A Message from the Community Manager

[nakoda]

This, Yes. Going to find the answers. We don't want just an "anchorman" reading us the "news" handed to him by the devs. We need a "reporter" who will go dig up the answers. Someone who can get the devs to open up more.

This game is missing the amount of communication and incite that blizzard devs give their player base.

 

you may want to look up the difference between insight and incite.

 

also, the only thing that TOR CRMs are lacking that WoW CRMs had are Murlocs. At least TOR CRMs have grammar and punctuation.

[Agarwaenn]

you may want to look up the difference between insight and incite.

 

also, the only thing that TOR CRMs are lacking that WoW CRMs had are Murlocs. At least TOR CRMs have grammar and punctuation.

 

Look at this thread: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/227466-beta-class-balance-analysis/ as an example.

Devs giving straight answers, asking people for input, and looking for numbers/logs. They tell people the reasons why decisions were/are being made. People may not like the answers they get, but the devs are communicating what they are thinking, and the direction they are taking the game. Where is this same level of communication with the Devs in TOR? We don't have it.

[Goldenstar]

Hey Joveth, thanks for taking the time to communicate with us on a more personal basis. I've noticed you directing players to the Q&A archives, but I don't think many people are satisfied with the answers provided in the Q&A. That's why we're asking YOU. The Q&A always gives incredibly vague and non-specific answers to questions, which is NOT what the playerbase is looking for. We like details. We know you can't give specific dates or information, but the development team MUST have an internal timeline for GOALS at least. Something along the lines of "we're aiming to get this feature out within the next 6 weeks, but there's no promises on that" would go a LONG way.

[Gaxar]

Look at this thread: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/227466-beta-class-balance-analysis/ as an example.

Devs giving straight answers, asking people for input, and looking for numbers/logs. They tell people the reasons why decisions were/are being made. People may not like the answers they get, but the devs are communicating what they are thinking, and the direction they are taking the game. Where is this same level of communication with the Devs in TOR? We don't have it.

 

Exactly.

 

All i want are answers to the salient questions i and other customers have, and the reasonings behind those decisions regardless of if i like the answer or not. A regular two way conversation between those making, and those playing the game.

[Mancer]

Joveth,

 

I feel for you man. What an incredibly exhausting chore your job is. Hang in there dude!

[Rayla_Felana]

Hey Joveth! nice to see you, I had heard you'd been killed, career-wise of course, nice to see you haven't been assassinated by Imperial Operatives.

 

Now this is a request, not a question, but could you please, get some info on the most controversial feature being requested, SGRAs? the community supporting this feature is basically dying of starvation from the lack of Information besides what we heard from 'RockJaw' way back when and Mr.Biceps at the Guild Summit, it doesn't matter what kind of information, be it just a few words about the companions themselves, whether it is still on track for this year or if the plans for the feature have been changed, anything is welcome, thank you.

Edited August 8, 2012 by Rayla_Felana

[Nemoc]

So not going to the Official Star Wars Convention... OFFICIAL STAR WARS CONVENTION. I was a big supporter for this game, wow killer this, going to last 10 years that. Now its become another Star Wars MMO JOKE. One of the things I was looking forward to at celebration was seeing Bioware there, and maybe getting the free pet. But forget that, because why would a star wars game go to STAR WARS CELEBRATION?!

 

F2P+no convention=Disappointment and quitting. Sadly I am thinking of going back and playing a Panda or trying GW2. I know this will be removed because its criticism and I am not praising your game, but really you guys fail one right after another. You won't be bothered by me anymore....

 

To quote a famous Sith Lord, "You have failed me for the last time..."

 

/endragequit

[Nimithril]

Joveth,

that took quite too long and is way too thin.

You already have been declared dead some time ago.

You will have to climb out of the grave and do some things first before anyone is actually starting to listen again.

 

Don't presume to speak for the community. There are always people like myself who are always willing to listen, even if the answers drive us crazy.

[VarisRoa]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay communication!

 

I especially love how the team has been excited and super pumped through every cut, restructure and good news for both the market and subscriber bases...

 

Yeah! we are here to bring you CONTENT!

 

Bam! explorable areas on the denovah raid! There is a beach!

restructured Illum for our convenience!

 

6 months for 1 raid and 2 flashpoints like a BOSS!

 

/ signed

a customer hanging on to his seat with sweaty hands from excitement!

[Dieheart]

Thank you! I for one have been missing you all on the forums. I am glad you guys are back. Please keep the promise this time!

