I agree story and forking arcs was one of the major things to make SWTOR unique. I certainly hope it does not fall by the wayside.

If the 4th pillar falls then it'll be like any other mmo and I fear that many will grow bored.

I doubt bioware, lord of the story based RPG, will allow that to happen.

I <3 my imperial agents story... SO MUCH.

I would still like to know which servers you guys and gals are playing on (and which servers you transferred from if applicable). ...

I'm seeing many trolls and flooded general chats in the future if you receive the answer you seek

You're definitely entitled to your own opinion, and obviously game updates are incredibly important to all of us, but please note that we are the community team and not the development team. This blog post was meant to address the community team and new changes. We'll have more information for you regarding the game itself when we are able to share.

Personally, I'm really glad you guys are going for an initiative of greater visibility. Vote of confidence from me!

I hope you've seen the other thread I've started about in-game community issues and the really great suggestions that people have made over there about how to improve in-game community.

Do you think that some of these folks you've mentioned, with all the characters they play, would be interested in planning some live social events with players? That would be awesome.

Well as someone who has been down in the dumps about the game lately, this is welcome news. One thing I was really unhappy with was the level of communication around here. This seems like a definite step into rectifying that. Actively collaborating with the community on all aspects of the game ultimately leads to a better overall community. I am a firm believer of that.

Oh and can you pass on to Mr. Ohlen to STOP overhyping everything coming to the game. Im pretty sure that has helped create the anger of the playerbase.

I'm flattered, but my characters must remain secret, so I'm afraid you'll never know the answer!

We don't have to know, but if anyone on your team can join The Fatman and help us Imps(without us knowing who they are), it would be most appreciated. There are so many bad players on the Imp side now. Please help those players become better.

 

Oh and can you pass on to Mr. Ohlen to STOP overhyping everything coming to the game. Im pretty sure that has helped create the anger of the playerbase.

To be fair, he might not be hyping. He might just genuinely be excited about what he is talking about.

Too few people really love what they do and I think it might be possible that Ohlen is one of them.

We shouldn't condemn him for enjoying his work.

Nice to have some news, and it's cool to see you have ingame characters. On some MMO we feel like the staff is not playing their own game (AOC is one of them, except some staff member, they seems to be playing something else). Also, some nerf are really bad for a class, and makes people think it's because you're not playing the class, and don't know how it works. Commando/merc nerf comes to mind.

Just a question, there is 2people in your staff without AC (Eric Campbell as inquisitor and Eric Musco as trooper). Does that mean they play both AC, they are still trooper/inq at lvl 50 (quite the challenge IMO), or they are still on the first planet ?

Another one, do you guys play the server we use, and are "undercover" inside some guild, not saying they are part of the staff, but enjoying the game the same way we do (like Eve online staff), or do they have a special guild (like GW staff) ?

Anyway, hope you have flame shield guys, it will be needed.

Nobody asked for names or faces. I can tell you right now that it doesn't matter how much we personally get to know them, that simple fact alone isn't going to improve the game.

 

I didn't say I wasn't excited or that I know what is going to fix the game and how, I simply said that you're acting like this is the saving grace of the game, as if all problems are going to fade away into myth and memory simply because you know Joveth on a first name basis now. They aren't going away simply because of a few introductions that weren't requested or required, you just seem to be gushing all over this announcement when nothing productive has come from it yet, just give it a few weeks and see where it takes us.

 

Am I hoping for the best? Sure am. Do I expect this to be the catalyst of big changes? No, not at all. You're the one assuming that I have extreme expectations and want release dates, yet you can't reign in your own hopes for a minute and realize that as of now, this has done nothing for the game.

You only speak for yourself. I asked for names and faces. I may think this is the saving grace of the game. And why do I have to "reign in my own hopes"? Perhaps this one thing has done immense things for the game, for me.

Your statements are not fact, but opinions, and will be treated as such.

great to see they introduce... but how good, reliable and what experience they have?

because so far it was the community manager Joveth Gonzalez , who was fast to point its finger and name a customer (fan as they call us) of lie and make up something on the fatman while they have some world pvp issue withs a GM, and they even say actions was gonna be taken again him. one hour later he come back with a apology saying he was wrong..

actions like that show he is very green for this job still.....

so im worry about if this team is actually good news, or its just gonna be more problems.....

