CUEmu - Thread Posts

Jockothemonkey

Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:21 am

Q-3PO wrote:
PeteyBoy, typos are not hard to fix, they are hard to find. We have many many text files and tracking down a specifc one can take a while. As for how many times someone must bug report something... every bug reported gets put on a priority list. Text bugs are alomst always "polish" level. That pretty much means they are on the bottom. Priority comes from what is most important to the game and players and not what gets reported most.

Well you could hire a little coder monkey (me) to fix these typos and other minor gltiches. This programmer (me) wouldn't necessarily have to have previous game industry experience (me), or 5 years programming experience (me). Hope thIs and otheR annoyancEs can be reMovEd soon.

Arako Karsi

Evil pure unadulterated comes-in-bottle-or-can evil.

AudioOrgana

Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:25 am

#80

Q-3PO wrote:

I'm sorry some of you do not like the decision to allow Fan Fest attendeesinto the Space Beta. They are not the only ones getting in. We will be looking at our forum community, especially those who have helped us on Test Center and selecting from there as well. I do believe that people going to fan fest do respresent long term players and usually good testers. I know that may not seem fair to those who live far away. Beta is not about being fair. It is about selecting quality testers AND it is also a tool for the P.R. department. I'm just being honest with you here. I feel comfortable with the PR team using it as a added-value promotion for Fan Fest admission onlybecause it is not the only way into Beta. Most of our Beta people will be you guys and gals.

LOL, people that go to the fan fest represent "usually good testers"?

I'm sorry, Q, I would not have mentioned it but since you pointed out - you mean the role-playing, dress-up like my character, socializers that are going to the Fan Fest are considered prime beta testers?

I don't see how PR wise it helps either, since as you say these people are already so ga-ga over SWG that they attend something like this - they don't need to be "sold" on it.

It's clear this is a way for you to up registrations to the event - let's not pretend it has anything to do with actual testing. I'm sure whomever is counting the money from the event will be so pleased about the amount of people who register and don't show up who just thought it was worth it to pay 80 bucks to get into the SE beta. And if you actually have to attend to sign up? Say that publicily, and watch the amount of pre-registered people drop.

As for communication, you are welcome to your opinion. I've been on the other end and I agree that there are always more questions to answer. What we promise and deliver is someone to be on the forums every day and bring top concerns to the devs. That person also replies to as many issues as he can get the answers to. While this isn't perfect, we seem to be doingbetter than most other MMOs of this caliber. We're also commited to exploring ways of improvingthe communication.

Q, if you truly believe this, you haven't read the forums of other MMO's lately, unless you consider SWG a caliber all by itself - or you aren't looking past other SOE games (which are certainly not known for their communication, quite the opposite).

Months and months of silence and then throwing a decidedly decent list of buggy/some usless modules at Droid Engineers and expect to look like heroes...that's like crashing your car into another on purpose and expecting kudos for dragging someone out of the wreck.

I have been to those forums - where, they ask players, "We are thinking about implementing X into the game, with X,Y but not Z features...", not "Please take my very very general, generic statement that I will pretend is a question - What do YOU want?"

Q, in every interview one of you guys does you talk about how responsive and reactive and how much communication goes on around here - and you will have to forgive many of us if we darn well know better.

As you said above about the SE/fan fest, it's all about PR - as long as you guys have these boards, you can say you "listen", but after nearly a year of observing the format it really seems that the only reason these boards exist is so you guys can say in interviews what you do.

Overall the correspondent system and TH have distanced us from the issues, not helped them. We spend so much time interpreting the one or two lines TH gives us - and then he complains that we take everything he says "out of context" or "unfairly" - WHEN THE PROBLEM IS THAT NO ONE IS SAYING ANYTHING ELSE.

I hope the role-players and socializers are enough to keep SWG going, because if you guys think this is the height of communications for MMO's you need to visit one that isn't run by SOE. Seriously, if other MMO's of this "caliber" are only other SOE products, you aren't looking at the full picture.

I too used to think you guys were responsive to the community - then I watched it all errode away when you started the correspondent system and hired more "assistants". Then I started to read the boards of other MMO's, and I saw how bad it had really gotten.

AO

PeteyBoy23

Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:27 am

#81

Q-3PO:

My sincere thanks for taking the time to write a quick message. I'm sure you understand our frustration, on the whole. We go above and beyond the call of duty to report these bugs, and we don't see them fixed. It reminds me of the Windows Error Reporting feature. I, like many of us, used to use it to report back to Microsoft when errors occured, but I guarantee many of us have stopped, for the same reason we are seeing in SWG. We don't see any of our time and effort show up in the game, so with shrugged shoulders we wonder, "Why bother?". That's where I believe you, and your staff, should have a more visible, and more active role in communicating with us. I'm not saying to implement every change we suggest, far from it. I'm simply saying that when something has the community clamoring for a response, you provide it.

