Teaching MMO players to read a forum is generally more difficult than teaching a cat to play fetch. For some reason that I cannot understand the idea of going to a website and reading new posts is repulsive to a large majority of human beings despite the fact that it only takes ten minutes or lses. This has always been a sticking point for me as a guild leader due to the fact that I like forums and prefer to make announcements there. In truth, I like doing this a whole lot! In my eyes message boards are like little communities and they’re very entertaining!
In the olden days when guild tools were scarce, voice chat was near non-existent, and guilds were far larger we used message boards a whole lot more. It was an expected practice. These days you have to come up with some pretty clever ways to get people onto them or accept not using them. When I was setting up this process in Iniquity we basically had a standing order that you weren’t allowed to give target information in game. Players had to read the boards or desperately try to convince someone to tell them what we were raiding. We also would not give raid times except on the message board. That was extremely effective since late players didn’t get points. Doing that sounds pretty awful though and wouldn’t work for most guilds. Casual players wouldn’t put up with it.
How do you make a forum community more exciting? The first answer is activity. If a forum barely gets any traffic there aren’t new things to read. If there aren’t new posts to read than eventually players stop coming. It is a fairly vicious cycle. I’ve been trying to kick start a blogging and MMORPG focused forum here on Epic Slant but as of now it is dead in the water. It is either too broad or too unknown! I’d most certainly love to have a nice place to chat but posting to myself seems a little odd and sad.
Humor and games will sometimes get people to come back if the content is good enough. I frequently will take humorous things I find on the internet and post it in a thread on the Iniquity forum. That seems to work pretty well. I’m not sure how that would work in a general community though. Often times it seems like you need to have a good mix of random luck and a fairly specific topic.
This is where I leave the answers up to you. What are some methods that you’ve used in the past to encourage players to use your guild’s forums? What about non-guild related forums, how do you get people there? What might interest you in using the Epic Slant forums? I’d certainly love to hear your ideas as I’m always looking to build new communities.
All characters are © 2007 - 2012
“The first answer is activity.”
DING DING DING DING! Look no further, this is your winner.
If my browser doesn’t like your cookies in a way that makes it hard for me to stay logged in, and I have to dig up a password only to discover that there are no new posts yet again, I’m going to lose patience very very quickly. This is a hard problem for small guilds (and, I guess, blog-specific forums) because you’re looking at a relatively low number of potential participants, and many can’t (or at least shouldn’t) post on forums from work. You can try to convince people to post before or after work, but do they really want to be posting instead of playing?
You make an excellent point (a couple actually). Do we want to encourage our members to check the forum at work? That is a self destructive behavior depending on your company. I do it all the time but the nature of my job allows it. So if we don’t encourage that we’re then competing for our members free time before and after work. That is pretty hard!
So let me ask you this. In answering to the “blog specific forum.” What if it isn’t? The Epic Slant forum wasn’t intended to be for Epic Slant alone, it just lives here because this is my spot of internet I can work with. How do you explain that you offer “more than just Epic Slant stuff?”
One of the barriers to me using forums is that I already do use forums for a couple of guilds, plus my favourite game forum hangout, and it starts to be a hassle to keep remembering and using still more.
I don’t know what my forum critical mass is, but it takes a certain amount of time to keep up with a forum.
Another thing that hurts forums is a lack of RSS feeds as I know many like myself use them to keep informed of news. I’m not sure it is technically possible but that would go a long way as people would know there’s something there to read.
I believe it is possible. Some forums offer it. That isn’t a bad point. Maybe I’ll see if that can be done, just as a learning exercise!
It seems you can do this! Awesome! Great thing to hit on there. Guilds might at least get their necessary information out if their members could RSS the threads that are necessary.
Entire forum RSS feed: http://forum.epicslant.com/syndication.php?limit=15
You can even break it down by certain sub-forums. So like “the announcement” forums could have one.
Not an answer to the question you asked but important all the same -
“Teaching MMO players to read a forum”
That is your problem right there. You should not be teaching players anything unless they are asking you too.
You are assuming that forcing/encouraging/nagging people into using a forum is teaching them something when in fact you are not. You are getting them to do something the way you like it simply because you like it.
Your idea is not destructive for sure but it is also no different than making your guild a PvP or PvE only guild. It will only apply to a subset of players and exclude the rest. The only difference is, and I can only assume here, is that you do not advertise your guild as a forum users only guild and you should be. If a requirement to join was forum use then your problem would be solved.
Until you make that requirement you are the problem not “your” players.
You just need to realise that most gamers do not see forum use of any kind as part of gaming – and for good reason, its not. Forum use is forum use. The two are mutually exclusive even if the forum contains information about playing a game. I will not join a guild that even encourages forum use and a lot of people I know feel the same way. You need to accept that there are a lot people just like me.
That is a fair argument. What about when you do disclose up front that you are a forum intensive guild though? As part of our original guild recruitment agreement we basically used to explain that information was disseminated via the forum. There is some education involved in that case.
