Announcing The Old Republic Guild Summit

How hard would it actually to set up a form on the website where players submit their questions, bioware picks out the top questions for various developers, those developers would then answer those questions on fridays like they did those other things during beta.


There, saves everyone heartache and stress, and gets involvement with your playerbase... and I'm not even on the community management team...

Gathering information is always better when face to face first. When you do test case situations you normally always get an in person 1 on 1 with the users of your product for best results.

Because that's not a discussion. That's Q&A.

The single most effective way to have a back-and-forth discussion is face-to-face. Nothing (and I mean nothing) in the world is an effective replacement for a sit-down chat. Not forums, not text chat, not internet, not voice chat, not video conference. Nothing.

How is this dramatically different from the way we do government?.

We are covering costs for a select group, which will make up a significant number of the attendees. We're obviously also covering all the other running costs for the event.

While I understand everyone's opinions here, apparently we're stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one. Previously (for the Fan Site Summits) we invited a select group; we got complaints that it should have been open to others even if they paid for themselves. In this case we invite a select group and in addition open up attendance to anyone who wishes to apply, and some are frustrated that we're asking people to attend at their own expense. Like I said, we understand people's reactions, but we won't be able to please everyone.

As stated, we will have a significant presence from EU guild leaders. We are conducting the summit in English, but most of our developers are English speaking, so it's a necessity. As I stated, an EU summit of some kind is still possible at some point.

Again, we'll have ways for people to interact with the summit who aren't present at the event. That was always part of our planning and we'll have more details soon.

Once again, I'd like to ask for comments to remain constructive in this thread. We are proceeding with the summit and would love to hear your comments about how we can make it a success.

Difference is, those who participate in government are ellected to do so. ALL of them particpate. The government doesn't "cherry pick" in that sense.

A) I would remind you that less than half of the populace in America votes, and that in the vast majority of offices below the State Senate, we're voting based on who we've seen more signs from, or who has a better one paragraph description in the voter handbook... and that's without even getting into the advertising dollars higher level campaigns put out to sway who gets elected. It's hardly a science.

B) You're right, the government doesn't randomly pick, but it's not like we all go out and vote for whoever we think would be best and then they get the job... we select from a list CHOSEN FOR US almost all the time, and every once in a great while, a write-in gets through. The government doesn't "cherry pick" persay, but, systemically, a similar process occurs. The analogy stands.

Frankly, I think a random grab of guild leaders is as good or better than that, and promotes a broader and less inherently biased base.
^That's just my opinion.
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"Firstly I think you misunderstand what I mean by "survey". I'm talking about multiple choice questions, with answers given that the player selects from. Perhaps with an additional place to put comments. Depending on the nature of the questions they can be precise and concise.

Now such a community wide survey, with a link on the launcher gives EVERYONE a chance to get involved in it. If some wish not to, then that is their perogative. But the fact still stands that a survey prevents "cherry picking" individuals to ask questions."

Clearly, I did misunderstand what you meant, and now that I do, I don't understand how you could possibly see it having the same effect as an actual meeting with representatives.

As I said before, A survey is a GREAT way to discover baseline sentiments from a broad group... but, you cannot go into depth, you cannot collaborate, you cannot plan. I have to take BW at their word that those are the purposes of this meeting. Therefore a survey, while it's something they probably SHOULD be doing, is not a viable replacement.

I think your fundamental disagreement with all of us is that you choose to believe the opposite of what they are saying. If you're foundational premise is that they are lying, then we can't even get on common ground to reason with you...

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"Who says I'm not a fan of player input? This "summit" sounds more of a PR stunt than a valued means to get player input. Why? Because it doesn't actually try to actively involve the entire community. Only a select few."

And the input of those few isn't input? Is a frog less of a frog because it's a small frog?
You sound more exclusionary then BW does with this statement....
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"I think it is unfair to infer that unguilded players are worth less, in terms of player feedback, than guilded ones. Guilds rise and fall all of the time in lots of MMO's. More often because of poor populations. Those populations are governed by what the individual player decides to do. Which in itself dispells what you claim.

Everyone gets to vote when it comes to government.