Arrogance and the Current Event

[squirrelballz]

No disagreement here. Though I simply don't look down on the studio over this event.. because I can take it, or leave it, or play bits here and there.

 

I'd be in denial if I didn't admit my bitterness towards this event but at the same time I'm grateful this event offers something really enticing for new folks so I give BW credit there. However, you're right end of the day BW gave me the option for the event and I chose not to do it. I would hope they look at their metrics and say huh well there's no good reason all players should't be doing this event lets look for ways to improve it.

 

Since we don't know what is coming from the outcome of the event yet, this one is hard to weigh in on. They have teased that there is more coming from the results of the event... but are keeping their cards close (as usual).

 

Call me ambivalent on this point.

 

You're absolutely correct on this and time will tell but I feel I can no longer wait on them, their holding their cards close is what causes bitterness especially in my case imo. Because of past things that have happened I can't blame them for it. However, they've got to do a better job of communicating and although this year has been better in some ways I do think there is alot that is left to be desired.

[squirrelballz]

If only more would take to heart the last few words of the first post made on this thread.

 

Nah, let us play keyboard warriors and continue the drivel some more...

 

One of the perks of subbing I'll miss is Forum PVP. It's good entertainment.

[BlazeTomahawk]

I've played this game for years, but hardly ever touched Pvp or flashpoints. I've never even considered operations. I probably will not go for the top tier lvd award, but if it's still going and i get to that point i might

[MeNaCe-NZ]

If only more would take to heart the last few words of the first post made on this thread.

 

Nah, let us play keyboard warriors and continue the drivel some more...

 

Gotta have something to do when I can't actually login to the game.

 

If only real ingame PVP were as good as forum PVP .... yeah I went there.

Edited July 13, 2016 by MeNaCe-NZ

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I've played this game for years, but hardly ever touched Pvp or flashpoints. I've never even considered operations. I probably will not go for the top tier lvd award, but if it's still going and i get to that point i might

 

I would if I didn't have to level 8 toons, that's really the only thing that put me off the top tier. Now tht I mind not getting legendary I just wish there were more of the options like operations etc. in the tiers I will be going for instead of all being in legendary.

[Vashadan]

Gotta have something to do when I can't actually login to the game.

 

If only real ingame PVP were as good as forum PVP .... yeah I went there.

 

Unknown dev sifting through this thread on his 6 hour coffee break:

 

Nothing to see here, move along....

[AlienEyeTX]

However, they've got to do a better job of communicating and although this year has been better in some ways I do think there is alot that is left to be desired.

 

I don't think it's better at all this year. The one post by Ben didn't really open any new lines of communication. Maybe if he took the time to interact with the community on a regular basis...

 

In the past, we have gotten roadmaps. They didn't put hard dates, but they at least gave an idea of what sort of content was coming. Now we beg, plead, rant and rave just to eventually get an extremely vague response like, "Um, we have some group stuff that we want to do, but we can't say anything about it. It may or may not be Ops, but it may or may not be something else entirely."

 

Sorry, but that is not good communication. It barely even counts as communication at all.

[commanderwar]

I don't think it's better at all this year. The one post by Ben didn't really open any new lines of communication. Maybe if he took the time to interact with the community on a regular basis...

 

In the past, we have gotten roadmaps. They didn't put hard dates, but they at least gave an idea of what sort of content was coming. Now we beg, plead, rant and rave just to eventually get an extremely vague response like, "Um, we have some group stuff that we want to do, but we can't say anything about it. It may or may not be Ops, but it may or may not be something else entirely."

 

Sorry, but that is not good communication. It barely even counts as communication at all.

 

To be fair they did explain why they did not do a road map this year. But i kinda agree with squirrel we had better communication this year than previous years not huge but improvement non the less.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

To be fair they did explain why they did not do a road map this year. But i kinda agree with squirrel we had better communication this year than previous years not huge but improvement non the less.

 

Care to elaborate on this better communication? Just the act of posting or having a stream isn't necessarily being better at communication also.

[Rolodome]

I haven't been here long enough to compare to past years. All I can say is, in isolation, they appear to be doing a decent job of speaking at us, but are downright terrible at speaking with us. In the few instances where they actually respond to something we've said, it's so generalized or so cherry-picked that it doesn't remotely feel like an actual conversation. I have a feeling that this comes from EA policy because I was watching the Sims 4 for a while, months ago, and their dev team acted very similar. Communication when it came to content/plans was all but nonexistent and it was as if they could barely even say that they weren't aloud to say much. Like just... intense gag order. The closest I saw to communication there, was a few devs posting silly stuff, basically. A little bit of banter to liven things up for the forumites.

 

The weird thing is, I'm wondering if like a bunch of big game companies got together and agreed to act in much the same way (or it's just one of those ideas that spreads like wildfire), cause I saw similar with GW2 for a while too. I think they got a little more loose-lipped over time, but there was a time with that game where I felt like they could barely say a thing either.

 

Personally, I understand not discussing content plans in detail, but at the same time, there is really no excuse for the inflexibility of many of these companies and games. And I say that not out of idealism, but because I've seen examples where the communication about content was a lot more clear, the steering of the ship was a lot more flexible, etc. Thing is, like... I get it on the fear level of things because game fans can be absolute scum of the earth. But game fans are not a unique group in this way. The closeness of interaction that can happen is both a wonderful thing and also a scary thing for devs.

 

But that, I think, is part of what community teams are supposed to be for. People who know what they're getting into and are ready to step into the flames. Problem is, most community teams I've observed in MMOs act more like walking talking slogans than they do human beings. The end result being that the robotic, PR nature of things is far too obvious and far too hate-able and doesn't really accomplish what it set out to do. This is not a dig at anyone on TOR's community team. Just a general observation. I've yet to encounter a community team person on an MMO team who both felt like a real person and seemed to be in touch with the direction of the game. It's always if they can manage the real person thing and if they can manage to be in touch with the direction of the game, their hands are tied so tight that it's impossible to give the impression of being in touch.

 

As a more general point, I think game fans both ask too much and don't ask enough. And by that I mean, there are instances of game fans expecting the world and not being realistic, but there's also a lot of apologizing for asking for things that would be a given in other industries. It just gets messy and complicated because this industry is new still and there are unique aspects of it that you can't really compare 100% to other industries. Like the idea of dev interaction. In what other industry is there an expectation of the creators practically collaborating with the audience? I'm not saying it's an expectation everyone has, but it is a pretty common expectation in this industry.

[IanArgent]

Well...I do spacebar a lot and just read subtitles, and I expected it to be terrible, but it wasn't (isn't...still finishing it) as bad as I thought it would be...so maybe it's just that it wasn't as bad as I assumed it would be biasing my opinion...but as for the class, the lack of mobility is driving me NUTS (Gunslinger)!!! How do you avoid stupid when you're forced to crouch so damn much?

 

Step away from the Tank! Seriously, I have no idea - I chose an Operative, not a Sniper, without really comprehending the fact that it was a melee-range class. My wife plays a Gunslinger, and when we team up she's always cussing out the bosses that drop the pools of stupid.

[squirrelballz]

Well...I do spacebar a lot and just read subtitles, and I expected it to be terrible, but it wasn't (isn't...still finishing it) as bad as I thought it would be...so maybe it's just that it wasn't as bad as I assumed it would be biasing my opinion...but as for the class, the lack of mobility is driving me NUTS (Gunslinger)!!! How do you avoid stupid when you're forced to crouch so damn much?

 

Well my main is a Marksmanship Sniper so hopefully I can give some good tips because I've been playing it for years. First off yeah snipers do have terrible mobility and having to get used to taking cover is a pain in the arse but gets easier over time. The main tool snipers have for escaping out of stupid is covered escape place this on your QB in a clearly visible place. The other ability used to supplement this is imperial preparation which will reset all of your defensive cooldowns including covered escape. Also it's important to be aware of your environment and take cover using the environment around you. For example you use cover escaped but 15m ahead of you is a box you can roll again to there without using covered escape.

