Regarding the Thousand Cuts and 3 Changes threads

Both of these threads had lengthy discourse on changes the playerbase would like to see to the game, from small changes to big changes. Both threads got developer attention and it was noted that they were keeping an eye on the feedback, to which I'd like to thank the devs for letting us know that you were watching. While we know that you guys can't exactly give us timetables on when certain things can or will be added to the game, I'd like to see some dev feedback in regards to some of the specific things mentioned in these threads.

What are some of the hot issues brought up in these threads that the dev team feels are of merit? Are there any stand-outs that you feel are definitely on the table for inclusion to the game? You collected our feedback, and now we'd humbly like to hear yours regarding it.

Thanks!

For reference, the threads:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showt...91#edit5073491

http://www.swtor.com/community/showt...99#edit5041199

I agree completely. It's always nice to know that the threads are being watched, but a lot of energy was poured into trying to make some helpful suggestions to make the game better, and I'd love to hear which ideas are be taken more seriously or prioritized higher, or even a rough timetable. Soon, and "no plans for the immediate future" continue to not cut it. Still, it's nice to know maybe there's some hope we'll be listened to this time.

exactly. While "Paying attention" is a good sign, it only means they're reading it. We don't know if they're excited about the ideas, or laughing at us over coffee....

We're very excited to see constructive feedback, and the threads mentioned here have generally been exactly that. Part of what the community team does is read what players are saying across many outlets (the forums, social networking, places like reddit, etc), compile feedback, and send it along. These threads have provided us with a lot of good and generally focused and detailed feedback, and we wanted to encourage them so we'd see even more constructive feedback in them to round up and pass along!

I don't have any specific plans of action on individual items to share (and remember, we're always gathering and passing feedback along already - you may remember the class feedback threads we posted a while ago), but your suggestions, complaints, and feedback definitely reach the developers, and it helps inform decisions about upcoming changes and content.

MMO players, in general, seem to take a "board of directors" entitlement approach to the games.

By this I mean that they often behave like they are on the companies board and that everything they share warrants a direct and immediate response by the companies developer and support staff.

The flaw in this approach is that you are a consumer, with no NDA in place with the company, and therefore not eligible to receive any information that is not vetted for public disclosure. Much of what MMO companies (really all corporations these days) do in terms of incorporating customer feedback into a product is never directly disclosed back to the customer until it is ready for release to the public in the product. You don't have to like it, but that is the way it is in today's competitive markets. Everything is potential IP, which means they err on the side of caution. That is your free market capitalsim model in action. Whereas what MMO players want is open socialism in the context of MMO games. Not going to happen.

Yup. It definitely will help them figure out what things are popular and can be added to the cash shop for maxiumum profit. I guess that would be better than what we've been getting over the past 8 months though, which is next to nothing.

This is probably not something you should be proud of. There were 4? 5? max locked threads protesting 1.2 sorc / sage changes, with detailed and constructive write-ups from actual high-end raiding sorc/sage healers which were completely ignored in favor of what you described as "internal metrics". 6 months later, our sage healers still haven't seen any reversion and still run out of force in HM EC.

If you're actually compiling the data like you say, the devs seem to genuinely not care what you give them. Does that not give you any sort of pause about what you're doing or what you communicate to us?

Please, I'm so sick of the entitlement speech.

Games in the past have managed to tell people what the developers were working on, in an exponentially greater volume than BioWare has managed to with TOR. It's not about entitlement, it's about looking bad next to your competitors. Nobody had NDA's with the dozens of MMORPGs that came before this one that had developers who actively posted in the forums.

I love seeing the community members, and respect the hard job they have to do, but once in a while it would be nice to be thrown a bone that wasn't packed in a "Soon" wrapper.

It has happened, and will happen again, the question is, will it ever happen with BioWare? So far, the answer still looks like no.

I think it's the influence of the Facebook Generation. Over the last decade or so people have grown more accustomed to instanteous access to everything. I saw it years ago when working in a convenience store, people would walk around with their cell phones glued to one ear, babbling to whoever was unlucky enough to be on the other end about the mundane details of what they were doing - I'm done pumping gas, now I'm looking for something to drink, should I buy Pepsi or Coke? etc.

It's only gotten worse, now if someone stubs a toe they run to the computer or smartphone to post pics of the bruise on Facebook. If they haven't already, soon every detail or a person's life from what they had for breakfast to a photo of the pajamas they wear to bed will be posted online for anyone to see. Sorry folks, your life is not that interesting.

The worse part of it, though, is that they expect the same in return. There's no such thing as waiting for a response, they expect everything to happen immediately and cry like a 3-year-old when they have to wait ten minutes. A few months ago my current boss left me a nasty phone message when I hadn't returned a call about something within a few hours, implying that I was deliberately ignoring her. I called back and, surprise, got voicemail... left a message saying that I don't carry a cell phone, the # she has is my home phone and I don't always get my messages immediately, if I'm out late then I check them the next morning. Never heard another word about it, lol...

Anyway, people are going to continue insisting that everything be handed to them immediately, changes have to happen during next week's maintainance if not sooner, etc. But the reality is that it just doesn't work that way, you can demand all you want but you're not going to get it.

Nobody's asking for updates on when the devs are brushing their teeth, spare the hyperbole.

Asking for concrete information on a say, monthly basis from the developers, by paying customers invested in the future of this game is not a facebook generation problem, or an entitlement issue, it's a perfectly reasonable request.

I don't care about what they're working on today, tomorrow, or this week specifically. What do I care about?

Example - In 3 things you'd like to see changed about this game, person X asked for more options to customize your starship.

1) Do the devs like this idea - e.g. let us know you're working on x idea suggested by the players
2) How high of a priority is this idea (can be general), but is it something that will take weeks, months, or years, based on where it is ranked? I don't want to hear "we want to do this someday", too noncommittal. Is there or is there not a resource working on it.
3) What's the rough timetable for the implementation of this idea? Can be tentative, but 3 months, this year, this spring, are all nice things that give us something other than "soon" or "not any time soon" to look forward to.

Those are simple bits of information that can be provided about game improvements that aren't going to give away game secrets, require an NDA, and HAVE BEEN PROVIDED by most other developers in this industry. Often, they're provided so regularly they're built into the website, with future patch notes included LONG before the patch ever hits the test server. It gives people a clue that their money is going somewhere.

We can debate the whole purpose of your $15 until we're blue in the face, but as far as many of us are concerned, we're NOT paying that as a server access fee - we can play plenty of other games out there without them. We're paying that because an MMORPG brings the promise of new content and improvements. That's not a promise made by BioWare, it's a promise made by deciding to create an entry into this genre.

Don't project your low standards on the rest of the world. The game launched lacking a lot, as most MMORPG's do. I'm forgiving of that. I understand that it takes time to produce content. Forgiving of that as well - what I'm not forgiving of is complete silence about what is actually being worked on with the money I've already given them over the last few months.

If it's new "content" to charge free to play players for, that's unacceptable. If it's anything of substance, people are likely to be forgiving, and just glad to hear SOMETHING from one of the most silent studios of all time. Let's be honest, software developers are fast typers. If they typed a post half as long as I did right now, everyone would be shocked, and it would take them all of a minute to make a simple gesture of good faith with a massive ROI.