UnclearImage Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Bioware, I understand that during the BETA testing and everything leading up til now you had your NDA in place, you were building hype- that's fine. You didn't want to leak and let other companies steal your thunder or have people judge you based off an unfinished product. I can appreciate it. However here's the reality, your BETA is over. Your game is released, you have a community and not all of them are happy, I've heard all the arguments for and against this game- and I'm not going to flood the screen at all. But this policy of not telling your player base what your working on, or what's currently in the works has got to go. The NDA is over, we have the game and as usual with all games people have their own problem with it. I personally dislike the lack of armor coloring, the fact I cannot choose my ship (Smuggler ship is utter and complete garbage) , the fact you dropped the ability to change the role of your companions (i.e. one companion can heal, tank, etc.) Uncontrollable stupid amounts of crowd control in PVP etc. It would make me as a player feel much better if you guys told me what you were working on so I can get excited about it, as of right now I feel that since you're not talking about it you either don't know or don't care, and no player wants to think the game they love is run by people who just don't care. You made this game, but I play it, we're in the together so quit trying to keep me in the dark. This "We'll suprise them" policy is for game development and for building game hype, every game company worth anything announces their content weeks or months in advance to remind those jaded gamers out there that "we're working on it" you guys don't even have the patch notes/ ides for SWTOR 1.2 up (which I gather is the next patch according to your febuary Q/A) So again, and in closing- this "keep them in the dark" policy is annoying, frustrating, and in my mind totally unprofessional. After a game launches there are no more suprises, theres people that quit and find out a month or so later the reason they quit was patched a week after they quit. Will a million trillion people quit if you don't listen to me? No. Will the world end and SWTOR explode? No. Will it make life a little easier for the players? Yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erevan_Kindelar Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 I guess you have not seen the Dev Tracker, the Twitter feed, the community interviews, the announcements at the top of the Forum list... Yes, Bioware have not sent a senior community relations person round to your house to personally discuss the issues with you, but that does not mean they are not making information available about what they are working on. Have a nice day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obi-joachim Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Q&A which teases you what is to come: http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-feb-10th-2012 http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-feb-17th-2012 Coming up in SWTOR: http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20120119 Here you can see developers response to some of the threads: http://www.swtor.com/community/devtracker.php Also if you feel like stalk their twitter: Also i could easily think that there is some patch leaks some around the interwebz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnclearImage Posted February 21, 2012 Author Share Posted February 21, 2012 (edited) No, I didn't know about that- I'm an idiot I <3 you guys so hard right now. A million 'who's line is it anyway' points to both of you. Edited February 21, 2012 by UnclearImage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eszi Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 I guess you have not seen the Dev Tracker, the Twitter feed, the community interviews, the announcements at the top of the Forum list... Yes, Bioware have not sent a senior community relations person round to your house to personally discuss the issues with you, but that does not mean they are not making information available about what they are working on. Have a nice day It's not about them "not coming to my house" etc. It's about BW not talking about important stuff like fixing Ilum, fixing fps in player-heavy situations, controvertial stuff (BH vs Commando thread was somewhere around here) and many others. I havn't yet seen a useful dev post and I don't see them almost at all. Good thing we have a dev tracker, otherwise they would have to post here more often and be productive, and show that they care about us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravnos_h Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 No, I didn't know about that- I'm an idiot I <3 you guys so hard right now. A million 'who's line is it anyway' points to both of you. It is so hard to detect sarcasm sometimes in written text. But i think i sense some there? :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livnthedream Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 It's not about them "not coming to my house" etc. It's about BW not talking about important stuff like fixing Ilum, fixing fps in player-heavy situations, controvertial stuff (BH vs Commando thread was somewhere around here) and many others. I havn't yet seen a useful dev post and I don't see them almost at all. Good thing we have a dev tracker, otherwise they would have to post here more often and be productive, and show that they care about us. other than they are looking at it do you really want them to say? do you really want them to state things that they dont know when or how they can deliver on? also, what you and many others consider "top priority" may not