Increasing Forum Participation/Vitality

[quintivarium]

Since I joined the forums in May, 2020, it seems to me that participation levels have significantly dropped. Although my viewing is generally connected directly to Gwent (and some of my comments may not apply so strongly to other games), I believe feedback from the general community would be helpful. Unfortunately, you are not the ideal subjects of the poll (those who don't use the forums would be), you might have insights I don't. Also note that I have very little control over anything except possible user content but I hope the poll catches the attention of those who do. The rest of this post is simply to clarify the options I have offered.

The Forums are fine as they are. Some may feel that there is no need for more activity or anything different.

Why talk about games when you can play games? Some people simply don't have interest in content like Forums and that is perfectly legitimate.

More content. I am strongly drawn to written content as opposed to videos. When I was learning Gwent, I was very disappointed in the very limited amount of written strategy guidance I could find and the difficulty of finding that content. Although the situation has improved (both DRK3 and I have significant threads providing written content), there are still likely to be areas of interest not currently addressed.

Better Comradery. While Forums do have several fun, community building threads, they are certainly not being widely used as a venue for friendly chat. Do you wish that were different? How could it be changed?

Developer involvement. Sometimes it feels like the Forums are an afterthought, not even used for significant announcements even though it would seem to me that, as the official Gwent channel, they should be the primary source of information on the game. We need to be realistic -- developers commenting on Forums are not developers working directly on the game. And I think a lot of times the developers do respond with changes based upon our comments in places like the forums -- but it is always obvious to us when this occurs.

I sometimes see complaints about certain Forum rules. And while many of these rules probably serve to protect the Forums from abuses that would make them unpleasant places to visit, I have certainly seen instances where they inhibit productive discourse. DRK3 has run into some issues with publicizing/creating his "Friendly Foes" efforts to build a community of non-meta players to experiment with decks in an environment free from some of the toxic elements of the Gwent meta. I frequently go to my desktop at considerable inconvenience for Forum work because the platform is not friendly for my mobile device.

Better publicity. The Forums were the first Gwent based site I found; I don't think publicity is an issue. But I might not be representative of the community. Certainly people who don't know about the Forums will not participate in them.

Other. No matter how I brainstorm possible issues and attitudes, I an almost certain to miss something. If I have missed and issue you find important, please comment on it.

 

[Draconifors]

Preventive is better than reactive, so as a reminder: publicly criticising the forum rules can be risky.

PS. I will refrain from voting, as I am highly biased.

 

[Pufty]

I only get on to track updates from devs about CP. Still holding out, but at this point the novelty has worn off. I guess I'm just waiting for magic

 

[Jesting-Jack]

...I think these forums need more cowbell.

 

[northwold]

I think ultimately it boils down to a question of what fora attract casual players. I like this forum, and I think the quality of comment is much more interesting than some of the mainstream. But you'll find literally hundreds of thousands more people on reddit because that is (one of the places) where people who don't feel a strong engagement with any specific title go.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

More developer participation and show of interest in what people are saying would be a nice thing.

Aside from patch notes and some not-really-game-related comments, this board has been pretty barren of developer interaction for quite a long time.

I remember a few years back even Mike himself said here that he’d be more around discussing matters with the fans. But I didn’t see much of that. Perhaps I looked in the wrong places, but there wasn’t any buzz about it, so I concluded that nothing happened.

So yeah. More developer participation (especially gameplay related) would be a nice thing to have.

 

[Bartinga2077]

"INCREASING FORUM PARTICIPATION/VITALITY"​

"What changes in the forums do you believe would increase participation?"​

Voted for more developer responses, simply because I myself am very curious about the opinions of developers in general. About the game, especially about suggestions of players, what their view is about them. Feasible or not, chances of it ever being implemented. (Too bad suggestions are never ever being replied upon).

Their aim where to take the game, and whether or not player feedback is taken into account. A monthly Q&A would do wonders, I think.

Voted for some changes to the forum rules, and that only being, giving users the ability to hide threads. Most forums I've been on, you could hide threads you didn't want to see no more. Would be nice if you could do that here as well.

