All the systems for 6.0 seem unappealing. Bioware you need to pay attention.

[kodrac]

Things changed when Keith took over. If Keith never did and we just got another EA yes-man, I wouldn't be back.

 

I don't begrudge you for having enough and taking a year off. But I don't see a change in Musco. Maybe because I didn't take a year off, I don't know. But he still comes off as aloof and very choosy about when and who he responds to. And I don't know that Keith is worthy of all that praise. He hasn't brought all that much content. We've gotten nerfs and grind under Keith and slowly lost the alt-friendliness that we had for 6 years before he came along. Ben brought us 5.0 and RNG is exciting nonsesne, but what's Keith bringing us? He's bringing us RNG on top of RNG with a little added RNG for spice. I'd be careful of putting him on a pedestal.

[kodrac]

But yes, leaving because the devs don't do what you want is certainly the protocol for the forum drama queens.

 

Getting fed up with their decisions making the game less enjoyable isn't being a drama queen. We all pay for access to this forum so stating their disagreements is more than justified.

[Rolodome]

I don't begrudge you for having enough and taking a year off. But I don't see a change in Musco. Maybe because I didn't take a year off, I don't know. But he still comes off as aloof and very choosy about when and who he responds to. And I don't know that Keith is worthy of all that praise. He hasn't brought all that much content. We've gotten nerfs and grind under Keith and slowly lost the alt-friendliness that we had for 6 years before he came along. Ben brought us 5.0 and RNG is exciting nonsesne, but what's Keith bringing us? He's bringing us RNG on top of RNG with a little added RNG for spice. I'd be careful of putting him on a pedestal.

I wasn't here during some parts of the game's life, so it's possible I missed some more egregious moments in Musco's time, but yeah, I don't see anything majorly different with him under Keith as producer. He's always seemed to me to be pretty sporadic in how attentive and communicative he is. Like quite literally scatterbrained, which fits with the stuff about him having trouble with dates. Not trying to insult the guy, just how it comes across to me.

[Ardrossan]

Getting fed up with their decisions making the game less enjoyable isn't being a drama queen. We all pay for access to this forum so stating their disagreements is more than justified.

 

I wasn't counting you in that. But there's a difference between venting and thinking your venting matters.

 

I don't begrudge you for having enough and taking a year off. But I don't see a change in Musco. Maybe because I didn't take a year off, I don't know. But he still comes off as aloof and very choosy about when and who he responds to. And I don't know that Keith is worthy of all that praise. He hasn't brought all that much content. We've gotten nerfs and grind under Keith and slowly lost the alt-friendliness that we had for 6 years before he came along. Ben brought us 5.0 and RNG is exciting nonsesne, but what's Keith bringing us? He's bringing us RNG on top of RNG with a little added RNG for spice. I'd be careful of putting him on a pedestal.

 

And I'd agree with this. Musco's track record really hasn't changed at all imo. He was at his most effective when someone else was subbing for him.

[Lhancelot]

I don't begrudge you for having enough and taking a year off. But I don't see a change in Musco. Maybe because I didn't take a year off, I don't know. But he still comes off as aloof and very choosy about when and who he responds to. And I don't know that Keith is worthy of all that praise. He hasn't brought all that much content. We've gotten nerfs and grind under Keith and slowly lost the alt-friendliness that we had for 6 years before he came along. Ben brought us 5.0 and RNG is exciting nonsesne, but what's Keith bringing us? He's bringing us RNG on top of RNG with a little added RNG for spice. I'd be careful of putting him on a pedestal.

 

Keith adds some dignity and realness to the position which is why he is typically viewed more positive imo.

 

Keith doesn't come off as a snake oil salesman. Basically Keith is likeable and comes off very genuine. He seems to really care about the game, I just have not seen any changes under him that I felt were game changing in a good way.

 

I agree that nothing has improved under Keith, tbh it seems he is taking the game down the same railroad tracks, perhaps they were built ages ago and no matter who is in the director's chair this is the route the game will go.

 

 

To me, Musco tends to come off as disingenuous and it's hard to fix that once that reputation has been formed. That being said, Musco seems to respond more than he used to, but he is indeed choosy when and who he responds to, same as he always was.

