Bioware's monday morning.

[CrazyMcGee]

Not really. "Haters" generally begin by complaining about something to do with the game. "White Knights" are attacking the complainers. Pick pretty much any thread on this forum and you'll see it for yourself. It's not subtle and it's not rare. It's being going on since Day 1 by the same people with seemingly no repercussions or consequences.

 

I disagree. "White knights" aren't attacking the complainers or defending BW, they are disagreeing with the other poster. That's the point of the forum, for discussion.

 

Just because someone doesn't like something about the game and wants it changed, that doesn't mean that I have to agree with them. And disagreeing with them doesn't make me a BW employee or a fanboi or a white knight or any other ridiculous terminology.

 

The fact is, a hell of a lot of people on here don't want to discuss the game, they just want to say their point of view and have everyone agree with them. That's not a discussion, that's a monologue.

[GalacticKegger]

The fact is, a hell of a lot of people on here don't want to discuss the game, they just want to say their point of view and have everyone agree with them. That's not a discussion, that's a monologue.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny! Edited October 23, 2013 by GalacticKegger

[ZionHalcyon]

"People who tell you you’re awesome are useless. No, dangerous."

 

"They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is. Especially watch out for the ones who tell you that nobody understands your genius.

 

Honestly, this is going to sound horrible, but self-doubt is one of your most powerful tools for craftsmanship. None of the designers you admire feel self-confident about their work in that way. None of them think that they are awesome. They all suffer from impostor complexes the size of the Titanic."

 

 

 

"Everyone who dislikes your work is right."

 

"This is the hardest pill to swallow. I’ve never gotten a piece of feedback that was wrong. You see, you can’t deny a player their unique experience. Whatever they felt, was true. For them. And something in your work triggered it.

 

It is useless, and worse, actually self-defeating, to attempt to deny the critique. Sure, there are sometimes reviews that seem spiteful, unfair, and the rest. But the vast majority of the time, people are giving their honest reaction.

 

And the bottom line is, you put the game out there in order to get reactions. If it were not for reactions, you could have just kept the game in your drawer and gotten everything you needed out of it."

 

- Raph Koster

http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/#more-13450

 

 

 

.

 

Con artist and snake oil salesman. His heavy-handed method and nerf bat ways killed SWG and it was because of what he started that poisoned what was an excellent community in beta and turned everyone on each other, as well as messing up the game bad enough that it even needed a CU and then an NGE in the first place.

 

People hold up Koster like some god - that's not the Koster I knew.

 

You know who Raph Koster was? NFL fans will know this. He's Matt Millen. Behind a desk or his blog, sure, he seems like he knows what he's talking about and what he's doing, and seems damn downright insightful. But put him in to do some real work, and you get a real glimpse of just how ****** at it he really is.

 

What fumes me is the number of people he has snowed into believing he was some great thing. There's a reason he no longer works with MMOs - the genre passed him by.

[mmjarec]

I disagree. "White knights" aren't attacking the complainers or defending BW, they are disagreeing with the other poster. That's the point of the forum, for discussion.

 

Just because someone doesn't like something about the game and wants it changed, that doesn't mean that I have to agree with them. And disagreeing with them doesn't make me a BW employee or a fanboi or a white knight or any other ridiculous terminology.

 

The fact is, a hell of a lot of people on here don't want to discuss the game, they just want to say their point of view and have everyone agree with them. That's not a discussion, that's a monologue.

 

I disagree all you habe to do is follow me around to realize if i say anything negative or disagree they are the first to fire insults

[LtGeneralGezlin]

No. People call others employees because...

 

1) It's pretty funny.

2) It annoys people that we want to annoy in revenge for being annoyed.

3) If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck... it's probably a duck.

 

You know, just because someone disagrees with you, or doesn't blindly hate the same thing you do, doesn't make them an "undercover employee". And if you think it does, then... Why haven't I gotten my check from BW yet?

 

The Tin foil hat! Available on the Cartel Market for 100 Cartel Coins! Keep them from reading your mind!

