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The Dwindling Dev Tracker


iamthehoyden

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So, in a fit of curiosity, I decided to see if it was my imagination or if the communication levels had, indeed, slacked off.

 

August 8th - We get the "new and improved communication era" and 31 dev/community team posts on the Dev Tracker. Of those, two are what I'd consider housekeeping posts (maintenance, Q&A, servers are back up, reposting announcements from the main page). So that's 29 posts of some sort of substance.

 

August 8 - 31 posts, 2 housekeeping = 29

August 9 - 15 posts, 1 housekeeping = 14

August 10 - 13 posts, 2 housekeeping = 11

August 11 & 12 - weekend

August 13 - 17 posts, 2 housekeeping = 15

August 14 - 9 posts, 1 housekeeping = 8

August 15 - 8 posts, 2 housekeeping = 6

August 16 - 8 posts, 3 housekeeping = 5

August 17 - 4 posts, 1 housekeeping = 3

August 18 & 19 - weekend

August 20 = 2 posts, 0 housekeeping = 2

 

In 9 days we've gone from 29 posts per day to 2. Two. Color me not impressed with the stamina of the "new and improved communication."

 

Look, I'm not even counting the number of "we have no new information, please check back later" responses. I'm just counting the number of posts total. If you want us to have confidence in your willingness to communicate then promises need to be backed up by actions.

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I think they restructured the posts too. They were taking too much room in the new restructured smaller Bioware Austin.

 

I think I know what`s next = make the Boards 100x100 and sell them as online stamps.

Edited by Styxx
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If I stopped posting in the forums, does that mean I'm not working? No. Infact it probably means I'm working more.

 

I don't have any idea what they're doing when they're not on the boards posting. That isn't my point. My point is that they said they'd communicate more, and we're seeing a serious drop-off of communication. Promises mean very little when they're not backed up by actions, in this case visible communication to the community.

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So, in a fit of curiosity, I decided to see if it was my imagination or if the communication levels had, indeed, slacked off.

 

August 8th - We get the "new and improved communication era" and 31 dev/community team posts on the Dev Tracker. Of those, two are what I'd consider housekeeping posts (maintenance, Q&A, servers are back up, reposting announcements from the main page). So that's 29 posts of some sort of substance.

 

August 8 - 31 posts, 2 housekeeping = 29

August 9 - 15 posts, 1 housekeeping = 14

August 10 - 13 posts, 2 housekeeping = 11

August 11 & 12 - weekend

August 13 - 17 posts, 2 housekeeping = 15

August 14 - 9 posts, 1 housekeeping = 8

August 15 - 8 posts, 2 housekeeping = 6

August 16 - 8 posts, 3 housekeeping = 5

August 17 - 4 posts, 1 housekeeping = 3

August 18 & 19 - weekend

August 20 = 2 posts, 0 housekeeping = 2

 

In 9 days we've gone from 29 posts per day to 2. Two. Color me not impressed with the stamina of the "new and improved communication."

 

Look, I'm not even counting the number of "we have no new information, please check back later" responses. I'm just counting the number of posts total. If you want us to have confidence in your willingness to communicate then promises need to be backed up by actions.

 

The EXACT SAME thing happened around May-ish during the last round of big layoffs/communication revamp (when Reid got canned)...Joveth made all kinds of promises about a new era of customer relations...NONE of which were actually followed through on...

 

Same old, same old...the saying about fooling me once...etc. comes to mind here :rolleyes:

Edited by LrdRahvin
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I'm sure the community team find it tedious to type, "We know you're excited about [critical make-or-break issue] and we have no news about that right now, but we will let you know as soon as something develops," 50 times in a row and would like a break. After all, they weren't saying anything then, just as they aren't now.
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I'm sure the community team find it tedious to type, "We know you're excited about [critical make-or-break issue] and we have no news about that right now, but we will let you know as soon as something develops," 50 times in a row and would like a break. After all, they weren't saying anything then, just as they aren't now.

 

You'd think they could make a macro..

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I'm sure the community team find it tedious to type, "We know you're excited about [critical make-or-break issue] and we have no news about that right now, but we will let you know as soon as something develops," 50 times in a row and would like a break. After all, they weren't saying anything then, just as they aren't now.

 

I thought they had a NotePad document open on their desktop and just copy pasta'd it in.

 

If the above is true (drop off in communication coming before redundancies) are we going to see this become worse? Sometimes it also feels like the forum moderation team and communication team don't talk to each other... or the developers, game support...

 

It would be nice if they could revisit the Guild Summit talk, make a list and say "no" to whatever items they're no longer bringing in, so we can stop waiting for them.

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People are asking the same questions over and over again. What are the devs supposed to talk about that they haven't already covered? Once they have updated information, and they are given the go to let us know, there will be a big burst of communication again.
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It would be nice if they could revisit the Guild Summit talk, make a list and say "no" to whatever items they're no longer bringing in, so we can stop waiting for them.

This would be helpful. I'm sure they get frustrated by the number of questions they've already answered, but the fact of the matter is that things have changed so much over the last few months and things that BW said they weren't doing are being done (F2P being the most obvious) that nobody really knows what's coming and what's not.

 

I'm sure it's tedious to go check and come back and say "it's still in development, but we don't have a timeline" but that's exactly what we need on a host of topics.

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People are asking the same questions over and over again. What are the devs supposed to talk about that they haven't already covered? Once they have updated information, and they are given the go to let us know, there will be a big burst of communication again.

 

They could comment on whether or not EA selling would lead to this game being closed down. I get the feeling that they simply don't want to seeing as how they keep deleting every thread that mentions EA is thinking about going up for sale. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/mad_for_madden_3lyqSl04ZEpZeO9Zmh81GI It is a very fair question.

Edited by Tuscad
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They could comment on whether or not EA selling would lead to this game being closed down. I get the feeling that they simply don't want to seeing as how they keep deleting every thread that mentions EA is thinking about going up for sale. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/mad_for_madden_3lyqSl04ZEpZeO9Zmh81GI It is a very fair question.

 

I answered that for you in the other thread Tuscad. :)

 

But to revisit, clearly there is a license agreeement in place between EA and LA, and it is reasonable to assume it is thick as a phone book and has all kinds of performance clauses and ironclad financial clauses.

 

Neither the aquisition of EA OR LA by a third party would negate the legal binding and enforcability of such an agreement. Sometimes the parties might jointly claim a material change in business and enter into a contract renegotiation, but generally that requires both parties to want to do so, and it might change some terms, but generally both parties won't agree to a walk-away.

 

If Disney buys out EA, they are legally bound to continue to meet the terms of the contract, and all financial obligations with LA. Even if Tuscad buys out EA, rinse and repeat. :D

Edited by Andryah
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They could comment on whether or not EA selling would lead to this game being closed down. I get the feeling that they simply don't want to seeing as how they keep deleting every thread that mentions EA is thinking about going up for sale. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/mad_for_madden_3lyqSl04ZEpZeO9Zmh81GI It is a very fair question.

 

I'm sorry but that is the silliest request I've read in some time.

1. It hasn't sold

2. They have no idea who the buyer may or not be and what they will do.

 

They are not sages and cannot read the future so commenting on that request would HAVE to be "we don't know".

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I answered that for you in the other thread Tuscad. :)

 

But to revisit, clearly there is a license agreeement in place between EA and LA, and it is reasonable to assume it is thick as a phone book and has all kinds of performance clauses and ironclad financial clauses.

 

Neither the aquisition of EA OR LA by a third party would negate the legal binding and enforcability of such an agreement. Sometimes the parties might jointly claim a material change in business and enter into a contract renegotiation, but generally that requires both parties to want to do so.

 

If Disney buys out EA, they are legally bound to continue to meet the terms of the contract, and all financial obligations with LA.

 

I remember you answering it for me but I saw another forum user post something contradictory. I couldn't find the article with a google search; it was claimed that Forbes said that EA will have to pull the plug on SWTOR in order to be able to sell.

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I'm sorry but that is the silliest request I've read in some time.

1. It hasn't sold

2. They have no idea who the buyer may or not be and what they will do.

 

They are not sages and cannot read the future so commenting on that request would HAVE to be "we don't know".

