Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Community Relations Follow-up
/bow
BleuDestiny wrote:
Cotasnoova1 wrote:
When I read these post and TH responses...I kinda wonder. The THs seem to be setting us up...for the usual, but now, we should EXPECT and NOT get mad when what the say doesnt come to fruition.
We were told we were going to get "lots" of info and TH post on the balance back in 2003. 2004 sucked...2005 we no longer slide out of our chair (game breaking bug fix thanks)
So the DEVS seem to be saying that they can give us all the fluff, mild truth,and lies in the world, but now, we cant bank on those cause it can all change.
Thats the truth, and the fact of it is as we have said in prior replies that Calandryll_SOE has ignored thus far, or purposely skirted, that the modus operandi around here is to go into the ivory tower with a challenge, develop a solution in a vacuum, and come back and spew their solution on us, too late to have any say in the drafting of the solution.
Okay...butwhat some don't understand (apparently) is that players have had a "say" in drafting the solution.
These forums are part of that. The Correspondents (and theSummit we attended)was a big part of that.
So more often than not, we find the solution less than desirable at best. So, I've been asking all along, when is this great new communication around here going to include community input into drafting solutions before it goes to code and is too late to reverse.
I think if they tried to 'communicate' in the fashion you describe above, nothing would ever get coded (cause they'd have to keep revising the solution based on fickle user input). /shrug
But our new partner Calandryll_SOEdoes not care to reply to this element, and the designers, who have brought us some doosies like FRS, negative XP, and a long list of design oddities and poor solutions, continues to work in a vacuum, a la combat revamp.
When I read some of the posts on this thread, I'd probably want to code in a vacuum too.
Note: They aren't in a vacuum. They do read posts and take that input, in addition to that received from the Correspondents. You may not like to hear that truth....but the truth it is, nonetheless.
There is no buy-in to that which we had no input, and given this dev team's track record of putting out "enjoyable" solutions to past blunders, I'm just not hopeful until they start getting some community input into the design of solutions.
Then you're failing to understand that (in many cases) it is worthwhile for them to get feedback that's untainted by a player posting when they think a Dev is 'watching' (which they are...).
Example: If you want to find out what people honestlythink of you, personally, are you going to literally stand right in front of them while you try to get them to be honest about how they feel?!?
...I didn't think so.
Don't just ask us what's wrong, or tell us what's bugged, run some concepts by the community, or representatives of the community (focus groups) before you go into hard development.
Correspondents. Summit. 'Focus Groups' == Forum categories (i.e. Profession boards)
Starting to get the picture?
The track record on solution designs (to fix prior solution designs) is very poor.
...."in my opinion."
You forgot to add that.
The fact is... they started announcing combat revamp aka. combat upgrade beta for January, that's here and now, so guess what?
Uhhh....I guess: January's not over yet (unless you live in some alternate 4th dimension).
Not only do you all, as fellow SWG gamers, customers, and members of this community not know the fundamentals of this combat upgrade we're going to be handed in much the same way we've been handed everything else designed in a vacuum, but you all also had no ability to feedback on the design path that got us to the beta, so...
Some of the community knows the fundamentals. All of the Correspondentsdo.
What I'd put forth to you...
Do you expect them to build some solution that pleases literally everyone? And has some suggestion or idea or "feedback" from every single person that visits the forum?
It sounds very much like that's what you're suggesting.
Is that what you expect (honestly)?
Respectfully,
/bow
NeoCai wrote:
I am still going to push that there needs to be much more open communication on what's coming down the pike. A vision document before coding comes through and then some input.
When the PTBs feel like the info should flow, it will (in the form they choose best fitting). However, I think releasing some "vision" document to everyone before any coding is done is a bad idea.
Example: Microsoft is going to start working some 'revamp' of part of Windows. Do they need to present a vision document to every user first? That's basically what you're saying, pretty much.
As it is, we have a program coming that will be beta tested for just obvious bugs, no input on any major changes since they will be coded already. A la JTL beta, where all we did was look for bugs, any major revisions were left by the way side.
With all due respect, I disagree. Part of the reason for the Summit (I think I'm okay to say) was specificially to discuss "input on any major changes". In addition, what if???
We gave them input on major changes. Implementing said major changes" pushed off the release of the CURB by....3 months. That okay with you?
How about 6 months?
How about it delays the CURB 3 months, which leads to delaying the GCW changes another 3 months?
You okay with that too? Do you think the entire playerbase would be?
I think you get the point.
It's not all as black and white as many posters here would like to pretend it to be.
