I have been considering steam since the beging of april.

[Shuffler]

The Steam forums make our forums look extremely tame by comparison and Skuzzy is going to have his hands full with just the AH Steam forum.

That brings up a question.... Does steam host those forums or does the game operator?

[Mister Fork]

Steam does under Steam's rules

[bustr]

Looking around in the Steam forums for a number of games, they are an equivalent to our Help&Training combined with Technical Support forums.

There are PO'd people letting it rip about how bad the forum's product runs for them. There are semi strong answers to questions that appear to question the fanboy orthodoxy's of the diehards. I'm still looking for outright BFG9000 scorching language like: "hope you eat a wookie, die and go to where ever" type fights. That may require subscribing to the Steam community forums and going deeper. I did see fanboy loyalty to a fault like we have and not letting a negative image of a given game stand. I saw players trying to help solve the reported problem for the person registering a complaint. We can be nice but, there seems a nice air to the place.

It is possible the BFG9000 scorchings take place at the other end of a jump link to the external forums of the game while those community's Skuzzy has let them know better about the Steam help forum for their game.

This warning is posted prominently at the Steam discussions forum in the open and not a sticky:

Do not start flame wars! If someone has engaged in behavior that is a detriment to the message board -- spamming, flaming people, etc -- contact one of the forum moderators or report the post. Flaming the offensive user will only increase the problem. Harassment is not tolerated.

Our business as usual would not make it in the Steam product help and discussion forums.   

[Brooke]

The answer is I'm not sure.

HiTech

Can you try it, and if you don't like it, stop being on Steam, or is there a commitment to stay on it for an extended period of time to get on there?

If there is no commitment to stay, I'd give it a try.

[Ack-Ack]

Looking around in the Steam forums for a number of games, they are an equivalent to our Help&Training combined with Technical Support forums.

There are PO'd people letting it rip about how bad the forum's product runs for them. There are semi strong answers to questions that appear to question the fanboy orthodoxy's of the diehards. I'm still looking for outright BFG9000 scorching language like: "hope you eat a wookie, die and go to where ever" type fights. That may require subscribing to the Steam community forums and going deeper. I did see fanboy loyalty to a fault like we have and not letting a negative image of a given game stand. I saw players trying to help solve the reported problem for the person registering a complaint. We can be nice but, there seems a nice air to the place.

It is possible the BFG9000 scorchings take place at the other end of a jump link to the external forums of the game while those community's Skuzzy has let them know better about the Steam help forum for their game.

This warning is posted prominently at the Steam discussions forum in the open and not a sticky:

Do not start flame wars! If someone has engaged in behavior that is a detriment to the message board -- spamming, flaming people, etc -- contact one of the forum moderators or report the post. Flaming the offensive user will only increase the problem. Harassment is not tolerated.

Our business as usual would not make it in the Steam product help and discussion forums.

I really don't think you've delved too deep into Steam's community, other than just a curious glance to satisfy your already made up mind.

[zack1234]

I play rise of flight and BOS on steam and never had a sausage to do with the community on steam

I have Elite but not played it for a year its dull

[BuckShot]

Will playing games through steam make an already bad internet connection even worse?

Will I need to keep a dehumidifier in the room if I use steam?

(The 1st question is serious)

[Skuzzy]

Will playing games through steam make an already bad internet connection even worse?

It can.  The Steam application is not what I would call a well behaved Windows application.

[ImADot]

Will playing games through steam make an already bad internet connection even worse?

I used to play Skyrim all the time, and had to launch it through Steam. Not sure about now, but back then I could run the Steam client in offline mode and use it just to launch the game. I didn't care about the Steam achievements or its built in social connections, so offline was fine. I would assume it would work the same for AH3...but I could be wrong.

[bustr]

I really don't think you've delved too deep into Steam's community, other than just a curious glance to satisfy your already made up mind.

You are going to have to make up your mind, I'm not trying to sink going with Steam. Who we are in our forums is exactly what Skuzzy posted and even worse. Pretty well dominated by grown men from the high end of gen-X and past who don't appreciate questions seen as frivolous or regressive to our institution\orthodoxy.  Going deeper into Steam's Community, I don't have the time to research farther into the individual game community specific forums. I spent enough time reading the available Steam game forums that I didn't have to create a Steam account to get at. Those as Help Desks are well behaved versus our forums and put Steam in a good light, so to would happen for our game. We look like fire breathing trolls who will eat the innocent casual gamer compared to them. And if they use the Steam AH3 Help forum then pop into ours, I can see what Skuzzy is unhappy about.

No one is going to warn them that the hardcore Steam game forums make the AH3 BBS blow torch forums look like a kiddie carnival. They will have only a first impression of us as we blow torch anything they offer just like we did to nugetx. Even if they are worse than us in one of their other Steam game forums, they have the right to not be blow torched for what they bring to our forum like we did to nugetx.

Just like with TV programing where your wife tells you "honey you can change the channel or turnoff the TV if you don't like the show". Instead you just stay on the couch and yell at the program for being stupid. When nugetx was grating our nerves, we could have ignored him and not read his posts, and refused to respond. Instead we sat on the couch and yelled at him for being stupid. I don't get the impression the person using the nugetx ID is a stupid person, but we gave it a good try at convincing him he was where our institution\orthodoxy is concerned.

That is the crux of Skuzzy's problem with us and this whole nugetx scenario. These forums are not our institution\orthodoxy, we invented that over nearly 20 years as the common ground of our player driven community. And today we defend it reflexively and blindly with our blow torches locked at crispy critter.

Look at Skuzzy's response again and wonder just how much we defending our institution\orthodoxy helped to shrink our community and loose HTC opportunities for new customers. The only reason a group defends an institution\orthodoxy with as unified a front as we organically muster, is to tell outsiders they don't fit in with us as they are presenting themselves. Just a species of the same social dynamics problem which caused Hitech to split the MA into two arenas once. And why we treated nugetx so badly. 

