Updated Forum Rules and Proposed Forum Changes

We're going to be updating the Forum Rules and Regulations Prior to the Launch of City of Heroes Freedom.

Below you will find these updated rules. You will notice that there have been some changes to some areas of the rules, as well as the inclusion of some policies which had previously lived in stickied threads (as a result we will be removing several stickied rule threads.

Another concern we're looking to address is forum bloat. The concern is that we have too many different forums on the COH message boards. As such we are currently considering consolidating and removing some forums. Examples would be:

The current Archetype and Powers forums can seem very intimidating to a new user/some current users. In some cases these forums also are not the most active. A tactic I have found to be successful in the past is to group these forums into playstyle or role type, transferring over the most relevant and current posts. The division would go something like this:

- Tanks: Brutes and Tankers
- Ranged DPS: Blasters, Corrupters and Dominators (Doms could also go under support)
- Support: Controllers, Defenders and Masterminds
- Melee DPS: Stalkers and Scrappers
- HEATs and VEATs: Peacebringer, Warshade, Soldier, Widow
- Build Sharing/Critique

AT specific guides would go in the correct role type/playstyle forum

We would like to hear your suggestions for other forums which may be ripe for pruning.

Thanks!

-Z

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Message Forum Rules and Regulations
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Welcome to the Official City of Heroes Freedom™ Forum! We hope you enjoy your time here discussing the game and getting to know your fellow gamers.

The primary function of this forum is to provide an area for constructive player interaction and also to submit feedback to the development and publishing teams behind City of Heroes.

Please keep in mind that this is a board solely dedicated to City of Heroes Freedom. We would like to keep this board City of Heroes Freedom specific, and therefore encourage you to visit other message boards available on the Internet should you wish to participate in non-game or other game related discussions.

We have created the following list of forum rules and regulations to keep this an enjoyable environment for us all. Violations of these rules may result in action taken on a user’s account.

The following are the Rules and Regulations of the Official City of Heroes Freedom Forum.

1. You must have a City of Heroes Freedom VIP game account to access full posting privileges on our forums.

Official City of Heroes Freedom Forum accounts are linked to a valid City of Heroes Freedom game account. Players whose game account(s) have been suspended or banned from the game will not be able to post on the forums. As such, users are responsible for following the forum Rules and Regulations, the City of Heroes User Agreement (North American and European), and the Rules of Conduct (North American and European) agreed upon when entering the game. Users who are suspended from the message boards may be subject to having their game account(s) reviewed and could face further action pending said review.

2. Abuse and disrespectful behavior are not tolerated.

In the due course of discussion, occasionally conflicts may arise. We ask that all users please be courteous when disagreeing with others. Debating an opinion is acceptable, however criticism and/or disrespectful commentary directed at an individual is inappropriate. Disrespect can be defined as flaming, trolling, harassing, profanity, abusive language (including abbreviations), personal attacks, racial, religious, ethnic, sexual slurs, or similar behavior/language.

The above applies to any interaction on the City of Heroes Freedom official forums including, but not limited to: any discussion threads, private messages, visitor messages on user profiles, reputation comments, user signatures, images, or digital media, and calendar notes.

• Flaming is defined as posts which are designed to personally berate or insult another user.
• Trolling is defined as deliberately posting derogatory or inflammatory comments/threads in order to provoke other users into negatively responding. Trolling or accusing someone of being a troll is also a form of trolling and is not permitted.
• Posts similar to “Moderator Notified” or “Needs thread lock” are discouraged, as these types of posts are a form of trolling. If a thread is in violation of the forum rules, use the notify moderator button or PM a moderator directly.

3. No posting of personal information

Please respect the privacy of other City of Heroes Freedom players and do not share personal information such as phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, in-game global handles of other players, etc.

4. Private communication between Customer Support, NC Interactive Inc., Paragon Studios, NCsoft Europe Ltd., (“NCsoft”) members, moderators and administrators of the forum and the forum users is not to be made public on these forums or by any other venue.

You are not permitted to publicize any private correspondence (including petitions, email or PM correspondence, in game chat logs, etc.) received from any of the aforementioned without direct permission. As such, warnings, your character name being changed, and bans are not to be discussed on the forum. Such matters shall remain private between NCsoft and/or Paragon Studios and the user. Questions or comments concerning warnings and bans will be conveyed through e-mail or private messaging. Likewise, discussions regarding moderator actions are not permitted on the forum. If you have questions regarding a post or thread that has been removed or subject to other moderation, feel free to contact a moderator to discuss them.

