"Lammania" Discussion

[Vormaerin]

This may come across as sounding ****y (I hope not), but I would like to suggest that the player base doesn't confuse the Lammania forum for the general discussion or suggestions forum.

I really, really want Lammania to work well as a test server where we can reliably communicate with the devs about the content they have in production. And one very important element of that is keeping it on topic. I've done a lot of beta testing and content review type stuff for a number of companies, including Turbine. These sorts of forums always work best when they stay on topic.

If the devs can't tell the difference between Lammania and the General Discussion forum without reading the forum title, they are less likely to consider it a good resource for its intended purpose: feedback on the specific things the devs are intending to release soon.

I know a bunch of people have posted their pet suggestions and ideas here, presumably because they think its more in the dev's eye. But I can tell you from past experience that it won't be more in the dev's eye if its full of off topic threads. We have a Suggestions forum, we have a General Discussion forum.

This is the Lammania forum. We really ought to post on the things related to Lammania here. There's plenty and enough to discuss in that line as it is.

[Razcar]

I see what you mean, but the thing is also that U13 - or rather what has been released so far - has already been discussed very thoroughly. A week after a Lamannia release there is not much more to say, at least when the release was early and minor like this one.

And then people will start discussing other things because, as you say, they hope to catch the eye of a dev, but also because there's a little different clientele here on the Lammania part than in the General Forum. People that are very interested and invested in the game come here, and there's less chaff and discussions not pertaining DDO. And also more discussions focused around game mechanics and the innards of the game, which is attractive to some.

Only solution that I can see for keeping it only about the upcoming release is tougher moderation. Cordovan and Tolero should move threads with general suggestions ("Wake up devs! I want longer manyshot lightningblasts on my murder smurf!") to the Suggestions forum, and only keep threads discussing U13 here. If that's what they want.

Asking for self-moderation is, I'm afraid, a lost cause. If people that are bored at work could self-moderate and control their impulses, they would be busy working instead of posting on a game forum.

[Vormaerin]

Oh, I know its hopeless to ask for self moderation in total, but I'm sure at least some folks just haven't thought about it.

It is ultimately up to the devs whether they want to police the forum. I know it LotRO they do (or did, anyway). I know that on their test servers, you'd see a lot of closed threads with comments like "if its on the live server, talk about it there."

Dunno if they are still doing that. I've done open, closed, and mournlands style QA server stuff (No, I'm not a mournlander) for four or five companies over the years and the really successful test forums are the ones that are most on topic.

It does mean that sometimes the forum is slow, but that's better than it being overly cluttered and inefficient.

[CheeseMilk]

Moving the Lama discussion to the top of the page, in the exact location where General used to be probably didn't help.