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Open letter to Eric Musco and EA


ParagonAX

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Dear Eric, and staff/executives of EA,

 

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a senior consultant in strategy consulting, from a top tier international consulting firm. I specialize in consumer business. I provide strategic management advice to consumer business companies for a living.

 

Why am I introducing myself this way? Not because I am trying to toot my own horn, but because:

  1. I’d like to establish at least a small amount of credibility, amongst all the troll posts on this forum and other social media avenues.
     
  2. Top-tier consulting firms would be very reluctant to provide advice for anything less than $100k, depending on the specific assignment.
     
  3. More importantly, because they are getting paid for the job, consultants more often than not end up saying what clients want to hear, not what they need to. Because you don’t know me nor my employer, I have no such hesitation. The advice I’m about to give is sincere and heartfelt.

 

I’ve been playing SWTOR for about a year now, and have seen many ups and downs of this game. Credibility is due where good work was done, so I’d be first to admit that although not perfect, the SWTOR team has done many things to improve this game and make most people have a genuine fun time playing this game.

 

That being said, the release of 2.0, specifically the bolster system, has been a disaster. There is no other way to phrase it. The system is broken, exploitable, and has caused the PvP community to be severely disheartened. I’m sure you can see how your customers are responding to this in a negative way, from the plethora of threads on this forum. And no, it’s not just forum QQ either. Coming from the best PvP guild on my server, there has been few other topics but bolster in our Mumble, for the past week. The same could be said of general chat in fleet or in warzones, where people are confused about what is going on, and what to do.

 

Although the bolster debacle is far from over, there are some important themes we should identify, in order to find a solution and prevent problems like this.

 

Theme one. The simplest solution is the best solution.

 

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” – Bill Gates

 

In your post here, you stated that the PvP team is actively working on a solution on bolster, which by your own admission is a complex system. You also stated that you will soon provide a “mathy” post explaining bolster.

 

My question to you is, do you think the majority of your customers care about “mathy” explanations? Do the majority of your customers even bother reading lengthy posts? What do these “mathy” explanations achieve? An even better question to ask is, why does bolster need to be so needlessly complicated?

 

Truth be told, consumers, of any product, just want something that works. Do you think Apple is successful because their products have the best hardware or software? No. It’s because they are simple and elegant. They just work.

 

Look at the original iPod instruction manual for instance.

 

Step 1. First, you have to connect your iPod to your computer (picture of an iPod connected to a laptop via USB).

 

There is no step 2.

 

What's the lesson here? Customers want something that just works. Something that doesn’t need to be explained in lengthy posts or patch notes. Something that wouldn't be mistranslated and misunderstood by gamers getting their information from a variety of reputable and less than reputable sources.

 

I’ll leave finding the elegant solution for you and your team, but here’s just one suggestion.

 

Theme two. Underpromise, overdeliver.

 

One of the biggest failures about the bolster debacle is how it was handled. From way back in 2.0 PTS, many testers have repeatedly pointed out the bugs with the system, and how easily exploitable they were. We were promised that the system would be fixed, and that it would work for 2.0 release.

 

It wasn’t.

 

Instead, the well-documented “naked bolster” bug once again appeared.

 

So you promised that the team is looking at this, and that the system will be fixed in a maintenance patch.

 

It wasn’t, again.

 

Exploits involving removing enhancements/mods/augments surfaced, problems that once again were well-documented on PTS discussions.

 

How could the PvP community not be discouraged?

 

If I worked for a company that released half-baked products on a regular basis, I’d be ashamed. Don’t you guys have a Quality Assurance team? Are they doing their job testing unfinished products, at all?

 

Maybe I’m too hard on the developer team. The root of the problem is that 2.0 was released way too fast. This is something that came from the executive level. You guys simply did not have enough time to polish 2.0 before it was released. The QA team did not have enough time to review the product before it was released.

 

But why didn’t someone stand up and say something? Why didn’t someone say, “Hey, VP of Game Design, the timelines you provided are unrealistic, we do not have the confidence of making sure the product is ready.”

