JovethGonzalez Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Hi everyone, I’ll start off by calling out the elephant in the room: yes, there was some restructuring here at the studio recently and we had to bid farewell to some of our colleagues and yes, we are all deeply saddened by this. Their work and dedication to SWTOR will not be forgotten. Here on the community team, we’ve had a bit of time to process this and we’re beginning to look towards the future of SWTOR’s community and what it means for you and for our team. In the upcoming weeks, we’re going to be making a few changes and working on new initiatives in order to enhance our relationship with you, the fans, and with our developers. We’ll also be reintroducing the team so that you can get to know us a bit more. As Greg Zeschuk mentioned in his forum post, we still have plenty of new, exciting content and features for the game, and we’re going to need your continued involvement and feedback. Rest assured that the community team is still here, still listening: whether it’s here in our forums, on our official twitter account, one of the many fan sites, or the SWTOR subreddit. Thank you all for your continuing support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) I look forward to these new 'initiatives'. Edited May 23, 2012 by TUXs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GamewizX Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) With Stephen Reid now gone I'm very curious to see who will be filling those not-so-desired shoes of being the primary buffer between the rabid community and the developers. Edited May 23, 2012 by GamewizX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeawiNobal Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Hi everyone, In the upcoming weeks, we’re going to be making a few changes and working on new initiatives in order to enhance our relationship with you, the fans, and with our developers. We’ll also be reintroducing the team so that you can get to know us a bit more. That sounds promising. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helistin Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Looking forward to the next few months. I know us Star Wars fans can be quite demanding and unforgiving at times so bare with us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crawelc Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) Just a little constructive criticism, this is the kind of thing people need to see without trolling the forums. If you have something to say about an "elephant in the room" make sure your community sees it, not just the trolls. Edited May 23, 2012 by Crawelc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomisu Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 It is stressful and tense and a downer to go through such moves, wishing all of you, the leavers and the stayers, good fortune. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pedra Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 With Stephen Reid now gone I'm very curious to see who will be filling those not-so-desired shoes of being the primary buffer between the rabid community and the developers. I fixed it for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 With Stephen Reid now gone I'm very curious to see who will be filling those not-so-desired shoes of being the primary buffer between the rapid community and the developers. The rapid community?! Rapid meaning 'fast'? Or did you mean 'rabid'? This is no worse than any other gaming forum Gamewiz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigSkill Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 we still have plenty of new, exciting content and features for the game, and we’re going to need your continued involvement and feedback. Ok new person came to work there, is fine, is a rotating wheel right? If something is wrong with your job is right thing that you give your seat to someonelse. Now, i think we need to know what exactly there is of exciting, we need to know NOW, because there is no time anymore!!!! Server are loosing lot of player every day, i love this game, i dont want to see another SWG NGE 2, and wait other 10 years for another SW based game. You guys need to share your idea now, before you loose more time. Legacy system is Great, but is not exciting, is not fun, is unusefull. Most of player base is asking for world PvP, ranked wz, and more than 1 month is passed, personally i lost so amny friend tired to farm wz...... At least give the possibility to group in 8 person!!!!! Now not in another month. Plz listen, comunicate and share your plan before to waste time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cornelias Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 After being recently made redundant myself after 11 years service (not Bioware), i understand how hollow this statement is..... damage limitation anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmufc Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) Too late BW, you have ruined this game. You will be lucky to have 500k subs in the next quarter. Edited May 23, 2012 by kmufc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeawiNobal Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) He either meant "rabid community" or "rapidly departing community"... Edited May 23, 2012 by HeawiNobal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leskit Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 I'm looking forward to seeing the lines of communication reopened. I'll be honest that I'm on the fence about continuing my subscription to this game. I think the faster you can inform the community about some of the critical things we are asking about the better. Getting the PTS going soon will be a big help in starting new lines of communication. To outline some of the things I think the community would like to know quickly would be the following. 1. When can we expect the character transfers ? 1a. Which realms will be destination realms ? 1b. How will duplicate Legacy names be handled when transferring to a server where that name already exist ? 2. When will we see rated warzones ? 2a. Will they require a full 8 man premade ? 2b. Will it be cross server or server only matchmaking ? 2c. Will there be a reward for those that already have full War hero gear ? (ie mounts,titles,gear,etc) 3. When can we expect nightmare mode Denova ? While I'm sure there are many other question people have these seem to be at the forefront of the threads. Thanks for your time and I sincerely hope you read this post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GamewizX Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 The rapid community?! Rapid meaning 'fast'? Or did you mean 'rabid'? This is no worse than any other gaming forum Gamewiz. Simple typo, but I appreciate that everyone is so eager to correct me. I never claimed it was worse than any other gaming forum community, but that doesn't mean it's not a rabid community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spellegren Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 The real elephant in the room is the fact that people are leaving the game faster than corrective measures can be put into place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikphobos Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Too late BW, you have ruined this game. You will be lucky to have 500k subs in the next quarter. this sounds accurate.... just more *soon* to come stuffs and initiatives, BW likes to live in the future i guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pcolapat Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 To those that survived the "restructuring" I hope you have found new inspiration to deliver to a community that has grown increasingly frustrated with you over the last four months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Karsk Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Sounds good Joveth Gonzalez. But plis