 

In the past 4 months he seems to give "updates" more often and sprinkles a response in occasionally. This strikes me as someone that was directed to be more communicative and is just doing what he has to because he was reprimanded and is now being watched.

 

Maybe I am wrong, and he had some internal epiphany, though. Maybe some internal voice spoke to him telling him he was awful at his job, and that he needed to change, for the people no less. Yeah, I am sure that's what happened.

[Rolodome]

In the past 4 months he seems to give "updates" more often and sprinkles a response in occasionally. This strikes me as someone that was directed to be more communicative and is just doing what he has to because he was reprimanded and is now being watched.

 

Maybe I am wrong, and he had some internal epiphany, though. Maybe some internal voice spoke to him telling him he was awful at his job, and that he needed to change, for the people no less. Yeah, I am sure that's what happened.

I'm not convinced it's even anything out of the ordinary, tbh. From what I remember, he usually shows up more if something is happening (patches, etc.) and in this case, we've got 6.0 coming down the pike with big proclamations made about listening to feedback.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if he mostly goes back to radio silence after 6.0 is released, gets a patch or two, and the dust settles. My generous impression is that he's too scattered to respond much to people, outside of obligation. Between cantinas, interviews with streamers and the like, probably managing twitter to some extent, etc. (I don't know if they've ever indicated whether they got someone to replace Tait or if Musco just took on his responsibilities in some part), I'm sure it's a lot to keep track of. My less generous take would be that he's never been very interested in the direct communication part of the job and would rather keep to himself most of the time. Though if that were the case, one would think he'd have switched careers by now and he's never struck me as the withdrawn type in interviews (not that it's impossible for somebody to put on a face).

[ZionHalcyon]

I don't begrudge you for having enough and taking a year off. But I don't see a change in Musco. Maybe because I didn't take a year off, I don't know. But he still comes off as aloof and very choosy about when and who he responds to. And I don't know that Keith is worthy of all that praise. He hasn't brought all that much content. We've gotten nerfs and grind under Keith and slowly lost the alt-friendliness that we had for 6 years before he came along. Ben brought us 5.0 and RNG is exciting nonsesne, but what's Keith bringing us? He's bringing us RNG on top of RNG with a little added RNG for spice. I'd be careful of putting him on a pedestal.

 

Well, just because I have a higher opinion doesn't mean I think everyone needs to agree with me. I can understand others having reservations.

 

Just to kind of put it all out there, this is my perspective:

 

When Keith first took over, he wanted to improve communication. He maybe did TOO much as we had an incident where everyone was essentially indicting Keith for the crimes of his predecessors and Boyd was in the forums trying to defend the horrible story choices regarding some of the complete retcons for Vitiate now that he was "Valkorion".

 

After that onslaught, everyone got quiet for a little while, but then I started to see BioWare Austin was hiring for SWTOR again, in multiple positions. No one was being let go, so it was an expansion of the team for the first time I can remember since launch.

 

Some time passed, and then I started to see Eric more. Now, there wasn't content as you said, but I saw him getting more involved in bringing back the community interactions. Influencers became more prominent and officially supported for the first time since the original dev team, and were advertised here. We saw Daniel Steed (Did I get that name right? Its the "Dan like Dantooine" guy that I am referring to) get hired and he has been another voice that also has contributed to the communication.

 

At that time, I also saw Keith engaging people on the SWTOR Reddit, where he was talking to people leaving the game, and his tone was not one of bravado, but of a sort of knowing confidence that he is going to get these people back, eventually. Respectful, but total confidence.

 

We also got our first "Under the hood" article, which was the first time I can remember SWTOR devs talking about significant changes to the engine to make development quicker and easier for them, which means it being easier to put out content for us.

 

Then we got our first hint of content under Keith with Ossus. And from a story perspective, which is what I primarily care about, it seemed like the story was abandoning the KOTFE retcons and respecting what the story prior to that was, which for me made me feel like it was a good step.

 

And while not perfect, once I finally did Ossus, I had some fun with it.

 

However, now that we are on the cusp of 6.0, I always said the first real expansion is going to be the true test.

From a story perspective, I have read some things that have led me to believe the respect to the original class stories is going to continue (albeit not in class story form), which makes me EXTREMELY happy.