5. Non-Constructive posts are prohibited.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of examples of non-constructive posts.

• Spam - this is considered to be repetitive posting of the same topic or text or nonsensical posts that have no substance.
• Thread bumping (posts the sole purpose of which is to keep a thread at the top of a particular forum) is prohibited. To request increased visibility for a thread, please contact a forum moderator.
• Posts made in brevity that do not add to the conversation are not allowed, as they do not engender constructive discussion. Examples include, but are not limited to, "/signed," and “/jranger.” Users are encouraged to be elaborate in their posts.
• Do not create threads/posts to “petition” for game features, additions, changes, or other issues. You may post suggestions and/or ideas to the boards, but you may not create a ‘petition’ for others to sign. This is bumping in disguise and will not be allowed.
• Do not engage in Lobbying on the Official Forums. Lobbying is continually bringing up the same topic repeatedly in numerous different threads or as an off-topic post in official threads to get developer attention. This form of posting is not permitted. We recognize you may be passionate about a specific subject, however this sort of posting is non-constructive and will not be tolerated.
• Pyramid quoting - this is a response to a forum thread which contains the quotes of four or more previous posters, sometimes with additional spaces added unnecessarily.
• Cross posting - As a courtesy to others before beginning a new thread, please look to see if an active thread on that topic has already been established using the Search feature. If so, place your comments there instead. Multiple threads on the same subject clutter up the forum needlessly and many good ideas may be lost. Use the Search link to keep discussions about one topic to one thread only.
• Contradictive feedback can be very useful, provided that it is presented in a civil, factual manner. Tell us what you don't like and why and how you feel it could be improved. Posts that are insulting and rude may be deleted, no matter how valid the ideas behind them may be.
• A rant is a post which is long-winded, redundant and filled with angry, non-constructive comments. A free exchange of ideas is essential to building a strong sense of community and helpful in the development of the game, but rants are disruptive and incite flaming and trolling. Please post your thoughts in a concise, clear manner and avoid going off on rambling tangents.
• Constructive feedback on in-game mechanics is encouraged; however, non-constructive, “NERF X!” threads are not permissible.
• We understand that, from time-to-time, players may decide leave the game for various reasons, and may wish to create a departure thread on the forum. Departure threads are permitted on the server forums only, provided that the departure thread is non-inflammatory. Departure threads used to vent are prohibited.
• ‘Thread necromancy,’ or ‘necro-posting’ is responding to a thread that has not been active (has had no posts) in at least 30 days. ‘Necro-posting’ is a form of thread ‘bumping’ and as such is prohibited. If you wish to discuss a considerably older topic, create a new post and link to the older discussion.
• If you ask a question on the board, be aware that questions on our boards are most commonly answered by the community. Demands for answers from NCsoft are not permitted, however we may often address some questions and concerns with an official topic. In the event of legitimate emergencies, or other unprecedented scenarios, we will endeavor to provide comments, even if it is only to state that there is no officially available information.

6. Do not post about exploits.

Exploits should be reported through the proper method by filing a report at the NCsoft Support page (North American and European). Issues discovered while playing on the Training Room test servers should be noted in the Training Room forums. Discussions about unverified problems in the game can cause unnecessary panic in the community. If you feel that something may be an exploit, please send a Personal Message on the Official City of Heroes Freedom Forum to a member of the Paragon Studios moderation team. When there is an issue the community needs to be aware of, we will make an official statement about it.

