It's Time

[Bation]

Some people would appreciate it. Others would take this information as 'promises', as has been seen already, and use it to feel all butthurt that BioWare broke a 'promise' when no promise was in fact made.

 

As for me, I don't need BioWare to hold my hand and talk to me every day..I'm not some clingy, desperate beta male who needs reassurance. I don't demand such communication from the devs that create my console games, nor the devs that create my SPRG PC games. I don't demand such communication from my cell phone provider, nor any other service provider in any business.

 

Why certain MMO players feel they deserve constant attention by the developers is beyond me.

 

If there's something wrong with my cell service you better beleive I'm going to call and demand to know when it would be fixed same my internet or anything else I pay a monthly fee/bill for why shouldn't mmos developers be held to the same standard. I'm paying them 15 dollars month for a service they are providing me you better beleive I want to be up to date with info on fixes and overall changes. I wouldn't allow ATT or insight to tell me it'll be fixed this summer.

[Sparklehorse]

Some people would appreciate it. Others would take this information as 'promises', as has been seen already, and use it to feel all butthurt that BioWare broke a 'promise' when no promise was in fact made.

 

Fair point. We have seen this happen time and time again and I am sure this plays no small part in their silence. Thing is, this happens regardless. It is a video game forum after all. There is also the question of which is worse.

 

To communicate with the community their intents and to provide at least a tentative idea of a timeline along with some details about what is going on internally (so we can see the hard work we all know they are doing?)

 

or

 

To remain silent while speculation grows, tempers flare, subs drop and people just stop logging in? Believe it or not there are a lot of people who are waiting on server transfers and doing nothing in the meantime. Lots of pvpr's just can't bring themselves to log in anymore. A little chat from the devs could work wonders where situations like these are occurring.

 

As for me, I don't need BioWare to hold my hand and talk to me every day..I'm not some clingy, desperate beta male who needs reassurance. I don't demand such communication from the devs that create my console games, nor the devs that create my SPRG PC games. I don't demand such communication from my cell phone provider, nor any other service provider in any business.

 

Why certain MMO players feel they deserve constant attention by the developers is beyond me.

 

I don't think anybody is asking for their hand to be held or for daily updates or for live cameras at the Bioware offices.

 

I do feel it is extremely important for the developers to reach out to the community more often than Bioware has. Let's be honest here, they have been much less forthcoming than almost any other MMO I have ever played and I feel pretty certain I am not the only one who has noticed this.

 

I don't say this as a means to insult them. I am sure they have been working hard on getting shiny new things to us and I appreciate this immensely. I, however, am not the person they need to convince.

 

The people that need convincing are those pvpr's that have been crying out for ranked pvp (and open world pvp for that matter,) those poor suckers on low pop servers who just can't bring themselves to log on to an empty fleet anymore, flashpoint lovers who long to be able to just chain run some of the excellent pve content (you would be surprised how many people haven't even seen the inside of a flashpoint due to not being able to get groups for them.) Those are the people Bioware needs to talk to.

 

When you say you don't need your hand held, the implication is that the idea is childish and those that desire more communications are as children, feeble beings who need a path carved for them and an easy path at that.

 

I submit that an outstretched hand needn't always be that of a child, but that of a friend. A person with whom you would like to have a nice afternoon walk with full of mirth and joy. Holding hands is also a show of respect, honor and commitment, a physical exchange that says, I want to be linked to you for this journey.

 

Will Bioware see our palms outstretched and place their own back into their pockets? That is the question at the heart of this thread.

[Kthx]

If I had booked a flight with Ryan Air, and they were rearranging my flight, I'd expect, as a paying customer, to be given answers to any and all questions I wanted to ask. I would also not expect their response to be, effectively, "go somewhere else if you don't like it", as any company that does that is unlikely to last.

 

Um, have you flown with RyanAir?

[amantheil]

What's frustrating to me is that they provide more info through 3rd party sites than they do on their own website. A few weeks ago on the Mos Eisley Radio podcast they gave a lot of info on ranked WZs, why they were pulled, what the plans are, etc. None of which they bothered to share on this site.

