A Message from the Community Manager

Yeah well the community team fails as always because they are the blastdoor between you and the devs. They wont give you more info then before, because they are not allowed to.

I am very glad about this! However, I just want to remind you that there is a whole bunch of things people want that you have overlooked just be vigilant to consider our needs. Great work!

So what your saying is that they should completely ignore the fact that tanks, dps, and healers use different mechanics. As well as completely ignore factors like: range, stuns, armor class, mobility, interrupts, area of ability's, roots, buffs, de-buffs, cast times, stealth, jump or pretty much anything that makes any of the game classes unique in the least bit and just level a few of the average ability's that the classes have and equalized them?

We may as well all just roll sniper dps, powertech tanks, and merc healers then 100% of the time, since everything will be equalized but they have range (which is not in your factoring) . Real smart, i'm sure thats going to keep the game competitive.

Furthermore it's often more important HOW the damage, tanking, and healing is done over (per your example) the 6 mins of game play. What you suggest is merely a band-aid for people who don't know how to play their classes in the current PVE, and will completely nuke all competitiveness in PVP (and future PVE). Granted some advanced classes do need buffs, but what they don't need is to be marginalized to the point that there all the same.

Thank you for your time in this, Mr. Gonzalez; I know I'm not the only one who hopes to hear more from you and the community team in the future as well. I understand that the community team can't tell us about what the devs are working on unless the devs allow it, but in turn, I hope the devs and all of BioWare Austin understand that the nigh-complete silence we've heard recently is incredibly frustrating to a lot of players. I truly hope we will hear a great deal more from you over the coming weeks.

With that in mind, I'd like to ask about something important to me. Many of the recent posts on the dev tracker promise we'll be hearing more about upcoming content. That content is always listed as one or more of the following things: flashpoints, operations, warzones, and space battles. I would like to know about more story content. SW:TOR was promoted on the addition of the "fourth pillar" of story to MMOs, and yet, the game has been out for almost eight months and we haven't seen a single real story update, or heard any news of one since the guild summit in March.

SW:TOR's story does a great deal to keep me playing, and it's what separates this game from the others. Knowing that there's more coming, and possibly when, would help a great deal.

And while it's not my only concern, I'd like to ask about the inclusion of same-gender companion relationships (SGRs) along with the story content. We were told at the guild summit that SGRs would be coming along with the story update, which would be coming this year. We have not heard a word about either since then. There are many players who really want to see this added to the game, myself included, and many of us are growing frustrated with the lack of news. Anything you could tell us would help, even if it's just the reassurance that SGRs haven't been dropped or delayed.

Thank you again for listening, and I hope to hear from you or the other community team members on this soon.

I also would really like to hear any updates about when/how we can expect same gender romances to be added. It's been a big question mark since before launch even and we've only been given a couple of vague statements regarding it, nothing definitive other than they will be added.

I am also wanting to hear more about same gender romances in this game... and story too. More story is good... But as has been mentioned, we've heard nothing of any substance about either really since the guild summit.

If you do bother to approach this question, could we please have something a more definitive than "We appreciate that a lot of fan base expect SGRA's of Bioware, but can only tell you that such a thing is coming Soon(tm)"?

I read ALL 19 pages of this thread now in a row and was especially focussing on Mr. Gonzales' responses and how they relate to his promises at the beginning of the thread.

It is disheartening to see that he only gave one real answer in all his replies: Daniel and this other guy are still working for Bioware.

Everything else we got was the usual banter: We will try. We will do. We hope. Soon.

I am sorry to say it, but as of now, Mr. Gonzales has proven all our concerns as being right. As someone already said: hot air like from a politician. Every further word of him will make things just worse. Maybe this is why he seems to have abandoned this thread already.

As someone else also wrote (actually several): Mr. Gonzales' next repsonse better have some REAL INFORMATION in it. To me, this is a very urgent matter. I need to know if they are actually doing something at Bioware and/or if they at least know what they are doing. I really don't know if they do. And seriously, if you fail to believe that such a company has a clue, this is a bad sign. We are are not talking about a little local company with 2 employees who lost track of their stuff.

I am on high alert. Something is going very wrong. And yes, I am sure that Mr. Gonzales is capable of doing his job properly. This leads to only one conclusion: He is NOT ALLOWED to give out any real information. There is no reason why he should not WANT to, at the end, he chose this job (I guess), so he must have an interest in it. Thinking that he is only giving us hollow banter, because he has to... this is the actual scary thing.

These 19 pages totally disillusioned me (even further). I will still play the game though, because I still enjoy it. But really... something has to be done. Quickly.

I knew if I kept scrolling through someone would have already stated how I felt about this special announcement lol. "Too little, too late," indeed.

I'm seeing a whole heap of cynicism (and worse) here. I posted this in another thread but I'm going to go ahead and repost it here because I firmly believe it's true:
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I understand where the cynicism is coming from. I get the reasons behind it, I comprehend people's ongoing frustration and I can see how Mr Gonzales's words - very obviously, to my mind, illustrating that he's in a very awkward position caught between developers who won't tell him much of anything and a player base that's sick of not hearing more - might not inspire much confidence in some.

But do I think the cynicism, derision, ridicule and outright hostility levelled at the Community Manager actually helps? Most certainly, I do not believe it helps in the slightest.

Considering his position Mr Gonzales is, in my opinion, a damn brave man. He's contacted the community knowing he's going to cop it in the face for matters that he has limited control over and he hasn't flinched. There was no way that announcement wouldn't raise ire and yet he's in there talking, trying to reason, giving us what he can even though he knows the majority of people won't be satisfied with it.

Cut him - and all the community team - some damn slack. It's not their fault the developers are giving them breadcrumbs at best. Having us howling for blood sure isn't going to help anyone's case.
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I'll also add:

For my own part I'm very encouraged by the renewal of communication. It's true that the community has heard a great deal of Soon(tm) and is quite tired of it, but if this is a reboot of communication then it's very early days.

The best thing we can do is not jump down anyone's throat, to wait and to give Mr Gonzales a solid chance at getting us what info he has - while at the same time remembering that if he can't that's not necessarily his fault, and yelling at him isn't going to change the situation.