Honestly, server forums are a big part of an MMO.

Not adding this into the official forums due to "People calling other people out" is just plain stupid.

Pros: Helps build community

Helps people find guilds

Helps people find patterns/crafters

You can talk PvP and other things

Keeps people in the loop on what's going on in the community.

+ more

Cons: Someone potentially gets butthurt on the forums.

How can you say server forums would be detrimental? This is actually probably my biggest complaint in the entire game so far.

yes this is total fail on biowares part and just shows they have alot to learn about MMOs and communities. We need individual forums for a sense of community . Community keeps players playing. Hire the darn moderators or work with one of the fan sites and let them do the official forums...like darthhater or something.

I have no idea who the bad guys are on my server or who the potential allies are. No way to plan RP events etc. This is a freaking joke on now servers. They are going to lose money when people dont feel the community . SAD

I just wanted to post to show my support for server forums. Not having them seems like a really odd decision, and honestly I feel very disconnected without them.

The server I chose has been very very populated from the start ( queues almost any time of day) yet when I went to look for a guild I had to dig through about 4 sub forums and 6 additional pages to find ONE recruitment thread.

None of my RL friends are playing this game and I took a very long break from MMO's. So I am basically starting fresh. So far I have seen little to no support for community development. No Looking For guild function, not even a chat channel unless a player creates one. having server forums seems like a no brainer to me.

EA/Bioware says that the forums go to unmoderated, but in reading the forums for a few hours there been lots of uneccessary moderation already. Perhaps EA/Bioware should train thier moderators in efficient use of time?

Someone had posted a server checkin in the server events forum and a mod had enough time to close the thread and comment that it should have went in the "check ins" forums. Clearly better use of time could have been made.

It seems very assanine to me to have a forum just for people to say "Yeah, I am from that state/city/town too!" and yet no forums for people who play together and actually have an impact on each other ( server economy)

Please rethink this EA/Bioware!

I completely agree with the OP.

My personal opinion is that the most important reason to have server forums is for guild recruiting. The guild hall forums were fine for pre-launch, but because everything is piled into one forum, and with the amount of servers out there, it makes it very difficult to either find a guild on your server or recruit people on your server. Especially considering there are no server transfers at this time, it makes it even more necessary for the server forums.

Hi there, folks. We've removed some posts from this thread and want to explain why. We understand the desire for server forums, but posts that only consist of "/signed" or "+1" are not constructive and are something we do not allow. Please make sure that all your replies help further conversation, as we don't allow petitions. Thank you!

What is this, a *********** communist forum? We don't allow petitions? In other words you don't give a **** about what your players think?

Officially unofficial Darth Sion server forum!

http://www.swtorowned.com/darth-sion/

Wow the reasoning for no server forums is just funny. The devs seem pretty out of touch.

Yet i wonder why noone will user 3'rd party forums, for example like http://oldrepublicboard.com/ that has all server, with forums & subforums for each server.

all 91 EU servers boards are available in this forum, a few registered but no posters. Why?

http://www.eotp-gaming.net/swtorforum/index.php

The game community makes the forums not BW, so this forum will be no different from a BW one. official announcement would be transposed to any location but using another forum doesn't stop you posting here in this forum.

Unsubscribed due to this. Honestly, this game feels completely devoid of any social aspects. Why make it an MMO if it ends up feeling like a single player game? No chat bubbles makes it difficult to know who is saying what and when, 80% of the game being phased and instanced makes me feel incredibly alone and no server forums is the final strike for me. And their reasoning for such is completely asinine. I'd rather have a poorly moderated forum than none at all. "You guys can make your own though," also feels like a slap in the face. There's no way this will work, as stated before it will only scatter the community because we won't have a central forum. Only thousands of unofficial ones. It sounds like "But you guys can do our job for us".

I honestly wanted to like this game, but if I wanted to play a single player RPG, I'd play that. BioWare doesn't seem to care about social aspects or the community of an MMO whatsoever even though they claim to. And one of the main reasons I would want to play an MMO is for just that. I guess I'll go back to giving Blizzard my money.

Reading Bioware's response is just depressing. Standard PR garbage pretending they care when in truth they couldn't give two *****s. They're going to lose subscribers from this decision for sure.. there are many many many mmo gamers who love immersing themselves in their server community, getting to know people, guilds and such and it can keep them subscribed for a lot longer than originally intended or they would have if it wasn't for the server forum.

With the complete mess of things of the forums, it's a huge mammoth task to try and build an unofficial server forum from scratch and then expect people to join it. Too big of a task imho for a few people. It worked in WoW with a few servers because people had a server forum to advertise their unofficial forum instead of some generic "community" crap.