[jorill]

Con artist and snake oil salesman. His heavy-handed method and nerf bat ways killed SWG and it was because of what he started that poisoned what was an excellent community in beta and turned everyone on each other, as well as messing up the game bad enough that it even needed a CU and then an NGE in the first place.

 

People hold up Koster like some god - that's not the Koster I knew.

 

You know who Raph Koster was? NFL fans will know this. He's Matt Millen. Behind a desk or his blog, sure, he seems like he knows what he's talking about and what he's doing, and seems damn downright insightful. But put him in to do some real work, and you get a real glimpse of just how ****** at it he really is.

 

What fumes me is the number of people he has snowed into believing he was some great thing. There's a reason he no longer works with MMOs - the genre passed him by.

 

Pretty funny comparison there. Some of the stuff he says to me is general advice even managers and doesnt just apply to developers. It boils down to if you can take constuctive criticism or not or listen to make things better. If you cant then you are not only a bad developer but you would also make a bad manager or any position where you would be a decision maker.

 

There is also nothing wrong with getting praise for good work . If you then take that as everything is ok then that is YOUR shortcoming and not the fault of the customer saying it.

[mmjarec]

Pretty funny comparison there. Some of the stuff he says to me is general advice even managers and doesnt just apply to developers. It boils down to if you can take constuctive criticism or not or listen to make things better. If you cant then you are not only a bad developer but you would also make a bad manager or any position where you would be a decision maker.

 

There is also nothing wrong with getting praise for good work . If you then take that as everything is ok then that is YOUR shortcoming and not the fault of the customer saying it.

 

I would consider critcism to be more constructive than praise because it offers no avenue for making the game better. When they do something above and beyond sure its warranted and i will give them praise if they ever choose to do anything other than bare minimum to get by

[CosmicKat]

I disagree. "White knights" aren't attacking the complainers or defending BW, they are disagreeing with the other poster. That's the point of the forum, for discussion.

 

Just because someone doesn't like something about the game and wants it changed, that doesn't mean that I have to agree with them. And disagreeing with them doesn't make me a BW employee or a fanboi or a white knight or any other ridiculous terminology.

 

The fact is, a hell of a lot of people on here don't want to discuss the game, they just want to say their point of view and have everyone agree with them. That's not a discussion, that's a monologue.

 

I agree, for the most part.

 

I only see 3 regulars that I'd consider to be the dreaded "White Knights". Most of the game's defenders actually just sound like people who really like the game, or quite often, people with no other MMO experience and thus no frame of reference to compare to.

[branmakmuffin]

I would consider critcism to be more constructive than praise because it offers no avenue for making the game better. When they do something above and beyond sure its warranted and i will give them praise if they ever choose to do anything other than bare minimum to get by

So many posts that some characterize as "criticism" are just "This is ridiculous. BWEA, and it must be changed now!"

[TUXs]

So many posts that some characterize as "criticism" are just "This is ridiculous. BWEA, and it must be changed now!"

 

For some reason, those are the posts I dig into right away. Most have a legitimate gripe Bran...just because their "tone" isn't one you particularly like (nor do I), doesn't negate the substance of their frustration (when you can get to it). I enjoy finding out what REALLY is behind a rant like that...chances are, that player isn't the only one frustrated by it.

 

The thing I try to keep in mind is that, not every person who posts is a troll. Most are your average player who has hit a brick wall and their frustration with some situation is what prompts them to come to the forums. Just had a great guildie quit the game because he purchased the wrong set of gear (no set bonus) and Bioware closed his ticket about 5-days later without helping him. Never complained, never sent in tickets, didn't post on the forums, but he felt shafted...and he was. The customer service in this game is atrocious at times. I've had excellent luck, but he didn't...all it took was one dropped ball by them and they lost a long time customer.

 

Frustration is what most of those posts stem from...please don't be so quick to pile on and add more frustration to the situation.

