Quality of the forums

[kudos]

WoW happened and its ilk with it.

[Servicon]

Please for the love of god do not turn this clusterfuckery that is this thread into a EJ vs FoH or bashing one or the other. Just remove the very thought of that subject from your mind before you start typing.

[Millie]

This board, in and of itself, has not changed. Collectively, we all have not changed. I mean, we've all grown older and hopefully wiser, but fundamentally, the only thing that's changed is people's reason for coming here in the first place.

When we (meaning FoH the guild, not "FoH" the community) first started a guild message board in '98/'99, it was limited to mostly guild members, with the occasional outsider discussing specifically EverQuest with us. There was no other topic of conversation. It was EverQuest in general, and FoH's accomplishments in EverQuest specifically.

Then, when we entered the Noows.com phase, we broadened out a little bit (addition of some "lifestyle" forums, etc.) -- but even still, people came because they wanted to hear about and be around FoH, and to discuss EverQuest.

When fohguild.org was founded in 2002, the focus was -- again, surprisingly -- EverQuest and FoH. For a few years thereafter, that mainly remained the case.

What happened then? For one thing, EQ's popularity waned, and most of FoH migrated to the newly minted World of Warcraft. But not everyone in the board's population made the same migration. Some stuck with EQ, some gave up MMORPGs altogether, some were undecided, etc. Suddenly, as if overnight, this board was no longer driven by a single game and a single guild's accomplishments in that game. There were more options out there, and while everyone still hung out here, there was no unifying topic of conversation. There was no completely common ground among everybody here.

The easy thing to do, intellectually speaking, would be to give that common ground a human persona: Furor. "Furor's gone, so the community's gone to seed." While this may seem true on the surface, the real underlying disruptive factor is the decline of EverQuest's hegemony over the MMORPG landscape. But even more to the point, it's the decline of hegemony, period. WoW is the dominant MMORPG today, and there is no question about that -- but even still, there are so many more options available to us all nowadays than there were when we all settled down here in the first place. We came, together, from EQ, and now, without that original purpose, we are at different crossroads in our lives and in our reasons for being here.

Can the proverbial genie ever be put back in the bottle? Probably not. We have all diverged from our common ancestry, so to speak, and we can't turn back. To do so would be the metaphorical equivalent of taking all of humanity and saying "Ok, we all came from Africa 20,000 years ago; let's all head back! Times were simpler back then!" Maybe so, but going back now is a physical and logical impossibility.

Now, is our present-day divergence of interests necessarily a bad thing? No. I think it's entirely possible for all of us to peacefully coexist, and to have interesting discussions. Those discussions may never again unify all of us toward a common subject. But they don't have to. At this point we can either pine indefinitely for a past that is impossible to recapture, or we can try to forge ahead toward an interesting -- and, hopefully, no less compelling -- future.

[spentmotiff]

Originally Posted by Millie

Stuff

For the first time ever on these boards, I actually feel like an '06er. Nice post Millie.

[James]

If it were me I'd just open up registration for a bit (like 6ish months at least!) because fresh blood is always $$. I don't know what all the complaining is about, though, if reading shit on MMO General gets to you, go flame some n00b in Screenshots or the Rickshaw.

[kudos]

I miss Blarney Blackstone and Moonaxe. Ever since they left it has never been the same .

[Maxxius]

Originally Posted by Millie

. . .
Can the proverbial genie ever be put back in the bottle? Probably not. We have all diverged from our common ancestry, so to speak, and we can't turn back. To do so would be the metaphorical equivalent of taking all of humanity and saying "Ok, we all came from Africa 20,000 years ago; let's all head back! Times were simpler back then!" Maybe so, but going back now is a physical and logical impossibility.

Now, is our present-day divergence of interests necessarily a bad thing? No. I think it's entirely possible for all of us to peacefully coexist, and to have interesting discussions. Those discussions may never again unify all of us toward a common subject. But they don't have to. At this point we can either pine indefinitely for a past that is impossible to recapture, or we can try to forge ahead toward an interesting -- and, hopefully, no less compelling -- future.

Well said.

[Arrr]

if at any moment, you find yourself writing multiple paragraphs on the topic of "Why Nobody Else is Like Furor and Should Stop Trying":

GO OUTSIDE. It's a forum dedicated to a video game. Furor was a guy who sat in front of his computer playing video games. He's now a guy who makes video games for other people. He's a regular person, not a deity.

