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The Game vs. the Boards
Wyeth
Member Posts: 51
http://soe.lithium.com/swg/board/message?board.id=swggpdiscussion&message.id=1165606
The Game vs. the Boards
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Roughly 80% of the people who play SWG never read these boards. We know this from our own internal metrics and it poses an interesting question. Are we talking to people who play the game or posters who play the boards?
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I don't mean to imply that the people who post here don't play the game. Far from it. There are thousands of well-constructed, thoughtful, and insightful posts from people who obviously know the game very well. Just read a few lines of these gems and you'll realize that, first and foremost, these people care about the game. Their focus is the game. I think the lion's share of the profession feedback in the last couple publishes is a fantastic example of these players who post.
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But, at the same time, these boards are constantly cluttered by the reverse. Posters who play. They use these forums to lash out at others, criticize wantonly, and generally feed their own egos. They regularly attack devs and moderators, clinging to past wrongs and imagined slights. They focus on themselves instead of the game. To them, the boards are the real game.
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As devs, we aren’t here to play the board game. We’re here to play, and to make, SWG.
The upcoming chapters will see the remainder of the profession expertise systems implemented. We have a lot of work to do and the feedback from players who post is going to be invaluable. You aren’t going to like every decision we make and we understand that. We have a limited resources and time to accomplish all that needs to be done. But, as I’ve said before, we will be here (on the boards) and we will be listening. If you’re up for a focused discussion of ideas, we welcome you and you can bet you’ll have our attention.
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If, however, you feel the need to throw another stone, indulge a rant, whine, pick apart another poster, argue a dead point, rules lawyer, quote ancient history, or engage in any of the other classic board game moves, don’t expect us to pay attention. We have better things to do.
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We have some SWG to make.
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ChrisCao
Dev
Posts: 44
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Dear Vocal Minority........
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Wyeth - Chilastra 8/30/03-6/1/05 Master Artisan, Master Weaponsmith, Master Shipwright (after giving up Weaponsmith), Master Merchant
Zadox - Chilastra 12/1/03-6/3/05 Master Rifleman, Master Scout, Master Ranger.
Comments
Put more succintly, " Were going to pay attention to the posts that agree with what were already doing, and to hell with the rest of you fuggers. After all, if you dont like what we tell you to like your clearly just a troll, flamer, or whiner." Bastards.......
"The man who exchanges Liberty for Iconic classes is a fool deserving of neither." - Me and Ben Franklin
I realize I said I quit. I never said it was forever
Hauken Stormchaser
I want pre-CU back
Station.com : We got your game
Yeah?, Well i want it back!!!
Helios is his apprentice
Helios is his apprentice
Now there is two of them, this is getting out of hand...
Hauken Stormchaser
I want pre-CU back
Station.com : We got your game
Yeah?, Well i want it back!!!
Helios is his apprentice
Now there is two of them, this is getting out of hand...
Well, to be fair it is a reasonable point of concern. There are a small, vocal group of players who end up mostly posting to the boards and not really playing the game very much. I've become one of these twice -- in SWG, and in COH. Both times, what happened was this: I started out mostly playing and occasionally reading forums and posting. But in both cases, as I became unhappy with playing the game -- in SWG's case, because of the CU, and later NGE; in COH's case because it becomes boring and repetitive after 30 levels or so -- I started finding posting to the forum more interesting or fun than playing the game.
I actually agree with the devs that listening exclusively to such players is probably counter-productive. However, so is ignoring them. In both SWG and COH, there was a reason why I went from being a player who posts, to a poster who plays. Both times, those reasons had to do with fundamental flaws in the game design. For instance, if the CU had never gone into effect, my forum posting would have been far less intense than it became. If COH did not (still, to this day) become a mind-numbingly boring grind after 30th level or so, I'd be playing it rather than posting about it. I'll readily agree that AFTER my conversion from a "player who posts" to a "poster who plays", my posts became progressively less productive and thus, progressively, less worthy of dev attention. But the reason why that conversion happened is critical for the devs to understand, because it is based around the reason why they lose players in general from these games.
If they want to learn how to retain players, then, one of the things they have to do is figur out how to reduce the conversion of players who post into posters who play. And so my problem with his comment is not what he said, but the apparent lack of recognition that these two sets are not mutually exclusive, but rather are often the same player in two states, and that the change from one state to another is, often, the fault of the developers.
C
Good post, but what is new here, like I don’t understand what everyone is surprised by, maybe if someone could please let me know what the problem is with his post, I would appreciate it. Bring it on down now.