 

However, as anyone paying attention to PTS knows, the systems themselves are off to a very rocky start. But rather than whine and stomp feet, I got on there, tested, and am trying to be part of the solution. And to my perspective, Eric said yesterday that he gathered all the PTS feedback from the weekend yesterday, and told us we would have a gameplan handed to us based on that feedback TODAY. This is also on the heels of Phase one of testing having a lot of issues with Tacticals, players giving feedback, and then for this phase it being very apparent the devs listened and acted on the player feedback in a positive light.

 

So now we are starting to have a short term track record of this dev team listening to and acting on player feedback, and also moving with urgency to address player concerns from the PTS.

 

I can tell you I never felt that way prior to ANY expansion in SWTOR's history.

 

So because of that, this is why I am hopeful.

 

Could Eric still be more involved in the community? Certainly. The original community manager, Allison Berryman, was on here daily, interacting, promoting, getting feedback, getting questions answered, etc.

 

But while Eric definitely isn't that, compared to where he was, I see a tremendous difference, and this coming from someone who did, at one time, want him fired. So if he can win me over, personally speaking, I feel like he must be doing something very right. Because I wasn't just going to change my mind on that for no reason. In my eyes, he's earned the praise I now give him.

 

Of course, I admit that is all just my perspective. But that is where I am coming from when I have high praise for Keith and Eric now.

 

But I would also agree 6.0 Is going to be the real test - the first expansion completely under Keith.

Edited September 4, 2019 by ZionHalcyon

[kodrac]

I wasn't counting you in that. But there's a difference between venting and thinking your venting matters.

 

Well, yeah, on a small scale, one gripe isn't going to make anything change and it seems silly when they stomp off like a 6 year old throwing a tantrum. But when you have a whole bunch of people venting in the same direction and BW ignores it all it's quite understandable when they vent and quit. Then Musco or Keith will eventually show up and say "What? Oh you mean you didn't like that? OK we'll be more communicative in the future." Rinse. Repeat.

[Lhancelot]

I'm not convinced it's even anything out of the ordinary, tbh. From what I remember, he usually shows up more if something is happening (patches, etc.) and in this case, we've got 6.0 coming down the pike with big proclamations made about listening to feedback.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if he mostly goes back to radio silence after 6.0 is released, gets a patch or two, and the dust settles. My generous impression is that he's too scattered to respond much to people, outside of obligation. Between cantinas, interviews with streamers and the like, probably managing twitter to some extent, etc. (I don't know if they've ever indicated whether they got someone to replace Tait or if Musco just took on his responsibilities in some part), I'm sure it's a lot to keep track of. My less generous take would be that he's never been very interested in the direct communication part of the job and would rather keep to himself most of the time. Though if that were the case, one would think he'd have switched careers by now and he's never struck me as the withdrawn type in interviews (not that it's impossible for somebody to put on a face).

 

That's true there is a ton of new stuff happening which kind of obligates him to share them with the community.

 

I have tried to rationalize the lack of communication or strained attempt at communicating, but I mean his job literally is to communicate. Hard to justify a lack of communication here, no matter what the case may be.

 

As Ardrossan mentioned, we had the most direct communication with devs on the forums when he was gone. I mean, literally we were able to communicate with the devs while they created the new SH at that time and the feedback from the forums was put to great use.

 

That free flowing direct communication happened one time in all the years I can recall, when Musco was on vacation. Coincidence, or not?

[ZionHalcyon]

That's true there is a ton of new stuff happening which kind of obligates him to share them with the community.

 

I have tried to rationalize the lack of communication or strained attempt at communicating, but I mean his job literally is to communicate. Hard to justify a lack of communication here, no matter what the case may be.

 

As Ardrossan mentioned, we had the most direct communication with devs on the forums when he was gone. I mean, literally we were able to communicate with the devs while they created the new SH at that time and the feedback from the forums was put to great use.

 

That free flowing direct communication happened one time in all the years I can recall, when Musco was on vacation. Coincidence, or not?

 

 

Currently, Musco's attention is on PTS. If he holds true to getting the gameplan for changing up some systems today, I will say he has been pretty active there and has been doing a good job.

[Lhancelot]

Then Musco or Keith will eventually show up and say "What? Oh you mean you didn't like that? OK we'll be more communicative in the future." Rinse. Repeat.