7. Inappropriate and Off-Topic Content

The City of Heroes Freedom forums are primarily for discussion of City of Heroes Freedom. However, we do allow a wider a variety of non-disruptive, off-topic discussion in the Comic and Hero/Villain Culture forum, and on server forums. In order to provide a safe and constructive environment for all of our forum members, certain topics of discussion are not allowed on the Official City of Heroes Freedom Forum. City of Heroes Freedom is rated T for Teen, and this rating extends to our forums. Some examples of topics which are prohibited to discuss on the Official City of Heroes Freedom Forum include, but are not limited to:

• Political discussion
• Religious discussion
• Inappropriate discussion of the aesthetics of the human form, subject to moderator discretion
• Real world topics including current world events and sensitive historical events
• dedicated discussion of video games other than City of Heroes Freedom and/or limited discussion of other NCsoft products, including posts that compare and/or contrast City of Heroes Freedom with other games

8. You may not post advertisements.

Advertising on these forums is prohibited, specifically posts that advertise a transaction for real money or any posts that discuss an action prohibited by the User Agreement (North American and European). Also forbidden are posts attempting to recruit others into online contests and/or ventures unless specifically allowed by NCsoft and Paragon Studios. For player-run online contests and/or ventures seeking support from Paragon Studios, please contact the Paragon Community Team.

9. Avoid using profanity.

City of Heroes Freedom is rated T for Teen. As such, profanity in any form is prohibited. Using any means to bypass the profanity filter (for example: partial masking, such as asterisks or punctuation marks) is prohibited. This rule also includes any images displayed on the forums, or any pages directly linked to from the forums.

10. No proxy posting; no account hopping to evade suspension.

Posting on behalf of a suspended user is not allowed. Working around a suspension or ban through other people’s accounts, or secondary accounts to continue posting is also prohibited and may incur an extension of a current suspension, or result in a user’s account being banned. Users are personally responsible for their conduct on the forums. If a user creates a new account to continue posting because another account was suspended or banned, any forum and/or game accounts involved will be banned. Forum and/or game suspensions and/or bans apply to a person, not specifically an account. Threads designed to announce, appeal or contest a forum or game suspension and/or banning decision on behalf of a third party will also be removed without notice.

11. No Legal Action threads.

Using the forums or PMs for encouraging, promoting, endorsing, or inciting any kind of legal action against anyone is strictly prohibited. Such content will be removed, and the author's posting privileges may be revoked as a result.

12. Official Threads

Official threads are a thread started by a Paragon Studios/NCsoft representative for the discussion of a specific topic. These may have special instructions in the original post. Please review the original post and follow any instructions given. Furthermore, if there is an Official Thread about a topic, please do not post other threads about this topic. Instead, post your comments only in the official thread.

13. Posting Sensitive Information covered by a Non-disclosure Agreement (NDA) or Beta Testing Agreement.

Please do not post any information on the Official City of Heroes Freedom Forum that refers to or is information covered by another product’s NDA or any other NDA or is proprietary information of any party. Any information about a game or third party covered by an NDA or Beta Testing Agreement that is posted will be removed and the poster may be banned from the forum. Furthermore - if the post(s) relates to an NCsoft product still subject to NDA, the post(s) will be removed, and the user’s account of the NCsoft product of which the NDA was violated may be closed.

14. Posting Content Viewed from Pigg Files

Posting or directly/indirectly linking content viewed from pigg files, or posting instructions on how to view content determined to be extracted from pigg files, including, but not limited to, screenshots, sounds, videos, and text, is a direct violation of the City of Heroes Freedom End User License Agreement. Any posted content determined to be extracted from the pigg files will be removed, and the user’s forum account may be suspended or banned. In addition, action may be taken on a user’s City of Heroes Freedom game account as pigg viewer programs and / or pigg file modifications are expressly prohibited by the End User License Agreement.

15. Player Generated Content

We do not host screenshots, signature images, or other images on this message board. Users are permitted to link to hosted images, as long as they are of an appropriate and non-offensive nature and do not otherwise infringe the intellectual property rights of any party, and fall within forum guidelines. Below is a list of examples including, but not limited to, what is not permitted:

• Images which are: sexually explicit; harmful; threatening; abusive; defamatory; obscene; hateful; racially, sexually, or ethnically offensive; obscene or contain vulgar language; images that illustrate/show illegal activity: images that do not conform to the appropriate ESRB, PEGI, USK ratings.
• Avatar icons are allowed as long as the images are below 20kb in size. Avatars that are overly annoying, disruptive or in the Paragon Studios moderation staff’s sole discretion found to be in poor taste will be removed.
• Links to images that are inappropriate will be removed, and the user’s posting privileges may be suspended or revoked.
• Words that would be censored by our profanity filter are not allowed in images.
• Images that are defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or offensive on the basis of sexual identity, gender, and/or sexual orientation
• Copyrighted, proprietary images, trademarks as well as images that do not belong to you (i.e. photographs or artwork which are used without permission of the creator) are also forbidden.
• Signature Images are limited to 600x120 pixels AND must be less than 150kb