[Bation]

All I can say sparkle is

 

PREACH ON BROTHER

 

If mmo players could form a union you'd be our leader lol

[Bation]

What's frustrating to me is that they provide more info through 3rd party sites than they do on their own website. A few weeks ago on the Mos Eisley Radio podcast they gave a lot of info on ranked WZs, why they were pulled, what the plans are, etc. None of which they bothered to share on this site.

 

This is absolutely true I get more info from darthhater than this site

[MasterRequiem]

What exactly is the point of this thread? The forums are for talking to other players yet this thread is aimed at the developers. What a waste of everybody's time.

[Sparklehorse]

OP. Did someone recently turn green and explode near you?

 

Haha. Nah, and if they had I would simply use one of the antidotes in my (way to cluttered) inventory.

 

I have a suggestion. Go back to just logging on and enjoying the game rather then worry about things you are not paid to worry about. Trust me, they already know all this and are frantically working on solutions. We are talking literally millions of dollars here. No one takes that lightly.[/Quote]

 

Of course they do. I couldn't hurt to jot the community a couple of updates though could it? (Keeping in mind that the argument, "but if they say something then change it they will get backlash" is sort of moot at this point, trolls be trolls be trolls.)

 

Your suggestion to just play and stop worrying is a point taken. Thank you.

 

You sound very bright and I do like your ideas, but I'm thinking you have been sucked in by this board and all the "know it alls" and their banter about failure and the resulting natural disaster that will ensue.

 

Think of it in terms of growing pains. The game is and remains financially viable. That means it will be ongoing, with a solid base of support. That means it has what it needs most, time. Everything else will fall into place with that time. If the LFG comes before mergers, the boards will explode, but the game will be fine. Once mergers come in it will be like the frustration of 137 blue REs falling by the way once that purple pattern pops, and everyone is happy again. People will come flocking back, especially if done when new content is released....just as it has occurred for the last 18 years with these games.

 

Worrying about it will not help it along.

 

Again, in complete agreement here and I'm not concerned about the game remaining viable and healthy at all. We all know there's at least a million people out there that love Star Wars so much you could slap a Star Wars logo on pretty much anything and they will play it (no offense intended lol.)

 

My primary concern is that the relationship between the developers and the community is so volatile (at least on our side anyway) and I feel like this is in no small part, due to the lack (or perceived lack) of communication or interchange between the players (trolls included, sadly) and the guys who are making our favorite game.

 

We all have the same goals here, don't we?

[Sanxxx]

The TL;DR Summary of OPs post..

 

I like your game

There are some valid concerns

People are leaving

You need to talk to us more

Regardless I'll still keep paying you

Edited May 11, 2012 by Sanxxx

[Sparklehorse]

What exactly is the point of this thread? The forums are for talking to other players yet this thread is aimed at the developers. What a waste of everybody's time.

 

I am sorry if you feel I have wasted your time.

 

The threads intent was not necessarily to goad the devs into more communication. However, there has to be room for a legitimate and mature discussion about the current state of communication and rate of information delivery.

 

This can be done without slamming the developers or even addressing them directly. So far it seems to have been a lively and relatively productive conversation, at the very least providing an outlet for people to vent some legitimate concerns.

 

Again, sorry if you feel your time has been wasted. That certainly is not my intent.

[Bation]

The TL;DR Summary of OPs post..

 

I like your game

There are some valid concerns

People are leaving

You need to talk to us more

Regardless I'll still keep paying you

 

And this is the begging of the end for this thread Trollz can smell other Trollz trolling forums away kinda like bees and bee stings

Edited May 11, 2012 by Bation

[BigOso]

I disagree with OP, the info is present whenever THEY have some to give us, not much more can be added because they would just throw us a bone and then ppl would hold em to that and that in turn, would just be taken the wrong way by so many and they would again fall into a place where a few forum folks think there just the worst dev team that ever leaved..

