Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In Develepment #2004-1: Changes to the Official Forum Take 2
So let me get this straight (and please, correct me if I'm wrong):
The "New" forums are Dev-only "New Threads", but we can post replies.
So, we can ONLY post ORIGINAL ideas on the Galaxy message boards...?
So, what if I play 4 characters, do I cross-post on all the Galaxies I play on?
If something affects multiple professions (say, Carbine issues which affect 3 professions), then I have to cross-post on the professions affected?
If something is just a general suggestion,I have to wait for a Dev to start a thread and then reply or hijack a thread?
This does NOT look good for the customer... and, requoting for emphasis:
"How will the emperor keep control without the bureaucracy?"
"The regional governors now have direct control over their territories."
--- (Star Wars IV - A New Hope)
Scorus wrote:
I suggest not doing away with the current Discussion forum as the most likely result will be that you will end up with one anyway and will get a reputation for trying to stifle communications by doing away with the forum that held the most criticism. This action will be counter-productive to your attempts to build a reputation as a provider of quality customer service.
Ah, but you forget, the Developers, at every turn, remind us that THEY are NOT responsible for customer service!
Just another nail in the coffin of my subscription...
R2DADROID wrote:
"You mean like a general discussion forum?"
Ok. I will post again to clarify:
Three seperate forums:
Forum 1:
Player Suggested Big Picture/ Idea Wish List Forum
- A forum where people can create threads about what they'd like to see in the game.
Things not related to the Galactic Civil War. Things that effect multiple professions. An example is combat droids. The devs are now talking about putting them in the game. I believe that the idea was generated by players. The idea would not have gotten as much support if it only existed in the Droid Engineer forum.
This would be moderated and threads would have to fit in with the gist of the forum or be locked.
Devs would only look at the threads with the most support. We would be told as much. Devs would respond every once in a while saying something like "great idea, and we will try to keep it in mind. However, we can not make any promise at this time about when or if ever this feature will be implimented."
Perhaps this forum would have its own correspondent to bring the best ideas to the developers, so they don't have to read it all that often.
Forum 2:
Player Suggested Changes to Current Features
A forum where people can create threads about things that are in the game that they'd like changed.
This would for suggestions about changing the user interface, inventory management, transportation, how to improve the general combat system, ways to improve the in-game economy, issues with houses and player cities, etc. Devs would only respond to the most wanted changes. Anything that does not fit in with the theme of the forum will be locked.
The forum would not be about bugs. Bugs would go on the Technical Support forum.
Perhaps this forum would have its own correspondent, or have the same correspondent as Forum 1.
Forum 3
Cantina
- A forum that is more of a free-for-all.
This forum would act as the game's water cooler. People from allgalaxies and all professions can meet there. It should be moderated, but people should not expect any developer to read the forum.
Again though R2DADROID, all 3 of your forums are already contained in the Discussion forum.
My biggest problem is that they say this si to increase communication. How in the world is this an increase in communication when only 1 side of the communication pipeline is able to iniate a conversation? That's nit a dialouge, that's a monologue.
And yes, we can still post our ideas on the indvidual Galaxy boards, but they've already said they aren;t going ot read those. That there doesn't even rate as a monologue; That's talkign to a brick wall.
"I noticed the "In Content" forum is available from the drop-down list. When can we access and use it?"
You can access it now, but there isn't anything posted yet.I'll be posting current topics to In-Concept and In-Development all this week and next.
It wont be an open forum per se though. It will work like the In Development forum - - Developers will start threads and players will post. This is so we can put up focus threads and collect the responses in a organized way.
The big challenge is getting past the mirage of the SWG Discussion forum. For the most part, when players post ideas, especially really good ideas, there is a need inside to be acknowledged and you want to believe that your ideas are being heard. I empathize with that frustration from personal experience. The "mirage" part comes in when players post on the boards and assume that the idea can be included on merit, but it just isn't so. There are design and development schedules and if a reallyexcellent idea is posted, but not in coordination with the long term development path, the idea gets swallowed and lost. I'm trying to stop that by focusing the way information passes back and forth between the virtual divide.
