Our Big Brother Perfect World

captainconrad

Quoted from a post:

"We're sorry to see you go but remember if you ever decide to come back you can always do so since the game is Free to Play!

However, quit threads aren't allowed on the forums so as such this thread is closed."

I won't cite where this come from exactly, but let me be the first to say, ALL HAIL BIG BROTHER PWE!!!!!!! Clearly we are wrong to speak our minds about how we feel about this game. Clearly we are misguided to let out or frustration in hopes that maybe the Devs will make changes for the better. We money paying player now realize how lost and how wrong we are to say bad things to you. Let us now give thanks to PWE by buying more keys to open the holy grail (Lockboxes)! Let us no more be angry with what our Big Brother has for us. They have brought real improvement to Star Trek Online. As individual gamers, we complained and now that PWE is here our complaints our silenced and PWE can now pave the way for the future of our game without the horrible distractions and outcry from the wretched gaming community!:biggrin:

:mad:This post is now serious. I have no real words to convey. I have nothing further to say. I can't wait for the day when you raise the Lifer stipend from four hundred points to two-hundred, fifty. You have successfully killed my game. You have taken what we all loved and turned it into a product to feed all your other failed games. And do not tell me it's free. In order to fly a descent ship, you have to buy one from the store and in order to get one that can be wired almost completely indestructible, you have to play a lottery. This game was Star Trek once, but then you came along and made it "PWE Trek." I held out my hopes for you. That maybe this would work, but you have made this game turn from bad, to worse. If this game was free, then the C-Store wouldn't exsist and neither would your marketing schemes. I have held out my hopes for as long as I can, but posts like this are disgusting. In the original post, the poster gave a perfectly good reason why he was leaving. You forced his hand and he was telling you why, but instead you censor him. This type of control didn't exist in the Cryptic forums. This is what the Devs would look to to try and find out how to keep the community together, but of course you now have shown them they don't have to.

I wonder what this post will be labeled as. Trolling? Of course because my negative emotions about the game aren't allowed. I'll probably receive an email saying I'm banned from the forums too, right? Can't have this kind of dissidence in the community, right? Angry players like me must be silenced. Everyone is happy here at STO. Everyone loves PWE and those that don't are banned, right? Well I have news for you, we're not all happy and soon, you'll drive enough of us away to where there won't be an STO anymore. I'll be sad when that day comes, but I won't be surprised...

lotusteadragon

My only issue with the forum, now, is the Core thingy, some of the style sheet/buttons which still look terrible, and the lack of more personal avatar customization. My issues with the game are just that I'd like to see more content. Everything else is fine, in my opinion. Making threads where you (general you) rage quit are counter-productive. They don't accomplish anything. I get frustrated at the game, and at PWE sometimes, but that can be any MMO company. As much as I loved WoW, sometimes I'd get so frustrated at them I could bite nails in two. Am I a fan of PWE? No. I don't hate them, but I haven't known them long enough to trust them just yet. I love Cryptic, though, and I love the work they've tried to do here.

Also, I'm really looking forward to the +1 Sovereign, so... yeah.

cormoran

I'm yet to run into an MMOG forum that doesn't lock 'i quit' threads, this one included, since before PWE.

You can state your grievances without stating that you're quitting and still have that thread keep going, i do it quite a lot.

sabrevt1100

Yeah I saw that thread as well. Not sure that I took it as an "I Quit" post as much as it seemed a "vent" post. But I'm not a community mod so I don't get to make that decision. I wouldn't close em if I was running this board because in my opinion it does no harm. It's just someone's way of expressing their frustration. People can either choose to commiserate with the aggrieved individual, ignore them or laugh at them.

But again what do I know. I just know I miss my old forum name and my join date and the clean order of the forums that were.

captainconrad

I'm going to guess it's going to make the moderators angry, right. Well what do I do when your posts like the one mentioned make ME angry? What do I do when I see our very way of life being stripped away from us? We don't need community moderators. We moderated each other. Sure, things would get a little out of hand, but what do you think was a more effective method? A troll getting the wrath of the STO community, or a ban from the moderation department? I'll break them down like this:

Someone makes a Trolling post.
-Someone responds
-Trolling continues
-STO community jumps on this post
-STO community puts troll in place
-Troll ceases actions and deletes post or quits posting
Why?
Simple, the troll was introduced to the STO community in a way where he saw that the community wasn't going to stand for his actions. Common thought is that a troll will most likely continue posting. This is not true. A troll is not some machine that continues to troll no matter what you do. A troll can be put in their place or quieted when logic and reson overcome their desire to TRIBBLE people off. This troll then either goes away or adapts to the community and never posts a toll post again. I have seen this happen not only here, but on social networking sites as well

Now let's look at your way:

Someone makes a Trolling post (or what appears to be one. Have you ever considered that in some cases you guys could mistake someone's true feelings for a troll?)
-Someone responds
-Trolling (or not) continues
-STO community reports
-Post is deleted, troll (or innocent player) is banned for a little while
-More Troll posts arise
Why?
Because you have taken control and have created a state of fear. You are assuming that as moderators you know all and that no trolling will happen on this forum, even if it's at the expense of innocent players who are just frustrated and want some input from the community. This then causes more people to "Troll" post out of anger and yet causes people to leave the game because their voice that was once heard has been silenced.