 

So maybe this is a theme that your executives could heed. Always promise less than what you think you can deliver. In other words, overdeliver. Surprise your customers with pleasant experiences they were not expecting to receive. Don't provide them with disappointment after disappointment of not delivering what was promised.

 

Theme three. Engage your customers.

 

As a community manager, your job is, presumably, to monitor social media channels for customer feedback, and relay the feedback to your developer teams.

 

In many of your posts, you have stated that you will pass on issues reported by the community, or ask the developers for explanations so you can relay to the community.

 

But why aren’t the developers engaging the community themselves?

 

If every single one of your design / development team spent 30 minutes each day visiting the forums and looking for feedback, would that be time wasted?

 

Even CEOs of retail giants visit their own stores on a constant basis to engage customers. Why can’t the development team do the same?

 

The keyword here is engage. Simply relaying information is not enough. One post per day is not enough. Tell us what your plans are for bolster, before implementing bolster. Let us provide sincere feedback on your ideas. Let us share our ideas with you. Use the ideas from the community that are good, and integrate them into your design. More often than not, you will be surprised at the caliber of ingenuity the community can provide, because these are the people that play your game, day in and day out.

 

So, three small pieces of advice. Take from them what you will. I know you will read this Eric, and hope you take them seriously. I also hope you can pass along the message to the powers that be in EA.

 

Treat your customers with respect, and they will return in kind. That’s not just how you build a successful game, but how you build a successful company.

 

Sincerely,

Party Time Viperin

Edited by ParagonAX
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There is one inherent flaw in your (well constructed) post:

 

BioWare does what BioWare wants to do. Period.

 

Like a great many others here, I've been a gamer for a long time (about 12 years). I've been a beta tester for several games, including SWG, EvE Online, LOTRO, and SWTOR. Customer feedback on MMO forums is often in the form of disgruntled and uniformed whine threads, even during beta and on test servers. However, there is also often genuine and valuable feedback.

 

I've learned one universal truth about SWTOR, and that is that this development team places near zero value on customer feedback.

 

EvE Online developers and community managers post DAILY on their forums, as have devs from many other MMOs. With SWTOR, there is a huge disconnect between what the developer's vision for the game is, and what customers are wanting/willing to pay for. As such, many changes to the game equate to being blindsided by a mugger in a dark alley because the PTS is a pointless exercise in quality control. In short, while I agree with your assessment and can appreciate what you're saying...it falls on deaf ears.

 

It frankly blows my mind that not one, but TWO game developers have managed to screw up the best-selling franchise of all time. I used to be vocal on the beta and PTS forums. After playing beta, pre-ordering the Collector's Edition, and leveling 8 characters to 50, I unsubscribed on the eve of my 1 yr anniversary and sat on the sidelines for the last 4 months. Now, returning to check out 2.0, very little has changed and probably never will.

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Long yeah, but unassailable content. It's hard not to get the impression with this game that too many goals are tied to an anvil and dropped from above instead of being pushed up by the people doing the work. An unfortunately common scenario. Might be wrong, but why's there such a long list of QA people in the expansion credits? /2cents. Edited by Joesixxpack
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Dear Eric, and staff/executives of EA,

 

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a senior consultant in strategy consulting, from a top tier international consulting firm. I specialize in consumer business. I provide strategic management advice to consumer business companies for a living.

 

Why am I introducing myself this way? Not because I am trying to toot my own horn, but because:

  1. I’d like to establish at least a small amount of credibility, amongst all the troll posts on this forum and other social media avenues.
     
  2. Top-tier consulting firms would be very reluctant to provide advice for anything less than $100k, depending on the specific assignment.
     
  3. More importantly, because they are getting paid for the job, consultants more often than not end up saying what clients want to hear, not what they need to. Because you don’t know me nor my employer, I have no such hesitation. The advice I’m about to give is sincere and heartfelt.

 

I’ve been playing SWTOR for about a year now, and have seen many ups and downs of this game. Credibility is due where good work was done, so I’d be first to admit that although not perfect, the SWTOR team has done many things to improve this game and make most people have a genuine fun time playing this game.

