244 réponses à ce sujet

[Ariella]

Kajan451 wrote...

Ariella wrote...

So what, you sound jealous more than anything else.

Not my intent, maybe because i am no native speaker? Either way i am quite happy with my own path in life and wouldn't want to work for Bioware. I don't really agree with the course they are taking and i doubt i could work in such an enviroment.

Besides... nothing beats being your own boss


But, i will induldge you with the question of "so what?" Well, so what, was answered by me in the rest of the post. If you have an official title corresponding with your customers you cannot act as private person. Because people know you work at this place. They know what you do and if you happen to be the boss, they take your attitude as the attitude of someone calling the shots.

If I may point out, again, even if Dave didn't have that tag, even if he didn't have the sig line, we'd all know who he is and place more weight on what he says than anyone else. It's the way of the world, but the face he and many of the other designers and developers do come here to talk with us like people is pretty amazing since you rarely get that from a big company. It's one of the things that makes Bioware special when compared to other RPG producers. At the same time, I don't expect him or any of the others to allow themselves to be bullied or spit on, and not push back.

As for the whole taking out of context, if someone is going to take one quote from a thread and use it as his or her central thesis for a post, it behooves the readers to take a look at the quote and the original thread as much as possible to get context if nothing else. It's easy to take almost any quote out of context and turn it into an insult. We see it all the time in the political world, especially here in the US. So if there's a moral to the story it;s "be ware of sound bytes"

[TUHD]

As opposed to what I said earlier, I am going to say one more thing about that darn PM. I didn't make that PM the central argument of my post, OTHERS quickly focused on it. Please read my original post again, thank you!

[Ariella]

TUHD wrote...

As opposed to what I said earlier, I am going to say one more thing about that darn PM. I didn't make that PM the central argument of my post, OTHERS quickly focused on it. Please read my original post again, thank you!

Welcome to Pandora's Internet, TUHD. Things quickly take on a life of their own whatever the person who starts the thread wants.

[erynnar]

Gamer Ftw wrote...

Well my original point was It doesn't seem like the staff is listening to what the gamers want, why wouldn't you care about that?
Everyone I know loved the camp dialogues but "hey we will just disregard what you think because we don't want to do that now".
So we get a game that is rushed with repeated scenery and dalish that are are suddenly welsh.
And if we protest?
"hey too bad no one cares what you think"
because they know people will buy no matter how bad it gets just because of the Bioware label.

Okay now you make sense, and we can agree. It doesn't seem to be that they are listening.  I am reticent to say "fans" implying that the people who are enjoying the game arent' because they are.  

And I agree, agree, agree with you.  Aw, and I didn't have to shuffle off and play with my Star Wars legos either.

And my apologies, no troll you.  But we could  kick out the trolls from their brige. :DI have legos and I am willing to share...

And I didn't mean I thought Mr. Gaider was a git (twit in the US terms, or close enough), but that you seemed to think he was. Sorry for the lack of clarity.

Modifié par erynnar, 23 avril 2011 - 11:41 .

[erynnar]

Ariella wrote...

TUHD wrote...

As opposed to what I said earlier, I am going to say one more thing about that darn PM. I didn't make that PM the central argument of my post, OTHERS quickly focused on it. Please read my original post again, thank you!

Welcome to Pandora's Internet, TUHD. Things quickly take on a life of their own whatever the person who starts the thread wants.

What Ariella said TUHD. It seems to the Pandora effect..but there is always hope left, right?

[JaegerBane]

TUHD wrote...
This is the last of it I am going to say about that darned PM - if you STILL manage to read too much into it, I am not going to argue it anymore.

You weren't really 'arguing' about it, to be fair - you just insisted I'd somehow 'read into' a fairly blunt and clear PM and refused to elaborate on the matter.

For what it's worth, I fully agree that his response was pretty rude - all I was pointing out was that the idea Gaider set out to generate all this heartache on the forum wasn't realistic....

[Cutlass Jack]

TUHD wrote...

As opposed to what I said earlier, I am going to say one more thing about that darn PM. I didn't make that PM the central argument of my post, OTHERS quickly focused on it. Please read my original post again, thank you!

