DarthTHC Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 It's just childish to act like they are ignorant to how they have failed. They know, although they might not agree with any of us. They are also only able to do so much, in terms of how fast they bring out fixes. They seem like a team more interested in incremental fixes rather than large radical changes, and for good reason. I've cancelled my account, and I hate the direction the game is going, but I'm under no illusion of thinking they are idiots. They simply are designing a different game than I want to play at the moment. They were told a nearly infinite number of times during game test what was wrong with the game - the things that are driving players to unsubscribe now. They never fixed it then. They should right now be aware that some of the "fixes" they have planned won't actually fix anything (for example: single-server LFG tool). It is absolutely not "childish" to assume the developers haven't a clue why the game is in the state it's in. They clearly haven't had a clue since game test and still don't. Incremental changes are the best way to do it, yes. But the "it" has to be the right things and that's simply not what seems to be happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxetius Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 The game needs a community manager. as Sr. Community Manager, I would think his job was to ensure two-way communication between the developers and the community. I can't say he did his job well. That's all it comes down to. They were told a nearly infinite number of times during game test what was wrong with the game - the things that are driving players to unsubscribe now. They never fixed it then. This. And people wonder why they cleaned house? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalfear Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Quote: Originally Posted by discosoc It's just childish to act like they are ignorant to how they have failed. They know, although they might not agree with any of us. They are also only able to do so much, in terms of how fast they bring out fixes. They seem like a team more interested in incremental fixes rather than large radical changes, and for good reason. I've cancelled my account, and I hate the direction the game is going, but I'm under no illusion of thinking they are idiots. They simply are designing a different game than I want to play at the moment. Ummm dont know if you ever worked in cust service but RADICAL CHANGES rarely ever turn out good. TOR has allot that needs repair and fixing but doing it in a 1 shot radical change is not a smart move by any bussiness. Communicating what needs to be addressed is what needs to happen and honestly SW:TOR has completely and utterly failed to communicate its direction of future game. I been here since closed beta and I have no clue what is priority and what isnt (and I dont really beleive anyone else does either, despite their claims otherwise) SW:TOR is getting a huge failling grade at communication with its customer base and frankly I personally think that outright failure is why Reid lost his job. The job simply wasnt being done well. So Reid was used as the guilty party or possible scape goat ( I dont know EAoware inside mechanics) but now they played that card, EAoware is on the hook to improve things. Nothing short of that will be acceptable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goretzu Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 For those complaining about Facebook & Twitter, please come join the modern age. "Community", especially online community, must encompass these things. As the Community Manager, it was his job to ensure the entire online community was managed and leveraged; not just the official forums. I would imagine SR used Twitter to post snippets he could, while he was awaiting internal approval for more info. Meh Twitter and Facebook = myspace in 5 years time. Afadisafadisafad. Forums actually do the job they are supposed too and do it well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
courtsdad Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 I think it is time to start a thread guessing the name of the next Senior Community Manager. My money is on the next one being named Samuel or Stan because all of the Senior Community Managers so far have their first names start with "S", if there will be another one that is... First we had Sean Dahlberg and then we had Steven Reid. I wish Steven the best of luck by the way. Smedley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darka Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 The bonds of the Community were shut down early Once dubbed "the 5th pillar" very early on the Community was actually top notch, you had a reason to be on the forums. You could make friends, and talk to them nice and easy. The visitor walls got you involved and allowed people to communicate and share stuff easier, the off topic while having its moments trying to be 4chan 2.0 was useful but not for everyone. There were rumours of a more involved and interactive forum profile for you once the game went live at one stage too, reportedly dubbed "Spacebook" The Visitor Walls were removed and still I am unsure why, this great community building tool was removed. It allowed us to bond, and communicate. heck soem days I didnt even check the forums was too busy talking and replying to messages on the wall. The PM service is average, and while offers similar it just is not the same. The closure of OT was another move that stopped the community bonding over areas other then TOR. The social aspect sometimes I feel in this game is MIA, while players are responsible, having the right tools is always helpful. I have always pushed for more dev involvement in the forums, they didnt have to say everything but saying something would have helped, even if it was just joining in the fun threads. As they say Silence is deadly. Sean Dahlberg quitting was a bit of shock, while Reid tried his best I still feel his performance was below average, maybe I jsut expected a bit more out of him here on the forums. Sometimes its not a Community of 1.3 Million Players, its just 1.3million Players just sharing the same virtual world. To the next Community Manager, Good luck, but get involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tuscad Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 To the next Community Manager, Good luck, but get involved. "And may the odds be in your favor!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokivoid Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 why is it unfair? He Tweeted all day and said nothing on the official forums, His failure was obvious to us, why not Bioware? That is because he could goof off allday tweeting on his cellphone as opposed to doing his job. In reality though alot of this has to do with internal politics and power struggles. (This is has been happening sense the EA buyout, most of the major developers and writers that made bioware what it was quit because of it.