 

Except remove the part where they say, "What? Oh you mean you didn't like that?" They never admit to doing something wrong or acknowledging players don't like something.

 

They will respond with "We are going to try to be more communicative" and this is coupled with very broad sweeping promises of how they will make the game better.

 

Sadly I have not seen any such changes occur especially regarding making the game better. I guess 6.0 can be an outlier in this regard, but I aint holding my breath.

[Lhancelot]

Currently, Musco's attention is on PTS. If he holds true to getting the gameplan for changing up some systems today, I will say he has been pretty active there and has been doing a good job.

 

Well that's a lot of assumptions there.

 

You are discounting the chance that the devs and/or other representatives of BW (Keith, etc.) read the PTS forums and get feedback from players themselves and are actually the ones responsible for things getting done.

 

Who really knows who is responsible for things getting done at BW, I mean is Musco really doing that or are others? I don't know.

[ZionHalcyon]

Well that's a lot of assumptions there.

 

You are discounting the chance that the devs and/or other representatives of BW (Keith, etc.) read the PTS forums and get feedback from players themselves and are actually the ones responsible for things getting done.

 

Who really knows who is responsible for things getting done at BW, I mean is Musco really doing that or are others? I don't know.

 

Ultimately, I will admit that my good faith is my own based on what I have seen. I can certainly understand why (from my perspective) people who still feel snakebitten from when EA took over the game and fired most of the original staff, and ran off the 2 BioWare founders are certainly justified to feel that way. I understand people looking at it through that lense. I was at that point, after all, when I left for a year.

 

No matter what I think now, or how differently we see things, I think we both can agree 6.0 is the REAL test.

 

Regardless of what happens on PTS, once 6.0 goes live in October, that is going to be the first chapter in Keith's legacy here, with Ossus as just a prologue.

 

So ultimately I guess we will see what happens then.

 

As far as whether it is Musco or others, right now I feel the team overall is better with Keith running it - best team SWTOR has had since launch. More a commentary of the low bar since EA took over, yet still true, at least to me. If it is actually coming from Eric, or he is being ordered to do it, does it really matter in the end? If the end result is better community management, then I don't really care about the details of why.

Edited September 4, 2019 by ZionHalcyon

[OlBuzzard]

Keith adds some dignity and realness to the position which is why he is typically viewed more positive imo.

 

Keith doesn't come off as a snake oil salesman. Basically Keith is likeable and comes off very genuine. He seems to really care about the game, I just have not seen any changes under him that I felt were game changing in a good way.

 

I agree that nothing has improved under Keith, tbh it seems he is taking the game down the same railroad tracks, perhaps they were built ages ago and no matter who is in the director's chair this is the route the game will go.

 

 

To me, Musco tends to come off as disingenuous and it's hard to fix that once that reputation has been formed. That being said, Musco seems to respond more than he used to, but he is indeed choosy when and who he responds to, same as he always was.

 

In the past 4 months he seems to give "updates" more often and sprinkles a response in occasionally. This strikes me as someone that was directed to be more communicative and is just doing what he has to because he was reprimanded and is now being watched.

 

Maybe I am wrong, and he had some internal epiphany, though. Maybe some internal voice spoke to him telling him he was awful at his job, and that he needed to change, for the people no less. Yeah, I am sure that's what happened.

 

Respectfully: I would hold off on being critical of Keith or Musco either one. The both have totally different jobs and consequently different responsibilities. IMO... both are doing exactly what they should be doing. That does not mean I always agree... but I also means that I totally understand from a management stand point of view exactly what is going on.

 

Some days the job is fun... and other days .. Well. Let's just say I've had my share of those too !

 

[JattaGin]

Yep, his one man revolt, trying to get Musco fired on his way out. Funny isn't it?

 

Haha, yes. Now I 'member.

 

(...)

I was not happy about what Musco was doing under Ben Irving. And he was an absolutely TERRIBLE community manager during that time.

 

BUT.

 

The man under Keith has been absolute fire. Total 180. A Community Manager now in every sense of the word and FAR more communicative than he has ever been, EVER. Actually collecting feedback from the community too instead of just being used as a pre-expansion-launch hype man.

