The Final Forum Countdown II: US and EU merging

We know that both boards are hosted at USA.
We also know that devs give answers and fix things at daily basis using forum threads (instead of just /bug requests like us, that is one way communication only).

If you can't make devs to get interested about our discussions, you have to find a solution to this.

There is no technical excuse to not allow the merging (specially now that the new forum software is on it's way) so it have to be something else.


I think some things that can be used as excuses:

Moderation issues
We solved it at EU already, as a tri-lingual merged community, GhostRaptor, Kerensky and Palladium have moderating their own sections without any problems.

Posting to non-related sections
Either lift rights so we can't post on server we don't have access too, or leave it as it's here (no one can stop us posting at Zukunft section for example!)


Also one more suggestion: Stop using different themes for Heroes and Villains and stop having different sites for each language. I am sure that account settings can solve the language issue. Some posts have colors that don't look nice when they aren't visible on their original theme.

This has been gone over many times before, and the reason they can't is down to the SAME reason we can't access the US servers, and vice versa. NCSoft EU and NCSoft US are two seperate companies and are not allowed to share financial data between the two due to UK and European data protection laws.

Accessing the forum requires an account check to see if your account is valid. They cannot do that.

EDIT: Also, this belongs in Suggestions. In fact, it should really be a frequent suggestion by now, as it comes up regularly!

I can't suggest for the devs to read our discussions.
It is hilarious...

EDIT: Forum is already hosted at USA, so data is already available and the law is broken.

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EDIT: Forum is already hosted at USA, so data is already available and the law is broken.

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No it isn't. The forum may be hosted in the US, this is true; but NCSoft US are not able to access the EU accounts database. Hell, half the UK government websites are hosted in the US. Geographical location of the data itself is irrelevant. Who can access it, is.

While i am all for Server merging forum merging is a big no no in my opinion.Would break community hardcore style and any sense of community that exists atm would be broken down to individual server forums and vanish.

People that wanna get extra info through US forums already manage that anyways.As for communicating with devs bug reports reach their destination anyways.

My 5c

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EDIT: Forum is already hosted at USA, so data is already available and the law is broken.

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Besides which there's no reason why NCSoft Europe and NCSoft Europe couldn't have a list of cleared-for-access forum accounts which can be used by to grant access to a shared forum. Game account data wouldn't enter into it as the list would only be indirectly derived from it.

I suspect forum access is managed this way anyway (without the sharing) given that you can be banned from the forum while your game account is still running.

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As for communicating with devs bug reports reach their destination anyways.

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Then why there are threads like this and people don't just fill in bug reports?

We actually discussed the possibility of merging the forums earlier this year. At the time, and this is still the case now, we decided that the known disadvantages (technical, social, and targeted information sharing amongst other things) outweighed the potential advantages.

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EDIT: Forum is already hosted at USA, so data is already available and the law is broken.

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No it isn't. The forum may be hosted in the US, this is true; but NCSoft US are not able to access the EU accounts database.

[/ QUOTE ]Forum not hosted at NCNC datacenter with no access by them is just a speculation, just like we speculating that Tuesday's and Friday's maintenance is run from EU people...

Ahh. That covered me GR.
Tough for me but can't do much.

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As for communicating with devs bug reports reach their destination anyways.

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Then why there are threads like this and people don't just fill in bug reports?

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Doesnt say anything to be honest.A simple bug report would work as well unless Support and QA are [censored].Only difference is that by posting it on the forum you get the chance to get the Bughunter badge.

Also people dont just fill bug reports because for some people getting a red name to post in their thread or converse with one is the equivelant of getting Lara Croft naked in their bed.

The result of posting a bug on the forum and just bug report something is the same.

For me the community impact for such a thing would be huge and would just make EU community vanish within US one.

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Doesnt say anything to be honest.A simple bug report would work as well unless Support and QA are [censored].Only difference is that by posting it on the forum you get the chance to get the Bughunter badge.

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Posting serious game-breaking bugs at public place is unethical and wrong, badge or no badge.
It should be dealt only with /bug reporting.

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Doesnt say anything to be honest.A simple bug report would work as well unless Support and QA are [censored].Only difference is that by posting it on the forum you get the chance to get the Bughunter badge.

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Posting game-breaking bugs at public place is unethical and wrong, badge or no badge.
It should be dealt only with /bug reporting.

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Ok and your point is?Because i am not the one that linked this thread as supportive evidence that forum threads reporting bugs are increased means of communication between the devs and community.

Also an animation with combat log desync is not game breaking.As far as Exploits goes afaik the policy for most MMO's is not to post how to reproduce the exploit.

You're kidding, right? Check again the second clause of the quoted part of your post:[ QUOTE ]
Only difference is that by posting it on the forum you get the chance to get the Bughunter badge.

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The link at my older post isn't about a serious game-breaking bug.
I am talking about those that are so serious that count for earning that badge.

Anyway, I am watching the devs commenting daily user posts and I thought that it's unfair, I don't want to sound ungrateful but I felt like the EU community is not taken seriously by them, that's why I posted this as "sequel" to the (now locked) "The Final Forum Countdown" thread at General discussion...

would be a good idea

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You're kidding, right?

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I am not kidding.Apparently its not so unethical as you think.

To save you the trouble from reading 20 pages this is a bug that was posted,discussed and researched for a while prior to i12 launch and involved a SERIOUS bug that allowed you to know exactly which mobs would produce what drops.Further more you could manipulate the drops using supergroup mode.

Small example was farming Tavish Bell mission was possible to farm within 6 seconds 2 salvage drops and 1 recipe perma allowing you to farm insane amounts of rare salvage and recipes.

The point is that forum merge doesnt improve communication enough to justify it.In fact it breaks stuff more.

I don't want to merge.

I don't mind either way, but a fair few won't like it.
I can liken it to a beaver or cub moving up to the next section - going from being a big fish in a small pool to a small fish in a much bigger pool.
A daunting prospect.

Plus the fact that the majority of the moderating would eventually be done over in the US, do you think that all of the EU moderating team would be kept?

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Plus the fact that the majority of the moderating would eventually be done over in the US, do you think that all of the EU moderating team would be kept?

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Given that we're not a moderating team and that moderation is only a partial element of our jobs, nothing would change in terms of staffing within the community team .

blessed relief

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Plus the fact that the majority of the moderating would eventually be done over in the US, do you think that all of the EU moderating team would be kept?

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Given that we're not a moderating team and that moderation is only a partial element of our jobs, nothing would change in terms of staffing within the community team .

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So... If you're not moderating the forums most of the time, what DO you guys do all day? I mean, the website isn't getting many updates lately, and we've not had any official events, other than a few exhibitions, in aaaages (and doesn't Rockjaw sort them out?)... So what else do you lot do all day?

Oh but they are moderating!
I've made a "response test" post yesterday and GR phased it out of universe within seconds.

He is good I am telling you!

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I don't want to merge.

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I don't want forums to merge either, or the EU community WELL BE GONE TO THE AMERICANS!!!!!!!

I also don't want to merge. And I'm unanimous on that.

one ting you gotta know is that, if they merge the forum, they also have to ether merge the US and EU server or put every update live at the same time.