Part of the problem involves the misguided belief that a lot of players have where they believe that because they are paying a subscription fee, it entitles them to be a part of the the the development process
In a small way, it does.
Feel free to pay strangers for shoddy work, and say nothing about it, if you prefer.
I wish more people when they "vote with their wallet" just shut up, not pay, and go away. Instead they pay and then use that as an excuse to be about as vile a person can be all while feeling entirely vindicated because they paid for that right.
Both sides suffer from an extreme lack of making the effort to fix the problem. The people on the developers side are tied because they can't explain why they can't do things because the same people making the decisions are the same people paying for it. At the same time out of a sense of futility or also having hands tied they can't engage in any particularly useful discussion, or heck any useful action like ban hammering 90% of the people who's only activity on the forum is to make people want to invent the internet face punch.
On the players side they don't want to listen to those excuses because they seem to operate under the delusion that the gaming industry is some how different than other industries and that everyone is selling out for money. Most games won't make a profit, most games are pretty bad, but while making these games the developers are generally working their butts off and in the end if the game turns out badly they still put so much effort into it its punishing to be loathed for it . The players frequently turn into armchair developers having next to no insight into how games are actually made, like changing an entire game mechanic is as simple as wishing it done instead of months of time and effort and that's all with no guarantee of the outcome being positive.
I've seen plenty of forums that operate fairly well with strict moderation, sure you run the risk of silencing legitimate complaints, but the truth is most MMO games are so slow to change that inadvertently silencing a few people is counteracted by the time lag and the issue likely being repeated. In that sense I wish more forums were moderated severely, it might start counteracting the whole internet entitlement issue when interacting virtually with other people.
The problem exists with developers grossly misunderstanding the nature of the relationship. Let me make this as clear as I possibly can: The people who pay to play your game are not your friends, they are your CUSTOMERS! Players will not go through any real hardship if they don't have a game to play, but developers NEED a consistant player base or they will soon be out of a job. There is no equity here. Either the development company learns to listen and respond to their customers or they won't have any income. It's that simple. Any developer who doesn't understand this or is only focused on his own "awesome" vision and doesn't want to hear what players want should get out ot the business right now.
That said, I think devs shoot themselves in the foot when they go on forums expecting an amiable discourse. It's too easy to show all-too-human frailties in that environment that can quickly turn into a blazing pyre of outrage and resentment. Refusal to host official forums is just plain stupid, but allowing development staff to expound on the latest though that passed through their clever little brains is equally stupid and can cost you players and, in a very direct fashion, MONEY! This is the reason Blizzard early on adopted using Community Reps on their forums to be the buffer between development and customer. I can't recall anyone at Blizzard making an asinine comment that official forums are too much trouble.
Many developers do come across as demigods or rockstars, expecting customers to stand in awe of their incredible talent and to fawn all over them when they deign to descend from Mount Olympus to mingle with mere mortals. The latest debacle with Cryptic is a fine example of this and, barring the miraculous, it is a miscalculation that will cost them dearly.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II "People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Oh, the poor devs. They are just fine with going to conventions and trade shows and being treated like rock stars, though.
lol. like was said before, the majority of devs never get to have the rock star treatment. they are pretty much video game sweat shop workers.
and ive never blamed a dev for something wrong with a game because usually its not the dev its the dumbass in charge of the studio or production. devs just do what they are told.
blame Smedley, or Mcquaid, or whatever the names of the ass hats at the other fail studios like Mythic, Cryptic, Funcom, Starvault, etc.. etc..
those douchebags are the ones who go out and party like rock stars at conventions, tell you how everything will be in game and its going to make you cum buckets instantly, and how they care about the customer and the game. and then release a totally fucked up mess because the devs didnt have more time or resources.
devs need rescue shelters, PR, CEO's, and all those people need crosses to be nailed up on
The problem with the players that whine and complain is their feeling of self entitlement. It's as if they were born on third base and honestly believe they've hit a triple.
Don't like, don't play. Squeaky wheels are annoying.
What a suprise ! Another pity the poor devs thread by the site whos bread is buttered by the advertising and "interviews" they get from the devs.Im shocked i tell ya ! Shocked !
And people,dont artificially seperate the devs into "workers" and "suits".Its a false seperation.Both the workers (artists coders,etc) and the suits (pr men,money men,etc.) are on the same team.They are ALL responsible for the product the company tries to sell.
If one part of the dev team fails to do its job, they ALL fail.They have a choice on who they work for, and they make that choice to be part of that team.They have a choice to be honest and refuse to stay quiet when the company turns out crap, and they choose to stay silent.The money man is as much a "dev" as the coder.And deserves as much blame when the product is crap.Its a complete team.And they pass or fail as such.
The solution is for the devs to stop turning out crap.It should come as NO suprise that people who receive a product they are satisfied with,for their money,are generally VERY pleasant customers.Sadly,the current dev teams couldnt turn out a qaulity product if they were given a finished one on a silver platter.This IS becuase they would take it and screw it up to high heaven.They can't help themselves.Incompetence ALWAYS find a way to shine thru.And there simply isnt a competent team currently out there among the big names.
With wow being the exception,for despite all they do wrong, they at least manage to attract and hold their customers in large numbers.
I'm not a developer, I'm a player, so you'd think I'd see this from a player's point of view, but I've been in over thirty alpha and closed beta tests and as time has gone on I've seen the testing process go from a small group of people who take their job seriously and do their best to work out the flaws in a game to a much larger group of self righteous jackasses pissing and moaning that the game isn't exactly what they want it to be.
I know that we aren't talking specifically about the beta process here, but I can understand the post launch complaints, what needs to be recognized is that it's not completely the developer's fault that their games seem to lack focus and release unfinished. With all of the contradictory feedback and armchair developer suggestions that they are flooded with, while in the development stage, coupled with the twenty page + long arguments over what features must be added or taken out or 'this game will fail', it's no wonder that the devs lose track of their original vision in an attempt to please the rabid pack of mouth-breathers that they've unwittingly exposed themselves to.
Developers need to set aside some of those million dollar budgets to hire 'professional' beta testers rather than leaving such an important part of their game's development in the greasy, cheetoes stained, paws of Joe Public. In my opinion the days of the open beta should be coming to an abrupt, and well deserved, end.
