Armorsmith Archive
Thread: Correspondent Position
DarthMinos wrote:
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, here is the site I was looking at.
mmogchart.com
You have to look at the various pages, because none give the exact number, but in February of 2005, SWG had a market share of about 9% of the accounts in the MMORPG community of about 3.4 million. That comes out to about 315,000 subscriptions. The study did not include Lineage, Lineage II, or Ragnarok Online in its totals or in total market share.
There is another chart that includes both Lineage games, and in that case, SWG's share drops to 3.4%. Apparently, the Lineage games are really, really big in Asia. Its interesting stuff. Be sure to check out the links on both the main page and on the tool bar to the left to get the full picture.
Docbengal wrote:
Tiggs wrote:
I am sure we are all in agreement with having them bang away at issues and bugs with CU rather then post all day.Im probably stirring up old dirt, but I only got this far before I needed to reply. I could be wrong, but I dont think Tiggs does coding for the CU. I was under the impression that as the community relations person, it was her job to communicate with the playerbase. So I dont think it would detract from those doing the actual development work and code writing for her to come onto the boards and tell us whats going on.Now if Tiggs has other obligations than being the PR person and is actually hammering out bugs, then thats different.
I'm more amused at the "banging away at bugs with CU".
for summary of Armorsmithing in CU, it's unbalanced. unweldy, and rather rudely developed. and that's putting it mildly. Personaly. I WANT that dev's job. because for the amount he's making a year, a college student could put out the CU. a real dev would put out something great.
"
For all your Field Protections needs (as well as Reb Master Munitions Crafter ).
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...
QFE!
Alien-hating-Imperial wrote: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.
they have to ( or would have to) send a report to higher ups. just the way the business goes. So far what updating we do see, is what we get.
I know a few of us have applied. Any word on when/if we will have one prior to CU?
OptAEON wrote:
Also have to wonder, why would a person in a position to break rules over a game ?