MSchuyler Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 they are required to speak to the community or someone named the team incorrectly A large assumption by a lot of people here is that these forums constitute "The Community" therefore if BW does not communicate on these forums, that somehow constitutes avoiding the community, etc. But what if these forums are not considered part of "The Community" at all and are instead considered simply a platform for the disaffected? Surely the vast majority of players spend most of their time playing the game rather than sitting on these forums. What makes you think these forums represent more than a drop in the bucket compared to "The Community" as a whole? That's pretty presumptuous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerba Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 (edited) We already got plenty of information what the Community Team is doing. They have much more to do than just reading the forums. For example, right now Tait is busy reading through what the dev team has done to prepare the final 3.2.1 patch notes after he helped QA write down all bugs. In addition, they have meetings where they talk about upcoming content, and they have to prepare all news articles for the website, like an events page for the casino event. I'm sure that they are currently preparing all the information about Fallen Empire so that everything is ready on June 15th. Yes, they sometimes are a little quiet but they will then hit us with tons of information at the same time so that it appears bigger. Don't expect a large-scale community interaction like in WoW because there are less community managers here and their tasks are different. But since this thread has gone off-topic: 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. I didn't read a single player condoning that behaviour, I think you may have misread it. There was a lot of criticism to how Musco wrote the post but everyone agreed that this type of behaviour is not acceptable. Please don't make up facts after we just finished that discussion. 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. I've seen plenty of posts/threds being deleted in the past couple of days. Of course, you don't hear about it because this happens behind-the-scenes but to me it looks like they became stricter now. Edited May 20, 2015 by Jerba Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Transcendent Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 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. Pretty much all they do anyway, the idea of two-way communication seems like an alien concept to them sometimes. Thing is, they make it so rare, that when they do they get pulled over the coals for answering a "non-important issue". It starts at the top though, which means the community manager is the one responsible for any communication. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monumenta Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 (edited) A large assumption by a lot of people here is that these forums constitute "The Community" therefore if BW does not communicate on these forums, that somehow constitutes avoiding the community, etc. But what if these forums are not considered part of "The Community" at all and are instead considered simply a platform for the disaffected? Surely the vast majority of players spend most of their time playing the game rather than sitting on these forums. What makes you think these forums represent more than a drop in the bucket compared to "The Community" as a whole? That's pretty presumptuous. I dont, so its you that are being presumptuous, if you take into account this forum + the swtor facepage, twitters, and even emails to current or expired subs there is still little to no real communication with the community other than advertisements. Last year the website went without updates for like 6 months with the Bounty and Rak events up on the main page saying 'play them now!' was that something they should have taken care of? Furthermore, if there is a failing as to what this forum has become it lies with them. Its their forum. Compare dev posts of any media type to any other big title game out there I bet we have less. Most games, even single player games, forums, twitters, facebooks, etc. are filled with casual banter from devs and various other employees of the company with their players about game preferences and off-topic nonsense. Swtor devs are cold shouldered in comparison. Edited May 20, 2015 by Monumenta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icestar Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 (edited) Does anyone even know who are part of this "community team"? I would like to know who they are, if they exist. Beeing visible and telling the community who works in a community team must be in their best interest. Edited May 20, 2015 by Icestar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iacon Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 (edited) It would be interesting to see what definition people are giving "Community Team". I would wager it would vary greatly. What was the stated responsibilities and goals of the Community Team in the beginning? I would place another wager that it does not match quite a number of people's definition. Personally, I play the game and read patch notes, and occasionally sift through the PTS notes when I have the inclination to find out what is upcoming. I read the forums sporadically when not playing the game so if there is not a lot of posting in the forums from Bioware I do not feel particularly left out or dismissed. I look at the Facebook page and Twitter for updates when things go buggy system-wise, but as far as getting a constant dialogue from the devs, never expected it from this game or any other that I have played in the past. Edited May 20, 2015 by iacon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmbuddah Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 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. Personally I agree with the OP. I truly do wonder what they do all day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmbuddah Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 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. 