 

That being said, the release of 2.0, specifically the bolster system, has been a disaster. There is no other way to phrase it. The system is broken, exploitable, and has caused the PvP community to be severely disheartened. I’m sure you can see how your customers are responding to this in a negative way, from the plethora of threads on this forum. And no, it’s not just forum QQ either. Coming from the best PvP guild on my server, there has been few other topics but bolster in our Mumble, for the past week. The same could be said of general chat in fleet or in warzones, where people are confused about what is going on, and what to do.

 

Although the bolster debacle is far from over, there are some important themes we should identify, in order to find a solution and prevent problems like this.

 

Theme one. The simplest solution is the best solution.

 

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” – Bill Gates

 

In your post here, you stated that the PvP team is actively working on a solution on bolster, which by your own admission is a complex system. You also stated that you will soon provide a “mathy” post explaining bolster.

 

My question to you is, do you think the majority of your customers care about “mathy” explanations? Do the majority of your customers even bother reading lengthy posts? What do these “mathy” explanations achieve? An even better question to ask is, why does bolster need to be so needlessly complicated?

 

Truth be told, consumers, of any product, just want something that works. Do you think Apple is successful because their products have the best hardware or software? No. It’s because they are simple and elegant. They just work.

 

Look at the original iPod instruction manual for instance.

 

Step 1. First, you have to connect your iPod to your computer (picture of an iPod connected to a laptop via USB).

 

There is no step 2.

 

What's the lesson here? Customers want something that just works. Something that doesn’t need to be explained in lengthy posts or patch notes. Something that wouldn't be mistranslated and misunderstood by gamers getting their information from a variety of reputable and less than reputable sources.

 

I’ll leave finding the elegant solution for you and your team, but here’s just one suggestion.

 

Theme two. Underpromise, overdeliver.

 

One of the biggest failures about the bolster debacle is how it was handled. From way back in 2.0 PTS, many testers have repeatedly pointed out the bugs with the system, and how easily exploitable they were. We were promised that the system would be fixed, and that it would work for 2.0 release.

 

It wasn’t.

 

Instead, the well-documented “naked bolster” bug once again appeared.

 

So you promised that the team is looking at this, and that the system will be fixed in a maintenance patch.

 

It wasn’t, again.

 

Exploits involving removing enhancements/mods/augments surfaced, problems that once again were well-documented on PTS discussions.

 

How could the PvP community not be discouraged?

 

If I worked for a company that released half-baked products on a regular basis, I’d be ashamed. Don’t you guys have a Quality Assurance team? Are they doing their job testing unfinished products, at all?

 

Maybe I’m too hard on the developer team. The root of the problem is that 2.0 was released way too fast. This is something that came from the executive level. You guys simply did not have enough time to polish 2.0 before it was released. The QA team did not have enough time to review the product before it was released.

 

But why didn’t someone stand up and say something? Why didn’t someone say, “Hey, VP of Game Design, the timelines you provided are unrealistic, we do not have the confidence of making sure the product is ready.”

 

So maybe this is a theme that your executives could heed. Always promise less than what you think you can deliver. In other words, overdeliver. Surprise your customers with pleasant experiences they were not expecting to receive. Don't provide them with disappointment after disappointment that what they were promised was not delivered.

 

Theme three. Engage your customers.

 

As a community manager, your job is, presumably, to monitor social media channels for customer feedback, and relay the feedback to your developer teams.

 

In many of your posts, you have stated that you will pass on issues reported by the community, or ask the developers for explanations so you can relay to the community.

 

But why aren’t the developers engaging the community themselves?

 

If every single one of your design / development team spent 30 minutes each day visiting the forums and looking for feedback, would that be time wasted?

 

Even CEOs of retail giants visit their own stores on a constant basis to engage customers. Why can’t the development team do the same?

 

The keyword here is engage. Simply relaying information is not enough. One post per day is not enough. Tell us what your plans are for bolster, before implementing bolster. Let us provide sincere feedback on your ideas. Let us share our ideas with you. Use the ideas from the community that are good, and integrate them into your design. More often than not, you will be surprised at the caliber of ingenuity the community can provide, because these are the people that play your game, day in and day out.

 

So, three small pieces of advice. Take from them what you will. I know you will read this Eric, and hope you take them seriously. I also hope you can pass along the message to the powers that be in EA.