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spiritinblack Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 The bonds of the Community were shut down early Once dubbed "the 5th pillar" very early on the Community was actually top notch, you had a reason to be on the forums. You could make friends, and talk to them nice and easy. The visitor walls got you involved and allowed people to communicate and share stuff easier, the off topic while having its moments trying to be 4chan 2.0 was useful but not for everyone. There were rumours of a more involved and interactive forum profile for you once the game went live at one stage too, reportedly dubbed "Spacebook" The Visitor Walls were removed and still I am unsure why, this great community building tool was removed. It allowed us to bond, and communicate. heck soem days I didnt even check the forums was too busy talking and replying to messages on the wall. The PM service is average, and while offers similar it just is not the same. The closure of OT was another move that stopped the community bonding over areas other then TOR. The social aspect sometimes I feel in this game is MIA, while players are responsible, having the right tools is always helpful. I have always pushed for more dev involvement in the forums, they didnt have to say everything but saying something would have helped, even if it was just joining in the fun threads. As they say Silence is deadly. Sean Dahlberg quitting was a bit of shock, while Reid tried his best I still feel his performance was below average, maybe I jsut expected a bit more out of him here on the forums. Sometimes its not a Community of 1.3 Million Players, its just 1.3million Players just sharing the same virtual world. To the next Community Manager, Good luck, but get involved. First, Hi Darka, long time no see. Second.... I was shocked as well when Sean left. He was great for the community, and did his job well. Something did not strike me right when he left. I should have listened to that inner feeling I had. As for Stephen, I would have to agree. But I'm not sure if he was put in a position where he had to be the way he was or not. Maybe the reason why Sean left was due to how they were starting to get treated. He was so excited working on this game....then all of the sudden he left. Just seems odd to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShavedEwok Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) The bonds of the Community were shut down early Once dubbed "the 5th pillar" very early on the Community was actually top notch, you had a reason to be on the forums. You could make friends, and talk to them nice and easy. The visitor walls got you involved and allowed people to communicate and share stuff easier, the off topic while having its moments trying to be 4chan 2.0 was useful but not for everyone. There were rumours of a more involved and interactive forum profile for you once the game went live at one stage too, reportedly dubbed "Spacebook" The Visitor Walls were removed and still I am unsure why, this great community building tool was removed. It allowed us to bond, and communicate. heck soem days I didnt even check the forums was too busy talking and replying to messages on the wall. The PM service is average, and while offers similar it just is not the same. The closure of OT was another move that stopped the community bonding over areas other then TOR. The social aspect sometimes I feel in this game is MIA, while players are responsible, having the right tools is always helpful. I have always pushed for more dev involvement in the forums, they didnt have to say everything but saying something would have helped, even if it was just joining in the fun threads. As they say Silence is deadly. Sean Dahlberg quitting was a bit of shock, while Reid tried his best I still feel his performance was below average, maybe I jsut expected a bit more out of him here on the forums. Sometimes its not a Community of 1.3 Million Players, its just 1.3million Players just sharing the same virtual world. To the next Community Manager, Good luck, but get involved. Hi Darka, hope all is well with you! I agree the visitor walls were pretty cool, and they sure did add an extra social dimension to these forums. Of course also have no idea why they were removed. As for Stephen Reid, I'd just like to point out that when he first started he was extremely active on these forums. Also, when he took over was also when the rest of the devs suddenly started posting a lot here. Something that was very rare before Stephen came along. I think everyone who was around at that time can agree on this. What happened after that, or how it's been as of late, is another question. Seems a lot of people are critical of his focus on Twitter as means of communication, and I must admit I can at least see where they are coming from. However, on the other hand I can also see it from the perspective of wanting to extend communication to Twitter and it also allowing for more frequent and quicker updates. It's probably a lot easier to keep track of than going through forum threads and reply to them. Personally, I would prefer community managers to be focus their presence on where the majority of the community is, which probably would be these forums. That said, I still feel Stephen did a good job overall. Again, let's not forget that the increased dev posts and more open communication was something that kicked off when he started...before that it was pretty unusual to see any dev post here. All the best to Stephen and thanks for his work on SWTOR. Also, good luck to the person taking over (if that is indeed the case). SE Edited May 23, 2012 by ShavedEwok Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skidrowbro Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Does the senior community manager have any involvement on how these forums are managed and moderated? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sirsri Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 I don't know... You generally want people playing an MMO to feel immersed in the world, and getting news updates on meta-game stuff just doesn't seem to make sense. Most attempts at combining real-world interactions to the game world have met with complete failure (submitting help tickets are a notable exception). A classic example was Everquest 2 and their /pizza command. Right, so relevant news can be RP'd where applicable. In a game like this you could even have fun with it and let the devs RP being the dark/jedi councils passing down edicts on the universe. /pizza was a completely out of game out of context activity (IIRC it brought up a web browser to order pizza) and was logically a throwback to before microsoft forced applications to alt tab from full screen mode. /gems was a completely out of context element to the game that was a pointless time waster people found rather amusing. So YMMV. what did it for me was realizing that I was the only one in the guild who noticed that mercenaries got a battle res, and I play an assassin or operative. I knew no one really read patch notes before, but that was the supreme icing on the