[foddon]

I think the real issue here is the shear amount of posts in MMO General, not necessarily the quality of the posts. The threads grow so quickly, it would be a full time job just to keep up. Yeah, there may be some people that post the same shit over and over, but the vast majority of posters are just fine. I really don't think it's an issue... Vanguard is just a real hot button that everyone seems to have an opinion on. Actually, it's not just Vanguard, it seems most threads here grow very quickly, Vanguard just seems to be the most extreme.

I don't think there really is, or should be a solution to this, but I think it has a lot to do with the perceived degradation of quality. It's just a lot harder to sift through all the (perfectly fine) commentary to find the truly meaningful posts from insiders, etc. As someone said before, this same kind of post comes up on every message board on the internet... I tire of seeing them as most of the time it's a situation like Millie described above, and really serves no purpose.

Also, I don't think anyone really has the right to complain unless they're contributing to the community in a significant way.

[Clowns]

Originally Posted by Servicon

Please for the love of god do not turn this clusterfuckery that is this thread into a EJ vs FoH or bashing one or the other. Just remove the very thought of that subject from your mind before you start typing.

No you did not waste a first post from 2002 on that, but nice try.

Anyway, I agree that the quality of the forums have dropped, but not because of the people who matter. Millie and the others who maintain the servers have done a kickass job handling the forum server loads and hardware. And yes, some of the early posters (dare i say '02ers) help keep things somewhat inline. However, as someone said, I truely believe the WoW ilk is what really happened and all we can do is adapt to it.

[Millie]

Originally Posted by Clowns

No you did not waste a first post from 2002 on that, but nice try.

Anyway, I agree that the quality of the forums have dropped, but not because of the people who matter. Millie and the others who maintain the servers have done a kickass job handling the forum server loads and hardware. And yes, some of the early posters (dare i say '02ers) help keep things somewhat inline. However, as someone said, I truely believe the WoW ilk is what really happened and all we can do is adapt to it.

While I sincerely appreciate the vote of confidence, I do not really deal with this site's hardware/server issues. That job falls mainly on Requiem's extremely capable shoulders, and he deserves (as they say) a "metric fuckton" of praise for holding this crazy ship together.

[Millie]

Originally Posted by James

If it were me I'd just open up registration for a bit (like 6ish months at least!) because fresh blood is always $$. I don't know what all the complaining is about, though, if reading shit on MMO General gets to you, go flame some n00b in Screenshots or the Rickshaw.

I tend to agree. I enjoy the new blood and the new perspectives. I imagine it's somewhat annoying to incoming '06ers/'07ers (Christ, I feel old) to receive the requisite "fucking '0Xers!" hazing they always seem to generate upon arrival. But at the same time, what the heck, that sort of thing has existed on message boards since Al Gore first invented the Intra-tubes. It's sort of a rite of passage at this point.

I don't think registration is going to be "opened up," per se; it'll probably always be some sort of admin-approval process. But I do enjoy new company, and I think that many of us secretly do as well (even if some of us are hesitant to admit it).

[Sinter1]

Originally Posted by Clowns

No you did not waste a first post from 2002 on that, but nice try.

Anyway, I agree that the quality of the forums have dropped, but not because of the people who matter. Millie and the others who maintain the servers have done a kickass job handling the forum server loads and hardware. And yes, some of the early posters (dare i say '02ers) help keep things somewhat inline. However, as someone said, I truely believe the WoW ilk is what really happened and all we can do is adapt to it.

Associating WoW ilk with someone who registered in '05 or '06 is being just plain ignorant however. We're not all WoW ilk. And trust me plenty of the '02ers post stupid shit as well. The quality has not gone down contrary to popular belief stop trying to convince yourself otherwise.

[Eomer]

I don't think registration is going to be "opened up," per se; it'll probably always be some sort of admin-approval process. But I do enjoy new company, and I think that many of us secretly do as well (even if some of us are hesitant to admit it).

Find us 8 more Wolfen's please. Sans flasher pics.

[Clowns]

Originally Posted by Sinter1

Associating WoW ilk with someone who registered in '05 or '06 is being just plain ignorant however. We're not all WoW ilk. And trust me plenty of the '02ers post stupid shit as well. The quality has not gone down contrary to popular belief stop trying to convince yourself otherwise.

I am trying to read where in that post did I say all 05/06ers were WoW ilk, I can't seem to find it. I do agree with you that some 02ers do post stupid crap, but most have been weeded out by now. I also agree that there are many great contributers to these forums which are 03-07ers and will probably continue thru 08. My previous post was not a blanket statement.