Tolunart Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 It's not about whether the game is dying. I've played it since beta, and I want to see it continue. But engagement with the player base is the reason why WOW and GW2 and other games succeed, and this paradigm of keeping the player base of SWTOR in the dark isn't going to keep the game afloat. It's just common sense; the less you engage with your customers, the less business you bring in. In order to post on the forums, you have to *already* be a customer, so engaging with them is not going to bring in new customers. At best they can keep the most dissatisfied and hardest to please customers from leaving, which is not really worth the effort or cost involved. So it's no surprise if "post in the forums" is last on the list of Eric's priorities, they probably have him doing a lot of other things to earn a paycheck. There is a rule of thumb in business, 20% of your customers provide 80% of your income, and 20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your problems. The former group is most important to the company, the latter can be encouraged to move on without causing much harm and may in fact leave the company better off without them. Guess which group the forums represent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrandLordMenace Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 I get that the game should stand on its own, and for the most part I've enjoyed the three characters I've leveled to max level in KotFE. I get that the developers worked hard on it and want to relax a bit. That's all fine and good. But I don't get the silence. It's deafening. A quick glance at dulfy.net will show the degree to which there is a TOTAL lack of engagement from Bioware and its employees versus the players, simply by comparing to the recent Guild Wars 2 expansion. GW2's developers are publishing blogs, updating users on a daily basis on bug fixes and changes and things that are being clarified. Other than an odd reply here or there, Bioware has basically been silent for two weeks. It's disheartening. Maybe they believe the game really will stand on its own, despite the hundreds of bugs being reported (and we aren't talking about misspellings... we're talking game-breaking bugs). But all this is doing is making the player base think they really don't give a damn about engagement. I'm waiting for the next patch, which I'm sure is coming soon... but I really wish they would engage more. It's a fine line to walk between getting in the midst of your player base, and simply engaging them on a level that demonstrates that the product is growing and evolving. I get it. But ArenaNet seems to get it. Blizzard (mostly) gets it. Why doesn't BioWare/EA? You guys want us to promote your game to our friends... then let's have some feedback from the community managers and developers, telling us why we shouldn't worry that the game we love is mostly going ignored. Again... the silence is deafening. Honestly? I'm betting that because they represent a brand as big as star wars there's probably a mile and a half of red tape they need to go through to post anything on the forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolunart Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 (edited) Honestly? I'm betting that because they represent a brand as big as star wars there's probably a mile and a half of red tape they need to go through to post anything on the forums. Probably not that bad, but employees definitely do not have the authority to post anything the feel like posting. The policy decisions are made by someone above Eric Musco and the game devs in the chain of command. If the boss says "don't say anything about Subject X" then no one says anything about Subject X no matter how many threads are created demanding answers. Edited November 10, 2015 by Tolunart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonskye Posted November 10, 2015 Author Share Posted November 10, 2015 (edited) In order to post on the forums, you have to *already* be a customer, so engaging with them is not going to bring in new customers. A huge amount of gamers aren't going to start playing a game just because it's Star Wars: they're going to ask their friends about it. Word of mouth keeps many games alive when they'd otherwise disappear. I've told friends for ages about SWTOR and gotten some of them to play. I won't do that right now, because as much as I like some of the content of KotFE, I've never seen a period in this game's lifespan where so many bugs and issues have existed and not been addressed. I've always been impressed by the developers and CMs' responses to people, but in the past several weeks, the ONLY public information coming out of BioWare has been about cartel market issues - the stuff they make money off of (including the 60 boost tokens). Why are we building an alliance and leveling the four alliance 'leaders' like Oggurobb or Hylo Visz? We've been given tasks but we have no idea what it's building up to. About the only game system right now we have full understanding of is why we level our companions, because their influence makes them stronger. The rest... we have no idea. If the developers were blogging about it or telling us what their plans are, it'd be a different story, but it's not. And that's why I'm unhappy. For the first time in ages I have no idea about the direction the game is going. WE get to the end of the KotFE story and... nothing. Same operations as before; crafting holes you could drive a truck through; no clear thought from the game's developers as to what our progress should be. We're in a car without a driver right now. Engagement from the BioWare side of any kind would really help... but they've gone dark. THAT is my point, entirely. Edited November 10, 2015 by damonskye Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBreakfast Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Honestly? I'm betting that because they represent a brand as big as star wars there's probably a mile and a half of red tape they need to go through to post anything on the forums. I really doubt they'd need authorization from the top to say, "Hang tight we're fixing this respec bug." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolunart Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 You've made it quite clear that you're unhappy. We all sympathize, I'm sure. The company spokesman does not have permission to reveal details of Chapters 10+ and so no matter how badly you want to know what happens, he's not going to say anything until given the green light to talk about it. You don't have to like it. The decision is not made by you or by Eric, and the person(s) who can make that decision don't care about what you or I want. There is no such thing as "enough." I've been on other forums for other games like Rift and GW2, and no matter how open and responsive the company's employees are, they still get complaints because answers are not quick enough of they don't give in to the demands of some individual who wants something the devs are not prepared to deliver. It takes a thick skin to work on something that is open to public criticism, music, movies, games, whatever. Those who do quickly develop a thick skin when it comes to critics or they find another line or work. And where this particular forum is concerned, I'm sure the incident where a dev's family was threatened has a strong influence on the company policy, a line was crossed and they are not going to just ignore this. The next time there might be more than just threats, and no one wants to put their employees and their families in harm's way over a video game. You can get all upset and complain about the situation if you want, but the fact remains that no one is going to talk about anything until they are ready. Nothing you can say is going to change this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlrikFassbauer Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 I'm longing for the days when even Eric was more often here ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScarletBlaze Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 (edited) And that's why I'm unhappy. For the first time in ages I have no idea about the direction the game is going. WE get to the end of the KotFE story and... nothing. . You do know chapter 9 is not the end of the story right. They will release additional chapters starting in February 2016 right? There are approximately 16-20 chapters for the expansion and we have just had 9 released. Edited November 10, 2015 by ScarletBlaze Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolunart Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 I really doubt they'd need authorization from the top to say, "Hang tight we're fixing this respec bug." Actually I'm sure they do. If a dev posted that but it turns out the fix wasn't in time to make it to the next update, they'll be accused of lying to the players and such. If it's already confirmed they may be able to say "a fix is scheduled to be in the next update" but even then it's not 100% certain because it can turn out that fixing one bug creates another and the fix is pulled from the update. There have been complaints and controversies from offhand comments made during Cantina events and so on, so I'm sure they have to be very careful about what the put in print. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBreakfast Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 The company spokesman does not have permission to reveal details of Chapters 10+ and so no matter how badly you want to know what happens, he's not going to say anything until given the green light to talk about it. Pretty sure OP isn't demanding to know the remainder of the storyline. He's more concerned about: updating users on a daily basis on bug fixes and changes and things that are being clarified. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolunart Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Pretty sure OP isn't demanding to know the remainder of the storyline. He's more concerned about: I responded to this comment buy the OP: Why are we building an alliance and leveling the four alliance 'leaders' like Oggurobb or Hylo Visz? We've been given tasks but we have no idea what it's building up to. About the only game system right now we have full understanding of is why we level our companions, because their influence makes them stronger. The rest... we have no idea. If the developers were blogging about it or telling us what their plans are, it'd be a different story, but it's not. And that's why I'm unhappy. For the first time in ages I have no idea about the direction the game is going. WE get to the end of the KotFE story and... nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBreakfast Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Actually I'm sure they do. If a dev posted that but it turns out the fix wasn't in time to make it to the next update, they'll be accused of lying to the players and such. If it's already confirmed they may be able to say "a fix is scheduled to be in the next update" but even then it's not 100% certain because it can turn out that fixing one bug creates another and the fix is pulled from the update. There have been complaints and controversies from offhand comments made during Cantina events and so on, so I'm sure they have to be very careful about what the put in print. Well, I'm hoping they intend to eventually fix this bug, correct? It's certainly not intended. So a statement like, "we are working on it" seems pretty safe to me. I agree that they shouldn't make promises they can't keep, but it's not like this is major content that they promised and failed to deliver, like new operations or something. This is a small feature that was working fine, got broken, and hasn't been fixed in weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dharh Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 (edited) You want details that are irrelevant. They're working on fixing the bugs, sit back, be quiet