A Message from the Community Team

[WrecklessMEDIC]

Good news across the board. EA got mad at the way the community was being handled. Changes are being made now. This is good news for the game, good news for the community, and good news for both BW and EA as companies. I am saddened to hear of the departure of dedicated individuals, but the current direction of SWTOR community outreach was not good. These are the most venomous and vitriolic forums I have ever been a part of for MMOs, and that is NOT the fault of players.

 

I disagree. The players are a big part of the problem. They don't know what they really want.

[DevlinDarrk]

The message from the community team does not encourage me at all. As someone who followed the game for a long time and reported on its development, I feel like there's been no harder role to fill than Reid's. Restructuring? First of all, there were layoffs. People didn't just change job positions, they were let go. Often times this takes place as a response to pacify investors. But how does firing the messenger as a previous poster so eloquently put it, solve the underlying problems? Make the changes that will make the game better, not fire employees who made the game or the community what it is.

[Felioats]

Just don't do the SWG correspondent thing. I can speak from experience that it doesn't work.

[Gaje]

I have been fairly vocal about how poor some of the communication has been towards the playerbase and the lack of interaction that these boards have

 

That being said your post is music to my ears, i look forward to the future and wish all left the best of luck and to those no longer present /bow and thanks

[Gaje]

This has nothing to do with EA getting mad about the way the community was being handled. EA could care less about the community. They laid off people because, with the decrease in players, such a large pool of Bioware employees was not necessary. For EA it solely had to do with cutting back expenses and had nothing to do with EA trying to "reprimand" Bioware for how they handle the community.

 

So why are they hiring a CRM manager again then ?

 

Maybe a rejig and fresh faces since things as they were standing were not working, not unusual to see a company restructure after a release either .....

[Felioats]

This has nothing to do with EA getting mad about the way the community was being handled. EA could care less about the community. They laid off people because, with the decrease in players, such a large pool of Bioware employees was not necessary. For EA it solely had to do with cutting back expenses and had nothing to do with EA trying to "reprimand" Bioware for how they handle the community.

 

Bingo.

 

Just because you're unhappy doesn't mean Bioware hasn't been managing the forums well. If anything, they've done better than most by adding features like the Q&A and the weekly devtracker roundup.

 

Keeping the whole original dev team on staff post-launch was an experiment. The game hemorrhaged subscribers, so they ended it. There's no secret scheme or meaning behind it.

[ktkenshinx]

This has nothing to do with EA getting mad about the way the community was being handled. EA could care less about the community. They laid off people because, with the decrease in players, such a large pool of Bioware employees was not necessary. For EA it solely had to do with cutting back expenses and had nothing to do with EA trying to "reprimand" Bioware for how they handle the community.

Given that neither of us work at either EA or BW, we can both agree that we are speculating. My speculation is that EA is annoyed at losing so many subs so quickly, and in some part blames the community management on the forums for this. There are other factors to blame, but one of them is definitely the way that BW has handled the forums. In removing the parties who EA believed were at fault, the hope is that SWTOR can retain its hardcore forumgoing players and at least start to have some semblance of friendly community.

 

As with most business decisions, there are a lot of factors involved. Certainly, community management might be deemed less important for EA, so when SWTOR loses revenue, it is inclined to fire the people who are involved in "less important" departments. That is also possible! But both explanations are equally likely, given what we know.

 

Is it a secret agenda? Should we get out the tinfoil hats? No! Of course not! EA probably wants to maximize profits on this game, and to do so maybe they think that the community needs new management. Maybe they want to retain the "hardcore" players who read and post on forums.

 

I am just unwilling to believe that EA fired community managers to purely cut costs. That would imply that they think community managers are not important. And they are VERY important, and I hope EA realizes this. The other reason is that EA thought that comm. managers were underperforming, which at least has EA acknowledging the importance of community outreach.

 

But as I said. All speculation.

Edited May 23, 2012 by ktkenshinx

[Imadian]

Call me skeptical.

[LarryRow]

All the best to you and the team. I hope this course correction allows this game to regain some traction.

