Vainamoinen

I really can't imagine any corporation either endorsing or condoning a fair chunk of what goes on in any "loosely" moderated internet forum. Flames is a resource jackpot for EQ2 players, but it is better known for such things as "Rate-a-Retard", "Your Guild Sucks" and the inevitable flames that follow on the heels of most, if not all, topics.

At least with internal PR issues, they can put their arbitrary fist down. Something external, like Flames, is far harder to control. Thus, doing what they did (especially considering the current atmosphere) is more than reasonable. The precise timing was stupid, but that is to be expected. Knee-jerk reactions happen all the time and we're all guilty of them.

I'll revise "money making" to "revenue generation". I'm sure we can get caught up in the specifics of it all, but my point was not that Flames was rolling in the dough, it was that they were benefitting, in one form or another, from the EQ2 product.

As for alienating the EQ2Flames community, I think it wasn't something they were happy about having to do, but considering the circumstances, it was the quickest and easiest solution. There is no denying the Flames boards are significantly more populated than the official forums. How significant these forum populations are with respect to the overall size of the EQ2 gaming community is the more important and relevant statistic. You also have to consider the fact that to get a Flames membership is free, so there are going to be players who signed up and never use the boards, players that have long since "retired", aliases, etc... that skew the numbers to some point. The subscription numbers reflect people who have paid. When someone is dumping money into the system, its far more likely they are still active in some form or another.

edit: Now I'll get a coffee.

edit2: TL;DR

__________________
I was raised on TV,
Like so many of you I see around me.
Nothing to live or die for;
No religion too.

Otis

Why not simply call it "money losing", that's what it is. Not good for the purposes of your argument, is it? Wouldn't make much sense to say that SOE made a business decision to stop LFG from spending money out of his own pocket to run a site that supports their product, would it?

But feel free, spin away.

__________________


John McMaverick

Vainamoinen

Spin and counterspin.

When someone pisses all over me, I don't call it "support", I call it a "golden shower". Some freaks pay for that kind of stuff. Others, however, would prefer to avoid it at all costs.

__________________
I was raised on TV,
Like so many of you I see around me.
Nothing to live or die for;
No religion too.

Gage

So now you're arguing that EQ2Flames doesn't support EQ2 just because we bitch about broken shit and inept crap?

What a fucking moron. Support isn't only positive, its also being critical so you can end up making a better product.

__________________
Cleansing the internet of e-whores since 2003! Just saying!

Vainamoinen

Um, no. But thanks for coming out. I do like how you use the term "bitch", because it really does sum up a lot of what I see. Nothing short of pre-menstrual bitching.

Being constructively critical is fantastic and it has demonstrated time and time again on these boards. The problem is, with the good you also get the bad and the very bad. Like those who will take a "critical" approach and spin it into how someone raises their children, or something like that. You know what I'm saying?

You want to be heard as a constructive source to generate positive and professional changes to a game, but then you'll have people turn around and fire off a volley of complete and utterly useless sputum. Sure this is the interwebZ and we can all act like we're bad-ass and sling the vulgarities around, but if you intend to create some "real world" change to a game, you have to play by their rules to an extent.

If you read the end-user agreement, SoE has no obligation whatsoever to improve their product. The fact that they can, and do, take feedback from the community and incorporate it into the game is not a right that we, as players, have acquired by purchasing the game and a subscription. "Do the changes help improve the product to a point where there is enough value-added to offset the resources required?", is likely the real question asked every time something is suggested.

__________________
I was raised on TV,
Like so many of you I see around me.
Nothing to live or die for;
No religion too.

Vainamoinen

Fixed so that it doesn't seem like I'm saying Flames provides absolutely no support to the game.

__________________
I was raised on TV,
Like so many of you I see around me.
Nothing to live or die for;
No religion too.

Otis

You're confusing product with the people who make it.

__________________


John McMaverick

Vainamoinen

No.

__________________
I was raised on TV,
Like so many of you I see around me.
Nothing to live or die for;
No religion too.

Yggdrasil

For those who don't know, you used to be able to zone into Labs and just clear the solo drakes who had a chance at dropping relic patterns. That was not fixed for several weeks after KoS went live.

LFG

Massively has published a great story on this drama:

http://www.eq2flames.com/fan-site-ne...tml#post514219

I'd like to commend Massively for reporting about this newsworthy situation on their mainstream MMO site rather than bowing down to SOE.

__________________