Damn byotch dat aint no friggn moon fool, dat be a friggn space station byotch.
I am perfectly willing to make up, to forgive and forget.
As soon as they give me back the game I bought.
When you have lied to your customers repeatedly, and made major unwanted changes to the core game that has resulted in a large portion of your subscription base cancelling, it isn't a good idea to continue to antagonize your remaining subscribers. The dev team and community relations team have continued to poke sticks in the hornets nest that is the official forums since the NGE was announced. That any company would find it acceptable to treat its customers in such a manner is unfathomable.
Helios is his apprentice
Now there is two of them, this is getting out of hand...
There are always two, a master and an apprentice.....
"The man who exchanges Liberty for Iconic classes is a fool deserving of neither." - Me and Ben Franklin
When you have lied to your customers repeatedly, and made major unwanted changes to the core game that has resulted in a large portion of your subscription base cancelling, it isn't a good idea to continue to antagonize your remaining subscribers. The dev team and community relations team have continued to poke sticks in the hornets nest that is the official forums since the NGE was announced. That any company would find it acceptable to treat its customers in such a manner is unfathomable.
Everything you said, plus this:
If im responsible for a division of a company that has lost over 50% of its revenue in the past 18 months, and a large percentage of the customers I have left are angry, its not a wise business decision to only listen to the handfull of people who are telling me they love what im doing. I can continue to do things the way i have been doing and continue to lose money until I have to shut down, or I can with an open mind and open heart listen to all and try to figure out where I screwed up and how I can fix it. I dont stick my head in the sand and pretend there isnt a problem.
Oh and shouldnt a product thats been on the market for three years alredy be "made"? Shouldnt he have said fix the game, or add to the game, or anything or than we need to be making the game?
"The man who exchanges Liberty for Iconic classes is a fool deserving of neither." - Me and Ben Franklin
Well I guess there is two sides to every story, what I find interesting is how very short people’s memories are. Bring it on down now.
Damn byotch dat aint no friggn moon fool, dat be a friggn space station byotch.
Typicaly after bad decisions things eventualy settle down not so now.
When they in fell swoop lost so many subscriber base there was a mistake made and there is something they can do about it.
The sure arragoance of this poster / creative directory will be the very thing that keeps folks far away from any other soe mmorpg that has that same arragoanance and it is just rubbish . At least they paid the price for it.
That says something at least.
Perfectly put.
One thing I'd like to add is the assertion by ChrisCao that, "we have some SWG to make."
There is only one problem with that statement.
SWG was already made.
It is the one thing that ChrisCao neglected, and the one thing he and Helios refuse to concede.
ChrisCao is no "dev." Helios is no "dev." They cannot develop something that had already been developed. They can only maintain that game that has been developed, or undermine that game that was developed.
This current live team chooses to do the latter. They choose to partake in a role that was never theirs, and neglect the vital role a live team needs to fulfill, and that is to maintain the game that has already been developed.
If ChrisCao for some reason reads this thread, let it be known that the reason posters, "feel the need to throw another stone, indulge a rant, whine, pick apart another poster, argue a dead point, rules lawyer, quote ancient history," and "engage in any of the other classic board game moves," has nothing to do with imagining that "the boards are the real game." Quite the opposite.
The only thing left from the "real game" are the boards, and they are trying to get the rest of the real game, that was really developed, from the real developers back again.
Because no matter what the tags say on the SOE boards, this game is no longer "in development." It is now live. As such, everyone who works on SWG are not "developers." They are live team members. Not only that, but they are live team members that refuse to acknowledge their place and role as maintainers of the vision that was already developed. The "better things to do" have nothing much to do with being a better live team, only a poor live team, and the notion that ChrisCao feels it is his place to "have some SWG to make" only drives the point home.
If they have "some SWG to make," then it means that the current SWG is not "the game," because if it was, then ChrisCao and Helios would have some SWG to maintain, and not to make.
The only SWG that can be considered to be "the game," was the original one developed by the developers while in development. To love the game is to love that original game. Those who love what is there now do not love the game, but rather, love the changes made on the fly by a live staff that abuses their prerogatives.
Therefore, when ChrisCao refuses to listen to those stone throwers, ranters, whiners, nitpickers, arguers, rules lawyers, historians of SWG, and classic board posts, he refuses to even consider that what they are trying to tell him is that they do not pay their sub fees to hear "we have some SWG to make."
They pay them for the SWG that was already made, and they refuse to maintain.
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"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE