325 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Roland, on 27 May 2014 - 09:15 AM, said:

Honesty and professionalism are not mutually exclusive. In most cases, they are complementary. Professionals are honest.

Politicians!

I want Honest not PC. So if Honest might hurt my feelings, Hit me with the truth, I'll respect you more than I will reading PC drivel.

[Roland]

Joseph Mallan, on 27 May 2014 - 09:20 AM, said:

Politicians!

I want Honest not PC. So if Honest might hurt my feelings, Hit me with the truth, I'll respect you more than I will reading PC drivel.

There is nothing PC about being professional.

As I said, honesty is part of acting professional.

There have been many times when I've had to explain to my customers why their desires couldn't be met, or indeed, cases where their own set of requirements were mutually at odds with each other.

Part of being a professional is understanding how to explain things which folks may not want to hear, in a manner which is clear and concise, and helps them understand the rationale for such things.

I'm not talking about blowing smoke up your ass... That's really NOT professional. Because a professional won't just tell you what you want to hear, and then fail to deliver on your unreasonable expectations later. He'll tell you up front what the deal is.

That's how you build trust with your customers, and it's one of the most important aspects of any business. Once you've lost your customers' trust, you are screwed pretty bad. It's very difficult to win it back, and until you do, they aren't going to buy stuff from you.

That's exactly what's happened here. PGI's lost the trust of a huge chunk of its core playerbase. That's why you have folks who have already given them hundreds of dollars saying they will give them no more.

[Joseph Mallan]

Roland, on 27 May 2014 - 09:25 AM, said:

There is nothing PC about being professional.

As I said, honesty is part of acting professional.

There have been many times when I've had to explain to my customers why their desires couldn't be met, or indeed, cases where their own set of requirements were mutually at odds with each other.

Part of being a professional is understanding how to explain things which folks may not want to hear, in a manner which is clear and concise, and helps them understand the rationale for such things.

I'm not talking about blowing smoke up your ass... That's really NOT professional. Because a professional won't just tell you what you want to hear, and then fail to deliver on your unreasonable expectations later. He'll tell you up front what the deal is.

That's how you build trust with your customers, and it's one of the most important aspects of any business. Once you've lost your customers' trust, you are screwed pretty bad. It's very difficult to win it back, and until you do, they aren't going to buy stuff from you.

That's exactly what's happened here. PGI's lost the trust of a huge chunk of its core playerbase. That's why you have folks who have already given them hundreds of dollars saying they will give them no more.

That's all good. As a waiter I once ha an unruly party. The son(maybe 9 YO) Lunged at the drink tray I had. I raised it out of his reach, and commanded him to, "SIT". That was handling the situation correctly. If the player base here needs to be told to "SIT" Which we do, PGI should do so.

[ManDaisy]

PGI has failed to deliver many many times. Thie thing is they have a monopoly/ologarchy on the IP. The sooner people stop giving money to convert their will into a positive market force, the sooner PGI will get its act together.... or cuts and runs. In my opinion its more likely to cut and run tho. Remember PGI is company that operates on MONEY. Not on hopes and dreams or care like some people like to believe.

Edited by ManDaisy, 27 May 2014 - 09:36 AM.

[Heffay]

ManDaisy, on 27 May 2014 - 09:34 AM, said:

PGI has failed to deliver many many times. Thie thing is they have a monopoly/ologarchy on the IP. The sooner people stop giving money to convert their will into a positive market force, the sooner PGI will get its act together.... or cuts and runs. In my opinion its more likely to cut and run tho.

Thanks, but I like the game and will continue to buy things I like. Sorry if that gets in the way of your crusade.

[ManDaisy]

No crusade here, just facts. Facts, evidence, and past performance. I cant think of any better predictor of future development them those yes?

[Heffay]

ManDaisy, on 27 May 2014 - 09:41 AM, said:

No crusade here, just facts. Facts, evidence, and past performance. I cant think of any better predictor of future development them those yes?

I agree. If they continue to make me as happy in the future as they have in the past, it's going to be good times ahead!