 

Treat your customers with respect, and they will return in kind. That’s not just how you build a successful game, but how you build a successful company.

 

Sincerely,

Party Time Viperin

 

Eloquent you surely are, Padawan.

 

Even so, the parts "I'm a senior consultant ..." and "Coming from the best PvP guild on my server ..." make me want to ask you to check my sig. The iPad, iPod and iWhatever religion part is insupportable.

 

But if one generously disregards these three, you have a point or two.

 

Peace, Padawan.

Edited by Cretinus
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Eloquent you surely are, Padawan.

 

Even so, the parts "I'm a senior consultant ..." and "Coming from the best PvP guild on my server ..." make me want to ask you to check my sig. The iPad, iPod and iWhatever religion part is insupportable.

But if one disregards these three, you have apoint or two.

 

Peace, Padawan.

 

Fair points. Nice sig, btw.

 

Not going to argue to your first two points. As for Apple though, it's not about iReligion at all. Personally, I use a whole range of products, from Mac to PC to Android to Apple to BlackBerry on a daily basis. However, anyone in the business world who doubts Apple is successful is simply delusional.

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Very good read

 

 

 

No one is happy with bioware and their devolpers right now. They seem tired and annoyed with the game instead of being passionate and excited

 

 

This game has so much potential and still does, but they are pissing it away with poor choices and like you said, over promising and under delivering

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I've learned one universal truth about SWTOR, and that is that this development team places near zero value on customer feedback.

 

This. When it comes to testing, Bioware doesn't care about our opinions on class balance or related feedback, they just want us to find the bugs.

 

Although, the OP's suggestion that all the devs spend time reading the forums everyday would probably lead to severe depression, possible catatonia, and eventual mass suicide. Not everyone can be a world class flak-catcher like Eric Musco!

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Fair points. Nice sig, btw.

 

Not going to argue to your first two points. As for Apple though, it's not about iReligion at all. Personally, I use a whole range of products, from Mac to PC to Android to Apple to BlackBerry on a daily basis. However, anyone in the business world who doubts Apple is successful is simply delusional.

 

No doubts about Apple's commercial success here, but I'm assuming that you are not responsible for that success. To mention it as emphasis for your own argumentation line is a little bit of a free ride, don't you think?

 

This said, you do have a point or two. Not because of iReligion or Billy Gates, but because you simply have a point or two.

Edited by Cretinus
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No doubts about Apple's commercial success here, but I'm assuming that you are not responsible for that success. To mention it as emphasis for your own argumentation line is a little bit of a free ride, don't you think?

 

This said, you do have a point or two. Not because of iReligion or Billy Gates, but because you simply have a point or two.

 

Not sure if serious.

 

All I did was to provide a case study / example of what another company is doing in terms of simplifying its products. Point me in the direction of any well-articulated argument, written or speech, that does not make use of an example or two?

 

Feeling like I'm slowly getting trolled, so will stop responding from here :)

Edited by ParagonAX
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Well said, especially this part.

 

 

Theme three. Engage your customers.

 

As a community manager, your job is, presumably, to monitor social media channels for customer feedback, and relay the feedback to your developer teams.

 

In many of your posts, you have stated that you will pass on issues reported by the community, or ask the developers for explanations so you can relay to the community.

 

But why aren’t the developers engaging the community themselves?

 

If every single one of your design / development team spent 30 minutes each day visiting the forums and looking for feedback, would that be time wasted?

 

Even CEOs of retail giants visit their own stores on a constant basis to engage customers. Why can’t the development team do the same?

 

The keyword here is engage. Simply relaying information is not enough. One post per day is not enough. Tell us what your plans are for bolster, before implementing bolster. Let us provide sincere feedback on your ideas. Let us share our ideas with you. Use the ideas from the community that are good, and integrate them into your design. More often than not, you will be surprised at the caliber of ingenuity the community can provide, because these are the people that play your game, day in and day out.

 

So, three small pieces of advice. Take from them what you will. I know you will read this Eric, and hope you take them seriously. I also hope you can pass along the message to the powers that be in EA.