What a suprise ! Another pity the poor devs thread by the site whos bread is buttered by the advertising and "interviews" they get from the devs.Im shocked i tell ya ! Shocked !
And people,dont artificially seperate the devs into "workers" and "suits".Its a false seperation.Both the workers (artists coders,etc) and the suits (pr men,money men,etc.) are on the same team.They are ALL responsible for the product the company tries to sell.
If one part of the dev team fails to do its job, they ALL fail.They have a choice on who they work for, and they make that choice to be part of that team.They have a choice to be honest and refuse to stay quiet when the company turns out crap, and they choose to stay silent.The money man is as much a "dev" as the coder.And deserves as much blame when the product is crap.Its a complete team.And they pass or fail as such.
The solution is for the devs to stop turning out crap.It should come as NO suprise that people who receive a product they are satisfied with,for their money,are generally VERY pleasant customers.Sadly,the current dev teams couldnt turn out a qaulity product if they were given a finished one on a silver platter.This IS becuase they would take it and screw it up to high heaven.They can't help themselves.Incompetence ALWAYS find a way to shine thru.And there simply isnt a competent team currently out there among the big names.
With wow being the exception,for despite all they do wrong, they at least manage to attract and hold their customers in large numbers.
I don't think you live in the real world with this sort of attitude. I'm willing to be that in almost every recent incomplete release, AOC, WAR, etc the majority of the Devs wanted more time to complete the game yet finanical pressures forced launches that were not well received.
You can't even blame the suits sometimes, because they answer to the investors, and you can only do a song and dance so long before you've got to put up or shut up.
You are correct, in the end it is the entire team's fault for failing to deliver a quality product, but there certainly is a difference between who is in charge versus the people who are coding the game.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Originally posted by tkobo What a suprise ! Another pity the poor devs thread by the site whos bread is buttered by the advertising and "interviews" they get from the devs.Im shocked i tell ya ! Shocked ! And people,dont artificially seperate the devs into "workers" and "suits".Its a false seperation.Both the workers (artists coders,etc) and the suits (pr men,money men,etc.) are on the same team.They are ALL responsible for the product the company tries to sell. If one part of the dev team fails to do its job, they ALL fail.They have a choice on who they work for, and they make that choice to be part of that team.They have a choice to be honest and refuse to stay quiet when the company turns out crap, and they choose to stay silent.The money man is as much a "dev" as the coder.And deserves as much blame when the product is crap.Its a complete team.And they pass or fail as such. The solution is for the devs to stop turning out crap.It should come as NO suprise that people who receive a product they are satisfied with,for their money,are generally VERY pleasant customers.Sadly,the current dev teams couldnt turn out a qaulity product if they were given a finished one on a silver platter.This IS becuase they would take it and screw it up to high heaven.They can't help themselves.Incompetence ALWAYS find a way to shine thru.And there simply isnt a competent team currently out there among the big names. With wow being the exception,for despite all they do wrong, they at least manage to attract and hold their customers in large numbers.
This is a great example of the type of attitude, this self-entitlement, that makes other people not want to communicate anything towards. The same type of attitude that causes jobs like waitering jobs to be "underappreciated" because they have to put up with "I'm th customer and you owe me the world" type nonsense.
I really don't blame the developers for the lack of transparency when the customers aren't pleasant to communicate with overall. It's like trying to reach for the cheese when everytime you'll jus get zapped. I think people that generally work in the customer service area can relate to these type of interactions perfectly well.
There are those people you sincerely want to help, but sometimes they just run you into the dirt anyway so why subject yourself to that type of punishment repeatedly? At least developers mroe or less have that type of option. I sometimes half-joke to myself that everyone (especially in America) should have to take customer etiquette classes and maybe this world might be a better place. Communicating with customers sometimes is almost a form of self-abuse and it makes our society look very disgusting.
I am tired of developers hiding behind this "suits" idea. When you sell your soul to the devil, you don't get to stand back and say hey, it's not my fault I went witht he highest bidder and now I have to work myself into the ground and produce a subpar product to sell to customers who will, no doubt, say hey, this is a subpar product. When my answer is to pay us more money to get it up to snuff, they yell at me and hurt my feelings. You've got intelligent individuals like Derek Smart showing up on forums telling ex-players kthanx bye aka don't let the door hit you on the way out showing such contempt for players it's disgusting. You've got the guys at Cryptic, screaming foul when players call their baby STO the cash cow clone of CO that it is and then, while it lingers on the brink of death, shift their team to a new cash cow they want to hype to death and fail at again in the future.
Developers and publishers are linked in the players eyes because for all the whining the developers do about publisher pressure, they got into bed with these people by their own free will. Perhaps it's time they started taking ownership of that choice and stop hiding behind it or, better yet, come up with a new business model. Developers get the flack they do after years of out right lying, terrible release launches, unfinished products a year out of the gate, the demand to get triple AAA prices while producing low quality products, and my favorite, the biggest innovation is the various ways they can get more and more money while givving the player less and less.
Players are jaded. A lot of us are jaded for a reason. It used to be you pay your monthly fee to play the current game and to cover costs and eagerly await the constant upgrades and advances and more content that come with your continous purchase. Now they claim oh no, monthly fees don't cover new content... it barely covers the cost we have in having you play! You want more content... look to the cash shops and frequent expansions and DLC that we are working on that would never have been done if we didn't wring out another 25 dollars out of you. Hell they have DLC out the door before the game is even smoothed out and, of course, before any player feedback. What do they care what players want. They've got 2 years of milking already planned out.
Early on, developers cared about the game. They took risks. They communicated with the players. Players forgave the mistakes because we knew they would be fixed in a relatively short period of time. Now, we don't know if they will be fixed, and there is a good chance that this short-coming will suddenly become a "feature"; there might even be new ane exciting fee attached to a fix. Suddenly 24/7 just means 24/7 collecting payments, not actual support.