Would also propose that people are immediately forwarded to the official CDPR Support site, when they select the TECHNICAL tap, as the majority that report an issue here, seem really intended to report directly to the devs.

Seems apparent the text stating these forums are not the official Support channel, are overlooked quite a bit.

 

[Riven-Twain]

Developer involvement. Sometimes it feels like the Forums are an afterthought, not even used for significant announcements even though it would seem to me that, as the official Gwent channel, they should be the primary source of information on the game. We need to be realistic -- developers commenting on Forums are not developers working directly on the game. And I think a lot of times the developers do respond with changes based upon our comments in places like the forums -- but it is always obvious to us when this occurs.

Ah, ay, this has been a recurring topic for years -- for as long as I've been here, in fact. Developer involvement has always been voluntary, and rather sporadic. Our charming Community Team does what it can, but, honestly, there is much that goes on behind the scenes that limits their interactions. As for the developers, I've found they are frequently quite busy making the actual games, and have little spare time to delve into the Forums. Also, sadly, many prefer other, briefer, platforms, such as Twitter. (The Forums appeal to some people more than others.) There have been campaigns to encourage more REDs to join us over the years -- including my own efforts with spotlight interviews -- but these have had mixed results, and the time between public posts varies. They do, however, still read the threads, though we mayn't see them about the place.

As for discussing the Forums' rules, I'll re-iterate my colleague's warning: This is risky territory. However, If users have complaints or suggestions about the Forums, they can always contact us privately -- politely, of course.

 

[GrimReaper801]

Of course, the most popular answer to this will, and will always be, more developers involvement.

Let's not kid ourselves though. It won't happen. CDPR has given up on interacting with their community a long time ago. @Vatier is pretty much the only RED that interacts with the community from time to time but that also happens to be part of the job of a community manager. There is a multitude of reasons behind this lack of interaction and I do not see this changing anytime soon, if ever.

Don't get me wrong, I get why they're not interacting with their community. I don't blame them.

These days the only real interaction we get from CDPR isn't aimed at us at all, they're aimed at keeping the investors/potential investors updated. My guess is that as time goes on this lack of interactions with players will be further cemented as CDPR's official stance. As so many before them have done.

 

[CS554]

I voted Other option in poll. Note, I'm only here because of Cyberpunk 2077.

Other would be a better compartmentalization of discussions. It's not about censoring or preventing feedback that can be perceived as negative towards product, but redirecting and when necessary, moving them to discussions where they are more relevant. In topic created regarding CP 2077 expansion and user made initiative to use that topic to post ideas relevant to expansion.

We got quite a few messages there that don't have anything to do with original topic, nor expansion. It's not that there couldn't be humor or like that in topic. For example when I made my list of things, there's something about gangs and how some players perceive gangs. Nobody made tongue in cheek post about item on my list, like "The Pick Up?" that I think would be obvious reaction from CDPR presentative if somebody would read that. But humor might trigger further constructive debate about why "The Pick Up" didn't do the work for some players, leading to suggestion CDPR might use.

I had topic about how certain segments in game work like vignettes in literature and there were some discussion that I found interesting. Then there comes someone, not reading the OP, not reading the discussion just venting his stuff. The best part was final line in his post: "Thankyou for listening to my Ted talk." There's so little traffic on forums at this point that this doesn't matter, but this was huge problem during first months after release of CP 2077. It's bit of curious though how that doesn't appear to happen in LowSodiumCyberpunk, for what I have lurked in there.

Forums should enable access to information that is relevant to user(s). Technical issues are covered mostly fine and support site link is easy to spam. FAQ for PC peer support would be handy. For example there appears to be certain power supply and motherboard combination related things if some PC builds are actually able to perform at level people think they will. Windows 11 has brought some issues, it would be good for volunteers to have access to that knowledge and discuss about it in context of product. I'm on Xbox but nothing away from me.