Its completely your own fault for including it. It was inappropriate to do so. If you disliked his tone in a personal message you should have addressed personally it in a reply to him. Instead you decided to make it a public thing. Posting screenshots of that exchange hardly makes it any better.

Edit: maybe a little harsher sounding than I intended. Just saying next time maybe keep the personal stuff personal so everyone can focus on the real meat of your post.

Modifié par Cutlass Jack, 23 avril 2011 - 10:03 .

[AngryFrozenWater]

Deleted. Wrong thread.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 23 avril 2011 - 11:07 .

[oldmansavage]

I support alot of what you post but posting PMs and snitching on others even if they are being retarded is low.

[Dormiglione]

Cutlass Jack wrote...

TUHD wrote...

As opposed to what I said earlier, I am going to say one more thing about that darn PM. I didn't make that PM the central argument of my post, OTHERS quickly focused on it. Please read my original post again, thank you!

Its completely your own fault for including it. It was inappropriate to do so. If you disliked his tone in a personal message you should have addressed personally it in a reply to him. Instead you decided to make it a public thing. Posting screenshots of that exchange hardly makes it any better.

Edit: maybe a little harsher sounding than I intended. Just saying next time maybe keep the personal stuff personal so everyone can focus on the real meat of your post.

i agree with @Cutlass Jack. A personal/private message (PM) is adressed to one person and should not made public.
@TUHD its your own fault that the thread goes in another direction.

[OhoniX]

Mike Laidlaw's first interview after the launch of the game. When asked about the disappointed fans, he delivered the fire to ignite the spread fuel around the internet - he told indirectly the disappointed fans to 'deal with it'. Big mistake. Multiple forums around the Internet, including this one, started to explode. People who already were disappointed, became majorly pissed-off. The tone became more grim on all forums regarding DA2.
This forum completely exploded, since due to the effort of pissed-off, disappointed fans who posted negative threads, trolls who just for the heck of it posted such threads too and fanboys/girls who didn't appreciate the negativism, an massive amount of flames started to lighten up. Not helping it was the fact the mods locked down threads of people who just were venting frustration, leading to more frustration.
Up to this day, Mike Laidlaw has refused to recognize the fact that the disappointed fans have any kind of point - keeping on indirectly insulting them over and over again. The flames are still raging, since the mods still let any pro-DA2 flaming go unchecked unless attented on, but keep on crushing down hard on people who are posting slightly offending threads just because the posters are massively frustrated and worry about the way the DA-series are going.

What alternative could there possibly be? "You guys were right, the direction we took the game was completely wrong so we'll redo it from scratch and send you all free copies?" Bull####. They made the game they wanted made. The correct response is "suck it". If you don't enjoy the game, then that's too bad, but there are plenty of other games out there for you to spend money on, they can't make the game to be everything for everybody. Plenty of people like the game for what it is, for those who don't like it for what it is, what could they possibly do to change that now?

[Gotholhorakh]

AgentWhale wrote...

You will notice that the haters are not consistent in their demands. DA2 is "dumbed down" for them, yet at the same time dislike DA2's shades of grey complex character approach.

You know, I suspect that there aren't 3 people in the world who dislike DA2 for its complex character approach.

Just sayin'

OhoniX wrote...

What
alternative could there possibly be?

Seriously? You don't know?

Ask any company that sells stuff to people and so relies on their continued custom. There are plenty of responses to negative feedback from your customers, but "well they're free to go and choose something else and not our product, idiots" is not a viable one, haha.

Interviews and forum posts made by the creative/clever people at a company, the ones who can actually do things are great, but they're not PR - it's why (for instance) I'm usually not pushed into situations where I deal with the public by my company, if I'm invested in the product, it's my baby and to be honest I have the insight to understand that my OTTOMH attitude could be a bit too unsalesmanlike to be useful, even though I will in the long run take feedback gratefully, and happily act on it.

BioWare doesn't so much have/want to make that choice, (and nor would I want them to, we have years of discussion between developers/community, a relationship) but at the very least there should be lead developers and PR people running interference.

Go easy on the creatives and developers for not being sales/PR snakes, you're going to get some PR-unfriendly responses from them, and that should be OK - their job is not to schmooze us, let them be people.

