Armorsmith Archive
Thread: Correspondent Position
OR, the devs COULD make an daily announcement, whenever they are finishing up their work for the day, and summarize the days event, bug removals (and not to mention, bug creation)
GarVa wrote:
If your grumpy then dont post because it will get you suspended and/or banned, your trolling and stating that Tiggs does not respond to the community regularly is a lie and just pointless ranting if post like that continue I will start handing out suspensions. Just because Your personal most important question or concern is not answered individually does not mean that there is a lack of communication. If the devs (or anyone for that matter) were to sit here and reply to every question that each individual feels they deserve an immediate answer to there would never be any game dev going on, there would be no maintenance, there would be no patches, and there would be nothing done.
Community relations Director is not just about posting and there is a ton of work and Tiggs (as you can see by her posting times) pretty much works 24/7 and that is by no means an exaggeration.
ZanthosBlastshield wrote:
RedDestinyCC wrote:
However, if you want to stop this cycle of decay, close accounts/subscriptions, until it becomes unpaletable (they've already been in crisis mode for about 4 months now at least, red lights and sirens are flashing at SOE SWG) for the powers and the SOE SWG team is fired. Then, we can have our game back and operate with a new team, that if only 50% better, is night and day from what we suffer with now.
You might want to re-read the terms and agreements for your license to the game. It's in that box above that button you click, that says "ACCEPT", every time you enter the game. From what I can gather, it's not our game, it's SOE's game. We just pay for access to their content.
If we're not satisfied, the game dies. That means we have control. We also pay the bills and the paychecks with our subscriptions.
As for do I really think that if the game continues its slide that they will get fired? Yes. The game slipped below the 50k active players milestone, AND they've been in red alert crisis mode for about 4 months, at least... the jury and hangman are hovering over SOE SWG team's heads.
Do I think that they could just shut the doors, instead of turning it over to a new team? That is a very real possibility, but here's why I think they will continue with a new team:
- Its the only Star Wars MMORPG there is - it has market potential
- The SWG project has been terribly mismanaged, everyone knows this, including LucasArts, therefore it has not lived up to its potential, and they realize the potential. They tried to support the effort by dedicating a lot of additional resources in crisis mode to try to turn around the failing of the game that is going on now. Given the recognized mismanagement, meaning that if it was properly managed that there is still great opportunity for the gaming community and the business end of SWG
- The game is continuing to fail, and this New SWG (not the revamp of combat that they told us was coming) is this team's last chance to show they can turn it around
- SOE SWG is in a terrible spot, and I don't know if they could undo the New SWG game they're preparing to launch even if they wanted to, despite the scope and momentum of opposition, because they have to score a win. They can't score a win, because they mismanaged it again and split the community by introducing an all new SWG, so they once again mismanaged their way into a corner.
- IMHO, the only way they can turn this around is to acknowledge, due to significant player feedback, that the new SWG will not launch, and that they recognize that in order for the game to be successful, the following has to happen, and that they are 100% committed to doing these things:
- Reach out to and reconcile with the community
- Return to the Classic SWG, not the New SWG
- Real communication, real correspondents, including feedback, evaluation of feedback, and closing the loop at the end by coming back to the community and telling them how they really integrated feedback into improvements
- Regular communition on dev planning through correspondents, which means the correspondents really have to be hooked into the loop
- More accountability for forums moderators
- Less ignoring of issues presented in the forums
- Less arrogance, and less manipulation in communication channels and methods
- Recognition that the only way the game can flourish, is to recognize that the broad base of players have to work with the dev team together, rather than splitting them as they have done through Classic SWG vs. New SWG, and through lack of communication
- Responsiveness to issues such as entertainers, smugglers, bounty hunters, rangers, and any others... put the new dev resources where they belong, by being responsive to player issues, not assigned to undesired game revamps
- Start using positive and broad player support to work in expanding the number of player accounts, through positive media and positive word of mouth from an improved game, rather than the opposite that we have today
- When SOE fails to do these reforms and continues down the path of decay and destruction that they have, they will be fired. Whether that happens sooner rather than later (with prolongued misery), depends largely on people like you to cut this to the quick and cancel those subscriptions.
It's not disrespectful, they brought the monkeys onto their own shoulders, if there's been any disrespect, surely its by SOE SWG towards its community. Surely. I do not pity them, I want them fired, so we can move on to a better game and a stronger community. We've suffered their arrogance, mismanagement, manipulation, and destruction of our game far, far too long. The time for improvements is long past, its time for a lot of firings.
