156 réponses à ce sujet

[Mr.BlazenGlazen]

Jos Hendriks wrote...

SimonTheFrog wrote...
...

And why is it that people are happily twittering their comings and goings but can't be bothered to show up at the official forums? Why the discrepancey here?'

...

The reason is two-fold.
One: My twitter account is my personal account. I'm connected to friends and family with it, and co-workers and whoever wants to follow me. I may occasionally tweet about work-related things, but that doesn't mean it's a work-centric account, or managed from a work perspective.
Two: People here read the forums. Not everyone, not all the time, but we do. Reading the forums versus posting in the forums are 2 vastly different things, however. Anything I post in here I post using my official work account, which means whatever I write will be scrutinized because it's official, and formulating posts takes time.

Additionally, time plays a major factor. When Retaliation came out I spent an hour and a half each morning for a week reading replies and answering questions about the hazard levels and things. That is an hour and a half of my day for a couple replies. It worked out then, but most of the time most of the people here have a lot of work to do, and getting work done gets priority over responding in forum threads. Even this response is taking me about 10 minutes to write that I could've spent finishing logic work so I can go home on time. You can trust that we read these forums though.

I hope that answers your question.

I appreciate the answer. But to me you just pointed out the issue that a lot of us are trying to state this entire time. You and the multiplayer team are hard at work, but you guys balance your time in order to occasionally come to the forums and discuss different topics with people (I think you even had a Q&A in there at one point). Allen, Gaider among others are practically hitting up almost half the threads that get put up in the Dragon Age 3 board, I still don't know how they do it. 

But its only been since recently that you guys came to the ME3 general, story and discussion boards and reply to a few people. It's one thing to want people to speculate, but it's gotten to the point where all thats left is bickering, arguing, and just general negativity all around. And we've sort of been left to eat each other in the dark pits while you guys are busy in the other boards. 

What you did right now (replying to someone's post) is what I generally want to see more of. I know you guys have a busy schedule, but it isn't really busy to the point where you can only post in a forum once every month right?

Modifié par Mr.BlazenGlazen, 09 novembre 2012 - 06:06 .

[Tacoking85]

I hope that one day we can synthesise and get to the point where our conversations are as follows:

Fans: Bioware

Bioware: Fans

Fans: Bioware

Bioware: Fans

Modifié par Tacoking85, 09 novembre 2012 - 07:41 .

[inko1nsiderate]

Tacoking85 wrote...

I hope that one day we can synthesise and get to the point where our conversations are as follows:

Fans: Bioware

Bioware: Fans

Fans: Bioware

Bioware: Fans

Casey Hudson: I should go now.










(I have nothing against Casey Hudson, I just know my audience)

[SimonTheFrog]

Ninja Stan wrote...

SimonTheFrog wrote...
SNIP

It's this sort of attitude that is keeping the developers you want to talk to, from engaging with you. Feeling entitled to answers, insulting those who are providing answers, insulting the company? That's supposed to demonstrate that you want to have a respectful discussion with developers?

Did you really feel insulted by this?
It was not intended as an insult.

Yes, I am passionate about the relationship between BioWare and the fans and yes, things in the past have made me angry.
And I think we customers have all rights to be angry if that's what we feel. And we have all rights to express that feeling to you guys so you know what's what.

That is basically what I tried to say: if something BioWare did made some people angry than those angry people should feedback that to BioWare. It's in BioWares own interest to be informed about how their actions and statements are viewed outthere.

And if the moderator say things like: we only want nice and calm discussions than yes, sure they want that, who doesn't like nice and calm? But that is not realistic. You have to see that not everything BioWare does is awesome, especially  when it comes to promising features and hyping a product and then delivering something different entirely. BioWare is making mistakes like everybody else and if these mistakes make people angry then there is angry feedback. That's just the way feedback works.

And like I said, BioWare simply can't expect only nice and calm. And they shouldn't. Sure I can see how that is annoying but there you go.

The word entitlement is thrown around quite a lot, mostly as a means to discredit unwelcomed customer feedback. And sure, some people feel overly entitled to all sorts of things.

But as a customer you are by nature entitled to certain things, for example we are entitled to have the stuff in the product that has been promised by BioWare employees shortly before release (there's legal whiggle room of course but I'm sure you get my drift). That's part of the deal. That doesn't include status updates of upcoming products, though, I agree.

But that is not what my post was about. I surely don't feel entitled to certain information. But I was surprised that you said that one reason for giving little information is, that if you give some, people will want to have more. And it seems you agree that this is not a bad thing. So I kind of fail to understand your point here.