One never knows where the next good idea might come from.

    He has been very gracious in the face of an adversarial community.  I find the negative treatment of any new person to be disappointing.

    Sure, I can edit those negative posts, but that does not fix the issue.  And no, the issue is not a new person making suggestions about the game.

    The calls and emails I get with the phrase, "I am not posting on that board so they can brow beat me" is quite frustrating.

    Do any of you see us at HTC verbally beating up people for posting ideas?

 

[Shuffler]

You are going to have to make up your mind, I'm not trying to sink going with Steam. Who we are in our forums is exactly what Skuzzy posted and even worse. Pretty well dominated by grown men from the high end of gen-X and past who don't appreciate questions seen as frivolous or regressive to our institution\orthodoxy.  Going deeper into Steam's Community, I don't have the time to research farther into the individual game community specific forums. I spent enough time reading the available Steam game forums that I didn't have to create a Steam account to get at. Those as Help Desks are well behaved versus our forums and put Steam in a good light, so to would happen for our game. We look like fire breathing trolls who will eat the innocent casual gamer compared to them. And if they use the Steam AH3 Help forum then pop into ours, I can see what Skuzzy is unhappy about.

No one is going to warn them that the hardcore Steam game forums make the AH3 BBS blow torch forums look like a kiddie carnival. They will have only a first impression of us as we blow torch anything they offer just like we did to nugetx. Even if they are worse than us in one of their other Steam game forums, they have the right to not be blow torched for what they bring to our forum like we did to nugetx.

Just like with TV programing where your wife tells you "honey you can change the channel or turnoff the TV if you don't like the show". Instead you just stay on the couch and yell at the program for being stupid. When nugetx was grating our nerves, we could have ignored him and not read his posts, and refused to respond. Instead we sat on the couch and yelled at him for being stupid. I don't get the impression the person using the nugetx ID is a stupid person, but we gave it a good try at convincing him he was where our institution\orthodoxy is concerned.

That is the crux of Skuzzy's problem with us and this whole nugetx scenario. These forums are not our institution\orthodoxy, we invented that over nearly 20 years as the common ground of our player driven community. And today we defend it reflexively and blindly with our blow torches locked at crispy critter.

Look at Skuzzy's response again and wonder just how much we defending our institution\orthodoxy helped to shrink our community and loose HTC opportunities for new customers. The only reason a group defends an institution\orthodoxy with as unified a front as we organically muster, is to tell outsiders they don't fit in with us as they are presenting themselves. Just a species of the same social dynamics problem which caused Hitech to split the MA into two arenas once. And why we treated nugetx so badly.

I usually pretty much agree with you... but not this time. Many things can be found with a simple search of the boards. Any person, specially a person who had only played 2 weeks some time a go, can learn a lot by doing a search.

 Granted that good ideas can come from some of the newest folks. In my business I will listen to the newest hire about pretty much anything. The difference comes when you tell that person it does not work and why, then they want to argue that it does...... let them start their own business and try it again. I say again because it has already been tried and failed.

 A smart person new or old can have good ideas. A smart person takes into consideration the answer to why a certain idea will not or does not work. He or she will take that at face value and move on to another idea.

When a person just wants to argue that a round hole is not round, I pretty much write them off.

[bustr]

It appears Skuzzy wants us to suffer new players because who is going to pay the light bill after we get done chasing all the baby seals off the grass for not acting the way we want them to in Hitech's house. We almost never simply ignore them and let them hold court in their post until they get the message that we old ferts are not interested. We quickly blow torch them out of here for not shutting up and getting with "our" program.

These two salient points from Skuzzy illustrate how much we think these forums are "our" house and the nuget's of the world have to be dealt with in no uncertain terms. Yes they are irritating at times, but we rarely ever see Hitech or Skuzzy treat them like we do. This is their business and those are their potential new customers no matter how irritating we decide they are acting. Yes I know, then how do you keep them from spamming the place with their opinions no matter how many times you show them 2+2=4 and to stop reaching for the 5. You will have to ask Skuzzy about that, it do appear Skuzzy is not as worried about them reaching for the 5 as we are.   


The calls and emails I get with the phrase, "I am not posting on that board so they can brow beat me" is quite frustrating.

    Do any of you see us at HTC verbally beating up people for posting ideas?

You can parse the meaning of Skuzzy's use of the word "ideas" to argue with him the sanctity of 2+2=4. But, at that point we are reaching for our own "5".

[Ack-Ack]

That brings up a question.... Does steam host those forums or does the game operator?

Steam host the forums for their game communities but allow developers to moderate the forums how they see fit.  Most developers just stick to basic tech support/bug reporting sticky posts, while others are more involved with their Steam game community and will be pro-active on the forums.  Big companies like Activision and EA tend to be more hands off, just using sticky posts as the only interaction due to these companies not wanting to make the Steam forums an avenue for support.

[Rich46yo]

I went on Steam and recommended the game even tho I myself quit it.

I dont think Aces High ever let me down. Its always been a stable, very well playing game and any kind of technical issue has been solved by them pronto. AH3 , I think, has been one of the best updates of any game Ive seen. In every way.

These are just tough times for MMPG's. Most of all computer ones. Most of all computer ones of a genre that traditionally relied on older players. Even for games that did everything right like AH has.

[nugetx]

I used to play Skyrim all the time, and had to launch it through Steam. Not sure about now, but back then I could run the Steam client in offline mode and use it just to launch the game. I didn't care about the Steam achievements or its built in social connections, so offline was fine. I would assume it would work the same for AH3...but I could be wrong.

I never had issues either.