I can understand if you feel moderation is necessary for abusive purposes, but isn't there a block player function to prevent that? Is this moderation really necessary? I think not. You said our community is mature enough to recognize trolling. If that were true, why is there a moderation department? And if people are going to post that they're quitting, is that such a bad thing? Do you really think others are going to quit because one person is doing so? No! They're going to quit for their own problems they may have and in come cases they are similar to other players, which can be used to your advantage to finding the pattern of quitters and figuring out a way to stop it

Anyway, this concludes my posts for the day, and probably the next three or four as well...

omnious728

"I Quit" threads have always been closed or locked. This isn't just a PWE thing.

Just saying.

eiledon

what can i say.. private company forum so not covered by freedom of speech (which actually only concerns government and legislatures restricting speech or personal liberty to express yourself), i.e they can censor and delete posts as they see fit without any explanation, they can remove access without redress.

feel free to create a blog and say what you like, write to gaming press, post on other gaming press websites as PWE do not have control over these but they can and are permitted to control how their own resources are utilised.

jkstocbr

What you describe is not new to STO sorry. Its been this way since the game launched (yes on the old forums). It's also very common on other MMO forums. Nothing to do with Big Brother.

captainconrad

Sure, eventually Cryptic cleaned out some posts after a few days, but they left them up so they could see how other people would react to them. They let the community handle things because we're all big boys and girls and can take care of ourselves.

Censoring someone for being vulgar and rude is one thing, but censoring someone for being legitimately angry at the game is going to backfire in a VERY bad way.

Yes, the First Amendment does not prevent them from censoring us. I was not implying that it should. But the old Cryptic didn't remove vent posts. They removed ones where people were being downright rude to other players. I don't entirely agree with that though. The community is totally capable of handling things and we have and when we did, 9/10 people got a clue and started being more civilized.

Cryptic knew that the power of the community was going to be the backbone of this game. They were constantly asking for our input and we gave it. We also took care of the trolls ourselves and even helped those who were angry.

But PWE has taken that away and hopefully sooner, rather than later, they'll realize that the player is key to making a good MMO.

mikewendell

Oh for the mute player button....

Sorry but 1) I think you;re making a big deal over certain players having poor manners and they;re being caught on it, 2) what you perceive as a policy change that really isn;t and 3) finding exception to what's considered to be normal forum behavior anyway.

scottf02

Haha, this was from my rant a couple days ago...And no, this is NOT only my second post on this forum. I was not able to merge accounts so I cannot access my old user name on the new forums...I was merely trying to bring to light the fact that I wasted so much money on this game that I could have purchased a bunch of cool parts for my car...:mad: All for nothing...

captainconrad

scottf02 wrote: »

Haha, this was from my rant a couple days ago...And no, this is NOT only my second post on this forum. I was not able to merge accounts so I cannot access my old user name on the new forums...I was merely trying to bring to light the fact that I wasted so much money on this game that I could have purchased a bunch of cool parts for my car...:mad: All for nothing...

His post was locked because it was taken as a quit post and they were WRONG!!!

Before I continue, I want to say, I'm sorry as a player that you've had this experience. I hope it gets resolved, because this could cause more problems for other players if it's not fixed.

This has been my overall point. There does not need to be moderation in the forums. I would agree that in the rare instance where someone spam posts, but really the community is capable of taking care of the forums with logic and reason. If we simply delete posts, we lose a valuable opportunity to maybe help someone with a problem and then we lose our communication skills with each other and thus forget the whole point of forums in the first place. Even trolls as I said can be turned from their trolling ways. Deleting troll posts is based off of the idea that once a troll, always a troll. This is NOT true and unfortunately if we leave it at total control, why do we even bother posting here?

Oh and for the mute player button, just don't read my posts if you don't like it. You're argument falls in on itself because clearly since you don't agree, then why post here? And As I've said, if those policies were there, why were those forums still open for posting? They weren't closed right away. I remember posting on several.

sovereignman

I hope this thread quits.

askray

I took it as an I quit thread since he said flat out he was quitting. These have never been allowed on the STO forums.

Also, discussing moderation is not allowed on the forums. If you have a complaint, you are more than welcome to file a ticket at http://support.perfectworld.com or email customersupport@perfectworld.com