A Message from the Community Manager

He is paid to do it. The better he does his job, the more players Bioware will have to sell a product to. He is not doing me any favor.. he is paid to make Bioware look good.

Now, some of us also paid 150$ for a CE box and a promise that they`ll see more content in the CE store. They didn`t.
Some of us also paid 15$ per month to see monthly content. We haven`t seen content since April.

Because, no matter how you look at things, we paid based on a promise that didn`t deliver. SO, yes, we have a right to be cynical and ask for actions and not the same promises since 2008.

I`m saying they should hire COMPETENT beta-testers and do all the above, only IN-HOUSE. Their fancy Devs and whomever thought the skills, trees and armors, should think of the above and setup benchmarks for each class and test them. Because, like it or not, classes SHOULD be roughly equal (at the very least among them = tanks, DPS and heals), or you end up with all the "knowhow" players rolling the FOTM. The only question is what the target is. If it is fixed, then the player wins. If it is "moving the goalpost", Bioware wins, by forcing rerolls for the new FOTM. Classes might be unique aesthetically, but they all are balanced toward the SAME target, whichever that might be.

But it depends heavy on the quality of your beta-testing team. Or the ones that test the classes. And it`s cheaper to push a draft then bandaid based on who screams the loudest.

Again, I`m not saying you are wrong. But this thing should be done internally, by beta-testers, based on whatever tools that are independent of the general population, or playerbase. And that is Bioware`s responsibility to develop.

He is paid to do it.

I wouldn't deal with the bitterness of this community for any amount of money. Good luck to him, sincerely.

So am I to applaud him for telling me the same old? "We have the player`s interest at heart, and we will give him the Moon"?

I believed him when I paid my share for the game and I believed in him and this game by caring enough to pay my sub and still be subbed, in all my bitterness .. and what do I get in return? NO content whatsoever since April, after the previous promises of "monthly content"?

This is the line I was answering to. He isn`t brave, nor a hero. He is paid to paint Bioware in pink and sell it to as many. The above is true in ONE case only : when Mr. Gonzalez is doing this out of the kindness of his heart.

He's paid to act as a liaison between the community and the developers, yes. He's paid to disseminate information as and when he can, as and when it's appropriate, yes.

I'm willing to bet that nowhere in his job description does it state that he is required to face down hostile, embittered and demanding players, to put up with their outright abuse, as part of his job. On the contrary, simply posting in these forums insinuates the poster understands she or he is bound by the terms of service - and I'm pretty sure you'll find part of it that requires we remain civil.

Cynical, sure, but civil.

He's not just dealing with those of us that remain civil. He's facing down a horde of angry players and doing it with a largely calm manner - so YES, I think he's owed a bit of respect and a bit of slack for that.

I restate (as you appear to have missed it before) - I can understand why people are cynical. I can even understand why people might not believe his words (though personally I do believe he's doing the job as best he's capable). But a 'right' to be cynical doesn't equate to a right to be rude.

Obviously you are very set in your opinion on this, but I'd like to add that in a game of this complexity, no matter how competant the beta testers, there are going to be adjustments that need to be made based on what the actual population does "in the field" so to speak. It's fairly well known that what the players do with a game and the mechanics at hand cannot be fully planned for - people are remarkably creative.

It makes sense to gather data from as many sources as possible when deciding how to make changes. Depending only on one source - in your very clear opinion, the quantitative metrics data - would be as foolish as depending only on the qualitative data that comes from the players. It makes far more sense to take both into account to give the devs a clearer idea of how the game is being played and if the way players are actually playing adds up to fun (which is pretty much the point of a game). To suggest that taking this qualitative data into account would turn class balancing into a "who screams the loudest" contest is rather absurd.

It's pretty clear at this point that you're just trolling.

But in defense the community team for the last 19 pages of general hate and ire directed at them, the community team works for everyone else at the company. They don't get to march into Bioware or EA's office and demand answers from CEO's and developers team because someone posts on the forum that they want their jedi hood to be up or down. Developers take care of creating the game, liaisons convey the information that has been finalized and decided upon by devs. Liaisons don't get to call the shots, they do what they are told and say what they are allowed.

There's a lot this game lacks right now, and a lot of problems with it, but they've taken huge steps towards trying to make things better by cleaning house. You can't take a game the size of SWTOR and completely remake it within 2-3 months if you are serious about delivering a quality product. If you're going to complain about something, complain about how the devs don't allow community team to say anything or complain about the sluggish pace of the devs' content releases and terrible class balance. But don't shoot the messengers.

I fully agree with you on principle. BUT...

He has every right to ignore or delete rude messages, or messages that are covered by the TOS.

However, just as some other devs came and posted on these very Forums, before the game was launched, so the same devs can now, which will cut the middle-man, aka Mr. Gonzalez. Even this is their own problem and not my right to criticize.

But Mr. Gonzalez has 2 attributions: be the liaison, as you said. But being a liaison means to relay information, or facts, not politician words, as someone has said. His attributions FOR Bioware is to relay what the playerbase wants. His attributions FOR the playerbase is to answer the questions, not avoid them.

For our issue right now, ALL he has to do is provide facts. Name the future content, provide clear deadlines and generally answer the "tough questions" and all the rude and cynical players will forget the past and applaud him.

But, in all honesty, what he does has been done since 2008. And it`s really getting old. Promises over promises, when all he has to do is do his job. So, just as Bioware or EA (ultimately, I don`t care, because I am playing SWTOR, not Electronic Arts, or Bioware Austin) are cynical enough to sell me monthly content and actually keep it back since April for the future F2P move and rude enough to market me a sub to play game just to switch to something else... so can I, the player, ask them about their past promises.

[EDIT]@Jestuh - I never shot the messanger. I replied to a post saying that he isn`t brave. The only things I wrote in here were about class balance, one question asked about 3 times and not answered to this day, and general ideas about why it is heard before and not changed what he is writing. We are still to see real feedback, instead of promises of feedback.

Fair enough. They have had their feedback and about one big balance already, if we are not counting the smaller ones. Can we agree that, 7 months in, they have enough data to do one last balance that should last them until this game ends?

Lol, if they do, they'll be miracle workers. No MMO I've ever seen is ever really done with class balance.

What I would like to see on class balance is fewer big adjustments in favor of smaller tweaks. There have been too many cases where a number of fairly large changes are implemented at once with very unfavorable results.