[Joseph Mallan]

Heffay, on 27 May 2014 - 09:36 AM, said:

Thanks, but I like the game and will continue to buy things I like. Sorry if that gets in the way of your crusade.

Though his delivery could use some refinement, I cannot argue that PGI has dropped the ball multiple times. Community Warfare has been rescheduled how many time so far?

[Agent of Change]

Heffay, on 27 May 2014 - 09:36 AM, said:

Thanks, but I like the game and will continue to buy things I like. Sorry if that gets in the way of your crusade.

To be fair to ManDaisy, it's not a crusade. PGI has failed to deliver over and over and over again. At this point money is about the only thing they will listen to so the only action we can take to try and meaningfully influence the development is to convince people to withhold until the direction changes.

It's not right to call you out for spending money on MWO even though i strongly disagree that anyone who wants an actual MW game out of MWO should stop spending money on it at this point. It is in fact the only salient point left in the discussion: Fund or Don't fund.

why is that all that's left, because money is what devs listen to and devs ARE THE ONLY ONES who actually make changes to the direction, design, content, and balance of the game.

Edited by Agent of Change, 27 May 2014 - 09:46 AM.

[WarHippy]

Joseph Mallan, on 27 May 2014 - 09:07 AM, said:

I don't want my DEVs to be "professional". I want em to be honest!

Why can't they be both?

[Joseph Mallan]

WarHippy, on 27 May 2014 - 09:50 AM, said:

Why can't they be both?

They could...
Why do they have to be?

[Lightfoot]

ManDaisy, on 27 May 2014 - 09:34 AM, said:

PGI has failed to deliver many many times. Thie thing is they have a monopoly/ologarchy on the IP. The sooner people stop giving money to convert their will into a positive market force, the sooner PGI will get its act together.... or cuts and runs. In my opinion its more likely to cut and run tho. Remember PGI is company that operates on MONEY. Not on hopes and dreams or care like some people like to believe.

I have no resentment of PGI. I think all in all they have done a great job. You can focus on a few problems if you like, but the totality of MWO is quite impressive.

Right now the Gauss Rifle de-sync and Ghost heat make it hard for me to find a mech I can work with in Mechlab so I pretty much stopped buying new mechs since usually they obviously suffer from the same problems that the mechs I already own do. This is because mech loadouts are so limited by these two pin-point alpha nerfs that alternate mechs are actually not alternate at all.

And being hit by a pin-point alpha is caused by pilot error since the weapons all have different travel times. I never had (or have) this problem that many players wrote epics about. You move laterally and poof! no more pin-point alphas. Of course that wouldn't fix the 6xPPC Stalker or that back then PPCs and Gauss had the same travel times for a brief while. Point is, possibly, PGI nerfed MWO to save some bad pilots? Oh wait, no, that was the Meta? Yes, it was.

[Almond Brown]

Roland, on 27 May 2014 - 09:15 AM, said:

Amusingly, I work in the software development industry. I've developed software professionally, and led large software development efforts for around 15 years now.

Humor is not inherently unprofessional, but in certain cases it most certainly is. You don't want to make jokes about things which you know are already a sore point for your players. Such things can be worse than saying nothing (which is itself generally bad) because it gives the impression that you not only fail to understand the issues your customers are bringing up, but that you are actually trivializing them. It puts you into an antagonistic relationship with your customers, which is something you NEVER want to do.

No, the developers at PGI very rarely interact with their customers. Some interact more than others, but folks like Paul basically never discuss anything with the players.

Again, if you want to see how it can be done properly, you need only look as far as Star Citizen.

That community is certainly by no means 100% behind everything done by CIG. There's tons of criticism all the time... But they interact with their playerbase in a consistent manner. They respect their players, and as a result, their players tend to respect them.

Honesty and professionalism are not mutually exclusive. In most cases, they are complementary. Professionals are honest.

That assumes the humor was meant in a negative manner. Around here it matters not. When someone takes offense, to anything via misconstruing the actual meaning, the whole thing goes in the ******* without chance for recovery.

