41 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

1453 R, on 18 March 2015 - 08:05 PM, said:

I love how some people are giving Tina **** for issues and decisions that were made dev-side, very likely before she was officially on the job.

I've seen more community management out of Tina in the last couple of weeks than I saw out of Niko ever and I'm one of the guys who didn't think Niko was the Scum of the Earth. I think she's off to an excellent start, especially considering the caliber of the community she's working with. I mean, come on. She's stuck trying to community-manage this sinkhole.

Would any of you want her job?

I agree with most of what you say, but I think the toxicity of the MWO community has been exaggerated compared to other games. I'm not sure everyone here knows what online gaming communities can be like. I see MWO players say things like "Someone told me to f- myself on the internet! This is unheard of!"

Every time someone from PGI is willing to engage in actual dialogue on the forums, the response from the players is 99% positive. Grown men will weep openly, crying tears of joy if Russ Bullock posts in their thread. I think people are exaggerating the significance of the last 1%.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 19 March 2015 - 12:09 AM.

[NeoCodex]

I'm not sure what the last community manager here was even doing (was he doing anything?), and as such I cannot have any opinion about him, or at least not a good one. But if you want an example of what a real community manager is like, check what DE Rebecca is doing for Warframe.

Their community manager is constantly active on the forums, collecting player feedback and every few weeks organizing the hottest community issues, discussions, concerns and suggestions into threads, where everything is dicussed and voted again, than forwarded to the devs (e.g. community has problems with issues a, b, c, majority voted they would like the "x, y, z" solutions, also there are a few good suggestions about this and that and so on). And in general, whenever they have a dev podcast/town hall, it always feels like she really is putting the best interests of the community to the devs, and herself more as a player than an employee. A perfect bridge between the players and the developers.

Instead of having us to tweet Russ or posting in town hall questions thread as our only chance of directly communicating something to him, community manager should actively be working on letting the devs know what the general player consensus and feedback is like on the forums - all the time. It's a real paid job, what else could you be doing for 4-8 hours per day? The problem is that this is a new position in the industry, and usually one the lowest paid and "unthankful" jobs in the company.

But it doesn't really have to be like that. Since there really isn't much of a standard of expectations set for this position, it is up the person at job to make the best of it. If anything, their reports should be the first source of where developers should be getting direct feedback, strictly consized, to the point and on time. Community manager shouldn't be just PR but primarily being the direct players voice to the developers. This is what I am expecting from a good community manager, and that is when I can say that we have a "good start".

Edited by NeoCodex, 19 March 2015 - 12:31 AM.

[NextGame]

1453 R, on 18 March 2015 - 08:05 PM, said:

Would any of you want her job?

Cant think of a more fun job than community manager. It's the easiest job in the world. Collect and present product feedback. Present return path to community. Involve yourself in community initiatives, do some social media junk. Understand how to keep people onside. Simples.

Also, don't understand the whining in this thread. New person is new. Are there some undercurrents to this I'm not aware of?

Edited by NextGame, 19 March 2015 - 12:51 AM.

[meteorol]

Sarlic, on 18 March 2015 - 02:58 PM, said:

Now i do not want to shoot any community initiative off but to my understanding it's only a waste of time while i already know what the opposite is going to use with which what loadout. It's predictable.

Yeah thats what CS is about for me. The thrill if the enemy team will use ak/colt or awp. After a match i'll usually go the the official CS forum and call NiP terribads because they can only play with those meta weapons, and won't buy a negev in competitive matches. If they would take more eco rounds to go full negev, they actually wouldn't be better than any average casual. Metabads.

... Skill starts to matter when equipment starts capping out. Thats what happens in any competitively played FPS out there. All of them have a bazillion guns but the top players only use like five of them.

[Vassago Rain]

Adiuvo, on 18 March 2015 - 02:01 PM, said:

"They just grab anything what they can use without rules. Nothing more than Meta horses."

-Sarlic, 2014

[Vassago Rain]

1453 R, on 18 March 2015 - 08:05 PM, said:

Would any of you want her job?

In 2012, Garth said something like this, and my response was, essentially, you are paid to have bees sting your mouth.

Oh, you don't like it when bees sting your mouth? Then why did you accept a job that has as its first clause 'bees will sting your mouth?'

[Joseph Mallan]

Vandul, on 18 March 2015 - 01:20 PM, said:

Yeah, the positivity that is emanating from the new CM is refreshing. Don't any of you manky sots do anything to dissuade her.

Now the reason for improvements is obvious!

[Sarlic]

Alistair Winter, on 18 March 2015 - 03:39 PM, said:

If the players are supposed to wait for MWO to be balanced before making a tournament, then... you can see where I'm going with this.

Exactly. This is why i don't support any tournament in this game as of yet.

Quote

Macros are allowed by PGI, so I don't see why they would be forbidden in a tournament. One of the reasons it's not forbidden is because PGI has no way of controlling who's using a macro, and that is especially the case for a player-run tournament.