Do you think that some of these folks you've mentioned, with all the characters they play, would be interested in planning some live social events with players? That would be awesome.

Yes. The logistics of all of that would have to be mapped out first (approvals, possible legal issues, etc), but it's definitely something that we want to investigate for the future.

As community managers would you consider keeping an up to date "In patch X.X..." thread stickied in general?

 

The reason I ask is because many of the posts on this board are due to confusion over what has and has not been said about the future of the game.

 

A clear bulleted summery of features, changes, and content with links to all the relevant Q/As, twitter posts, and interviews would be easily maintained if you did a little every few days and would be a fount of information that could be, and this is important, easily accessible for all the forum goers.

 

Arlee on MMOc, Dulfy, and DH tend to do an okay job of it but having to go to 3rd party sites to get compiled information is a bit demoralizing and many of the community members are unaware of them.

 

Really love that you guys are making the effort to step into the thunderdome of general forum.

I feel like this may have been buried quickly and while I know I am not entitled to an answer because I am not rainbow jebus I would like one :X... Yeah... Spoiled I know.

One poster asked something similar and got a "we would sticky something a poster would make" is that a "no" to handling your own compilations?

Expecting us to stay on top of what the collective "you" says is no small feat (and we wouldn't be getting paid to do so).

I'm flattered, but my characters must remain secret, so I'm afraid you'll never know the answer!

Do you guys participate in player Ops? I ask because Vent is usually required and who knows, perhaps my raid is coordinating and talking with a BW employee xD

I'm seeing many trolls and flooded general chats in the future if you receive the answer you seek

Probably. Part of the problem I have with where the game is currently at is that developers really seem to have given up on us. There has been no action regarding server populations, there have been considerable layoffs in their office, and the EA earnings report kind of suggested their parent company considers them a low priority. The community team has done an adequate job of letting us know that this is something their looking into, and it's important. But when the marketing is focused on updating a legacy system I had to abandon on a dead server, I really don't feel like their helping me out.

I know the community team can't just jump in and fix it. However, I think this can personalize them a bit more; let me know that they really do understand how frustrating they're making this game. It will let me know that they want to take a risk and really connect with the community and all of it's problems. Or maybe they're not really playing the same game, and fudge their character stats and switch servers on a whim.

In the first Q&A ever the dev. team talked about 16 man operations and how they should be easier to do then 8 man. The current state of the game couldn't be farther from the truth with my guild able to breeze though 8 man anything in an hour or so while clearing even story mode EC 16 man is a nightmare.

In a game where player population is the biggest issue and server transfers are right around the corner, can I get a little insight in to the reason behind forcing the few large guilds who can field 16+ rosters to do 8 man content? There are more a few people in my guild thinking of leaving the game as they feel the guild would be better off with an 8 man roster, and the idea of having 16 log on to do two 8 man zones is just ... silly. I'm finding it harder and harder to disagree with them; we can clear hard mode EC 8 man with any 8 members of our guild in a night, but 16 man story mode EC takes 2 days if we can clear it at all. Can't kill the first boss on 16 man hard. Why put in SO much more effort for the same loot?

I feel like this may have been buried quickly and while I know I am not entitled to an answer because I am not rainbow jebus I would like one :X... Yeah... Spoiled I know.

 

One poster asked something similar and got a "we would sticky something a poster would make" is that a "no" to handling your own compilations?

Expecting us to stay on top of what the collective "you" says is no small feat (and we wouldn't be getting paid to do so).

I posted this in another thread a couple weeks ago, but I was once part of a game that had a progress bar on upcoming game features. While I see how that can be easily extrapolated to draw incorrect conclusions, I think it's a great way for us to feel like there's progress being made on the most whined-about issues (transfers, ranked WZ, etc.).

Yes. The logistics of all of that would have to be mapped out first (approvals, possible legal issues, etc), but it's definitely something that we want to investigate for the future.

