Hi all, I have been a regular user of the Beamdog forums for more than a year. After a few months I started to be harassed by a couple of veteran trolls. I quickly realized that that is pretty common in that forum. I complained dozens of times and the administrators did nothing about it. Worst of all, they censored or closed the threads where I complained and gave me a limited ban for doing so, which strongly suggests I will be banned for good if I dare complaining again. Eventually I realized it's time to move on and find another forum where people are respectful to each other. I hope this is the place.

By the way, I couldn't find the rules of this forum. Can someone give me a link?

First of all, welcome to the GOG forums. These forums are not formally moderated. There are rules in the form of 'policies', but don't expect that you can go running to a 'blue' (GOG employee) every time somebody says something you don't agree with, or vice versa. Like all online forums you need a thick skin if you expect to stick around for any length of time. People, in general, are really helpful and mature here. There are trolls, sure, but you will learn who they are and my best piece of advise is, if you feel you are being trolled, just ignore it totally; do NOT respond, since that is what trolls want. It's their bread and butter.

Do keep discussions in game sub-forums like this about the game in question. If you have general questions, or want to discuss something unrelated, go to the general (main) forum -- that's where most of the trolls are, unfortunately.

Have fun.

https://www.gog.com/support/website_help/forums_feedback

I should warn you, however, that the rules are not actually well enforced; there is almost no moderation on this forum. (Exception: Linking to sites hosting pirated games.)

In particular, expect complaining about harassment to do nothing, though you at least won't likely be banned for complaining about it (although you could easily lose Rep as a result, but see below).

One more thing: The Rep system on this forum has been abused to the point where it is no longer trustworthy; there are good users with negative Rep and scammers with high Rep. (I believe someone went as far as to make a browser extension to hide the Rep of users on this forum.)

Edit: It's worth noting that, since this post was made, a new community manager has shown up and is enforcing a new, mostly reasonable, set of rules, so we actually do have *some* moderation to take care of particularly nasty posts.

Ah, Beamdog forums, I regret visiting that place, even though the community there is quite active. Fortunately, I left that forum before SoD was released. I was an oddball there, since I thought the whole EE was a failure and I quit playing after one run.

GoG forums are nice, you have players that enjoy BG as vanilla, with a wide variety of mods, or EE. You'll surely find your place here, plus there are forums for other games here as well.

Welcome to GOG. Let me offer you a cup of tea. Enjoy your stay.

Generally GOG community is more mature than any online place I have ever known. Sure there are trolls, and sure people sometimes argue but overall quality is very satisfying. Like Hickory said, best strategy against trolls is to ignore them. You will know who they are very quickly :)

GOG has a reputation system. Generally, people with high rep means they are more helpful and/or active and people with negative Rep means they are a pain on the side. However that is not a general rule and people with high rep can troll you while negative Reps can be really helpful.

Blues (GOG crew) only interfere with the forum in case of really intense situations which I find great. You can talk about anything with anyone. So dont expect mods to ban someone if they troll you.

I know trolling has nothing to do with expressing dissenting opinions. These trolls were insulting me and others and randomly accusing us of lying. I know. That strategy didn't work in Beamdog, though, because when they saw I was ignoring them they started to hijack my threads. Is it possible to move this thread to a more appropriate subforum? Maybe ask a moderator? Thank you! Hmm... Don't like that very much. But kudos to you for being honest about it. I was disappointed that the EE could have been great and eventually were just "meh". But I enjoy playing them nevertheless.
I hope you're right and I enjoy my participation in this community. However, given dtgreene's honest feedback, I think I'll start to look as well for another forum where rules are enforced, just in case.

No, and the admins take a hands-off approach to the forums, so don't expect the topic to be moved. (In fact, I don't even know if the forum software, which has been known to be buggy, even supports moving a topic.)

A topic can be closed by an admin on request, however.

OK, it's not the approach I like best, but still it's a huge improvement over being harassed by the administrators of Beamdog. Thank you for all your feedback!

Be advised that General Discussion threads are subject to derailing, depending on the topic. More controversial topics are more likely to suffer. In my experience, the game specific subforum threads will generally stay on topic. There aren't any non-game subforums, so this is probably as good a place as any for this thread. Each game (or game series) has a subforum (some of which may be mostly dead), and everything else ends up in General Discussion. There are several different General Discussions, with each one being primarily in a particular language. I only speak English, so that is the only GD I'm familiar with here.

I don't think I've seen anyone request a topic be moved; admins probably have the power to do it, but it doesn't come up much because of the organization of the forum.

You can ask an admin to close a thread or to rename a thread. You'll almost certainly have to PM them your request, and be patient.

Some specific quirks of this forum:
-Sometimes the first post on a new page doesn't always show up until another post is made in the thread. This new page bug doesn't always occur.

-Posts will be merged and marked as edited if you post a second time within 10 minutes of your first post. If someone else posts before you post again, or if you wait at least 10 minutes, then the merge won't occur.

Also, Barefoot Essentials and Adalia Fundamentals can make your stay here much more pleasant, if you find you're inclined to stay awhile.

Welcome Alonshow, nice to have you man!

I agree with Hickory who said that GOG is generally a more mature forum.

My theory on that is that the kids of the "gaming culture" play the new stuff with the shiny graphics. The elders among us grew up on the original classic games that put the industry on the board... games which tend to have more meat on their bones and less empty calories, so to speak. The kids got more time to troll, while the elders got better things to do. GOG is more about the classic Good Old Games, and as such GOG tends to have more elders.

I watch the games my teenaged nephews play, compared to what I'm into. I love all my nephews dearly, but when it comes to gaming, we live on two separate planets.

The theory is very generalized, of course. Not meant to offend our youth. Of course there are "elder" trolls out there too.

I don't plan on playing the Extended Editions anytime soon. I'd rather play the Originals a second time, and my time is so limited (being an elder with young kids and jobs and the like).

But I am very thankful for the Extended Editions. They keep my favorite games of all time in The Conversation.

As Hickory said, trolls should just be ignored. That cuts off their food supply. Just have fun with the rest of us cool dudes! Lookin forward to rappin bout the games we dig brother!

The rules of the forum are implicit: The same conduct you would have in a friendly conversation or discussion with a stranger. Just be considerate, don't use offensive language, be patient and you will be fine.

I only visit game specific forums and only of older games so I have very very rarely witnessed trolling. In general people in the sub-game forums are very helpful and friendly and definitely tend to be older than on usual game forums.

Ask the guards at entrance of Friendly Arm Inn about the rules :)

That is how the Beamdog forums work. If you are critical of anything in the EE versions and the "expansion", you get attacked by trolls. Beamdog sits by and let it happen. If you try to dish something back, against the personal attacks and the like, the admins step in an issue a warning to you.

Many years ago, when Beamdog started, I was a voluntary mod on their forum. I can confirm several people were banned, not for any rule violations, but simply because they complained that the forum rules applied to some and not to others. Afterwards the individual(s) doing the banning spread lies as to why these people were banned. We lost some great fans because of this, but no one dared say anything.

I retired shortly afterwards as it was clear strange things were going on, both on the forum and the direction in which the games were going.