58 replies to this topic

[HumpingBunny]

The MWO player base seems a bit frustrated as of late and my theory is bad communication between PGI and all of us big stompy robot pilots. Whenever I make a suggestion, no matter how benign or passionate it may be, I always wonder if that message is received by PGI - I know I'm not the only one. And let's face it, Twitter seems to be the primary avenue of communication between PGI and us pilots, but plenty of us do NOT have a twitter account. I only know of the twitter communication because of the vast posts on the MWO forum regarding Russ's twitter posts. I understand that twitter can be a useful tool for PGI to communicate with the player base, but we are PGI's customers, not their buddies. I work in an industry where good communication with the customer is absolutely critical and wouldn't you know it, the company I work for is VERY successful. My point here is that communication between us customers and PGI is spread all over the place and a result of that is players getting decent communication from PGI, but it could be better. So I am asking for everyone's support to convince PGI to establish one single avenue of communication between all of us customers and them. Whether it's an announcement saying "use whatever specific sub forum for all suggestions/complaints" or if a new method is created, there should only be ONE avenue of communication between us CUSTOMERS and PGI. A prime example, Russ mentioned in the town hall that a large portion of his decision to implement the Kodiak was due to all of the suggestions from Twitter. That suggests to me that twitter is more closely monitored than the game's own forum If you have read this far, please understand that this post is intended to be a move toward better communication between us and PGI, because I think a large existing problem is bad communication. (some may view this post as whining, and I won't be surprised if I get quoted on multiple occasions). So, Russ or any dev at PGI, please at least leave one comment so we know that you have at least read and understood the message here. Otherwise, fire away folks, but please, be constructive here and refrain from leaving an angry post - you know who you are. Cheers and see you on the battlefield!

[CDLord HHGD]

Paragraphs and a tl:dr would be nice.

Though I think you are advocating a SPOC between PGI and us and I think that's a good idea.

[Cion]

HumpingBunny, on 05 February 2016 - 07:13 AM, said:

The MWO player base seems a bit frustrated as of late and my theory is bad communication between PGI and all of us big stompy robot pilots. ....

I'd say basically ALWAYS.

Anyways, Russ has said he's a busy man and for HIM twitter is easier. Being the CEO of his company, I believe him.

Now as for the rest of PGI staff that should be checking the forums and giving summaries to Russ...well...........yeah.

Almost never (but it has happened) we see a forum member or two. Most of the more interactive ones left for other jobs (RIP Karl).

So there you have it.

TLDR: forums are basically a dead end for communicating with PGI

[CDLord HHGD]

If Twitter is to be THE modus of communication then there need to be an overall PGI account (not Russ' personal account) and there should be NO bans. Open to ALL communication, the good, the bad, the ugly; and it should be made official via these here forums.

[Dread Render]

agreed 100%
I do not have twitter and i will not get twitter.
They chose twitter because of the impersonal nature of it. I guess it gives then kind of a layer of insulation from us.
We totally can do better.

I suggest we figure out how to agree on one issue at a time, get some number of people who agree and present the issues like that. One at a time with a large consensus to PGI. Lets getr done.

[C I L L I P U D D I]

They don't have to talk to you. What little bit they do, you should be grateful for. They could be like most other game companies and just send in a HR/PR Rep and tell you very politely to sod off. They're a business and have no binding agreement to have any interaction with its customers. And to be quite honest, why would they want to check on the forums or on any sort of new communication channel? Most of the post in here are some sort of bash fest complaining about things that actually don't exist or taking things said completely out of context.

I know there's a group of players that think they should have a direct line to Russ's office and he should drop everything he's doing to listen to them but it's just not how things really work.

[Doman Hugin]

There are too few dev posts on these forums to give the impression that they do anything but occational look at them.

The biggest dissapointment in my eye's was when the PTS was active, New sub-forums were created and the players encoraged to post their thoughts.
The result was mostly considered opinions and constructive comments, and for all the hundreds of posts in that sub-forum I did not see one reply from PGI there. I might have missed them, but it felt like a total waste of time.

[Dread Render]

We as a community need to figure out how to agree on some topic to some percent of consensus... say 70%.
So lets say 70% of us agree there should be an ejection seat sequence when your mech is destroyed, and that references to "Kill" should be replaced with "Mech Destroyed".

We then present that request to PGI as an official player base request.

