Why does EVERY thread which isnt a glowing review about freelanecer get locked.......

    At the risk of being accused of toady-ism or wotnot (I assure you I am not) I can honestly say I have only seen threads closed due to the obvious deterioration (sp?) of the topic, or have gone off topic completely. I had a thread of my own closed yesterday because it was hijacked by a numpty who had also hijacked other threads with almost the exact same responses. He may have had a case considering some of the ´quick´ <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> responses he received, but he didn´t go about expressing himself very well unfortunately, and things went downhill pretty quickly. The mods here appear well versed in this type of downhill crap race, and they have managed to maintain a friendly atmosphere, no mean feat considering how little people consider others feelings when posting. The geezer who hijacked my thread started throwing insults at me, for what reason I have no idea, and I´m glad the thread was locked. But I can guarantee that he would not have made those claims to my face. These forums offer a great deal of anonymity and it´s easy to get carried away, but there are people (yes REAL people) on the other end of that computer screen, with REAL feelings. They aren´t just a bunch of &quot;Call me Trent&quot;´s <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> &lt;sig deleted by automatic censor&gt; Edited by - Chillum on 25-02-2003 15:56:54

    I agree with Vagabond and disagree with the logic that a fan site forum should disallow criticism of the game it supports. While I say go nuts and lock posts that slam the game in an inflammatory manner, I don´t see the harm in intelligent, constructive criticism. Otherwise, you get the equivalent of two guys saying to each other, &quot;You rock!&quot; &quot;No, you rock, man!!&quot; &quot;No way, you definite rock more!!!&quot;

    As Bargib said, this is a fan site. Fans come here because the like the game. If you hate the game or wanna bash it, go make a freelancer hate site. <img src=´http://webhome.idirect.com/~azon/dragg.jpg ´>

    "And somewhere at the bottom he fell into darkness. That much he knew. He had fallen into darkness. And at the instant he knew, he ceased to know". Martin Edin, Jack London

    It is a fan site, but they´ve offered this site as a place of information for a game they want to support, I assume to help get the word out about Freelancer. So people are coming here looking to get some info about Freelancer, possibly to make a purchasing decision. Now technically it´s still a fansite that owes non-fans absolutely nothing. But why not allow constructive, intelligent criticism? It creates, hopefully, a more well-informed and potentially more satisfied fanbase while possibly offering feedback to DA for future titles. That being said, I played the demo for while last night and feel that we finally have a worthy successor to privateer.

    Simple. As with all sites there is a bias. Majority wins, hell majority always wins even if they are wrong, especialy if mods agree with the majority. This happens on every forum, and every disccusion all over the world. All you can do is say I told you so later when they are proven wrong. Spam Microsoft/DA with you comments untill they ban your email., oh and don´t buy the product. See not so hard( lol bet you buy it anyway). Everybody here knows there is a hell of a lot to hate about this game, but becuase they are die heart fans (shown by the years of waiting) they will say everything produced by the D.A. gods is gold, and anybody who says &quot;thats wrong&quot; will be shot, or in this case flamed.. Edited by - razar on 25-02-2003 17:19:45

    No, I ROCK more!.....errr, sorry. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> I´ve not seen any threads locked that hadn´t run it´s constructive course. There has been no attempt to supress negative VALID points in any of TLR forums, but what I have seen is a complete lack of tact and ability to debate by many of the threads that were closed. Stating your opinion as if it is FACT basicly just points you out as a possible A-Hole canidate.

    Please don´t act so surprised when a thread is being closed which had such content that it couldn´t be more obvious and clear that it HAD to be closed. Whining and bickering about it isn´t going to bring back your thread, nor will it help anyone. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_disapprove.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Edited by - Eraser on 25-02-2003 17:24:26

