Comments on: Someone’s Been Reading forums.worldofwarcraft.com Again

By: ruclikrulit

ruclikrulit — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:53:43 +0000

By: Matthew

Matthew — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 18:07:43 +0000

He stole my gig: http://www.whatwouldmattdo.com/2006/06/30/having-fun-with-your-mmorpg-then-dont-read-the-official-forums/#comment-12232

I’m going to sue!

Though I didn’t break down each forum poster type. That’s pretty funny stuff.

By: Nerfbat » The Forum Zodiac

Nerfbat » The Forum Zodiac — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 03:33:52 +0000

[...] As someone who has read and posted on a forum or two (on both sides of the fence), I tend to feel I have a good grasp of what posters are like. Well, I haven’t been disproved. Unsurprisingly (because I’m always right), Wired’s article “Complainers of the World” reinforces my beliefs. It’s both hilarious and true, so check it out if you’ve ever read a game forum in your life. And trolls, gnomes, munchkins, noobs, and complainers of all sorts please take this to heart. Thanks for linking us there, Lum. Bookmark to: [...]

By: Moorgard

Moorgard — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 03:25:39 +0000

Perfect. Simply perfect.

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 22:14:10 +0000

MMO forums:

Come for the data.
Stay for the angst.

By: IanB

IanB — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:26:40 +0000

As bad as MMO forums are, I’ve never believed they’re useless. There is still some information you can only typically find from other players, and in-game that just doesn’t work.

Especially in under-documented games (hi2u DAOC), they’re essential.

By: D Lacey

D Lacey — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:54:47 +0000

Every place I've worked, or gone to school, had people who complained about it. People just like to complain.

On the other hand, I don't find that makes forums useless. I also find that for various games, the easiest place to find handy information is official forums. Just as I found that the workplaces got work done and I learned stuff at the schools.

Don't let complaining ruin things for you. Complaining about complaining is amusing, true, but ignoring it may be more constructive a use of your time.

xzzy: I've never played world of warcraft, but the official forums of many games have the possibility for useful discussion. It may not be the norm, but it's definitely there if you search for it.

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:56:41 +0000

He also forgot the Communist Demagogue – “If we all complain about the same thing, they’ll HAVE to change it. Let’s start by sending email and posting here!”

Punishment? To actually organize a real-life activist event to implement real-life change.

BTW- since when did we have to discern the difference between “Life” and “Real Life” vs. “Fantasy Life”?

By: xzzy

xzzy — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:18:06 +0000

He forgot one important demographic, the ones that know that useful discussion is impossible, but try to encourage it anyways. I don’t know that they deserve punishment, they’re getting it already even though it’s self-inflicted. But they can be pretty annoying.

As the community ages, they turn into meme-quoting trolls that quickly destroy any thread that pops up, useful or not.

By: Andrew Crystall

Andrew Crystall — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:41:39 +0000

Sure.

But bluntly, when a LARGE portion of your userbase is hacked off with you (est. 40% of Eve's players used a font replacement because it's TERRIBLE on many CRT's, before they blocked that), you really SHOULD listen.

And there are sometimes "higher" areguments over issues which are worthwhile, you just ignore everyone except the few deacent posters.