244 replies to this topic

[Gorgo7]

Bongfu, on 27 May 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

I would like to point out that I am an avid poster on r/mwo. So someone who has put hundreds of dollars into this game is no longer a customer in your eyes?

Anyone with the intelligence of a two year old can see this is why so many of those "non-customers" dislike PGI right now.

Yeah...

Well, that reply just makes me dislike you.

You are very rude.

You may have the intelligence of a two year old but you also have the manners of an ape.

[Heffay]

I've posted so much good content on /r/mwo that just gets downvoted because it's not negative. Video tutorials on how to use the art assets, video shorts, yadda yadda yadda. What a waste of a subreddit.

To be honest, the easiest way to fix that would be to merge them again. The community of /r/mwo is far far smaller than /r/OutreachHPG, and just by using the downvote system the combined reddit would once again be full of useful content. But, as long as I'm dreaming I'd like a pony...

[Rebas Kradd]

Bongfu, on 27 May 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

I would like to point out that I am an avid poster on r/mwo. So someone who has put hundreds of dollars into this game is no longer a customer in your eyes?

Anyone with the intelligence of a two year old can see this is why so many of those "non-customers" dislike PGI right now.

You're perfectly capable of posting on HPG. It's not like you've been banned from the internet and blocked from their phone lines.

Niko spent the first month of his CMhood duplicating all his HPG posts on r/mwo. He was met with variations of "f*** off", endless questions about Ghost Heat, and straight-up conspiracy theories and smear campaigns against PGI from people who are openly trying to damage the company's reputation and aren't even trying to hide it. That's still going on, in the exact same breath as whatever other sincere efforts are supposedly being made, so let's have no more of the idea that they're acting well-meaning

Niko made the effort. He was given the finger as a reward. His audience there has already made up their minds, and if the only answer that will trigger civil behavior is "Okay, we'll remove Ghost Heat"...well, I'm not impressed.

So don't paint r/mwo as a victim. Nobody wants to hear that except the seven or eight people who run it.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 27 May 2014 - 09:00 AM.

[Heffay]

Rebas Kradd, on 27 May 2014 - 08:55 AM, said:

smear campaigns against PGI from people who are openly trying to damage the company's reputation and aren't even trying to hide it. well-meaning

This probably sums /r/mwo up:

http://www.reddit.co...erience/chrdgwu

Quote

I'm sure I've warded people off from this game, and hurt PGI's bottom line, over the years. I'm OK with that until they change their practices.

Proud he's damaging the game, and yet playing it almost every single day.

[Nightmare1]

I would like to know a bit more about the PGI folks who we see in game sometimes. For example, I recently had the opportunity to drop against Karl Berg and Brian Buckton together in a match. I still don't know who they are though which makes me feel a bit bad since I nailed both of them.

Also, more Command Chair posts would be terrific! I'm not a bid fan of the Vlogs, mainly because I don't have time to watch them - the Command Chair posts and the "Ask the Devs" threads were very convenient and useful for me. I know that the transcripts are there, but they seem to be a bit more clunky than the old Q&A posts.

I don't know much about Reddit, but anything providing greater visibility to the players would be great!

I'm not on Twitter, so the Tweets don't do anything for me. I would, however, like to see a "how it's made" video of the studio, design and programming processes, etc. I think that would be really cool.

As for ISN...to be honest, I forgot it was even there.

[Forte]

Theycallmetheworkingman, on 27 May 2014 - 01:45 AM, said:

I'm not sure if you're understanding me. Your account "PGI_Niko" is verified in the subs as being yours. That makes anything you post on either sub to be seen as official business or statements. So when you go into either sub and make a comment that offends most of the people reading it, it's not good business. Now. I'm not perfect. I definitely post a lot of crap on my university's sub that angers a lot of people, but I am not an employee of my university in anything other than a research capacity so my statements are not seen as indicative of the University's attitude or perspective on anything outside of my lab's work . Whereas you, who are both the community manager and someone who has personal contact with the devs on a daily basis, are.

If you want to make snippy remarks. That's fine. We're all human and sometimes telling someone to F*** off is really satisfying. I'm just saying it's not good business or smart to do it under an account that is recognized to be yours.

As for the response, wasn't aware. hadn't bothered to check reddit yet.

Edit: Grammar

Having been a member of reddit for quite a long time, as well as a moderator myself in a couple subreddits, I agree with Niko about the level of moderation there, and the purely bile filled responses on r/mwo vs r/outreachHPG. Nothing he can say in r/mwo gets any credit and they spew hate and anger towards him or any dev at all times. If they are offended it is of their own accord.