[Swifz]

For some reason, those are the posts I dig into right away. Most have a legitimate gripe Bran...just because their "tone" isn't one you particularly like (nor do I), doesn't negate the substance of their frustration (when you can get to it). I enjoy finding out what REALLY is behind a rant like that...chances are, that player isn't the only one frustrated by it.

 

The thing I try to keep in mind is that, not every person who posts is a troll. Most are your average player who has hit a brick wall and their frustration with some situation is what prompts them to come to the forums. Just had a great guildie quit the game because he purchased the wrong set of gear (no set bonus) and Bioware closed his ticket about 5-days later without helping him. Never complained, never sent in tickets, didn't post on the forums, but he felt shafted...and he was. The customer service in this game is atrocious at times. I've had excellent luck, but he didn't...all it took was one dropped ball by them and they lost a long time customer.

 

Frustration is what most of those posts stem from...please don't be so quick to pile on and add more frustration to the situation.

 

Nothing to add you said it all.

[branmakmuffin]

For some reason, those are the posts I dig into right away. Most have a legitimate gripe Bran...just because their "tone" isn't one you particularly like (nor do I), doesn't negate the substance of their frustration (when you can get to it). I enjoy finding out what REALLY is behind a rant like that...chances are, that player isn't the only one frustrated by it

My experience is that most such posts do not have a legitimate gripe. They are just petulant whines for "Gimme this because I want it!" Too many people seem to forget this is just a game. Either it's good enough to play or it's not. If it's not, the dissatisfied should stop playing (but I have a hunch what they also like to do is complain about the game simply for the sake of complaining, so in essence they get two games for the price of one).

Edited October 23, 2013 by branmakmuffin

[curtkram]

My experience is that most such posts do not have a legitimate gripe. They are just petulant whines for "Gimme this because I want it!" Too many people seem to forget this is just a game. Either it's good enough to play or it's not. If it's not, the dissatisfied should stop playing (but I have a hunch what they also like to do is complain about the game simply for the sake of complaining, so in essence they get two games for the price of one).

 

let's stop and think why that is. tux sees a post, and tries to understand what the core concern is. you see the same post and see something different. are you trying to see the core concern? or do you just dismiss most complaints because it's easier?

 

another example in your post, you claim people are forgetting that this is just a game. i doubt that, but i do think people react to said game different than you do. you just don't understand other people's perspective. are you trying? certainly you are aware that people are different? not everyone is just like you, or me, or tux. we're all a bit different.

 

what you see as "complaining for the sake of complaining" is typically something else. if you set aside some time to try to understand that, do you think it would start to make sense to you?

[CosmicKat]

My experience is that most such posts do not have a legitimate gripe. They are just petulant whines for "Gimme this because I want it!" Too many people seem to forget this is just a game. Either it's good enough to play or it's not. If it's not, the dissatisfied should stop playing (but I have a hunch what they also like to do is complain about the game simply for the sake of complaining, so in essence they get two games for the price of one).

 

Not everyone is as black and white as you.

 

For most people there is no such thing as a magical line where a game suddenly becomes "worth it".

 

Most of your posts offer nothing constructive at all. You rarely even comment on the game and when you do it's not exactly like you sound thrilled with it. A person would not be accused of making a leap to assume the only reason you subscribe is to tell people to quit.

[mmjarec]

What does a complaint matter when they dont even read it

[AshenK]

Con artist and snake oil salesman. His heavy-handed method and nerf bat ways killed SWG and it was because of what he started that poisoned what was an excellent community in beta and turned everyone on each other, as well as messing up the game bad enough that it even needed a CU and then an NGE in the first place.

 

People hold up Koster like some god - that's not the Koster I knew.

 

You know who Raph Koster was? NFL fans will know this. He's Matt Millen. Behind a desk or his blog, sure, he seems like he knows what he's talking about and what he's doing, and seems damn downright insightful. But put him in to do some real work, and you get a real glimpse of just how ****** at it he really is.

 

What fumes me is the number of people he has snowed into believing he was some great thing. There's a reason he no longer works with MMOs - the genre passed him by.