16. Zero Tolerance Policy

Immediate suspension and/or bans from the forum can result from posting any of the following:

• pornography
• discriminatory remarks--remarks which are sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or offensive on the basis of sexual identity, gender, or sexual orientation
• excessive obscene or vulgar language
• posts which discuss or illustrate illegal activity; providing links to sites that contain any of the aforementioned
• impersonating another forum user, moderator, volunteer, administrator, Paragon Studios employee or NCsoft employee
• false obituary threads; knowingly posting false news of a player’s real-life death may result in a ban of both your forum account and your game account.

17. Proprietary forums

The Official City of Heroes Freedom forums are private message forums administered by NCsoft and Paragon Studios. All message board content is allowed at the discretion of NCsoft. NCsoft reserves the right to remove any message board content at will without notice for any reason at its sole discretion.

18. Copyright

We will respond to clear notices of alleged copyright, trade mark or other intellectual property rights infringement. For more information, please visit our Copyright page.

19. Suspension and Termination

NCsoft shall determine, in its sole discretion, whether there has been a breach of these Rules and Regulations. When a breach of these Rules and Regulations has occurred, NCsoft may take such action as it deems appropriate.

• Failure to comply with these Rules and Regulations shall constitute a material breach of the City of Heroes User Agreement (North American and European) and Rules of Conduct (North American and European) upon which you are permitted to use the forum, and may result in NCsoft taking all or any of the following actions:
• Immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your NCsoft account and/or right to use the forum;
• Immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any posting or material uploaded by you to the forum;
• Modify any posting or material uploaded by you to the forum;
• Issue of a warning to you by NCsoft;
• Legal proceedings against you for reimbursement of all costs on an indemnity basis (including, but not limited to, reasonable administrative and legal costs) resulting from the breach;
• Further legal action against you;
• Disclosure of such information to law enforcement authorities as NCsoft reasonably feels is necessary.

NCsoft excludes its liability for: (a) any action taken in response to breaches of these Rules and Regulations. The responses described in these Rules and are not limited, and NCsoft may take any other action it, in its sole discretion, deems appropriate; (b) any loss or damage arising from the use of the forum by you; (c) any content posted or uploaded by users of the forum which shall include, without limitation, any liability for offensive and/or defamatory posts.

20. Changes to these Rules and Regulations

NCsoft may revise these Rules and Regulations at any time by amending this page. You are expected to check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes NCsoft makes, as they are legally binding on you. Some of the provisions contained in these Rules and Regulations may also be superseded by provisions or notices published elsewhere on the NCsoft site.

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Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios

Suggestion for other forum pruning: the PVP sections could be mashed together and maybe moved to Player Help.

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Guardian server is Life!

Founder and Leader and all around greatest member of the Solo-SG, The Charybdis Clan.

Here's my suggestion:

DO NOT MERGE THE ARCHETYPE FORUMS.

I'm sorry, but your pigeonholing archetypes and merging these forums together will just create an unreadable mess where we, as forum posters and readers, CANNOT find the information we're looking for.

Seriously. "I'm playing a Dominator. I should look for the Dominator forum" is not a hard thing to grasp.

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I find it hilarious that the fan-made/supported mids is big enough to warrant its own forum area.

That aside, the merging of archetypes leaves much to be desired. Dominators are not ranged damage, they are an amalgam of control/melee/ranged/AoE. Kheldians are absolutely different from Arachnos soldiers. A common mantra of many in the brute area is 'brutes aren't tanks.' Masterminds are leagues apart in game play style from defenders.

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Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes

My Characters
CoX Chatlog Parser
Last.fm Feed

Please do not merge the AT forums. Discussions specific to one AT really have very little to do most times with other ATs, even when they have role crossover and similar powersets.

The existing AT forums are used to discuss matters or questions often very specific to those ATs. In either looking for information or questions to answer about, say, Scrappers, I would very much not appreciate having to search through through posts for other ATs.

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Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

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Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes

My Characters
CoX Chatlog Parser
Last.fm Feed

Leave the archetype forums alone!

