Restrict forum access to active accounts?
If you’ve “quit” (i.e. no intention of returning), then guess what? Your opinions on the game direction are no longer relevant.
Isn’t the implication usually “I quit, but I hope some day the game changes enough to make me want to come back”?
In which case, the opinions are still relevant.
Not really
If you’ve “quit” (i.e. no intention of returning), then guess what? Your opinions on the game direction are no longer relevant.
Isn’t the implication usually “I quit, but I hope some day the game changes enough to make me want to come back”?
In which case, the opinions are still relevant.
If you’ve been ticked off enough to actually quit a game, the likelihood of that relationship being ever salvaged is next to zero. MMOs are a relationship (scary, isn’t it?). If you quit one, you’ll fill that void with another one (or something else) and will stop thinking about that “game I used to play” now that your time is filled with a newer/better/more to my taste game.
If you’ve been ticked off enough to actually quit a game, the likelihood of that relationship being ever salvaged is next to zero. MMOs are a relationship (scary, isn’t it?). If you quit one, you’ll fill that void with another one (or something else) and will stop thinking about that “game I used to play” now that your time is filled with a newer/better/more to my taste game.
Sometimes (often?) a co-dependent one.
People will intend to “quit” with everything in them, then find themselves crawling back anyway.
But yes, you have a point about moving on. I think one of the influencing factors here is that we haven’t had a really successful launch of another MMORPG in the last two years. Wildstar, ESO and Archeage all had serious issues.
People who are disatisfied with GW2 have had a rough time finding a rebound relationship.
I think the posters some are thinking about are the ones that say stuff like ,“I quit X time ago” every chance they get and don’t leave any constructive feedback. There are several of these posters that do this habitually as if they think they are going to convince other players to quit. A few of those people that constantly talk about how they had quit are not being very honest either. I learned to pretty much ignore those people at this point but it does get a bit obnoxious at times.
There is a difference between posting, “I quit 6 months ago but I wish Anet would do X,Y,Z and I might consider coming back” and “I quit 6 months ago, uninstalled the game, Anet is terrible and the game is dying.” With the later posting the same general message every chance they get.
If you’ve “quit” (i.e. no intention of returning), then guess what? Your opinions on the game direction are no longer relevant.
Isn’t the implication usually “I quit, but I hope some day the game changes enough to make me want to come back”?
In which case, the opinions are still relevant.
Not really
Yes and no. Players who have quit can provide useful feedback for the future… but in most cases the personal “relationship” has been soured to the point that there’s next to no hope of getting THAT particular player back.
Someone who “quits”, then keeps coming back to the forums to see if changes have been made hasn’t really “quit.”
I learned to pretty much ignore those people at this point but it does get a bit obnoxious at times.
That’s the answer, really. Sure, it’d be nice if obnoxious people would go away. There need to be enough rules and enforcement to keep the most egregious offenders under control, but there’s a point where further control just restricts everyone’s freedom too much.
At that point it’s time to put on our big-boy pants and realize we need to learn to ignore the people who rant pointlessly or close their ears to all criticism, and continue having discussions with the people who fall between.
Honestly, if a relatively small group of malcontents can affect a game negatively, then there is something wrong with the game. If the game is chugging along in a healthy place, the ranting will just be so much blowing against the wind.
Someone who “quits”, then keeps coming back to the forums to see if changes have been made hasn’t really “quit.”
I suppose, but that’s getting into a pretty small semantic argument. “I quit” just means “I stopped completely” not necessarily “I quit forever”.
It could mean either, really.
Someone who “quits”, then keeps coming back to the forums to see if changes have been made hasn’t really “quit.”
I suppose, but that’s getting into a pretty small semantic argument. “I quit” just means “I stopped completely” not necessarily “I quit forever”.
It could mean either, really.
Well, that kinda is the argument; semantics. There’s two different types of “quitters”, those who have completely divorced themselves from the game, and those who aren’t actively playing but keeping their eye on things.
Requiring an active account to post really only “hurts” the second group for no real good reason. It wouldn’t really solve the problem of trolls (who claim to be a part of that first group) anyway; because I have first hand knowledge that several of those “quitters” haven’t quit in the slightest, and still log on with regularity… and I suspect the bulk of them are the same way.
I wonder if being able to privately nickname accounts is a good idea. There are some people who post that I don’t immediately recognize or I read what they have to say, check the name and go, “oh, it’s him”.
If I have the nickname “left months ago” or “always bad mouths” on a name, at least I’ll be braced for whatever foolishness that they are going to say.
If Anet were to ban anyone from posting, it would be better to ban those who defend Anet no matter what actions Anet takes. It’s (ironically) these people who hurt the game far more than those the OP wants to ban.
Lordkrall, your thread is amusing.
I agree with IndigoSundown; it may have come from your frustration, unrelated to anything objective. Good luck.
I wonder if being able to privately nickname accounts is a good idea. There are some people who post that I don’t immediately recognize or I read what they have to say, check the name and go, “oh, it’s him”.
If I have the nickname “left months ago” or “always bad mouths” on a name, at least I’ll be braced for whatever foolishness that they are going to say.