and they'll let us know when they're fixed. Don't be 'that guy' that demands details that he wouldn't even understand. You know the guy. The one who insists on you explaining what you're doing to fix his car/computer/whatever and gets mad when you gently explain that he wouldn't understand. What is with this attitude? Are you some developer who's gotten burned by users yelling at you? Because as a fellow developer I don't like this attitude of telling users to the shut up and sit down while we high and mighty developers do real important work. He isn't asking them for minute details on code and processes. He's asking for _any_ kind of real communication. Even as simple as hey guys we know such and such is an issue, we hear you, we are working on it or this is working as intended, period. I doubt he would even care if it came from of an actual dev, and instead came via community reps. It's don't get what the fuss is with not saying a single substantial thing given all the issues going on, _except_ with the level 60 tokens which I agree was a must fix now deal. Edited November 10, 2015 by dharh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBreakfast Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 I responded to this comment buy the OP: Oh I see, apologies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolunart Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 (edited) Well, I'm hoping they intend to eventually fix this bug, correct? It's certainly not intended. So a statement like, "we are working on it" seems pretty safe to me. I agree that they shouldn't make promises they can't keep, but it's not like this is major content that they promised and failed to deliver, like new operations or something. This is a small feature that was working fine, got broken, and hasn't been fixed in weeks. That's not how it works. Any offhand comment will be considered promise by someone, and that someone will scream bloody murder if he has to wait another few days for it to happen. Did you not read all the complaints about problems with early access because people couldn't read the fine print? 99% of the people understood how to qualify for early access, a few thought you could sub the day before and still get in, and threw a fit about it. That's the kind of people the devs have to be careful around - a reasonable statement like "we hope to have it fixed soon" is taken to mean "it will absolutely be done and go live an hour ago." If the forums were populated solely by rational individuals who were polite and thoughtful in their responses, comments like that would be possible. But they are not, they are populated buy spoiled children who act like a minor delay is the same as if a dev came to their house one morning and spit in their orange juice. Edited November 10, 2015 by Tolunart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tolunart Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Oh I see, apologies. No problem. I believe it's referred to as "moving the goalposts." The original argument was about updates in general, now it's about not talking about the plot... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonskye Posted November 10, 2015 Author Share Posted November 10, 2015 If the forums were populated solely by rational individuals who were polite and thoughtful in their responses, comments like that would be possible. But they are not, they are populated buy spoiled children who act like a minor delay is the same as if a dev came to their house one morning and spit in their orange juice. But treating everyone with the same brush doesn't do any of us any favors. I was called a troll earlier just because I had the audacity to voice an opinion. I do recognize, Tolunart, that you are genuinely trying to discuss the situation so I want to address your point that I shouldn't be asking about future plans. Fair enough, but that's again not what I am asking for. By noting the absence of info about why we're trying to raise our influence with Oggurobb, Hylo, Aygo and Sana Re, I'm not asking about *future* plans for these characters... I'm asking about CURRENT motivation. We were told, once you get to Odessen, raise your alliances to max level. WHY? Why would we want to do that, in the total absence of any information about them? The only thing it's done for me so far is allow me to unlock those strongboxes in heroic Star Fortresses which, sure, are a bit helpful, but by the point I got them to level 10 I really didn't need those extra boosts anyway. So why continue? This is something that could be easily addressed in a blog post currently, about the motivations of why players should participate in endgame. Raiding guilds are still smarting over the fact that they're doing the same ops again. We have no clue what's coming down the pipeline. Throwing all of us a bone or two or three isn't an unreasonable request. Game designers do it all the time to keep people invested in the story and in playing the game. Otherwise it's just... level to 65, get to Odessen, start on an alt. No thanks. It's ironic that people were complaining only a few weeks BEFORE the release of KotFE that they weren't hearing anything either. Then suddenly, a massive data dump for three weeks or so, then radio silence again. Sigh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 It's the month of Thanksgiving. They're spending time with their families, preparing for the holiday feast. Like many American's, I assume they're knee deep in some swamp, covered in face paint, hunting birds and contemplating what they'll do come mid January when they resume work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonskye Posted November 10, 2015 Author Share Posted November 10, 2015 I doubt he would even care if it came from of an actual dev, and instead came via community reps. I'd like just one blog post of any kind from someone in authority, addressing the community, reassuring people the bugs are being worked out, addressing the concerns people have with crafting and PvP and level sync (perhaps a note about why it was necessary), giving us a bit of insight about what we should keep doing at endgame, and letting us know our time investment isn't in vain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBreakfast Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 That's not how it works. Any offhand comment will be considered promise by someone, and that someone will scream bloody murder if he has to wait another few days for it to happen. Did you not read all the complaints about problems with early access because people couldn't read the fine print? 