be what they or an even larger majority do. i frankly can care less about illum or your fps as i am not having issues with it. i havent seen a "major" issue that hasnt been acknowledged in some way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnclearImage Posted February 21, 2012 Author Share Posted February 21, 2012 (edited) No I seriously didn't even know about the twitters (I never use it) and I've glanced at the reviews and it's nice to see the dev tracker actually having decent replies (It's normally crap I don't care about- for instance "The servers went down for 8 hours today fixed some random npcs blink animation on 1 quest for a bounty hunter" ... yay....) I was being serious and excited to read something, but after reading it all (im a fast reader) I'm again dissapointed, Where's the line by line breakdown of what's in 1.2? THey reference it they say "It'll come out in 1.2" but wheres the dang list, like ALL of it. They can't release a list of what they're currently working on? When's 1.2 coming out? How big is the file? you know... information? EDIT: For instance in the Q/A they stated "14 new objective-based medals and participation scaling the rewards" for pvp- What are the 14 new medals, how do you get them- what do you mean by scaling? You know USEFUL information instead of flirting with me through Q/A posts. Edited February 21, 2012 by UnclearImage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obi-joachim Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Coming up in SWTOR: Also i could easily think that there is some patch leaks some around the interwebz. Hmmmmmm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meluna Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Hello there, UnclearImage! We'd like to thank everyone who has helpfully linked to our Developer Tracker. For anyone who is unaware, this lists the latest posts from developers, as well as our Community Managers and Coordinators. We also encourage all our members to please keep an eye on our new Community Blog for news, maintenance reminders, and in-depth posts from developers as well. This includes some and direct great information, such as responses to our Q&A threads. (Including an answer about our upcoming Hue to Chest system.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Typheran Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 (edited) Q&A which teases you what is to come: http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-feb-10th-2012 http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-feb-17th-2012 Coming up in SWTOR: http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20120119 Here you can see developers response to some of the threads: http://www.swtor.com/community/devtracker.php Also if you feel like stalk their twitter: Also i could easily think that there is some patch leaks some around the interwebz. Hello there, UnclearImage! We'd like to thank everyone who has helpfully linked to our Developer Tracker. For anyone who is unaware, this lists the latest posts from developers, as well as our Community Managers and Coordinators. We also encourage all our members to please keep an eye on our new Community Blog for news, maintenance reminders, and in-depth posts from developers as well. This includes some and direct great information, such as responses to our Q&A threads. (Including an answer about our upcoming Hue to Chest system.) All this is useless. I see no hard questions in the Q&A. Will there be class balances? What is happening to Ilum.. etc.. etc. Even when a question is answered it's usual vague or incomplete. Saying "We've got big plans" is not a response. The Dev Tracker NEVER posts in the PVP. Even when they do post, which is rarely, It's almost never on important topics. IE: Fluff about how awesome Bioware is doing or patch notes at best. Twitter is not feed back.. it's mindless, self praising drivel. Starwars News? Really? This is not feedback. Don't beleive me? Check the PVP forums.. not one Dev post in there with feedback. At most a dev closes a topic and that's it. People doen't need all questions answered, but knowing that someone is listening gives a crap helps. It's a new game. I can deal with broken, imbalanced gameplay if I know that it's being corrected or at least looked into, but at this point 100% of the pvp forums are ignored. Edited February 21, 2012 by Typheran Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnclearImage Posted February 22, 2012 Author Share Posted February 22, 2012 It doesn't help that we see scheduled maitenance but have no idea what the servers are going down for, are you patching 1.2? Why's the server going down for 8 hours? I've read all the posted material and it's half answers and again the NDA "More in the future" and this "wait and see" crap, when you're talking about armor coloring and features SAY WHAT THE FEATURES ARE. It kills me that they refuse to actualy break down, again there's 14 new battleground medals being added in 1.2 .... what are they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jett-Rinn Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 All this is useless. I see no hard questions in the Q&A. Will there be class balances? What is happening to Ilum.. etc.. etc. Even when a question is answered it's usual vague or incomplete. Saying "We've got big plans" is not a response. The Dev Tracker NEVER posts in the PVP. Even when they do post, which is rarely, It's almost never on important topics. IE: Fluff about how awesome Bioware is doing or patch notes at best. Twitter is not feed back.. it's mindless, self praising drivel. Starwars News? Really? This is not feedback. Don't beleive me? Check the PVP forums.. not one Dev post in there with feedback. At most a dev closes a topic and that's it. People