778 réponses à ce sujet

[DragonRacer]

I'm sorry, but I'm confused as to why several people have mentioned on the last few pages that groups are going away (I have seen similar panic in some of the groups I frequent as well).

They are not.

Jessica said blogs, polls, albums, and projects are going away (eventually). And when directly asked about groups, responded ON THE FIRST PAGE saying groups WILL continue to be supported. Perhaps revamped, but clearly NOT going away. Unless I have missed a dev post somewhere that gave a different follow-up reply, which in that case, please provide a link for me to view.

I know many people are upset by some of the things that are going away, but I don't think inciting panic or spreading rumors/false information is an ideal way to go about things.

I daresay groups are probably the second-most active feature of the site behind the forums themselves, so I don't think they'd probably be going anywhere. And until someone with a BioWare tag comes out and says "we are phasing out the groups feature", I'm going to assume everyone else who is saying that is confused.

[Volus Warlord]

iakus wrote...

ElitePinecone wrote...

jwalker wrote...

It's a way to ask something with a few options and exchange comments with others. It's about being social.

Sure, but some people weren't using them like that - they were treating polls as actual, scientific measurements of how the fanbase (or at least BSN) feels about things. 

After the ME3 endings when something like 70,000 people replied to one poll, dozens of very, very vocal fans were throwing that result around as if it meant anything, and as if those results were representative of the opinions and feelings of the entire fanbase. Neither of those things is true. 

Giving fans the ability to conduct huge polls which they can then misinterpret and misuse is not a good thing, frankly. It twists the debate in weird directions that it shouldn't go in ("all fans think X", rather than "I think X") and means people are misinformed or misled. It generates a false consensus around certain issues, and when Bioware are perceived to not be following this "consensus", the reactions get ugly. 

I totally understand that there's a social aspect, and maybe there should be a way to generate that sort of interaction, but I think it's definitely a positive thing that people can't use BSN polls from now on to advance a whole bunch of different arguments, when any results are going to be unscientific and unrepresentative. 

Whether the poll was scientific or not, the fact that 70,000 people voted on it said something all by itself.

But it's not polls going away that angers me, it's the groups and projects.  First certain topics became verboten on the forums and told to move to groups.  Now they're coming for the groups.

And modding has always been something Biwoare has stood by, even if they officially couldn't.  Now they're being kicked to the curb too.

If there is something positive coming from this, it better be announced soon.  All I'm seeing from this perspective is a reduction of features for no good reason.  This speaks of either budget/staffing cuts, or yet another misreading of the audience.

Usually those polls that get tossed around like fact have a sample size of a few thousand participants. 

70,000 is a very large sample size for any poll. 

[Volus Warlord]

Tup3xi wrote...

If they want to sink their ship, well, it's their problem. Showing the middle finger to modding community is generally pretty large mistake. They are underestimating the positive boost modding can give for game. If they axe modding are for good and don't plan to release alternative option, it will definitely hurt the popularity of their games. However, there's always alternatives for hosting files (though it usually means that large amount of community moves away from BSN - and if that's their hidden motive, then they succeed for sure).

EA in general has a very negative attitude towards modding. Hell, the Frostbite engine was designed to be IMPOSSIBLE to mod. 

Thus such a move is unsuprising.

[ElitePinecone]

Volus Warlord wrote...

Usually those polls that get tossed around like fact have a sample size of a few thousand participants. 

70,000 is a very large sample size for any poll. 

It's not so much the size of the sample, but how the sample is selected. 

Those smaller polls are randomly sampled, and conducted by statisticians. If the selection is done randomly and with a bit of maths thrown in, it's possible to generalise to the entire population with a fair degree of confidence even with tiny sample sizes.  

Polls on this website are self-selecting (people choose to answer, they're not randomly selected from a pool of fans), and the question design is usually pretty horrible. They aren't anywhere nearly "scientific" enough to generate valid information, if you're trying to find out wider opinions. 

A poll of 70,000 is useful for knowing the opinions of those 70,000 people, but completely useless for knowing the opinions of everyone who didn't answer. It can't be used to speculate about "the fans" as a whole, because respondents weren't randomly selected. 