99% of the people understood how to qualify for early access, a few thought you could sub the day before and still get in, and threw a fit about it. That's the kind of people the devs have to be careful around - a reasonable statement like "we hope to have it fixed soon" is taken to mean "it will absolutely be done and go live an hour ago." If the forums were populated solely by rational individuals who were polite and thoughtful in their responses, comments like that would be possible. But they are not, they are populated buy spoiled children who act like a minor delay is the same as if a dev came to their house one morning and spit in their orange juice. I get your point about childish responses, and their needing to be careful in their responses. I think we're slightly talking cross purposes here. I was stating my doubt as to the "mile of red tape" needed before any kind of post can be made, strictly due to the game being part of the SW franchise. I meant to say that no involvement from the authorities at SW was needed to respond to technical problems in one of their games. From BW, OK, just like in any game I'm sure. That being said, what is your solution to increased dev communication with us? If you are saying they should avoid any acknowledgment of a problem because someone will misinterpret that as a promise of immediate resolution, then what else can they do? There will always be people who are quick to riot when things don't go their way, but I'd say there are more of us out there patiently waiting for news and updates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonskye Posted November 10, 2015 Author Share Posted November 10, 2015 It's the month of Thanksgiving. It's November 10, and Thanksgiving isn't for more than two weeks now, and the developers and CMs of this game didn't just take off an entire month after the release of an expansion. They're all working, probably very hard and rightfully so... they're just not communicating with us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jadescythe Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 It's the month of Thanksgiving. They're spending time with their families, preparing for the holiday feast. Like many American's, I assume they're knee deep in some swamp, covered in face paint, hunting birds and contemplating what they'll do come mid January when they resume work. Not sure Thanksgiving can be a 3 week affair. And unless BW is the nicest company every, you don't get 2 months of vacation to take off Nov and Dec. But overall, this is the communication style they use and have always used. There are downsides to the more communicative dev teams as well as you start to see different information coming from different sources. Just a week or so ago the Hearthstone devs came out saying all information will be going through the official Twitter rather than their personal ones. That's an instnace of too many sources giving out information and causing problems. I still prefer more communication, but it isn't impacting my ability to play the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonskye Posted November 10, 2015 Author Share Posted November 10, 2015 (edited) That being said, what is your solution to increased dev communication with us? Note that I've repeatedly said in this thread, from my original post and onward, that I wasn't asking for two-way communication in the forum necessarily; I'd rather see updates and blog posts. ArenaNet does this extremely well for GW2, for example (and I really notice it because I read Dulfy daily, and GW2 and SWTOR are the two games she covers - check it out and see the difference between the two game companies.) There's nothing stopping BioWare from doing additional blogs besides the tiny handful they released in the two or three weeks prior to the KotFE drop, addressing player concerns and updating us on the steps they're taking. A content person could probably write that up in 30 minutes. Edited November 10, 2015 by damonskye Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafaman Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Yeah, that's just ridiculous. You obviously haven't read anything but what you've cherry picked to suit your worldview. Go back and reread my original post and you will clearly see I have a reasonable and logical point, and I'm tired of the personal attacks on those of us who don't believe we are seeing an investment in the community by the people who make this game. Lol. No, there is nothing logical about claiming that someone is on the BW payroll because they disagree with you. There was no need to cherry pick that one landed with a thud right in front of everyone. So, there is your proof, right there, why they shouldn't engage you proactively. There is no reason to deal with you and your ilk. Once bitten, twice shy. They used to be more forthcoming, yes. And then they learned they shouldn't be in some very well documented cases. Blame the community if you want to blame someone. Otherwise just wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anaesha Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 (edited) BW can put me on the pay roll. I'd be happy to tell ya'll to man up and deal with it on a regular basis. BTW BW I'll accept cash of course but I also wouldn't be opposed to cartel coins or game time as payment. Edited November 10, 2015 by Anaesha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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