Then builds, those have been discussed quite a few times during past 30 days or so. For me CP 2077 presents some sort of new way of blending character attributes, clothing mods, weapon mods, lot's of things that actually work intuitive way, regardless if game is RPG or if players seek that particular experience, think that's where the mainstream is. RPG then, some other game Fallout 3, I had these situations where I tried to play sniper and then it was like landing 10 headshots to drop enemy, so what is that... I pretend to play some character based on attributes and gear that has very little to do with how this in my mind is supposed to work, so it's like my ultimate role would playing a person who pretends that this sort of stuff is fun. No thanks, CP 2077 works differently, it has certain impact to product user base and maybe they should embrace that. For forums, people has already moved on but this could still be a place where people link from reddit and twitter.

Rules then, we come from different backgrounds, we are different age, in different life situations, some like fantasy that enables escapism, but then some like fantasy and escapism to degree, as long as it enables new angles to think of our reality. Rules should make it possible for each to exist on same platform.

I remember a few years back even Mike himself said here that he’d be more around didcussing matters with the fans. But I didn’t see much of that. Perhaps I looked at the wrong places, but there wasn’t any buzz about it, so I concluded that nothing happened.

He was active in Reddit and frequent on The MadQueen's youtube channel. Had to delete his twitter, The MadQueen won't cover CP 2077 anymore because of hate wagon, they actually shut down for a while entirely. So that happened.

Ah, ay, this has been a recurring topic for years -- for as long as I've been here, in fact. Developer involvement has always been voluntary, and rather sporadic. Our charming Community Team does what it can, but, honestly, there is much that goes on behind the scenes that limits their interactions. As for the developers, I've found they are frequently quite busy making the actual games, and have little spare time to delve into the Forums. Also, sadly, many prefer other, briefer, platforms, such as Twitter. (The Forums appeal to some people more than others.) There have been campaigns to encourage more REDs to join us over the years -- including my own efforts with spotlight interviews -- but these have had mixed results, and the time between public posts varies. They do, however, still read the threads, though we mayn't see them about the place.

As for discussing the Forums' rules, I'll re-iterate my colleague's warning: This is risky territory. However, If users have complaints or suggestions about the Forums, they can always contact us privately -- politely, of course.

Can you shed some light to where this fascination comes from? What is this mystical developer who can somehow answer to questions that aren't sometimes but relative to subjective taste about this or that? Who is this mystical developer willing to break NDA to tell about future content? If they can't, what is the point of conversation?

Something that could be tried would be topic, open for a week where forum users might ask questions about something particular, like Side Job. After a week duplicates would be eliminated and vetted list would be forwarded to relevant writer or quest designer. Reply could be posted by moderation here and community manager to other platforms. I would be mainly curious about how many questions there actually would be.

 

[gurugeorge]

Generally speaking, I don't think it's reasonable to expect developers to have a lot of input into forums. A little bit, sure - announcing changes, etc. But you can't expect developers to get "down and dirty" with forumees. It's not that devs ignore forums completely, but it's that they understand that forums are a small self-selected cross-section of the general playing public, not necessarily representative of the whole. So while our input is part of the input they take, it's unlikely to steer the game in any way.

In my experience, the only time devs appreciate forum complaints is if they're detailed (about what's wrong, giving concrete examples, etc.) and couched in reasonable language, by people who obviously know their stuff in terms of programming or game-making. Which is reasonable.

Another problem is that most suggestions forumees give are likely to be things devs have already thought about ten times over. What devs have to juggle is various layers of feasibility, ROI considerations, etc. If time and energy were infinite and costless, of course they'd implement every cool thing they could, but they aren't.

Another thing is that forums are always going to be shepherded somewhat, because devs don't want criticism to get out of hand. It gives the game a bad look. So censorship is always going to be a thing. If the game already has a bad look (as this game does on account of its launch), then they don't want things to get worse.

At the end of the day, forums are where people who are particularly enthusiastic or particularly down on the game come to talk, and since most players don't take games that seriously, it's not really a representative cross-section, so it's not worth devs' time taking too seriously (unless, as I said, you have the occasional contributor who really knows their stuff, gives detailed criticisms, etc.,).

