198 réponses à ce sujet

[Grieving Natashina]

Time to put myself on the firing line...

 

When almost every single hairstyle (including ones meant to be "feminine") have sideburns and/or male-pattern-baldness I'm just not sure how else to take it...   That is defaulting to male. What would have been infinitely better is if they defaulted to nothing - No baldness, and sideburns being an option in the facial hair section. That establishes neutrality which is absolutely essential if they want every style available for both genders.

 

Not to mention the fact that not every male has male-pattern-baldness ever, especially since most Inquisitors aren't very old, and that they don't all want to have sideburns either, another reason to put them in the facial hair section where they belong. In other words, this is bad for male and female characters, and while I'm all for everyone being able to choose any hairstyle, they went about it in the complete wrong way.

 

The other comments are pretty stupid though. *Braces for impact*
 

You haven't been a raving troll about it though.  Plus, you haven't accused the design team of misogyny, or treating women as inferior.  You feel the same way I do: Regardless of gender, the hair sucks.  I don't think the company meant to come off that way, I think it was a matter of priorities.  They felt that most of the default hairstyles would be fine for everyone if they plopped longer hair on it.  I don't think any gender is being singled out though.  The engine hasn't had a lot of female characters put on it in the past, and for whatever reason, the devs found the hair less important than making sure we have a dozen beds for sale for our bedroom we never spend time in.  _{Ahem, sorry about that.}  That's what I'm getting at.  You're not saying that BioWare set out to make women feel inferior, you're saying that they didn't put a lot of thought in to the hairstyles for either gender.  That I can get behind.

 

Besides, I really make it a point to try not to flame someone over a polite disagreement of opinion.  I've had no problem with you before, and you expressing your opinion doesn't change that.  

 

 

So even Allan doesn't participate on these forums anymore? They (the forums) must have gotten very bad (vitriolic, disrespectful, uncivilized etc...) if that's the case.

Last I heard he got moved to another project.  He's a Q&A guy, so he moves around BW projects as needed.  He's either getting ready to help with the new IP or they've moved him onto the next ME game.  I've seen him on twitter and whatever he's doing, it's taking up most of his time.  Talk of coding and stuff like that.  He's popped up a few times recently in the forums.

 

Speaking of the quiet from a BioWare rep, I decided to do some research tonight.  I looked up what the responbilities of a community manager were and let's say what I found was troubling in regards to the BSN.  These are the sites I used for my research, in case anyone was curious.

 

http://www.socialfre...ob-description/

http://sproutsocial....munity-manager/

http://thecommunitym...manager-is-not/

 

All three of those links were enlightening, but one of them succinctly sums the job description up.

 

Communication, moderation, guideline writing, engaging day to day online (forums, owned communities, blogs, newsletters) and offline (events, conferences, meetups), strategy, working with the social teams/marketing/support/product/PR/management, surveying, customer service, and a variety of other activities.

 

 

With regards to the forums and David Hulegaard...

 

Communication: He doesn't have many posts.

Moderation: Many posters don't even know he's around.  Or even what his name is. 

Guideline Writing: It's rare, but most of that comes from Conal Pierce or one of the other devs.

Day to Day Online: Not enough laughing gifs on the internet to cover this one. 

 

I don't know how much of the offline events, social team and surveying stuff he does, so I won't judge there.  I also know that EA has it's own customer service.  However, the forum community manager has been offline for over 2 months.  May I ask...what in blazes is going on?

[DaemionMoadrin]

I've been saying this for months.

[Grieving Natashina]

I've been saying this for months.

I knew he had been scarce, but I didn't realize that it had been that long since he even logged in. 

[JeffZero]

If I had to hazard a guess I would say it's increasingly likely that the suits aren't particularly invested in doing much with these forums anymore outside of multiplayer contact. Between twitter, twitch, facebook, and EA customer service, there's probably a growing belief that they're somewhat obsolete. Jessica Merizan did a lot of good here toward the end of her tenure (well, all throughout, but I'm speaking specifically of her overhaul) but perhaps her departure had something to do with the role coming across as unnecessary to her superiors.

 

I tend to dislike these sorts of in-the-dark internet-forum conversations, but I've held this suspicion in for a while and it seemed like at last there was a thread worth mentioning it in.