doen't need all questions answered, but knowing that someone is listening gives a crap helps. It's a new game. I can deal with broken, imbalanced gameplay if I know that it's being corrected or at least looked into, but at this point 100% of the pvp forums are ignored. After reading this article; I'm sorry but we are damn lucky Bioware speaks to us at all. Every time a developer hell even a mod shows up they are insulted and degraded.....why should they subject themselves to that kind of vitriol? And don't say it is because it's their job...being treated like crap is no ones job. Honestly this is why official forums are going the way of the dodo; the message that Bioware is trying to convey and the questions that legitimate players are trying to ask are both drowned out in the thrash metal concert of hate. If i want to ask a question to the devs I go to either Georgs or Rays or Davids Google + account; or if it has to do with the community I hit up Rockjaws twitter. I have never not gotten and answer and it is usually in less than an hour. No other developer does that; try it with Blizzard you will get ignored try it with any dev at Arenanet and you will get blocked. The more Bioware tries to communicate the more crap they get...so again...why bother? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnclearImage Posted February 22, 2012 Author Share Posted February 22, 2012 After reading this article; I'm sorry but we are damn lucky Bioware speaks to us at all. Every time a developer hell even a mod shows up they are insulted and degraded.....why should they subject themselves to that kind of vitriol? I don't know what this article about one Bioware employee being verbally harassed has to do with Bioware fans in general being frustrated at the lack of information, all we're saying is we're not looking for suprises or hints- we want black and white. What Bioware says (summary) : In patch 1.2 we will bring back armor coloring with some extra features. What we want Bioware to say (for instance I don't know what the 'features' are): In patch 1.2 we will be adding armor coloring, you will be able to color all pieces of your armor based off the coloring of one piece of armor, you have currenty equipped. Is that verbal harassment? No, it's not- this is the information age, and I want information and when Bioware gives me half the information and HINTS to some other part- I get frustrated. I like to know what's going on in the games I play, I want to know the direction it's going so I can go "Wow, that's cool- hey guys have you heard about BLANK that's so freakin cool- I love Bioware" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zelkin Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 I don't know what this article about one Bioware employee being verbally harassed has to do with Bioware fans in general being frustrated at the lack of information, all we're saying is we're not looking for suprises or hints- we want black and white. What Bioware says (summary) : In patch 1.2 we will bring back armor coloring with some extra features. What we want Bioware to say (for instance I don't know what the 'features' are): In patch 1.2 we will be adding armor coloring, you will be able to color all pieces of your armor based off the coloring of one piece of armor, you have currenty equipped. Is that verbal harassment? No, it's not- this is the information age, and I want information and when Bioware gives me half the information and HINTS to some other part- I get frustrated. I like to know what's going on in the games I play, I want to know the direction it's going so I can go "Wow, that's cool- hey guys have you heard about BLANK that's so freakin cool- I love Bioware" They feel no obligation to communicate anything to the community. Like the poster above said, you're damn lucky they even say anything to us. Com Reps get so much crap from people like you with the same mindset that there's no reason for them to open their proverbial mouths. The more they interact with the playerbase, the easier it will be for them to side with the playerbase's demands, making it harder for them to develop a game THEY developed. This is not your game. You are not special. We are not special. Be thankful with what you have instead of whining for more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veniras Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 (edited) Also, you should be aware that a BW employee should never promise anything specific to the community, as things might be suject to change and that person would only be setting themselves up for a barrage of "you promised us"-attacks BW does IMO (which of course is much better and grander than yours) give a lot of info. They are doing a hell of a job listening to and participating in the community. Edited February 22, 2012 by Veniras Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cschoet Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Here, I'll answer it for them: We are working on numerous bugs, updates, and content additions, in an descending order of priority. Each of these involve coding and testing, repeating this cycle over and over, until we are satisfied with the result. Once this is done, we will release the new implementations into the Public Test Realm to see how they fare. After this step, we will analyze the data and decide to either rework them, implement them, or abandon them for the time being. If and when one of our ideas make it to the "implement" stage, you will find it in the most appropriate upcoming patch or update, where we will continue to observe the implementation's effects game-wide. Sincerely, BioWare Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moofausa Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 (edited) How hard would