Just off the top of my head...
RedDestinyCC wrote:
ZanthosBlastshield wrote:
RedDestinyCC wrote:However, if you want to stop this cycle of decay, close accounts/subscriptions, until it becomes unpaletable (they've already been in crisis mode for about 4 months now at least, red lights and sirens are flashing at SOE SWG) for the powers and the SOE SWG team is fired. Then, we can have our game back and operate with a new team, that if only 50% better, is night and day from what we suffer with now.
You might want to re-read the terms and agreements for your license to the game. It's in that box above that button you click, that says "ACCEPT", every time you enter the game. From what I can gather, it's not our game, it's SOE's game. We just pay for access to their content.
If we're not satisfied, the game dies. That means we have control. We also pay the bills and the paychecks with our subscriptions.
As for do I really think that if the game continues its slide that they will get fired? Yes. The game slipped below the 50k active players milestone, AND they've been in red alert crisis mode for about 4 months, at least... the jury and hangman are hovering over SOE SWG team's heads.
Do I think that they could just shut the doors, instead of turning it over to a new team? That is a very real possibility, but here's why I think they will continue with a new team:
- Its the only Star Wars MMORPG there is - it has market potential
- The SWG project has been terribly mismanaged, everyone knows this, including LucasArts, therefore it has not lived up to its potential, and they realize the potential. They tried to support the effort by dedicating a lot of additional resources in crisis mode to try to turn around the failing of the game that is going on now. Given the recognized mismanagement, meaning that if it was properly managed that there is still great opportunity for the gaming community and the business end of SWG
- The game is continuing to fail, and this New SWG (not the revamp of combat that they told us was coming) is this team's last chance to show they can turn it around
- SOE SWG is in a terrible spot, and I don't know if they could undo the New SWG game they're preparing to launch even if they wanted to, despite the scope and momentum of opposition, because they have to score a win. They can't score a win, because they mismanaged it again and split the community by introducing an all new SWG, so they once again mismanaged their way into a corner.
- IMHO, the only way they can turn this around is to acknowledge, due to significant player feedback, that the new SWG will not launch, and that they recognize that in order for the game to be successful, the following has to happen, and that they are 100% committed to doing these things:
- Reach out to and reconcile with the community
- Return to the Classic SWG, not the New SWG
- Real communication, real correspondents, including feedback, evaluation of feedback, and closing the loop at the end by coming back to the community and telling them how they really integrated feedback into improvements
- Regular communition on dev planning through correspondents, which means the correspondents really have to be hooked into the loop
- More accountability for forums moderators
- Less ignoring of issues presented in the forums
- Less arrogance, and less manipulation in communication channels and methods
- Recognition that the only way the game can flourish, is to recognize that the broad base of players have to work with the dev team together, rather than splitting them as they have done through Classic SWG vs. New SWG, and through lack of communication
- Responsiveness to issues such as entertainers, smugglers, bounty hunters, rangers, and any others... put the new dev resources where they belong, by being responsive to player issues, not assigned to undesired game revamps
- Start using positive and broad player support to work in expanding the number of player accounts, through positive media and positive word of mouth from an improved game, rather than the opposite that we have today
- When SOE fails to do these reforms and continues down the path of decay and destruction that they have, they will be fired. Whether that happens sooner rather than later (with prolongued misery), depends largely on people like you to cut this to the quick and cancel those subscriptions.
It's not disrespectful, they brought the monkeys onto their own shoulders, if there's been any disrespect, surely its by SOE SWG towards its community. Surely. I do not pity them, I want them fired, so we can move on to a better game and a stronger community. We've suffered their arrogance, mismanagement, manipulation, and destruction of our game far, far too long. The time for improvements is long past, its time for a lot of firings.
Just off the top of my head...
Excellent post. Dead on.
Out of curiousity, where are you getting this number from? The last statistic I saw was from a few months ago, and it had the player base at about 275,000 players, which was steady for over a year. I'm just curious.
RedDestinyCC wrote:
If we're not satisfied, the game dies. That means we have control. We also pay the bills and the paychecks with our subscriptions.