Yes, it's a messy field out there. It certainly wasn't created over night. In any event, you can't change the simple fact that you have employees and you have customers. It is not a equal footing. It will never be equal footing because you have one member of this party asking for money, all the time. They are not entitled to those dollars; they have to earn it. Offering terrible customers service, telling players not to let the door hit them on the way out (then having the marketing team solicit them later with free weekends, sales, and new content), and trying to excuse barebone buggy releases with higher pricetags is not a way to close the void.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Both sides are equally accountable in the end. Developers spend time going to college to obtain and progress said skills to create a product. Now it doesn't mean everyone will like the product. But more so these days it is becoming a hostile FFA over crap. Don't like the product fine go out and find something better to do. Developer does a bad job and they don't listen you don't have to keep paying or playing said product. It's simple common sense. But just because the product was bad doesn't mean every tom dick and harry has a right to voice a stupid opinion about something 80% of people will not even hear.
It's as simple as this. Don't like it, don't buy it or play it. Like it, then buy it and play it. Long rants and speech's about useless information doesn't do anything for developers or the user. Stick to the key point at hand and stop miss matching facts and blending it with fiction.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
Part of the problem involves the misguided belief that a lot of players have where they believe that because they are paying a subscription fee, it entitles them to be a part of the the the development process
In a small way, it does.
Feel free to pay strangers for shoddy work, and say nothing about it, if you prefer.
It has nothing to do with paying devs for shoddy work.
Or perhaps that can be looked at in another way.
If the devs make a game that has shoddy work then they shouldn't be rewarded for that. But in no way should a player have say in the direction of the development.
So they are two different things. Game direction is one thing and saying that a game should be "done" is another.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Originally posted by Sinkael Try being a cop for a week:
Getting yelled and cuss at day in and day out, until they need you.
Try working a call center where 99% of all callers blame you for their problem even though you have no power to fix their issue.
Try being a waitress and have people blame you when the cook puts too much salt on their steak.
Lots of people have thankless jobs, accept it or get out of the field. It's not fair or right, it just is.
Yes but the big difference is that as customers, there are things we can do to help open up the channels to help allow that transparency. Being treated lower than dirt isn't anyhting anyone has to put up with, doubly if you work within the entertainment industry.
It's a two way street and ultimately, customers would end up being at a loss if the developers decide that no transparency is better than some transparency in their ideas and processes. A big difference between a developer's job and the jobs above is that the developer's job is tied to the entertainment industry and in entertainment, they really don't owe anyone anything.
Customers CHOOSE to pay or not pay for a service so it should be in a gamers best interest as customers to not be so hostile 75% of the time especially on forums, which generally have become a cesspool for unsupported arguments 90% of the time, making official game forums fairly useless. Again, its all a two way street but ultimately the customer would be at the loss if they want to try and be mean about things.
MMO market is like any other market. And in all markets one should remeber this... The person that is trying to sell you something is always your "enemy". He is almost always lying, trying to cheat you into buying a product. You on the other hand want exactly the product that they are advertising. And we all kknow by now that the product they are trying to sell is almost always not the one you are getting. Especially when it comes to MMOs.
Now... Who is the gamer left to blame for all this? Marketing people are ghosts... Developers are closer. So they are targetted as enemies.
And i'm not saying they are blamless! But you can't soothe the flames of the internet. You can't also please everyone...
I've been uplinked and downloaded, I've been inputted and outsourced. I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading.
I'm a high-tech low-life. A cutting-edge, state-of-the-art, bi-coastal multi-tasker, and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond.
I'm new-wave, but I'm old-school; and my inner child is outward-bound.
I'm a hot-wired, heat-seeking, warm-hearted cool customer; voice-activated and bio-degradable.
Originally posted by Nesrie I am tired of developers hiding behind this "suits" idea. When you sell your soul to the devil, you don't get to stand back and say hey, it's not my fault I went witht he highest bidder and now I have to work myself into the ground and produce a subpar product to sell to customers who will, no doubt, say hey, this is a subpar product.
"Sell your soul to the devil?" This is the sort of melodramatic crap that makes developers not want to listen to players. What you call "selling your soul to the devil" the developer calls getting a job so he can make money and feed his family. I suppose the company you work for has an angelic CEO who gives all of the profits away to starving African orphans. Or maybe you sold your soul to the devil too when you got your job?
I'm sure most game developers would love to be independent, able to create their own game the way they want to with no "devil" looking over their shoulder, but it costs a heck of lot of money to produce a decent game. There aren't a lot of individuals out there who can afford to finance their own game. Even if they could, they'd be taking a big risk that the game might fail and they'll lose everything they invested in it.
What I think developers need to do is to stop letting themselves get baited by obnoxious players on their game forums, and respond more regularly to level-headed, intelligent comments. I think once players realize that the developers listen and respond to smart suggestions from players and flat out ignore angry rants and protests, the dialogue between players and developers will improve drastically. Unfortunately what I've seen is that developers and community managers respond more to the rants and name-calling than to smart questions and suggestions. Usually that response might just be something like "please keep it civil," but even that's no good because now that player knows his rant was heard. Meanwhile, smart comments and questions are probably more difficult for a developer to answer, so they ignore it. Better if they at least acknowledge good questions or complaints, even if they don't have an answer yet.
I am tired of developers hiding behind this "suits" idea. When you sell your soul to the devil, you don't get to stand back and say hey, it's not my fault I went witht he highest bidder and now I have to work myself into the ground and produce a subpar product to sell to customers who will, no doubt, say hey, this is a subpar product.
"Sell your soul to the devil?" This is the sort of melodramatic crap that makes developers not want to listen to players. What you call "selling your soul to the devil" the developer calls getting a job so he can make money and feed his family. I suppose the company you work for has an angelic CEO who gives all of the profits away to starving African orphans. Or maybe you sold your soul to the devil too when you got your job?
Aka, the publishers. You know the boogie man the developers blame for their problems. They've set up the publishers as the end of all the evils. That wasn't me who made them the "bad" guys, the developers did. News flash if you choose to go to bed with EA, you don't get to tell everyone EA is the reason everything sucks... as if you didn't know that before you signed the dotted line. You ccould try reading what i wrote instead of going ape over the word choice.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Every time I hear a developer is lazy it makes me not want to ever visit a forum again. Some of the rants in this post proves why developers stay away. Because the majority of people in forums are living in a dream world and desperately need to come back to reality. Working in the game industry isn't as romantic as people make it out to be.