it be for them to actually explain things in more detail, is that too much to ask? League of legends makes videos for every single one of their patches showing you in depth what they are doing and what changes they are making. I'm sure if they can get into coding, development, all the technical bs they can write a few more sentences about the patches. Edited February 22, 2012 by Meluna content Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veniras Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Here, I'll answer it for them: We are working on numerous bugs, updates, and content additions, in an descending order of priority. Each of these involve coding and testing, repeating this cycle over and over, until we are satisfied with the result. Once this is done, we will release the new implementations into the Public Test Realm to see how they fare. After this step, we will analyze the data and decide to either rework them, implement them, or abandon them for the time being. If and when one of our ideas make it to the "implement" stage, you will find it in the most appropriate upcoming patch or update, where we will continue to observe the implementation's effects game-wide. Sincerely, BioWare BEST POST EVER! (I'm gonna steal it and use it elsewhere) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kymour Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 To those taking offense to what the thread starter is saying: He is being very courteous with his words and has offered a meaningful discussion. He has not stated any vulgarity towards anyone or anything much less towards Bioware or its employees. All he is doing is asking for cut and dry information on what will or will not be coming soon and when. He is paying $15 a month and probably (not speaking for him) wants to get as much value out of it as possible. For the thread starter: Keep in mind this game has only been out 2 months, no game ever comes out perfect and much less needing no work within that time frame. Even WOW took at least 6 months to get on track, some games have yet to get on track even though they have been out for yrs (EQ2). Fact is most of us understand that Bioware needs to get the Bugs and faults out first before they place the ultimate fluff in. Please consider all points of view before starting a flame war or insinuating things that are emotionally based instead of factually based. If you decide you want to be a flame troll or want to insult people, well then become a politician, I hear they get paid by us to make us feel like idiots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth-Doodle Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Bioware, I understand that during the BETA testing and everything leading up til now you had your NDA in place, you were building hype- that's fine. You didn't want to leak and let other companies steal your thunder or have people judge you based off an unfinished product. I can appreciate it. However here's the reality, your BETA is over. Your game is released, you have a community and not all of them are happy, I've heard all the arguments for and against this game- and I'm not going to flood the screen at all. But this policy of not telling your player base what your working on, or what's currently in the works has got to go. The NDA is over, we have the game and as usual with all games people have their own problem with it. I personally dislike the lack of armor coloring, the fact I cannot choose my ship (Smuggler ship is utter and complete garbage) , the fact you dropped the ability to change the role of your companions (i.e. one companion can heal, tank, etc.) Uncontrollable stupid amounts of crowd control in PVP etc. It would make me as a player feel much better if you guys told me what you were working on so I can get excited about it, as of right now I feel that since you're not talking about it you either don't know or don't care, and no player wants to think the game they love is run by people who just don't care. You made this game, but I play it, we're in the together so quit trying to keep me in the dark. This "We'll suprise them" policy is for game development and for building game hype, every game company worth anything announces their content weeks or months in advance to remind those jaded gamers out there that "we're working on it" you guys don't even have the patch notes/ ides for SWTOR 1.2 up (which I gather is the next patch according to your febuary Q/A) So again, and in closing- this "keep them in the dark" policy is annoying, frustrating, and in my mind totally unprofessional. After a game launches there are no more suprises, theres people that quit and find out a month or so later the reason they quit was patched a week after they quit. Will a million trillion people quit if you don't listen to me? No. Will the world end and SWTOR explode? No. Will it make life a little easier for the players? Yes. I'm sorry, maybe it's just me, but why does Bioware have to talk to anyone about the service they provide. I actually see their discussions being more than required. They don't have to post as much as they already do, yelling at them to talk to you because you have something to say is pointless and silly. Say there is a Mc.Donalds near you, they have a sandwich that you want but hasn't been on the menu. Do you stand at the register yelling for it? Nope, all you can do is slip a ticket into their box(if they have one at that franchise) and move along. You don't subscribe there but they require repeat business to operate which is harder than a subscription based system. Frankly I think the way Bioware is handling it currently is perfect. Patches get released quickly, efficiently and most of them are pretty clean. Everyday they work to make their product better and