 

A word of advice about this:

 

Rest assured that the community team is still here, still listening: whether it’s here in our forums, on our official twitter account, one of the many fan sites, or the SWTOR subreddit.

 

While it certainly makes sense for you to listen to all these sources, can you please, please consolidate your communication to us. A lot of us simply don't have the energy to monitor all the varying media you use to distribute information. For example, the contents of the interview transcribed in this thread are still not linked on the dev tracker.

 

The only place I should have to look for important game updates is the community blog and the dev tracker. I understand exclusivity agreements - linking the content would be fine with me.

 

Once again, good luck, and you have the support of many of the people here; we want the game to succeed.

[pogmahone]

I look forward to these innovations.

[Glzmo]

I'm so sad to see all these great people without a job.

 

What effect will this have on the game? Will we ever going to get much-needed and often promised features like chat bubbles that will bring the game to a whole new level now or will the game simply go into "maintenance mode" like SWG did not too long ago?

Edited May 23, 2012 by Glzmo

[RealDalamars]

I read these forums with an almost morbid curiosity now. At this point, it is clear to me the way community relations have been handled is a wreck. New blood may make it worse, but it may make it better too. Right now Bioware can't do anything right by the vocal members of this community. Yes they have made mistakes and that is clearly their problem to solve.

 

As another poster pointed out, EA is on a crusade to increase their head count over time, not make it smaller. As part of that they are increasing the number of engineers and reducing the number of other vocations. I don't have love, even in the most remote portions of my soul for EA, but I do wish the guys at Bioware the best. I have had a great time with their games in the past, and look forward to continuing that.

 

For only 6 months in, BW has done a decent job of attempting to fix their overreaching goals by adding a few essential pieces to the game. With LFG and transfers I see the basics handled and more room for content going forward. I don't believe that these changes are trivial code changes for them. I think their community management with the Guild Summit, and admissions that they have made mistakes (something nobody gives them credit for) are a step towards good relations, but they are not enough. I think the Q&A sessions need to go and they need to step up official announcements in their place. Personally I've had complaints with the way every MMO has done community management. It's impossible to keep the flames at bay for the most part and I don't envy the job.

 

As far as layoffs go, hey companies do them all the time. Any time you launch a product you end up with excess baggage from the development process. If this were truly a layoff because they didn't believe in the product, they wouldn't have postings for jobs on the site for SWTOR positions. A new infusion of blood will either keep things the same or make it better. I personally hope for the latter. There have been some, well... interesting, decisions made by BW in the past and I think fresh perspective may be required too allow them to see the forest again.

 

As for the game; I enjoy myself, and I swear at it sometimes. It is because of my belief that SWTOR can be so much more that I try to help out by reporting problems and making it better. I mean it only just launched really and is still trying to get its legs. I help people who ask for it, and I have a good time doing it.

 

In closing I have to say I agree with another poster, the animosity on these forums is worse than any other game I've been a part of. I'm not sure why there is such anger and spite. It is a game for goodness sake. Life has enough bitterness and <insert expletive here>. I find it amazing that folks who have quit in rage are still haunting the forums posting. Facebook as well. I don't even read the comments any longer as most are seething rips on the game. Why follow it if it makes you so angry (I have enough stress in my life, don't know about everyone else)? I'd love to understand.

[MaubeeEiko]

If your looking to 'enhance' your relations with the community, stop the 'we have exciting stuff lined up, but we can't talk about it right now', crap. Understandable during beta, but now that we are 5 months after release, your bleeding subs and the community's morale is low, we need 'hope'.

 

I'm not asking for details or a time table, but good god man, it sure would be nice to know what the devs are working on post 1.3. What do we have to look forward to? Why should I continue to sub to your game even though I am bored and now forced to play the enemy faction, just for the story. Inquiring minds want to know.

[oredith]

have a slice of humble pie, and it would go a long way in terms of restoring confidence I have in you.

 

we have realized we made mistakes with A,B,C, and we have made changes with X,Y,Z to make sure we don't have the same mistake again

 

would be a TON better than if the message was:

 

hey guys, thanks for all your support for this wonderful game, we are all excited about growing the game, there's nothing wrong, and next week will be more exciting than this week.