Of course, there are priorities. I would never want to see someone taken away from more pressing issues to fix typos, but I question the thoroughness of the developers if the same issues persist for months on end. Surely the workload can't be that great, that someone cannot correct the most minor issues. If that is the case, perhaps more staff should be hired, even temporarily, to augment who you currently have. We know that SWG makes a lot of money for SOE, and we all want to see issues fixed on a more timely basis.

Regarding your last paragraph, I believe we as your customers, deserve a higher priority. The Jedi Revamp, as an example, saw days go by without a response. I believe the 20+ pages of replies should have been a red flag to your staff that it was a top concern, and therefore should have received an answer immediately, not days later. Ignoring us just enhances our frustrations with the game, and the staff. Most of us are willing to go out of our ways to help, but when you don't do your part, we question the process.

Again, just keep us in the loop. We deserve that much, and more. Thank you.

AudioOrgana

Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:28 am

#82

Kevm wrote:

KzinKiller wrote:

As for communication, you are welcome to your opinion. I've been on the other end and I agree that there are always more questions to answer. What we promise and deliver is someone to be on the forums every day and bring top concerns to the devs. That person also replies to as many issues as he can get the answers to. While this isn't perfect, we seem to be doingbetter than most other MMOs of this caliber. We're also commited to exploring ways of improvingthe communication.

I think every adult I've spoken to who pays (or used to pay) for this game considers the standard you've set in this area to be incredibly low ... calling it 'better than most' is simply self-serving, unsubstantiated marketing-speak. I don't know anyone with a professional customer service background who thinks you grade well in this area.

Haven't been over to the EQ forums or CSR's lately then have you. And that's the biggest game around still.

LOL...comparing an SOE product to an SOE product is like comparing two chesseburgers from McDonalds and declaring one of them the best fast food hamburger in the world - you can't say that unless you try the burgers from other companies, which many of us have.

It's a shame that this is the only company that has a Star Wars MMO.

AO

Stakex007

Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:41 am

#83

Q, I can understand the RP point of allowing the Fan Fest people into SE Beta.... but since they automaticly get in.... does that mean all vet who have been there since the begining will also AUTOMATICLY get in? I have no problem with FF people getting in, as long as us long term vets who have followed this game since before SWG:ED Beta 1 even began get in just as easy...I missed beta for ED and was unhappy with the fact that I couldn't have been there to help make it a better game... and I would like to have the not happen again, when people who visit the fan fest get a free ride in. Just M2C

asdartha

Wed Apr 21, 2004 3:47 am

#84

Q-3PO wrote:

As for communication, you are welcome to your opinion. I've been on the other end and I agree that there are always more questions to answer. What we promise and deliver is someone to be on the forums every day and bring top concerns to the devs. That person also replies to as many issues as he can get the answers to. While this isn't perfect, we seem to be doingbetter than most other MMOs of this caliber. We're also commited to exploring ways of improvingthe communication.

Q-3PO,

I understand putting your best face forward, but please understand that it is hard to swallow the constant lack of information that we are receiveing. Take the BE friday feature for example. For months we have waited for that feature. We were promise on more than one occassion that there would be new information in that guide from the BE developer that would help us understand how to create a "valid" lvl 10 pet. Instead what we got was and exact copy-paste of our FAQ with outdated information and exact spelling typos.

Not one comment has been made from the Dev team regarding this absurdity except the picture is a MBE withranger skills. Private PM sent to TH have been ignored (not read at all). To top this off I personally check the post record of TH on the BE forums. Imainge my surprise when I found out that his last post to that forum was in november and that was only his second post there ever. Where the BE forum is concerned it looks like noone is on that forum at all. Not to mention I personally attempted to send YOU a pm regarding this and asking for more information, only to find that you do not accept pms.

Even more on communication, The submit feedback section on the website is not even upto date. BE is not listed as a profession and farmer is still listed. Hard to submit feedback on that profession since it appears not to exisist.

Want a suggestion to improve communication? Get one communicaition developer for each software developer. IE since the BEs, Pikemen, and Jedi share that same developer, have one communication corrospondent that is the go between for just those professsions. Also do not put someone as a communiction corrospondent that refuse to acknowlede any negative critisims, Which the entire forum community knows TH has state on more that one occasion.

ASDARTHA

MASTER Bio-Engineer (Starsider)

PeteyBoy23

Wed Apr 28, 2004 12:25 am

#85

It's now been a week. It would seem that Kevin is proving my point, more and more, as each day goes by.

Development Cycle Archive

Thread: Team Comments Community Manager/AP Kevin O'Hara