I have such a live social event taking place with my guild on Belgoths Beacon this summer. While short notice I believe this is the first SWTOR lan party I have seen. Any support would be awesome (We also got some pet codes and thank you for them!)

We are trying to spark peoples interest in going.

(Details of event: http://www.force-effect.net/Page/GuildSummit)

... we can clear hard mode EC 8 man with any 8 members of our guild in a night, but 16 man story mode EC takes 2 days if we can clear it at all. Can't kill the first boss on 16 man hard. Why put in SO much more effort for the same loot?

Our guild did this on Tuesday, actually. It took 3-4 attempts, but we finally got it. It's probably harder to do because EC is very placement- and mechanics-driven, and the previous 2 ops aren't so as much. Also, they do give you more BH comms for 16-man

great to see they introduce... but how good, reliable and what experience they have?

 

because so far it was the community manager Joveth Gonzalez , who was fast to point its finger and name a customer (fan as they call us) of lie and make up something on the fatman while they have some world pvp issue withs a GM, and they even say actions was gonna be taken again him. one hour later he come back with a apology saying he was wrong..

 

actions like that show he is very green for this job still.....

so im worry about if this team is actually good news, or its just gonna be more problems.....

It's certainly understandable to be cautious of any new changes, but I wanted to let you know that I've worked several years as a Community Manager prior to BioWare, but that's not why I wanted to respond to this.

I've already explained what happened this past weekend and apologized personally to the original player affected. Our CS team also quickly called every single person affected and apologized for what had happened.

Mistakes happen and lessons were definitely learned, and we're going to be more thorough in everything that we do. Since all parties involved have no further issues with each other, I'm going to officially ask that we move beyond this. I'm going to, and I hope that you can as well. There is no reason to discuss this further.

Yes. The logistics of all of that would have to be mapped out first (approvals, possible legal issues, etc), but it's definitely something that we want to investigate for the future.

So glad to see you say this. I can be pretty patient, but keep us updated!

(also, I'd love to help)

Thanks for the update! Must say SWTOR has the most interactive community team I've ever dealt with. Glad to see the Dev Tracker filling up again.

I'm somewhat glad to see the Community Team responding to the community, and I feel it will go a long ways to keeping up customer retention.

However, some of the biggest gripes about the game are towards the development team's actions. Lack of updates on important issues are at the front of problems. I hate the "Coming Soon" or "Early Summer" posts, but us players are like kids on a road trip always asking their parents "Are we there yet?". So the reply is somewhat ok, but maybe we can come to a even point by creating a page on the website titled "Coming in 1.3" page and a "On the Horizon" Page that has hints of "in progress" updates that we can be excited about.

Also, if a patch is going to be rolled out, why not always post the patch notes a day or two before time? If we know that a patch will be coming that affects us (class nerfs/buffs, GTN, Augment changes, etc.), it won't be so much of a surprise. This was done for the massive 1.2 update, but not for weekly patches. I was excited for maintenance when an update was coming on Tuesday. Some minor patches really fixed issues we complained about, others were just minor. The problem though was that we had no way of knowing what the patch was until after it was implemented. I'd preferred all patches to the game, big or small, be spoken about ahead of time.

Thanks for the updates.

It is a sad day when alot of people leave any project but it's reassuring to know that we are left in capable hands

On a semi unrelated note, would it be possible to see a Death Match video between all of the Community Team Staff? Perhaps in Outlaw's Den? Please?

My main is a Commando so Major Musco has became my favourite community Staff right now.

I just wanted to drop by and say thank you to not only the community managers, but also the customer support agents, developers, live team and everyone else. I wanted to let you all know that I am very appreciative of all the hard work and dedication the team is taking for maintaining SWTOR and for ensuring a quality service. I am looking forward to seeing more information about the community representatives (and even perhaps the developers?).

It is also nice to know that you guys are playing on the live servers as well. Many people probably make rude assumptions about you guys not realizing the population problem on some servers, but just knowing the fact that you guys are indeed on the live servers should hopefully let people know that you see what the ingame economy is like and you can see some of our concerns in /general chat.

Again, thank you for introducing yourselves and here's to a more positive outlook for the game.