Ninja Stan wrote...

People always want more information than what can be give at a time. If your company can't handle that you are really in a very sorry state.

Developers are people too, and they generally don't like dealing with a group of people who insult them, swear at them, yell at them, or call for them to be fired just because the people don't like a videogame. "If the fans can't handle that, they are really in a very sorry state." See what I did there?

A company's default "information policy" is press releases. BioWare has always believed in more personal, close interaction with their fans and that is reflected in their participation in discussions in their online community and with fans at conventions. Because fans know they are being listened to, some of them kind of take BioWare for granted, believing that BioWare will answer any and all questions or address all concerns to those fans' satisfaction. This is, of course, incorrect, since both the ME and DA teams have been active on the BSN.

That is similar to what I said earlier. The internet is surely a very bad place. But a lot of poison in BSN is homegrown and could have been avoided. It is in my eyes important that BioWare faces the ****storm that they caused among their core audience. They did cause it and now saying that they don't like to talk to angry or bitter fans is a bit hmm... sure it's (very) unpleasant but hiding and avoiding is just no solution to the problem. If BioWare wants to fix things with the core audience they will have to pick up the pieces at some point, unpleasant or not. And press releases will probably not be enough.

When i mentioned information policy i meant the content, not the means of distribution, btw.

Ninja Stan wrote...
Yes, because I am a Moderator and a former developer who participated in discussions here. Are you saying you have a right to violate the forum rules because something BioWare did made you angry or upset? And that they owe you some kind of explanation or apology because you didn't like one of their games?

Did I violate the forum rules with my post? I was under the impression I didn't. I don't think swearing and being overly impolite gains anything for any one. But nice and friendly doesn't either.

And yes, I do believe BioWare owes the customers of ME3 and apology for hyping their product way beyond what they actually did put on the disc. BioWare is free to create whatever they want, that is a no-brainer. But they shouldn't claim in interviews, in the BioWare - Pulse, in magazines, posters and whatnot to sell something different than what they do.

I'm sorry if my post came across as sloppy and overly agressive. I sometimes try to press to much sentiment into too few words. Like I said, I'm passionate about BioWare and equally passionate about being treated correctly as a customer. And i strongly feel that BioWare has to improve their communication with fans. More in an honest direction. Not because customers are entitled but because its BioWares interest to have the fans believing in them and trusting them to make awesome games that the are worth buying, even before they are being released.

[SimonTheFrog]

Jos Hendriks wrote...

SimonTheFrog wrote...
...

And why is it that people are happily twittering their comings and goings but can't be bothered to show up at the official forums? Why the discrepancey here?'

...

The reason is two-fold.
One: My twitter account is my personal account. I'm connected to friends and family with it, and co-workers and whoever wants to follow me. I may occasionally tweet about work-related things, but that doesn't mean it's a work-centric account, or managed from a work perspective.
Two: People here read the forums. Not everyone, not all the time, but we do. Reading the forums versus posting in the forums are 2 vastly different things, however. Anything I post in here I post using my official work account, which means whatever I write will be scrutinized because it's official, and formulating posts takes time.

Additionally, time plays a major factor. When Retaliation came out I spent an hour and a half each morning for a week reading replies and answering questions about the hazard levels and things. That is an hour and a half of my day for a couple replies. It worked out then, but most of the time most of the people here have a lot of work to do, and getting work done gets priority over responding in forum threads. Even this response is taking me about 10 minutes to write that I could've spent finishing logic work so I can go home on time. You can trust that we read these forums though.

I hope that answers your question.

Thank you for answering.

You see I work in the games industry myself. At one release of a title we employees were told to go the official forums and talk to people to get feedback, help out and clarify.
That was a very strange sensation because some fans had tons of crashes and bad experiences with our game and were quite mad, others liked the game and that was cool. But either way it was very emotionally strenuous / stressful.

I can see why a lot of employees rather avoid that.

What I tried to point at in my much too short sentence there was that I beleave BioWare as a company should have more face time in the official forums. Not because we, the fans, would like that but because it's in BioWares own interest to get into better terms with their core audience again.

And while i think this, i see that there is hardly anything going on in the forums but the people i think would qualify as representatives of BioWare as a team are spending time on twitter instead.

And I think this is unfortunate.

Again, I don't believe the average employee should feel pressured to expose herself or himself at the forums.

[SimonTheFrog]

Rynocerous wrote...

SimonTheFrog wrote...

Ninja Stan wrote...

