xander wrote:Hmuda wrote:MarvintheParanoidAndroid wrote:Ooh, except for the fact that thanks to Steam, IV Software's work is being exposed to a HUGE playerbase... that can't be bad now, can it?
Well, it certeanly is good (and I mean GOOOOOD) for sales, but bad (and I mean BAAAAAAD) for the community in the long run.
I know it from personal experience. I'm a moderator on one of the biggest Hungarian forum and I can tell: "The more is not always the merrier."
Meh, we had our influx of Steam users when Darwinia hit Steam. Things really haven't changed around here that much. IV were deperate for money before Darwinia came out on Steam. Afterwords, they seem to be doing fine. I don't see how it is bad for the community... would you care to elaborate?
But of course. I've been experiencing this thing a lot.
At first that forum I'm talking about was just a backwater message board for a few people. We understood each other and helped whenever we could. We had about 200-300 people. There were no need for moderators as everyone knew their palce and didn't need any rules because we knew how to behave. It was pretty much how the IV forums are now.
And then it started to grow, more and more people came and right now we have more than 150.000 registered users. But of course that's only the registered usernames. There are thousands of them that are multiregs, stalkers or leavers. I'd say we have about 25.000 regular visitors. Now not a day goes by that the little group of moderators doesn't have to delete around half of the newly opened threads and delete an enormous amount of trolling mesasges.
Now I know IV boards will most probably never have this much visitors, but still, if more people will start pouring in problems will pop their evil heads up and we can do nothing to prevent it.
First will come those who cannot use the search function, and as we all know, that already started. Most of us will instinctly start bashing these poor fellows. Then will come those who do this on purpose and other things that only aimed to destroy the community. These type of users are called "Trolls". And I can guarantee one thing for sure:
The more numerous we are, the more chance that trolls will start comming in. They won't stop at rampaging on the boards, and they will play the game too.
The only consoling tought is that the type of game Defcon and the other IV games are, well these types require thinking. Trolls aren't really good at that, I can tell you that. They will fall out of the community either by being ignored (best solution) or being banned (they might come back with a multireg, and I know from experience that most of them WILL come back), or being IP banned (but that's very rare).
I've been a member of many communities. the Hungarian SG.hu I was talking about, the Lionhead boards, Elixir Studios boards...I could go on. If those moderate sized forums are crawling with trolls, than if the numbers here start to grow, than we will have a few of them too.
Now that's what I meant by saying: "bad (and I mean BAAAAAAD) for the community in the long run"
I'm pro-steam, and I don't know why everyone hates it, it has a few problems that cant be helped with a key-identification online-verification software.