This is such an amazing game it really is but Bioware's ignorance in some of the most basic features of a successful MMO is certainly going to cost them.

Since Petitions are not permitted here I have posted one offlite for our community to show how important social and community features are to an mmo.

Please sign and spread the word so Bioware can truly see how many people stand behind building a community.

http://www.change.org/petitions/petition-to-bioware-for-swtor-server-forums

Muadib/Triggerpappy

1st post updated again,

Thanks for keeping this topic going folks. Don't let up on the pressue against Bioware. Spread the word and put their feet to the fire.

Since Petitions are not permitted here I have posted one offlite for our community to show how important social and community features are to an mmo.

 

Please sign and spread the word so Bioware can truly see how many people stand behind building a community.

 

http://www.change.org/petitions/petition-to-bioware-for-swtor-server-forums

 

 

 

 

 

Muadib/Triggerpappy

I'd be happy to sign but I don't feel I should have to give my address.

It's really hard for me to understand their stance here.

The guild recruitment thing might work now, but what about when people are all level 50? They aren't going to want to join a guild on another server where they'd have to start from scratch.

How are we to plan world events without a set meeting place for the server? Bioware is encouraging the community to start their own server forums, which is stupid, but even that idea fails. I play on Port Nowhere, and there are already two unofficial Port Nowhere forums that have popped up.

This =/= Community

Yet i wonder why noone will user 3'rd party forums, for example like http://oldrepublicboard.com/ that has all server, with forums & subforums for each server.

because for every "Hi everyone, please use [insert url] forum for you unofficial forums, it's got all the servers", there are 10 others like this:

all 91 EU servers boards are available in this forum, a few registered but no posters. Why?

 

http://www.eotp-gaming.net/swtorforum/index.php

 

The game community makes the forums not BW, so this forum will be no different from a BW one. official announcement would be transposed to any location but using another forum doesn't stop you posting here in this forum.

not to mention the people who have set up specific ones for just their server.

this is an epic failure on the management (i would bet that this is not a dev's call, but rather, some penny pinching accountant that's telling the board how much they can save by deferring the expenses to the players).

Don't worry guys, this worked on KOTOR, and it'll work with SWTOR! just ignore that whole "MMO" thing.. that's just a craze anyways, i'm sure the players will get over that

/sarcasm

because for every "Hi everyone, please use [insert url] forum for you unofficial forums, it's got all the servers", there are 10 others like this:

 

 

 

 

 

not to mention the people who have set up specific ones for just their server.

 

this is an epic failure on the management (i would bet that this is not a dev's call, but rather, some penny pinching accountant that's telling the board how much they can save by deferring the expenses to the players).

 

Don't worry guys, this worked on KOTOR, and it'll work with SWTOR! just ignore that whole "MMO" thing.. that's just a craze anyways, i'm sure the players will get over that

 

/sarcasm

Good points of course and someone said similar on the thread I made to advertise the EU server forum i made. From the back of that, if BW do not make the server forums then they need to at least do something like the following

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=73291

Another option mentioned is that volunteer moderators are took on board by BW, but then that has it's own issues as with everything else.

This is my solution:

reason for canceling

 

• Social Reasons
  
• Feels too much like a single player game
  

Comment:

I absolutely love the game, which is why this is a tough choice.

 

the main/single reason why i'm canceling, is because of the lack of server forums. There are plenty of "unofficial" server forums, but those do not get the traffic that official ones do, and without official forums, i simply can not feel like i'm part of the community.

 

I hope Bioware changes the position on this, but until then, I'll enjoy the game until the 30 day period runs out.

this isn't just a mockup, this is what i Just sent in..

i just canceled a 6 month subscription that I activated the day it was possible.

I sat through a 2 hour queue on The Harbinger and never considered cancelling. just as a frame of reference.

I'm sure its been said many times over, but we really need server forums.

I want to see whats going on my server, how other guilds are progressing, an easier way for guilds to recruit, lots of things. It brings about a better community. This game is very instanced in some respects and even though I'm playing on a "Full Server" I see very little of my actual server mates.

I know that it has been said that there aren't enough moderators to go around. But I would say that given the fact of how successful this game is already you might wanna think about gettin some.

Server forums don't have to be like that other games, if done properly it only lets a community get stronger.

I actually like the fact that there are no server forums, at the moment, and that all the information is centralized in broad categories, for the following reasons:

1- It helps people to decide which server to roll on

(i.e. seeing which servers organize what type of events, which servers seem to have the most active RPers/PVPers, etc. based on everyone's comments).