better, if you cannot see that or choose not to, that isn't their problem, it's yours! P.S. Don't bundle everyone into your end rants. I.E. Will a million trillion people quit if you don't listen to me? No. Will the world end and SWTOR explode? No. Will it make life a little easier for the players? Yes. I'm having fun already, go get some sun and some fresh air, it helps, really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Typheran Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 After reading this article; I'm sorry but we are damn lucky Bioware speaks to us at all. Every time a developer hell even a mod shows up they are insulted and degraded.....why should they subject themselves to that kind of vitriol? And don't say it is because it's their job...being treated like crap is no ones job. Honestly this is why official forums are going the way of the dodo; the message that Bioware is trying to convey and the questions that legitimate players are trying to ask are both drowned out in the thrash metal concert of hate. If i want to ask a question to the devs I go to either Georgs or Rays or Davids Google + account; or if it has to do with the community I hit up Rockjaws twitter. I have never not gotten and answer and it is usually in less than an hour. No other developer does that; try it with Blizzard you will get ignored try it with any dev at Arenanet and you will get blocked. The more Bioware tries to communicate the more crap they get...so again...why bother? This arcticle has nothing to do with us, or the players of this game in general.. these are a couple of mentally damaged people harassing someone. This IS NOT THE NORM, but the exception. To say they don't, or shouldn't talk to us because of these subhumans is like saying you shouldn't go outside because the news had a bad story in it. Get over yourself. They need a active public relations person or two.. or three to be a gap between unhappy, ignored players and their DEV team. Anarchy online lost most of their customers because of bad customer relations. Where is AO now? The only thing keeping a good chuck of people in this game is the title STAR WARS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnclearImage Posted February 24, 2012 Author Share Posted February 24, 2012 (edited) Look, to all those "this game just came out look at _____" arguments, my topic wasn't about that but while we're here fine- when cars first came out they didn't have seatbelts, if a car comes out without seatbelts we don't go "oh, it's okay the FIRST car didn't have seatbelts" No- we'd go, *** seatbelts are standard what's wrong with this company trying to reinvent the wheel here? (Analogy is over, please don't get distracted and start talking about manufacturing standards and state laws- it's a bloody example.) I'm asking Bioware simply to give us information, if you believe that game companies are as secretive as Bioware you'd be wrong. Look at the ever present World of Warcraft and Blizzard- when armor augmentation was coming out we knew at least 3-4 months in advance they had 2-3 paragraphs explaining it, a detailed breakdown of what it is and how it worked, screen shots and everything. MONTHS in advance, Bioware won't even tell us what they're patching when the servers go down. More information won't kill SWTOR, it won't kill Bioware, it's the customer service REPs jobs to answer questions and help people, so quit trying to say "it's not their job" and "they shouldn't have to" and "I'm suprised they do _______" I'm not hating, I just wanna know when 1.2 is coming out, what skills come with the legacy system, what features come with armor coloring, etc. It's REALLY sad I get more information about SWTOR from other websites then from SWTOR.com or from Bioware's team, that I have to goto TORHEAD or what have you to get patch info. That's the problem here. Edited February 24, 2012 by UnclearImage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJDrakken Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 (edited) They don't do that. They Turtle up & believe they are magical super biengs we all love & adore. When they think we don't they come out say outlandish stuff & are caught in random misinformation amongst their own team/employees that leads to burning sensation presented to them from those they think adore em. The process then reverts back to Turtle up delusional state again, rinse & repeat. It's a cycle we've known well. JJ Edited February 24, 2012 by JJDrakken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mysquine Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 (edited) I have to say Bioware hasn't been talking to the community as much as it should. The Q&A looks a little like this: Q: Whats the legacy system going to contain? A: Well we can't tell you yet but it will be out soon! Q: Are there any plans for server merges and moving? A: In the pipelines! More information later! Q: Do you like pie? A: Im sorry but we cannot provide any information at this time, other than it is currently being talked about. All I'd like to know is what the legacy system will give OTHER than just "new Character races" because that doesn't really help peoples main characters, and as the forums already know - Alts are not Endgame :/ And what the actual plans are for 1.2, whether or not a new tier set will be out with the operations and just a little bit more info than "no eta". Not bothered if people disagree with me or agree but theres alot of people like myself out there that think they're clutching onto 1.2 as this "Magic fix" that will keep alot of people interested and stop them from unsubbing. I think releasing more information would atleast put peoples minds at ease. Edited February 24, 2012 by Mysquine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts