A Message from the Community Manager

That's fine, it's your opinion. However, Bioware sells a service. As a company who sells a service, they need to take into account the millions of different personality types that their service appeals/appealed to...not everyone feels the way you do. What you call "coddling", I may view as "reassuring". Not every person with a concern or question visits these forums every day and they have every right to ask a question that Bioware may have already answered. As a company who sells a service, I would think they'd be OK with answering the same question several times...it's really not that big of a deal.

WoW.

OK BW. Looks like you lost ProfessorWalsh. If you lost ProfessorWalsh you really are in deep bantha poodoo.

(( This is NOT sarcasim ))

^This .....

Well said TUXs. One caveat, well maybe two. BW needs to go through these forums and formulate a FAQ. In addition the staff needs to direct people to that FAQ and educate people on the use of the search function.

There are not millions of personality types. Generally accepted models of psychology say there are at most 16 different types.

Why not be honest and say you want Bioware to personally attend to each and every subscribers personal needs/wants/demands? In essence, coddling on an individual level.

And from a practical standpoint, no company can please all the people all the time. It's bad business to try. You make a product, generally to appeal to a broad audience, and then let the audience decide for themselves if the product is right for them or not. And that is exactly what this MMO and all MMOs do.

No MMO is for everyone, and nothing an MMO company can do to change that. You play, you decide, you then continue or move to something else.

I am/was a critic. It was my job (literally) to cause, and report on, controversy. I was there specifically because all other fansite reviewers (Darth Hater, etc) pulled punches and went very "softball" on BioWare. They didn't go for hard answers and they didn't engage in criticism... I was not that guy.

I was the guy who, when I saw something stupid, I called them on it being stupid. If I saw favoritism I called them on it. I was the guy who when I said something online I said it in person to... I don't do this "anonymity of the internet" crap.

(Case in point, I once pointed out that I felt the end to Darth Bane felt like a Naruto fanfic... And I was willing to say that (on camera no less) to Mr. Karpyshyn. I can respect and like someone and still be critical and brutally honest.)

My main thing is BioWare hasn't been honest with us and I do not like that.

That makes me very angry.

They lied to us. They told us one thing then did the exact opposite. I expect that from other companies, but the reason I could be as hard on BioWare as I was, was because I held them to a higher standard.

I wanted something that wasn't like WoW and I got something that was like WoW. I went with this game, and this company, because they specifically told us that we weren't going to get WoW content.

I have a CE...
I spent $120 on...
I went to conventions specifically to create hype for this game and do interviews...
I spent several thousand dollars on this game and I feel like I was betrayed...

I still have never seen any response from BioWare regarding why the game's core design philosophy changed and who was responsible. (Though I do suspect the identity of the dev that shifted focus on us.)

...

This song sums up my feelings on the issue.

At the risk of sounding like a biodrone, fanboy, etc, I think Bioware is doing a decent job of patrolling the forums.
My reasoning is that there were a finite number of unanswered question from the "dark ages of zero communication". And frankly, a lot of the unanswered questions seem to be asking the same thing over and over again, case in point, solo queue for Ranked Warzones. The developers have said why they dont have this (somewhere, dont remember where) but people keep asking for it. Should the community managers hunt through every thread and respond or refer that thread to an answer? I do not. The devs/community team have posted 93 or so times since the start of this thread. ( http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=523549 ). At some point they are going to run out of things to say.

"Yes, the secret space project still exists"
"Its coming soon"
"Noticed this bug, looking into it"

Hopefully they continue comminucating, if not, I will eat my words.

have a nice day

I know you don't want to hear this, and I'm not trying to be inflammatory to your anger in any way, but Bioware decides what you are entitled to know/not-know about the inner workings of their development projects.

You don't have to like it, but that is precisely the way every corporation works. In fact, that is precisely the way people work. It's just that anyone who does not access to such information projects feelings about this fact. Sometimes negatively. But all the negativity in the world is not going to change things.

Yes, it's nice to have communication. And, yes, BW did lie to us in the past.

I know. Facts and verifiable evidence are so inconvenient sometimes. Nevertheless, I do view this attempt at communication with the player base as a step in the right direction. Although, because of past behavior on BW's part, I also view it with some suspicion.

Yes. Communication is good. Yes. They also lied to us in the past. BW has a lot of repair work to do re: their credibility with some members of the player base. They pretty much know this. I applaud this new attempt of theirs to hopefully be more open and forthright.

To be fair ( and you know this ) ... he engaged in a common conversational hyperbole for emphasis. I think the psychological "schooling" was a bit pedantic for you I am surprised.

I think the general sentiment is that what some see as coddling others see as reasurance as he said.

Love him or hate him I am a huge fan of Bashiok over at the WoW forums. He mixes it up with the fan base. He is even wrong sometimes but man's up and admits it. He trolls the forums regularly and expertly. He is fun to have forum PvP with when there is nothing to report.

I think many here just want to have someone "in the know" that they can actually engage and will engage them back on a regular basis. Someone to give a sense that they are being heared; a little acknowledgement. Right now it feels like we are shouting into the storm.

Perhaps if EA/BW didn't over hype this game for years before beta (let alone release) many wouldn't now feel so betrayed.

Their grief is understandable.