 

Now because this is the only escape option that rolls you out far enough it's best to use this wisely and decide if you can take the incoming damage instead by popping defensive cooldowns. When it comes to group DCD this is where snipers shine so popping ballistic shield when a boss is raining hellfire is your best bet if it's hard to move and it helps your healer out as well. On top of that snipers have good personal dcd like shield probe and evasion for avoiding hard hits so use those to your advantage as well.

 

As for utilities if you are looking for mobility specifically I'd suggest these in the masterful:

 

1. Seek Cover: When Entrench ends or you leave cover while Entrench in active, you gain Seek Cover, which increases your movement speed by 50% and grants immunity to movement impairing effects. Lasts 6 seconds. This utility is must, especially for repositioning in PvP which you constantly need to do.

 

2. Reestablish Range: Striking a target with Shiv grants Reestablish Range, increasing your movement speed by 50% for <<1>> seconds. Additionally, the final shot of Series of Shots and Penetrating Blasts knocks back the target if they are within 10 meters.

 

Hope this helps y'all out.

[TUXs]

I endeavour to reply to everyone who replies to me ... notes TUXs continually replying but not addressing the meat and bones of the original posts put against him. He prefers to play childish games like "You are way more negative than me" or some such. When he gives me something to constructively respond to then by all means I shall.

Either way though - you are no judge, jury or executioner.

What's your fascination with me exactly?

 

And what meat and potatoes? You hurl insults...you don't engage me in debate. You are far more negative than I am...you attack players...I don't. You do far more harm than I could ever do because YOU make it personal.

[TUXs]

If there is one person on this forums who never uses personal attacks as argument it's TUXs

Thank you! I try not to. We can disagree on any number of topics, but that never makes it a personal grievance...it's simply how we view things differently (not that you and I do).

[squirrelballz]

Thank you! I try not to. We can disagree on any number of topics, but that never makes it a personal grievance...it's simply how we view things differently (not that you and I do).

 

You're cool in my book as well I've never seen you say anything personal and despite the fact I disagree with Andryah and Menace on some things I think they are cool as well and not to mention I like to see contrasting opinions because they open up good dialogue, the key is remembering to stick to the dialogue. So lets stop this back and forth. *Hugs Everyone*

Edited July 13, 2016 by squirrelballz

[gabigool]

Care to elaborate on this better communication? Just the act of posting or having a stream isn't necessarily being better at communication also.

 

Don't bother. Communication is poor. Whether or not is was less poor last year doesn't much matter.

 

I'm more interested in the first sentence of the quote you replied to, as I wasn't aware of that and would be interested to read it.

[squirrelballz]

Care to elaborate on this better communication? Just the act of posting or having a stream isn't necessarily being better at communication also.

 

Ah yes I should've clarified what I meant by better communication. In my opinion we've gotten an increase in the quantity of communication from BW. The quality of the communication however is severely lacking. I actually think the best quality of communication came During Eric Musco's Livestream Event. They actually answered numerous questions even if it wasn't what people wanted to hear. Just my 2 Cartel Coins.

[AlienEyeTX]

Ah yes I should've clarified what I meant by better communication. In my opinion we've gotten an increase in the quantity of communication from BW. The quality of the communication however is severely lacking. I actually think the best quality of communication came During Eric Musco's Livestream Event. They actually answered numerous questions even if it wasn't what people wanted to hear. Just my 2 Cartel Coins.

 

The only thing different they've done is the livestreams. Not sure how much that is worth when they just take the place of forum posts and offer empty responses devoid of any actual information.

 

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of the livestreams. I just wish they would do it as less of a marketing thing and do it more as a PR thing where they can ignore the "serious" questions (they do, anyway) and just have fun and chat with the community about silly stuff.