What must frustrate Bioware (and it certainly frustrates me) is when fans look at a poll of 70,000 people and conclude that it *must* represent the majority opinion, just because it's a large number - when in fact, online polls like the ones in this forum break every rule of good polling in the book. Fundamentally, they're a waste of time, and people shouldn't be using them to make arguments about what the fanbase as a whole thinks. 

[lil yonce]

Just saw the message. I use my blog to write about bioware game-related material, and I'm very upset its being removed from the site. The blog section gets spammed with sports garbage like a mf that sucks up bandwidth and money, I know, but this just sucks. There's no other way to get rid of the bots? I can move it to another site, I guess, but that will be a pain in the ass, and what was the point of having a social network for bioware fans when its being stripped to a bare essentials forum? I look up one day and the ME character section has been shutdown, I look up another day and PMs to and from users not on your friends list has been removed, I look up today and now blogs are gone, and maybe at some point OT too. Dammit. SMH.

[dr.drummie]

hope you at least leave forums and wiki alone.. we don't have another source of information for modding.. also reconsider canceling projects section, some of them (like mine) are useless (currently I hope ), but some of them are very good and give another life to your games..

[Emeraldfern]

I only have one question if I may, what exactly will happen to the Projects in the future?

Jessica Merizan wrote...

You will still be able to download the files Just not create new files. Hope that clears things up!
And you will still be able to download projects, just not create new ones.

For how long? Is it your intent to remove the Projects entirely in the future, considering the "to be phased out entirely" part in the OP?

As has been stated, there's a ton of ME mods that don't exist anywhere else. And can't as there are precious few places to host them has been pointed out previously in this thread.
Not to mention the authors may not be active anymore. And those who are about to release mods for ME (like my group will). Then what?

In addition, if the Projects pages end up being removed entirely, then that will also cripple future DA:O modding.

Jessica Merizan wrote...

The features we are making Read Only account for a very low level of activity of our fans' total time spent on BSN. I wouldn't phase out these aspects of the site if I didn't believe there are external spaces that do a better job of providing those services, so I encourage those of you who do to please back up your data and transfer over to another site/server.

So, what does that mean for DA:O toolset resources considering that all of the core resources for the DA:O Toolset are hosted here on BSN, as a Project; vanilla head morphs, level layouts etc?

There's also the matter of mod utilities that are also only hosted here on BSN, like the zzgetplotflag/zzsetplotflag scripts, the scripts for 3dsMax export/import to name a few.

If they are taken down permanently, how will future DA:O modders be able to mod without those resources?

Sunjammer wrote...

Will the Dragon Age Toolset Wiki be affected?

A question I would like to hear an answer to as well.
Should we begin to back-up tutorial posts on the Toolset's Subforum, and Toolset wiki articles for future reference?

Jessica Merizan wrote...

So we really can't say anything until it's locked in. This applies for any feature in a game or any announcement we make. We can't talk about it until we're ready. I don't ask that you trust that what we're doing is going to be good. Show, don't tell. If you choose to stick around when we reveal those things, I will let you be the judge of it.

Quite frankly, providing modders with answers to the above questions, considering the time and effort that has been put into the mods, and continue to be put in them, answering us would be fair.
Silence on the matter only wastes our time. Valuable time to allow us to back-up modding resources if your intent is to phase out the Projects and modding resources entirely.

Personally, I must add as both a BSN user and modder about to release a mod for ME3, and has DA:O mods in WIP, that phasing out the Projects if you care at all for your modding community, be it for current games or "legacy" games, is an odd way of showing said care. To tell the truth I find it beyond odd. Some of your staff were modders once as I recall.

Is this BW's idea of how you foster an existing modding community?
Ensuring that existing mods cannot be updated, or feedback like bug reports can be gathered in the Projects-and no word if they will actually be deleted further down the road, isn't ensuring that we, as both fans and modders, hold any value to BW at all.

[ejoslin]

In case no one has brought this up (I only have read the first nine pages of this thread), I have to disagree that the Nexus is superior than BSN regarding mods.

Yes, as far as storage goes, they're pretty much the same, and in fact, the Nexus as the advantage of the Nexus Mod Manager and a far better search engine.