I would like that. Better would be the ability to have posts compressed for players you have on a list. I think several twenty page threads would be reduced to two pages with this method.
After all the critique which quite often involves people that have outright claimed that they haven’t played for months or even have the game installed I was thinking about the question in the title.
Would it be possible to only allow active accounts (such as having been logged on the last x days/week) to write on the forums? Everyone would still be able to read of course, but I have a feeling it might create a better environment for everyone here if you actually had to actively play the game in order to join in on the discussions.
As seen with the NPE change there were massive amounts of hatred posted, quite much of it from people that didn’t even try it before (either due to not wanting to start over or due to not actually playing anymore).
Any thoughts about this?
(Oh I know people will hate this thread, if only on principle because I created it, but thought it was worth a shot to see what people thought about it.)
I would like to see an “active player” icon on the side of each persons name.
Maybe add a sunshine pumper or nega-fan icon as well.
If you’ve “quit” (i.e. no intention of returning), then guess what? Your opinions on the game direction are no longer relevant.
Isn’t the implication usually “I quit, but I hope some day the game changes enough to make me want to come back”?
In which case, the opinions are still relevant.
Not really
Why not? After all, people that really don’t intend to return, no matter what, are generally not posting. Those that still frequent forums, are people that still can be possibly brought back. Saying that their opinions about the game do not matter is the same as saying that opinions of people that are interested in buying GW2 but haven’t done that yet don’t matter as well.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
If you’ve “quit” (i.e. no intention of returning), then guess what? Your opinions on the game direction are no longer relevant.
Isn’t the implication usually “I quit, but I hope some day the game changes enough to make me want to come back”?
In which case, the opinions are still relevant.
Not really
Why not? After all, people that really don’t intend to return, no matter what, are generally not posting. Those that still frequent forums, are people that still can be possibly brought back.
Or, more usually, trolls.
If you’ve “quit” (i.e. no intention of returning), then guess what? Your opinions on the game direction are no longer relevant.
Isn’t the implication usually “I quit, but I hope some day the game changes enough to make me want to come back”?
In which case, the opinions are still relevant.
Not really
Why not? After all, people that really don’t intend to return, no matter what, are generally not posting. Those that still frequent forums, are people that still can be possibly brought back.
Or, more usually, trolls.
the majority of trolls are not people who stopped playing.
Perhaps since forum accounts are linked to game accounts, the forum accounts of people who don’t have an active game account should be marked in some way. This way developers can take the fact that these people aren’t active into account when looking at opinions.
The “mark” I’m talking about could be made to only be seen by developers.
It’s unbelievable how some people really think that you can judge an opinion by who emits it, rather than by its content.
ArenaNet can certainly know who is active and who isn’t, yet at the same time, if feedback were judged by this, it would be incredibly unethical.
Trolling should be dealt by Forum Moderation, not by marking the “worthy” and the “unworthy”. I see far more trolling from people that is active.
To me, this has more to do with discrediting posters instead of the opinions they emit.
There are bad ideas, and this.
I find some “White Knights” to be just on par with the so called trolls, but twice as annoying.
(edited by Baltzenger.2467)
The players who have quit can only really provide good feedback about why they quit when they quit. After that their credibility diminishes since all their opinions would be from hearsay or prejudiced by the state of the game when they played. They also would only see changes on paper and wouldn’t be able to predict nor judge their impact in the current game world.
They however can’t be censured since some people may wish to come back and inquire about the current state of the game from those actually playing the game rather than making judgment from their limited knowledge. At least that’s the rational thing for them to do.
I think the OP and others will miss the point because this actually will backfire on them. All those whiners from the 1% who wanted constant dungeon and raiding focus in a game that was never about that, who’ve made multiple posts about them rage-quitting while saying it’s not a quitting thread will be gone with this too so we’d see even fewer of the 1% posting than are here now. I posted about the NPE as a veteran when it affected my alt playing, but was told by many an idiot that somehow my opinion didn’t matter because I wasn’t in the IN crowd or something stupid.
I don’t think it will remove the trolls.
This is the second most terrible idea I have ever heard on the forums…
Active accounts?… its a free game that everyone here has paid for. Regardless, of how terrible of a suggestion this was and regardless of how I wish this post had even been made or get any developer attention.
I still think that you have the privilege to post..
Although I can understand how distressing it is to see posters that are purposely trolling the forums with misinformation and negative hype – you know the ones I mean, those that keep pushing their sales agendas for other games, cross posting their negative stuff from here onto other gaming sites and such – I firmly believe that Mark and krewe made the correct decision about this. There’s really no viable way to do it in a game with no subscription fee and they need to keep channels open for useful feedback and returning players.
We just need to be vigilant against such posters, if they are being incurably vile simply report them. And as tiresome as it can be to argue with trolls, post useful and correct information when you can. Don’t make yourself crazy over it, walk away when you need to.
Okay everybody, I think this discussion has run its course. I appreciate all the feedback, and as I said earlier, this isn’t something we’re looking to implement anymore. I think the thing everybody should take away from this is that you can’t unilaterally judge the validity of a person’s opinion on factors external to the content of their comments.