[Andryah]

The only thing different they've done is the livestreams. Not sure how much that is worth when they just take the place of forum posts and offer empty responses devoid of any actual information.

 

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of the livestreams. I just wish they would do it as less of a marketing thing and do it more as a PR thing where they can ignore the "serious" questions (they do, anyway) and just have fun and chat with the community about silly stuff.

 

Having come from the tech sector in corporate America, I just want to point out that from a company context.... Marketing IS PR. Not everyone appreciates it.. but it is PR in a very fundamental sense. And I am not talking about "spin". The live streams are for example.. all about PR from a marketing standpoint.

 

Now.. if you had said "good will" with the player base.... then I am there with you.

 

But... frankly I've not seen a lot of good will in terms of communications from MMO studios over the years. For most players... it's not about what a studio says or does not say... it's about what they do or do not do. And in that regard, while there is definitely room for the studio to do more in the "good will" category... they do listen and they do in fact do things that = good will toward the players. Such as returning the low cost server transfers one last time recently.. for those that missed it or waited too long... or when they foul up a drop of an item in a cartel pack and hence put it on a vendor in game for EVERYONE to snap up for 1 credit (for a limited period of time)... or removing training costs for all players in 3.0.... the list goes on and on... but they seem to never get any credit for any good will they apply.. only more condemnation.

[Tehdevilinusall]

i was completely against grinding this event....until i got a sith recluse upper body set and the white/white dye. And it also got me off of fleet and unhooked from the gtn terminal for a little bit. And the xp armor you get is actually really good. Took me a good little while to get the first one to 65 but the second one i flew through.

 

So yeah, ive had a lot of fun so far.

[casirabit]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8997139#edit8997139

 

 

Chapter XVI Release Date Change: Moving from July 28 to August 11

 

 

 

Why am I not surprised by this delay?

[AlienEyeTX]

Having come from the tech sector in corporate America, I just want to point out that from a company context.... Marketing IS PR. Not everyone appreciates it.. but it is PR in a very fundamental sense. And I am not talking about "spin". The live streams are for example.. all about PR from a marketing standpoint.

 

Now.. if you had said "good will" with the player base.... then I am there with you.

 

Yes, I know that PR is a part of marketing. Trust me, that is one area where I do not need a lesson.

 

BUT, PR is a specific part of marketing that is presented in a very different manner than many other parts of marketing. It takes many forms and one of those is just hanging out and having fun with your customers/clients. BW is trying to do this with the livestreams, but they just don't handle it quite the way (I think) they should.

 

If they could just hang out, have fun and talk to us as gamers, that would be great. Even if no "new info" is even mentioned.

[rklontz]

If they could just hang out, have fun and talk to us as gamers, that would be great. Even if no "new info" is even mentioned.

 

That would be amazing.

[Rolodome]

Having come from the tech sector in corporate America, I just want to point out that from a company context.... Marketing IS PR. Not everyone appreciates it.. but it is PR in a very fundamental sense. And I am not talking about "spin". The live streams are for example.. all about PR from a marketing standpoint.

 

Now.. if you had said "good will" with the player base.... then I am there with you.

 

But... frankly I've not seen a lot of good will in terms of communications from MMO studios over the years. For most players... it's not about what a studio says or does not say... it's about what they do or do not do. And in that regard, while there is definitely room for the studio to do more in the "good will" category... they do listen and they do in fact do things that = good will toward the players. Such as returning the low cost server transfers one last time recently.. for those that missed it or waited too long... or when they foul up a drop of an item in a cartel pack and hence put it on a vendor in game for EVERYONE to snap up for 1 credit (for a limited period of time)... or removing training costs for all players in 3.0.... the list goes on and on... but they seem to never get any credit for any good will they apply.. only more condemnation.