remember, all the communication in the world from a community team doesnt mean much if the devs keep ignoring what the players want when it comes to an STAR WARS MMO. The whole attitude of, we as developers dont want cross server play because it's bad for the "community" and we knows best wont go far on a servers with 20 people on a light server. You want the game to grow bvig actually listen to feedback and give the players what they want. Not what developers think we want. Simpel little things like toggle hoods up/down that means alot you refuse to fix. And things like no minigames. And start telling the community what you are working on.The do not talk about it until it's ready is no good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nastynas Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 I, for one, welcome our new SW:TOR overlords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickM Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Joveth, We really need some good news in this place, or really, any info on 1.3 you guys can give out. A date, a projected one even, patch notes, status of ranked warzones, more info on transfers...something. This place is a festering wound of negativity. One week we hear a drop of 25% in subs, the next, massive layoffs. How are we the players supposed to think the game is progressing without any info? Anyone who's been in an office with layoffs knows that people start readying their resumes once these events happen. Are your devs, QA testers, and community managers that remain fully ready to support this game, or will every one of them be looking for a new job now that EA has started the beatings? I absolutely love this game, but for the first time, I'm truly worried about its future and what EA is going to do to it if they hear that more subs have been lost next quarter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktkenshinx Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Good news across the board. EA got mad at the way the community was being handled. Changes are being made now. This is good news for the game, good news for the community, and good news for both BW and EA as companies. I am saddened to hear of the departure of dedicated individuals, but the current direction of SWTOR community outreach was not good. These are the most venomous and vitriolic forums I have ever been a part of for MMOs, and that is NOT the fault of players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sirsri Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Hi everyone, I’ll start off by calling out the elephant in the room: yes, there was some restructuring here at the studio recently and we had to bid farewell to some of our colleagues and yes, we are all deeply saddened by this. Their work and dedication to SWTOR will not be forgotten. Here on the community team, we’ve had a bit of time to process this and we’re beginning to look towards the future of SWTOR’s community and what it means for you and for our team. In the upcoming weeks, we’re going to be making a few changes and working on new initiatives in order to enhance our relationship with you, the fans, and with our developers. We’ll also be reintroducing the team so that you can get to know us a bit more. As Greg Zeschuk mentioned in his forum post, we still have plenty of new, exciting content and features for the game, and we’re going to need your continued involvement and feedback. Rest assured that the community team is still here, still listening: whether it’s here in our forums, on our official twitter account, one of the many fan sites, or the SWTOR subreddit. Thank you all for your continuing support. The problem isn't communication or 'content' particularly, it's design and software engineering. You have designers on the team who don't know how to build systems for an MMO of this type, and you don't have a software engineering process to deliver anything properly. Trying to solve the wrong problem doesn't help. Obviously some people needed to go, there were people who have lead some catastrophically bad design decisions and those people absolutely should not be employed on this project anymore. Some people are simply redundant now that the game is out the door and you can't possibly use all of the skillsets full time. True, stephen reid wasn't particularly good at the job of communicating information. Fair enough, but that may not have been his entire job and management is different than writing posts for the dev tracker. Shooting the messenger doesn't fix the underlying message, even if the messenger was disrespectful in how he addressed you. I've written enough, publicly and privately to bioware that I would normally charge quite a bit of money for, and I don't see any reason to repeat myself here ad nauseum. Because it won't help. Fundamentally you need to get a small handful of things into your team and everything emerges from there. 1: Do not waste the players time. (Unnecessary load screens, travel time, that sort of thing). If there is something wasting the players time that can be done faster with a computer program you should do that (group finding, calendering, log parsers etc.). 2: It is not the job of the 'community' to teach players how to play your game. Its your job. The wold has moved on and evolved from WoW. They could rely on the community because no one was quite sure how to make that work when WoW launched. Now players expect that information, and it's up to you to provide correct information, not hope the community will figure it out. Oh but the elitists can't be elite with their secret awesomesauce knowledge? Good players will always be good. It's your job to level the playing field for everyone else. 3: Innovate everywhere. All the time. Even if it's just small stuff. Isn't that the bioware internal motto 'sweat the small stuff' (to quote aaryn flynn on the subject). 4: Fix your development and testing process. I don't know what you're doing, but whatever it is, it's wrong. You absolutely cannot be pushing patches out which constantly break things. While you haven't repeated the disaster that was Ilum lately, if you don't have people on staff who can anticipate terrible design problems before you push them live, hire some. Admittedly there's a bias here, in that we never see ideas that get tossed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GamewizX Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) Good news across the board. EA got mad at the way the community was being handled. Changes are being made now. This is good news for the game, good news for the community, and good news for both BW and EA as companies. I am saddened to hear of the departure of dedicated individuals, but the current direction of SWTOR community outreach was not good. These are the most venomous and vitriolic forums I have ever been a part of for MMOs, and that is NOT the fault of players. This has nothing to do with EA getting mad about the way the community was being handled. EA could care less about the community. They laid off people because, with the decrease in players, such a large pool of Bioware employees was not necessary. For EA it solely had to do with cutting back expenses and had nothing to do with EA trying to "reprimand" Bioware for how they handle the community. Edited May 23, 2012 by GamewizX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hargrave Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Until we get a better pvp team and employees who know the difference between content and game features im outta here when the "REAL" pvp mmo comes out. Its been 6 months say we have this and that coming is meaningless show us or lose subs. I personally dont think there is anything coming you guys have lied constantly to me so youll have to excuse me if i dont believe all this hype that goes nowhere or you announce a game engine feature as content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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