My current suggestions

[Llnk]

Personally i like a website that LOOKS nice but is really quite simple. Some forums i frequent have so much crap cluttering the screen that its hard to get what you want. So hopefully a balance can be found that will do something close to that.

Also it is a good idea to post the forums rules and regulations. My hope is this website does not become a forum where people who take the word "fuck" way to seriously. I personally believe that if a child is to young to know the difference between right and wrong then they should not be playing a game dominated by adults. I will however agree that some language is just not tolerable, racial slurs being the foremost example. Ive found servers and forums where they do not allow you to use the word "damn" or something like "wtf"... Please don't go that far.

Similar to the daoc.grambo.org website i do not like the idea of a hell section. The daoc.grambo.org hell section has become a running porno compatition. I find the hell section a problem as most people tend to bring there conversations or arguments held there to the public forums which generally makes things bad.

Private forums should consist of guild/alliance and planned raid forums. Generally i believe that a little protection that keeps spies out is good enough, if you go overboard you only hurt the community. Invites to the forum instead of free for all sign ups is a good enough method.

An assortment of class boards would be nice as well, when we finally know mythic is not cutting more :P.

Moderation should be done by active people who are fair. To many moderators on boards that get the jobs without much thought behind the selection only hurt the community. For example on the grambo site you have a sleuth of moderators who are inactive and the ones who are active live mostly in hell posting porn.

A trade/sell forum is a great idea, I used the one on grambo many times with much success.

That's all i can think of off the top of my head.

[Aoann]

Llnk, I agree completely!

well put. Sounds like a great ideas.

[Gisli]

Thanks, Llnk! So far as forum moderation goes, I think that things worked well during the first couple of years of the War Room when I was the main admin. I kept a pretty heavy demand on civility, and it seemed to work. As for spy issues, we'll worry about that when we get to live, if its relevant. We used to run an open section and a closed section where we let in people we felt to be trustworthy. To a large extent, the game has to be supportive -- i.e., not make it easy to realm hop. Otherwise, its all hopeless anyway.

I agree about Hell forums. I won't tolerate such a thing in any form. We're not here to serve every need that anybody might have.

There are two separate issues right now. Your suggestions all relate to forums. That is important, of course. But we are actively soliciting input about the website as well. By that I mean anything OTHER than the forums that you see right now.

[Isak]

I pretty much agree with most of this.

With the language thing, it'll be pretty open for any guilds and alliances to police themselves. In the public areas I hope the rule: Use Common Sense will be enough but I'm afraid somebody will eventually break it. We'll have to come up with something reasonable and put it in writing otherwise eventually drama will ensue if you get a large enough user base.

Most of the extra forum stuff I was waiting either for enough people to make it worthwhile, or until the game launches (No use having a trading forum just eating screen space when the game isn't live yet).

Forum sign up will be public, access to the private forums will most likely be like grambo, you request access to a user group and someone either approves or not.

Moderation, for guilds, the leader will get mod privileges for his guild forum. The other sections I'll try to give to a handful of people to be global mods.

[Llnk]

"In the public areas I hope the rule: Use Common Sense will be enough but I'm afraid somebody will eventually break it"

The thing that sucks about real life is that one person screws it up for everyone else. Things like not being able to bring glass to the beach because someone before you broke the bottle and someone else cut there foot, or no bringing alcohol to the beach because someone before you got drunk and stupid. This all leads to laws that stops the people with common sense from enjoying something because of others.

What i like about the internet is that if someone wants to create drama or abuse the rules then you can ban them and the problem is solved. Others with common sense may continue on enjoying themselves without the douchebags.

[Llnk]

Oh your going to do a forum and a website?

[Isak]

That's the thought at the moment. I think the forums should will still be the main focus though.

[Gisli]

Llnk -- I think that we are probably not too different in our philosophy (though we might be different on exactly where the civility bar should get set). My own philosophy on rules is that my judgment is far superior to my ability to build a system to implement my judgment. That is what any set of rules is -- an automated system to implement judgment. And I've got a ton of professional experience at building systems of rules for groups of people -- which is one reason why I'm skeptical about them. At the same time, it is helpful to have some definition that gives people a reasonable impression of where the bar is set, with an understanding that judgment will deal with the gray cases. So yes, I think we'll want to develop some sort of stated policy. But it needs to be simple and we need to understand that how we moderate is what counts most.

People generally live up to expectations, so long as they understand the expectations. Everybody knows that when they walk into one room, they can talk one way, and when they walk into another room, they have to talk another way. We all encounter this every day of our lives.

[Antiochene]

I know that this will have to wait until the NDA is lifted, but I think some basic tutorials should be put on the website. Many of the people that are in the closed beta will have a wealth of information that could bring others up to speed quicker. An example of this is operating siege. If there is a tutorial on how to do this a person could become proficient (proficient not expert) in 1-5 times of using siege. Without the tutorial it will take some many more tries to be proficient.

Some players want to power level as quickly as possible and some think that the PvE questing is the best part of a MMORPG (I still wonder about these people). A list of recommended and/or unrecommended quests would be good for those who like to quest. Because no one likes doing a time consuming quest if it doesn't have a decent payback. For those who want to level asap, we could have a list of good hunting areas with suggestions on how to optimize this experience.

These are just some examples of things that can occur on the website. If there is going to be a website it should be a tool, not just something that people have to go through to get to the forums.

[Isak]

QUOTE (Antiochene @ Jul 17 2008, 02:16 PM)

I know that this will have to wait until the NDA is lifted, but I think some basic tutorials should be put on the website. Many of the people that are in the closed beta will have a wealth of information that could bring others up to speed quicker. An example of this is operating siege. If there is a tutorial on how to do this a person could become proficient (proficient not expert) in 1-5 times of using siege. Without the tutorial it will take some many more tries to be proficient.

Some players want to power level as quickly as possible and some think that the PvE questing is the best part of a MMORPG (I still wonder about these people). A list of recommended and/or unrecommended quests would be good for those who like to quest. Because no one likes doing a time consuming quest if it doesn't have a decent payback. For those who want to level asap, we could have a list of good hunting areas with suggestions on how to optimize this experience.

These are just some examples of things that can occur on the website. If there is going to be a website it should be a tool, not just something that people have to go through to get to the forums.[/b]

I think the best thing for a tutorial type thing is to use a wiki, unless some poor soul wants to be the one to make sure the tutorial(s) are always updated. Then the community could update at any point. Although I think a good number of sites are already waiting to pounce on the quest portion. Having things for other parts might not be so bad.