Developers on top of that don't have time to read posts. Most people don't realize they are already over worked, so they don't waste their time going through the amount of text that it would take to get anything of value from a forum. Besides the fact the most people don't have the depth to handle most tough decisions on game design. the Consumer isn't that important to the development process. they should just stick to telling developers consumer Ideas of what they want and stay out of the complex issues unless they provide data to support such a claim.
Most games, movies, books are stillborn childs. From the few that make it far enough, fewer gain attention and even less will have someone who cares enough to complain. So making a bad game is an achievement, as weird as it sounds. It is a risky business. If you are developer, you probably love what you do. Few people accept to sleep below their desks. Few people are fine with never having closing time as they think about how to make it better, cooler, more awesome, hoping that their baby game makes it far enough. There are devs working in their free time till 2 a.m. regularly, because they wanted to make the level better. Fix that bug. There are others who are fed up and burned out after some years, maybe disappointed because they, too, had expectations. They now make their nine to five contribution. Do you blame them?
There is the saying: from the three options, making it fast, cheap or with high quality, pick two. In game development you get one choice.
I think that many developers don't have issues with the climate in the forums. It's not that they were born game dev. They are players themselves on some other game or were "only" players before to exactly know how it used to be. They've been there, they saw how a patch or change made it worse.
But why would you post in the forums as a developer? It looks like that posting in forums is a no-win situation from an objective point of view. If you present something for appraisal, then it gets processed by people with a certain likelyhood that some dislike it. If you don't do anything, this doesn't happen. Just wears down over time. Compare high % crit chance to deal high spike damage with subtle damage over time, you get the idea. Then run this calculation through the Troll multiplicator, few players who actively seek to upset others and are happy with some statements that can be ripped out of context or twisted around.
How often do you read false statements of things developers allegedly said some years ago. Once asked, as a final small-talk-fun-question during early development what they prefer to drink. The developer states that he "likes Coke". Over time some will claim they said they like coke and want to implement it. A year later, the deves somehow are into Lemonade business now. Then one day, during beta the Fans cry: "BUT THEY PROMISED JUNIPER BERRY FLAVOR!". Stuff like that happened with "bagels on friday". Maybe someone remembers.
Next thing is: What you can actually learn from forums? Sure, its fun to read comments and feedback (if you ever made anything, and you show it to others, you sure as hell want to know what they think). Most devs likely know what they are getting into. Games often develop non-linear complexity, they can't be calculated.
So Bob sure wants to know if Thingy A and Thingy B interact in bad ways. But more often than not the dude in the forums isn't saying anything tangible. Bob, already working late, already reading the forums, already played that level 8345 times for two years really wants to fix it. But dude in the forums doesn't say anything tangible, nothing Bob can put into his sleek project management tool. There is not a single sentence he can pick up to walk over to some other desk to tell Alice to fix it. Most of the time. Really, look into any forum. Actually forums are not about tangible things, most of the time, its more discussion for the sake of it.
In the other occassions Palafafnarir and Andufrodur cannot agree whether Paladin owns Priest or Priest owns Paladin. Then MadMurderskull1337 waltzes into the thread and proclaims that, actually, they should L2P as he can beat both of them in any combination, with just one skill, while debuffed with the most gimped class and that there is no problem AT ALL. While watching porn. They should stop QQ. But devs suck also, as they changed the difficulty so that now 3% of the playerbase can play the dungeon and not 2% as it used to be in the good old days, when they had to walk to school through the snow, barefoot, drinking juniper lemonade. Again, what would Bob do with that info?
More often than you suspect development teams actually do listen if there is some sort of consensus in the forums, especially if their own common sense made the same observations (or their data indicates that). More often than you think is Bob and Alice more critical than you ever be. They know that the story is flawed, but haven't time to make it different. Or they were told to make it that way or in many more cases, they though it was good, but turned out not that good they hoped. Sometimes the story is flawed because Bob wanted an action drama and Alice wanted a love story and somehow they found a "middle ground". Then there is their boss, who wants something with dogs. The investors also want vampires. The producer puts all into pipeline. Bob and Alice faceplam twice and nag everyone all the time that the scope is too large now. Nobody listens, they make the best they could. Then they cut the female part from the love story, the explosions for the action prove to be too expensive, but dogs and vampires make it.
Ok. Now players flame Alice and Bob. They screwed it after all, didn't they? They still read the forums, and they are inspired by it and definately learn something about their game, some exploits, how to circumvent their cool gameplay idea for better XP etc. But Charlie, their boss and Robert the PR dude see that the forums are hostile and that Alice and Bob probably shouldn't be posting, so that nobody can claim they wanted to make Juniper Lemonade and they didn't deliver (that makes the company look bad, what if one investor looks into the forums and it looks like the dev "made" the players angry!?). It's all controlled and clean now. If fans are rabid, its just them. It is serious business now, just like it is for the fans who are that angry.
In my opinion, this situation is 100% the fault of the gaming media. Step away from the gloryhole and keep these companies honest so we dont have to. All will be well.
Now, back to my nap.
See you in the dream.. The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
I think it's hilarious that some people think players should have a say in the development of a game. Do you think because you bought Monopoly or Hungry Hungry Hippos that you should be able to call up Hasbro and tell them to start changing things you don't like?
99% of players on forums wouldn't act the way they do if it wasn't anonymous anyway.
Once again an article throwing oil on the fire... still interesting
Originally posted by Stradden We have no real idea why features are cut, we just know that they aren’t there in the final release. With that in mind, is it really any wonder that we get upset when the final product isn’t what we were expecting? It isn’t a far leap from there to blame the faceless people behind the scenes.
.../...
Conversely, I think that developers, who often get lost in metrics and other statistics when making their games, forget that while looking at and paying attention to the larger numbers may be good business, it isn’t necessarily good customer communication.
Regarding the first statement, if you are speaking about advertised features that don't make up to the gold master version (ie: WoW sieges engines, AoC DX10, WAR 6 cities) then it's all a matter of communication from the publisher. And seriously some have real issue with hyping their game a bit too much even more when they know they won't meet the expectations.