SNIP

SNIP

Your entire post is defeated by the simple fact that no one is going to be satisfied by everything. If they post that Aria isn't going to be a permanent squadmate the minute they announce the DLC, they get accused of not listening. If they say it's because it makes zero sense for a Terminus warlord to accompany Shepard, let alone take his orders, then they get told the DLC sucks and BW isn't listening.

There's a lot of legitimate discussion in the thread about how BW should approach this, and a lot of good feedback from the Moderator about why it sounds good on paper and doens't work in practice. The DA3 forums are full of people extrapolating the most redonkulous things already. 

Not agreeing with the direction BW is taking is no reason to insult the mods. Very few video game companies give any meaningful details at any rate, and for us to get much of anything beyond teasers is not the norm. But the Twitter comment is what seals it for me.

You are, quite frankly, a illogical, irrational, and overly demanding person who clearly is not thinking before they bother to defecate all over the forums, and it's people like that is WHY Bioware won't communicate with us anymore. Please go waste money on some cupcakes and let people have a calm rational discussion.

I feel that you misinterpreted my intent. It is my fault that my post was too vague and short to fully convey my meaning but still believe that i have a valid point.

I answered more thouroughly a few posts above. Maybe i was able to better explain myself there.

I surely didn't mean to defecate all over the forums in an illogical, irrational and overly demanding way

[Ninja Stan]

SimonTheFrog wrote...
*snip*

Very well said, SimonTheFrog, and thank you for the clarification. I get a little defensive sometimes when I feel fans are taking advantage of BioWare's good nature.

[AlexMBrennan]

but then they start mailing them death threats and threaten Bioware with lawsuits over ME3's ending.

Yeah, well, it would help if you stuck to the rules that every other business out there has to follow. Advertising Standards exists for a reason - that it's generally considered to be not OK to lie about features of your product - why is OK for Bioware to lie about Rachni featuring prominently in ME3 (or any number of other things but not OK for Danone to make unproven (as opposed to Bioware's provably false) claims about yoghurt improving health?

All they have done is to point out that developer interviews are not technically interviews, which totally makes me feel good about wasting my money on a product I would not otherwise have bought [because it's a video game, there is obviously no refund]

Bioware has yet to apologize for this, and they continue to advertise the game with footage of cut features. So, Bioware isn't listening. They're doing whatever the hell they want, which may occasionally coincide with what some members of the community want.

At the end of the day, since Bioware is blatantly flaunting the rules and refusing to even apologize, I don't exactly feel bad for them getting sued over it.

Modifié par AlexMBrennan, 09 novembre 2012 - 11:57 .

[Creator Limbs]

Sorry, OP, but I feel like you're just finding reasons to complain about something that doesn't perfectly suit you or your needs.

[Yate]

Legbiter wrote...

I'd suggest you get over yourself.

this

also anyone who thought permanent squaddies would be in Omega is a moron

[_Syn_]

So neither of the Omega squad mates are permanent?

Brilliant.

[_Syn_]

Anonymity provides some people courage they wouldn't otherwise have.

This is some pretty crappy news, still.

[ZeCollectorDestroya]

The ME team is still in shock from early 2012. They're really screwed both ways. If they do release info, then fans might backlash against the info. If they don't, then fans will get uninterested.

I think they should release info, even if fans backlash the team can still patch it up or something.

[Allen Spellwaver]

ME team is just a little introvert. That's it.

[Grubas]

Yate wrote...
this

also anyone who thought permanent squaddies would be in Omega is a moron

Sir, you call me a moron?

[admcmei]

I do think BioWare sometimes gets more flac than it deserves because they are too reserved. I remembered when they fixed the War Assets thing: just a few days before they closed every thread on the topic, refused to acknowledge the problem... and then they fixed it. Kudos, I'm happy they did, but I don't understand why they didn't just tell us at some point "we're going to fix it, stay tuned" and took unnecessary hits on what seemed to anyone who saw it an incomprehensible stance of denying the very existence of a very transparent problem. And it's a thing they do very very often. So I don't think they don't listen, I think they seem incapable of really talking to the fanbase for some reason.

[Dr_Extrem]

Kanaris wrote...

They probably would but those of us who can remain civil would get overshadowed by the ones who show up just to hate on the devs and they know this so they don't bother.

the community is not very friendly indeed - but the distrust does not come out of nowhere.

i personally do not like the endings - no secret - and i would have liked seeing bioware pulls a rabbit out of a hat. so far, they did not do it.

BUT i love the series and i am open to a mature discussion. the problem is, that i get pushed into a certain corner. i was called deluded and naive without a reason.

the hate on ths board does not only come from "ending haters". it is also fired up by people who claim that all ending haters, also hate bioware.