 

(...)

 

Things changed when Keith took over. If Keith never did and we just got another EA yes-man, I wouldn't be back.

 

I have to disagree. Mr. Kanneg has been in charge now for 2.5 years or so. There was an initial increase in communication, but it very quickly went back to the level before. His own communication particularly is almost zero. Even less than Ben's.

 

And they haven't taken our feedback into consideration at all, just like before. Were you still here when they changed Galactic Conquest? And I believe Ossus went online with the exact same bugs that got reported plenty of times on the PTS.

 

Things didn't change when Mr. Kanneg took over. Whatever you think happened and happens, I think you are basing your judgement on a wrong premise. But as you pointed out: You just stated your opinion, so I'm not in a position to argue with that. I can only disagree and base that on my experiences, probably during the time you were gone.

 

Ontopic: Was just on the PTS again... I was the only one on the fleet. Waited for quite a while to get a pop for anything (pvp, starfighter, fp, op). Nothing. I felt lonely.

Edited September 4, 2019 by JattaGin

[ZionHalcyon]

Haha, yes. Now I 'member.

 

 

 

I have to disagree. Mr. Kanneg has been in charge now for 2.5 years or so. There was an initial increase in communication, but it very quickly went back to the level before. His own communication particularly is almost zero. Even less than Ben's.

 

And they haven't taken our feedback into consideration at all, just like before. Were you still here when they changed Galactic Conquest? And I believe Ossus went online with the exact same bugs that got reported plenty of times on the PTS.

 

Things didn't change when Mr. Kanneg took over. Whatever you think happened and happens, I think you are basing your judgement on a wrong premise. But as you pointed out: You just stated your opinion, so I'm not in a position to argue with that. I can only disagree and base that on my experiences, probably during the time you were gone.

 

Ontopic: Was just on the PTS again... I was the only one on the fleet. Waited for quite a while to get a pop for anything (pvp, starfighter, fp, op). Nothing. I felt lonely.

 

Well, I think you might have missed the boat for activity.

 

I was on there over the labor day weekend, and while not completely full, I did have enough pops to run Hammer station 10 times over the weekend while trying to figure out what the hell they did to crafting, and also got in a KP run on GF SM.

 

However it likely died off when Eric said he got enough feedback and would get back to us today. So I am willing many like me stopped testing and are waiting to see what changes they make.

 

Overall, I think it is a matter of perspective.

 

I can remember when, under Ben Irving, Musco would be absolutely absent from the forums unless there was new content coming out. If there was new content coming out, Eric would roll out a month and a half before it was released, let people know PTS was going up in 2 weeks, PTS would be up until a week before, people would give a ton of feedback, and when the content actually did launch, maybe 10% of the feedback was used. Eric would hang around a week after to address any bugs which always happened, and then would disappear again, until the next time major content was about to be released, wash, rinse repeat. In between, he might, MIGHT have shown up once or twice. But in those days, he seemed more of someone in marketing than a community manager, and was just hard selling EVERYTHING as the best thing ever. It was silly.

 

SInce Keith took over, you are correct that there was an influx of communication, and as I also said, I think they got overwhelmed, as the community, now seeing open lines, went all in on everything SWTOR ever did wrong, and many actually laid blame at the feet of Keith for things done under Ben Irving's tenure, even though Keith was just starting.

 

The one real mistake I think they made was trying to defend KotFE. The backlash he and Boyd got from that was SO harsh, it did indeed become radio silence for a bit. I think they were overwhelmed, stunned, but also were trying to figure out a better approach than what they just did, because doing it like that, likely didn't work in their eyes. It probably overwhelmed them.

 

But to me, then slowly, I started to see a re-emergence in communication. Eric on the forums more, promoting how things were changing under Keith (to this day, people grossly underestimate what a huge deal it was that we got that "under the hood" article in March, and what it means for us and the game going forward), more community promoting from Eric and the SWTOR twitter account, which hadn't happened since the game first launched under the original team, Eric here to give feedback if there are bugs, emergency maintenance or something that requires a bounce of the servers, overall more immediate attention paid to the servers, and issues being handled sooner rather than "hey everyone, there's an exploit we aren't telling you about, but don't do it until we get to fixing it 2 weeks from now or you'll be banned" crap they used to pull.