[Grieving Natashina]

If I had to hazard a guess I would say it's increasingly likely that the suits aren't particularly invested in doing much with these forums anymore outside of multiplayer contact. Between twitter, twitch, facebook, and EA customer service, there's probably a growing belief that they're somewhat obsolete. Jessica Merizan did a lot of good here toward the end of her tenure (well, all throughout, but I'm speaking specifically of her overhaul) but perhaps her departure had something to do with the role coming across as unnecessary to her superiors.

 

I tend to dislike these sorts of in-the-dark internet-forum conversations, but I've held this suspicion in for a while and it seemed like at last there was a thread worth mentioning it in.

I do know that Jessica's cosplay business took off and got very successful.  According to her, she left BW to focus on that full-time.   So I don't think that's related.  

 

If the rest of your theory is true, then that's kinda sad.  I mean, if the forums are obsolete, then what's the point of keeping them open or appointing a community manager in the first place?  

 

Minor rant: I'm getting sick of being damned near forced to a social media site just so I might have the chance to talk to anyone from the company.  Including the guy that supposedly is paid for dealing with the community.  

[JeffZero]

Oh, good for Jessica. Such a nice woman; she deserves it.

 

Anyway, hopefully my theory is way off-base. Time will tell, but the current void is deafening. At least on the forums I care about. Happy for the multiplayer people, but I've no reason to ever go there.

[Grieving Natashina]

Oh, good for Jessica. Such a nice woman; she deserves it.

 

Anyway, hopefully my theory is way off-base. Time will tell, but the current void is deafening. At least on the forums I care about. Happy for the multiplayer people, but I've no reason to ever go there.

Yeah, I feel the same way.  I'm glad that those that like MP aren't being left in silence.  

 

You know, maybe if someone came out and explained what the duties of a forum community manager were in relation to the BSN, I'd have some better understanding of what I'm supposed to expect.  For now, it looks like the community manager isn't doing some of his job.  I could be wrong, and his duties might not involve the forums very much at all.  Everything I've read runs counter to that, but this company could be different.  <shrug>

 

 I'm not asking for tons of posts and feedback, but I think asking him to be online more often than that is reasonable.

[Elleria]

I happened to stumble across this interview while googling for Jaws of Hakkon reviews and thought of sharing this out with you guys(maybe majority of you have read but for the sake of those who haven't ).

 

I would also like to point out to the segment below:

 

There's precedent in Dragon Age—which there wasn't in Mass Effect—for DLC that went in completely different directions to the main campaign. 'What if' scenarios, different lead characters and so on. Is that a direction you would consider?

The only answer I can give you on that is that we've been watching the forums, even reddit, and we have a long list of things that we understand that people want out of Dragon Age. We evaluate each on a case-by-case basis. Some of these things fit together and they can form part of the DLC like they did with Jaws of Hakkon, where people were saying 'I wish our exploration areas had more big narrative beats like you get on the critical path'. So that's what we tried to do—that's the way we work.

Other than that I can't go into very much detail, but that's the thinking behind it. We have to react to what people want, otherwise we're not doing our fans the service they require.

 

So, I take it that Bioware reads the forum, just that they don't really reciprocate with possible reasons that some of you guys have pointed out in this thread.

 

Nevertheless, let's take the time to voice our wishes with the hope that Bioware takes note and implement them in the form of DLCs or expansions

 

Source: http://www.pcgamer.c...pproach-to-dlc/

[Grieving Natashina]

Thanks for putting that up.  

 

My big concern at this point is, again, the silence from the community manager.  I know that the devs do watch the forums, but I've seen the frustration mounting.  It's all well and good to be told that they are listening to the forums, but when they don't say hardly anything, it's been leading some of the posters to think that it's just PR smoke.  I know that the DA team lurks on the forums, and it's always surprisingly to get likes on posts from the writers (like the ones I've gotten from Sheryl Chee) or John Elper making a comment about animation.  I'm happy to accept that from the devs and writers.  

 

My problem is that, isn't the community manager supposed to be around to, I don't know, talk to the forums?  Isn't that part of his job?  It becomes really difficult at times to stay positive when even the person hired (in part) to interact with the community hasn't been even online since Feb.  The devs don't owe us their presence, and neither do the writers, but what about the community manager?  Chris Priestly may have been a royal pain, but he at least acknowledged the community.  Is the BSN CM even supposed to work more closely with the forums?  What gives?

