Jern, on 29 June 2013 - 10:23 AM, said:
I want to take a moment to thank you guys for having this forum. It is obvious that some people are not satisfied with all of the
answers for various reasons. I admit I have found myself laughing at or frustrated by some of the one word answers and the long winded responses that still say nothing. But, I think I am starting to get the real value of the forum, it is acknowledgment of ideas and concerns from the community. This forum provides a place to get a wide range of ideas, concepts, and concerns mentioned with a pretty high chance of getting some form of dev feedback. The occasional "Good idea" or "yes we are working on that" or even the dreaded "Sorry, No that is not under consideration at this time" are important to hear. All of these responses are legit and give us direct feedback to our ideas and concerns.
My suggestion for the community is to relax accept that the devs read your questions and give many of them responses in some form. It is better than we get from many game devs. I think we need to stop abusing this forum and trying to make it into some kind of inside track to all of the programming secretes of PGI, or worse into a wishlist of self centered concepts.
My suggestion for the devs is understand you have asked and received millions of dollars from your community to trust you to make a great game for us. I am not sure that everyone that rages on these forums are committed investors, but many of us are and we do get frustrated with the time it takes to implement game balance, and end game content (CW). I suggest bombarding us with information like "Star Citizen" is doing to their community. Use the Dev Chair forum more often, even if it is to let us know that your adding and training new staff and we will see the fruits of their labors in the months to come. I am sure many exciting things are being worked on, or changes taking place that we never hear about. If you give us more information we might settle down and stop trolling every little morsel like rabid dogs
Thanks,
Great points.
The question is, what is the relationship? This enterprise, the free to play endeavor, demands a relationship that differs from the relationship that an Electronic Arts or an Activision would have with their game playing public. Particularly with their paying members. PGI cannot just put a game out, offer it, and if you like it you buy it, and if you don't you won't. In that scenario, often times you either pay one premium fee, based on advertising, usually not even a demo, and that's it. There may be some DLC down the line, or a possible sequel that will or will not succeed based on the sucess of the first.
PGI's contact with the gaming base is way different. This is an ongoing relationship. They make us happy, they keep us happy, and we keep happily spending money. The pressure is different, the focus is different, the pacing should be different as well. They are our mech-drug dealer, not a game maker, not any more. That comes with a lot of benefits, but it has its negativities too. If they do this right, they will enjoy crazy amounts of loyalty, lots of love, lots of small transaction cash flow from people buying what they want and what they enjoy on a whim, to tailor their game experience. They'll also have emotional people threatening to leave them forever because they hurt them so badly. INstead of ignoring these situations like some spectrum disorder warrior, they need to learn to mitigate these clouds of disorder so instead of confusion and anger there is hope. That comes from being heard, from seeing progress, not sitting in dark corners of the web murmuring about the dark future.
If this was an AAA retail game, the level of contact would be outstanding. But this is a free to play game built around a community. And so far that community is either on vacation or else...what? That isn't an insult, what I mean, is a Triple A game doesn't really care about community beyond how well it facilitates sales and game interoperability. This game MWO, the community
is the game. So PGI really needs to step it up on that end of creating an environment of inclusiveness, not just a message board with a lot of compartments.
Re: criticism, don't take it personally, even if it gets personal. People are passionate, and passionate people spend money. Work with that, not against it. Get some pros who can channel that passion instead of letting it sit in a chaotic pile around the game meta. This is more an executive thing, not to impugn the efforts of the message board team who are doing a really good job as far as I'm concerned. I don't think it's forum abuse at this point. This thing is going to grow lungs, kidneys, and a heart if it's going to live. It needs to. The level of communication has to become more robust if this thing is really going to become a lasting community. And it needs to start now, not some abstract 'launch' related timeframe.
**in other words this is a customer care/community outreach issue. such an entity would have input with the game development side to be able to get things looked at and to show how things are being worked on. They would also have some control over communications to be able to direct how this was portrayed to the gamers and to direct the discussion and the thought. That is not being done here, and it would not only help put out some fires, it would prevent future ones. So get yourself a Smokey the Bear if you need to PGI. We understand that workloads are heavy, and if people feel like their issues WILL be addressed instead of ignored, you would see more people volunteering patience instead of frustration.
Edited by ArchMage Sparrowhawk, 30 June 2013 - 04:55 AM.
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