 

And then there is PTS this go round - they fixed a bunch of tacticals from phase 1 to phase 2 based SOLELY ON PLAYER FEEDBACK. I cannot even tell you how huge that is.

 

Now, there will always be people who think the developers are doing nothing if they aren't working on that player's favorite pet project or gripe, but from what I saw, things are getting done. Launch will be the final test, of course.

 

But those are the changes I have seen. And there is some other stuff we can't talk about here that have me VERY excited for the story direction. That's my main reason for playing, so I can understand if continuity within SWTOR's own canon isn't as big a deal for others as it is for me, but for those of us who play for the story - well, good things coming.

 

And while I get that he has been in charge for 2.5 years, I don't think you understand or appreciate how long it takes from conception to release in terms of MMO content. He had to clear off and finish the projects already in the pipeline. And had to come up with the new direction to go in.

 

Point is, that new direction is here. Ossus and now 6.0 are all 100% Keith. And from here, I will judge it as such.

Edited September 4, 2019 by ZionHalcyon

[Nemmar]

Deary me... tired of classic already Trixxie?

 

The only thing i want for the devs to watch out for it's for there not to be any infinite grinds. That is what ruined live wow. Games have to have a goal and it must be achievable. It cannot be an infinite treadmill, cause the players will burn out and decide to jump out of the treadmill. There is a reward point where you get to have your best gear and you are "done" for this tier and just relax and enjoy the game. These times are as important as the times acquiring the gear, it's the accomplishment reward that every mmo needs for players to be engaged. If you remove it like wow, people will jump out when they see they can't get that feeling anymore and they are literally little mice in a mouse wheel that will keep going on and on and on and they will never reach the goal line.

Edited September 4, 2019 by Nemmar

[CaptRogue]

Absolutely NO ONE believes you are quitting, though there is the possibility of you switching to a forum alt.

 

Yeah, exactly. Who has kept track of all the times she's said she's unsubbed, quitting, etc..

We shall see if a specific alt pops up in her "absence". lol

 

We've all tried at one point or another to get BW to listen and ended up taking a break afterwards when they didn't. Haven't we?

 

Nope. Not at all. Only times I've unsubbed were for reasons not due to their gaming choices, although this upcoming one MIGHT be the breaker as I'm burnt out on the game & seeing the feedback on the Gearing & Crafting from PTS forum.. *sighs* Idk if the game will stay stable that much longer if they implement that stuff. And I'm not one to ever say game is dying. (You can even check my forum posts on that.)

 

But I don't see a change in Musco. Maybe because I didn't take a year off, I don't know. But he still comes off as aloof and very choosy about when and who he responds to. And I don't know that Keith is worthy of all that praise. He hasn't brought all that much content. We've gotten nerfs and grind under Keith and slowly lost the alt-friendliness that we had for 6 years before he came along. Ben brought us 5.0 and RNG is exciting nonsesne, but what's Keith bringing us? He's bringing us RNG on top of RNG with a little added RNG for spice. I'd be careful of putting him on a pedestal.

 

1. I disagree with you on Musco. And I've defended this man many times. Too many people do not understand his job nor his restrictions. All too often he's the visible scape goat so he's to blame. Even though he has NO hands in some if not almost all the stuff he gets blamed for.

He has a boss who tells him what to say/what not to say. He's not just someone who gets to go on the forums & chat freely like we do.

 

2. I agree on your analysis of Keith. I'm not so sure he's all that great too. Yes he isn't going "STORY" only & crapping the game that way. But he's still following the line of his predecessor & "RNG is EXCITING" path.

They've not yet learned to listen to what the player base wants. Even if the player base will play what they come out with, does NOT mean we are happy with it. That's their biggest problem.

They view the numbers and go "hey they are still playing it" even though we are playing it because we don't want the game to die, it's an enjoyment & we are holding on to the hope that they will fix it. But instead all they do is go, "well lets try this since they played it that way".

 

 

In the past 4 months he seems to give "updates" more often and sprinkles a response in occasionally. This strikes me as someone that was directed to be more communicative and is just doing what he has to because he was reprimanded and is now being watched.