[HumpingBunny]

CILLIPUDDI, you have very valid points. My point is that PGI is obviously willing to communicate with all of us (which I am thankful for) but if they are going to talk to us, why not improve the method if there is room for improvement?

Render, on 05 February 2016 - 07:34 AM, said:

We as a community need to figure out how to agree on some topic to some percent of consensus... say 70%.
So lets say 70% of us agree there should be an ejection seat sequence when your mech is destroyed, and that references to "Kill" should be replaced with "Mech Destroyed".

We then present that request to PGI as an official player base request.

Good idea, sir! (I know, I know, I'm a hypocrite for quoting someone)

[FrontGuard]

Render, on 05 February 2016 - 07:34 AM, said:

We as a community need to figure out how to agree on some topic to some percent of consensus... say 70%.
So lets say 70% of us agree there should be an ejection seat sequence when your mech is destroyed, and that references to "Kill" should be replaced with "Mech Destroyed".

We then present that request to PGI as an official player base request.

Hey this is a good Idea. Any computer programmers out there? How could we do this?
I would think we could use the Vote function I have seen on some other posts no?

[CDLord HHGD]

cSand, on 05 February 2016 - 09:11 AM, said:

TBH If I was PGI and I came on these boards much, I'd just end up wanting to tell everyone the STFU "if you don't like it, feel free to make your own MW game. Now f**k off!"

Someday I will win the lottery.....

[WarHippy]

C I L L I P U D D I, on 05 February 2016 - 07:27 AM, said:

They don't have to talk to you. 1)What little bit they do, you should be grateful for. 2)They could be like most other game companies and just send in a HR/PR Rep and tell you very politely to sod off. They're a business and have no binding agreement to have any interaction with its customers. And to be quite honest, why would they want to check on the forums or on any sort of new communication channel? Most of the post in here are some sort of bash fest complaining about things that actually don't exist or taking things said completely out of context.

I know there's a group of players that think they should have a direct line to Russ's office and he should drop everything he's doing to listen to them but it's just not how things really work.

1)Complete nonsense
2)Most successful games the devs actually communicate regularly on their forums and in others places. It is the games that generally do poorly and have some of the most frustrated players that have piss poor communication with the developers.

Communication goes a very long way to help a community/game thrive and for a lot of the toxicity to be muted. There is simply no excuse for how things are handled around here. Add to that with better communication there would be a lot less riots when they do something seemingly out of nowhere. Sure Russ might actually be busy as CEO(I highly doubt it given I work for a privately owned business significantly larger than PGI and our CEO makes himself readily available), but there is no excuse for other members of the team to be so incredibly absent. Tina is our community manager, but what exactly is she managing? It surely isn't the community as she has almost no presence within it.

[MechaBattler]

Doman Hugin, on 05 February 2016 - 07:31 AM, said:

There are too few dev posts on these forums to give the impression that they do anything but occational look at them.

The biggest dissapointment in my eye's was when the PTS was active, New sub-forums were created and the players encoraged to post their thoughts.
The result was mostly considered opinions and constructive comments, and for all the hundreds of posts in that sub-forum I did not see one reply from PGI there. I might have missed them, but it felt like a total waste of time.

Were you expecting an open dialogue with all questions answered? They can't respond to one person. Because everyone is a brilliant arm chair developer and feels entitled to be the one to talk to them. And people can't really agree on things like that.

While they didn't respond to specific things. They did follow the majority feedback. Which was people didn't want their precious favorite thing nerfed. So the laser mechanic went out the window. Apparently that was too "complex" for some people. Better we kept it dough headed and simple.

[MrJeffers]

cSand, on 05 February 2016 - 09:11 AM, said:

[Redacted]

Considering the amount of bittervet hate/complaint threads, comments when PGI does post, it should be obvious why PGI doesn't post in the threads.

Just because they are not posting doesn't mean they are not monitoring.
And just because they didn't implement random mechwarrior893272984's idea doesn't mean they are not listening.

Try and find a consensus (especially 70% like someone mentioned) on *any* topic on these forums. So naturally there are going to a ton of people who feel they are not listened to.

[C I L L I P U D D I]

WarHippy, on 05 February 2016 - 09:37 AM, said:

1)Complete nonsense
2)Most successful games the devs actually communicate regularly on their forums and in others places. It is the games that generally do poorly and have some of the most frustrated players that have piss poor communication with the developers.