Modifié par Dr_Extrem, 10 novembre 2012 - 12:45 .

[ghost9191]

well kinda agree. use to trolls but hell half the time someone has a different opinion ppl get worked up

the hate is strong with bsn

personally i just find it better to be a smart a*s with witty remarks that aren't actually witty

[TheRealJayDee]

admcmei wrote...

the War Assets thing

I have lost a lot of trust in and respect for Bioware (whoever exactly is to be held responsible for it) over this. The way this issue was (not) handled and communicated until the ninja fix via EC was frustrating and embarassing.

[Freestate2nd]

Any developer with some criteria could see that the cinematics of the sword fleet attack can be improved showing more assets and adding more war fleet captains reporting in their command rooms for epicness,only geth and quarians and not together despite the peace.Improving the Priority earth mission like some kind of suicide mission 2 alike would be a good idea for a dlc.If they are listening better don´t drop this ball.The lack of intensity in the final mission is clearly a easy spot to improve with a fast action dlc and a way to show us some fanservice with me2 squadmates and assets.

[Jos Hendriks]

Mr.BlazenGlazen wrote...

I appreciate the answer. But to me you just pointed out the issue that a lot of us are trying to state this entire time. You and the multiplayer team are hard at work, but you guys balance your time in order to occasionally come to the forums and discuss different topics with people (I think you even had a Q&A in there at one point). Allen, Gaider among others are practically hitting up almost half the threads that get put up in the Dragon Age 3 board, I still don't know how they do it.

I'm not working on multiplayer right now of course, but I see your point.

But its only been since recently that you guys came to the ME3 general, story and discussion boards and reply to a few people. It's one thing to want people to speculate, but it's gotten to the point where all thats left is bickering, arguing, and just general negativity all around. And we've sort of been left to eat each other in the dark pits while you guys are busy in the other boards.

I don't think I'm actively trying to avoid the general/story discussion boards, but it is far easier to reply and comment on things on the multiplayer side of things because it's a different type of work. Every reply I post in a thread that doesn't have the tag yet, that thread gets a BioWare tag on it because it's gotten an official response. 95%+ of all the questions and discussions in the general/story forums are things I cannot give a clear/concise answer on because it's either complicated, or we're working on things I can't discuss, or it's about things I can't discuss, and as much as I'd like to post and share in the discussion, I don't think it's right to tag a thread official when I can't answer the questions asked.

What you did right now (replying to someone's post) is what I generally want to see more of. I know you guys have a busy schedule, but it isn't really busy to the point where you can only post in a forum once every month right?

You tell me. I'm putting in over 40 hours on average a week, and this past week has been a bit crazy because of deadlines. Most of that time goes towards developing things and writing logic etc. Now imagine I have to sacrifice an hour a day to give a worthy/comprehensive/truthful/helpful response to 1-3 threads. That is 12.5% of my working time a week, which in turn means I'd get less done, things take longer to get finished, people get annoyed because they have to speculate longer or wait for more SP or MP DLC longer, and then posting topics asking why it's taking so damn long or why we're abandoning our game. 

You're right, we probably could repond a bit more, but it's not a very simple situation.  (Worth nothing: I'm writing this post from home, on my own time in the weekend, because I need the time at work to make cool things for you guys and gals)

[LinksOcarina]

I should point out the fact that its rare to have anyone from the dev team to even communicate with their community in the way BioWare does. In fact, I don't recall any major developer outside of indie studios such as Double Fine or Obsidian that does this.

So even any lines of communication shows a genuine act of caring. Perhaps both sides just took the other for granted in some ways and the attempts at mending that relationship can be made, if people can calm down a bit.

But that, again, depends on compromise. Something it seems that few out there in the world want to do.

[publius1000]

Jos Hendriks wrote...
You're right, we probably could repond a bit more, but it's not a very simple situation.  (Worth nothing: I'm writing this post from home, on my own time in the weekend, because I need the time at work to make cool things for you guys and gals)

Hold on a second. Why don't all of you do this all the time? If you're a game dev, shouldn't you love talking to your fans about the game? i.e. doesn't it make sense that you would be on the forums as much as possible in your free time ANYWAYS?
 
Oh and,

LinksOcarina wrote...

I should point out the fact that its
rare to have anyone from the dev team to even communicate with their
community in the way BioWare does. In fact, I don't recall any major
developer outside of indie studios such as Double Fine or Obsidian that
does this.

go visit the League of Legends forums, then come back and tell me about good dev-player relations. They average ~100 dev posts a day.

Modifié par publius1000, 11 novembre 2012 - 01:09 .