I agree though, nagging is a poor way to do it. Unfortunately it seems to be the most successful too. How could someone make a forum more attractive to you?
“That is your problem right there. You should not be teaching players anything unless they are asking you too.”
How is expecting players to check a guild’s official forums any different than expecting them to come to a certain event/raid or even to use basic guild chat?
Forums are the only way to keep everyone informed and together when you have a guild of people in different time zones and even different games.
Also, your view is the exact problem with MMOs nowadays. People think they know everything about everything and can’t fathom some people might have more experience or a better way of doing stuff. When teaching becomes a problem for you, you should just quit the human race.
“How is expecting players to check a guild’s official forums any different than expecting them to come to a certain event/raid or even to use basic guild chat?”
Simple one is ingame and the other is not. How you can not understand that is fairly hard to grasp.
Truth is no one should be expecting anyone to do anything – including events or raids, but that is another matter. Expectation of others should not be a part of your gaming experience. Gaming and interacting in the way that is fun for you is the purpose of MMO’s. Your opinion of what I should do, has no importance to me and that is the way it should be.
My view is a problem? Sorry but I disagree, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my view. In fact I would say its your view that is a problem. Did I say or imply anywhere that I knew everything? No, I kept it very simple. I said people do not like to be asked to do anything outside the game in order to play the game. The games have always been designed so that everything needed to play is built in – and they still are. Its people like you who are trying to impose some artifical requirement on others. The is no reason why people can not share their advanced experience or “better way of doing stuff” ingame if they want to. No website needed.
That fact that you assume things about me, then make judgements on me as a human being based on those insane assumptions pretty much sums you up. You also need to lookup the definition of “teaching” – the words education or learning would have worked more for you.
The only real problem MMO’s have all come from the same thing – the true person is hidden from us. Judging by your post you are one of the people who abuse that – I can draw that conclusion because how “brave” you are in your feeble attempt to insult me. No doubt if I knew exactly who you were, and you were aware of that fact you would have been more sociable in your reply. Your comment is a symptom of the only real problem to online gaming.
Read Ferrel’s reply to see how a mentally stable and mature person responds to difference of opinion.
Ferrel my response to you is this – I will only go onto a forum for a max of 5 to 10 minutes and only then for very specific reasons. Checking the next siege date/time, ect. There is nothing that can make it more attractive to me because I play games to play games. I have been gaming for over ten years and I have never needed forums in any way to be able to play. Sure there are things I will google sometimes just to make it easier but I will not look through forums because they are mostly full of troll replies like Dresden’s.
There is one thing though that will put me off a forum in an instant – if any of my ingame details are revealed. The reason for that is very simple – I work with game development and I know for certain the most common way accounts are hacked comes from Guild/User forums getting hacked
Truth is no one should be expecting anyone to do anything – including events or raids, but that is another matter. Expectation of others should not be a part of your gaming experience. Gaming and interacting in the way that is fun for you is the purpose of MMO’s. Your opinion of what I should do, has no importance to me and that is the way it should be.
I don’t mean this in an overly negative way, but basically with this attitude you should never join a guild. By joining a guild you accept being part of a group and living up to their expectations. If you agree to come to raids and events they become dependent on you. They provide structure and allow you to achieve things you can’t do solo. Saying they’re wrong to expect anything of you is pretty unfair to the rest of the players. Basically, this is a “solo only” attitude.
“I don’t mean this in an overly negative way, but basically with this attitude you should never join a guild. By joining a guild you accept being part of a group and living up to their expectations.”
That is completely incorrect. I have been a guild lead now for over ten years and I do not expect anyone to do anything but have fun. The guilds I have ran have always been good and at times some of the top guilds on the server. Yes, we do have raids, PvP, ect but I do not expect anyone to come. They just do because they want to. That is why they joined a guild. But there is a huge difference between being in a guild and giving yourself the chance to do these things and joining a guild to “live up to their expectations”. You do not grant implied acceptance to living up to anyones expectations by joining a guild. If you believe that is part of being in, or running a guild you need to evaluate why you believe that. So I don’t mean this to negative toward you but if you actually believe that you should probably never run a guild or if you do atleast rethink your perspective might be in order.
That is not a “solo” attitude that is reality. All players are “solo” – it is impossible to play any other way. The point of being playing in a MMO, or a guild within that envirnoment is human interaction. To take place in a vitural world, to be part of something that is more than a game. People do not go into these virtual worlds to have someone place real life expectations on them based on real life attitudes. If that is the way you are interacting with people in MMO’s you have totally missed the point of them.
Some maybe this comes down to the word “expectation” and how it is being used.
Think of it this way – a guild, or clan as they were rightfully called in the beginning, is suppose to represent a family. You are there for each other and yes you do things together. But that does not mean you start making demands of each other. So yes, lets say ingame I often go around killing mega-beast for fun. Lets also assume that other members of my guild normally go with me by their own choice. I do not need to ask them – all I need to do is mention I am going and they come. In that regard I would “expect” them to come.