Respectfully,
TheRealTK421 wrote:
NeoCai wrote:
I am still going to push that there needs to be much more open communication on what's coming down the pike. A vision document before coding comes through and then some input.
When the PTBs feel like the info should flow, it will (in the form they choose best fitting). However, I think releasing some "vision" document to everyone before any coding is done is a bad idea.
Example: Microsoft is going to start working some 'revamp' of part of Windows. Do they need to present a vision document to every user first? That's basically what you're saying, pretty much.
Actually Microsoft does tell us what's coming months in advance. I know what's coming with R2 for server 2003 later this year. I'm excited about that. I appreciate it.
As it is, we have a program coming that will be beta tested for just obvious bugs, no input on any major changes since they will be coded already. A la JTL beta, where all we did was look for bugs, any major revisions were left by the way side.
With all due respect, I disagree. Part of the reason for the Summit (I think I'm okay to say) was specificially to discuss "input on any major changes". In addition, what if???
We gave them input on major changes. Implementing said major changes" pushed off the release of the CURB by....3 months. That okay with you?
How about 6 months?
How about it delays the CURB 3 months, which leads to delaying the GCW changes another 3 months?
You okay with that too? Do you think the entire playerbase would be?
I think you get the point.
It's not all as black and white as many posters here would like to pretend it to be.
/bow
Neither is it as grey as you claim it to be. We have encountered months and months and months of broken promises, mistruths and no communication. Being an ex Correspondent, when was the last time we had a dev response to anything from the professions community? An actual response to our top issues? All we get from our Correspondents tends to be either "Dream a better thing for future events:" or "The CU is gonna be awesome! Really! Trust us!"
I would ask you to step outside your place of being an ex correspondent, a contributor to the Summit, and someone with inside knowledge and put yourself in the vast majority of longtime players who have been consistently ignored and misled. I've heard its gonna rock. I've heard I'm gonna be blown away. The problem is I've been hearing that for over a year. To be perfectly honest I no longer trust the Dev team.
Respectfully,
scall01 wrote:
Calandryll_SOE wrote:
This week's Friday Feature...well let's just say it's very cool and leave it at that.
I'm hoping that was sarcasm.
Let me get this straight... since you're hoping it was sarcasm, you're hoping that this week's Friday Feature won't be very cool?
I'm hoping more for literal meaning and not sarcasm. 
Message Edited by DeQuosaek on 01-18-2005 12:49 AM
Because they are the most dedicated players that have invested the most in the SWG community... for starters. (referring to the Correspondents)
AnXdiety wrote:
To further expand on my previous post in this thread is why are 200+ players elevated above the rest of us that have full access to the documents and the information currently any different from the rest of us that pay the same money per month?
Calandryll_SOE wrote:
aradz wrote:
Calandryll_SOE wrote:
Heh. Well we are working on a CU overview update to get things started and serve as a basis for the upcoming Developer Chat and future CU updates. That's in addition to the FF.
The developer chat is scheduled for Wednesday, January 19, 2005 at 7PM CDT. That's 1 Day, 14 Hours, 38 Minutes from this post. I would really like to be able to read this and digest it before the chat happens, so I can ask meaningful questions, rather than stuff that's already been answered.
Please, let us know when this is up.
That's the plan!
Getting antsy....Getting really antsy....
I shouldnt have had so much coffee today....
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Same here.
RankorCity wrote:
Getting antsy....Getting really antsy....
I shouldnt have had so much coffee today....
Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.
'Johnnie! What can you make of this?!? /handsinfo'
'Oh! Well...I can make broach or a nice flower or a pterodactyl, or...'
/bow
Respectfully,
Ever been in a turkish prison?
Do you enjoy movies about gladiators?
Ever seen a grown man naked?
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Same here.
RankorCity wrote:
Getting antsy....Getting really antsy....
I shouldnt have had so much coffee today....
Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.
'Johnnie! What can you make of this?!? /handsinfo'
'Oh! Well...I can make broach or a nice flower or a pterodactyl, or...'
/bow
Respectfully,
Hope they devote one entire server and a few T3 lines to handle the barrage of hits that post is going to hit...
Perhaps today wasnt the best day to revamp the forums. Or it could be a good test to see how they hold up under the massive amount of traffic that will hit that ONE post....
Calandryll_SOE wrote:
aradz wrote:
Calandryll_SOE wrote:
Heh. Well we are working on a CU overview update to get things started and serve as a basis for the upcoming Developer Chat and future CU updates. That's in addition to the FF.