 

Maybe I am wrong, and he had some internal epiphany, though. Maybe some internal voice spoke to him telling him he was awful at his job, and that he needed to change, for the people no less. Yeah, I am sure that's what happened.

 

 

^Read above.

 

Currently, Musco's attention is on PTS. If he holds true to getting the gameplan for changing up some systems today, I will say he has been pretty active there and has been doing a good job.

 

Exactly. I mean what do you expect right now as it is. They have a date to push out content. Massive hate generated toward their new content to which he has to probably explain in a morning update meeting *I am guessing here*. Plus he has a cantina to plan for & all the behind the scenes stuff we have NO idea that he does.

The biggest issue IMO is too many people expect Eric to jump in on many questions/concerns/complaints on the forums when that's not what he's hear for. He's here to announce their stuff. Not necessarily just chat with every player who has a question.

But when he doesn't answer, people throw him under the bus, even if he's passed along what was said to the appropriate team just didn't state "noted & passed along".

 

Respectfully: I would hold off on being critical of Keith or Musco either one. The both have totally different jobs and consequently different responsibilities. IMO... both are doing exactly what they should be doing. That does not mean I always agree... but I also means that I totally understand from a management stand point of view exactly what is going on.

 

Some days the job is fun... and other days .. Well. Let's just say I've had my share of those too !

 

^You at least get it OlBuzzard. Kudos to you.

[Ardrossan]

Well, yeah, on a small scale, one gripe isn't going to make anything change and it seems silly when they stomp off like a 6 year old throwing a tantrum. But when you have a whole bunch of people venting in the same direction and BW ignores it all it's quite understandable when they vent and quit.

Well, just to clarify, I take venting to mean useless frustration. It's only useful insofar as it feels good to let off steam. So if one player or fifty players vent about an NPC vendor who's only around on weekends [like what possible reason...?], it doesn't matter at the moment. It may matter post-release, maybe. One would think aggregate venting on the PTS would accomplish something, and Zion and others have mentioned these little changes as proof that they do. imo, looking at these exceptions and thinking they're the norm, and venting when that falls through, isn't understandable.

 

Or rather, it doesn't make sense to me to vent like that more than once. Like, it happens once, it's clearly a short-sighted time-waster on the dev's parts, so you quit and never come back. Or you quit and come back knowing that feedback is useless, so just take what you get. Fair. But how about being here through multiple expansions, seeing it happen over and over again, seeing devs promise more communication and not following through? So you vent for awhile, leave, come back, assume it's all going to be different now? That's crazy, but it's not crazy on the dev's part. They've got a good thing going because naive players who ought to know better will continue to believe them.

 

That's why this Ben vs Keith debate seems meaningless to me. Neither of them have done anything particularly remarkable. We're quibbling over little differences when 6.0 seems to be proceeding much like 5.0 did, an RNG mess where player feedback has been ignored. I take it as a given that the devs will plow through their grand project regardless of feedback, so their current blunders don't make me angry. Their blunders in 4.0 made me angry, because I expected better. Now I don't.

Edited September 4, 2019 by Ardrossan

[ZionHalcyon]

Well, just to clarify, I take venting to mean useless frustration. It's only useful insofar as it feels good to let off steam. So if one player or fifty players vent about an NPC vendor who's only around on weekends [like what possible reason...?], it doesn't matter at the moment. It may matter post-release, maybe. One would think aggregate venting on the PTS would accomplish something, and Zion and others have mentioned these little changes as proof that they do. imo, looking at these exceptions and thinking they're the norm, and venting when that falls through, isn't understandable.

 

Or rather, it doesn't make sense to me to vent like that more than once. Like, it happens once, it's clearly a short-sighted time-waster on the dev's parts, so you quit and never come back. Or you quit and come back knowing that feedback is useless, so just take what you get. Fair. But how about being here through multiple expansions, seeing it happen over and over again, seeing devs promise more communication and not following through? So you vent for awhile, leave, come back, assume it's all going to be different now? That's crazy, but it's not crazy on the dev's part. They've got a good thing going because naive players who ought to know better will continue to believe them.