Perhaps due that fact PGI is lacking engineering skills to make a simple script to detect macro usage. Yes they're out there. Even other game use special kind of scripts to detect all sort of things.

There have been numerous threads about the macro usage, and some people call it more or less 'cheating' or having a 'huge advantage' while others not.

See, the problem is PGI in the first place by allowing such a thing, but i can't call you a Mechwarrior when you use macro's to your advantage. I think they should rule out these kind of things. Alot of games out there are having a hard time to deal with these kind of users using macro's.

Quote

It's kind of hard to make a comprehensive description of what game mechanics may be used to your advantage. The broken JJ animation is one thing, but what about running through enemy mechs or standing on top of other mechs or hiding behind invisible barriers or turning graphics settings to 'low' in order to look through buildings at a distance? There's such a long list of things you can do to take advantage of game mechanics, and it's going to be extremely difficult to keep an eye on all those things. Better to just allow anything that isn't forbidden by PGI in normal play. How are you going to judge who's using and who's abusing the jump jets? Impossible to do in a tournament like this.

You exactly summed it up for me. It's particulary bad that you make a tournament while we have these flaws in game. By allowing it you make the Community spoiled. Hint the Deathstar archievement lately. That was to name a perfect example that people do anything just to obtain that 'special rare title' . This also,works for current broken mechanics. How many times have you seen that Timberwolf repeatly hitting the spacebar to dodge incoming fire while it messes with the hit registration.

Quote

Why should there be any special rules for VOIP? Again, it's something you can't really control, so why worry about it

These rules are mostly standard for tournaments. It's to monitor who is active on TS / VT and who's not.

Quote

As for penalties for cheating, I guess that should be addressed, since there's money involved. I would expect all kinds of cheating to result in disqualification. Though I can't really think of any ways to cheat in a tournament like this.

A good point. The current Battlefield series is to name a example that people can download specialized software or set up torrent, downloading stuff anything to make their pings higher. The higher the ping, the lesser you could hit the target. Bullets from the 'lagging' player tent to you in waves instead of a single bullet. Don't believe me? Search for it. Unfortunatly this is true.

This can also be applied to MWO in a tournament with no ping resrictions.

Quote

Personally, I have no interest in the competitive style of playing MWO either. It's boring to me. But I still donated a small sum to support the tournament, because I think it's important for both the community and the devs, if the devs actually pay attention to what happens in those tournament. They probably won't, but I guess the NGNG guys may pay attention and they seem to have PGI's ear.

Good on you! Any attention, is a good attention.

Quote

I'm not supporting the tournament because I'd like to play or because I enjoy playing with jumpjet-pumping pr0s in their pimped Timber Wolves and Firestarters. But the community needs those guys just as much as we need the crazy neckbeards with tabletop rulebooks and TRO manuals, screaming about how indirect LRM fire is supposed to work according to TT rules.

We need a optimal mix, but all the LRM whiners got what they wanted no? LRM got dumbed down and no one uses anymore aside from some boaters. Or the dynamic geometery screamers? They got what they want. Or perhaps VOIP. Which almost no one use it.

Community is getting spoiled. But that's another subject.

[mike29tw]

Alistair Winter, on 19 March 2015 - 12:08 AM, said:

I agree with most of what you say, but I think the toxicity of the MWO community has been exaggerated compared to other games. I'm not sure everyone here knows what online gaming communities can be like. I see MWO players say things like "Someone told me to f- myself on the internet! This is unheard of!"

Every time someone from PGI is willing to engage in actual dialogue on the forums, the response from the players is 99% positive. Grown men will weep openly, crying tears of joy if Russ Bullock posts in their thread. I think people are exaggerating the significance of the last 1%.

Not sure if intended, but that sentence tells me something else other than the topic...

Edited by mike29tw, 19 March 2015 - 02:32 AM.

[Dino Might]

Vassago Rain, on 19 March 2015 - 01:15 AM, said:

In 2012, Garth said something like this, and my response was, essentially, you are paid to have bees sting your mouth.

Oh, you don't like it when bees sting your mouth? Then why did you accept a job that has as its first clause 'bees will sting your mouth?'

While I agree with the sentiment, I want to be clear that this in no way excuses the bees. We all too often use excuses such as, "well that's what's expected," or, "everyone else is doing it," to justify our bad behavior.

[NextGame]

Dino Might, on 19 March 2015 - 09:42 AM, said:

While I agree with the sentiment, I want to be clear that this in no way excuses the bees. We all too often use excuses such as, "well that's what's expected," or, "everyone else is doing it," to justify our bad behavior.

As a consumer it is correct to express dissatisfaction with a product.

As a human being it is typical to inflate and dramatise the level of said dissatisfaction, albeit often unfairly, and especially common on the internet.

As a vendor it's important to recognise that those who do so, are doing so as they are involved in your product and ultimately want it to turn out well in order that they can enjoy it.

As someone analysing the feedback its important to be able to rationalise it and understand that product criticism is not a personal attack.

