2483 replies to this topic

[vertigomez]

Allan, I understand where you're coming from when it comes to how fans interact with you and the other devs. I think Twitter and other outlets are probably better for that, and I don't blame any dev for not sticking around when the BSN gets hateful.

But where, oh where, are we supposed to talk to each other? To other fans? There's no place like this forum.

I hope someone can archive the place before it gets destroyed.

[Dr. Rush]

Let's not pretend that Priestly had a hand in building the community here, he was one of the more banhappy mods back in the day and shut down entire sub-forums because he didn't like what was being said in just a few threads.

I mean, my point was simply that I think the BSN was his "project" and now that he is gone, the current community people want to start over with their own vision for the Bioware community. 

[TevinterSupremacist]

For context, if someone comes up to me on twitter and says that I should be aborted as a fetus so that competent QA would have been available to work on the game, I consider that unproductive and I am not interested in facilitating a discussion with that person.  On a place like twitter, I can happily block and move on.  On the forum, however, blocking people that were rude wasn't a thing.  I could (and would) moderate them, but unless it was a permanent ban they'd eventually return. If I had them muted/blocked then I'd be unable to see if they were being bad on the forum.

This might sound extreme, but in the example you're describing, I'm still in favour of forums. Yes, that hypothetical person is an @$$hole, but so what? People already mentioned in this thread , being "toxic" is human behavior and in a forum it just takes the form of mean words which isn't something noteworthy. You mentioned how stressful moderating this place was, maybe that was because you considered people being nice and polite and so on as a goal to be achieved. It's not. It shouldn't be. Discussion doesn't have to be tea party and daisies. Banter is fine. At the end of the day, a string of characters in a discussion about electronic interactive toys about make belief in sci-fi/fantasy lands isn't something that should upset you.

 

Forums might be "violent", but the alternative is too sterilised. Discourse can't happen in a thought hospital.

Well, the forums are soon to die though, so I guess it's a thought graveyard now.

[SKAR]

Now it's the endings all over again only it's the forum endings. Do they need to make an extended cut for this too? Bioware you are on very thin ice with many people.

[Drone223]

With respect Allan, I said this in another thread and I'll say it here...

 

Without a effective means of giving feedback, criticism, concern etc. its going to be hard for players to have confidence in their products. By closing down their own forums Bioware is not only making themselves look bad but their also going to make even harder to sell their products. In order to sell a product one must respond to criticism and apply feedback to their products and without that criticism and feedback people are only going to be skeptical of their product.

 

Allan without BSN its going to be very hard for Bioware to improve their upcoming and future games. People will lose confidence in their ability to develop games since there is a lack of dialogue between the dev's and the community.

[CHRrOME]

 

And why would a BioWare Developer/Employee ever follow a random Twitter user that is a fan then? I used to be on Twitter and literally got no response from anyone EVER, because I didn't have 1872463435463453645 Followers or wasn't some known Youtuber. So now what? There goes that whole "staying in touch" on Twitter theory. 

 

I assume he meant "being in touch with the other devs" because for the rest, I totally agree with you as it's my own experience.

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

So, I've wasted my time coming up with two examples. Both are of communications with BioWare through these forums, one of which they actually listened to.

 

This is the first. To be clear, that wasn't the first thread of its kind, and not the first by me. Mine dated back to January of 2013, at least, as that was when I was referred to as an "Elitest" in BSN's boards for several months. Upinya Slayin's threads went back further, and my support for the idea was no less clear in his threads from December 2012.

 

And as for This Thread, I have no idea how to put that in 140 characters on Twitter.

 

All of that ignores that giant QA problems created by cutting off the source of passive information in a passive QA system.

 

And is a waste of time, as I'm speaking to an entity that has chosen to ignore us.

[ObserverStatus]

Heh, who am I kidding? They don't even need our tweets to survive, they just need PewDiePie and Markiplier.

[Arvaarad]

I was always impressed with your stamina when you were here. I know I couldn't have handled the social pressure of doing what you were doing in a public venue.

Seconded. I work in tech, but I've never done community manager jobs. In one of my earlier jobs, I made the mistake of looking at user reviews unfiltered.