About the second statement, it's a well known fact forums and focus groups can kill a game. And while devs should watch them closely they should not camp on their positions. Once again there's one thing that always amazed me in MMO: very few games use in game polls and a metric don't tell you a whether a player use this skill or that feature because he likes it or he needs it.
I think it's hilarious that some people think players should have a say in the development of a game. Do you think because you bought Monopoly or Hungry Hungry Hippos that you should be able to call up Hasbro and tell them to start changing things you don't like?
99% of players on forums wouldn't act the way they do if it wasn't anonymous anyway.
In the same vein I bought some Play-Doh accessories for my daughter and honesty after 5 minutes of using them I already see ways to make them better for kids.
Or like young kids games that makes sounds and are very loud when you know the young kids have much better hearing than adults plus the loud sounds annoy the parents.
Am I an expert in game for kids? Nnot at all! But as some others I can use my brain. Same for MMO.
Developers don't go to trade shows, Managers and Directors and people in Marketting go to those events.. Occasionally the Lead Dev or Architect will be there. The developers who are actually responsibly for over 99% of the code that will be released are generally busy coding away during these events...
Guess you just proved the article's author correct on every point though MMO_Doubter, hats off to ya.
Of course not *every* dev can run off to every event and spend a weekend (or week) being schmooozed by adoring fans, but I do know that there are always devs from CoH at their conventions. Maybe not the entire team of coders, but the people who show up from CoH are people who contribute in a huge way to making the game.
More communication on both sides and perhaps better forum moderation. I have to admit to being shocked at some game's forums. Complete rudeness and disrespect. I wouldn't want to read it if I was making it. Yes, you're a paying customer, but you don't get to go into a store and demand that a sandwich you buy is made in this exact way, and if it isn't you're not going to pay plus you're going to throw it at the person who made it. It's a game and the ppl you're insulting are but human, capable of mistakes, emotions and all the other things that come with being human. We all need to give each other a break.
We can give each other hugs, too, but that doesn't change the fact that some devs will lie straight to your face in order to get your money.
As for the sandwich - you send it back if it's not made right and they fix it. GL with that WRT MMOs.
Can we try the hug thing tomorrow? It sounds like fun.
Some ppl will give you a hug while stabbing you in the back. Some ppl will tell you a lie, grab your money and run. Others won't.
I was brought up to give ppl respect and treat ppl with common decency. I don't like Cryptic. I will never pay to play a Cryptic game again. It is the company I don't like, not the ppl who work there. How do I know that they're as less in control than I am when it comes to these things? I don't. Until I have proof to the contrary then if I happened to know somebody who worked for Cryptic I would treat them with respect and common decency.
I pay to play other mmorpg's. It doesn't mean I have the lack of respect for their company than I do for Cryptic. I work on circumstance, not tarring ppl with one brush. Everybody is different and nobody is perfect, it doesn't mean everyone is the same.
Comments
I wish more people when they "vote with their wallet" just shut up, not pay, and go away. Instead they pay and then use that as an excuse to be about as vile a person can be all while feeling entirely vindicated because they paid for that right.
Both sides suffer from an extreme lack of making the effort to fix the problem. The people on the developers side are tied because they can't explain why they can't do things because the same people making the decisions are the same people paying for it. At the same time out of a sense of futility or also having hands tied they can't engage in any particularly useful discussion, or heck any useful action like ban hammering 90% of the people who's only activity on the forum is to make people want to invent the internet face punch.
On the players side they don't want to listen to those excuses because they seem to operate under the delusion that the gaming industry is some how different than other industries and that everyone is selling out for money. Most games won't make a profit, most games are pretty bad, but while making these games the developers are generally working their butts off and in the end if the game turns out badly they still put so much effort into it its punishing to be loathed for it . The players frequently turn into armchair developers having next to no insight into how games are actually made, like changing an entire game mechanic is as simple as wishing it done instead of months of time and effort and that's all with no guarantee of the outcome being positive.
I've seen plenty of forums that operate fairly well with strict moderation, sure you run the risk of silencing legitimate complaints, but the truth is most MMO games are so slow to change that inadvertently silencing a few people is counteracted by the time lag and the issue likely being repeated. In that sense I wish more forums were moderated severely, it might start counteracting the whole internet entitlement issue when interacting virtually with other people.
The problem exists with developers grossly misunderstanding the nature of the relationship. Let me make this as clear as I possibly can: The people who pay to play your game are not your friends, they are your CUSTOMERS! Players will not go through any real hardship if they don't have a game to play, but developers NEED a consistant player base or they will soon be out of a job. There is no equity here. Either the development company learns to listen and respond to their customers or they won't have any income. It's that simple. Any developer who doesn't understand this or is only focused on his own "awesome" vision and doesn't want to hear what players want should get out ot the business right now.
That said, I think devs shoot themselves in the foot when they go on forums expecting an amiable discourse. It's too easy to show all-too-human frailties in that environment that can quickly turn into a blazing pyre of outrage and resentment. Refusal to host official forums is just plain stupid, but allowing development staff to expound on the latest though that passed through their clever little brains is equally stupid and can cost you players and, in a very direct fashion, MONEY! This is the reason Blizzard early on adopted using Community Reps on their forums to be the buffer between development and customer. I can't recall anyone at Blizzard making an asinine comment that official forums are too much trouble.
Many developers do come across as demigods or rockstars, expecting customers to stand in awe of their incredible talent and to fawn all over them when they deign to descend from Mount Olympus to mingle with mere mortals. The latest debacle with Cryptic is a fine example of this and, barring the miraculous, it is a miscalculation that will cost them dearly.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
lol. like was said before, the majority of devs never get to have the rock star treatment. they are pretty much video game sweat shop workers.
and ive never blamed a dev for something wrong with a game because usually its not the dev its the dumbass in charge of the studio or production. devs just do what they are told.
blame Smedley, or Mcquaid, or whatever the names of the ass hats at the other fail studios like Mythic, Cryptic, Funcom, Starvault, etc.. etc..
those douchebags are the ones who go out and party like rock stars at conventions, tell you how everything will be in game and its going to make you cum buckets instantly, and how they care about the customer and the game. and then release a totally fucked up mess because the devs didnt have more time or resources.
devs need rescue shelters, PR, CEO's, and all those people need crosses to be nailed up on
The problem with the players that whine and complain is their feeling of self entitlement. It's as if they were born on third base and honestly believe they've hit a triple.