On the other hand, there must must MUST be a process of constructively, visibly handling feedback when there is lots of it, and you never know, there might be issues to deal with for future products, and maybe even patches to commission. There's clearly something to deal with, look at the amount of feedback people have!

You don't have to have a public admission of a product being bad to take feedback and be on a level with people.

OhoniX wrote...
The correct response is "suck it".

I think anyone who ever made any money selling anything to lots of people would disagree with you. To be honest I think most people with common sense, let alone intelligence, can see just how wrong that attitude is for a business.

The reason that attitude comes across is because it's the creative talent being asked, not because it's in any way good, or constructive, or useful for the relationship between BioWare and its customers.

Obviously.

Modifié par Gotholhorakh, 24 avril 2011 - 09:21 .

[Sabriana]

And David Gaider is still listed as a "Moderator" at the bottom of this very page. In the first line even. So anyone who tries to tell me that he has no "official" status on these boards needs to tell me why I'm being lied to by the board operators. You know, the people responsible for having listed D. Gaider as a "Moderator".

Shame on them. Shame on them for trying to deceive me, and shame on them for pushing Mr. Gaider into an "Official" position. A position he clearly despises, and has no wish to occupy, according to the informed insiders here in this very thread.

[YohkoOhno]

Sabriana wrote...

And David Gaider is still listed as a "Moderator" at the bottom of this very page. In the first line even. So anyone who tries to tell me that he has no "official" status on these boards needs to tell me why I'm being lied to by the board operators. You know, the people responsible for having listed D. Gaider as a "Moderator".

Shame on them. Shame on them for trying to deceive me, and shame on them for pushing Mr. Gaider into an "Official" position. A position he clearly despises, and has no wish to occupy, according to the informed insiders here in this very thread.

Being a moderator does not mean they are speaking as an official PR person--those are two different roles.  Gaider is also a minor moderator, with the major ones being the ones in the bottom in bold.  All being a moderator means is that they can officially control the forum.  

[JabbaDaHutt30]

David Gaider, lead writer at BioWare, displaying his writing abilities -- straight from the pen. 2011/04/21.

Modifié par JabbaDaHutt30, 24 avril 2011 - 11:52 .

[YohkoOhno]

Y'know, those image spams aren't cute.

Also, I think it's really unfair for the community to find a single statement by a Bioware employee and focus on it, be it Laidlaw's "awesome" comment, Gaider's few statements, or a statement made by an employee years before she joined.  

If all you're doing is reducing arguments to "soundbites" or Internet Memes, what does that say about the maturity of Bioware's audience.

Modifié par YohkoOhno, 24 avril 2011 - 12:21 .

[Gotholhorakh]

Sabriana wrote...

And David Gaider is still listed as a "Moderator" at the bottom of this very page. In the first line even. So anyone who tries to tell me that he has no "official" status on these boards needs to tell me why I'm being lied to by the board operators. You know, the people responsible for having listed D. Gaider as a "Moderator".

Shame on them. Shame on them for trying to deceive me, and shame on them for pushing Mr. Gaider into an "Official" position. A position he clearly despises, and has no wish to occupy, according to the informed insiders here in this very thread.

I'm not sure that's fair. What is a forum? Some web app which people use to talk about stuff - the privs people have on it are more of a practical issue than a public endorsement of everything they say as "BioWare's official position".

Now employees who identify themselves as such, are ambassadors of their employer when they're involved in online discussion, that much is clear, but we really do all need to be able to exchange opinions/feedback/ideas freely in this community if we're going to have healthy, constructive exchanges - and that includes developers/designers/writers etc. being themselves just as much as it includes gamers being openly critical, in my humble opinion (which is humbly correct in all things, obviously  ).

YohkoOhno wrote...

Y'know, those image spams aren't cute.

Heh, I think it's quite amusing, I'm sure David Gaider could have worse quotes to be remembered for btw, that one's almost a bit Chuck Norris.

Also,
I think it's really unfair for the community to find a single statement
by a Bioware employee and focus on it, be it Laidlaw's "awesome"
comment, Gaider's few statements, or a statement made by an employee
years before she joined.  

Agreed.

If all you're doing is reducing
arguments to "soundbites" or Internet Memes, what does that say about
the maturity of Bioware's audience.

Erm, let's not focus on the audience - it's the community as a whole that's been rocked a little by DA2, many people feel it has issues they really aren't happy with, many people have deliberately trolled on both sides, some people I'm sure have been sycophantic apologists when they know there issues, some BioWare employees have inadevrtently poured petrol on the flames, some people have been terribly trigger-happy with quoting anything remotely quotable by a BioWare employee.

The whole community has had issues, and until everyone - Angry Mob, Disgruntled gamers, Happy gamers, Ordinary users, Sycophants, Developers, Trolls, Idiots and so on, calms down and stops being so reactionary, we get nowhere.

Modifié par Gotholhorakh, 24 avril 2011 - 12:39 .

[JabbaDaHutt30]

YohkoOhno wrote...

Y'know, those image spams aren't cute.

Also, I think it's really unfair for the community to find a single statement by a Bioware employee and focus on it, be it Laidlaw's "awesome" comment, Gaider's few statements, or a statement made by an employee years before she joined.  

If all you're doing is reducing arguments to "soundbites" or Internet Memes, what does that say about the maturity of Bioware's audience.

Singling out a few statements? Everything they said has been turned into a forum meme! 

Modifié par JabbaDaHutt30, 24 avril 2011 - 12:35 .

[Elhanan]

... My points now...
- I am a worried fan/customer. I understand that if I were about the only one worried, I'd have no say in it. But come on, if only already over half of the posters on the Internet aren't satisfied with the way DA2 went, that should tell you SOMETHING how to approach your customers?

Over half of the posters on the Internet? Really? I would suggest re-editing this post yet again, and attempt to strive for some more realistic phrase as I personally oppose the notion that half dislike DA2, yet alone feel the need to post open comlaints and bemoan the future of the product.

- Those forums. I know that different kinds of people come here - but my personal golden rule is 'Live and let live'. Flamers on both sides ('pro' and 'anti') are personally attacking people because of their valid opinions....

I agree with the latter statement on Flamers. But I would suggest holding up that mirror again and re-examine your Rules after posting and *bumping* this thread. Your own actions towards Bioware and to other posters seems to suggest otherwise.

And to the others that seem to feel the need to pile on, I tend to agree with David.

Modifié par Elhanan, 24 avril 2011 - 04:39 .

[OhoniX]

Ask any company that sells stuff to people and so relies on their
continued custom. There are plenty of responses to negative feedback
from your customers, but "well they're free to go and choose something
else and not our product, idiots" is not a viable one, haha.

Sure it is. It's an honest one. I respect the honest answer more than if they tried to make up some marketing BS about how they think the whiners actually have a point when they know that they don't.

I think anyone who ever made any money selling anything to lots of people would disagree with you.

Apple seems to be doing pretty well lately and that's been their motto for decades. If you make a good product, you can't sweat the haters. There will always be haters, and haters gonna hate. DA2 is a good product. It's not a product for everyone, everyone's not going to like it, and for the ones who aren't going to like it, there's absolutely nothing they can say that will make any difference. Given that, there's no point beating around the bush or trying to pretend that you care what they think.

[Roxlimn]

Sabriana:

I actually really, really disliked all the long expository dialogue in DA:O, especially in the case of Morrigan and Shale, since explaining things in great detail is rather contrary to their characters. I can deal with Wynne being long-winded and a little tiresome, and Alistair being yakky, but it just doesn't fit all characters.

In general, if I want exposition, I'll read a Codex entry. That's what it's for.

[David Gaider]

With regards to the link to the discussion regarding conversations, I think it's only fair to point anyone interested to some follow-up discussion I had here. I certainly wasn't bashing DAO or suggesting that wanting to talk to your companions is bad, simply that there are better ways of doing it than Q&A dialogue. As you'll see in that post, I'm also not suggesting that DA2 did everything perfectly. As always, this kind of work is a challenge -- and the writing team is going to have to keep in step with the changes that the rest of the project undergoes.

Naturally it's not really in my purview to discuss anything outside of the writing, but I'm always willing to listen to reasonable feedback-- and occasionally be baited into arguments even when I shouldn't. Comes with the territory, I guess, as does being called arrogant by anyone who dislikes my opinions. I don't really mind. If my only option was to interact with the community like I was their waiter (which I am not) I frankly would not come here at all. Thankfully there are a great number of peope here who make thoughtful posts, if occasionally empassioned ones, that make my occasional participation worthwhile.