Let me tell you, it's completely different when you work for the company that's bearing the brunt of all the "joy" the internet offers. You start to feel personally responsible for every bad experience users have, no matter how trivial or dumb. It whips you into this insane frenzy of self-loathing and desire to read more and more, to know everything anyone has ever disliked about your product.

Nonwithstanding that, I ultimately still had the option to stop reading. And - eventually - I did. I had to. I don't have the patience or the fortitude. But I'm well aware that other teams in my company don't have that option. It's their job to drink from the sewage hose. To wade through the criticisms and the bile for stuff that can actually be turned into bug reports. To polish the one or two diamonds in it, as gifts to the other teams when morale flags.

Community managers, user support, and all those kinds of people, ARE SAINTS. If Allan and Conal say it's become impossible to deal with the forums, I believe them. A selfish part of me is hoping there's some way of making it work by picking community mods, but I understand where they're coming from.

[Hazegurl]

Let's not pretend that Priestly had a hand in building the community here, he was one of the more banhappy mods back in the day and shut down entire sub-forums because he didn't like what was being said in just a few threads.

Speaking of Priestly, here's a little exchange from EAware's Facebook page:

 

(Poster A) "I guess BioWare doesn't value community or the feedback that community provides...
That or Andromeda is really going to s*ck and they just don't want to deal with the criticism (I say this as a long time fan of the Mass Effect games - including ME3 - who was / kind of still is looking forward to Andromeda)."

 

(Poster B ) "Or maybe they are tired of being torn about by people who clam to be their fans. Constructive criticism is one thing but right now you have people who act more like online bully's then fans who want to give legit feedback."

 

(Poster A) "Sure there are some bullies - every forum has those - but most of the people I've conversed with on the BioWare forums have provided some great insights. Or, at the very least, provided some great discussions."

 

(BioWare) "We value and seek out the feedback our players give us. Despite the closure, we will always be listening."

 

(Poster A) "Since you're closing your own forums, where exactly will you be doing this listening?"

 

(Chris Priestly) "[Poster A] being a prime negative example of why the forums need to be closed. Instead of looking for new opportunities, dwell on negatives and criticize without factual basis."

 

Apparently asking them where they plan to listen to the fan feedback they keep saying they care about so much is a prime example of why the forum needs to be shut down.  

 

[VelvetStraitjacket]

Honestly, I can see why this decision was reached, with all the toxic people and trolls. But, in my opinion, it's a bit of an extreme decision, and I wish it didn't come to this, because BSN is how I kept up with Dragon Age and Mass Effect. I'm not on twitter and instagram 24/7 and it's nice to get all your info from one place.

Why not assign more moderators instead? It works for other forums to keep the undesirables in check.

[o Ventus]

One thing I just thought of, good luck trying to use Twitter to talk to devs when at least a couple of them are using blockbots. I would know, I've been blocked by some of them just for hashtagging #GamerGate, not even mentioning or referring to the devs in any way.

[Cassandra Saturn]

after all that, this just.. signals the end of Bioware by EA.

[JobacNoor]

Heh, who am I kidding? They don't even need our tweets to survive, they just need PewDiePie and Markiplier.

 

We can totally have long, structured discussions on lore and things like politics in the setting(s) in the comment sections to PewDiePie's videos. I have seen the light, these forums truly serve no purpose when such a superior option is available.

[Mlady]

My brief stint as Community Manager was very eye opening. It's very challenging to try to keep ahead of the curve for that sort of stuff.  I try to be more diligent when I see very bad stuff on other forums I go onto now just to help out as much as I can.

 

Yeah it's not easy and for me the other mods weren't doing much anymore and I was stuck with the admin and one other dedicated mod only (10 others just started to stop helping us). I felt bad for the users who were trying to enjoy themselves and I remember we had to lock down the whole forum because it became too much. I may not mod anything anymore but I still find myself acting like one sometimes lol you can be removed as a mod but the mod is always within you 

[Puddi III]

Community managers, user support, and all those kinds of people, ARE SAINTS. If Allan and Conal say it's become impossible to deal with the forums, I believe them. A selfish part of me is hoping there's some way of making it work by picking community mods, but I understand where they're coming from.