Communication goes a very long way to help a community/game thrive and for a lot of the toxicity to be muted. There is simply no excuse for how things are handled around here. Add to that with better communication there would be a lot less riots when they do something seemingly out of nowhere. Sure Russ might actually be busy as CEO(I highly doubt it given I work for a privately owned business significantly larger than PGI and our CEO makes himself readily available), but there is no excuse for other members of the team to be so incredibly absent. Tina is our community manager, but what exactly is she managing? It surely isn't the community as she has almost no presence within it.

I started reading your post, then saw you Founder's Tag, completely ignored the rest.

[Coolant]

HumpingBunny, on 05 February 2016 - 07:13 AM, said:

The MWO player base seems a bit frustrated as of late...

Is this backed by any kind of evidence or do you often state opinion as fact?

[Moldur]

I am more than certain that PGI lurks the forums even though they say nothing. I have had 1 or 2 highly heretical posts of mine ninja removed with zero notification, zero strikes on my acc, nothing.

I believe one of them was after some completely nonsensical game change or tweak that was completely maligned with reality (same kinda deal as the highlander ballistic quirks.)

I posted in size 24 font "This just in, PGI doesn't even play test their own game." accompanied with the goodfellas gif

Edited by Moldur, 05 February 2016 - 07:22 PM.

[WarHippy]

C I L L I P U D D I, on 05 February 2016 - 05:57 PM, said:

I started reading your post, then saw you Founder's Tag, completely ignored the rest.

Can't refute what I said so you came up with an absurd excuse to ignore it. My irrelevant founders tag is supposed to prove what exactly? Using that as an excuse to ignore what I said is the equivalent of a child putting his fingers in his ears and saying "nah nah nah can't hear you".

[JediPanther]

I've always found the whole "twitter russ to change" route to be highly odd. Pgi does keep the forums running to some extend and every few hundred years a dev might make a post or comment on a topic. I'm pretty sure any official post on the forums with a pgi account is highly moderated from within. They must use the forums for some purpose other than a player whine fest or they wouldn't bother wasting the resources to even maintain it.

Personally I refuse to use twitter even though I do have an account that I hardly use at all. If I want to message a buddy of mine I'll just use my cell phone to theirs.

[Sandpit]

HumpingBunny, on 05 February 2016 - 07:13 AM, said:

The MWO player base seems a bit frustrated as of late and my theory is bad communication between PGI and all of us big stompy robot pilots. Whenever I make a suggestion, no matter how benign or passionate it may be, I always wonder if that message is received by PGI - I know I'm not the only one. And let's face it, Twitter seems to be the primary avenue of communication between PGI and us pilots, but plenty of us do NOT have a twitter account.

I only know of the twitter communication because of the vast posts on the MWO forum regarding Russ's twitter posts. I understand that twitter can be a useful tool for PGI to communicate with the player base, but we are PGI's customers, not their buddies. I work in an industry where good communication with the customer is absolutely critical and wouldn't you know it, the company I work for is VERY successful. My point here is that communication between us customers and PGI is spread all over the place and a result of that is players getting decent communication from PGI, but it could be better.

So I am asking for everyone's support to convince PGI to establish one single avenue of communication between all of us customers and them. Whether it's an announcement saying "use whatever specific sub forum for all suggestions/complaints" or if a new method is created, there should only be ONE avenue of communication between us CUSTOMERS and PGI. A prime example, Russ mentioned in the town hall that a large portion of his decision to implement the Kodiak was due to all of the suggestions from Twitter. That suggests to me that twitter is more closely monitored than the game's own forum If you have read this far, please understand that this post is intended to be a move toward better communication between us and PGI, because I think a large existing problem is bad communication. (some may view this post as whining, and I won't be surprised if I get quoted on multiple occasions).

So, Russ or any dev at PGI, please at least leave one comment so we know that you have at least read and understood the message here. Otherwise, fire away folks, but please, be constructive here and refrain from leaving an angry post - you know who you are. Cheers and see you on the battlefield!

fixed formatting for easier reading

cdlord, on 05 February 2016 - 07:18 AM, said:

Paragraphs and a tl:dr would be nice.

Though I think you are advocating a SPOC between PGI and us and I think that's a good idea.

I remember when the community melted down Russ said "Lets' work together and build a community and get together and come up with ideas. I'll talk more about it at first townhall meeting"

Then it got ignored (like the rest of the community here)