cake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRINnBARRETT Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 Lets Elect " JeramieCrowe" Make it happen folks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCynic Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 maybe the next communiy manager will actually come on the forums and talk to the community... And actually understands that the forums are where new news goes, and not Twitter. This times infinity, either get twitter integrated into the forums or all communication happens here with reposts on social media sites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRINnBARRETT Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 I can't speculate with any authenticity about why this change has happened. But I did have a beef with him always using 3rd party social media to give us ground breaking news about this game. Social media IMO should be used as a supplement to the forums. Now if we could get the rest of the devs to use the forums instead of announcing new stuff via 3rd party websites... (Tin-foil hatters will say that they do this to pay sites back for positive reviews; who knows). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalfear Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 This times infinity, either get twitter integrated into the forums or all communication happens here with reposts on social media sites. This I strongly beleive (and this for any gaming company) the announcement and interaction goes HERE first. You can repost (and probably should in todays social media enviroment) everything on Facebook and Twitter and what ever replaces Facebook and what ever replaces twitter in 5 years time. But the INITIAL POST, and all interaction with your customers should happen HERE! And I do beleive it should be HERE ON FORUM, not dev tracker where no one can respond or reply. It should be announced here and then copy pasted to dev tracker (if relevant), twitter, facebook This is actually something RIFT did oh so well and one of the reasons they had the best launch of a MMORPG Ive ever seen. Oh they had launch issues but you never once felt they hide from the issues or the player base. Made a world of difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supahhappy Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 It seems Stephen Reids finally went out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tloops Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 Lets Elect " JeramieCrowe" Make it happen folks no thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazirus- Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 The bonds of the Community were shut down early Once dubbed "the 5th pillar" very early on the Community was actually top notch, you had a reason to be on the forums. You could make friends, and talk to them nice and easy. The visitor walls got you involved and allowed people to communicate and share stuff easier, the off topic while having its moments trying to be 4chan 2.0 was useful but not for everyone. There were rumours of a more involved and interactive forum profile for you once the game went live at one stage too, reportedly dubbed "Spacebook" The Visitor Walls were removed and still I am unsure why, this great community building tool was removed. It allowed us to bond, and communicate. heck soem days I didnt even check the forums was too busy talking and replying to messages on the wall. The PM service is average, and while offers similar it just is not the same. The closure of OT was another move that stopped the community bonding over areas other then TOR. The social aspect sometimes I feel in this game is MIA, while players are responsible, having the right tools is always helpful. I have always pushed for more dev involvement in the forums, they didnt have to say everything but saying something would have helped, even if it was just joining in the fun threads. As they say Silence is deadly. Sean Dahlberg quitting was a bit of shock, while Reid tried his best I still feel his performance was below average, maybe I jsut expected a bit more out of him here on the forums. Sometimes its not a Community of 1.3 Million Players, its just 1.3million Players just sharing the same virtual world. To the next Community Manager, Good luck, but get involved. Good to see you still alive and kicking, Darka. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skidrowbro Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 (edited) Perhaps all the doom and gloom threads that stayed opened had something to do with his demise:rak_02: The Rift forum was never like this and hate threads, doom threads were quickly closed Edited May 24, 2012 by Skidrowbro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jett-Rinn Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 Perhaps all the doom and gloom threads that stayed opened had something to do with his demise:rak_02: The Rift forum was never like this and hate threads, doom threads were quickly closed I think that in a few weeks or less we are going to have very different forums....allowing people who are no longer subscribed to still troll the forums three months after their sub has run out is basically asking for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niil Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 Fine, I have no problem with him ensuring the 'entire online community was managed'. The problem I had was that for those of us who don't believe in online stalking, the first we would hear of most of the things he tweeted about would be when another member of the community (as in, no-one from BW or EA) would come here and post 'SR said this on Twitter...' If something goes on Twitter, especially his personal account and not even the SWTOR account, then it should have been up here first. After all, these are the official forums where official news should go. Exactly. No offense to folks who use twitter and facebook, I do too. But they need to cross post the info. Hell as far as I'm concerned as long as all of the info is in one place, I don't care where I get it. I just don't want to have to go through 3 different media outlets to get all of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddzball Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 I think that in a few weeks or less we are going to have very different forums....allowing people who are no longer subscribed to still troll the forums three months after their sub has run out is basically asking for it. You cant post if you sub has run out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jett-Rinn Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 You cant post if you sub has run out. Several friends have proved to me you can Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skidrowbro Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 (edited) You cant post if you sub has run out. Talking about unsubbing with game time remaining, those trolls. At least that's what I got out of it Edited May 24, 2012 by Skidrowbro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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