DasAmok, on 27 May 2014 - 05:36 AM, said:

As I already mentioned in my longer answer to your opening questions:

Why does PGI choose channels like Twitter or Reddit over their own official forum?

I believe it casts a really bad light on any attempt of better and more communication. Admittingly, it can be and often is toxic here. But that can be changed, by hard work, actual and continuous interaction with the people here, and meaningful (read: dialogue, not monologue like in a feedback thread never again to be visited by a staff member) communication.

Doing it anywhere else looks a lot like "running away". You, Niko, have showed balls. Don't back off on that really improved communication. Badger your guys to show themselves, speak to us. Yes, you will get thrashed verbally more than once. But if you keep it up, I'm pretty sure many people here will appreciate and the official forums will get better. It's up to you.

To be fair, the structure of this forum is not conducive to an AMA like scenario and a lot more questions are likely to have been answered in the timeframe on Reddit as opposed to hear. I doubt it has anything to do with toxicity. Twitter is just a good place to randomly post comments or pics, or sometimes answer questions posed by fans that follow you. So I understand those uses. I don't think it shows either courage or cowardice, just different uses of media.

However, I do agree that it would be nice if say once a month we had a State of the Game letter (similar to how The Secret World does). These types of letters get picked up by both fans and news sites as quick story pieces. When Joel did one for The Secret World about the Filth Invasion of Agartha I resubbed. Writing and editing probably took an extra 2 hours out of his day and it probably netted him several people like me, opened up more communication, and excited current players to increase playtime. So, yes I agree it would be nice to have more communication on official forums too.

Nightmare1, on 27 May 2014 - 09:51 AM, said:

I would like to know a bit more about the PGI folks who we see in game sometimes. For example, I recently had the opportunity to drop against Karl Berg and Brian Buckton together in a match. I still don't know who they are though which makes me feel a bit bad since I nailed both of them.

Also, more Command Chair posts would be terrific! I'm not a bid fan of the Vlogs, mainly because I don't have time to watch them - the Command Chair posts and the "Ask the Devs" threads were very convenient and useful for me. I know that the transcripts are there, but they seem to be a bit more clunky than the old Q&A posts.

I don't know much about Reddit, but anything providing greater visibility to the players would be great!

I'm not on Twitter, so the Tweets don't do anything for me. I would, however, like to see a "how it's made" video of the studio, design and programming processes, etc. I think that would be really cool.

As for ISN...to be honest, I forgot it was even there.

OH NO! You are the reason we don't have the Buckton SRM fix, please tell me you didnt kill him with SRMs JK JK

Yeah I've seen several of the IGP/PGI guys around in games. Average range of players. It would be cool to learn more about their favorite aspects (can't ask them negative questions because I doubt marketing would let that get out for a Q&A sesson) of the game and what mech holds a place in their heart.

Edited by Forte, 27 May 2014 - 11:18 AM.

[Heffay]

http://www.reddit.co...ners_announced/

Apparently he's still posting there, but the downvote brigade is hard at work.

[AdamBaines]

Heffay, on 27 May 2014 - 09:07 AM, said:

Proud he's damaging the game, and yet playing it almost every single day.

But dont you see Heff.....he is taking on all of the pain of others! It is his duty to play the game so that others do not have to bear upon themselves the goodness of piloting a stompy mech in the Btech universe!!! He should have our thanks and praise ;-)

[Heffay]

AdamBaines, on 27 May 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

But dont you see Heff.....he is taking on all of the pain of others! It is his duty to play the game so that others do not have to bear upon themselves the goodness of piloting a stompy mech in the Btech universe!!! He should have our thanks and praise ;-)

He's the real white knight here. Protecting the innocents from trying the game in case they find out they actually really enjoy it. Can't have that! Even if they are having fun, THEY ARE WRONG!

[3Xtr3m3]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 26 May 2014 - 10:00 AM, said:

I find all too often that players assign definitions to themselves and one another as one typically sees in retail games where development is complete and pretty much the only thing to talk about for development is gameplay balance. In traditional settings we might expect to see borders between competitors, role-players, jokers and trolls. These lines are not so clear cut now.

In an on-going development, it seems to play out, at least from my perspective, more like the following of a television series...

You have those who follow every episode ritually as it airs, those who wait for the season to end to grab the box set, those who pre-order the box-set, and perhaps even a handful who will get mad about spoilers and refuse to put any time in until production ends. You have those who will only watch for free at their leisure without ads, and those who will gladly acquire any swag they can to support the producers.

You have those who love the series, even the parts that make them mad or sad. And those who just get mad when we don't write-off half of the people on set/stage. There are those who expect us to follow the book and those who want to see us take a creative spin appropriate for the medium.

Some will tweet about us all night and weekend, others will browse the forums, and many just entertain themselves with the game before going about their day.

All too often there are those who get frustrated when a new episode comes on a personally busy day, and those who arrange every other Tuesday into their schedule as Patch Night.

And yes, sadly, we even get a few of those who will make weird personal RL threats against us. Thankfully this is offset by others asking us jubilantly and proudly to carry their Mech babies or to curse them with Urbanmechs.

It's a diverse crowd and a brave new world. I wish I could say it's going to be perfect everytime: We do have to maintain a utilitarian balance to the various goals for entertaining the community.

Epic Post;
Almost deserves a thread of its own
I suppose on the scale above I am somewhere between a Joker and a Troll (smile when you call me that)

[Bongfu]

Rebas Kradd, on 27 May 2014 - 08:55 AM, said:

You're perfectly capable of posting on HPG. It's not like you've been banned from the internet and blocked from their phone lines.

Niko spent the first month of his CMhood duplicating all his HPG posts on r/mwo. He was met with variations of "f*** off", endless questions about Ghost Heat, and straight-up conspiracy theories and smear campaigns against PGI from people who are openly trying to damage the company's reputation and aren't even trying to hide it. That's still going on, in the exact same breath as whatever other sincere efforts are supposedly being made, so let's have no more of the idea that they're acting well-meaning

Niko made the effort. He was given the finger as a reward. His audience there has already made up their minds, and if the only answer that will trigger civil behavior is "Okay, we'll remove Ghost Heat"...well, I'm not impressed.

So don't paint r/mwo as a victim. Nobody wants to hear that except the seven or eight people who run it.

It's this kind of blindness to any kind of discussion that got us here in the first place. I was not defending the content on r/mwo. I was stating that Niko literally said, "r/mwo does not have any customers. We do not care about people who post there."

I am actively participate in both outreach and mwo on reddit. So does that mean that I don't matter to PGI? I am no one PGI should be concerned with?

As someone who has supported this game from the moment anyone was able, that attitude makes me lose any and all faith in this company.

[Heffay]

Bongfu, on 27 May 2014 - 12:45 PM, said:

It's this kind of blindness to any kind of discussion that got us here in the first place. I was not defending the content on r/mwo. I was stating that Niko literally said, "r/mwo does not have any customers. We do not care about people who post there."

I am actively participate in both outreach and mwo on reddit. So does that mean that I don't matter to PGI? I am no one PGI should be concerned with?

As someone who has supported this game from the moment anyone was able, that attitude makes me lose any and all faith in this company.

I post there too, and the people he's referring to aren't the posters. It's the people who **** up the forums just to cause issues. Those are the people he is talking about.

There is no benefit to posting in /r/mwo, short of using it to point people to /r/OutreachHPG.

[Bongfu]

Heffay, on 27 May 2014 - 12:50 PM, said:

I post there too, and the people he's referring to aren't the posters. It's the people who **** up the forums just to cause issues. Those are the people he is talking about.

There is no benefit to posting in /r/mwo, short of using it to point people to /r/OutreachHPG.

There is always two sides to a coin. You can't deny that even though there is some fanatical trash in both subreddits, there is good points in both. I have my own reservations about PGI, but generalization and the proven record of name calling by the Community Manager has really made me wonder about PGI's ability to ever regain the trust of the thousands of Battletech fans stepping away from the money grabbing antics of a dying project.

[Heffay]

Bongfu, on 27 May 2014 - 12:53 PM, said:

There is always two sides to a coin. You can't deny that even though there is some fanatical trash in both subreddits, there is good points in both. I have my own reservations about PGI, but generalization and the proven record of name calling by the Community Manager has really made me wonder about PGI's ability to ever regain the trust of the thousands of Battletech fans stepping away from the money grabbing antics of a dying project.

http://www.reddit.co...ners_announced/

That just about sums it up. A post with useful info from Niko downvoted to oblivion. Worst subreddit ever.

Money grubbing... I guess you hate all companies then, right? Curse them for selling customers items they want to buy!