 

[DRK3]

DISCLAIMER: my comments are based solely on the Gwent section of these forums, although im aware they share some 'areas' with the witcher forums or the cyberpunk forums.

Great thread, and great poll by OP. And yes, im totally biased - not because i consider quintivarium a friend and collaborator, but simply because i wanted to address this same issue, and i've been pondering the best way to do it for the last couple of days, and this thread makes my life easier

I think i voted for better publicity, but i could've easily voted for most of the other options.
These are all aspects that can be greatly improved.

I believe im the most active user for several years (again, im only refering to the Gwent section) - apart from the mods, with their unwavering dedication and thankless efforts.
But only since ive become an official partner a few months ago, and started sharing content more frequently, did i start to think about how large the userbase in these forums really is, to know my audience and what i can do about it.

WRITTEN VS VIDEO FORMAT
It can be very frustrating to put a lot of effort in your written content for it to go vastly ignored - except by a few forum regulars, who constitute the core audience and provide a lot of support.
I think this problem isnt exclusive to these forums, other written content creators also suffer from it, probably even the most prominent teams witness this, as only their meta reports get a ton of views while other articles are often neglected.

I fear video content's popularity, specially in the current generation, doesnt give a chance to other media formats. Most new creators flock to streaming. And it doesnt help that the playerbase is fractured - us in these forums, some in Gwent's reddit, while others distributed in the individual discord channels of big time streamers.

DEVELOPER-PLAYER INTERACTIONS
The developer communication would be a relatively easy way to gather interest for the forums and make players feel like their voices are being heard, but unfortunately it has been neglected for years. Yes we got TWIG, but even that i feel like its a missed opportunity and is far from its potential.

I can actually provide some privileged information regarding this subject:
The partners share a private discord channel with some devs, and in there the devs actually spend the time to answer the partners questions, usually very specific and gameplay focused, like how certain card interactions work or plans to fix bugs reported. This is on a daily basis, so my guess is that's their allotted time to answer feedback from players, and the remaining "places", often with much more careful feedback for them, simply goes unnoticed by them, which is rather unfair.

FORUM PUBLICITY
I voted this option because its clear that this forum needs more of it.
Like the OP mentioned, this is the official forum, so it makes sense to be a sort of central hub for announcements and info sharing. However twitter is probably the most used method for the RED team to communicate for the past years, and then it falls to some of the players to do the work and share that info with the rest of the places like here or reddit.

Ive even seen players ask on TWIG or other streams what or where's the forum, and they didnt know they were already registered members since this forum works based on GOG accounts and everyone must have one in order to play Gwent (as far as i know, correct me if im wrong).

CONCLUSION
I dont think ive got a conclusion...
Ive done my part in order to spark participation in the forums, if it has failed i dont think its my fault honestly.
I would like to end on a positive note - the best i can say is that i believe the potential is real - both here in the forums, and in Gwent, and everyone needs to work together towards that potential.

 

[Aris_Tarkus]

I personally like the forum, and while increased developer interaction would be nice, it isn't a real requirement for me.
The main reason I like it here is that I do not really enjoy social media in any of its formats. I don't do facebook/instagram and only hit twitter when I have a direct link to something specific. I can't stand reddit. I do use discord, but only to keep updated on certain twitch streamers. Thos os the place for me.
Besides, I'mm old and don't like a lot of new things

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

He was active in Reddit and frequent on The MadQueen's youtube channel. Had to delete his twitter, The MadQueen won't cover CP 2077 anymore because of hate wagon, they actually shut down for a while entirely. So that happened.

Yeah, I knew he was on Reddit and I’m puzzled what draws devs there, because it is an insufferable shithole.

I hadn’t even heard about that Madqueen thing. Was her… eh… ”enthusiasm” too much for some people, or what?

 

[CS554]

Yeah, I knew he was on Reddit and I’m puzzled what draws devs there, because it is an insufferable shithole.

I hadn’t even heard about that Madqueen thing. Was her… eh… ”enthusiasm” too much for some people, or what?