However, BSN is superior when it comes to mod development. You can have discussion groups, closed alpha and beta phases, and it's easy to set up and control. It's a shame that this is being taken away.

Modifié par ejoslin, 14 novembre 2013 - 07:39 .

[Dova]

C9316 wrote...

Arppis wrote...

Could we finaly be able to change picture WITHOUT Dragon Age Origins?

That'll be five dollars. 

Other features such as Blogs, Projects, Albums, and Polls will be an extra 3.99. BUT, act now and you'll get it for 2.99 with free Google+ software!

[Sundance31us]

ejoslin wrote...

In case no one has brought this up (I only have read the first nine pages of this thread), I have to disagree that the Nexus is superior than BSN regarding mods.

Yes, as far as storage goes, they're pretty much the same, and in fact, the Nexus as the advantage of the Nexus Mod Manager and a far better search engine.

However, BSN is superior when it comes to mod development. You can have discussion groups, closed alpha and beta phases, and it's easy to set up and control. It's a shame that this is being taken away.

Also, (unless I am mistaken) you need to be a member of Nexus to download mods from the site.

[giftfish]

Sundance31us wrote...

ejoslin wrote...

In case no one has brought this up (I only have read the first nine pages of this thread), I have to disagree that the Nexus is superior than BSN regarding mods.

Yes, as far as storage goes, they're pretty much the same, and in fact, the Nexus as the advantage of the Nexus Mod Manager and a far better search engine.

However, BSN is superior when it comes to mod development. You can have discussion groups, closed alpha and beta phases, and it's easy to set up and control. It's a shame that this is being taken away.

Also, (unless I am mistaken) you need to be a member of Nexus to download mods from the site.

Only if the download is over a certain size. But, it doesn't compensate for the fact that Nexus does not host mods for Mass Effect. Only Dragon Age.

[Gaddes]

Unless Bioware's going to offer a better organized place for uploading/storing people's Projects and mods, I think this is a colossal mistake. They're ignoring the hard work and dedication that went into making these mods, and just wiping them from the site is a huge middle finger to the community.

[LPPrince]

I hope they deal with fixing the minor things too.

For example, I've had to edit the OP in the RWBY Thread every week to add new episodes to it, but every single time I edit that post I have to recolor text, or re-underline it. It sucks that font color changes back to normal just because of an edit.

I don't know how long its been like that, but I wish that was fixed so I didn't have that problem with the font color and underlining anymore. Its a minor hassle but still a hassle.

[Mr.House]

ElitePinecone wrote...

jwalker wrote...

It's a way to ask something with a few options and exchange comments with others. It's about being social.

Sure, but some people weren't using them like that - they were treating polls as actual, scientific measurements of how the fanbase (or at least BSN) feels about things. 

After the ME3 endings when something like 70,000 people replied to one poll, dozens of very, very vocal fans were throwing that result around as if it meant anything, and as if those results were representative of the opinions and feelings of the entire fanbase. Neither of those things is true. 

Giving fans the ability to conduct huge polls which they can then misinterpret and misuse is not a good thing, frankly. It twists the debate in weird directions that it shouldn't go in ("all fans think X", rather than "I think X") and means people are misinformed or misled. It generates a false consensus around certain issues, and when Bioware are perceived to not be following this "consensus", the reactions get ugly. 

I totally understand that there's a social aspect, and maybe there should be a way to generate that sort of interaction, but I think it's definitely a positive thing that people can't use BSN polls from now on to advance a whole bunch of different arguments, when any results are going to be unscientific and unrepresentative. 

70,000 is a good sample size in fact so you're wrong.

[Volus Warlord]

ElitePinecone wrote...

Volus Warlord wrote...

Usually those polls that get tossed around like fact have a sample size of a few thousand participants. 

70,000 is a very large sample size for any poll. 

It's not so much the size of the sample, but how the sample is selected. 

Those smaller polls are randomly sampled, and conducted by statisticians. If the selection is done randomly and with a bit of maths thrown in, it's possible to generalise to the entire population with a fair degree of confidence even with tiny sample sizes.  