 

My point is, NO MATTER HOW MUCH INFO THEY give, there's always guna be a few idiots on the forum to cause trouble with that...

 

Right now, we have alot of avenues on this website that deals with "getting info to the folks" and they keep those updated as they see fit. Which is to add more when they actually have more info to send to us, no speculation dates or anything else of that nature that might throw some of the forum residents into a rage or tandrum.

Edited May 11, 2012 by BigOso

[Sparklehorse]

The TL;DR Summary of OPs post..

 

I like your game

There are some valid concerns

People are leaving

You need to talk to us more

Regardless I'll still keep paying you

 

Fair enough. I won't deny I have no intention of going anywhere at least for the next three months and that this does indeed weaken any leverage I might have but that's the thing. I'm not trying to leverage anything here.

 

I just want the game to be good, the developers to be productive, the community to be as cohesive as an mmo community can be, and I don't feel it is too much to ask to know a little bit more about what they are thinking and the direction we are going.

[Sparklehorse]

My point is, NO MATTER HOW MUCH INFO THEY give, there's always guna be a few idiots on the forum to cause trouble with that...

 

This argument works both ways.

 

So the question is. Do we withhold information from the community in fear of the trolls?

 

That seems rather wrong doesn't it?

[Sanxxx]

Fair enough. I won't deny I have no intention of going anywhere at least for the next three months and that this does indeed weaken any leverage I might have but that's the thing. I'm not trying to leverage anything here.

 

I just want the game to be good, the developers to be productive, the community to be as cohesive as an mmo community can be, and I don't feel it is too much to ask to know a little bit more about what they are thinking and the direction we are going.

 

And that is indeed a very reasonable request.

[spellegren]

I agree with the OP and would really like to see a "state of the game" style update.

 

I'm paid up through October but have put my account into cancellation status and haven't had the motivation to log in for more then some crew skill missions and GTN playing. Even the GTN is slowing down daily, there just aren't enough people for a decent play experience.

Edited May 11, 2012 by spellegren

[Parali]

Greetings everyone,

 

We know that our community is very interested to hear new information about what the developers are planning for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. Associate Online Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez recently addressed player concerns about developer communication:

 

Originally Posted by Gaje

...but i do expect to see the community relations team take some issues to the Dev team...

 

This is what we do on a daily basis here in the office. Our community representatives give us daily reports on top issues and we investigate them and bring them up to our development team. When we have a solution or some information to post, we make sure to update any major forum threads related to the issue.

 

Originally Posted by Gaje

There is very little info about whats coming up in game other then vague oh XYZ feature may be 1.3 1.4 or 1.million that's in 2014

 

I suggest checking out our patch notes, community blog, news site, weekly Q&As, Weekly Dev Track Summary Blogs, Weekly Patch Notes Updates, and of course, here in General Discussion, to name a few places.

 

Of course, our general policy is to not talk in detail about specific features until we are 100% sure that it is on its way. You can imagine what would happen if we gave a specific date, months in advance, only to come up against an unforeseen obstacle that causes us to delay a particular feature. This is why you'll see many replies by us and our developers that simply say "soon".

 

Originally Posted by Gaje

My point is Bioware, get on the boards/twitter/facebook wherever you decide and start interacting with your player base, if it doesn't fix anything it shows your interested in what players views are, communicate where the game is going, after all its something we are all invested in.

 

We have a dedicated social media team monitoring our official Facebook fan page and answering comments, questions, and concerns over on our official Twitter account.

 

You can also find the SWTOR community team members on Twitter by checking out this list.

 

Finally, we've been fairly active over in the SWTOR subreddit on Reddit.

 

I hope that I've helped in addressing your concerns, but please let us know if you still have any issues.

 

As for the issue of server transfers, we talked about those in our most recent Weekly Q&A. Here's what Dallas Dickinson (Senior Producer, Live Services) had to say on the subject:

 

Arymono: When will character transfers be available for everybody?