    The reason I´ve locked threads recently are these: Trolls plugging other games General comments of &quot;Freelancer Sucks&quot; with no redeeming arguments flaming and bashing Topic lost or played out and thread became spam I´ve also moved many threads to more appropriate forums, espcecially spoilers. I keep a close eye on spoilers because the game hasn´t been released and I don´t want people to inadvertantly hit a spoiler without going to the spoiler forum. There have been several games I´ve bought in the last year or so which haven´t exactly turned me on. I´ll go to the fansites and forums for those games maybe to see what I´m missing, and see if others are having the same issues. It´s not appropriate for me to give a scathing negative review because, frankly, noboby will really give a damn about it, and it just provokes anger. I guess it´s like going to someone´s house for the first time and telling the owners the furniture is ugly and the dog smells. Maybe it´s true, but common courtesy says don´t do that. In reading through the forums today (I have a cold so I´m home from work) I´ve seen equally negative thoughts about the story being too long, too short, too involving, not involving enough, not enough to do, too much stuff to find, not enough places to land, too many places to find, not enough NPC interaction, too much NPC dialogue, ad infinito. Simple fact is that this, as just about any wide release game, is made for a large market, and won´t have everyone´s particular peeve covered. There was more user testing in this game´s production than any I´ve known. I know this because I went to Austin and talked with the developers, and while sitting in the multiplayer test lab next to Phil and across from Jorg, we discussed how many types and times of testing had been done. And, what was I doing there? Helping to test gameplay. A simple quote from the devs is that more of this game is on &quot;the cutting room floor&quot; than in the game. This was done to promote user experience, often at the expense of some dramatic enhancement that for some reason just &quot;didn´t work&quot;. So, when the kiddies come in and troll the boards here, we´re going to lock the threads, and Bargib will eventually give them the heave-ho. Well worded, intelligent posts expressing some sort of dissatisfaction will be address with well worded, intelligent answers. So, we´re not locking every thread that isn´t a glowing review of the game, just the stupid ones. Often a thread will deteriorate from original poster´s thoughts, and I always feel bad on those, but running a tight ship here isn´t about suppression, it´s about keeping the site informative and friendly. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- <b> The Next Thing I Say To You Will Be True The Last Thing I Said Was False </b> Edited by - Boscoe on 25-02-2003 17:40:41

    -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- The Next Thing I Say To You Will Be True The Last Thing I Said Was False

    And you totally right, this site is just a marketing site for MS and DA. the fact that they cant accept that the game has some cons that spoiled it, is fact of where they stand.

    as vagabond said &quot;Sincere discussion about the pros and cons of a game should be encouraged. If the members begin to get the impression that this site is nothing more than an extension of the marketing arm of Microsoft or Digital Anvil, then credibility in the information presented by the site´s staff may lose credibility.&quot; in some cases this does seem to be stifled, but it has to be said this is the least flamed board i´ve ever seen, probably due to the sevre modding, whilst it may limit proper discussion, it does serve to stop stuppid flamming very effectivly as trolls like me rapidly get bored and leave <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

    Well, the moderators definitely seem very cool. I have come across fansites where anything you say that can conceivably be construed as negative is removed from the board and the user banned, whether or not it was presented maturely and without intent to offend. As a side note, I think anyone that hates a game then gets online and goes to a fansite of the game just to flame needs to get a life. I´m here because I think the game will be excellent as a whole with a few flaws. But it´s a game so it´s going to have them, and from what I´ve seen so far the pluses greatly outnumber the minuses.

    I can state categorically that not all forums that allow wide-ranging discussion, degenerate into flamewars. The reason I can say this is that I am one of the lead moderators at http://www.lucasforums.com, and we let people discuss anything they want, with a small bullet-list of guidelines: 1. The topic must be in the appropriate forum (or it gets moved). 2. No attacking or insulting of other forum members (or the post gets deleted/edited; repeated offenses result in banning). 3. No offensive, hurtful, or meaningless topics (such as how how the Nazis were right, rape is cool, or let´s see how many exclamation points we can post; these threads get locked). Debate - heated debate - is encouraged, especially where it involves any aspect to one of our covered games. We make every attempt to leave threads unlocked, and simply delete junk posts. There are, unfortunately, some threads that need to be locked or even removed, because they simply have no redeeming value whatsoever, but that is very rare. We are continually commended on the way our forums are run, the information people find there, and above all, about the friendly community that we have. People know they can talk straight and get honest information (while conforming to the guildelines mentioned above). Having said all that, it seems that the moderators here are doing a good job, for the most part, in my opinion - for what that´s worth. The only suggestion I would make, again, is to make every attempt to be tolerant of less-than-glowing comments about the game. Once people know they can trust the content in the forums, they´ll keep coming back. Not that anyone offered me a penny for my thoughts, but there´s my two cents anyway...keep the change. Edited by - Vagabond on 26-02-2003 02:27:05

    With all that has been said in this thread, especially betwen the posts of Boscoe and Vagabond, I guess we all agree then <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> So as to not drag this discussion to death, I´ll lock it... Best Regards Christian &quot;Bargib&quot; Koerner Editor in Chief, <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org´ Target=_Blank>The Lancers Reactor</a>