As for do I really think that if the game continues its slide that they will get fired? Yes. The game slipped below the 50k active players milestone, AND they've been in red alert crisis mode for about 4 months, at least... the jury and hangman are hovering over SOE SWG team's heads.
DarthMinos wrote:Out of curiousity, where are you getting this number from? The last statistic I saw was from a few months ago, and it had the player base at about 275,000 players, which was steady for over a year. I'm just curious.
RedDestinyCC wrote:
If we're not satisfied, the game dies. That means we have control. We also pay the bills and the paychecks with our subscriptions.
As for do I really think that if the game continues its slide that they will get fired? Yes. The game slipped below the 50k active players milestone, AND they've been in red alert crisis mode for about 4 months, at least... the jury and hangman are hovering over SOE SWG team's heads.
They are probably not being overly clear about the number of players and the number of accounts.
Most everyone I know and interact with on a daily basis has at least two accounts. I'd say a good number of players have at least two accounts. Second, many people have toons on different servers.
Are they counting # of toons that are active? Number of accounts on the same credit card as one or two players?
Unless they are clear about that, and they aren't, there will be spin.
I'm sure SOE is not only falsly infalting the numbers, just lying about them, but they are not making the distinction between player and accounts.
There are probably far fewer PLAYERS than 275k.
TEH DEVS ARE TURNING SWG INTO EVERSTARWOWQUEST!
Gleemonkey wrote:
DarthMinos wrote:
Out of curiousity, where are you getting this number from? The last statistic I saw was from a few months ago, and it had the player base at about 275,000 players, which was steady for over a year. I'm just curious.
RedDestinyCC wrote:
If we're not satisfied, the game dies. That means we have control. We also pay the bills and the paychecks with our subscriptions.
As for do I really think that if the game continues its slide that they will get fired? Yes. The game slipped below the 50k active players milestone, AND they've been in red alert crisis mode for about 4 months, at least... the jury and hangman are hovering over SOE SWG team's heads.
They are probably not being overly clear about the number of players and the number of accounts.
Most everyone I know and interact with on a daily basis has at least two accounts. I'd say a good number of players have at least two accounts. Second, many people have toons on different servers.
Are they counting # of toons that are active? Number of accounts on the same credit card as one or two players?
Unless they are clear about that, and they aren't, there will be spin.
I'm sure SOE is not only falsly infalting the numbers, just lying about them, but they are not making the distinction between player and accounts.
There are probably far fewer PLAYERS than 275k.
That was a number I got off an independant site I found on google, not SWG. It was talking about accounts. While I'm sure its not that high, a subscription base below 50k would really, really surprise me.
DarthMinos wrote:
Gleemonkey wrote:
DarthMinos wrote:Out of curiousity, where are you getting this number from? The last statistic I saw was from a few months ago, and it had the player base at about 275,000 players, which was steady for over a year. I'm just curious.
RedDestinyCC wrote:
If we're not satisfied, the game dies. That means we have control. We also pay the bills and the paychecks with our subscriptions.
As for do I really think that if the game continues its slide that they will get fired? Yes. The game slipped below the 50k active players milestone, AND they've been in red alert crisis mode for about 4 months, at least... the jury and hangman are hovering over SOE SWG team's heads.
They are probably not being overly clear about the number of players and the number of accounts.
Most everyone I know and interact with on a daily basis has at least two accounts. I'd say a good number of players have at least two accounts. Second, many people have toons on different servers.
Are they counting # of toons that are active? Number of accounts on the same credit card as one or two players?
Unless they are clear about that, and they aren't, there will be spin.
I'm sure SOE is not only falsly infalting the numbers, just lying about them, but they are not making the distinction between player and accounts.
There are probably far fewer PLAYERS than 275k.
That was a number I got off an independant site I found on google, not SWG. It was talking about accounts. While I'm sure its not that high, a subscription base below 50k would really, really surprise me.
Okay, suppose there are 275k total accounts that are "active." Do they mean ones that aren't deleted? Or do they mean ones that are in hiatus, as it were, people who have canceled but have not been purged from the servers?
I'm a mayor and I assure you that although I techinically have over 75 citizens in my city, some of them have not been on in months but are they still "active?"
Secondly, if only 20% of the population has more than one account, and I know some pepole that have 4 and 5, even 8 accounts, that radically diminishes the total number of players.
I have two accounts, but I'm one player. Piss me off enough, one or both will die.
anyway, like in everything SOE is gonna spin and lie with statistics.