 

I don't feel this way, but I can see why some folks feel like they're being indirectly told the following (I've summed this general attitude up over reading the forums for the last few months:)

 

"Thanks for your money!  Make sure to stop by the forums.  We won't tell you what we're listening to most of the time, but we're listening!  Oh and feel free to tweet us, to get a huge dose of snark in 140 characters or less.  After all, it's just a joke right?   Stop by our Facebook page, where we tell you about the latest merchandise and to promote our DLC!  Most those comments are going to be read some poor CSR that drew the short straw that day.  Be sure to read our blog, and leave a comment, because we certainly will not act like we read them!  We won't come by to leave a post to let you guys know that we are listening once every 1-2 months, unless it's time for a patch.  Patch notes are good enough, right?  We'll make one or two devs do all the work behind discussing anything with the SP forums and get to be the only ones that will even post responses 99% of the time!*  At least the forums have the community manager. We'll make sure to tell every interview we find though that we are listening.  Telling is as good as showing, amirite?   Besides, we've got someone for the job description that takes care of all that forum business for us.   We won't even utilize him for more than a few times every few months, but we sure are listening.  Thanks for your purchase and enjoy the game!"  

 

Does this reflect my own feelings?  Not really.  I'm mostly frustrated about the community manager aspect.   Can I understand where others might be coming from with the rest?  Absolutely. 

 

_{*Sean Traynor, Conal Pierce,  and Allan you rock, seriously.  Thanks for at least being around and talking to the forums.}

[Dreamer]

The "our community is toxic" line is just an excuse. They use it to absolve themselves of the responsibility they have to their customers, and we use it to feel better about being virtually ignored. It's a cop out either way.

 

Are there nasty people on the internet and in this community? Yes.

 

Is this community any more vitriolic than others? No, I don't think so.

 

Is it an acceptable rationale for "avoiding" customers? No, definitely not.

 

Can BioWare/EA be better with communication? You can bet your life on it.

[Klebermoreira17]

The big problem today with game companies is: you buy a television, if it does not come with all the functions and features promised and announced by the manufacturer what you do? The processes for false advertising.

 

If so does a game, what do you do?

 

Even games where the company depends on the attention and customer satisfaction to earn money, as the Blizzard with WoW sometimes the occasions that feedback is "ignored", imagine a game where you just buy and go.

[BansheeOwnage]

The "our community is toxic" line is just an excuse. They use it to absolve themselves of the responsibility they have to their customers, and we use it to feel better about being virtually ignored. It's a cop out either way.

 

Are there nasty people on the internet and in this community? Yes.

 

Is this community any more vitriolic than others? No, I don't think so.

 

Is it an acceptable rationale for "avoiding" customers? No, definitely not.

 

Can BioWare/EA be better with communication? You can bet your life on it.

Exactly right. This forum is one of the most civil (and accepting) I've seen, and that's the only reason I'm here. So, I do feel like it's a bit of a slap in the face to use that excuse. Sure people are always going to be stupid and mean, but it's better here than a lot of other places, and if they can't even handle this, well...

[BansheeOwnage]

Thanks Elleria for the post

...where people were saying 'I wish our exploration areas had more big narrative beats like you get on the critical path'. So that's what we tried to do—that's the way we work.

Other than that I can't go into very much detail, but that's the thinking behind it. We have to react to what people want, otherwise we're not doing our fans the service they require.

 

I really have to comment on the bolded part though. If that's truly how they're going about feedback, well, crap. That sounds nice, and thanks for trying, but there is some logic missing, in my opinion. Let me explain:

 

People complain that zones aren't plot-related enough, that they don't have their own main path and there are too many filler quests. The part they missed is that the vast majority of people I see say they want story-heavy, companion-heavy DLC, not a new zone. That feedback was for the main game, and just because people thought it could be better doesn't mean you should release one-of-your-probably-three DLCs just to say "look, we can make a cool zone!" I'm not in their office and I don't know if that's what was going through their head, and I feel like I'm doing a bad job of explaining myself, but... okay, new paragraph.