 

Treat your customers with respect, and they will return in kind. That’s not just how you build a successful game, but how you build a successful company.

 

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That being said, the release of 2.0, specifically the bolster system, has been a disaster. There is no other way to phrase it. The system is broken, exploitable, and has caused the PvP community to be severely disheartened. I’m sure you can see how your customers are responding to this in a negative way, from the plethora of threads on this forum. And no, it’s not just forum QQ either. Coming from the best PvP guild on my server, there has been few other topics but bolster in our Mumble, for the past week. The same could be said of general chat in fleet or in warzones, where people are confused about what is going on, and what to do.

 

And yet oddly enough, my guild loves it. I've yet to see anyone talk about it in general chat or warzones, other than the nekkid bug and all I do (lately) is PVP for the most part.

 

Have you considered that maybe your perspective is the minority? I'm not saying I'm certain my perspective is the majority but you seem pretty confident that you're right with probably little to no data to back that up.

 

Some other things :

 

"If every single one of your design / development team spent 30 minutes each day visiting the forums and looking for feedback, would that be time wasted?"

 

Since when do software developers have decision making capability? I highly doubt the programming staff ever decides *what* is done, they just implement.

 

Finally, for someone who is supposedly a consultant and professional the majority of your post is filled with debatable statements and almost nothing concrete. For one, tell me how augment slot "exploits" pose a problem? What stat differences are we talking about? Why does that matter? How is that any different than pre-bolster (where by now after a patch the community would be split between people who had max'd gear and those who didn't, for a nice 30% difference in stats)?

 

My take on this post is :

 

1) You're not a consultant or professional and your "advice" is not worth $100k.

2) You want your gear gap back and you could have said that in one sentence.

3) None of this matters, this is a manufactured dilemma and a solution to that fake dilemma. PVP is better now than it has ever been (unless you're a pyro PT I guess).

Edited by dcgregorya
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And yet oddly enough, my guild loves it. I've yet to see anyone talk about it in general chat or warzones, other than the nekkid bug and all I do (lately) is PVP for the most part.

 

Have you considered that maybe your perspective is the minority? I'm not saying I'm certain my perspective is the majority but you seem pretty confident that you're right with probably little to no data to back that up.

 

Some other things :

 

"If every single one of your design / development team spent 30 minutes each day visiting the forums and looking for feedback, would that be time wasted?"

 

Since when do software developers have decision making capability? I highly doubt the programming staff ever decides *what* is done, they just implement.

 

Finally, for someone who is supposedly a consultant and professional the majority of your post is filled with debatable statements and almost nothing concrete. For one, tell me how augment slot "exploits" pose a problem? What stat differences are we talking about? Why does that matter? How is that any different than pre-bolster (where by now after a patch the community would be split between people who had max'd gear and those who didn't, for a nice 30% difference in stats)?

 

My take on this post is :

 

1) You're not a consultant or professional and your "advice" is not worth $100k.

2) You want your gear gap back and you could have said that in one sentence.

3) None of this matters, this is a manufactured dilemma and a solution to that fake dilemma. PVP is better now than it has ever been (unless you're a pyro PT I guess).

 

^ Lol I'll have what he's smoking.

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Not sure if serious.

 

All I did was to provide a case study / example of what another company is doing in terms of simplifying its products. Point me in the direction of any well-articulated argument, written or speech, that does not make use of an example or two?

 

Feeling like I'm slowly getting trolled, so will stop responding from here :)

 

It's also meaningless. Video games compared to a music player are by their definition complicated. Apple products just work? Maybe because they specialize in simple. Try using Apple products for things that are complicated and you find their limitations out very quickly.

 

Most importantly, PVP is not an iPhone. It's not "better" with 4 buttons. It's an appeal to authority that doesn't even matter.

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There is one inherent flaw in your (well constructed) post:

 

BioWare does what BioWare wants to do. Period.

 

Like a great many others here, I've been a gamer for a long time (about 12 years). I've been a beta tester for several games, including SWG, EvE Online, LOTRO, and SWTOR. Customer feedback on MMO forums is often in the form of disgruntled and uniformed whine threads, even during beta and on test servers. However, there is also often genuine and valuable feedback.