That is so not true and you know it.

 

SWG was fine until Koster left and they put in the CU/NGE. Oh and what SWG do you hear everyone talk about to this day? The Pre-CU game. Same thing with Ultima Online when Koster ran it the game was fun and had so much freedom for the players. The minute EA pulled him off of it is when you got Trammel and the game going down hill and becoming just like every other boring MMO.

 

Koster understands the community and what the community wants and it's less WoW/TOR and more Pre-Trammel UO/Pre-CU SWG.

[mmjarec]

That is so not true and you know it.

 

SWG was fine until Koster left and they put in the CU/NGE. Oh and what SWG do you hear everyone talk about to this day? The Pre-CU game. Same thing with Ultima Online when Koster ran it the game was fun and had so much freedom for the players. The minute EA pulled him off of it is when you got Trammel and the game going down hill and becoming just like every other boring MMO.

 

Koster understands the community and what the community wants and it's less WoW/TOR and more Pre-Trammel UO/Pre-CU SWG.

 

I give him kudos to at least have the cajones to speak his mind it seems like bioware is afraid of its own community tjey are petrified to speak their mind because of what some 12 yr old cellar dweller thinks or may say. What kind of dysfunction loon lets some chump dictate how they communicate

[Digimanbyte_ID]

I mean, you wake up, hit your work desk on a monday morning, which hits like a truck for everyone, and first thing you got to do is go through the piles of whining, entitlment, swearing, and all sorts of messages, polite or not, which all bring down to the same message " your game sucks , blah blah blah "

 

Give'em a break.

 

hahahahahahahhahahahahhah.

 

You think that isn't different for any other game? Hell even different Genres like FPS get worse. The good thing about SWTOR is the fact thats its pretty lacking in gaining attention. Even their add campaigns are weak. Hell I have seen people laugh at me when I mention the F2P content of this game as they don't believe a game could do that without some risk to the customers.

[Tachenko_Yuri]

so my thread has been necro'ed just to bash the bw people some more.

 

Hey, whatever floats your boat, guys.

[Zandoezan]

Yep, our mmjarec combining words together like there's no tomorrow

 

Excellent post.

[StarMagus]

SWG was fine until Koster left and they put in the CU/NGE.

 

That ignores history, SWG was bleeding players before the CU/NGE came out, which is why they made the CU/NGE, it was an attempt to get people to come back to the game and stop leaving in masses. Needless to say I didn't work.

Edited November 26, 2013 by StarMagus

[ImpactHound]

That ignores history, SWG was bleeding players before the CU/NGE came out, which is why they made the CU/NGE, it was an attempt to get people to come back to the game and stop leaving in masses. Needless to say I didn't work.

 

I think that's open to interpretation. The game was as populated then as SWTOR feels now, comparatively(since it had slightly fewer players and more servers). The game had such unique combat and skill systems that had a high barrier to entry compared to the "easier to play" systems of City of Heroes and WoW when they dropped in 2004. It's fair to argue that it wasn't an outright sales tactic to alter the game systems but a streamlining to try and make it easier to get into for the non-hardcore, which was trending from 2004 on.

 

If they had kept their old complex skill trees and RGB bars, it probably would have kept the same stable six-figure fanbase it had, as Ultima Online has still. No one new is getting into UO, but it's keeping its old customer paying for going on almost 20 years now.

Edited November 26, 2013 by ImpactHound

[StarMagus]

It's not open to "interpretation". Subscription numbers and trends are absolute points of historical record and ignoring the actual numbers because you have a feeling about something is just bad science. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion but they aren't entitled to their own facts.

 

The facts, based off of historical MMO subscription numbers show that SWG was bleeding customers before the CU/NGE expansion was released and the changes were put into place to try to stop the bleed as well as to bring back customers... which it failed to do.

 

The idea that SWG was doing great before the CU/NGE is just people trying to rewrite history to fit their own feelings that SWG was some sort of perfect game.

Edited November 26, 2013 by StarMagus