Barnard Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 (edited) What exactly does the community team do now? I am not trying to be inflammatory, but it really doesn't look like they do much all day. 1. Pocket was coordinating with community sites before she left. There are very few sites left now.2. Shadow Realms is gone and the team came back to SWTOR.3. Communication went off the cliff since the harassment issue.4. We have had some recent communication due to Harbinger server issues, but not much else.5. Facebook and Twitter only have 3-4 marketing posts a day.6. Reddit subthread doesn't have that much of a presence either. We were promised increase communication, what happened? What exactly do you do all day. The amount of daily work we see could be handled by a single person in just 2-3 hours. It might be interesting if you could share with us what a typical day is like. Edited May 19, 2015 by Barnard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wjrasmussen Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 What exactly does the community team do now? I am not trying to be inflammatory, but it really doesn't look like they do much all day. 1. Pocket was coordinating with community sites before she left. There are very few sites left now. 2. Shadow Realms is gone and the team came back to SWTOR. 3. Communication went off the cliff since the harassment issue. 4. We have had some recent communication due to Harbinger server issues, but not much else. 5. Facebook and Twitter only have 3-4 marketing posts a day. 6. Reddit subthread doesn't have that much of a presence either. We were promised increase communication, what happened? What exactly do you do all day. The amount of daily work we see could be handled by a single person in just 2-3 hours. It might be interesting if you could share with us what a typical day is like. well some people think the community team means that when they ask for their pet issue to be taken care of that the devs will just roll over and do it. You know, that does sound kind of stupid. People create crazy expectations. Your list is like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRagingDead Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 well some people think the community team means that when they ask for their pet issue to be taken care of that the devs will just roll over and do it. You know, that does sound kind of stupid. People create crazy expectations. Your list is like that. There's no need to be so snarky. The man may come across as frustrated, but he raises a valid question. I certainly don't advocate hounding developers over every little issue, but some communication is not unreasonable to expect from a "living" game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gonalius Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 They make vague statements that they personally might like to see such-and-such added, which is interpreted as "XYZZY is being added NEXT PATCH!!!". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barnard Posted May 19, 2015 Author Share Posted May 19, 2015 well some people think the community team means that when they ask for their pet issue to be taken care of that the devs will just roll over and do it. You know, that does sound kind of stupid. People create crazy expectations. Your list is like that. Actually I don't have any pet requests. I was happy to see the increased communication but it just died. I don't think it is unreasonable to ask what they do all day. I know they were busy for a long time with Shadow Realms, but now I am having hard time figure out exactly what they do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweet-Wave Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 Actually I don't have any pet requests. I was happy to see the increased communication but it just died. I don't think it is unreasonable to ask what they do all day. I know they were busy for a long time with Shadow Realms, but now I am having hard time figure out exactly what they do? Yep, and they hired someone new a few months ago... and they posted once and never posted again... They don't even sit around and play SWTOR all day, having watched their streams, most of us could run circles around them, so it isn't that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callaron Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 At the moment it's pretty much an information deadzone again. No word of what's coming next, and barely any mod posts beyond some communications about a patch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianDavion Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 personally I'd love to see a "day in the life" post sometime to give us an idea on what devs in various positions do sadlu\y with this community you'd likely see hate and rage if they admitted they took a coffee break. "but my personal bug bear could be fixed in that 15 minutes of slacking!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianDmitruk Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 They should be moderating the community to flush the toxicity out and make it safe for them to communicate again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorldSmasher Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 They should be moderating the community to flush the toxicity out and make it safe for them to communicate again. Yeah. Threatening to kill someone's family, and posting their personal info, to prove they could do it is not the way the players should act, if they want communications from the Community Team. The way that some players excused, or even condoned the behavior would lead one to believe that there are more than one crazy bastard out there lurking, and plotting to kill BW employees' families. It may seem that I'm blowing it out of proportion, but put yourself in their shoes. What would you do to protect your family, would you continue to expose yourself, and potentially your family, to all of the lunatics that spit vile feelings at you all day long? It's like the players forget that they are only pretending to be Sith, while in game, and take their Sithiness out into the real world... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xythius Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 In all reality, we'll be lucky if they ever post anything again. That unforgivable situation a couple weeks ago, all but guaranteed the absolute minimum of correspondence from anyone at BW. And, frankly, I don't blame them. Even before that, most of the yellow posts were met with the hatred and vile attitudes that you would expect to see aimed at the bitterest of enemies - not at game devs or community managers from their players. All MMO forums have their fair share of toxicity and nay-sayers, but that one incident cemented this communities place at the lowest of the low. Simply put, the Community Team stays quiet, because they frankly just don't want the hassle of dealing with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gonalius Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 Simply put, the Community Team stays quiet, because they frankly just don't want the hassle of dealing with that. If that were the case, I feel sorry for them, as most of them would now be out of work - Without communicating with the COMMUNITY, the COMMUNITY team is not needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianDmitruk Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 (edited) Someone missed my point. I've been astounded at the lax moderation in this game for some time. If trolls know they can get away with ****, they'll push it further, and eventually to the point of doxxing/IRL threats/other malicious acts that fall under criminal jurisdiction. Eric made that post, people whined about having communication cut off even after people pointed out that EA has a legal duty to protect their employees. And yes, withdrawing engagement from the community that bites your hand off is a reasonable method of doing that, at least in the short term when everyone is still in shock over it and the criminals haven't been prosecuted yet. That thread with all the whining would have been a perfect opportunity for some moderation to clean some of the toxic trolls out, with a long-term aim of making the community more civil. We might even get some of that communication restored that way, once the trolls are removed and the rules enforced enough that the trolling cannot reach that point in the future. I was simply noting my disappointment that such moderation seemingly never occurred, thereby sending the wrong message of permissiveness to those types of trolls. It really does seem the Community Manager has no long or even medium term plan to manage the community. EDIT: I say this as one who has a history of engaging the devs with constructive criticism re sorc healing in the aftermath of H2F. When 3.0 released, I saw many, many reflections of my suggestions and feedback in the changes to corruption. So for the devs to feel compelled to withdraw like this is especially painful for me, because it means that I won't be able to offer that kind of constructive feedback and actually have it considered in the future. Edited May 19, 2015 by AdrianDmitruk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icestar Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 What exactly does the community team do now? This game has a community team? Who are they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xythius Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 (edited) If that were the case, I feel sorry for them, as most of them would now be out of work - Without communicating with the COMMUNITY, the COMMUNITY team is not needed. And how much communication did you from them previously, exactly...? It's not like they were flooding the forums with posts to begin with. As was posted in a previous post, BW has a legal obligation to protect their employees from harm. I have every confidence that they were re-allocated to other projects/tasks in the interim until things get sorted. I would also not be terribly surprised to hear that they disband the team all together and revert to simply posting patch notes and tentative road maps. Edited May 19, 2015 by Xythius Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bachannal Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 (edited) Not for nothin' - but in two of my tech jobs part of my job was community management/engagement, and it was a DAILY routine. Our user base wouldn't have allowed us to not communicate daily. Of course, that was for business, and this is a game...but typically a community team actually engages *regularly* with the community, regardless of how obnoxious they are. EDIT: I suspect this team actually spends more time on Facebook/Twitter engaging there than on here. Edited May 19, 2015 by Bachannal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xDagurasu Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 Not for nothin' - but in two of my tech jobs part of my job was community management/engagement, and it was a DAILY routine. Our user base wouldn't have allowed us to not communicate daily. Of course, that was for business, and this is a game...but typically a community team actually engages *regularly* with the community, regardless of how obnoxious they are. EDIT: I suspect this team actually spends more time on Facebook/Twitter engaging there than on here. A terrible practice IMHO. I know that that's 'just the way things are now', doesn't mean I have to like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumperPenn Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 Quote: Originally Posted by AdrianDmitruk View Post They should be moderating the community to flush the toxicity out and make it safe for them to communicate again. I disagree if by 'again' you mean that before the incident they were communicating or that the community wasn't toxic. It has been toxic for a long time now and a big part of the blame lies on BW for allowing that kind of behavior as well as those bad community members who jump on the bandwagon to be 'cool' or 'internet tuff'. I'm not just talking about the extreme of death threats etc but just not following their own polices of letting community members fight in threads or posting useless rude comments to eachother. BW's been asleep on that job as far as I can remember. Yeah. Threatening to kill someone's family, and posting their personal info, to prove they could do it is not the way the players should act, if they want communications from the Community Team. The way that some players excused, or even condoned the behavior would lead one to believe that there are more than one crazy bastard out there lurking, and plotting to kill BW employees' families. It may seem that I'm blowing it out of proportion, but put yourself in their shoes. What would you do to protect your family, would you continue to expose yourself, and potentially your family, to all of the lunatics that spit vile feelings at you all day long? It's like the players forget that they are only pretending to be Sith, while in game, and take their Sithiness out into the real world... You realize that that was one person and a few bad apples so it isn't the collective community's fault that some people are terrible human beings that do those kinds of things. Plenty