 

Indeed it hasn't sold but that wasn't the point, I was wanting to know if they would be forced to shut down the game due to part of an agreement between EA and LucasArts. Doesn't sound like an unreasonable question to me :confused:

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I remember you answering it for me but I saw another forum user post something contradictory. I couldn't find the article with a google search; it was claimed that Forbes said that EA will have to pull the plug on SWTOR in order to be able to sell.

 

I read the Forbes article. It did not say that. It said that an analyst was concerned that EA might shut down SWTOR if it kept loosing subs, which is silly. They have not shut down DAOC or Warhammer have they?

 

Besides, Something like that is generally also unenforceable. Worst case, LA might have a clause in the contract that says if EA changes hands, LA has the option to renegotiate one or more contract terms.

Edited by Andryah
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I read the Forbes article. It did not say that. It said that an analyst was concerned that EA might shut down SWTOR if it kept loosing subs, which is silly. They have not shut down DAOC or Warhammer have they?

 

Besides, Something like that is generally also unenforceable.

 

Thank you for the clarification :), I didn't have anything to go on because no link was posted so I had to just consider what was posted was true.

Edited by Tuscad
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It would be nice if they could revisit the Guild Summit talk, make a list and say "no" to whatever items they're no longer bringing in, so we can stop waiting for them.

 

No way, they need all those murky promises and promises-to-look-into-stuff in order to stall just a little bit longer.

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I read the Forbes article. It did not say that. It said that an analyst was concerned that EA might shut down SWTOR if it kept loosing subs, which is silly. They have not shut down DAOC or Warhammer have they?

 

Besides, Something like that is generally also unenforceable. Worst case, LA might have a clause in the contract that says if EA changes hands, LA has the option to renegotiate one or more contract terms.

 

Your comparison is not valid. You are unaware of operating costs of SWTOR in comparison to DAoC or Warhammer. Assumption are just that.

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Your comparison is not valid. You are unaware of operating costs of SWTOR in comparison to DAoC or Warhammer. Assumption are just that.

 

Your allegation is not valid.

 

Actually, I am quite aware of what the operations costs for SWTOR are. It's easy as it is 90% headcount driven.

 

Here is why your allegation is NOT VALID:

 

They have, and will continue to scale their operations plan to match the scale of customer base for their MMOs. That is what they have and continue to do for DAOC and Warhammer, and in fact they have done this already for SWTOR in May, and will continue to do so as they review and adjust their operations plan to match revenue with expenses.

 

The only possible doomsday scenario for EA is if Lucas Arts is guaranteed a minimum floor in royalty payments. There is no evidence of this so far, but if there is, then it would explain why they focus on 500K in a subs model as their profit point for the game. Now that it is going Freemium, that sub number is no longer valid because they have a new busines model that monetizes the game differently.

Edited by Andryah
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Your allegation is not valid.

 

Actually, I am quite aware of what the operations costs for SWTOR are. It's easy as it is 90% headcount driven.

 

Here is why your allegation is NOT VALID:

 

They have, and will continue to scale their operations plan to match the scale of customer base for their MMOs. That is what they have and continue to do for DAOC and Warhammer, and in fact they have done this already for SWTOR in May, and will continue to do so as they review and adjust their operations plan to match revenue with expenses.

 

The only possible doomsday scenario for EA is if Lucas Arts is guaranteed a minimum floor in royalty payments. There is no evidence of this so far, but if there is, then it would explain why they focus on 500K in a subs model as their profit point for the game. Now that it is going Freemium, that sub number is no longer valid because they have a new busines model that monetizes the game differently.

 

I find it interesting how you are so certain about these things. Do you work for Bioware of have inside information? *OR* are you making observations with small bits of information and creating your own truth on what is and is not happening.

 

In any case, it really doesn't matter. We cannot know the future. Perhaps you can humble yourself and speak with more emphasis on things being your opinion as opposed to fact. These conclusions on what is going on are what you have deduced by your own devices and interpretations. Opinions are great, but let's call them what they are. You may find you are taken more seriously if you provide your words in that light.

 

I sincerely hope this game can pull out of this seemingly downward spiral. I enjoy it. ;)

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