 

Allan I believe. Conal has barely even stepped foot in this forum except to tell us the next thing he's axing. The idea that spending time here drained him personally is laughable.

[o Ventus]

 

And why would a BioWare Developer/Employee ever follow a random Twitter user that is a fan then? I used to be on Twitter and literally got no response from anyone EVER, because I didn't have 1872463435463453645 Followers or wasn't some known Youtuber. So now what? There goes that whole "staying in touch" on Twitter theory. 

 

 

This is another reason why Twitter is garbage as a platform of discussion. Unless you're verified and have a million followers, nobody gives a f*** what you say. I have 122 followers as of right now, and any time I say something against a prominent public figure like a journalist or whoever, I'm told "lol who cares what a nobody with no followers thinks?"

[Reever]

For quality RPG discussion, there's always RPG Codex, there's even a sub-section dedicated to Bioware games -> http://www.rpgcodex....orporation.105/

 

I'd really love to see people register there just for the heck  of it

[von uber]

This is a laughably bad decision. Like a really, really bad decision. It is textbook example of how to destroy a community and alienate an existing, as well as future, fanbase.

The corporate bollocks being spouted as a rreason is par for the course - doesn't make it true though. It's just a bad attempt at justification of a decision by someone who has no idea how these things work.

[Isaidlunch]

I haven't seen any issues with Bioware folks posting here when they don't act like jerks, Priestly and Gaider totally deserved the abuse they got because of the way they acted. I don't know if Allan's received any abuse here but the fact that he's still posting here instead of being chased off like them says something. Also that thread after DA2 where there was back and forth discussion with Mark Darrah/Mike Laidlaw was great and I don't remember anyone being abusive to them.

[ObserverStatus]

We can totally have long, structured discussions on lore and things like politics in the setting(s) in the comment sections to PewDiePie's videos. I have seen the light, these forums truly serve no purpose when such a superior option is available.

That isn't BioWare's problem anymore. I think they're relieved.

[Mlady]

I haven't seen any issues with Bioware folks posting here when they don't act like jerks, Priestly and Gaider totally deserved the abuse they got because of the way they acted. I don't know if Allan's received any abuse here but the fact that he's still posting here instead of being chased off like them says something. Also that thread after DA2 where there was back and forth discussion with Mark Darrah/Mike Laidlaw was great and I don't remember anyone being abusive to them.

 

From what I hear it was Mass Effect 3's ending that was the start of this downward spiral

[Iakus]

This might sound extreme, but in the example you're describing, I'm still in favour of forums. Yes, that hypothetical person is an @$$hole, but so what? People already mentioned in this thread , being "toxic" is human behavior and in a forum it just takes the form of mean words which isn't something noteworthy. You mentioned how stressful moderating this place was, maybe that was because you considered people being nice and polite and so on as a goal to be achieved. It's not. It shouldn't be. Discussion doesn't have to be tea party and daisies. Banter is fine. At the end of the day, a string of characters in a discussion about electronic interactive toys about make belief in sci-fi/fantasy lands isn't something that should upset you.

 

Forums might be "violent", but the alternative is too sterilised. Discourse can't happen in a thought hospital.

Well, the forums are soon to die though, so I guess it's a thought graveyard now.

I may be showing my age, but as I child I was taught "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me"

 

Saying terribad things to people is not okay, and need to be moderated/banned/what have you.  But in the end, it's just words.  And words are wind.

 

We don't need an echo chamber here, we don't all need to pretend to like each other.  We just need basic civility.

[LastFadingSmile]

This is another reason why Twitter is garbage as a platform of discussion. Unless you're verified and have a million followers, nobody gives a f*** what you say. I have 122 followers as of right now, and any time I say something against a prominent public figure like a journalist or whoever, I'm told "lol who cares what a nobody with no followers thinks?"

 

Facebook is the same in that if you don't have a profile pic or an open profile that trolls can creeper-farm for info-weaponry, you're summarily dismissed. These are not platforms that facilitate discussion or encourage engagement. =\

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

Apparently asking them where they plan to listen to the fan feedback they keep saying they care about so much is a prime example of why the forum needs to be shut down.

 

Yeah, that pretty much summarizes most of the few employee responses that I've seen.