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. Actually, it is their job to communicate with the community. If they don't, he does have the right to ask what they do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trollokdamus Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 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. Can anyone clarify what exactly happened, please? I have a feeling that i've missed something important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZETA_SCORPII Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Maybe it was the community team that was running the credit selling ring and they covered it up with that story about them getting personal threats. *takes off tinfoil hat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theUndead Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Actually, it is their job to communicate with the community. If they don't, he does have the right to ask what they do. No it's their job to communicate updates and schedules. It is not their job to have conversations with the players. Besides, the amount of vitriol they get would make anyone loathe to speak on these forums. Oh he can ask, but they are not required to answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heat-Wave Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 No they are meant to communicate important updates, they are not required to talk to us. It doesn't take a team of 4 people to do that... It takes one... part time person... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yuridia Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 No it's their job to communicate updates and schedules. It is not their job to have conversations with the players. Besides, the amount of vitriol they get would make anyone loathe to speak on these forums. Oh he can ask, but they are not required to answer. That's a CM just doing the bare minimum. A -good- CM goes above and beyond. Maybe the CM you described should quit the CM game. Here's a decent read of what's expected of a proper CM. ''......This holds especially true for the Community Managers of the video game industry. In fact, I would argue that they probably hold one of the most important roles in the industry. Without an active Community Manager, you have no community. No community means there will be fewer people talking about your game. The less people talking about your game means less media coverage, less enthusiasm for the game/franchise, and it also gives an impression of poor support from the studio/developers responsible for making the game. Active communities are what make good studios great. They generate hardcore and long-term fans of a franchise. These fans will fight your company's battles for you all over the internet. They will spread your brand and message to those that have never heard of your company or franchise before. Where ever this is a nay-sayer about your franchise, these people will heed it as a call to action and take up arms to defend you. All of this gets people talking about your company, and as a result, generates interest in what you have to offer. As long as the CM provides interesting content and keeps the community engaged, the community will thrive. Community Managers not only serve as the company/developer liaison, not only in online social networks and forums, but also in early game testing, gaming blogs, and major conventions as well. They are essentially the ambassadors to the developers. If you beta-test a new feature a game and want to know what the fans think, you go to the CM. Communities also keep people talking about your company, as opposed to the competition. If people are spending their time on your sites, commenting on your posts, talking about your games, then you can argue that this means they are spending less time doing all of these things on your competitors sites. This is a good thing for you, because that means they will remember your product when they see it on a shelf or online catalog. So, what does it take to be a CM? Well, one needs to be able to multitask....seriously multitask. Social media experience is a must, because who has ever heard of an active community that did not utilize Facebook or Twitter? Providing content requires more than just words on a page, that gets boring and overlooked. Content needs to have graphics, videos, and some level of interactivity. Actually knowing how to make this content is an added bonus. Great verbal and written communication skills...since you know....you will be communicating with thousands of people on a daily basis. PR knowledge can go a long way for community managers, since you will need to know how to appeal to the public, convey the brand message, recognize potential threats/problems and know how to take care of them, and build relationships with journalists and other high-profile industry figures to generate publicity for the franchise. The CM's role expands beyond "Ambassador" title that the community sees. It also involves PR/Marketing. The CM should be aware of marketing objectives and assist in the creation of the marketing/PR campaigns since the CM should interact with the community on a daily basis, they probably have a pretty good idea of how to appeal to them, and by extension, the target market.'' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vallerine Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 No it's their job to communicate updates and schedules. It is not their job to have conversations with the players. Besides, the amount of vitriol they get would make anyone loathe to speak on these forums. Oh he can ask, but they are not required to answer. Wrong. Totally wrong. The clue is in the name. "Community team". They're the ones who interact with the community, talk about stuff, schedule in game events, talk to us about updates and schedules, talk about their lives, what they enjoy in the game, have conversations with players. They talk to players about their concerns and actually respond to them. They're meant to actually read the forums and acknowledge player feedback in individual threads. They're supposed to respond on a daily basis, even more so an hourly basis. A proper community team reads the forums a lot. It doesn't seem that way with SWTOR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rithoma Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 (edited) No it's their job to communicate updates and schedules. It is not their job to have conversations with the players. Besides, the amount of vitriol they get would make anyone loathe to speak on these forums. Oh he can ask, but they are not required to answer. Communicating patch notes and schedules takes an hour of work every 2 or 3 weeks. And they pay 3-4 full time people to do that? Bravo! You just won the Nobel Prize for Economics! I think the question reamains. Being the Community Team is clearly just a side job for them. So what are their actual main jobs? It won't be answered. If managing the community is their main job, then they must be bored as hell all day long. Edited May 21, 2015 by Rithoma Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