 

Instead of taking the feedback that zones needed improvement, why not take the feedback that we really really want story/companion DLC? We don't need a new zone, we have 10! I'm hoping that it only turned out this way because they didn't actually want a story-heavy DLC first, because of the exclusivity (spoilers for 3/5 of the platforms), but that's still a waste of a DLC slot, in my opinion. I hope that made sense.

[Steelcan]

its because we don't send them cupcakes enough, and when we do its over stuff like the ME3 ending

[Baalthazar]

its because we don't send them cupcakes enough, and when we do its over stuff like the ME3 ending

 

Hell, I might be willing to send them cupcakes on my own dime at this point if I thought it would do any good.

[Starwingz]

What I want to know is where did they came up with "Jaws of Hakkon was made on user feedback.". Because community totally wanted more 10 ram meat quests and little actual story right?

[Shechinah]

(to Hero of Hinterlands) Where was the ten "ram meat" quests and "little actual story" in your opinion?

I saw "JoH" as an attempt to improve upon what they had by condensing the area and making most of the quests within the DLC be related to what was going on in said area.

[BansheeOwnage]

JoH could only have been inspired by user feedback to a limited degree though, since they most likely started making it before launch (after DA:I went gold). So, maybe that accounts for my previous comments about making a new area despite feedback not generally wanting one; they didn't know they wouldn't be well-received yet. I hope the next DLCs are proper story/companion-centered ones.

[Shechinah]

(to BansheeOwnage) I think, and this may just be me misremembering based on forum interpretation of developer's posts, that they said something that suggest they are working on some story-heavy DLC.

[BansheeOwnage]

(to BansheeOwnage) I think, and this may just be me misremembering based on forum interpretation of developer's posts, that they said something that suggest they are working on some story-heavy DLC.

I hope so! I'm not pessimistic yet, but I will be if the next one isn't story-heavy. On the plus-side: Black Emporium, yay!

[Shechinah]

(to BansheeOwnage) As long as they get to the story-heavy DLC at some point, I do not mind waiting through a few more. My only worry about the DLC is that they'll skip a potential "Wolf Hunt" entirely leaving the Inquisitor without closure but I think there was a post implying that at least one writer knew the storm that would brew from doing so.  

[BansheeOwnage]

(to BansheeOwnage) As long as they get to the story-heavy DLC at some point, I do not mind waiting through a few more. My only worry about the DLC is that they'll skip a potential "Wolf Hunt" entirely leaving the Inquisitor without closure but I think there was a post implying that at least one writer knew the storm that would brew from doing so.  

Yeah, my interpretation was that they would do a DLC involving Solas, most likely the last DLC for quite a few reasons. Which is great, I want that - it's just that I want all the DLC to be story-based

[Lethaya]

Personally, I think (though to be fair, I've yet to play it, but!) what JoH was trying to deal with was regions not feeling like they had an engaging questline or content, and thus coming off as kinda pointless or skippable, plus the combat difficulty complaints. So they gave us a region with a more focused story and characters with more challenging combat, no?

 

Is it the perfect response to all of the feedback received? No. Buuut I do think they were considering some flaws that were pointed out and trying to deal with those. Hopefully the next DLCs can deal with other complaints?

 

Although, again, haven't played it. Going off what I've heard. xD

[TaHol]

This forum is far from toxic. I've been very surprised of how negative SWTOR-forum is (and I only read it because I'm not subscriber), and there is actually some involvement from BioWare-side or so I have been noticed. Go to TERA-forum: EU-players hate GameForge so much forum is endless crap-fest, US-TERA is little better because of EME but people there too have no problems to be as nasty as they want. And you should see how nasty people are to eachother. My experience is similar from any MMO's forum I have been, save The Secret World that seem to attract the most sivilized people in this planet. Unfortunatelly game is horrible to play. Still, in every forum I have been there is some involvement from developer/publisher, in some form.

 

They are MMO's. They need constant care. This is SP. Who cares after it is sold. You can sell it only once/person.

 

BioWare not talking with you on this forum has nothing to do with toxicity of this forum. It is just so handy to blaim others for you not getting what you want. It must be someones fault, right? It just can't be that BioWare does not see any NEED to talk with you.