With this new method, posters will know when we are just beginning to consider new ideasand can postopenideas with the comfort that they will genuinely be included - - thats "in concept". Then there are othersubjects where the topic is in progress and the type of information that can be included is limited in scope because of the time and effort needed to implementchanges - - thats "in development". Then the game feature will be closed for discussion while its coded and loaded and then we go to test. When things are "in test",we'll be able to post a test plan for the community and that way, everything will be included in the process.
Thats not to say open discussion shouldnt be encouraged because thats how really cool ideas are incubated and grow. The question is how best to foster that.
"New changes sound great, the sooner they can be implemented the better IMO. Better signal to noise ratio can't possibly hurt us."
Thats exactly what we want to do 
"I understand, that the Discussion Forum ist not usefull as a Development tool. But players need a general discussion forum. The server-forums are not general discussion forums, they are server releated. We need a forum to have general discussions and ask questions."
I agree, but SWG discussion isn't the answer. We have most game topics covered. All the professions, the GCW, PA's and TC all have Correspondents that can involve their respective parts of the community and when big problems come up or really good ideas surface, the correspondents are on hand to collect the ideas and email them to me. Kstarfire needs a home for sure.
Im hoping some community ideas will grow in this thread that will help that new direction reveal itself.
"Suppose a player has an idea, but it is on an issue that is not a listed topic in one of the new forums. Where, if anywhere, do they post that idea?
Likewise, suppose a player is troubled by some aspect of SWG they feel needs improvement. Where, if anywhere, do they post that concen?
As for the ideas, players need to save them and post them when the idea comes up, otherwise the reality is that their ideas probably wont be included - - timing is everything."
For issues, yes, that is a concern of mine and again, Im hoping the community will suggest something exciting.
"'with the knowledge that they will not get developer attention.'
Is that a typo? You want to possibly create other beneficial forums and IGNORE them?"
Not a typo. The forum would help foster ideas and they would have to get the attention of the correspondents OR players could grow and mature those ideas and have them prepared and ready to post in the In-Concept and In-Development forums at the appropriate time.
As I said above, there is an assumption made by players that just because an idea is awesome or well loved by the community that it can be automagically included into the game. The reality is that itisnt so.
Still, ideas can grow and be saved for a time when they are appropriate and can be considered into the processs.
"I think its a good idea to start up the 'Focus' threads again, Its a great way for you (the Devs) to let us know what your thinking about and then get feedback about how we feel about your thoughts."
Thats another great description of our intentions here...
Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl
Assistant Community Relations Manager
"Again though R2DADROID, all 3 of your forums are already contained in the Discussion forum."
The issue is that there is WAY too much traffic in the SWG Discussion Forum and, as we all know, MUCH of it is not productive.
If we have more focused forums to post on, where threads that don't fit the focus of the forums, more productive idea could get a chance to be heard.
There needs to be a general discussion forum. A place people can go with game wide ideas/problems to get input from everyone.
dnm998 wrote:
The board is already a SWG discussion forum;
read the description;
"The purpose of this board is for all discussion regarding design issues and ideas in Star Wars Galaxies."
And another thing...
Listen, if we can't talk about OUR design issues and ideas about Star Wars galaxies here, we'll just have to do it somewhere else. So the next time there would have been a 50 page "fix carbineer" thread, just send a letter to a random gaming magazine letting them know about our difficulties with the game. If our Devs won't listen to us, maybe some magazine editors will. It would be kinda amusing to see what would happen if someone like Electronics Gaming Monthly suddenly got 25k letters from SWG subscribers saying how dissappointed they were in the game.
Another Amusing thing is, if I thought the devs were doing a good job and wanted to post a "GOOD JOB DEVS" post, I would have to do it 63 times (professions, galaxies, roleplaying and techsupport forums). Thank goodness for Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V!!!!
I think the devs actually have 2/3 of a good idea with this. Organizing their output to us. Organizing our input about their output. Unfortunatly, the 1/3 of the good idea that they are missing is regarding our input about things they haven't given any output on. Does that make sense? IE, squashing our ability to express new ideas, or even ask for clairification and fixes. Squashing out ability to offer ideas to improve the game. All we are going to be allowed to do or rather the only thing that is going to receive any acknowledgement is having ideas about what they want us to have ideas about.
I'm beginning to suspect that the devs are giving in to being overworked. They took a vacation and said "wow, it sure was nice not have to listen to people complain about shoddy workmanship (warrented or not). Let's make it so they can't complain anymore." And another said, "you know what, they might stop realizing the scope of some of the errors in the game if we hinder their ability to communicate cross-shard."
Another possibility is that this is the Imperial crackdown that they were talking about before the holidays. Squashing free speech and forcing their ideals upon us. (This is a joke, but with a twinge of fear that it's the truth).
Anyway, it all comes down to: If I can't vent here, I'll vent somewhere else. Either to my friends, my co-workers, or to people I'm sitting near when I go to lunch. Either which way, I get to vent. Now the question is, would the Dev's rather let me have a place where I can vent and only the subscriber base can hear, or do they want me to vent where people considering buying the game can hear? Do they want me to vent to a magazine with 500k sales a month. I can tell you, I'll vent both my good ideas and my anger to my friends. I'll vent only my anger to strangers.
Sorry this was so long. I've become passionate thoughout the day, thinking about this.
I've summarized the issues and Ill be in a meeting this afternoon to talk about the changes and the SWG Discussion forum. Ill let you know what comes out of it.
Late though my reply is, I can't help throwing in my two cents everywhere. I think closing the discussion forum is going to be one of the biggest leaps forward this team has taken yet. I have always hated being forced to discuss things there because that is where people go. I like the idea, not just here but across the web, of organized forums with topic specific boards. The chaos of the current discussion forum has always made our problems seem even worse than they are, and have always left a bad taste in the mouth. I will be glad to know, as I peruse my profession and server boards, that I'm not missing some huge critical discussion amid the hectic and disorderly pace of the discussion board.
I say good move SOE!
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=999404
There's your "improved communication" at work. 
~~Shabhaii, Mayor of Tombra, Naboo
www.cityoftombra.com
The REAL BT
"The reason I don't PvP in this game is because no matter what side I picked, I'd be guaranteed to be fighting alongside at least one idiot. And I don't defend idiots."
The problem with the 'specific' forums is twofold though:
First of all it makes absolutely no sense to go to the Galaxy forums for anything to do with game mechanics, I'm sure i'm not alone in never actually reading my Galaxy forum, because most of my areas of concern are bigger than just Corbantis.
Secondly, one of the 'big deals' about SWG was that one could have multiple professions, the net effects of this, together with the complexity of the game/world engine, mean that there are a great many issues which transcend just one class of user. It's okay to say you're going to eliminate a general category, as long as sufficient additional categories are added to cleanly accept the valid contributions that were being made in the general one. Professions are far too specific for this to be effective to all but those who have enough time and energy to try reading every post everywhere,
As far as I can tell, what they're trying to do is reduce the amount of noise (especially that which has no benefit to anyone other than those making it), but simply cutting off the transmission altogether eliminates both the noise and the signal which is present within it. It seems that keeping the general forums but then adding a number of 'proto-correspondents' who pick out gems from the general mess of the general forum, and surface them in a moderated appropriate location may be a better approach.
Once again, Q-3PO and Jeassa both just commented in the SWG Discussion forum that said forum will be shut down at the end of the week.
Tell me Thunderheart, does SOE even bother to listen to its subscribers? Does SOE even comprehend the idea that players need a open forum in which to discuss game-related issues? Does SOE even get that general purpose topics belong in one central location, not on 36 separate Galaxy forums?
I've never been involved with a company so interested in squelching user discussion. You claim addition of the new forums will improve discussion. How so, when only SOE is allowed to open new topics? You're basically saying, "Today's permitted topic of converstation is thus..."
Reminds me of Educational Decree #26.
"Don't make it the last time. I actually like this talking with you. 
"
Same here, but I took a look at this thread and saw how many times my name's on it and I freaked out about being a hijacker 
"Anyway;
That'd be good, except those are what you'd like, not what the Devs are going to implement."
But Thunderheart's original post says:
"Request for Comments:
The community is invited to make comments and suggestions about the proposed changes from Monday, January 5th through Friday, January 9th."
So that's what I'm doing.
Anyways,
Thanks to everyone who thanked me
I keep a cluttered screen, and was just lucky that I had three pages of the thread still on it.
I PM'd everyone their posts, even the ones I disagreed with.
Well, not everyone. There were a couple caustic flames that I did not forward to their authors.
Including one that probably cost us the whole thread when someone tried to delete the post.
It was a word that referred to a particular alermannic movement that I did not think was appropriate for this discussion...