 

ignoring the fact that mismanaged changes have been leading to sub decline, will not help your cause.

[OmySpy]

Great to hear from you Joveth. I'm sorry that some people had to be let go, but I hope that whatever changes come out of it improve this game and the relationship the community has with you guys. I know that everyone on your end is working hard, and that a lot of times forum communities can be hard to please. I hope that we get to hear more from you and your team from now on. I know that a lot of players just want to talk to you, whether it be about official game details, unofficial ideas, or just joking around. Thanks for the post!

[Jimer_Lins]

The layoffs were something we discussed last night on a talk show I do every week about SWTOR. I've been harping on this for months now- BioWare has really dropped the ball left, right and center when it comes to fostering community around SWTOR. Firing the community manager isn't going a long way to helping change that problem.

 

Community is the reason people play MMOs. In terms of gameplay, most MMOs are subpar when compared to other gaming options. The value of playing an MMO lies not in the gameplay as much as it does with the community that plays it. SWTOR doesn't have any really amazing game mechanics or cool features that make it worth playing all by itself past a certain point. Without community and the draw to have fun with your friends, people will find other sources of entertainment.

 

By continually blocking any attempt at the formation of a real community - whether by deliberate intent or simply being inept- BioWare is setting the stage for the long-term failure of SWTOR. I'm not predicting imminent demise here, but it's the difference between a couple of years and a decade or more. A vibrant and engaged community will carry a game for years. A homogenous and disaffected community will drift away and the game will wither.

 

Losing Stephen Reid is just the latest in a series of poor decisions on the part of BioWare with respect to community. You don't show that you're committed to your playerbase by firing the person who's your point of contact for that community (unless they're incompetent, which Stephen was most emphatically not).

[oredith]

it would be a breath of fresh air if BW announces that there will be class/role community managers - you know, someone who actually knows the mechanics of the class, and has played it in depth - and be allowed to communicate with the community when questioned via fact-backed questions.

 

GZ pretty much proved himself to be clueless on the healer forums when he talked about under the hood changes, and secret metrics. when the community came back to him with solid numbers from PTR (and now live game) to refute everything that was said, we've been met with complete silence.

 

I'm not sure if a "sorry, i was totally lying, and just trying to calm you guys down" would suffice.

[Kllashaa]

Thanks for the update. More open and forthright communication on roadmaps, design decision justifications (you guys already sometimes do this in the middle of patch notes, which I think a lot of people like), and timelines would be greatly appreciated by many.

 

The biggest challenge now will be getting many of the disillusioned TOR veterans back on your side. The defeatist attitude on the forums spreads very quickly to comments on articles on gamer sites (RPS, Massively, Reddit, etc.) and creates a terrible cascade effect for the game's publicity.

 

Edited May 23, 2012 by Kllashaa

[Cornelias]

Bingo.

 

Just because you're unhappy doesn't mean Bioware hasn't been managing the forums well. If anything, they've done better than most by adding features like the Q&A and the weekly devtracker roundup.

 

Keeping the whole original dev team on staff post-launch was an experiment. The game hemorrhaged subscribers, so they ended it. There's no secret scheme or meaning behind it.

 

well with about 2 dev posts a week it's hardly worth a round up is it?

[Malefactor]

Simple typo, but I appreciate that everyone is so eager to correct me.

 

I never claimed it was worse than any other gaming forum community, but that doesn't mean it's not a rabid community.

 

It's no better or worse than any current gaming "community". Personally, having played these games (MMO's) for over 15 years now, I don't really like the way things have turned out, the communities have gone to crap, the industry has moved further and further away from being a fun, creative and desired occupation (especially when you work for big names like EA, Activision etc), micro-transactions all over the place, F2P starting to take over all lead me to feel that SW:TOR will be my last MMO. I'll be here until they either close it down or I no longer have fun, but after that I think I'm done with them.

 

Unless a Mass Effect MMO is made, then all bets are off.

[Tuscad]

The problem isn't communication or 'content' particularly, it's design and software engineering. You have designers on the team who don't know how to build systems for an MMO of this type, and you don't have a software engineering process to deliver anything properly.