[Anders]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 26 May 2014 - 08:12 AM, said:

I do not think that particular subreddit (r/mwo) can be defined as a base for our fans or customers any longer...

Rather, since the change of management, and the resulting diaspora of our active Reddit fans towards r/OutreachHPG and other Subreddits. r/mwo has essentially become an echo-chamber for those who have been banned from our services for repeated abusive behavior.

The abuse resulting in the original bans could range from anything from repeatedly advertising other services in an off-topic manner, directly insulting and harassing another staff member, spamming vulgarities, or so on. But generally speaking, there were always attempts to warn the player to provide feedback in a manner that is less toxic and those players who were banned showed an unhealthy desire with continuing anyways or were disingenuous with our staff at any time of showing remorse for their actions.

Putting aside the eternal argument of "who started it" which continues to put modern geo-politics into a circular stalemate... Our staff often cannot post there without facing a grab-bag of toxicity. This is compounded by those who continue to use alt-accounts to try and provide themselves with a disproportionate voice as well as to downvote bomb staff posts out-of-view. It is made even worse by the fact that those in this sub-reddit who show any active fandom are referred to as shills while, ironically, those who would seek to draw players away from our game or draw away staff from their work simply to insult them are being lauded.

While I have stayed silent on this particular subject in the past to allow the Community time to adapt and reset following those changes. I am dismayed by the results. In fairness, to the new overlords of r/mwo: The actual carrying out of takeover was indeed one worthy of an Inner Sphere story. It is simply a shame we are left a Periphery wasteland in what was once a Noble House. My sincerest hope in that regard is that I am proven wrong sometime in the future...Some basic moderation standards would go a long way so we can help address legitimate and constructive concerns.

In the meantime, however, PGI staff are being provided a general ComStar advisory against non-essential travel through that segment of space. We will continue to serve and provide for our customers, fans, and concerned citizens alike here on our official forums as well as with our visits to OutreachHPG.

Please allow me to clarify a few bits of misinformation that you've seen fit to spout as gospel. I suppose that this is your soapbox upon which to do so, and for however long this stays up, that will have to be good enough.

1) "The New Overlords" of /r/mwo are actually the same overlords who started the sub-bread-it in the first place. They were tired of the censorship and opinion control placed on the sub-reddit as a whole and moved to replace the moderation staff which unfortunately let this occur on their watch. If you notice, the three top moderators have never changed during the transition.

2) In a response to the cries of censorship and opinion control that the previous moderation staff had enacted, the sub-reddit implemented a laissez-faire style of moderation that relied upon the workings of reddit in general: namely the upvote and the downvote. The thought was that the community would see fit to take the content that they felt best represented their voice and upvote it, and take the content that they didn't agree with and downvote it.

3) A vast majority of the members of the /r/mwo subreddit aren't banned, and it's disingenuous to state that "This is compounded by those who continue to use alt-accounts to try and provide themselves with a disproportionate voice as well as to downvote bomb staff posts out-of-view." with little to no proof (as reddit prides it self on anonymous up and down votes). It's also quite interesting to note that when this occurs in outreach, in an attempt to silence critics as well, nothing is said about the matter.

4) "Toxic feedback." I note that you fail to mention the amount of legitimate, positive feedback that was solicited by your company and former community manager which was promptly ignored or deemed unsuitable for very vague and nebulous reasons. I suppose you don't know very much about what Garth did, maybe you should ask him or your bosses about the amount of feedback from the RHOD groups on weapon balance and the like. (Or how you just can't balance sniper weapons! It's just too hard!)

5) Finally, with respect to your feedback on the moderation policies of r/mwo, I can only state:

"Thank you for your feedback! It has been duly noted, and will be addressed in the order that it was received. Due to the overwhelming amount of feedback that r/mwo has received on the topic, please allow 90 days for a proper response via smoke signal or video, whichever we deem to be the hip and trendy thing that other companies are doing at the moment. I hope that you can be patient with us during this most trying time while we attempt a number of initiatives to further enhance your r/mwo experience."

As always, I remain:
Anders.

