"

If all changes where posted in the notes, there would be less angry. Sure some of the changes people will still hate and the changes may get rolled back, but a least you know about it at the start.

Well, I gave it a shot.

StarlitVirus wrote: »

On the other side if you are annoyed by something you have read on the forums and decide to ream the poster for being so stupid, stop and ask yourself if you'd say it irl. If you wouldn't you probably shouldn't comment.

But... I am not a very nice person IRL, and likely would say the things I do in person to someone if they did/said something stupid enough to justify it. Do I get a pass on the new rule vote?

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Flaming]

StarlitVirus wrote: »

HandofBane wrote: »

StarlitVirus wrote: »

On the other side if you are annoyed by something you have read on the forums and decide to ream the poster for being so stupid, stop and ask yourself if you'd say it irl. If you wouldn't you probably shouldn't comment.

But... I am not a very nice person IRL, and likely would say the things I do in person to someone if they did/said something stupid enough to justify it. Do I get a pass on the new rule vote?

Nope you're just a *** in that case, troll.

That may well be, but being nice for the sake of being nice does not excuse when someone doing a job that they expect me to hand them money for fails to do that job effectively. People screw up all the time, there is plenty of competition available in any given market, especially video games, and it reflects far better on the company when the people they allow to be the public face admit to mistakes made rather than attempt to cover it up, or hide behind a wall of fanbois when something goes terribly terribly wrong. Should I pull up the massive laundry list of mistakes, bugs, miscommunications, and outright lies we have gotten from ZOS - not just since launch, but as far back as during the beta stages?

The problem there is if people only sing a developers praises then they will carry on as if things are perfect when we know there are things need looking at.

Not just this game but any game.

Criticism is needed so they know to fix the broken things.

I agree that blind rage isn't needed but sometimes people need to vent and I won;t call them out for it.

We've all been angry at one time or another.

It's the same in the film industry.

Number 2 is the only one that affected me. Number 7 is a constant, but who cares, because the money in the entertainment industry is ridiculous. Really, we can't all work on Game of Thrones, or Lord of the Rings.

Number 6, 5, 4, 3...who cares. It's good money, it's temporary, and if you don't like it, you can quit.

Which brings us to number 1. Which unfortunately isn't true enough. There are a lot of people who work in the entertainment industry that should be fired, but never get fired. That's why we have so many bad games and bad movies being released every year. We need more firings!

Developers need to quit chinsing out out skill, talent, and experience.

Games are being released unfinished. On top of that, they now want money to be ongoing, and they want it in advance.

I say, screw them.

A great deal of the problem with MMO communities is that often, gamers have been burned repeatedly by game developers and game companies on multiple titles since the rise of MMOs with The Realm Online, and UO. That ends up cumulatively being taken out on the current game they're playing. It's sad, but true.

For example, Age of Conan oozed potential as a AAA PvP game with visionary combat controls, and (at the time) mind-blowing graphics. So many people were upgrading PCs and video cards in anticipation of the game that was billed as the savior of MMO PvP. It was released completely unfinished, PvP wasn't even IN the game at launch, and there were game-breaking bugs and memory leaks big enough to ride an elephant through. The entire population was gone by month 2, and the game did come around at one point, though few people ever went back to see it after investing hundreds of dollars in PC upgrades, box sales, and subscription fees.

And that same theme has repeated over and over again. There have been many successful niche MMO's, but most fell short of their promises, choosing to facilitate their own 'vision' for a game to the point of hubris. SWOTOR stuck to the idea that gamers want story above all things, and it fell flat quickly. They reacted too slowly to keep the PvP crowd around, did nothing for the end game raiders, and made the fanboys angry by making gear for Jedi that looked like bounty hunter armor. You can't isolate any faction of your community to that extent if you want a AAA title. Everyone has to be made to feel welcome, and to feel like there's content applicable to their preferred style.

MMO communities aren't the most self-aware entities out there. If they were, you wouldn't get the L2P flame wars between the hardcore and casuals. They have a symbiotic relationship, and they need each other if they want the game they've all bought to be a success. The hardcores are the pillar of a game- these are the folks that are generally always online- the backbone of guilds, ect. They spend massive amounts of time playing, creating strategies, and theorycrafting builds that the casual players can use in their much more limited time. And casual players pay the bills with their numbers. Hardcore players need them to stick around to play the game and keep it financially viable. Everyone in the community is important, and wants to feel like they have a stake in the game. People lose sight of that, and developers aren't immune to missing that particular train.

Game companies need to do everything possible to fix games and get them out of the dangerous launch phase, and communities could be more patient- but be careful when you're shouting those people down who are clamoring for immediate fixes- because the common answer- "it takes time for these things", while true doesn't change the fact that if you isolate those people, they'll be long gone by the time those changes happen. It's happened too many times, and wrecked too many games. This is the premier IP in the last 20 years of computer gaming. We all want it to succeed. We'd all do better if we remembered that.