I've been thinking - Should we just get rid of them altogether? I'm thinking we should just have a link to Gamefaqs in the announcements, and lock/delete help threads unless they're specifically tech support things.
"My PS2 is broken"
"How do I set up my Live account?"
"Final Fantasy MXXVIII is glitching up on me"
I don't like seeing "getting to point B from point A" because it's so ****ing easy to find this out just by LOOKING. Threads like
"How do I get the fortune cookie of death?"
"There's a man blocking the gate to the STD clinic, how do I get him to move?"
shouldn't really belong here.
Thoughts?
Some people don't like to read FAQs because they may contain spoilers. I think forums are usually good places to look, because you can start your own thread about the specific issue so as not to get an extremely broad and over-revealing answer.
I'd've thought that a message board environment would be more prone to spoilers than an FAQ. Snape, Dumbledore, etc.
Take the Kingdom Hearts board, for example - You can't go in there without having already played through the game; all the occupants pretty much throw spoilers all over the place. Gamefaqs, however, is very much open for special spoiler-free walkthroughs, and most walkthroughs I've read are written in such a manner that they don't wreck story details from later in the game.
And hey, there's always the chance that whoever answers the help thread inadvertently gives away a huge plot detail...
I think just having one and sticking it's a good idea. That's what me and maian done for Zelda.
Edit: In that case, crack down on the use of spoiler tags and punish any offenders. Revolution time for VGC, amirite?
They're annoying, and all I can think when people make them is "do these people really have to rely on having to join a site to ask total strangers questions about a game that could be very easily answered by simply using Gamefaqs, or hell, Google?"
...Or something along those lines. Regardless, they're just displays of people having some bizarre inability to use any intuition. We're not here just to rush to people with immediate answers to game questions.
I just get rid of them after the question has been answered and a day or two pass. :dunno:
One of the reasons this place exists is for easy help with video games. The only reason they should need to be deleted is if they become an off topic spam fest. Otherwise, they'll just die.