RedDestinyCC wrote:
KzinKiller wrote:
RedDestinyCC wrote:
Eloquently put, and I think it highlights a core, fundamental problem with the Forums that all longtime SWG subscribers appreciate, if they are not consciously aware of it. The purpose of the Forums is not to either gather customer opinion, distribute useful information to customers, or allow customers to communicate useful information to each other. If the Forums ever had that purpose, it was eliminated when a General Discussion forum that all customers could initiate discussion in was eliminated and customers were Balkanized into a hundred fractured forums to sift through for useful information.
The Forums serve a Public Relations purpose, allowing the marketeers at the front office to spin decisions that have been made, sell us new product, and tell us how 'valuable' our opinions are. The problem is that, despite the obvious conclusion that any longtime customer can come to ... that the Forums have no actual informative purpose ... the CR team continues to sell the company line that the Forums have anything but a P.R. purpose. The obvious disconnect between reality and this message is the source of a lot of customer frustration.
You can get over this frustration very simply, by remember that whatever your opinion is about the current state of the game, the past decisions about the game, and the proposed changes to the game, nobody employed at SOE could care less about that opinion, and certainly doesn't look at this Forum to gather relevant information that impacts project decisions. The Forums are to sell you product and sell you the decisions that have been made in a meeting room far, far away from the Forums. Once you accept that, you can stop bashing Tiggs and Garva and whoever else is trotted out here as a sacrificial lamb to pay lip service to the valid concerns of paying customers. I don't envy their job, I wouldn't do it for anything in the world. They're the Baghdad Bobs for SOE, and their troops will always be marching to glorious victory, regardless of what's actually happening outside their cubicle walls.Can't disagree with most of your points, but its rather apathetic and does not take ownership or leadership of SWG and we as its customers. If you want to fold tent and bend over, to continue being SOE's sheep, continue to allow SOE to destroy our game and our community, pitting players against players, players against correspondents, continued erosion of the playerbase, and positive player perception and active participation towards improving the game and playerbase, and let things continue to slide (dropped below 50k active accounts... still dropping), well then you're doing the right thing.
However, if you want to stop this cycle of decay, close accounts/subscriptions, until it becomes unpaletable (they've already been in crisis mode for about 4 months now at least, red lights and sirens are flashing at SOE SWG) for the powers and the SOE SWG team is fired. Then, we can have our game back and operate with a new team, that if only 50% better, is night and day from what we suffer with now.
I don't disagree with that at all ... I voted with my dollars months ago. I'm back for 1 month to forestall character wipe and test the waters about what has changed in management competence since I left. Since nothing has changed in that area, I'm gone again at the end of that month and I'll check back in the fall to see if they've recovered from the CURB yet or whether it's still the same disorganized cluster____,
RedDestinyCC wrote:
ZanthosBlastshield wrote:
RedDestinyCC wrote:
However, if you want to stop this cycle of decay, close accounts/subscriptions, until it becomes unpaletable (they've already been in crisis mode for about 4 months now at least, red lights and sirens are flashing at SOE SWG) for the powers and the SOE SWG team is fired. Then, we can have our game back and operate with a new team, that if only 50% better, is night and day from what we suffer with now.
You might want to re-read the terms and agreements for your license to the game. It's in that box above that button you click, that says "ACCEPT", every time you enter the game. From what I can gather, it's not our game, it's SOE's game. We just pay for access to their content.
If we're not satisfied, the game dies. That means we have control. We also pay the bills and the paychecks with our subscriptions.
As for do I really think that if the game continues its slide that they will get fired? Yes. The game slipped below the 50k active players milestone, AND they've been in red alert crisis mode for about 4 months, at least... the jury and hangman are hovering over SOE SWG team's heads.
Do I think that they could just shut the doors, instead of turning it over to a new team? That is a very real possibility, but here's why I think they will continue with a new team:
- Its the only Star Wars MMORPG there is - it has market potential
- The SWG project has been terribly mismanaged, everyone knows this, including LucasArts, therefore it has not lived up to its potential, and they realize the potential. They tried to support the effort by dedicating a lot of additional resources in crisis mode to try to turn around the failing of the game that is going on now. Given the recognized mismanagement, meaning that if it was properly managed that there is still great opportunity for the gaming community and the business end of SWG
- The game is continuing to fail, and this New SWG (not the revamp of combat that they told us was coming) is this team's last chance to show they can turn it around
- SOE SWG is in a terrible spot, and I don't know if they could undo the New SWG game they're preparing to launch even if they wanted to, despite the scope and momentum of opposition, because they have to score a win. They can't score a win, because they mismanaged it again and split the community by introducing an all new SWG, so they once again mismanaged their way into a corner.