As for the "moderator" thing, my job isn't to moderate these forums. I'll come here from time to time, and I'm listed as a moderator because I have the power to moderate if I so choose. I don't employ it very often. If someone wishes to contact an official channel, they should send a PM to the community liaison, Chris Priestly -- or customer service.

Modifié par David Gaider, 25 avril 2011 - 03:36 .

[oldmansavage]

Seems reasonable.  And I still contend that posting PMs to the public goes against guy code.  Most of the forums I've been on consider it ban worthy.

[Kajan451]

Ariella wrote...

we'd all know who he is

No we wouldn't. I wouldn't have known if he hadn't that signature. Why? Because i don't read credits. Its pretty much unimportant to me. Which is, mind you, probably very ignorant, but i am bad with names anyway. And if there wouldn't be so much fuss about the whole thing and the few posts i read made me remember the name with, some mixed attitude.

And Bioware isn't the only board who has Devs participating, even though... in my perception of the matter their participation was largely confinded to the prerelease. After the release they been all of the sudden all but absent. Leaving the impression their presence on the boards was largely to generate and keep up the hype for DA2.

But when the .... hit the fan, you got to read either snippy comments or found a general absense, where a simple explanation would have gone a long way to restore faith.

Much of the "rage" was generated by the interviews and comments left on this forum.

David Gaider wrote...

Naturally it's not really in my purview to discuss anything outside of the writing, but I'm always willing to listen to reasonable feedback-- and occasionally be baited into arguments even when I shouldn't. Comes with the territory, I guess, as does being called arrogant by anyone who dislikes my opinions.

As one of the people who did call you that, i have to say its not your opinion which makes you appear as such but the way you express them.

A more careful approach, maybe a bit more level tone, would have prevented that impression, at least in my case. (and i am going to read the discussion within the link you have been posting).

David Gaider wrote...



I don't really mind. If my only option was to interact with the community like I was their waiter (which I am not) I frankly would not come here at all.

 

Though, kind of you are. You work at providing a service. Which is in this case entertainment and to a lesser degree Art (i think the Art aspect kind of gets lost with the medium, but thats just me). Making a smiling face, keeping a polite tone, does provide a much better relationship with even those elements who do not agree with your opinion, as does snide remarks and snippy comments.

Of course i don't think my words will make you reconsider, but i believe that if you read this at least you might consider the words and thus maybe, next time, you'd rather use more diplomatic words in those times you are "goated" into an argument.

The problem is, after all, that much of the "negative" opinion comes from the way you guys have reacted to the complains. Of course there are always those who will be running around like small children and complain about things, posting pictures and opening hundreds of threads in an hour, but personally, while i might be discontent with some of your decisions (and mostly with the technical aspect of your game), what really pissed me off was the reaction to complains others expressed before me.

I have yet to write up my full feedback, which i still plan to post in the constructive feedback thread, but mainly because i simply still wait for the game to be fixed. But while i do this and threads surface in which posts from you guys are linked about how you (not you alone, of course) seem to adress concerns about weakpoints, it just paints a much bleaker picture as it probably is. And while i would take everything i read with a grain of salt... as i wrote in my first reply in this threads... that "suck it up, princess" sounded very much like you.

[Ariella]

Kajan451 wrote...

Ariella wrote...

we'd all know who he is

No we wouldn't. I wouldn't have known if he hadn't that signature. Why? Because i don't read credits. Its pretty much unimportant to me. Which is, mind you, probably very ignorant, but i am bad with names anyway. And if there wouldn't be so much fuss about the whole thing and the few posts i read made me remember the name with, some mixed attitude.

No offense, but unless you've been hiding in a perverbiable whole on these forums, it's hard NOT to know who David Gaider is. I didn'y check the date you joined, but there have been threads in this very forum asking him to write more novels for the series. Believe me, it's hard to miss, unless you've seriously avoided spoilers.

And as I said before if you think Dave Gaider has an attitude, you should read some of the lit commentary by Steven King, or Harlan Ellison, Dave's a kitten by comparison