 

Trying to solve the wrong problem doesn't help. Obviously some people needed to go, there were people who have lead some catastrophically bad design decisions and those people absolutely should not be employed on this project anymore. Some people are simply redundant now that the game is out the door and you can't possibly use all of the skillsets full time.

 

True, stephen reid wasn't particularly good at the job of communicating information. Fair enough, but that may not have been his entire job and management is different than writing posts for the dev tracker. Shooting the messenger doesn't fix the underlying message, even if the messenger was disrespectful in how he addressed you.

 

I've written enough, publicly and privately to bioware that I would normally charge quite a bit of money for, and I don't see any reason to repeat myself here ad nauseum. Because it won't help. Fundamentally you need to get a small handful of things into your team and everything emerges from there.

 

1: Do not waste the players time. (Unnecessary load screens, travel time, that sort of thing). If there is something wasting the players time that can be done faster with a computer program you should do that (group finding, calendering, log parsers etc.).

 

2: It is not the job of the 'community' to teach players how to play your game. Its your job. The wold has moved on and evolved from WoW. They could rely on the community because no one was quite sure how to make that work when WoW launched. Now players expect that information, and it's up to you to provide correct information, not hope the community will figure it out. Oh but the elitists can't be elite with their secret awesomesauce knowledge? Good players will always be good. It's your job to level the playing field for everyone else.

 

3: Innovate everywhere. All the time. Even if it's just small stuff. Isn't that the bioware internal motto 'sweat the small stuff' (to quote aaryn flynn on the subject).

 

4: Fix your development and testing process. I don't know what you're doing, but whatever it is, it's wrong. You absolutely cannot be pushing patches out which constantly break things. While you haven't repeated the disaster that was Ilum lately, if you don't have people on staff who can anticipate terrible design problems before you push them live, hire some. Admittedly there's a bias here, in that we never see ideas that get tossed.

 

A damn fine post!

[Xsorus]

Ahh the Warhammer Forums... ehh wait.. this is Swtor forums.. hmm got confused for a second.

[Tuscad]

I wouldn't mind Joveth taking over as Senior Community Manager, he posts almost everyday and he can speak multiple languages. I think he could definitely feel in the void that has been created by Stephen Reids departure.

[DarthZaul]

The best way to improve communication is to give us access to Daniel Erickson's brain so we can datamine all his plans.

 

Stephen Reid was pretty hardcore at his job though. Have you seen his twitter? There's 1000s of people asking the all the same questions over and over all the time (like they do on the forums and Q&As) and he was answering them all. Yeh, he was just saying 'soon' and 'yes that's coming' or 'no plans' to everything but doing that would make most people pop a neuron.

Edited May 23, 2012 by DarthZaul

[Tatami]

Hi everyone,

 

I’ll start off by calling out the elephant in the room: yes, there was some restructuring here at the studio recently and we had to bid farewell to some of our colleagues and yes, we are all deeply saddened by this.

 

Their work and dedication to SWTOR will not be forgotten.

 

Here on the community team, we’ve had a bit of time to process this and we’re beginning to look towards the future of SWTOR’s community and what it means for you and for our team.

 

In the upcoming weeks, we’re going to be making a few changes and working on new initiatives in order to enhance our relationship with you, the fans, and with our developers. We’ll also be reintroducing the team so that you can get to know us a bit more.

 

As Greg Zeschuk mentioned in his forum post, we still have plenty of new, exciting content and features for the game, and we’re going to need your continued involvement and feedback.

 

Rest assured that the community team is still here, still listening: whether it’s here in our forums, on our official twitter account, one of the many fan sites, or the SWTOR subreddit.

 

Thank you all for your continuing support.

 

 

If these devs were so good and awesome and unforgettable as you claim, why did you fire them? It's just an insult to them to rub it in their nose how good they were and then fire them anyways. IMO your dev team was already small enough as it is. There are bugs out there that you people refuse to fix and now with an even smaller dev team it is going to take even LONGER for bug fixes, content, and features.

 

I don't know where you are getting this arrogance from Bioware, but just because this MMO says "Star Wars" on it doesn't mean it is incapable of failure. And if you don't shape up, that is exactly what it is going to do.