[DisasterMedic]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 26 May 2014 - 08:12 AM, said:

:words:

To correct a few factual inaccuracies:
1) PGI devs that aren't actively shitlers are generally pretty well received on /mwo. See: PGI_fox and pretty much anyone that isn't you or Russ.
2) There was no hostile takeover, it was always owned by the people that owned it. No nefarious plans, just shitloads of baseless goonfear once it was discovered that goons started the subreddit.
3) I am sorry that opinions that run counter to your hugbox of "Paul is a genius and everything is perfect" offend you so much that you feel like they need to be moderated out of existence, but they are valid opinions to hold. Ironically, these opinions are banned or moderated out of existence on OutreachHPG, so you are serving to further segment the community instead of bringing it together. Which, presumably, a community manager should do.
4) Everyone that reads /mwo is to being banned from the game and forums as Ghost heat is to being a good game mechanic; which is to say, objectively and provably false.

Excellent job Niko, no wonder they put you in charge of PR. :golfclap:

[Gorgo7]

Anders, on 27 May 2014 - 12:58 PM, said:

Please allow me to clarify a few bits of misinformation that you've seen fit to spout as gospel. I suppose that this is your soapbox upon which to do so, and for however long this stays up, that will have to be good enough.

1) "The New Overlords" of /r/mwo are actually the same overlords who started the sub-bread-it in the first place. They were tired of the censorship and opinion control placed on the sub-reddit as a whole and moved to replace the moderation staff which unfortunately let this occur on their watch. If you notice, the three top moderators have never changed during the transition.

2) In a response to the cries of censorship and opinion control that the previous moderation staff had enacted, the sub-reddit implemented a laissez-faire style of moderation that relied upon the workings of reddit in general: namely the upvote and the downvote. The thought was that the community would see fit to take the content that they felt best represented their voice and upvote it, and take the content that they didn't agree with and downvote it.

3) A vast majority of the members of the /r/mwo subreddit aren't banned, and it's disingenuous to state that "This is compounded by those who continue to use alt-accounts to try and provide themselves with a disproportionate voice as well as to downvote bomb staff posts out-of-view." with little to no proof (as reddit prides it self on anonymous up and down votes). It's also quite interesting to note that when this occurs in outreach, in an attempt to silence critics as well, nothing is said about the matter.

4) "Toxic feedback." I note that you fail to mention the amount of legitimate, positive feedback that was solicited by your company and former community manager which was promptly ignored or deemed unsuitable for very vague and nebulous reasons. I suppose you don't know very much about what Garth did, maybe you should ask him or your bosses about the amount of feedback from the RHOD groups on weapon balance and the like. (Or how you just can't balance sniper weapons! It's just too hard!)

5) Finally, with respect to your feedback on the moderation policies of r/mwo, I can only state:

"Thank you for your feedback! It has been duly noted, and will be addressed in the order that it was received. Due to the overwhelming amount of feedback that r/mwo has received on the topic, please allow 90 days for a proper response via smoke signal or video, whichever we deem to be the hip and trendy thing that other companies are doing at the moment. I hope that you can be patient with us during this most trying time while we attempt a number of initiatives to further enhance your r/mwo experience."

As always, I remain:
Anders.

Anders eh?

HAHAHAHAHA

Disaster Medic eh?


HAHAHAHAHAHA

[Nekki Basara]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 26 May 2014 - 08:12 AM, said:

Rather, since the change of management, and the resulting diaspora of our active Reddit fans towards r/OutreachHPG and other Subreddits. r/mwo has essentially become an echo-chamber for those who have been banned from our services for repeated abusive behavior.

Your post is factually incorrect. I have not been banned. Please do not misrepresent a position critical of your own in an attempt to paint over your own mistakes. Further, do not claim that the subreddit mods should be doing work that they cannot possibly do as they are not reddit admins, this is an unfair expectation of you to engender in the community and further shades things in an unrealistic manner.

ETA:

Heffay, on 27 May 2014 - 12:57 PM, said:

http://www.reddit.co...ners_announced/

That just about sums it up. A post with useful info from Niko downvoted to oblivion. Worst subreddit ever.

It just links to another subreddit thus being of marginal utility at best and is sitting at +1 karma as I type this. What exactly is your problem?

Edited by Nekki Basara, 27 May 2014 - 01:26 PM.

[Heffay]

Someone must have posted a thread on the SA forums. Watch them scurry!

Thanks for logging in, boys.

[Nightmare1]

For all you r/junkies out there (whatever r/ means! ), this isn't the place to flame each other over this reddit thing. This is supposed to be a useful forum for PGI to hear from us. Please don't muddle it like so many of your type have on so many other threads with all the nonsense and drama - keep it real for once, okay? If you want to be drama queens, apply for a reality TV show or something.

Thanks all.