The developer chat is scheduled for Wednesday, January 19, 2005 at 7PM CDT. That's 1 Day, 14 Hours, 38 Minutes from this post. I would really like to be able to read this and digest it before the chat happens, so I can ask meaningful questions, rather than stuff that's already been answered.
Please, let us know when this is up.
That's the plan!
Currently at 1 Day, 3 Hours, 30 Minutes.
You know this change better then I ever will. What it turned out to be from my perspective was a case where the developers sat in the shadows and actually listened to us. I do wish that they would have given us more feedback on our ideas during that time (as I recall, there was very little info coming from the devs about what they were doing till it hit test server). However, they were able to feed some info thru you and in the end, we could see that progress was made. It was a huge change for the game in that patch. However, was it the end all be all patch for DE's? I think we can agree the answer there is no. But we would also agree that it was a huge step in the right direction. That's positive progress. What is lacking from this is an idea of what the team has in mind for us. A end point of sorts. How, in an ideal world, would they like us and our product to fit into the game? So, while I can agree that progress was made, I can't measure how much was made.
Second example I can give you is the infamous combat changes. It started out as a new HAM system that did at one point hit Test Server. It later got pulled off. Problem is that there were changes that did make it into the game that were ment to work under a new combat system that was still under development. The Jedi for instance were set up to work under the new system as is after the removal of some modifiers so they can function under the old system. This combat change is about how old? (Not asking for dramatic effect. About a year sound right?) It has been delayed for lack of resources, re-vamping their goals, higher priority things such as the removal of the hologrind (which you like or don't like, at least it was progress), and also seems to be taken on and off the back burner at (from the prospective of a player) random times.
I do not get to see all of the internal workings inside their office. Honestly, if a game is healthy, I don't care about thier internal's.
Perception of this game from those who either never played it or quit playing it is that it is broken and not improving. (I state this as what folks who have no interest in this game have said to me when they ask why I still play.)
From a customer perspective, there seems to be no pattern I can depend upon. Some major revamps get done and bumped on priority out of the blue (removal of hologrind was that way) and some just never seem to happen.
Look, things changing do not bother me. Yes, they might bother some folks, but if positive progress is made by that change then attitudes begin to change. Heck, things were almost positive on the DE boards after our patch. As you know, that is high praise coming from that group at that time. We were nasty, angry, and untrusting of the developers there to the point where they wouldn't talk to us beyond the minimum.
Is that a good model for them to follow for the community as a whole?
At least I would like to know what a generalized finish line is. Hell, even that can change, but at least it gives me hope. Where and what is the developer vision right now for the various systems? Is there even one? I can't say one way or the other because the communication is so poor.
They have two evils to choose from.
If they say anything, people will hound them about it. (And, if they do say they will do something, they need to get in the habbit of giving us a date and sticking to it. That is just good practice. If something changes that they would "like" to do, then people do have the right to complain. Things do change, but nothing says we have to be happy about it. Of course it is nice when we are though. I do think that some people on the board could be more polite when dealing with the developers at the VERY least.)
If they say nothing, will they loose contact with us and will we loose hope about the future of the game?
DeQuosaek wrote:
Actually, the Reverse Engineering system underwent a major revision during the beta testing of JtL.
NeoCai wrote:
As it is, we have a program coming that will be beta tested for just obvious bugs, no input on any major changes since they will be coded already. A la JTL beta, where all we did was look for bugs, any major revisions were left by the way side.
Actually not ontly did RE get reworked the whole shipwright profession got reworked, from 2 (novice,elite) professions to 1 elite profession tied into artisan eng.
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Is that what you expect (honestly)?
/bow
Respectfully,
There's a big difference between involving the community in providing feedback to design objectives and potential solutions, and what has been the case to date, which is a bunch of unfocused barfing of ideas and problems on the forums. That lack of focus has been a direct result of a lack of focus and a lack of leadership by the dev team. They have not solicited our focused feedback about specific and alternative solutions. This is easily done. One way that its done in marketing fundamentals it to conduct focus groups, by getting some randomly selected volunteers to be a sounding board to their ideas before they go into coding.
Based on what you're telling me, the FRS system and negative XP, as examples of undesired outcomes, and many other crazy design examples, were a direct result of community input. LOL, that is not the case.
P.S. I see some have suggested that you're taking a snobbish approach to this, frankly I'm more concerned by the lack of perspective. You honestly mean to say that we'd not be better off by some community input into developing the solutions, while they're being developed, in a reasonable, focused manner being led by the dev team? You can't honestly believe that? And if you do, there's no point in arguing with that kind of perceptive ability.
Message Edited by BleuDestiny on 01-18-2005 02:20 PM