The Grass is always Greener on the other side. It was Green here once too. Good luck keeping that one Green.

[ManDaisy]

Joseph makes a good point. The Devs have nothing to answer to but market forces. If people continue to accept the quality of the material they are given without questions then things will not change. This translates into a badly done game.

To be clear, this game is only operating still because it isn't a total wash. There are good points. However, the glaring bad points will NEVER go away on their own. They are deemed "acceptable product", unless they cause massive negativity. Even then we still have ghost heat.

Edited by ManDaisy, 27 May 2014 - 10:03 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Agent of Change, on 27 May 2014 - 09:18 AM, said:

*Ahem*

It's a game, yes. nothign more, yes. one of us is spending an awful lot of time and energy try to convince the players of said game of a patent falacy that fits an incredibly narrow viewpoint and the other has spent very little time pointing out how very very very silly that first one is.

yup, I feel good about my trivial participation in this. If you'd like more evidence of how much more time you have spent on this even though it's "just a game" count your posts in this thread vs mine. I think you'll find despite the facts you discover you'll have yet another justification but it's okay. Despite your mental gymnastics I know you are wrong and deep down you know you are wrong so i can live with your squawking and flapping. It's great entertainment at least.

There was a discussion ongoing for a few pages, then "they" showed up. One may take away for a Post what one wants, it matters not. This just proves that there will be no discussion here. And you accuse me of a narrow view point. bah

[Joseph Mallan]

ManDaisy, on 27 May 2014 - 10:00 AM, said:

Joseph makes a good point. The Devs have nothing to answer to but market forces. If people continue to accept the quality of the material they are given without questions then things will not change. This translates into a badly done game.

To be clear, this game is only operating still because it isn't a total wash. There are good points. However, the glaring bad points will NEVER go away on their own. They are deemed "acceptable product", unless they cause massive negativity. Even then we still have ghost heat.

That wasn't at all what I was implying!

[WarHippy]

Joseph Mallan, on 27 May 2014 - 09:51 AM, said:

They could...
Why do they have to be?

Well they don't have to be I suppose, but it certainly makes both their life and our life as customers easier. Granted, the devs do seem to enjoy doing things the most complicated way possible instead of the most efficient so it isn't too surprising that they have a problem with balancing honesty with professionalism. There is a time and place for levity, however that time generally is not when the community is sitting on a powder keg of frustration. Honesty is hard for a lot of people because of fear, and because they overestimate the negative response they will get when delivering bad news. Acting like a jerk, or making jokes at the expense of your already frustrated customer even though there is truth in what you say negates the bonus points you could have received from being honest in a professional manner.

[Bishop Steiner]

Almond Brown, on 27 May 2014 - 08:07 AM, said:

We call those Life Lessons, learned by trial and error. Perhaps the Dev are doing the same thing. If the Community can learn by trial and error, then why hold the Dev to a higher standard? Just because.

P.S. A Digital game and the Bible. Who would have thought.

dismissing proven wisdom, from whatever source, usually ends poorly.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 27 May 2014 - 10:23 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Quote

however that time generally is not when the community is sitting on a powder keg of frustration

Wouldn't that be "all the time" though? Brutally hard not setting off a "always lit" fuse...

Bishop Steiner, on 27 May 2014 - 10:23 AM, said:

dismissing proven wisdom, from whatever source, usually ends poorly.

That is akin to using the one "lest we forget" and a badly repeated history. One side seems to learn (Dev get quiet), the other (Community, the reason the Dev got quiet), not so much.

Edited by Almond Brown, 27 May 2014 - 10:27 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Harathan, on 27 May 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:

Not sure you understand how Stock Matches work, or how Stock mechs work versus only other Stock mechs.

sadly, it appears he does not. Many of the posters original posts, were calm and measured, if not always germane to the discussion, but the deeper down the rabbit hole we go, the more they have unraveled. Now he is using the same flawed and circular reasoning as the OP, and thus, I am at the point of simply dismissing and moving on. Hopefully the arrogant epeen rants of the OP are not next on the agenda.