05-20-2004, 03:36 PM
Hi,
Well, it seems to me that posters like Pete and others on the official boards have a chance to wrestle control away from people who post stupidly but often to the posters who put some thought in. I probably won't take a great deal of interest until the game gets released since I'm not in the Beta and I strongly suspect that any such battle will have been won or lost by the time I'm playing
The forum structure does not encourage rational discussion. There is no search feature. There is no way to mark *posts* as read (threads are marked *read* until someone adds to them). There is no real way to keep track of what threads you've participated. There is no posting limit (I watched one evening as one poster posted a comment on every thread of the first two pages of the suggestion forum. Most of his posts consisted of a two or three word agreement or disagreement). There is no enforcement by the mods to keep posts in the appropriate forum, which leads to cross posting and most posts going into the general forum (the only forum where Blizz's presence is obvious).
So, the fora are little more than a mob yelling at each other.
However, even when there are rational posts, many of them are on the "opposite side". People give reasonable arguments in well written posts as to why this or that feature of the game is too hard, or too time consuming, or requires too much micro-management, or whatever. The problems there aren't poor communication skills or poor reasoning. The problem there is that these people see a game as something to buy, to "beat" as fast as possible, and to throw aside for their next plaything. They are concerned only with the "destination" (as if *completing* a game were some kind of praiseworthy goal) instead of the journey. And, unfortunately, they represent the majority of the buying public. However, when the game comes out that is tailored to their desires, they then gripe because there wasn't enough "gameplay" in it.
Those few rational posts are then buried in an avalanche of crap, which pushes them off the front pages. And since there seems to be an new-Internet culture that says looking on page 2 of a post list is somehow shameful, the process starts over every day.
So, the task is fruitless, pointless, and repetitive. Suitable for a Greek myth, but hardly fun for everyday life. And, given that I've yet to recognize another Lounge person posting on the official boards, it feels pretty lonely as well.
Indeed the battles will have been lost by the time the game is in retail. It may have been lost before the game was conceived. The game WoW could have been, like the war games, like the flight simulators, might be a victim to the "need" for a game to be mastered in an evening. The "need" for any jerk with no skill and no desire to work at developing any skill to still be able to "complete" the game. And, in that sense, I find myself agreeing with the PvPers. If Blizzard is going to make the game so easy that even a solo playing moron can "do it all", then perhaps the only challenge is other people. However, knowing from experience and report just how much PvP in RPGs is used solely for griefing, saying that PvP is the only good part of the game is saying the game sucks.
So, I'm still hopeful but pessimistic. There isn't a single Blizzard product, other than StarCraft that wasn't severely damaged by catering to the desires of the "buy, try, and toss" crowd. The original Diablo came close, but that was the work of a company Blizz acquired when the job was almost done. And all those people are gone.
I'll keep posting my suggestions and opinions on the "official" boards. Being who I am, I don't think I could avoid that and not have a coronary :) But I think that that is a lost game.
--Pete
Well, it seems to me that posters like Pete and others on the official boards have a chance to wrestle control away from people who post stupidly but often to the posters who put some thought in. I probably won't take a great deal of interest until the game gets released since I'm not in the Beta and I strongly suspect that any such battle will have been won or lost by the time I'm playing
The forum structure does not encourage rational discussion. There is no search feature. There is no way to mark *posts* as read (threads are marked *read* until someone adds to them). There is no real way to keep track of what threads you've participated. There is no posting limit (I watched one evening as one poster posted a comment on every thread of the first two pages of the suggestion forum. Most of his posts consisted of a two or three word agreement or disagreement). There is no enforcement by the mods to keep posts in the appropriate forum, which leads to cross posting and most posts going into the general forum (the only forum where Blizz's presence is obvious).
So, the fora are little more than a mob yelling at each other.
However, even when there are rational posts, many of them are on the "opposite side". People give reasonable arguments in well written posts as to why this or that feature of the game is too hard, or too time consuming, or requires too much micro-management, or whatever. The problems there aren't poor communication skills or poor reasoning. The problem there is that these people see a game as something to buy, to "beat" as fast as possible, and to throw aside for their next plaything. They are concerned only with the "destination" (as if *completing* a game were some kind of praiseworthy goal) instead of the journey. And, unfortunately, they represent the majority of the buying public. However, when the game comes out that is tailored to their desires, they then gripe because there wasn't enough "gameplay" in it.
Those few rational posts are then buried in an avalanche of crap, which pushes them off the front pages. And since there seems to be an new-Internet culture that says looking on page 2 of a post list is somehow shameful, the process starts over every day.
So, the task is fruitless, pointless, and repetitive. Suitable for a Greek myth, but hardly fun for everyday life. And, given that I've yet to recognize another Lounge person posting on the official boards, it feels pretty lonely as well.
Indeed the battles will have been lost by the time the game is in retail. It may have been lost before the game was conceived. The game WoW could have been, like the war games, like the flight simulators, might be a victim to the "need" for a game to be mastered in an evening. The "need" for any jerk with no skill and no desire to work at developing any skill to still be able to "complete" the game. And, in that sense, I find myself agreeing with the PvPers. If Blizzard is going to make the game so easy that even a solo playing moron can "do it all", then perhaps the only challenge is other people. However, knowing from experience and report just how much PvP in RPGs is used solely for griefing, saying that PvP is the only good part of the game is saying the game sucks.
So, I'm still hopeful but pessimistic. There isn't a single Blizzard product, other than StarCraft that wasn't severely damaged by catering to the desires of the "buy, try, and toss" crowd. The original Diablo came close, but that was the work of a company Blizz acquired when the job was almost done. And all those people are gone.
I'll keep posting my suggestions and opinions on the "official" boards. Being who I am, I don't think I could avoid that and not have a coronary :) But I think that that is a lost game.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?