Ehhhhh, I don't know that my experiences click with that. I've seen various game companies get credit for "good will" maneuvers plenty of times. In fact, my general observation seems to be that when a gesture of good will is made, it's often universally received like a drink of water in the desert. When that is not the case is when a company is already "in the hole" - too many offenses have stacked up to the point that people need more than a single gesture of good will for their eyebrows to lower back to normal levels.

 

It's sort of like trust in a relationship. To frame it in a very simplistic example: If your SO buys you chocolates (and is generally good to you and sets off no red flags) the chocolates will likely be greatly appreciated and strengthen the relationship. If you just found out your SO cheated on you and then they buy you chocolates, your instinct is gonna be, "They're just trying to buy my forgiveness, aren't they?"

 

So some of it has to do with context and timing. I've also noticed that some people are just more understanding and forgiving in general, and will put up with a lot more.

 

The thing about "good will" gestures, as I illustrated in the example above, is that there's a point where it's obviously a gesture of good will and there's a point where it feels more like an apology. And apologies are great!, don't get me wrong, but an apology good will gesture is not the same as a gesture of good will made when everything is going great already.

 

Companies, no matter how they act, will always get some amount of condemnation. But it's important to remember that "some condemnation from a few people" is very different from "a lot of condemnation from a lot of people." In other words, criticism will never go away, no matter how good you are to people. But the level of criticism and the number of people giving it out... that can be impacted. Also, in game communities, a happy customer base will tend to be a very defensive customer base, of the people who are being good to it. Which has its own set of perks if you're the company, since you essentially get free cheerleading from "average Joes" (something that can be convincing on a level that a 15k ad will never accomplish).

[gabigool]

But... frankly I've not seen a lot of good will in terms of communications from MMO studios over the years.

 

Very early on, this game was far better than it is now. But mostly I think back to CoH/CoV - that had an awesome community team. I think part of it is needing to have a willingness to engage the community regarding decisions that will be unpopular.

 

As an example around I5 or I6 or so they capped the effectiveness of enhancements so you couldn't fully slot for a single attribute, allowing, say, permahaste. The community freaked out, and as expected there were doomsayers and white knights. But the devs and community managers were visible and engaged in dialog. They made it clear that they understood, but expressed how they felt it was rendering obsolete a lot of the design flexibility they had created, and they didn't like that. They owned it and eventually it died down; but they showed us all they were accessible, accountable and actually cared about us and the game.

 

BW does not handle things this way. they wait things out in silence which only encourages the forums and reddit to make the situation far worse with needless speculation. And - before anyone throws out the whole Mara debacle - I've never understood why that was handled as it was by BW. Their response to that should have been behind the scenes - and the level of communication had already devolved well before that (IMO).

 

And in that regard, while there is definitely room for the studio to do more in the "good will" category... they do listen and they do in fact do things that = good will toward the players. Such as returning the low cost server transfers one last time recently.. for those that missed it or waited too long... or when they foul up a drop of an item in a cartel pack and hence put it on a vendor in game for EVERYONE to snap up for 1 credit (for a limited period of time)... or removing training costs for all players in 3.0.... the list goes on and on... but they seem to never get any credit for any good will they apply.. only more condemnation.

 

I think "never" is a bit strong. I see an equal number of people here who are staunch defenders and supporters of even the tiniest crumb thrown out by BW.

 

But beyond that, and to your point, I think it's related to what I've said above. There truly are - any way you consider it - major holes in both communication and action by this team. And as long as those exist, I think it's difficult for people to be enthusiastic in their thanks for relatively small wins when mired in the constant confusion over why there is silence of major concerns i.e. PvP balance, lack of Operations etc.

 

When I see a post in July of 2015 simply saying "no new Operations in KotFE" and then literally silence for 12 months, it's hard to be enthused about a decoration being sold for 1 credit.

 

I think it's natural, just IMO though. I think it's very easy to blame things on the community but we don't make the important decisions. At the end of the day the responsibility for effective communication - or expecting the community to have knee-jerk reactions that are generally positive - is on the studio to create that environment + culture. And they're in a far better position to do it anyway.