[dipstik]

When should we expect the Weekly Q&A to come back?

[Blisst_uNF]

Well due to a website issue i lost the original post i tried to put up earlier today.. so I apologize for the brevity of this rehash.

 

Joveth..

 

Pure and simple i've been losing faith that Bioware cares about this game at all steadily since about February.

 

A few things the community team can do to help rebuild some consumer confidence for me;

 

1... Really dive into the forums and integrate with the players. Even simple little responses like 'food for thought, i'll bring it up with the devs." to any number of the suggestions players give is better than leaving us all wondering if your team actually exists. And it doesn't have to be strictly related to game, I'm sure we'd all welcome the CM team and Devs alike into the discussions about what we had for breakfast, or who is the best Rodian in the SW universe. just make your team's presence KNOWN.

 

2... Centralize the information on SWTOR.com. It's great that you guys have twitter and facebook accounts and whatnot, but for those of us trying to keep up with the changes, having to scour 85 different sites is trying at best. When there's relevant discussions on twitter, mirror them on SWOTR's forums. When there's a new announcement, put it in the forums, and then link it from your twi/fb acct or whatever, not the other way around as sometimes happens.

 

3... More guided feedback conversations. The current practice seems to be: team creates a post that requests specific feedback, we respond... x days later thread gets locked with a "thank you for participating message". I realize there's probably other things occupying time, but still having a more interactive discussion (similar to this thread with your regular responses) engenders a LOT of goodwill from my perspectve. If you can get each dev to take 20 min out of their day for 1 pet project thread each, I think you'd get an overwhelmingly positive response from teh players.

 

4... This one is an usual suggestion, but bear with me. Hold your dev's accountable. If there is a BIG issue that's affecting a large number of players, figure out who's responsible and let us know that you know there's an issue and it's been brought up to the correct team, assigned to specific team member, who is currently working on a fix. Seriously, I'd adore that kind of post. because it illustrates to me a number of things... 1.. the post hasn't fallen on deaf ears... 2... it shows that you're doing your job by taking community concerns to the devs... 3... it informs US that the correct team is aware of the issue... and 4... it informs us that the issue is having a resolution worked on.

 

Thanks!

 

TLDR version.... in short.... spend more time letting us know that you're here doing your job, rather than just popping in once a month to say you are. because the other 27 days, effectively MY perception is your team doesn't exist.

[Azoetia]

I personally do not have new information for you at this time. However, I'd recommending checking our Q&A archive, as some of your questions seem to have already been addressed. I'll also check with our devs to see if we have an update.

 

Then what is the point of you?

 

Today there was a flurry of dev tracker activity that contained nothing. Is that supposed to appease us?

 

Perhaps at this point you should stop using the term "players" and instead use the term "customers" because it's obvious you need to be reminded people are paying for this rapidly disintegrating experience.

[Bryyn]

From your answer too I detect a tone as you think we should be honored to talk to you. Its not a honor its your job.

 

Talk about a tone..

[Kharnis]

 

Talk about a tone..

 

Is Emeda wrong?

Edited August 9, 2012 by Kharnis

[Ashania]

We saw this exact same type of post back in May. From then until now, there has been nothing. I'm not holding out any hope. Edited August 9, 2012 by Ashania

[DarkDisturbed]

I thank you for your time at trying to communicate with the community, it's an important part of customer relations, and I look forward to the increased interaction (blew up the dev tracker today!). I think a great thing you could do is what Georg did, and drop little hints at undiscovered ingame secrets, I felt that it really brought the community together and ignited a lot of cooperation trying to hunt and figure out his cryptic clues.

 

The guild summit was also very informative, and a great thing, As a guildmastro myself, I hope more interaction and support of guilds is coming in this new plan.

 

Thanks.

[randalthorr]

Holy crap. Who is this person using the yellow ink?? omgomgomg!!!!

 

 

 

 

Hope the trend continues.

[Bryyn]

Is Emeda wrong?

 

I don't know. Why don't you call up the Austin HQ and ask to speak to the Human Resources Manager and inquire about the job description of the software development team. It may or may not be their job. We only say it because we expect it. And our expectations sometimes are, and this seems to be SO true for these boards, misplaced.

 

Btw, let's try to have a level head in how we respond.

Edited August 9, 2012 by Bryyn

[Emeda]

I don't know. Why don't you call up the Austin HQ and ask to speak to the Human Resources Manager and inquire about the job description of the software development team. It may or may not be their job. We only say it because we expect it. And our expectations sometimes are, and this seems to be SO true for these boards, misplaced.

 

Btw, let's try to have a level head in how we respond.

 

Hes not the software development team he is the Community Manager.

 

Please give us the definition on what you think his job is?

 

Mine is he is the middle man between the devs and the players. He finds out what we want and transfers it to the devs and then he takes the devs info and delivers it to us.

 

So it is his job to communicate with us.

 

Maybe when he gets back tommorrow he can post the job description for us.

[Blondesolid]

 

 

As we progress towards the recently announced Free-to-Play experience, you can expect more frequent updates to the game (which means more information coming to you) and more developer interactions.

 

 

 

Prolly quoted a zillion times already, but that ones a knee slapper, gets me every time

[Bryyn]

Hes not the software development team he is the Community Manager.

 

Please give us the definition on what you think his job is?

 

Mine is he is the middle man between the devs and the players. He finds out what we want and transfers it to the devs and then he takes the devs info and delivers it to us.

 

So it is his job to communicate with us.

 

Maybe when he gets back tommorrow he can post the job description for us.

 

Great. But let's have a level head in how we respond. We don't need the forums to point out someone should do their job. I think we can do better without people being so indignant.

 

Mine is he is the middle man between the devs and the players. He finds out what we want and transfers it to the devs and then he takes the devs info and delivers it to us.

 

To answer your question, the community team does read these boards and relay the information to the developers. Many of the patches show that.

Edited August 9, 2012 by Bryyn

[Darth_Victus]

Hi everyone,

 

For those of you that don’t know, I’m Joveth Gonzalez, Community Manager for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

 

As most of you know, over the past few months, our team, our studio, and our game have undergone quite a few changes. Through it all, we’ve remained committed to the community and have worked with the development team to make sure that your voices were heard.

 

I wanted to take some time to reassure you all that my team, the community team, is still committed to you folks. As part of this commitment, we’re excited to let you know that we have been developing a brand new strategy for our team that focuses on developing new ways to bring you more information about the game and the people involved with SWTOR's development.

 

As we progress towards the recently announced Free-to-Play experience, you can expect more frequent updates to the game (which means more information coming to you) and more developer interactions.

 

The Star Wars: The Old Republic community is large and spread across many outlets, but rest assured that our team is scouring the forums, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, fan sites, and anywhere that SWTOR is being discussed to make sure that we get your thoughts, comments, questions, and general feedback. Know that we are listening you, no matter where you choose to participate in the SWTOR community.

 

In the upcoming weeks, you’ll be seeing elements of our new community strategy as they appear on our site. One of our primary goals with this is to ensure that new information about the game is communicated as quickly and effectively as possible.

 

Last but not least, I will be re-introducing the rest of community team along with this new strategy. You may have already seen them here on the forums or on the website, but you will learn more about Allison Berryman, Eric Musco, Courtney Woods, Amber Green, Lars Malcharek, and Antonio Moreno.

 

We're all excited about the future of this game and with the new focus on more frequent content updates and the introduction of the Free-to-Play experience, you can expect more communication opportunities overall.

 

If you have any questions, thoughts, or ideas, please feel free to send us an email at community@swtor.com. You can also send me a PM here on the forums or reach me on Twitter @joveth. These are three different ways for you to get in touch. We will limit important announcements to only occur on our site, forums, our Facebook page, and/or the official SWTOR Twitter account.

 

Thank you, sincerely, for participating and being a part of our community over the past few months. We look forward to hearing more from you in the future.

 

I gotta say, while I am looking forward to the new Free to Play option, which I think is a good thing. I am concerned that the over all development quality will suffer or development of the content will start lacking what has so far made this game stand out from the rest. Like the voice over for example.

[XxTheXOnexX]

anybody need some free trails?

[cashogy]

As a community team, we are here to help get answers from developers when they are available. Sometimes, we simply don't have new information or the answers to certain things. The weekly developer Q&A is currently the best place to ask questions related to the development of the game. As I mentioned before, we're going to push for more interactions as part of our new plan.

 

the weekly Q&A is a joke. we are lucky if 1/10 questions is actually something more complex than "what color lighsabers can i get?"

 

whoever is in charge of picking the questions NEVER chooses the ones we would most like to know the answers to. the interaction between devs/employees and players has been laughably atrocious. like others have said in this thread, can we get less communication about communicating, and more communication about the actual game? this is literally the 3rd of 4th time we've been "introduced" to the community team.