2- It can inspire more people to organize servers events

being able to see the various types of events planned all in one centralized place can inspire people from other servers (ideas for events of their own), or make it easier for people of all servers to help brainstorm or offer constructive suggestions.

3- It simplifies meeting like-minded players for specific in-game goals

(for instance, I met an RP partner for my BH through a post on the general Roleplaying forum - if this post had been put on a specific server's forum, I might not have seen it)

It is not difficult to see what new threads have been posted in the last day or two, so finding something that interests you is not overly complicated by the lack of server forums.

Also, for people who -are- trying to reach their own server's population, it is very easy to simply mention their server name in their post, to catch the readers' attention:

"(Jung Ma) - RP gathering on Dec. XX, X PM".

I actually like the fact that there are no server forums, at the moment, and that all the information is centralized in broad categories, for the following reasons:

 

1- It helps people to decide which server to roll on

(i.e. seeing which servers organize what type of events, which servers seem to have the most active RPers/PVPers, etc. based on everyone's comments).

 

2- It can inspire more people to organize servers events

being able to see the various types of events planned all in one centralized place can inspire people from other servers (ideas for events of their own), or make it easier for people of all servers to help brainstorm or offer constructive suggestions.

 

3- It simplifies meeting like-minded players for specific in-game goals

(for instance, I met an RP partner for my BH through a post on the general Roleplaying forum - if this post had been put on a specific server's forum, I might not have seen it)

 

 

It is not difficult to see what new threads have been posted in the last day or two, so finding something that interests you is not overly complicated by the lack of server forums.

 

Also, for people who -are- trying to reach their own server's population, it is very easy to simply mention their server name in their post, to catch the readers' attention:

"(Jung Ma) - RP gathering on Dec. XX, X PM".

the "success" you have personally had, is also due to the complete failure of the system.

ie, if the system was working as they envisioned it, what you have described as a plus, would not have been possible.

if everyone actually went to the community forum and posted

(The Harbinger) - LFW - Sith side lvl 209 Armstech looking for work

the forums would be so flooded, that it would be impossible to keep up.

so, it works for you, because the system is failing.

i'm not sure if we can attribute that as a positive mark.

edit to add: also, the inclusion of server specific forums do not take away the pluses you listed. people can still post in general forums, and DO, as you can visit any other MMO site and see the same thing.

if you are so compelled, I would suggest posting up something similar to this:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=679117#post679117

it's not a troll post, so i hope they don't lock it. i really do want to find a leveling partner, and do not feel like sitting in general chat hoping to find some random person.

I feel that a post like that would have been more appropriate had there been server forums though.

we'll see how many people from Harbinger it reaches. I mean, it is the most populated PVE west server, so responses shouldn't be hard to come by, right?

I'd be happy to sign but I don't feel I should have to give my address.

 

I agree

I used facebook so I didn't notice. I guess they do it for verification.

It used to be that email was enough.

If it were me i'd just put a dummy address. You can opt not to show anything more than your name.

There are a lot of reasons for server forums, probably all of which are in this thread somewhere.

The key value server forums provide me is same-server communication within a BioWare-managed space. It's the best place for me to go to communicate with other players on my server who are interested in communicating via forums.

The next best alternative is community-managed server forums. The challenge to that is that you don't always get the best quality management and moderation. We can count on that from BioWare.

I realize that it requires manpower to manage forums, and adding a forum for each server will undoubtedly increase costs. But let's look at numbers, shall we?

EA said SWTOR will be profitable at 500,000 players. Let's say that we're at 2,000,000 now, which isn't really a bad guess. It's probably higher. So let's say we're at 1.5 million players over profitable.

In game sales, assuming BW gets $40 per box (low number), they're at $60,000,000 more profit than they expected already.

Now let's say each of those extra 1.5 million subscribes for a year (maybe high, maybe not) on the 6 month plan ($12/month). That comes out to $216,000,000 in extra profit.

Now let's say they need to hire 50 more bodies to manage server forums, and they can be pretty cheap about those bodies. It's not exactly rocket science. Let's be generous and pay the a total comp package worth $60,000 a year.

That's $3,000,000, which leaves BioWare a whopping $213,000,000 more profit than expected.

Come on, BioWare. Don't let EA's corporate greed and lack of giving a rip about customers drag you down into the septic tank of mediocrity. Be the game developer we all know you are - one of the 2 best and most beloved in the world.

Make server forums happen.

You can clearly afford it.