Polls on this website are self-selecting (people choose to answer, they're not randomly selected from a pool of fans), and the question design is usually pretty horrible. They aren't anywhere nearly "scientific" enough to generate valid information, if you're trying to find out wider opinions. 

A poll of 70,000 is useful for knowing the opinions of those 70,000 people, but completely useless for knowing the opinions of everyone who didn't answer. It can't be used to speculate about "the fans" as a whole, because respondents weren't randomly selected. 

What must frustrate Bioware (and it certainly frustrates me) is when fans look at a poll of 70,000 people and conclude that it *must* represent the majority opinion, just because it's a large number - when in fact, online polls like the ones in this forum break every rule of good polling in the book. Fundamentally, they're a waste of time, and people shouldn't be using them to make arguments about what the fanbase as a whole thinks. 

It certainly isn't a random sample, but it's what we have. What we have is far more measurable than what we don't.

And there were numerous people that aggressively defended the endings.. I could argue that they were overrepresented in that poll and the "real" approval was actually much lower. Your argument works both ways. 

[Bugsie]

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

These polls are hardly trustworthy, despite the enormous sample size. However there is no doubt though they can infer something, just not 'prove conclusively' one way or another.

[Mr.House]

Buggirl70 wrote...

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

These polls are hardly trustworthy, despite the enormous sample size. However there is no doubt though they can infer something, just not 'prove conclusively' one way or another.

The fact that it's a good sample gives it alot of weight.

[Mr.House]

J. Reezy wrote...

Liamv2 wrote...

I hope to see the new features soon.

Yeah...soon™

Half-Life 3 soon.

[hoorayforicecream]

Mr.House wrote...

Buggirl70 wrote...

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

These polls are hardly trustworthy, despite the enormous sample size. However there is no doubt though they can infer something, just not 'prove conclusively' one way or another.

The fact that it's a good sample gives it alot of weight.

Not if it's self-selecting. It's like going into a maximum security prison and polling the prisoners there about their crimes, then using those results to try to approximate everyone who commits a criminal offense in the country, including misdemeanors like speeding and parking tickets. The people on the BSN are the hardest of the hard core when it comes to Bioware games, and are not in any way representative of the entire fanbase.

[Ninja Stan]

Some spam, off-topic comments, sexist comments, personal attacks, childish comments, inappropriate posts, and rules violations removed or edited. Let's keep it clean and civil, please, everyone. We can disagree with each other (and BioWare) without resorting to childish behaviour. Thank you.

[Bugsie]

Mr.House wrote...
The fact that it's a good sample gives it alot of weight. 

Yes, I agree, it has weight.  Being the statistician/scientist that I am, but I'm not convinced that the method is entirely sound.  Random polls in places like gaming sites (and websites in general) are notoriously unreliable.  But it seems across gaming sites the results are similar in regard to the ending, that can't be discounted as part of a general consensus.

edit: just wanted to add there are several kinds of bias these sorts of polls can have, but I won't bore you!

Modifié par Buggirl70, 14 novembre 2013 - 10:24 .

[Yara C.]

Jessica Merizan wrote...

I DO care so much about the modding community and we still want to support them. You will be able to download all the files that are Read Only, we will just not be hosting new files. We think there are much better sites for file hosting such as nexusmods.com. I have zero plans end my love for the machinima and modding community and I know I speak for a lot of devs (many of whom came from that group before working at BW) when I say that. Although some of our newer games have engines are not owned by us so we cannot support modding, we love seeing what the community does with the mods we do support. 

And for any other feature, we would definitely give plenty of notice for anything we thought you should back up. We are investigating and developing things for the site currently, and while we are looking into better management for PMs to give users more control, I don't think you need to back up right now - unless you personally want to

Thanks again!

The question was raised before in this thread and is not yet answered:
Can you at least confirm that the changes will not effect the access to the toolset wiki, Jessica?

With regard to your remark on support of the modding community above it should not be dfficult to clarify this question. Leaving this question without a clear answer would raise further concerns. But that would certainly not be in your interest.

Therefore, please clarify if the toolset wiki will still be accessible after the implementation of all changes you have planned.
Thanks.

Modifié par Yara Cousland, 14 novembre 2013 - 10:53 .