Can a forum Destroy a MMO ??

I was doing some reading on http://www.fohguild.org/forums/index.php, over the last few days, specifically the Vanguard threads (what else delivers such premium drama these days !) and an idea occured to me that I thought I would chew on some: Do forums (and their communities) have the power to destroy a MMO ?

Using Vanguard as the most relevant current game, a game that clearly was not ready for prime time, the overwhelming negativity on FOH must have had SOME type of impact. I would wager that with over 20,000 members that even if only 1000 of those members are active posters, surely it's safe to assume there would be double (or quadruple) that number of people who just lurk and don't post. So for numbers sake, that's 2-4000 people who are reading that negativity. And the negativity started months, months before the game went gold.

I am not going to go far enough out onto the limb to assume that the negative posters caused Vanguard to falter (and it still has a slim chance to recover), but I think it's reasonable to assume that they may have accelerated the process significantly.

Since around 99, that has been just about the only place I go to read about MMO's, one of the best features being that it's raw, uncensored, generally un-modrated. Even guessing that there are 10 non registered readers for every registered one, that's got to be a very large chunk of the MMO player base that's visiting there. Heck, even other forums know about FOH http://www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18078 and refer /defer to them. Not only are there some legendary posters there, but industry officials post there, and banter back and forth (as well as shill, market etc).

It really has become the "mecca" or "ground zero" for any type of MMO information. And while not flashy or modern looking such as http://www.mmorpg.com/index.cfm?bhcp=1 but it feels real to me, it feels, I don't know exactly. True ? Pure ? Anyway...

So you have just about every big name in the industry (or the vast majority) watching and occasionally participating, and you have just this wide swath of players, from the hardcore to the casual, to the former EQ legends, to the Eve gankers, the Wow raiders and just about everything in between. And those players are going back and forth, insulting, revealing, commenting, one linering, joking, laughing and even melting down, all about Vanguard, again for months before the game shipped.

How many people who never made it into beta ( is there anyone Sigil didn't invite ?) or who didn't apply to beta, who only got their information (or got a large part of it) from FOH forums. This kind segues into NDA's and their virtues, however I am going to resist that left turn and stay on track. Suffice to say there were quite a few people breaking the NDA to tell us the game was shit, to forget about it ever amounting to anything, and for the most part, nobody could counter them with positive reviews or information. To be sure some of the Sigil people did in fact counter (in a general no specific way), but essentially, the "good guys" hands were tied for a substantially long period of time all the while the "bad guys" droned on and on, in many cases unanswered (other then being flamed for being NDA breakers).

I really have to think that the forum, and online communities in general, really do have an impact, probably a much larger one then anyone really realizes. I also believe that if there was no such thing, or such place as FOH, then maybe the "word on the street" on VG could have been spun and controlled more effectively, and the initial numbers would probably have been a lot higher then they ended up being.

It's definitely an interesting angle, one that I am sure other people have considered and maybe even talked about, but I think have truly underestimated.

On a more positive note. if a game really is good, and if the online communities (especially FOH) get wind of that, you have a really powerful ally in bringing your game to life, built in viral marketing, and word of mouth salesmanship that can really turn a game from an "eh" to a "Wow!".

I have been chewing on this one a couple days, and i think I will be for quite a while :)