 

That's why this Ben vs Keith debate seems meaningless to me. Neither of them have done anything particularly remarkable. We're quibbling over little differences when 6.0 seems to be proceeding much like 5.0 did, an RNG mess where player feedback has been ignored. I take it as a given that the devs will plow through their grand project regardless of feedback, so their current blunders don't make me angry. Their blunders in 4.0 made me angry, because I expected better. Now I don't.

 

They are already making some changes based on feedback. They are open to others, but want to see how the initial changes change things.

 

One thing I will admit I am not happy about - Crafting is way too expensive and requires way too many materials, and that didn't get addressed in Eric's post.

 

But we did get more information on their thought process and some changes they are making to help.

[Lhancelot]

1. I disagree with you on Musco. And I've defended this man many times. Too many people do not understand his job nor his restrictions. All too often he's the visible scape goat so he's to blame. Even though he has NO hands in some if not almost all the stuff he gets blamed for.

He has a boss who tells him what to say/what not to say. He's not just someone who gets to go on the forums & chat freely like we do.

 

What? When do players blame Eric for anything? The only thing players have blamed him for is a lack of communications via the forums. You know, doing what he is supposed to be doing.

[Ardrossan]

What? When do players blame Eric for anything? The only thing players have blamed him for is a lack of communications via the forums. You know, doing what he is supposed to be doing.

 

Also, as you've previously noted during the Rishi SH thing, it is clearly not a matter of his bosses telling him what to say and what not to say, as some of the players here seem to think. He makes that choice himself, and it's usually to say less.

 

Looking at the PTS, I see very few instances where, after starting a thread to ask for feedback, he actually provides a back and forth for that feedback. On rare occasions he'll chime in to say something like "yes, got your feedback, keep going!" It's an acknowledgement that he's still paying attention to the thread, but nothing more. I don't find that particularly encouraging, but then again, I'm not exactly waiting with baited breath for an actual conversation to develop. That would be out of character.

[Lhancelot]

Also, as you've previously noted during the Rishi SH thing, it is clearly not a matter of his bosses telling him what to say and what not to say, as some of the players here seem to think. He makes that choice himself, and it's usually to say less.

 

Looking at the PTS, I see very few instances where, after starting a thread to ask for feedback, he actually provides a back and forth for that feedback. On rare occasions he'll chime in to say something like "yes, got your feedback, keep going!" It's an acknowledgement that he's still paying attention to the thread, but nothing more. I don't find that particularly encouraging, but then again, I'm not exactly waiting with baited breath for an actual conversation to develop. That would be out of character.

 

Yes. Well we are pretty much on the same page regarding this topic.

 

I will never forget the years, yes, literally years of us forum-dwellers begging for some communication, any communication regarding many of the past concerns etc. from Eric and Co. only being met by a blanket of silence.

 

I mean there's little that's more frustrating than being utterly ignored when you have a pertinent desire to understand something that someone/something does, and that's what happened after major update problems, bugs, etc.

 

Players came to the forums looking for answers, explanations, clarifications, just confirmation that BW was aware of the unhappiness players were with many of the changes they made to the game and not one yellow texted message could be mustered by the community manager!

 

We flooded the forums for answers and got nothing but silence for weeks even months sometimes. I mean I can laugh at it now, but back then when I was far more passionate for this game that absolutely drove me bat **** crazy.

[DreadtechSavant]

Some of the changes posted by Eric today were very positive or at the very least a step in the right direction. Will need to play test just to see how much the increase in loot is across solo play. What drops in groups well that's not for me to say as a solo player.

 

There are some things I too would like addressed, but everything on PTS should stay on PTS and only be talked about there. OK yes anyone can go read but that was an agreement made for going on PTS.

 

However Trixxie not everyone wants what you want.

Edited September 5, 2019 by DreadtechSavant

[KendraP]

What? When do players blame Eric for anything? The only thing players have blamed him for is a lack of communications via the forums. You know, doing what he is supposed to be doing.

 

I mean, I piss and moan at Eric all the time. Sure I realize hes just the messenger, but it is his job to hand our criticism off to people whose job it is, right? And yes, I primarily blame him for patently ignoring or refusing to reply to any criticism.

 

Look at the crap we've been screaming since 5.0. "We dont want more rng!" And what are they doing with 6.0? Layered rng. So did they misunderstand our complaint because musco didnt properly pass the word along or do they just not care what we want?