Don't like, don't play. Squeaky wheels are annoying.
What a suprise ! Another pity the poor devs thread by the site whos bread is buttered by the advertising and "interviews" they get from the devs.Im shocked i tell ya ! Shocked !
And people,dont artificially seperate the devs into "workers" and "suits".Its a false seperation.Both the workers (artists coders,etc) and the suits (pr men,money men,etc.) are on the same team.They are ALL responsible for the product the company tries to sell.
If one part of the dev team fails to do its job, they ALL fail.They have a choice on who they work for, and they make that choice to be part of that team.They have a choice to be honest and refuse to stay quiet when the company turns out crap, and they choose to stay silent.The money man is as much a "dev" as the coder.And deserves as much blame when the product is crap.Its a complete team.And they pass or fail as such.
The solution is for the devs to stop turning out crap.It should come as NO suprise that people who receive a product they are satisfied with,for their money,are generally VERY pleasant customers.Sadly,the current dev teams couldnt turn out a qaulity product if they were given a finished one on a silver platter.This IS becuase they would take it and screw it up to high heaven.They can't help themselves.Incompetence ALWAYS find a way to shine thru.And there simply isnt a competent team currently out there among the big names.
With wow being the exception,for despite all they do wrong, they at least manage to attract and hold their customers in large numbers.
I'm not a developer, I'm a player, so you'd think I'd see this from a player's point of view, but I've been in over thirty alpha and closed beta tests and as time has gone on I've seen the testing process go from a small group of people who take their job seriously and do their best to work out the flaws in a game to a much larger group of self righteous jackasses pissing and moaning that the game isn't exactly what they want it to be.
I know that we aren't talking specifically about the beta process here, but I can understand the post launch complaints, what needs to be recognized is that it's not completely the developer's fault that their games seem to lack focus and release unfinished. With all of the contradictory feedback and armchair developer suggestions that they are flooded with, while in the development stage, coupled with the twenty page + long arguments over what features must be added or taken out or 'this game will fail', it's no wonder that the devs lose track of their original vision in an attempt to please the rabid pack of mouth-breathers that they've unwittingly exposed themselves to.
Developers need to set aside some of those million dollar budgets to hire 'professional' beta testers rather than leaving such an important part of their game's development in the greasy, cheetoes stained, paws of Joe Public. In my opinion the days of the open beta should be coming to an abrupt, and well deserved, end.
I don't think you live in the real world with this sort of attitude. I'm willing to be that in almost every recent incomplete release, AOC, WAR, etc the majority of the Devs wanted more time to complete the game yet finanical pressures forced launches that were not well received.
You can't even blame the suits sometimes, because they answer to the investors, and you can only do a song and dance so long before you've got to put up or shut up.
You are correct, in the end it is the entire team's fault for failing to deliver a quality product, but there certainly is a difference between who is in charge versus the people who are coding the game.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
This is a great example of the type of attitude, this self-entitlement, that makes other people not want to communicate anything towards. The same type of attitude that causes jobs like waitering jobs to be "underappreciated" because they have to put up with "I'm th customer and you owe me the world" type nonsense.
I really don't blame the developers for the lack of transparency when the customers aren't pleasant to communicate with overall. It's like trying to reach for the cheese when everytime you'll jus get zapped. I think people that generally work in the customer service area can relate to these type of interactions perfectly well.
There are those people you sincerely want to help, but sometimes they just run you into the dirt anyway so why subject yourself to that type of punishment repeatedly? At least developers mroe or less have that type of option. I sometimes half-joke to myself that everyone (especially in America) should have to take customer etiquette classes and maybe this world might be a better place. Communicating with customers sometimes is almost a form of self-abuse and it makes our society look very disgusting.
I am tired of developers hiding behind this "suits" idea. When you sell your soul to the devil, you don't get to stand back and say hey, it's not my fault I went witht he highest bidder and now I have to work myself into the ground and produce a subpar product to sell to customers who will, no doubt, say hey, this is a subpar product. When my answer is to pay us more money to get it up to snuff, they yell at me and hurt my feelings. You've got intelligent individuals like Derek Smart showing up on forums telling ex-players kthanx bye aka don't let the door hit you on the way out showing such contempt for players it's disgusting. You've got the guys at Cryptic, screaming foul when players call their baby STO the cash cow clone of CO that it is and then, while it lingers on the brink of death, shift their team to a new cash cow they want to hype to death and fail at again in the future.
Developers and publishers are linked in the players eyes because for all the whining the developers do about publisher pressure, they got into bed with these people by their own free will. Perhaps it's time they started taking ownership of that choice and stop hiding behind it or, better yet, come up with a new business model. Developers get the flack they do after years of out right lying, terrible release launches, unfinished products a year out of the gate, the demand to get triple AAA prices while producing low quality products, and my favorite, the biggest innovation is the various ways they can get more and more money while givving the player less and less.
Players are jaded. A lot of us are jaded for a reason. It used to be you pay your monthly fee to play the current game and to cover costs and eagerly await the constant upgrades and advances and more content that come with your continous purchase. Now they claim oh no, monthly fees don't cover new content... it barely covers the cost we have in having you play! You want more content... look to the cash shops and frequent expansions and DLC that we are working on that would never have been done if we didn't wring out another 25 dollars out of you. Hell they have DLC out the door before the game is even smoothed out and, of course, before any player feedback. What do they care what players want. They've got 2 years of milking already planned out.
Early on, developers cared about the game. They took risks. They communicated with the players. Players forgave the mistakes because we knew they would be fixed in a relatively short period of time. Now, we don't know if they will be fixed, and there is a good chance that this short-coming will suddenly become a "feature"; there might even be new ane exciting fee attached to a fix. Suddenly 24/7 just means 24/7 collecting payments, not actual support.