of players tried to engage bw for years without making personal attacks or threats to their families but bw still didn't engage with the community very much. We can only guess they couldn't handle that players didn't embrace and love everything they did so they stayed silent. This dumb incident happens and now bw has an excuse to not engage the community anymore. It doesn't help that BW lets the community act out against their own polices(fighting, rude posts, etc) to foster a toxic community. For some people that gives them the green light to act as such and for others to take it to the extremes. If it was me I'd take it as a wakeup call to do a better job of making players understand that kind of behavior is not tolerated and crackdown on all the things they've let slide that turned the community so toxic. Going dark to defend themselves not engaging the community and continuing to let the bad toxic behavior fester just increases the chances more people do more terrible and vile things. If people see that terrible behavior is tolerated then bw "doesn't care" and may not see the developers/community team as people since they don't acknowledge the player's side of the community. Dehumanizing people or groups makes it easier for most people to treat them poorly and that's pretty easy when they ignore you plus internet immaturity of being 'anonymous' behind a screen. Some players are always going to take something to the extreme due to mental problems/etc but bw isn't doing much of anything to turn the tide by not doing their part which is cleaning up the toxicity of the community and setting the standard of behavior that is allowed. I've reported posts that violate their terms and see nothing done. It is as if BW was happy to let players treat eachother poorly so they'd leave bw alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianDmitruk Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 (edited) I disagree if by 'again' you mean that before the incident they were communicating... They weren't communicating well enough. On that I agree. But there was certainly more communication before the incident than there is now. They were actively soliciting feedback on proposed changes, and some of those changes (like...the complete destruction of certain healing classes) were reverted based upon said feedback. Now that is not to say they were responsive to the entire community, as their responsiveness has been...uneven at best. But they were certainly more responsive (and slowly improving) before the incident than they are or are likely to be now. ...or that the community wasn't toxic. It has been toxic for a long time now and a big part of the blame lies on BW for allowing that kind of behavior as well as those bad community members who jump on the bandwagon to be 'cool' or 'internet tuff'. I'm not just talking about the extreme of death threats etc but just not following their own polices of letting community members fight in threads or posting useless rude comments to eachother. BW's been asleep on that job as far as I can remember. That was the point I was trying to make. The community was toxic. The community management was so lax in moderation that it allowed the toxicity to brew. Not a good combination. I believe that Bioware should be moderating the community far more heavily right now; yet the community team (and I refer specifically to the ones who get paid for this sort of thing, not the devs who have a different job description) is nowhere to be seen. If Bioware won't moderate the community to a more civil standard, there is no hope that the present situation will ever be resolved. The terms of service, by prohibiting naming and shaming, pretty much preclude community self-policing. Edited May 20, 2015 by AdrianDmitruk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theUndead Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 What exactly does the community team do now? I am not trying to be inflammatory, but it really doesn't look like they do much all day. 1. Pocket was coordinating with community sites before she left. There are very few sites left now. 2. Shadow Realms is gone and the team came back to SWTOR. 3. Communication went off the cliff since the harassment issue. 4. We have had some recent communication due to Harbinger server issues, but not much else. 5. Facebook and Twitter only have 3-4 marketing posts a day. 6. Reddit subthread doesn't have that much of a presence either. We were promised increase communication, what happened? What exactly do you do all day. The amount of daily work we see could be handled by a single person in just 2-3 hours. It might be interesting if you could share with us what a typical day is like. What business is it of yours what they do? They are not required to speak to the players at all and the fact they do, is a privilege. So while you are correct about things like Shadow Realms, that has nothing to do with the community team here. If they feel it's appropriate they might say what a typical day is, however considering what has happened recently, I'd wager they won't post a single thing to this toxic community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 What business is it of yours what they do? They are not required to speak to the players at all and the fact they do, is a privilege. LOL! Calm down there sparky...he's just asking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaacone Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 (edited) I think this sums it up Edited May 20, 2015 by Isaacone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monumenta Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 What business is it of yours what they do? They are not required to speak to the players at all and the fact they do, is a privilege. they are required to speak to the community or someone named the team incorrectly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theUndead Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 they are required to speak to the community or someone named the team incorrectly No they are meant to communicate important updates, they are not required to talk to us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monumenta Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 (edited) No they are meant to communicate important updates, they are not required to talk to us. ya thats not all what a traditional community team does on any game forum or any forum anywhere, Im not saying they need to, just that a community team usually interacts with the community on the reg Edited May 20, 2015 by Monumenta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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