In my example expectation is the same as the one you will find as the definition in most dictionaries. It does not mean that its some sort of a implied demand by me. It means that because of a regular pattern I predict that they will in fact come with me again. If they don’t that is the end of it.
That is the way it should be. Virtual worlds are about freedom from the real world, somewhere you can express yourself however you want. So if for some reason my guild members suddenly form some totally non-productive love in with these mobs then that is just the way it is. Our guild becomes atleast somewhat nonproductive for a time until they come to their senses again. Of course that would never happen but if it did that is exactly what my reaction would be. I would just do my own thing and keep socializing with them until we were back on track again.
What both of you are describing are totally goal focused interactions which leave no room for your guild members to actually enjoy a virtual world. That is not the point of MMO’s and is another ill that has only sprung up in the last ten years or so. In that same time a far better medium has also sprung up – the online console community. It is target for just that sort of goal driven community where as the MMO is not. Yes MMO’s do include things you place targets on, like killing that megabeast, being highest achievers in PvP, ect but that is alway suppose to be a side line to being a part of the experience.
So with all that in mind, maybe you can see my point. If you can’t you probably never will and the MMO world will have lost another person that could have helped achieve the dream that MMOs have been and always will be.
Dresden you can take that cope out somewhere else. Saying to someone “you should just quit the human race.” is not a failing of language its a direct insult. The English language does not lack the option to aviod that sort of direct statement you just choose not to make use of the language to aviod it. The sentence could have easily read “When teaching becomes a problem for someone, that person should just quit the human race.” That of course would not be any better but atleast if would aviod the direct insult.
You of course also missed the entire point of my reply so let me recap it for you. Asking/Making/Nagging someone to go onto a website is not teaching them anything. That fact will not change no matter what you say. Could they go to that website and learn something? Maybe. Could they go onto a number of other websites and learn the samething? Probably. Go they just learn the samething in game through experience like they are intended too? Definitely. Go you “teach” them the samething in game no matter the design? Absolutely because if the game did not have a means of communication you could not be in a guild with them to begin with.
This whole discussion comes down to one persons expectations of anothers. Which is why I posted. The article concerns why people do not use guild forums and ponders why. I have given that answer.
I can accept your explanation easily. That sounds ideal to me. It doesn’t represent the experience I’ve had in my years of playing and leading a guild unfortunately. It comes down to your goals and your players. You suggest that I probably wouldn’t be very successful doing it my way. I actually was. I imagine you wouldn’t be, but it seemed to work for you as well. To each their own I suppose.
I still disagree on one point though. If you make your guild culture known prior to someone joining, they do accept it by doing so. Saying they don’t because they’re just in it to “have fun” is like saying that when you agree to take care of a puppy you don’t want to do the “not fun stuff.” If they’re not into forum usage when you made it clear that prior to joining it was necessary then they shouldn’t accept the invitation to begin with.
My point is not so much to force things on any player at large. It is more an exercise in how to encourage guild members to meet the requirements of the guild they joined. At this point we’re on a fundamental tangent on how to lead a guild to begin with! Though it is a great discussion.
You seem to have much stronger opinions on this subject than I do. I honestly didn’t mean to insult you personally, I was throwing a quick reply on a website and used a conversational tone which was obviously a mistake. If my reply seemed somewhat acerbic, it was because I felt your reply to Ferrel sounded a bit too angry about the subject (anger at someone suggesting that guild leadership should expect/require things from guild members). I suppose I am firmly in the other camp and get my dander up easily, especially when someone suggests that the only commitment a member needs to make to a guild is to hit “accept” when invited.
The tone of all your responses have been hostile to the point that I assume you have encountered this topic before and it drums up some passion, which is what makes these MMO discussions valid. Without sounding like a hippy, I think there is room for many different ways to run a guild. If you tell members that there are no specific requirements but encourage them to do whatever they enjoy, that approach could very easily work out well. In my experience, however, there is also a strong chance that the guild will fracture; indeed, if it contains strong personalities that have certain personal expectations of the guild those individuals can cause alot of drama.
Maybe we have to end up sitting on two sides of the fence making faces at each other. I fundamentally believe that joining a guild (with stated goals) requires you to subsume yourself on some level to the greater good and accept whatever requirements and rules come along with being a member of a community. The difference between the two views may come down to what is necessary to have a top tier raiding guild succeed in an efficient and effective manner for multiple years. I am sure it is possible to have that type of guild by just expecting people to have fun, but you have to be very lucky in the type of player you get.
I didn’t actually mean to insult you personally, I use “you” as a general third person since English lacks that option. I simply meant that if a person is unwilling to be taught or learn I think they are missing one of the quintessential human qualities that make up social interaction.
For a random guild member, the forums may seem like an annoyance with “trolls” like me on them. For officers, they are crucial tools, especially in games that all too often have sub-par guild mechanics.