Yes, it's a messy field out there. It certainly wasn't created over night. In any event, you can't change the simple fact that you have employees and you have customers. It is not a equal footing. It will never be equal footing because you have one member of this party asking for money, all the time. They are not entitled to those dollars; they have to earn it. Offering terrible customers service, telling players not to let the door hit them on the way out (then having the marketing team solicit them later with free weekends, sales, and new content), and trying to excuse barebone buggy releases with higher pricetags is not a way to close the void.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Both sides are equally accountable in the end. Developers spend time going to college to obtain and progress said skills to create a product. Now it doesn't mean everyone will like the product. But more so these days it is becoming a hostile FFA over crap. Don't like the product fine go out and find something better to do. Developer does a bad job and they don't listen you don't have to keep paying or playing said product. It's simple common sense. But just because the product was bad doesn't mean every tom dick and harry has a right to voice a stupid opinion about something 80% of people will not even hear.
It's as simple as this. Don't like it, don't buy it or play it. Like it, then buy it and play it. Long rants and speech's about useless information doesn't do anything for developers or the user. Stick to the key point at hand and stop miss matching facts and blending it with fiction.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
It has nothing to do with paying devs for shoddy work.
Or perhaps that can be looked at in another way.
If the devs make a game that has shoddy work then they shouldn't be rewarded for that. But in no way should a player have say in the direction of the development.
So they are two different things. Game direction is one thing and saying that a game should be "done" is another.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Try being a cop for a week:
Getting yelled and cuss at day in and day out, until they need you.
Try working a call center where 99% of all callers blame you for their problem even though you have no power to fix their issue.
Try being a waitress and have people blame you when the cook puts too much salt on their steak.
Lots of people have thankless jobs, accept it or get out of the field. It's not fair or right, it just is.
Yes but the big difference is that as customers, there are things we can do to help open up the channels to help allow that transparency. Being treated lower than dirt isn't anyhting anyone has to put up with, doubly if you work within the entertainment industry.
It's a two way street and ultimately, customers would end up being at a loss if the developers decide that no transparency is better than some transparency in their ideas and processes. A big difference between a developer's job and the jobs above is that the developer's job is tied to the entertainment industry and in entertainment, they really don't owe anyone anything.
Customers CHOOSE to pay or not pay for a service so it should be in a gamers best interest as customers to not be so hostile 75% of the time especially on forums, which generally have become a cesspool for unsupported arguments 90% of the time, making official game forums fairly useless. Again, its all a two way street but ultimately the customer would be at the loss if they want to try and be mean about things.
MMO market is like any other market. And in all markets one should remeber this... The person that is trying to sell you something is always your "enemy". He is almost always lying, trying to cheat you into buying a product. You on the other hand want exactly the product that they are advertising. And we all kknow by now that the product they are trying to sell is almost always not the one you are getting. Especially when it comes to MMOs.
Now... Who is the gamer left to blame for all this? Marketing people are ghosts... Developers are closer. So they are targetted as enemies.
And i'm not saying they are blamless! But you can't soothe the flames of the internet. You can't also please everyone...
I've been uplinked and downloaded, I've been inputted and outsourced. I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading.
I'm a high-tech low-life. A cutting-edge, state-of-the-art, bi-coastal multi-tasker, and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond.
I'm new-wave, but I'm old-school; and my inner child is outward-bound.
I'm a hot-wired, heat-seeking, warm-hearted cool customer; voice-activated and bio-degradable.
RIP George Carlin.
"Sell your soul to the devil?" This is the sort of melodramatic crap that makes developers not want to listen to players. What you call "selling your soul to the devil" the developer calls getting a job so he can make money and feed his family. I suppose the company you work for has an angelic CEO who gives all of the profits away to starving African orphans. Or maybe you sold your soul to the devil too when you got your job?
I'm sure most game developers would love to be independent, able to create their own game the way they want to with no "devil" looking over their shoulder, but it costs a heck of lot of money to produce a decent game. There aren't a lot of individuals out there who can afford to finance their own game. Even if they could, they'd be taking a big risk that the game might fail and they'll lose everything they invested in it.
What I think developers need to do is to stop letting themselves get baited by obnoxious players on their game forums, and respond more regularly to level-headed, intelligent comments. I think once players realize that the developers listen and respond to smart suggestions from players and flat out ignore angry rants and protests, the dialogue between players and developers will improve drastically. Unfortunately what I've seen is that developers and community managers respond more to the rants and name-calling than to smart questions and suggestions. Usually that response might just be something like "please keep it civil," but even that's no good because now that player knows his rant was heard. Meanwhile, smart comments and questions are probably more difficult for a developer to answer, so they ignore it. Better if they at least acknowledge good questions or complaints, even if they don't have an answer yet.
Aka, the publishers. You know the boogie man the developers blame for their problems. They've set up the publishers as the end of all the evils. That wasn't me who made them the "bad" guys, the developers did. News flash if you choose to go to bed with EA, you don't get to tell everyone EA is the reason everything sucks... as if you didn't know that before you signed the dotted line. You ccould try reading what i wrote instead of going ape over the word choice.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Every time I hear a developer is lazy it makes me not want to ever visit a forum again. Some of the rants in this post proves why developers stay away. Because the majority of people in forums are living in a dream world and desperately need to come back to reality. Working in the game industry isn't as romantic as people make it out to be.
Developers on top of that don't have time to read posts. Most people don't realize they are already over worked, so they don't waste their time going through the amount of text that it would take to get anything of value from a forum. Besides the fact the most people don't have the depth to handle most tough decisions on game design. the Consumer isn't that important to the development process. they should just stick to telling developers consumer Ideas of what they want and stay out of the complex issues unless they provide data to support such a claim.
Most games, movies, books are stillborn childs. From the few that make it far enough, fewer gain attention and even less will have someone who cares enough to complain. So making a bad game is an achievement, as weird as it sounds. It is a risky business. If you are developer, you probably love what you do. Few people accept to sleep below their desks. Few people are fine with never having closing time as they think about how to make it better, cooler, more awesome, hoping that their baby game makes it far enough. There are devs working in their free time till 2 a.m. regularly, because they wanted to make the level better. Fix that bug. There are others who are fed up and burned out after some years, maybe disappointed because they, too, had expectations. They now make their nine to five contribution. Do you blame them?
There is the saying: from the three options, making it fast, cheap or with high quality, pick two. In game development you get one choice.