- IMHO, the only way they can turn this around is to acknowledge, due to significant player feedback, that the new SWG will not launch, and that they recognize that in order for the game to be successful, the following has to happen, and that they are 100% committed to doing these things:
- Reach out to and reconcile with the community
- Return to the Classic SWG, not the New SWG
- Real communication, real correspondents, including feedback, evaluation of feedback, and closing the loop at the end by coming back to the community and telling them how they really integrated feedback into improvements
- Regular communition on dev planning through correspondents, which means the correspondents really have to be hooked into the loop
- More accountability for forums moderators
- Less ignoring of issues presented in the forums
- Less arrogance, and less manipulation in communication channels and methods
- Recognition that the only way the game can flourish, is to recognize that the broad base of players have to work with the dev team together, rather than splitting them as they have done through Classic SWG vs. New SWG, and through lack of communication
- Responsiveness to issues such as entertainers, smugglers, bounty hunters, rangers, and any others... put the new dev resources where they belong, by being responsive to player issues, not assigned to undesired game revamps
- Start using positive and broad player support to work in expanding the number of player accounts, through positive media and positive word of mouth from an improved game, rather than the opposite that we have today
- When SOE fails to do these reforms and continues down the path of decay and destruction that they have, they will be fired. Whether that happens sooner rather than later (with prolongued misery), depends largely on people like you to cut this to the quick and cancel those subscriptions.
It's not disrespectful, they brought the monkeys onto their own shoulders, if there's been any disrespect, surely its by SOE SWG towards its community. Surely. I do not pity them, I want them fired, so we can move on to a better game and a stronger community. We've suffered their arrogance, mismanagement, manipulation, and destruction of our game far, far too long. The time for improvements is long past, its time for a lot of firings.
Just off the top of my head...
Skywalker123 wrote:
Furybaka wrote:
Real Mail needs to be sent to: (They specifically requested that we send them to the generic address and not to a specific dept)
- Lucas Arts
- PO Box 10307
- San Rafael, CA 94912
Message Edited by Liamo on 04-16-2005 01:41 AM
GarVa wrote:
Grumpalicious wrote:Does anyone else find it odd that someone with "Community Relations" in their title can become too so busy working that they cannot respond to the community. When I see good people that bust their butts at their totally unrelated job and are still taking time to post for the betterment of the community in every forum I visit and then see someone, whos actual job it is to post in those forums, complain that they get too busy and cannot respond it really tweaks my mellon.Meh, I'm just grumpy I guess. Where's my coffee?If your grumpy then dont post because it will get you suspended and/or banned, your trolling and stating that Tiggs does not respond to the community regularly is a lie and just pointless ranting if post like that continue I will start handing out suspensions. Just because Your personal most important question or concern is not answered individually does not mean that there is a lack of communication. If the devs (or anyone for that matter) were to sit here and reply to every question that each individual feels they deserve an immediate answer to there would never be any game dev going on, there would be no maintenance, there would be no patches, and there would be nothing done.
Community relations Director is not just about posting and there is a ton of work and Tiggs (as you can see by her posting times) pretty much works 24/7 and that is by no means an exaggeration.
Hmm, and admin. nice Sig, but Ohram2k Impressed me more. Look around on here before deleting threads and doing spin dude. We were told there was going to be a combat upgrade, ok, fine. then we're told that AS will be modified too. Ok, we were curious, went through the burn hoops. analysed the CU crafting side. and brought forth what needs to be improved to make the game something speical. Okhram2k listened to our concerns. And Garva, this wasn't a PERSONAL MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION, this was concerns from the COMMUNITY. Coming from a group of people that do AS on a regualar basis, We know what we are talking about. heck, we understand devs want to push with some modifications, and we're willing to go with that, but we'd also want to see some things fixed that make the game unruly and unbalanced.
oh, and can someone PLEASE point out to me where one can get banned for mood swings. As far as I know as long as Grumpalicious keeps things kosher, he can be moody. heck seen it on other forums.
"
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