Vanguard Fighters Affiliate!

[Lightning]

http://www.vanguardsaga.com/forums/s...415#post643415

Originally Posted by Glip the Gnome

We’ll have forums post-release, but it will likely just be tech support-ish stuff.

The current plan is to push the central focus of the community away from our forums and to the affiliate fan sites. We want to hear what everyone has to say, but with the entire player base sitting in one spot all talking at the same time, we’re not going to be able to do that.

Instead, we’re helping to create smaller, more focused communities revolving around the fan sites. That way its much easier for players to make themselves heard as we visit each site – and we will be visiting and interacting with the sites, just as much as we visit our own forums now.

What does this mean for the average forum users? Well, we’re not expecting you to stay on top of a dozen different fan sites – if you do, more power to you – but by no means will it be a requirement. But try to read at least one, and voice your opinion on it – we’ll see it.

This is kind of new stuff, so if the results aren’t up to our expectations we can always rework the plan but we’ve got high hopes

With this in mind, the role of Vanguard Fighters as an affiliate becomes even more important - wow

[Zenya]

Aye, Glip's comments are exciting!

[Skellen]

Congrats, TDD!

[Lightning]

Cindy Bowens talls it like it is at: http://www.vanguardsaga.com/forums/s...028#post649028

Originally Posted by Cindy Bowens

k, folks let me step in here. I will do my best to explain what we are planning and why we have made these decisions. This plan has been being discussed for quite some time and is not something we have taken lightly. I was hired as the Community Manager for Sigil 3 years ago to build and develop this community. So let me assure you, its health and welfare are at the top of my priority list.

One of the factors in this decision is resources. As we have entered Beta and approach release, you have all seen the changes that have occurred here on these forums. Nick and I monitor the boards as much as humanly possible but between the two of us, we can barely keep up anymore. Can you imagine what these forums would be like after release? We could hire several more moderators and we could spend a huge amount of our time moderating these boards. Or, we can support the communities that are already forming and growing around the fan sites. All of us agree here that we would prefer to spend our time and money making Vanguard the best it can be.

So let me explain a little bit about how this will work. As we stated in the other thread, we will still have a Tech Support Forum. News and official announcements will still be readily available on the Vanguard site. Server issues, patch messages and other information that you will find necessary will always be easily found here. But your comments, questions and interacting with your fellow players are what will be migrated to the Affiliates.

When our boards are shut down, we will instead visit our Affiliates' forums on a regular basis. All of our team members that you see posting regularly here will be posting on those forums instead. In addition to moderating the forums, the sites will also be giving us regular feedback about posts and threads that may need attention. For example, if a site admin sees that there is a huge thread complaining that a quest is broken, they will contact me and I will see that the appropriate designer is informed and responds to the concerns.

Obviously, saving time and resources is an important factor. But it will also simplify things for us. We believe that it will be easier to sort through and read several moderated forums and address the most prominent questions and concerns of each one than to hire several moderators to sift through hundreds of thousands of posts to find the ones that really need our attention.

I would like for you to also keep in mind that as this plan has been in the works for some time, we have developed the Affiliate program with it in mind. This is one of the reasons that we ask that Affiliates go through a somewhat lengthy process to be accepted. We get to know these folks well. We have met many of them personally and talk on the phone and online with them regularly. These sites have proven that they are committed to providing for the community and they have demonstrated to us that they are trustworthy. We monitor them closely. And if they do not meet the standards we set for our community, they are dropped from the program. So please dont assume that just any Vanguard site will be trusted with this task.

We are making this move because we believe it will benefit and strengthen our community in the long run. I know some of you are unhappy about it and some of you will downright hate it. And you know what? It might not work out the way we hope. And if that happens, well reopen the forums again. But please try to have an open mind and see how it works out.

Honestly, I am sad to see this happen myself. Its been wonderful getting to know so many of you and its been quite a fun ride so far. You guys are great and I enjoy these forums as much (if not more!) than any of the rest of you. But I truly believe that in the long run, this is the right move to make to be able to keep our communication flowing and to hear as much of what you have to say as possible.
__________________
Cindy Bowens
Senior Manager, Community & Events
Sigil Games Online