I think that many developers don't have issues with the climate in the forums. It's not that they were born game dev. They are players themselves on some other game or were "only" players before to exactly know how it used to be. They've been there, they saw how a patch or change made it worse.
But why would you post in the forums as a developer? It looks like that posting in forums is a no-win situation from an objective point of view. If you present something for appraisal, then it gets processed by people with a certain likelyhood that some dislike it. If you don't do anything, this doesn't happen. Just wears down over time. Compare high % crit chance to deal high spike damage with subtle damage over time, you get the idea. Then run this calculation through the Troll multiplicator, few players who actively seek to upset others and are happy with some statements that can be ripped out of context or twisted around.
How often do you read false statements of things developers allegedly said some years ago. Once asked, as a final small-talk-fun-question during early development what they prefer to drink. The developer states that he "likes Coke". Over time some will claim they said they like coke and want to implement it. A year later, the deves somehow are into Lemonade business now. Then one day, during beta the Fans cry: "BUT THEY PROMISED JUNIPER BERRY FLAVOR!". Stuff like that happened with "bagels on friday". Maybe someone remembers.
Next thing is: What you can actually learn from forums? Sure, its fun to read comments and feedback (if you ever made anything, and you show it to others, you sure as hell want to know what they think). Most devs likely know what they are getting into. Games often develop non-linear complexity, they can't be calculated.
So Bob sure wants to know if Thingy A and Thingy B interact in bad ways. But more often than not the dude in the forums isn't saying anything tangible. Bob, already working late, already reading the forums, already played that level 8345 times for two years really wants to fix it. But dude in the forums doesn't say anything tangible, nothing Bob can put into his sleek project management tool. There is not a single sentence he can pick up to walk over to some other desk to tell Alice to fix it. Most of the time. Really, look into any forum. Actually forums are not about tangible things, most of the time, its more discussion for the sake of it.
In the other occassions Palafafnarir and Andufrodur cannot agree whether Paladin owns Priest or Priest owns Paladin. Then MadMurderskull1337 waltzes into the thread and proclaims that, actually, they should L2P as he can beat both of them in any combination, with just one skill, while debuffed with the most gimped class and that there is no problem AT ALL. While watching porn. They should stop QQ. But devs suck also, as they changed the difficulty so that now 3% of the playerbase can play the dungeon and not 2% as it used to be in the good old days, when they had to walk to school through the snow, barefoot, drinking juniper lemonade. Again, what would Bob do with that info?
More often than you suspect development teams actually do listen if there is some sort of consensus in the forums, especially if their own common sense made the same observations (or their data indicates that). More often than you think is Bob and Alice more critical than you ever be. They know that the story is flawed, but haven't time to make it different. Or they were told to make it that way or in many more cases, they though it was good, but turned out not that good they hoped. Sometimes the story is flawed because Bob wanted an action drama and Alice wanted a love story and somehow they found a "middle ground". Then there is their boss, who wants something with dogs. The investors also want vampires. The producer puts all into pipeline. Bob and Alice faceplam twice and nag everyone all the time that the scope is too large now. Nobody listens, they make the best they could. Then they cut the female part from the love story, the explosions for the action prove to be too expensive, but dogs and vampires make it.
Ok. Now players flame Alice and Bob. They screwed it after all, didn't they? They still read the forums, and they are inspired by it and definately learn something about their game, some exploits, how to circumvent their cool gameplay idea for better XP etc. But Charlie, their boss and Robert the PR dude see that the forums are hostile and that Alice and Bob probably shouldn't be posting, so that nobody can claim they wanted to make Juniper Lemonade and they didn't deliver (that makes the company look bad, what if one investor looks into the forums and it looks like the dev "made" the players angry!?). It's all controlled and clean now. If fans are rabid, its just them. It is serious business now, just like it is for the fans who are that angry.
Wall of text hit you for 3153415535.
In my opinion, this situation is 100% the fault of the gaming media. Step away from the gloryhole and keep these companies honest so we dont have to. All will be well.
Now, back to my nap.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
I think it's hilarious that some people think players should have a say in the development of a game. Do you think because you bought Monopoly or Hungry Hungry Hippos that you should be able to call up Hasbro and tell them to start changing things you don't like?
99% of players on forums wouldn't act the way they do if it wasn't anonymous anyway.
Once again an article throwing oil on the fire... still interesting
Regarding the first statement, if you are speaking about advertised features that don't make up to the gold master version (ie: WoW sieges engines, AoC DX10, WAR 6 cities) then it's all a matter of communication from the publisher. And seriously some have real issue with hyping their game a bit too much even more when they know they won't meet the expectations.
About the second statement, it's a well known fact forums and focus groups can kill a game. And while devs should watch them closely they should not camp on their positions. Once again there's one thing that always amazed me in MMO: very few games use in game polls and a metric don't tell you a whether a player use this skill or that feature because he likes it or he needs it.
In the same vein I bought some Play-Doh accessories for my daughter and honesty after 5 minutes of using them I already see ways to make them better for kids.
Or like young kids games that makes sounds and are very loud when you know the young kids have much better hearing than adults plus the loud sounds annoy the parents.
Am I an expert in game for kids? Nnot at all! But as some others I can use my brain. Same for MMO.
Of course not *every* dev can run off to every event and spend a weekend (or week) being schmooozed by adoring fans, but I do know that there are always devs from CoH at their conventions. Maybe not the entire team of coders, but the people who show up from CoH are people who contribute in a huge way to making the game.
Can we try the hug thing tomorrow? It sounds like fun.
Some ppl will give you a hug while stabbing you in the back. Some ppl will tell you a lie, grab your money and run. Others won't.
I was brought up to give ppl respect and treat ppl with common decency. I don't like Cryptic. I will never pay to play a Cryptic game again. It is the company I don't like, not the ppl who work there. How do I know that they're as less in control than I am when it comes to these things? I don't. Until I have proof to the contrary then if I happened to know somebody who worked for Cryptic I would treat them with respect and common decency.
I pay to play other mmorpg's. It doesn't mean I have the lack of respect for their company than I do for Cryptic. I work on circumstance, not tarring ppl with one brush. Everybody is different and nobody is perfect, it doesn't mean everyone is the same.