Until you remove archetypes in favor of "playstyle" powersets, leave the forums as is so people can find specific information, especially considering how poor the search function on these forums is already.

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"Life is what happens when you are making other plans"

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Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

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Major James Ashe

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Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios

While I recognize that there are a lot of sub-forums, I don't think it would be worth the effort to removed/consolidate any of them. We can already collapse the sections we don't look at - I have ATs & Powers and PVP collapsed all the time, unless I need something specific, and would do the same with Servers if it wasn't at the bottom of the list. The smallest subforum out there still has more than 100 threads and roughly 1500 posts.

I will say that a lot of forums need to be pruned of outdated stickies and such, though.

Edit: FPARN!

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Merging the AT forums will over complicate matters while forcing a jumbled mess within each category. Please do not do this.


Thanks

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"Mastermind Pets operate...differently, and aren't as easily fixed. Especially the Bruiser. I want to take him out behind the woodshed and pull an "old yeller" on him at times." - Castle

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@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff

I honestly think that merging the AT forums would make things more complicated for the new user, not more simplified.

As it is, those divisions are straight-forward and simple.
Merge them and it becomes a guessing game as to where what belongs and so on.
I completely understand the desire to compress things, but that particular method seems like a wrong move to me.

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I really find it hard to believe that merging the AT forums is solving a problem, at least from a user perspective. Rather I'd say merging will cause more confusion. The red-name OP wasn't even certain if Doms should be categorized as ranged damage or support (doubly confusing since many Doms do their damage in melee), how can a newbie?

Keep them distinct.

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Global = Hedgefund (or some derivation thereof)

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@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff

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Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios

Zwill, i have a suggestion about the AT forums. I too am someone that gets lost in the AT forums as it is, so merging them based on damage type would make it ungodly hard to find things. On top of that, with merged AT forums, we're going to run into even MORE bloat as people will be creating thread after thread about the same topics because they won't be able to find what they are looking for.

So my suggestion:

Keep the individual forums, just remove them from visibility and use top-tier links based on the ingame Damage type selection.

As I've got some experience with vBulletin, I know that you can make forum categories that do not have the "child" forums visible until you click on the "parent" category. Doing this will remove the front page bloat.

Example:

Make the following parent category links available on the Main Page:

Tank
Melee Damage
Ranged Damage
Crowd Control
Support
Pets

From there, when people click on any of the parent categories, the page they will automatically get taken to will list the sub-forums based on the AT that belongs to that parent category. You will get this:

Tank (parent category)
--Tanker (sub-forum)
--Peacebringer (sub-forum)
--Warshade (sub-forum)
--Brute (sub-forum)

Melee Damage (parent category)
--Scrapper (sub-forum)
--Brute (sub-forum)
--Stalker (sub-forum)
--Arachnos Widow (sub-forum)
--Arachnos Soldier (sub-forum)

Ranged Damage (parent category)
--Blaster (sub-forum)
--Defender (sub-forum)
--Peacebringer (sub-forum)
--Warshade (sub-forum)
--Corruptor (sub-forum)
--Arachnos Widow (sub-forum)
--Arachnos Soldier (sub-forum)

Crowd Control (parent category)
--Controller (sub-forum)
--Dominator (sub-forum)

Support (parent category)
--Controller (sub-forum)
--Defender (sub-forum)
--Mastermind (sub-forum)
--Corruptor (sub-forum)
--Arachnos Widow (sub-forum)
--Arachnos Soldier (sub-forum)

Pets (parent category)
--Controller (sub-forum)
--Mastermind (sub-forum)
--Dominator (sub-forum)
--Arachnos Soldier (sub-forum)

Like in what I listed above, all of the sub-forums would link to the specific AT's forum. You wouldn't have to do anything different that what is available now except rearrange things. All of the duplicate sub-forums would all link to the same AT forum.

If you do it this way, you are removing all the bloat of the main page. You don't have to delete or merge the AT forums because it's really not needed. You just need to place them in a way that removes ability from the front page. Once again, merging will not lessen the bloat (size) of the forum.

If you keep all the AT forums as it is now, you will be doing the playerbase a favor. Merging will only confuse people.

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pohsyb: so of all people you must be most excited about the veats
Arachnos Commander: actually, I am
pohsyb: I mean you kinda were one already anyways ^_^
Arachnos Commander: