Lord_Ravenhurst Posted November 30, 2012 Author Share Posted November 30, 2012 Hi. Welcome to the real world. Here in the real world people aren't always at liberty to talk about new development for several reasons. 1. They don't want competitors to know what they are doing. 2. There is a good possibility the project might be cancelled or completely changed because its still in an alpha state. This happens all the time in software development. If they tell us something now, and it significantly changes then they have to recant everything that they told us. It would be foolish to tell us anything that doesn't have a solid plan behind it. Fine, but regarding 1., the only "real" innovation BW did was Legacy, well that cat is out of the bag. It´s cool and I wish other MMO devs would do that too. But think about Space Combat. What possible innovation can be THAT secret or innovative? Look at Star Citizen. Ideas can be copied, but you need a team which is able to pull off something like that. Everything I could possibly expect from a 2012 space sim will be in Star Citizen, and more. 2. Plans should be shared with the community, so the folks supposed to be playing it can give early feedback on it. It happens with SC, Firefall, TSW, Elite Dangerous and a bunch of other titles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jorill Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Bioware has always been cryptic about their games and they usually give very little info or updates about what they are doing. However ive said it once and ive said it again that this game could use a sticky where once a month they list things in the pipeline such as immediate within 1-3 months: This would be the new planet 3-6 months: Things that are in development but could possilby change 6 + months. Things they are looking to develop, or started development but are a long ways away. Probably the new space system would fall under this. The only problem with this system would be that the stuff at the longer term section could be dropped fore development, resource reasons and some people would accuse them of lying or being dishonest about those projects Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Ravenhurst Posted November 30, 2012 Author Share Posted November 30, 2012 Dallas Dickinson Hall Hood... What is this? The company of badly named Marvel/DC characters? You forgot to mention William Wallace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Ravenhurst Posted November 30, 2012 Author Share Posted November 30, 2012 Bioware has always been cryptic So, they also did Star Trek Online? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jorill Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 So, they also did Star Trek Online? nicely done! dont get me started on that train wreck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Ravenhurst Posted November 30, 2012 Author Share Posted November 30, 2012 nicely done! dont get me started on that train wreck Well, you said Bioware has always been Cryptic.. so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Hubris. Ego. Lack of giving a flying fruitcake about gamers. LDO. Basically this. Despite what others in this thread claim, the community here is very forgiving and hopeful about the game. Perhaps a bit demanding and anxious at times, but that's because many of us have watched as 2million+ players have come and gone. Bioware should end this ridiculous "secrecy", but...I think DarthTHC is right - ego is a HUGE factor in their attitudes - it always has been. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turjake Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 The truth? It is a lot cheaper to do at your own pace and without any hard deadlines and featuresets. That is why they dont announce anything until it is almost ready. Ofcourse they have internal projects and plans but promising something to the players would need extra people do solve the surprising problems in the implementation and deliver in time. Now they can just postpone or cancel and the player is not any wiser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urael Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 And because absolutely nothing they do has a solid plan behind it they remain silent. Case in point: Developer Update: Heroic Space Missions What does this even say? TBH, it conjures more questions than anything else. What exactly IS a HEROIC Space mission? The language is vague at best and that is an insult to vague. Use of the word "heroic" usually has connotations of "group" style missions. Are they? We don't know because they didn't tell us anything. Nothing was said that wasn't subjective. This bit of information is not informative and only causes further speculation. EAware fails again in communication. If they can not be clear then I wish they wouldn't communicate at all if it is going to cause a firestorm with the playerbase. Once again EAware is clear as mud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandicus Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Case in point: Developer Update: Heroic Space Missions What does this even say? TBH, it conjures more questions than anything else. What exactly IS a HEROIC Space mission? The language is vague at best and that is an insult to vague. Use of the word "heroic" usually has connotations of "group" style missions. Are they? We don't know because they didn't tell us anything. Nothing was said that wasn't subjective. This bit of information is not informative and only causes further speculation. EAware fails again in communication. If they can not be clear then I wish they wouldn't communicate at all if it is going to cause a firestorm with the playerbase. Once again EAware is clear as mud. The understanding has been for some time that these would be single player missions. The use of the term "heroic" as you point out does lend itself to ambiguity for people who have never heard about them before. This blog post is mostly to announce their existence to the player base at large more than anything else however. Its to hype the feature. Developers try to hype their product. That's how it works. Criticism of any use of hype? Invalid argument. Criticism of ambiguous or misleading terminology? Valid argument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 The truth? It is a lot cheaper to do at your own pace and without any hard deadlines and featuresets. That is why they dont announce anything until it is almost ready. Ofcourse they have internal projects and plans but promising something to the players would need extra people do solve the surprising problems in the implementation and deliver in time. Now they can just postpone or cancel and the player is not any wiser. So do you think it's more of an organizational issue? I've always chalked it up to their attitudes of, what almost seemed like contempt for the customer (pre and post release), but with the way things have been transpiring, you may be right. Lack of leadership, lack of accountability, lack of direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkerus Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Fine, but regarding 1., the only "real" innovation BW did was Legacy, well that cat is out of the bag. It´s cool and I wish other MMO devs would do that too. But think about Space Combat. What possible innovation can be THAT secret or innovative? Look at Star Citizen. Ideas can be copied, but you need a team which is able to pull off something like that. Everything I could possibly expect from a 2012 space sim will be in Star Citizen, and more. 2. Plans should be shared with the community, so the folks supposed to be playing it can give early feedback on it. It happens with SC, Firefall, TSW, Elite Dangerous and a bunch of other titles. Plans will be shared when the product is at a stage to be shared. Btw, I am in firefall and I have never seen a development cycle so broken. They constantly implement and back things out. That game will never be ready. They take so much community feedback they don't know what the are building. There are 100s of reasons to talk to the community but build the product the way you want to and firefall is a prime example. So by pointing out firefall you actually made your argument worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkerus Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Case in point: Developer Update: Heroic Space Missions What does this even say? TBH, it conjures more questions than anything else. What exactly IS a HEROIC Space mission? The language is vague at best and that is an insult to vague. Use of the word "heroic" usually has connotations of "group" style missions. Are they? We don't know because they didn't tell us anything. Nothing was said that wasn't subjective. This bit of information is not informative and only causes further speculation. EAware fails again in communication. If they can not be clear then I wish they wouldn't communicate at all if it is going to cause a firestorm with the playerbase. Once again EAware is clear as mud. It's just a name. How is that not clear? They already explained they are missions with further item requirements and they will be significantly harder. How did you miss all that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durasturan Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 The truth? It is a lot cheaper to do at your own pace and without any hard deadlines and featuresets. That is why they dont announce anything until it is almost ready. Ofcourse they have internal projects and plans but promising something to the players would need extra people do solve the surprising problems in the implementation and deliver in time. Now they can just postpone or cancel and the player is not any wiser. Except that's not what they do... they give themselves deadlines and then simply DONT meet them and then people come in here and act all surprised over the fact that people are angry that they paid this month's sub because they expected to get something new and didn't. It wouldn't be a big deal if just one or even two of the systems or pieces of content they were working on went past their time frame, but it's been a consistent problem since even before the game was released. Any one who played in the beta's knows when I'm talking about, same with anyone who watched the "spring, summer, fall no winter, it's winter for reals now guys" debacle of the launch time frame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 (edited) Despite what others in this thread claim, the community here is very forgiving and hopeful about the game. Perhaps a bit demanding and anxious at times, but that's because many of us have watched as 2million+ players have come and gone. I agree that there are some forum members that are critical, but forgiving, but many are not. And while I often do not agree... I respect what they have to say. However, we DO have a regular stream of hypercritical non-constructives ride through the forum attacking Bioware, attacking the game, attacking other forum members. Bioware should end this ridiculous "secrecy", but...I think DarthTHC is right - ego is a HUGE factor in their attitudes - it always has been. The ego factor is more of an issue on the forum side of things then the developer side IMO. Those of us, like you, D-THC, me, some others..... we know that they do process feedback from the player base and they get that feedback from a lot of channels. It's just that friendly touchie-feelie banter in the forum between developers and players is not a realistic approach with the broader player base. It has no upside for Bioware of any significance. In fact, it's unprofessional IMO, and it misleads some players in thinking they are partners in the game design. Players are not partners in the game design.....no matter how much they demand that they are. But player feedback is fairly well addressed by this MMO team IMO.... it's just that every suggestion is not going to be implemented, and talking about it more openly is not going to make people feel better about this reality. Edited November 30, 2012 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durasturan Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Plans will be shared when the product is at a stage to be shared. Btw, I am in firefall and I have never seen a development cycle so broken. They constantly implement and back things out. That game will never be ready. They take so much community feedback they don't know what the are building. There are 100s of reasons to talk to the community but build the product the way you want to and firefall is a prime example. So by pointing out firefall you actually made your argument worse. You can only do this if the executive producer of the game is skilled in crafting and designing games and has a lot of experience there. But AAA studios are no longer putting gamers in charge of games, they're putting MBAs in charge of games and the games are turning into simple tests of "how much money can we squeeze from these people." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 It's just a name. How is that not clear? They already explained they are missions with further item requirements and they will be significantly harder. How did you miss all that? Because Bioware has used the term "Heroic" in SWTOR to mean "group activity". How did you miss all of them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 (edited) But AAA studios are no longer putting gamers in charge of games, they're putting MBAs in charge of games and the games are turning into simple tests of "how much money can we squeeze from these people." Personally, I think you are probably exaggerating here to try to make a point. I'm not aware of any AAA studio that ever put gamers in charge of games. Gamers as consultants, yes, gamers providing inputs for consideration.... and doing playtesting... yep....but in charge of the AAA property itself..... nope. Any studio that put gamers in charge of an MMO design is not going to succeed commercially in today's market. Why? because any particular gamer is a special interest group of one and even a group of gamers is just a special interest group.... with little or no regard for the commercial stability of a product or design for broad appeal. Now, being a free enterprise world, any gamer or group of gamers is free to form up and make their own MMO and see if the market likes it... but that is a different scenario entirely. Edited November 30, 2012 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 (edited) I agree that there are some forum members that are critical, but forgiving, but many are not. And while I often do not agree... I respect what they have to say. However, we DO have a regular stream of hypercritical non-constructives ride through the forum attacking Bioware, attacking the game, attacking other forum members. Likewise, we have a select group of people who also blindly defend each and every action of Bioware, going so far as to criticize any who dare take issue with something in the game. In fact, the most common attack I see is from those who are hypersensitive to any criticism of Bioware, when they lash out and very commonly tell players to just quit. Now THAT is non-constructive. The ego factor is more of an issue on the forum side of things then the developer side IMO. Those of us, like you, D-THC, me, some others..... we know that they do process feedback from the player base and they get that feedback from a lot of channels. It's just that friendly touchie-feelie banter in the forum between developers and players is not a realistic approach with the broader player base. It has no upside for Bioware of any significance. In fact, it's unprofessional IMO. True. It's the lack of any visible community interaction that I feel is the main issue. Yes, they actually DO listen!!! They've proven that. And just to be clear, I think people use the term "developer" when they actually mean "Bioware representative". Yes, it would be great to hear stories and get feedback from those actually doing the coding, but I think what most of us are looking for is simply more feedback from a "Community Rep", not an actual "Dev". Letting your customers know that they matter, is actually quite important. Edited November 30, 2012 by TUXs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Because Bioware has used the term "Heroic" in SWTOR to mean "group activity". How did you miss all of them? While the term "heroic" has been beaten-up by many (because "heroic" means different things to different people) I do generally feel more heroic overall playing a character in this MMO then others I have played. And heroic feels more applicable to the solo side of the game rather then the group side of the game IMO. Mabye it's because I enjoy the lore and playing within the lore instead of some random elf or orc.... but at the end of the day.... the game makes me feel more acomplished and self-sufficent at the character level. Not heroic in the sense of having the galaxies destiny in my hands for sure.... but then again that's Lucas style space opera fantasy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Ravenhurst Posted November 30, 2012 Author Share Posted November 30, 2012 Personally, I think you are probably exaggerating here to try to make a point. I'm not aware of any AAA studio that ever put gamers in charge of games. Gamers as consultants, yes, gamers providing inputs for consideration.... and doing playtesting... yep....but in charge of the AAA property itself..... nope. Any studio that put gamers in charge of an MMO design is not going to succeed commercially in today's market. Why? because any particular gamer is a special interest group of one and even a group of gamers is just a special interest group.... with little or no regard for the commercial stability of a product or design for broad appeal. Now, being a free enterprise world, any gamer or group of gamers is free to form up and make their own MMO and see if the market likes it... but that is a different scenario entirely. Too much analytics, not enough heart. What about Minecraft, for example? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trenter Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Yeah, I think I can explain it to you. If the plans they've let this community into has to be changed even the slightest, we have a bunch of boys here that'll immediately go all "OMG, we were promised... Lies! Oh the lies!". And it's because of this bunch we can't have nice things. Thank them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Yeah, I think I can explain it to you. If the plans they've let this community into has to be changed even the slightest, we have a bunch of boys here that'll immediately go all "OMG, we were promised... Lies! Oh the lies!". And it's because of this bunch we can't have nice things. Thank them. A lot of truth to this. The blowback from the community if they say something then change it is historically much worse then if they are more refrained from committing. In the end.... this is a no win for Bioware. They are going to get crit-killed by the community no matter what they do. It's more a choice of how badly they get crit-killed. Community Support staff have a tough job walking the rope in the MMO world community... not just for this MMO but for all MMOs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 (edited) Too much analytics, not enough heart. What about Minecraft, for example? Are you suggesting that minecraft is a AAA MMO property? Edited November 30, 2012 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 While the term "heroic" has been beaten-up by many (because "heroic" means different things to different people) I do generally feel more heroic overall playing a character in this MMO then others I have played. And heroic feels more applicable to the solo side of the game rather then the group side of the game IMO. Mabye it's because I enjoy the lore and playing within the lore instead of some random elf or orc.... but at the end of the day.... the game makes me feel more acomplished and self-sufficent at the character level. Not heroic in the sense of having the galaxies destiny in my hands for sure.... but then again that's Lucas style space opera fantasy. I completely understand. I was just pointing out that, in SWTOR, the word "Heroic" has been used to describe 2-4 character encounters. If I told you I was doing an Operation tonight, would you assume I'm a surgeon? While our characters stories are written to make us "feel" heroic, they weren't called "Heroic stories"...they were called "Class quests". Yes, it's a minor thing, but it really does create a slight bit of confusion. They should have just called them "Epic" or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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