No. and no, should be obvious considering all things that went down, but no, really no. I'm not going to elaborate about this further.

 

[northwold]

I did see a lot of engagement anonymously when one of the more unhinged hatestorms happened on reddit (Jason Schreier (Mr never knowingly fact check something that can bait clicks), presenting the bug video as if it was in game glitches). I was disgusted and wrote a couple of posts pointing out how unhinged it was, and actually rather unpleasant seeing as that was a private video made for sharing with colleagues who all endured the development together, that got stolen and then dumped on the internet for a baying mob to tear them apart with. That resulted in some private messages that were basically of the thank you variety.

I wouldn't underestimate quite how toxic the online community for this game has been to anyone who's raised their head above the parapet.

 

[Martind_Forlon_]

One from things (informations) which I personally miss here on these forums for Cybeprunk 2077: for example, do you know there is an weekly (Sunday) ongoing stream with Pawe Sasko (Quest Director) playing Cyberpunk 2077 on Twitter which is then later ported to Youtube where are added timestamps for important moments? This could be nice source for discussions and info. To be honest, my feelings is that forums are generally much less used by players (not only) these days.

 

[lelxrv]

Devs participation and interest is the only thing that can keep this platform compete with more popular and convenient places like reddit.

 

[CS554]

I did see a lot of engagement anonymously when one of the more unhinged hatestorms happened on reddit (Jason Schreier (Mr never knowingly fact check something that can bait clicks), presenting the bug video as if it was in game glitches). I was disgusted and wrote a couple of posts pointing out how unhinged it was, and actually rather unpleasant seeing as that was a private video made for sharing with colleagues who all endured the development together, that got stolen and then dumped on the internet for a baying mob to tear them apart with. That resulted in some private messages that were basically of the thank you variety.

I wouldn't underestimate quite how toxic the online community for this game has been to anyone who's raised their head above the parapet.

Schreier appears to be a bit curious case and CDPR also benefits his whatever as it enables lot's of product visibility. Something that's usually difficult to achieve for almost a year old single player game.

Toxicity around this game is obvious though, but it's also complicated matter as I don't think there's single factor contributing to it, or perhaps there kinda is but it's too vague to do anything with it.

Anyway, it doesn't look like it's unique to CP 2077 as similar thing appeared to has happened with game, I think it's "The Last of Us 2". Can't comment about that any further as I don't really know much about TLU. What I can say, is that this is not exclusive to games. Years ago I noticed these mobs on IMDB boards, they were sort of mix of people for some reason hated certain celebrities and celebrity stalkers. These gangs filled boards for whatever actor, usually actress though, they hated. And like or don't but stuff these people were pouring out, they often didn't had anything to do with product and it was really creepy how utterly removed from reality some of their stuff was. Wasn't any surprise that IMDB closed their boards and nothing of value was lost as this crowd creeped out people who were actually discussing about product/production.

There has been things going on for a good while changing how things are discussed and who are participating. There's no really fighting it and only fools try to wish it a way. My generation, many of us placed our bets on quality of life and education system improving to lead very different kind of outcome and we lost. Toxic influencers, be that vaccine, politics or game. Sure people who can get more educated via traditional institutions and the Internet won't subscribe to nonsense so toxic influencers won't become a problem. Well, that went well.

There is isolating chaos though, but then CDPR needs to figure out for what goal?

Some thing that could give more insight to developing process and world of CP 2077, at least for those who are really interested and engage more people would be contacting R. Talsorian games, if they knew a group of tabletop players who could play CP 2077 scenario with CP Red rules. It could be all just text, fleshed out log for people to read here. What value it has for people that are really interested about the subject, if content related to subject has someone face associated with said content or not? This could be handled with people getting too involved.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

No. and no, should be obvious considering all things that went down, but no, really no. I'm not going to elaborate about this further.

Boy, that’s a lot of ’no’s to underline the point.

I don’t follow youtube influencers or their endeavors, so nothing about that is ”obvious considering what went down” to me.

But I don’t really care either, so its fair. Just asked since you brought it up.