 

I've learned one universal truth about SWTOR, and that is that this development team places near zero value on customer feedback.

 

EvE Online developers and community managers post DAILY on their forums, as have devs from many other MMOs. With SWTOR, there is a huge disconnect between what the developer's vision for the game is, and what customers are wanting/willing to pay for. As such, many changes to the game equate to being blindsided by a mugger in a dark alley because the PTS is a pointless exercise in quality control. In short, while I agree with your assessment and can appreciate what you're saying...it falls on deaf ears.

 

It frankly blows my mind that not one, but TWO game developers have managed to screw up the best-selling franchise of all time. I used to be vocal on the beta and PTS forums. After playing beta, pre-ordering the Collector's Edition, and leveling 8 characters to 50, I unsubscribed on the eve of my 1 yr anniversary and sat on the sidelines for the last 4 months. Now, returning to check out 2.0, very little has changed and probably never will.

 

Very good points I'd like to add to. I think the biggest issue we have here, is the Hero Engine itself. It's such a convoluted poorly constructed engine that it massively impedes the game developers ability to competently develop in their own game. They can't seem to make any changes to it without negatively impacting some other aspect of the game.

 

Not to mention they had to heavily incorporate a lot of their own code into the engine itself, something I understand was extremely complex. So in the end, what we are left with is a shambles of an engine, that doesn’t want to do what they tell it to without something going very wrong.

 

Now if I was a game developer working with tools like that on a daily basis, it would stress me out to no end and the last thing I’d do is try to engage the player base, my job would be stressful enough already without having to deal with the idiots on these forums. Their hands are literally being tied by the tools they are using, it really is no wonder the game is suffering shamble after shamble.

 

This doesn’t help us the consumer I know, but it is what it is, and for all the complaining we do, I really don’t think there is anything even Bioware can do about it. Certainly not without redesigning the entire engine from scratch.

 

I think it’s time for me to gracefully step away from SWTOR, I tried to come back for 2.0 and get back into the game, but it’s the same old story and if they are unable to fix the engine by now, I honestly don’t think it’s even possible.

 

Oh SWTOR, we had some good times, I’ll do my best to hold on to those. :cool:

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And yet oddly enough, my guild loves it. I've yet to see anyone talk about it in general chat or warzones, other than the nekkid bug and all I do (lately) is PVP for the most part.

 

Have you considered that maybe your perspective is the minority? I'm not saying I'm certain my perspective is the majority but you seem pretty confident that you're right with probably little to no data to back that up.

 

He posts his server, guild name and toon names, and you have the audacity to suggest he has no data, while you hide behind the anonymity of your forum handle? His claims can be very well validated or invalidated, but yours about not seeing it mentioned in General Chat yet and claiming to PvP all the time, are impossible for us to verify. Would you please give us your information as well?

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Now if I was a game developer working with tools like that on a daily basis, it would stress me out to no end and the last thing I’d do is try to engage the player base, my job would be stressful enough already without having to deal with the idiots on these forums. Their hands are literally being tied by the tools they are using, it really is no wonder the game is suffering shamble after shamble.

 

The people who post on these forums, the people who write the patch notes, the people who design the classes, skills and game balance...none of those people are the people writing the underlying code. Most programmers on this game probably agree with the community but they're just coders. Get a ticket, close a ticket, report a bug, escalate it to project management.

 

Ironically though none of that matters. In fact, these forums don't really matter. Why? Because these forums are not reality. They're only vaguely correlated to people's real opinions. What you see here is a lot of people throwing hyperbolic tantrums over every stupid thing. The majority is generally silent. If I'm Bioware the only thing I'm checking these forums for are bug reports and exploits - but I'm relying on metrics, surveys and other feedback for a picture on whether or not the community likes the game and changes to it. I'm looking at how much PVP people are doing and the quantity of PVP passes being bought. But the last thing I'm doing is making decisions based on kneejerk reactions from a dozen out of 2 million people. That's a large reason I think the OP is full of **** - because anyone who works in the software industry in a capacity for understanding sales and metrics knows everything I just said and wouldn't start offering "advice" without any information other than anecdotes.

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