menofhorror Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 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. The funny thing is about all the promises at the start of the year. Eric made a post saying "Oh we are going to do our livestreams better, showcase our skills and blabla." What happend?....NO livestreams since months. Nothing happening, swtor team being as silent as ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 The funny thing is about all the promises at the start of the year. Eric made a post saying "Oh we are going to do our livestreams better, showcase our skills and blabla." What happend?....NO livestreams since months. Nothing happening, swtor team being as silent as ever. Sad isn't it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MbaxterBeau Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 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. Basically in a nutshell the mmo market is flooded. The games don't make money like WOW does and there isn't much in them except to have a virtual gambling cash shop you can squeeze money out of. This game's engine is garbage always has been and will be. I believe the devs are as sick of the engine as the players are. There won't be very much put into this game except Barbie cash shop dress up. Mmos are going to continue to suck until developers quit making so many or a developer actually makes one that has long term potential. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MbaxterBeau Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Sad isn't it... Seeing as how there is only one active server and the queue times for dungeons on it are sometimes thirty minutes or longer why would they continue to develop this game? I enjoy the game but it's not doing well compared to the other mmos I've played population wise. I honestly can't figure out why the servers aren't packed with people. The pvp is amazing in this game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Seeing as how there is only one active server and the queue times for dungeons on it are sometimes thirty minutes or longer why would they continue to develop this game? I enjoy the game but it's not doing well compared to the other mmos I've played population wise. I honestly can't figure out why the servers aren't packed with people. The pvp is amazing in this game. Hard to argue with. I too think the PvP is amazing, but balance and rewards are atrocious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Costello Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 I think I've worked out what they do. They find questions that have already been answered, say that they are great questions and repeat the answer. While at the same time ignoring all the actually great questions that the community ask paying particular importance to ignoring the questions about game play or balance or content. Genius. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarrinMarshall Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 I think I've worked out what they do. They find questions that have already been answered, say that they are great questions and repeat the answer. While at the same time ignoring all the actually great questions that the community ask paying particular importance to ignoring the questions about game play or balance or content. Genius. This is something that I personally don't get about our community. If Musco or whoever, actually came on hear and answered the communities questions and concerns 1 by 1, with complete honesty, and set in stone knowledge, this game would not exist because people would be bailing out of it faster than a building on fire. For example: Can you imagine if we got a yellow post that looked something like: GSF- No new plans or resource commitment Status: Abandoned Space Missions- No new plans or resource commitment Status: Abandoned Conquests- No new plans or resource commitment Status: Abandoned No New Classes EVER- To much resources needed to code in new stories/companion stories for new classes levels 1-60 Status: Abandoned No New Class or Companion Story going forward: To much resource commitment for more than just 1 faction story, limited to no companion story. Status: Minimum investment PVP and et al- Reset of periodic ranked seasons, occasional new gear tiers, too much resource commitment to add any new Warzones (even though we started a thread asking for ideas that got hundreds of responses) Status: Minimum investment and new content Abandoned. Bug Fixing/Cross Server/Mega-Servers- We break just as much as we fix when we implement new patches or items into the game so we are just going to leave it all as is and hope nothing else breaks down. Given the shoddy state in which SOR was released do you really trust us to implement cross/mega servers without a hitch? LOL Status: Abandoned and just stop asking. I mean guys I could go on and on here, some of which is a bit snarky, but it's closer to the truth than not. If this was a true yellow post we would all be leaving if they came out and admitted this. This is why they don't come on here and answer your requests and concerns because 9/10 the answer is HELL NO and the 1/10 is, we'll see what we can squeeze past EA which also typically results in NO. Bioware doesn't manage the community in as much as they manage community expectations... think on that for a while before you ask why we can't get yellow posts or can't have new things to play with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exly Posted May 24, 2015 Share Posted May 24, 2015 I think I've worked out what they do. They find questions that have already been answered, say that they are great questions and repeat the answer. While at the same time ignoring all the actually great questions that the community ask paying particular importance to ignoring the questions about game play or balance or content. Genius. It's like you read my mind. I agree with you 100%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharkii_boy Posted May 24, 2015 Share Posted May 24, 2015 (edited) Good question, it's really worrysome that they do not communicate well enough with us. I think it correlates to the problem that this game doesn't get enough resources which is very frustrating because there are a lot of people that are emotionally attached to this game, me included, that has to see this game wasting so much potential! having that said this is still an amazing game with great graphics, fun combat and intriguing storylines. just imagine for a moment if swtor could have new and improved engine, a devteam that listens to the PvP community, our cutscenes for sidequests back and polished expansions twice a year? there would be few reasons to play any other MMO over swtor! Let's just hope that EA takes massive advantage of the new movies coming out in dec. i get that this is a tall order but I think more people should speak up and let EA know the demand is there. in the end, all we want is for this game to succeed on a small tangent: any news on the rumour of a new sw game that was allegedly being planned? was it all a hoax played by the forumtrolls? Edited May 24, 2015 by Sharkii_boy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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