 

Dallas Dickinson (Senior Producer, Live Services): We will be rolling out our Character Transfer Service in early summer. First we’ll have some targeted free transfers from/to specific servers, but that will be followed with a broader system where you can either take advantage of free promotional transfers to specific servers or paid transfers to the server of your choice. We know everyone has more questions about character transfer, and we’ll reveal more details closer to the launch date.

 

 

 

DrakeAssaShin: What is being done to address low population servers?

 

Dallas: The Character Transfer Service, as mentioned above, will be offering free transfers from/to specific servers. This should allow the most motivated players to get onto a higher population server.

 

We hope this sheds some light on the matter. We are always looking for ways to improve our communication to our players, so please let us know if there is a way we can better serve our community in this area.

 

Thank you for your feedback!

 

[kmufc]

Agree with the OP

[spellegren]

Greetings everyone,

 

We know that our community is very interested to hear new information about what the developers are planning for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. Associate Online Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez recently addressed player concerns about developer communication:

 

 

 

As for the issue of server transfers, we talked about those in our most recent Weekly Q&A. Here's what Dallas Dickinson (Senior Producer, Live Services) had to say on the subject:

 

 

 

We hope this sheds some light on the matter. We are always looking for ways to improve our communication to our players, so please let us know if there is a way we can better serve our community in this area.

 

Thank you for your feedback!

 

 

And this policy, the lack in communication and delay getting these features implemented will continue to cost the game customers and the effect will continue to snowball.

 

We do appreciate your efforts and understand how you have to operate as part of the forum team.

Edited May 11, 2012 by spellegren

[Tiaa]

Hire this man to be your PR REP Bioware plz

 

I'm pretty sure Bioware works something like this:

 

"Top "leaders" of SWTOR have their own little group and take little to no advice from other members below them."

 

This would explain why horrible decisions are being made with the game as usually the "top" people are the main ones who do less work and are out of touch with their communities. This isn't Valve or Blizzard. This is EA/Bioware.

 

The decisions that are being made OBVIOUSLY aren't from a real MMO vet / or someone that REALLY cares about SWTOR.

 

It's just a project to them.

Edited May 11, 2012 by Tiaa

[MaverickXIV]

I like how a BioWare employee just completely debunked the OPs post but no one will care because you people don't actually care about communication; that's just a buzz word that means "I want it NOW NOW NOW, but I also realize how childish that sounds." There's plenty of communication, you're just ignoring it.

 

I also find it funny when people say "hire this man" because ten times out of ten the guy isn't saying anything intelligent or new, just agreeing with some popular, easy talking-point-of-the-month that the forum's peanut gallery currenly has their limited attention spans fixated on.

 

A PR representitve for a software product should probably understand even slighty how the software development proces works and how long it realistically takes.

[Solo_Han]

Um, have you flown with RyanAir?

 

I have... Spoken to their customer services on two separate occasions, never had an issue. They charge the earth for bags, but that's another story.

 

Point is, I book a flight, that flight is delayed, they contact me in advance when possible to let me know it will be delayed, what my rights as a consumer are, and what my options are.

 

I'd call that pretty good customer service.

[Solo_Han]

I'm pretty sure Bioware works something like this:

 

"Top "leaders" of SWTOR have their own little group and take little to no advice from other members below them."

 

I see you've heard of EA before then?

[nartiuslightlord]

What would you have them do, personally call you when new code is added? Edited May 11, 2012 by nartiuslightlord

[WereMops]

...................

I understand that timelines are dangerous and how perilous it is to reveal features before they are ready in such a volatile community environment. I get all of that, believe me I do.

..........................................................................................................

I genuinely feel like the health and future of this game depends on the developers being more forthcoming and doing so...immediately.

 

We need to know the plans for transfers/lfg/ranked pvp. We need to know more and a tentative timeline would be sincerely appreciated. My largest concern is how these three things interact with each other.

....................................................................

 

Obviously you don't understand, you might think you do but you really don't.