Personal attacks are an entirely separate issue and are generally unwarranted (although theres a discussion to be had about those who play it up and play the victim card, something that doesn't happen here as PGI are generally professional about how conversations work).

Ultimately freedom of opinion and speech are important when it comes to the consumer/vendor relationship, its incredibly important for people to understand the conversation going on behind the language that is used otherwise it can easily break down, the product sales or service going into decline, and the consumer doesn't get the product they wanted.

Edited by NextGame, 19 March 2015 - 09:58 AM.

[Rebas Kradd]

NeoCodex, on 19 March 2015 - 12:22 AM, said:

Community manager shouldn't be just PR but primarily being the direct players voice to the developers.

This. The job of a CM isn't to organize community art work. It's to ask the developers the hard questions of the community and organize the responses into understandable answers back TO the community.

If the devs won't give her those answers, they've put her in an awkward position. Because the "hardball" questions on such categories as balance, economy, philosophy, vision, and previous decisions are going to keep the vocal minority quite vocal.

THAT BEING SAID, she's still getting her feet under her, and it's to be expected that it will take a while before she's familiar enough with MWO and its story to really answer the questions.

And yeah, anyone who brings gender into it automatically sacrifices their credibility. Leave the thread, please.

[Revis Volek]

Creovex, on 18 March 2015 - 03:29 PM, said:

Blah blah blah... She posted the extension... so its on her. She was here prior to it... its on her. (Ownership begins when you start the job, not after you screw it up several times)

I love all you desperate males who jump to the defense of a woman on the internet without the faintest idea of what you are talking about....

So now you are bringing gender into this....for all i know our new community manager is a actually a dude that looks like a girl...they have them these days ya know?

I was not defending her, just pointing out how wrong you are and little you seem to know about business, life, etc.

Carry on troll.

0/10 but would insult again.

[Rhaythe]

Vandul, on 18 March 2015 - 01:20 PM, said:

Don't any of you manky sots do anything to dissuade her.

Can someone translate this into mountain hick-speak for me?

[Tarogato]

Sarlic, on 19 March 2015 - 02:08 AM, said:

Exactly. This is why i don't support any tournament in this game as of yet.

<snip>

Why should we listen to anything you have to say about the MWO competitive environment? You're not even participating!

The people who are participating aren't even crying this much about these issues.

---

Sure, jumpjet animations are broken, but everybody can use them equally.

Sure, balance is terrible, but everybody has access to the same mechs and builds equally.

What difference is VOIP software going to make in an MWO match? I gander zero. For instance, if we were forced to use a specific protocol that required PTT, I would be disadvantaged because I use voice-act. and I don't even have any keys free to bind for PTT.

Macros are available to everybody equally and they don't even break the game. Builds that use them aren't even comp viable in the first place.

Edited by Tarogato, 19 March 2015 - 11:48 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

DarthRevis, on 19 March 2015 - 10:56 AM, said:

So now you are bringing gender into this....for all i know our new community manager is a actually a dude that looks like a girl...they have them these days ya know?

That's my fetish though.

Which is why I'm white knighting so hard.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

Way too early for praise, so far it has been a pretty hands-off approach to the community (probably a smart move considering the fate of the last two active CMs). And without that interaction, it is difficult to guage the the effectiveness of the CM.

The 3rd party tournament advertisement is nice, the user content sticky is ok (assuming it gets updated regularly), but so far the most impressive action was cleaning up the irrelevant and dated pinned and sticked items.

[MadLibrarian]

Agreed. Two crab claws up.

[Creovex]

DarthRevis, on 19 March 2015 - 10:56 AM, said:

So now you are bringing gender into this....for all i know our new community manager is a actually a dude that looks like a girl...they have them these days ya know?

I was not defending her, just pointing out how wrong you are and little you seem to know about business, life, etc.

Carry on troll.

0/10 but would insult again.

I love the fakes around here. Give it 3 months and all you amazingly new white knights will have turned back to your normal complaining selves .... talk about desperate for attention. Yes, if the new CM was a man I bet more then half of you new white knights would be nowhere to be seen.

[Sarlic]

Tarogato, on 19 March 2015 - 11:47 AM, said:

Why should we listen to anything you have to say about the MWO competitive environment? You're not even participating!

The people who are participating aren't even crying this much about these issues.

---

Sure, jumpjet animations are broken, but everybody can use them equally.

Sure, balance is terrible, but everybody has access to the same mechs and builds equally.

What difference is VOIP software going to make in an MWO match? I gander zero. For instance, if we were forced to use a specific protocol that required PTT, I would be disadvantaged because I use voice-act. and I don't even have any keys free to bind for PTT.

Macros are available to everybody equally and they don't even break the game. Builds that use them aren't even comp viable in the first place.

Because i see issues where others do not. Just because they do not 'cry' about it they can or will eventually after the tournament.

I have been in plenty of tournaments in other games. Both paid and unpaid.

You on the other hand justifying macro's, jump jet animation and even game mechanic is making me yawn.

I think i should not bother listening to you either.

Edited by Sarlic, 19 March 2015 - 02:24 PM.